How Our Scoring Works

Every entry on this site scores six things on a one-to-five scale, then carries a set of fixed labels and tags. None of it is a grade. A five on rigor doesn’t beat a three, and a one on screen time isn’t a mark against the program. Each number says where a curriculum sits on a range, and which end of that range you want depends entirely on your child and your week.

This page walks through all of it: what each attribute measures, what the labels mean, and how we arrive at the numbers.

How we score

Two principles run through every entry.

We describe fit. We don’t rank curricula or crown a winner. Every attribute is a plain description of what a program is like day to day. A program with heavy parent involvement suits some families and overwhelms others, so your job is to find the profile that matches your home, and ours is to make that profile easy to read.

We aggregate what owners report. The scores and descriptions come from what homeschool parents consistently say across public sources: forum threads, Facebook groups, Reddit, and long-form reviews, together with the publisher’s own materials. When we write that a program runs long or that kids can work through it on their own, that’s a pattern many families describe.

Each attribute is scored one to five, and every score is shown with the word that goes with it. Read the number as a position on a scale rather than a mark out of five. A one and a five sit at opposite ends of the same range, and which end fits depends on your family.

The six scored attributes

Here’s what each one measures. Each has its own guide if you want to go deeper.

Rigor

How demanding the material is compared to grade level. A low score is gentle and forgiving, a high score is accelerated and challenging, and the right level depends on your child. Beast Academy scores a 5 here.

Read the full guide on rigor

Parent involvement

How much the parent is in the lesson, teaching and guiding. A low score means the child works largely alone, a high score means the parent leads the material directly. CTCMath scores a 1, since the video does the teaching.

Read the full guide on parent involvement

Prep load

How much work the parent does before a lesson starts. Low is open-and-go, high means real planning or learning the material first. A scripted, well-supported program keeps this low even when the topic is hard. Tapestry of Grace is the only 5 in the catalog.

Read the full guide on prep load

Screen time

How much of the daily work happens on a device. Low is fully paper and hands-on, high is fully digital, with the lessons and the practice on a screen. Rod and Staff English scores a 1, with nothing plugged in.

Read the full guide on screen time

Independence

How much the child can do on their own, scored from the child’s side. Low is fully adult-led, high means the child can open the program and work through a lesson without you at the table. Teaching Textbooks is one of only three 5s.

Read the full guide on independence

Time commitment

How long a typical daily lesson takes the child. It’s time on task for the student, separate from how much the parent prepares (prep load) or teaches (parent involvement). The Phonetic Zoo scores a 2, at fifteen to twenty-five minutes.

Read the full guide on time commitment

The labels

Alongside the scores, every entry carries a few fixed labels that sort programs into recognizable types.

Faith content is the top-level filter, and we label what a program contains rather than how the publisher identifies.

• None: fully secular.
• Light: occasional incidental references, easily skipped.
• Integrated: faith woven through the examples and framing, though the material itself stands alone.
• Core: faith is central and inseparable from the program.

Approach describes how a program moves through topics.

• Mastery: stays on one topic until it’s solid, then moves on.
• Spiral: cycles through many topics and returns to each one repeatedly.
• Blended: mixes both, teaching to mastery within a unit while spiraling review through the daily work.

Format is the main form the materials take: Workbook, Textbook, Online, or Hands-on. Any secondary format shows up in the entry’s notes.

Best-for tags

When owners consistently report that a program suits a particular kind of learner or family, we tag it. These are optional and applied only when the pattern is clear. The tags are Struggling learners, Advanced/gifted, 2e (twice-exceptional), Dyslexia, Reluctant learners, Hands-on learners, Independent workers, Multi-age families, and Math-anxious parents.

Philosophy tags

Some programs sit inside a broader teaching tradition or use a specific method. When one applies, we tag it, and a program can carry both a general and a subject-specific tag.

General traditions: Traditional, Classical, Charlotte Mason, Montessori, Waldorf, Unit studies, Unschooling, and Eclectic.

Subject-specific methods. The math set includes Concrete-Pictorial-Abstract, Manipulative-driven, Problem-solving/Socratic, Video-led/self-paced, Adaptive online, Living math, and Traditional textbook.

The language arts set covers reading, spelling, writing, and grammar: Orton-Gillingham, Synthetic phonics, Literature-based, Copywork and dictation, Structured writing, Progymnasmata, Traditional grammar, Integrated grammar, and Traditional word lists.

Creation stance, on science entries

Science carries one label the other subjects don’t. Faith and content can’t be separated in science the way they can elsewhere, since origins and the age of the earth run through the material itself. So every science entry gets a creation stance: Secular (no creation content), Neutral (steps around origins), Young-earth, or Old-earth. It sits alongside faith content rather than replacing it, because a program can be gently Christian in tone and still take a clear position on origins. Filter by it on the science page.

Putting it together

No single attribute decides anything, and none of them is a verdict. Together they sketch what a program is like day to day, so you can hold it up against your own family and your own kid. Pick a subject, filter to the profile that fits, and read the write-ups with all of this in mind: Math, Reading, Spelling, Writing, Grammar, Science, and History. Or browse the head-to-head comparisons if you already have two programs in mind.