Questions We Are Asked
by Dr. Mary Kay Clark
Director, Seton Home Study School
I am not sure how much time my child should spend on each subject.
The answer to this question is very dependent on the age and grade level of the child.
As a general rule, for kindergarten, spend only the amount of time your child can focus on the subject. Some students will want to spend more time on math and less time on phonics. In general, about 20 minutes on one subject at a time is about the longest this age group can stay focused. However, you can try to teach math or phonics or religion a second time period during the day, or in the evening with Dad, and/or on the weekend. At this age level, the math and phonics are so important that doing just 20 minutes on the weekend helps maintain the concepts in the memory.
At the primary levels of grades one, two, and three, about 30 minutes per subject is about the length of time for good attention span. At the intermediate levels for grades four, five, and six, the usual attention span time is about 40 to 45 minutes.
At the junior high levels, grades seven, eight, and nine, students should be able to focus for 50 minutes, but due to adolescent growth changes, some students will struggle with this. It may be that some courses need to be split into 25 or 30 minutes per session. You should have a goal of 50 minutes for several subjects: math, reading, English, and religion; science and history could be finished up in the evening or on weekends, but realize that the concepts for these two courses will be covered again in high school. Spelling and vocabulary usually can be done in 20 minutes at these levels.
At the high school levels of tenth, eleventh, and twelfth grades, most classes will take 45 to 50 minutes. However, outside of this class time will be reading for book reports, and perhaps extra student time to prepare for tests. For many students, there may need to be additional time for math. High school students in school classrooms are expected to do school work on weekends; it is not unreasonable for home school students to do some additional work on weekends or evenings.
As a recently enrolled parent, I am surprised at the amount of writing.
One of the reasons we have so many writing assignments is because writing develops thinking and analysis skills. You may be surprised to learn that many Catholic schools, not just elite “prep” schools, require as much if not more writing. They assign paragraph writing as well as book reports, some of these assigned as often as once a month.
The public schools emphasize speaking and listening skills, which are in a way evaluated by the listeners, the teacher and the student’s peers. A speaker must think of his audience, must convince his audience, but most of all, be accepted by his audience. To some extent, that is a good skill to learn, but the constant threat of peer rejection can mean that a student’s true thoughts are not expressed.
Thinking and writing is an internal and individual process which allows the person to be himself, to pull out ideas from himself without the distraction of audience evaluation.
Encourage your child to write, even to keep a diary about events that happen each day.
I am a new home schooling parent. I feel like I could use a “freshman” introduction to Seton.
The first place to go is to your Parent Home School Handbook which goes to all new families. It contains a wealth of information, not only about Seton’s policies, practices, and services, but also about how to homeschool.
The next place to go is our website. Start with the menu on top, click on each heading, then click on every heading on the drop-down menu. You will be amazed at the amount of information available.
Log on to My Seton with your Family Number. There are many helps for the enrolled parents and students. Especially helpful are the Course Resources. You will notice that tests or assignments can be sent over the Internet, and most can even be taken online. If you have a high school student, be sure your student looks on the Message Boards which correspond to his courses.
Notice that for almost every book report (except the reports on saints) there are Chapter Notes online. These are extremely helpful for students to understand the book as a whole, and at the same time, to highlight important events in each chapter. For high school, the Chapter Notes point out events which would be important in writing the essays on the particular assigned topics for Character Development, Conflict, Theme, and Morality of the main character. High schools students should take a good look at their Book Analyses’ Chapter Notes before they even begin to read the book.
Don’t hesitate to e-mail or phone a counselor if you need help. The counselors answer their emails first thing in the morning and then return their calls. They are happy to help.
How is Seton doing during these difficult economic times for families?
There is no question that Seton has been affected by the difficult economic situation, but we have been pleased that most families are continuing to enroll. Parents are so concerned about their children receiving a good Catholic education that they are willing to sacrifice, as their parents and grandparents and great-grandparents have done in the past. The people who work at Seton also are sacrificing for the sake of families who need Seton.
We are receiving an increased number of requests from parents for financial aid, and we do have a small scholarship fund to draw on. Our new Payment Plan C allows parents to have a very low downpayment and then to pay the remainder over ten months. This has definitely made it easier for parents to afford the program.
We continue to publish new books, such as the Phonics 2 which will be ready for next year. We are working on a new Catholic vocabulary series, and by next spring, our new Math 5 for Young Catholics will be ready. For next year, we will have a new Catholic Church History book for the 8th grade. In addition, we will be publishing a Catholic Biology textbook. We will be testing the book, so if you have a Biology student for the 2009-2010 school year, you may want to test the new book. Contact Gene McGuirk, our high school counselor, to let him know.
Needless to say, any donations toward the expense of publishing these Catholic textbooks, or for providing scholarships to needy families, will be gratefully appreciated.
My son does not know what are the important points he should be studying in his history book to prepare for the test.
Tell your son that end-of-chapter questions in all subjects are written to help students review and study the important points to remember. In addition, read over the test yourself, and tell your student, without reading the questions to him, what are the important points he needs to study to prepare for the test.
The best approach for studying any chapter in any subject is to outline the chapter, or underline or highlight the important points in each paragraph.
We have a free online Study Skills Course especially to help high school students improve their study skills. The last three lessons are very important, but the first ones emphasize the importance of time and place to study without distractions.
I don’t have the time to read the books my children need to write about for book reports. Is that a problem?
One of the best features that Seton offers is help in writing book reports or, in high school, book analyses.
In the Reading courses, we offer extensive online chapter notes which are especially valuable at the high school level. College professors have written the best chapter notes you will see anywhere, which help the students to look for the deeper meanings in great novels. Unless students attend excellent Catholic colleges, they will never again be offered this kind of superior analytical thinking from a Catholic perspective.
If you know parents who are home schooling, but believe they cannot afford a full enrollment in Seton, show them what Seton has to offer in both the English and the Reading courses. In these courses, we offer high quality additional help for the students!
Our nation is in trouble, and only the highest level thinkers will be able to help our country to regain its traditional Christian values and respect for God and family, for religion and work, for children and the elderly, for sacrifice and prayer.
Why are you accredited by a secular association?
We believe that accreditation is very important for Seton and for home schooling parents. Accreditation is important first because it allows parents to have confidence that our business operation has been reviewed by an outside third party and determined to meet accepted standards. It is important also because other schools can have confidence in the credits that Seton gives students, which makes it easier to transfer credits.
There are six regional accrediting agencies recognized by the US Department of Education as accrediting agencies. These are called regional accrediting agencies because they accredit schools in different areas of the country. Seton is a member of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools because we are located in Virginia. There is now also an overarching agency called the Commission on International and Transregional Accreditation (CITA), which coordinates with all the regional accrediting agencies.
There are some Catholic or Christian accreditation agencies. While accreditation by these agencies may be desirable for some schools, we believe that for Seton and for our families, accreditation by the nationally-recognized agencies is far more beneficial.
To continue our accreditation, every five years we are visited by representatives of the CITA. The representatives have always been very supportive. They seem to be concerned primarily that we continually examine what we are doing to serve our students so that they are learning. Their questions relate to the process and techniques of teaching and learning, rather than to content.
We are currently preparing for an accreditation visit this year. Our preparation team of about ten department heads and counselors believe the process of preparing for the accreditation visit has been helpful in taking an overall look at our total operation, and in thinking about and planning for improvements.
