Do you find it necessary to supplement your child's public school education?

[Anonymous]

I'm just curious to hear thoughts from a larger number & variety of people than are available in my real-life social circle. If your child is in public school, do you consider the school to be doing an adequate job of teaching all of the subjects you think are important, or do you find it necessary to supplement your child's education at home due to some subjects being poorly taught or not covered?

[Anonymous]

It depends. My son's school said they do not do multiplication facts in school so we supplemented at home. Spelling and handwriting is also not emphasized so that is the kind of thing we worked on during the summer.

[Anonymous]

I'm European. Children in my country learn cursive first, then block lettering (which is so awkward and impedes fast and elegant handwriting). So one of the first things I taught my kids was cursive.

Then elementary school math moves very slowly in this country, contrary to middle and high school math, if you're on the fast track. Therefore it's important to me that my children know their math facts cold, and can also reflect on math problems. They are interested in science, and will not go far in science without math. Facts are only the first part of the work. The second is developing critical thinking by solving problems, which schools don't do enough of (they "don't have the time"). Students will not be able to go on to higher math in middle school if they haven't learned to solve multi-step problems.

After that, there's writing. MCPS does an excellent job of introducing different types of writing, but does a God-awful job of coaching each student in their own writing, since classes are large and teachers don't have the gift of ubiquity. So the children write at home during the holidays, and I pay particular attention to their writing homework during the school year.

Beyond that, we talk about history, science, art, music, as a family. We love classical music, so my children have private music classes for their instrument and will soon involve theory and composition too.

Oh, and they go to weekend school to learn their native language: grammar, spelling, culture, etc.

[Anonymous]

Everyone should be supplementing in some fashion. Regardless of school setting. Except maybe home schooling, since you have full control over the curriculum. But learning absolutely does not begin and end within the classroom.

[Anonymous]

I supplement experience type things. My attitude is not that school provides all education. I don't think our public school is deficient, I just want to and like to do things outside of school.

[Anonymous]

Haven't really suplemented yet since DC is only in 4th grade but probably will in the future. We will check out European curriculum ( have a country in mind) and will bring the taxtbooks along.

[Anonymous]

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by supplement, but here is what we do for a family with 3 elementary aged kids (5, 7, 10)

1. We read as a family, everyone has independent reading time daily, but then we also read books as a family (we are currently reading Charlotte's Web). It allows us to both introduce a love of reading and books to our kids and also gives us a common experience to talk about. We go the library at least biweekly.

2. Each of our children takes music lessons, language lessons and a sport/physical activity. All three children take Spanish lessons, 2 take piano lessons, 1 takes violin lessons, they play tennis, basketball, and swimming. Our oldest recently started weekly chess sessions with my FIL.

3. We go to museums, plays, exhibits, etc. often. At least once a month we have a family outing to some type of experience like this. We make sure to talk to our kids about these experiences as well. We do research and/or look up additional information that they express interest in. For example, we went to the Air and Space Museum and our 7 year old became fascinated with how tiny Earth is in comparison to other things in the universe. He has learned the sizes and distances from the sun of all of the planets in our solar system as well as information about other galaxies, etc. We have spent hours helping him research information on different aspects of space and the history of space exploration.

4. If they hear about or learn something in school and they have questions or seem really interested in it, or if we feel like the information they are given is just surface or inadequate... we take it further and learn more about it. It may be that we just get a book on that subject or it leads us to an event or a movie or something else entirely. We want to encourage them to learn about everything.

I am sure that this will change as they get older, but it works for us for now

[Anonymous]

Of course. American schools are very behind. We tutor in math mostly.

[Anonymous]

No. Never have. And at 16, 13 and 11, my kids are excelling. Not trying to brag, I'd never say that if it weren't anonymous. I am surprised when I hear friends say they were quizzing their children before a test or questioning why the teacher didn't give out a study guide. I honestly don't know when my kids have tests. I do have high expectations for them in school. It's not as if I don't care. I just haven't gotten involved in that way and it has worked well for us.

[Anonymous]

MCPS - yes, it was necessary.

I am convinced that the reason MCPS is viewed so favorably is due mostly to a high percentage of parents supplementing either at home or with a tutoring service.

I don't think they'll ever resolve the achievement gap. Not only is it an incredibly complex situation that is hard to overcone under the best circumstances, but the successful students are succeeding, in large part, in spite of MCPS. Throwing more money to teach a bad curriculum more effectively does not help you don't fix the curriculum. The most effective teachers my kids supplemented the curriculum because they recognised that kids needed the content, even if MCPS doesn't.

[Anonymous]

I do find it necessary but I just don't have the energy and money to do it beyond the usual "enrichment" I think all decent families do: museums, books, movies, discussions. We speak a different language at home and the child can read in it but doesn't like to. The kid is 6, fwiw.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No. Never have. And at 16, 13 and 11, my kids are excelling. Not trying to brag, I'd never say that if it weren't anonymous. I am surprised when I hear friends say they were quizzing their children before a test or questioning why the teacher didn't give out a study guide. I honestly don't know when my kids have tests. I do have high expectations for them in school. It's not as if I don't care. I just haven't gotten involved in that way and it has worked well for us.

My kids did extra-curricular music, drama, sports, etc. we took advantage of college summer camp programs a few times. But I did not supplement beyond that. We did zero test prep. I have a National Merit Scholar in college on a full academic scholarship. My other kids have done great as well. Four in or through college.

[Anonymous]

We share our passions and strengths with them and help them explore their interests. They tend to be ahead of their grade in DCPS.

[Anonymous]

Each child gets 1 or 2 hours of private tutoring per week. It's to reinforce materials that they may need help with. We could afford private school but chose the public route and pay for a little one on one time. Still way less expensive than private.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No. Never have. And at 16, 13 and 11, my kids are excelling. Not trying to brag, I'd never say that if it weren't anonymous. I am surprised when I hear friends say they were quizzing their children before a test or questioning why the teacher didn't give out a study guide. I honestly don't know when my kids have tests. I do have high expectations for them in school. It's not as if I don't care. I just haven't gotten involved in that way and it has worked well for us.

Are you in a good school pyramid? That makes a difference.