Teach to the youngest or oldest?

[mothermayi]

Hi! I have two kids that are close in age (22 months) and very close in academic ability. Would I choose placement for the youngest or the oldest? Ideally, I'd like to separate them; but realistically I'd like to keep them together if we go with HOD bc I have two other kiddos that would be in different guides and the thought of 4 guides freaks me out .

[LynnH]

The recommendation is usually to place according to the skills of the youngest and beef up with extensions for the oldest.

[lovinghomeschool]

I have the same situation with two fairly close academically (except for reading that my oldest soars in to the high school level), and they are 21 months apart.

I did choose separate guides in the end. The threads I started on trying to place them are recent since I am new to HOD! It may help you to read the ladies relies to my questions. I know it helped me to read your thread regarding Beyond for first.
My choice does eventually mean 4 guides, but by the time the youngest is really moving into them the oldest will have moved along into the independent guides.

One of the main reasons I made that choice is I am tired of trying to 'beef up' and 'tone it down' for the content subjects for a program that was more based on family learning. I am thrilled that HOD puts skills in the content subjects! It is what I had early on (not with HOD), and I know it works. It seemed easier to me to separate them then to over challenge or under challenge one of them. Maturity readiness for content is also a high value for us. So my desire to wait on mature subjects for younger children played into my decision as well.

HTH

[MelInKansas]

The recommendation is to use the guide the younger one fits into well and add on for the older one. This is because if the younger one can't do what is in the guide, they will have that problem going all along and won't be able to grow in those areas as well or as easily. You will have to continually adapt things for them and figure out how to grow them in the skills, whereas using the guides as written allows that growth without so much work on your part. Your older one can use extensions, or you can add from the guide above to challenge them.

[my3sons]

This is a good question, as different curriculums certainly take different approaches! It can be somewhat confusing, I know! But, take heart! HOD has a well thought-out, clear answer to this question. In fact, HOD has spent quite some time pondering this question prior to the writing of the guides, which is so helpful - as the guides then were written with the decided upon approach in mind from the very start. This makes the approach very successful.

First off, HOD keeps the suggested age ranges for using guides to smaller increments. This keeps the range of ages to a manageable amount... it's a sort of checks and balances for dc to be placed in guides they can truly each successfully do. Extensions in the area of history are then added, and ample levels of LA reading, writing, grammar, and math are provided, so older dc can be 'extended' quite effortlessly in these areas as well. Even in the case where more LA/math is needed, simply getting the next guide and utilizing its right LA/math side of the plans works quite effortlessly too. However, I do want to say that HOD does not just standardly say 'teach to the youngest' or 'teach to the oldest.' Instead, HOD says, 'use the placement chart as a guideline to determine if dc should be combined or if they should be separate.' If the placement chart shows dc can be successfully combined, then guide selection is based upon the younger of the two guides in question, as beefing up is already planned in the guides. Ironically, sometimes the 'youngest' places higher than the 'oldest' - so placement is really determined more upon individual skills of each student. And then, after all that, the final consideration for placement is based on other things as well... size of family, outside influencing factors (i.e. mother working, father traveling or deployed, finances, parents' health, children's health, mother's health, number of activities, etc.). It's no wonder we homeschool moms spend so long pondering placement!

Anyway, Carrie has written some excellent posts in regard to this topic. Here are some links that will help...
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=9338
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=9339
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=9341
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=9342
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=9343
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=7019

HTH! Happy reading!
In Christ,
Julie

[mothermayi]

Thank you, thank you, thank you!! I gave the placement chart a nice "stare-down" and it turns out that my two boys are in the same place on the guide!! Plus, they both fit in RTR, which is exactly the history we wanted to study. We are finishing up in our other curriculum with the resurrection of Jesus and that is where HOD's RTR picks up. Talk about perfect timing and a huge blessing to have such a smooth transition and to have both kids in the same guide.

Julie,
As always, thank you so much for your expertise and links!! It has been very helpful and I must say, I actually enjoyed going through the placement guide (I'm weird and nerdy like that ).