Wow, it is exciting to get close to Care Bear’s first DSST exam! InshaAllah she does well, but I’m really looking for her to have the experience so we know what we are heading into going forward. She has been studying hard each day for the Astronomy DSST and I have been making a study plan for the Intro to World Religions DSST.
Today, while reading the textbook for the World Religions, I started wondering if we were getting in over our head with the content. The reading level is pretty high, but then again, am I underestimating her ability? I had her read a paragraph and she said there are some words she’s unfamiliar with, but overall she gets the picture. The two books we have are at pretty different reading levels, and the harder one seems to have the most thorough information, so that is our primary source. I know that our Plan B is to read the chapter on the religion in question from the easier book to fill in gaps and try to bridge information, if needed. If the easier book looks like it has all the information we need, then we are using that book instead of the harder one.
We have only been traditionally homeschooling now for a full year and a half, but it’s amazing how fast you get plans put together when you have the big picture in mind! Alhamdulilah, it isn’t as overwhelming as I was first expecting since we have the big picture (use college exams as our guide for how to meet state standards) and then we are just fitting in each puzzle piece at a time.
I’m also learning that planning a full year in advance is advantageous for a number of reasons! The biggest being that you don’t feel the pressure to find the best answer right away, and instead can look for the best resources and plan. Even just the work to put together a study plan for the World Religions DSST has shown me a multitude of other resources that I would have preferred, so inshaAllah I’ll check those next time.
We have received our American Literature work for next year, and inshaAllah this will prep Care Bear for an exam, though not sure which test we’ll go with yet. I also have my eye on IEW’s writing program to prep for the college level composition exam. Ah! High school is around the corner!
How are you preparing… for high school, preschool, etc? How far ahead do you plan and what resources do you use?
Well and formal dsst blog thanks for posting it
Thanks! We are hoping to have more info on the actual test itself, but for now the prep work is exciting also. 🙂