Teaching Reading in the Hybrid School

If you are launching or running a hybrid program for early elementary kids, you are going to have to decide how to teach reading. Like math, this skill-based subject can be a little tough to teach if you don’t have a good plan. Unless you are following a schedule where days are short and parents have time to teach reading all five days at home, you will likely need to cover it in some capacity.

More and more parents are coming to hybrids because they want strong guidance in academics, so many wary homeschoolers will be reassured if you offer reading instruction. I’m always a fan of good, old - fashioned phonics taught systematically! It certainly can be done in the hybrid model, so let’s talk about how.

• Require all your parents to use the curriculum your school chooses and uses at home. This is the most seamless method, theoretically!

• You can also teach what you can and rely on them to do their part at home, or

• You can just reinforce and review.

The most school-led method is obviously the first. You require your parents to purchase (or provide them with) the pieces of the curriculum they will need at home. Then the teacher will pace out the year and divide the school and home work up predictably, communicate it clearly, and parents must follow along. This last part can be the sticky piece! If parents do NOT follow along, students end up working at different paces and it can be quite frustrating for the teacher. If they do follow along (and how successful this is is an admissions, training, culture thing!), it can work beautifully. One curriculum we’ve found has worked pretty well this way is All About Reading. Because it is divided nicely into phonics lesson and then reading practice/worksheet, it is fairly easy to use in the hybrid model. It is also pretty solid as a phonics curriculum. Check it out here. (I would earn a small commission should you purchase).

The second method keeps school days self-contained. The teacher chooses certain topics to teach and both presents and practices those with the students. Work at home is parent-chosen. This method can also work well as long as the pace is realistic and the parents are using a good phonics curriculum as well. This format allows parents to choose what they want to use and can afford, which is appealing to many of them, and also keeps the teacher from having to rely so heavily on parents keeping pace.

Lastly, the teacher can just work on word building and basic skills. The best way to do this is usually to have the teacher work on skills the student should have learned the previous year. A kindergarten may just work on letter recognition, rhyming, etc… This allows the teacher to not be reliant on what the parent does at home (not very much anyway!) and to work with the class where they are at. However, it may not feel like the best use of time and parents who want primary instruction from school might not be thrilled with it.

To ease the tension some, I recommend:

• Ask parents in the application process what curriculum they are going to use for reading or if they will use the school’s recommendation.

• Choose something solid for your teachers to work off of! A systematic teaching of letter sounds, CVC words, and then the phonics blends can be spread over three years and the students will learn a lot.

• Train your teachers! Make sure they know how to use the curriculum, what they are and are not expected to accomplish (many full-time school teachers have a hard time realizing they are not solely responsible for teaching the kids to read!), but give them some leeway to adjust to their class as well.

• Give assessments either during admissions or at the start of the school year. Do this a couple more times during the year. This helps you know if there are any potential concerns such as learning difficulties or parents who are just not doing anything at home, and gives you something objective to talk to the parent about.

• Give strong recommendations for home curriculum and maybe even incentivize through bulk ordering/discounts the curriculum you would like them to use

Parents and teachers work closely together to educate a child in the hybrid model and the skill subjects can certainly be done very well in this partnership.

What is a Hybrid School?

One of the easiest ways to describe a hybrid school is as a part-time private school. Except… it is not actually a school…except when it is. Make sense? 

A hybrid school LOOKS like a school that only runs part-time. It’s got all the core pieces of a school: a director, a building and classrooms, a set schedule and curriculum, tuition, and trained teachers.. However, it only runs a few days a week. 

So is it a school or not?!

This depends on the legal set-up. Often families are actually legal home-schoolers and the hybrid school is legally a supplemental educational service. Parents are responsible to comply with home-school law, and the ‘school’ is able to offer what they would like to as an educational organization. This set-up can offer a lot of leeway to the program because it does not need to hire teachers by state requirements, offer state required curricula, and follow the other laws that would govern a school. It is of much benefit if the program directors do their homework, no pun intended, and know what home-school law is in their state and how to help families comply. Parent compliance is NOT the program’s job, but is a very helpful service to offer.

Some programs will license as an actual school in their state. In this case, home is a ‘satellite campus’ and parents do NOT home-school. The legal set-up is quite different as are which set of laws are governing the program (a legal school must comply with state requirements under the Department of Education and is responsible for student attendance, testing, curricula requirements, etc. ) This set-up has the advantage of offering families the ability to just follow along and the school takes care of the rest. The responsibility rests with the school to fulfill legal requirements.

Another occasional misunderstanding (understandably brought about likely by the prevalence of homeschool ‘co-ops’) is that a hybrid school is a form of co-op. A co-op is cooperative because everyone has to pitch in and provide a significant service of some sort in exchange for the other members offerings. This works great for a lot of people, but a hybrid school is not cooperative. Tuition money replaces time and prep commitments. Parents are able to drop their kids off, and on those school days, the staff takes care of everything. Frequency is also usually different. A co-op often only meets once every week or two, or even once a month. A hybrid school usually meets a couple days a week.

And yes, a hybrid school generally costs considerably more than a co-op! 

How much does a hybrid school cost?

Because curriculum, supplies, rent, insurances, bookkeeping, taxes,  and competitively paid and trained teachers, aides, and directors all apply, tuition is significantly more than a co-op’s fees and is often  equivalent to a preschool tuition or a proportional fraction of private school tuition. If local Christian schools are charging $9,000  per year and preschools around $2,500, tuition at a hybrid school might run between $2,000-$4,000 (depending on region and hours per week).  A full-time school generally runs about 180 days a year. If a hybrid program runs for 60 days a year (1/3 of full-time), tuition might run right around $3,000 a year, roughly.

How often does a hybrid school meet?

The schedule can vary from one or two full days per week, to three or four shorter days. It is important that the state requirements for homeschoolers be understood. If there are limitations on how many hours or days can be ‘outsourced’ before the schooling is not considered homeschooling any more, this must be considered when choosing a schedule and calendar. Many states have very few requirements for homeschoolers, so a program can offer a significant amount of instruction in a few days a week, parents can fill in at home on the other days (either with recommendations from the program or on their own), and legally homeschool quite effectively, but with quite a bit of support. If the program is a legal school, days at home will be governed by the school, but the school can often still operate on a variety of schedules, as long as it complies with the laws governing schools.

The more hours a program meets, the higher tuition will have to be. More teacher hours will mean higher salaries, and more days at a building might mean higher rent and more supplies.

A few ideas would be a schedule that:

• Meets four half days for three hours and teaches reading, math, and a rotation of other subjects for elementary students and then gives recommendations (requirements if a legal school) for afternoons and the fifth day for home. 

• Meets two full days and covers some reading and math basics or practice and focuses on science, history, literature, play, nature study, and other subjects, and then gives recommendations and even pacing for home days. (Again, requirements if the school is a legal school. 

• Two full days and then a half day of enrichment or core classes or perhaps an optional third day of enrichments or ‘specials’ classes.

Summary

A hybrid school can offer a wonderful alternative that meets many people right in the middle both with the model, the price, and even the philosophy of education. (A later post will talk more about why it can be very, very beneficial to have a specific and articulate vision for a philosophy of education.)

The model is not for everyone, and that is ok. A hybrid school can fill a very significant market gap. The next post will explore more what sorts of people often finds hybrid schooling to be a sweet spot.