The Start of Spectrum Home School

In the spring of 2008, after I decided to home school my son Andy, who is on the autistic spectrum, I typed the word "home school" into my computer's search engine and was bombarded with home school websites.

At first, I was elated.

There was certainly a sea of information literally at my fingertips.

Elated, that was, until I discovered for the most part, many of the sites claiming to be about homeschooling and offering support, either offered very little factual information or an exhausting amount of data.

I quickly surmised, many of the home school websites rehashed the same information over and over again. And the articles were usually only a brief introduction about a topic followed by recommendations which lead to links to other sites. I felt like I was following a long maze and never finding home.

At one point, I'd followed a few links, and ended up right back where I'd started. Discouraged, I didn't research online for very long.

Fortunately, I had a teaching background. I had taught in the public schools for over ten years and I'd advocated for my son Andy for several years. I knew much about teaching a child on the autistic spectrum.

I had confidence I could provide Andy with a quality education.

I began by printing out the Educational State Framework for California to familiarize myself with individual subject objectives. I took a literature-based approach. Then I spent several weeks collecting secondhand novels, textbooks, workbooks, and any other resources I thought would enhance the school lessons.

I had limited funds to spend on curriculum and was fortunate to find a used bookstore which accepted books for trade.

I bought thirty plus books for the price of tax alone. For the equal amount in new materials, I would have easily paid over $400.

I also checked out a large stack of books from the library.

I added the resources I'd bought and borrowed to my already extensive collection of books at home, and then spent several days scanning through for lesson plan ideas.

I'd had to leave my teaching career years prior, because of health reasons, and since then had forgotten how much I loved lesson planning and teaching in general.

Inside my living room, surrounded by books, I took out a new lesson plan book and planned the entire school year.

It took me about one week to plan Andy's home school year; I'd been teaching children and planning lessons for most of my adult years. Including my college daycare job, summertime nanny jobs, student teaching, public school teaching career, tutoring, prekindergarten teaching, and volunteer teaching, I'd been educating children for over twenty years.

In the beginning of homeschooling Andy, there were a few glitches and readjusting. I went back to my notes and resource books about teaching children with special needs, and modified lessons and assignments as needed.

Today, Andy is doing very well academically and we are both very happy with the home school decision.

After our academic year had settled into place, I began my search again for a quality home school website, a site which went beyond the brief introductory articles. And in my searching, I discovered I had information of my own I wanted to share, articles that moved beyond the basics, and offered information to modify and enhance lessons, and information that steered away from multiple links to outside sources.

I wanted a website that was an end point, not a starting point. A place that felt more like home than a thousand links. A site people could return to again for help and find practical ideas and tips. And so I created spectrumhomeschool.com for homeschooling families.