I sometimes get this question about Abeka, particularly when I’m at convention and families are shopping for next year’s curriculum. I don’t think it matters whether Abeka is more advanced or not. It matter if Abeka is a good FIT for you and your children. Any curriculum that is a good fit will help your child learn the most. A good fit with a moderately good program will help your student retain more than a high achieving program that isn’t a good fit.
Since I get asked about Abeka pretty often, I thought I’d give you my impressions. Abeka feels very classroom-based. Their videos are usually in a classroom setting, and personally, that drives me crazy. Hence, Abeka would not have been a good fit for me, and it wouldn’t have worked for my homeschool. Other people don’t have that same gut reaction to Abeka. It’s a very individual reaction. Each person will have their own preferences, and if Abeka is a good fit for your family, then it should work fine.
If Abeka is working, it will probably continue to work for your children. If it works, keep using it, but be willing to make a change if it stops working for your kids. Abeka is usually not something I recommend for new homeschoolers, though. It’s too similar to a classroom setting, and beginning homeschoolers often do better by starting with something that doesn’t remind them of school or classrooms.
Gifted kids in particular do better with a non-grade specific, literature-based or project-based curriculum, where they can learn to their heart’s content without being hemmed in by the covers of a textbook.
I try to stay away from recommending curriculum, because it’s more about the parent-child fit than anything else. But I hope these impressions of Abeka help you!
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Christianbook.com Curriculum Page
Lisa says:
Good advice. Homeschooling is more about the right fit for you and your kids than about a particular curriculum. I have friends who use Abeka, but it would probably be too classroom-like for my boys.
July 23rd, 2009 at 7:10 am
J W says:
We use Abeka for health. We used to use it for math, but I let my 7th grader pick a curriculum and the child chose something entirely different. I ended up choosing another curriculum entirely for my 2nd grader. It just depends on the family and the child.
I love “Curriculum A,” and Older Child does well with it. Years and years ago, I disdainfully dismissed “Curriculum B.” Well the joke is on me. I kept Older Child’s “Curriculum A” resources to hand down to Younger Child. However, when Younger Child started “Curriculum A,” “Curriculum A” totally bombed. I ended up selling all the old “Curriculum A” resources and buying, you guessed it, “Curriculum B.”
“Curriculum B” drives me nuts on several different levels. Yet I have enough confidence to know that I can skip some things, add more to the curriculum, etc. Younger Child is thriving, and that’s all that matters.
July 24th, 2009 at 5:02 pm