A Beka Academy offers a DVD or Internet Video Streaming 170 day Christian based curriculum for students ranging from Kindergarten through 12th Grade. Unlike typical homeschool programs where parents teach the children, A Beka Academy’s videos allow children to be taught by master teachers. The teachers do the instructing and parents supervise, administer the quizzes, tests and record all work and grades. This curriculum is great for parents who want to homeschool, but are worried that they will be unable to teach adequately the subjects. It is also wonderful for families with students in different grade levels because it can be difficult to instruct various ages at the same time. A Beka offers two options for home schoolers; Accredited and Independent Study
Accredited Program: With this program the parents record grades and send grades and all tests to A Beka for report cards. Work is periodically mailed to A Beka for evaluation. A Beka supplies the students books, tests and quizes as well as teacher keys. A detailed manual with daily lesson plans is provided and a progress report book for record keeping helps assist with parent organization. A Beka also supplies the return mailing envelopes for the student work (mostly tests) that are submitted to A Beka at the end of each marking period. They also provide prepaid return lables for the lesson DVDs that are returned to A Beka if you live in the contiguous U.S. or Canada. A Beka will then evaluate the students work for each of the four grading periods and mail a report card back to you after each grading period. For those in high school, credit toward graduation is given after all work and grades is completed and passing grades have been earned. Once the student completes graduation requirements a diploma is awarded and they can even participate in a graduation ceremony. A Beka also offers one copy of the students transcript for no additional charge. This program is wonderful for parents who favor organization, consistency, well defined structure and the assistance of expert teachers. We currently use the DVD edition of this program for teaching two 4th graders and one 6th grader. We have found it very helpful for them to be able to rewind and re-watch lessons if they do not fully grasp a new concept. They also able to pause a lesson, such as arithmetic, if they need additional time to complete a set of problems before the students in the A Beka classroom finish their computations and answers are reviewed. This program has the feeling of combining homeschooling with private Christian school and it feels like the best of both worlds for our children.
Independent Study: With this program the parents maintain all records for students. Abeka still supplies the students books, tests and quizzes as well as teacher keys and videos for the courses chosen. A detailed manual with daily lesson plans is provided and a progress report book so that the parents can keep track of the records. They also provide prepaid return labels for the lesson DVDs that are returned to A Beka if you live in the contiguous U.S. or Canada. This program offers the same master teachers as the Accredited Program. However, transcripts and diplomas are not offered from A Beka. This program does allow greater flexibility for parents and students over the Accredited Program.
Both options currently offer academic assistance Monday through Friday.