Can You Repeat or Skip Grades in Homeschool?

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The beauty of homeschooling is that it’s catered to support learners wherever they’re at in their learning process and goals. However, since society is based around traditional schooling, picking the right pace for the work done at home can often be challenging. For this reason, parents may often find themselves wondering: “Can you repeat or skip grades in homeschool?”.

Whether you can repeat or skip grades in homeschool depends on state requirements and end-of-year testing. Additionally, adjusting a schoolyear’s traditional timeline will also depend on the curriculum and teaching approach you’re choosing at home.

In this article, I’ll expand more on the instances when repeating or skipping grades is achievable in homeschooling and how to make the best decision for you and your child. Additionally, I’ll take you through how to navigate some of the most common situations that arise when looking at the possibility of changing your child’s grade level and how to support them in achieving the best performance they can.

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How To Decide Whether Your Child Needs To Repeat or Skip a Grade in Homeschool

As the parent, leader, and facilitator of your child’s education, you likely know their areas of weaknesses and strengths. It’s common for kids to have varying ability levels for different learning styles, skills, and curricula.

Offer lessons that meet your child where they are academically. This will help to build up skills and reduce boredom and frustration.

Consider using different curricula from different companies. These alternatives can vary from what’s offered in a local public school and are usually better suited to each child’s skill level.

Some research into what the curriculum offers will need to take place, and you can also reach out to other homeschooling families to see if what works for them could also work for you.

Refer To the Home School Legal Defense Association

Home School Legal Defense Association, known as HSLDA, is a legal organization that assists in protecting the freedoms of homeschoolers and their families. They represent families by providing affordable and legal advocacy in legislatures and courts. Their website is searchable for a wide range of homeschool-related questions and information.

You can sign up and access informational content on their website for free. Once you’ve done that, you can access this video of a prerecorded 45-minute workshop on individualized approaches to homeschooling, thoughts on skipping or repeating grade levels, and more.

This video can help answer questions about grade level determination, tools to evaluate progress for grade and age, what to do if your child seems bored or overwhelmed with lessons and content, and deal with grade-level questions for children with special needs.

Keep reading to understand the logistics of whether your child should repeat or skip grades in homeschool.

Situations Where a Grade Level Might Be Needed

Some organizations or groups –sports teams, church youth groups, dance classes– may ask for a grade level to socially put children in the right group. You could offer a general statement such as “non-grade primary” and so on, but you can also use your child’s age to see where they might fit best with peers.

However, keep in mind that some kids aren’t as socially advanced. These children may need opportunities to interact with groups of children of various ages. Most importantly, children should interact with peers and adults that behave respectfully to promote proper socialization.

Homeschoolers can participate in public and academic competitions such as Spelling Bees. In this case, students must be at specific grade levels to compete. Be honest about where your child lies regarding comparable grade levels. It isn’t helpful to make them look good on paper; this will give them an unfair advantage or reason to participate.

Strategies for Supporting Remediation

Consider alternative educational opportunities and experiences for remediation that still provide a rich learning environment.

Delayed academics is a homeschooling approach where formal lessons are deferred at a young age. This approach creates a foundation of play, interaction with family routines and work, service to others, and physical time to develop muscles and coordination. The young learner gains skills and concepts through natural exposure and experiences.

Consider changing your teaching style and approach to better suit your children’s learning modalities and interests. For example, incorporate interactive components into your lessons if they need more movement or real-life application.

Utilize a tutor that’s trained in helping kids close achievement gaps. They’re bound to come with many tips and strategies that you can apply in your lessons.

Talk with your pediatrician if you have concerns regarding progress or developmental delays. They can get you in touch with the right professional to explore this. Students with disabilities can still access public school supports such as speech therapy in many states.

It can be discouraging to label your child as being held back for remediation. This could cause issues with self-esteem and motivation. Instead, use current progress to set learning goals open to reflection and proactive adjustments.

Strategies for Supporting Giftedness

Seek out strategies and resources to adjust for advanced work and giftedness by looking at various curricular offerings and talking to other homeschooling parents.

Many students often plateau later on in their schooling years, so it’s crucial to monitor your child for signs of excessive stress or frustration if working on advanced material and adjust accordingly.

Ask yourself, “What’s the rush?” Think about why you want to advance your child and what it’ll accomplish. Finding the true motivation behind your answers will help you better guide your decisions.

Keep in mind that children are often expected to complete several courses in specific content areas at the high school level. This is required for the public school administration to approve your child’s course studies. Colleges want to see that you’ve worked on skills and courses to support the level of academics that your child will need to tackle at higher educational levels.

Additionally, skills are typically scaffolded in curricula, especially in Math, and skipping a course or level may put them behind.

On the other hand, it’s okay to move ahead if your children are advancing and mastering the content quickly. Perhaps your child will complete 5th and 6th grade content for history in 1-year. That doesn’t necessarily mean that they have skipped a grade level. Still, it does open up opportunities for expansion on content and for your child to explore their interests in history-related topics.

Tutors and co-ps can be helpful here as well. These professionals can help your child work on topics and skills that you’re not an expert on.

Deciding on Whether Your Child Should Repeat or Skip a Grade in Homeschool

It may be best to progress at a pace that leads to your child’s growth, a better understanding of the subject, and mastery of content and skills.

Consider factors directly related to your child that involve more than just academics. Children don’t have to work on a curriculum to get through it if they’ve already mastered the skills.

Strong scores on SAT or ACT exams don’t necessarily mean your child is ready for the maturity of college, which is why only considering test results when evaluating your child’s skill level is an inefficient approach. Instead, it’s best to lead with your day-to-day observations when determining the best academic path.

If a family decides that their children will return to public school for high school courses, keep in mind that they may administer tests upon arrival. These tests determine proper placement in a grade level suitable to their skills.

Reading and math are considered foundational and essential to progress in any grade level. There also may be additional requirements that students need to complete to meet their graduation expectations for local or state requirements.

Overall, when your children can work at a pace that benefits their learning, they exhibit perseverance and effort that shows concrete gains toward goals.

Questions Parents Have About Repeating Or Skipping Grades in Homeschool

Deciding on the best academic path for your child is a choice that brings about a plethora of questions and uncertainties in every parent’s mind. Here are some of the most common dilemmas most homeschooling parents deal with when determining whether their child should repeat or skip a class.

My child’s scores on their end-of-year achievement test show them to be at the level of a much older student. Should I skip a grade to challenge them?
We didn’t finish or master everything on the current curriculum; should we repeat the work or grade-level equivalency?
My child is struggling and needs remediation. Or, my child is getting “A’s” on everything and needs to be challenged. However, should I even consider retention or skipping a grade level at all?
My younger child participated in their older sibling’s lessons, so I taught them together. Does this make the younger one advanced, and should I, therefore, label them as being in an older grade?
My neighbor also homeschools her children. All of them graduate before they’re even 14 years old. Should I do that too?
My high schooler is pretty advanced, getting excellent grades. Should I skip them ahead to graduation? How will this affect their chances of getting scholarships and other academic-based opportunities?
My child has special needs or was a late bloomer, so I waited an extra year to start as a homeschooler officially. As my child ages, I wonder if they’ll stick it out until graduation from high school at home. Can I skip ahead to catch up? Was it a mistake to wait to start school?

The first step you’ll want to take is to get rid of that traditional school mindset around the concept of grade levels and take a step back to look at the bigger picture regarding your lesson planning and curricular choices.

Adjusting Your Child’s Yearly Curriculum

Individual states have varying requirements and laws for students that are homeschooled. And while they may be assigned a grade level on paper, implementing a grade-level curriculum is much more flexible than public schooling. This is especially true for skills built immediately before a particular high school level curriculum.

Homeschoolers can embrace that there’s no “normal” path that they have to fit in regarding learning and progress. For example, a child considered to be in third grade could be a beginner reader at a second-grade level and advanced in math at a fifth-grade level. This child also thrives in science and can handle sixth-grade level content.

Instead of focusing on specific grade levels, you can work on what comes next academically. Scaffolding and building upon current skills can benefit those who need remediation or advanced expansion. The child from the above example could socially go into third grade.

Still, as the homeschool teacher, you’ll remediate and support them in reading and offer challenging enrichment in math and science. All content can be provided at the level that they’re working at.

There’s no need to call or label a student with a retained or advanced grade level moniker.

The Importance of Making Data-Driven Decisions

End-of-the-year achievement tests can help indicate areas of strengths and weaknesses in your child’s skills and show what grade level they’re performing at. While these are a requirement that many states require you to implement and report back to them on, this testing isn’t the focus of your curriculum and homeschooling’s purpose and mission.

Use caution when using one test to determine if repeating or skipping a grade level is needed. For example, your 7th grader showed that they did as well as an average 10th grader on their test. However, this can mean that if a 10th grader took this 7th-grade content and achievement test, there isn’t necessarily 10th-grade skill work that was assessed. It just shows that a 10th grader can do well on a 7th-grade geared test.

The data on these tests help educators make plans to support their learners in upcoming learning goals. These tests shouldn’t compare them to other learners; they are designed to show individual learners’ growth from year to the next.

Remember that this is ONE test, and you shouldn’t base decisions on a solo performance. Public schools may use state testing to make life-altering decisions about children, but homeschooling doesn’t have to follow suit.

Online Testing To Assess Your Child’s Grade Level

You can also access online assessment tools if you’d like to see more data to inform your decision-making process. Please keep in mind that you want to avoid over-testing your child. The focus should be on obtaining skills, making overall progress, and achieving goals.

When using online assessment tools, take the test yourself first. This way, you can learn how to administer the test and ensure it’s the right tool for your child’s data collection. Choose a reasonable time to administer the test when your child has sufficient energy and isn’t hungry or prone to distractions.

Before testing, talk to and encourage your child, reinforcing that this test isn’t a stress-filled or anxiety-inducing evaluation.

Encourage reasonable effort and tell your children that this test is evaluating the curriculum so that you can make good decisions on what books to help them learn more. You don’t need to share test results with your child since you’ll only use the information for curricular choices that best support them.

Math and reading skills drive much of what students use in work, and online assessments are geared towards those. Popular reading tests include the MacMillian Reading Level Test, the San Diego Quick Assessment, or the Pioneer Valley Reading Test. These tests help assess skills such as high-frequency words and comprehension overall, but each has different approaches, so it’s worth emphasizing that you should take them yourself first to find the best fit.

IXL.com is an educationally-based website that allows students to work on Math, Language Arts, Science, Social Studies, and Spanish skills from Pre-K through 12th grade. Assessment occurs within the website, and educators can see detailed reports of specific skills that their children may be deficient in. This website gives parents the options for both remediation and advanced work.

You know your child best and what they need to keep making progress. And if you’re unsure regarding how to use these test results, reach out to the test provider and other homeschooling families for their input on interpreting the data.

Conclusion

Deciding on whether or not to have your child repeat or skip grades in homeschool can be a tough choice. However, you’re not alone, and with enough research, you’ll be able to make a well-informed decision.

Homeschooling doesn’t mean that children will move along and do whatever they want without acquiring the skills required to succeed. Your job as the teacher is to facilitate your child’s learning while recognizing when to slow down, reinforce and push to advance and enrich.