Acadia Cottage School

08/22/2025

Still in operation. Was unwell over the summer and had intended to give it up, but I was miserable not teaching, and picked up a new 8th grader from a recommendation elsewhere. We're off to a fantastic start and would welcome a couple more students to join us.

Remediation available as necessary in arithmetic, reading, Grammar -- otherwise, college prep. If your student has no interest in college, it's still beneficial to have the basics in place in case they have a change of heart after a few years. I didn't get to go to college until ten years after I graduated high school. You want your options wide open. And learning is never wasted, no matter the subject.

Contact me for more information and to arrange a visit/interview. I'd love to talk with you.

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07/13/2025

06/06/2025

My other soapbox issue is literacy. Our children simply cannot read, and the reason is simple: they are not taught how letters form phonograms which indicate the sounds a word makes. In other words -- they're not taught phonics; rather, they've been given a flimsy see-and-say method which only looks at letters of the alphabet and their root sounds, and only at the beginning and ending of longer words with encouragement to make a good guess at the middle. And simply calling words off a page, without comprehension, is accepted as reading.

I was thinking about this earlier -- I had a student who missed short words as well as long words, and who couldn't tell me what he'd just read, no matter how simple the sentence. In other words, this dear boy was functionally illiterate. Mom took him to the local school board and they said nothing was wrong with him. Well, I disagree. A child who cannot read is either lazy (and this child was demonstrably not lazy!) or is dyslexic, or he's never been taught how to read.

But, I realized, the people at the school board were also taught see-and-say. I am one of the last generation of public school grads who were afforded a phonics reading program; in many schools across the nation, see-and-say had already been adopted while our district was holding on to the old tried-and-true methods of teaching. And I graduated from high school fifty years ago. So that tells us that at least three generations of students have been deprived of an authentic reading education . . . which includes your children's current teachers and administrators.

Parents, it is up to YOU to secure your child's education. You cannot take good grades as any indication of actual skills. Test your children! Read to them and with them and have them read to you. Know just what your kids know -- and be prepared to unearth what they do not know. And that, I'm afraid, is too much.

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06/06/2025

I wish with all my heart that all parents would give their kids a math placement test (I've been using the Saxon Math, link below leads to the placement tests for age/grade range). With one exception, of the more than a dozen and a half students I've tested for ACHA, ALL of them, including purported high school students, have tested at FOURTH GRADE -- as in, having to TAKE fourth grade math. I don't know what the problem is, locally. Are the kids given calculators in fourth grade? In NC, where I'm from, they begin in 3d grade because the EOC (End of course/grade) tests permit their use. It's a disgrace, whatever the cause is.

Our children NEED to know how to USE THEIR BRAINS. HOW TO THINK. Yes, all caps for emphasis and to demonstrate my frustration with this situation. Calculators shouldn't be allowed until maybe Algebra I, although possibly pre-Algebra.

Please, please, please, print out these free tests and see where your child is performing. And hold your school boards accountable for telling you your children are being educated when they most definiately are NOT.

---Laura---

Saxon Math has consistently been one of homeschoolers' top choices when it comes to math curriculum. Saxon's incremental approach to education has been proven to be one of the most effective teaching methods; learning pieces of information in small amounts, and then continually repeating concepts ke...

04/30/2025

NOW ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS for the 2025-26 school year. Grades 6-12. I focus on building real skills and personal maturity, not just subjects and grades. We learn cursive writing, foundational grammar and phonetic reading for independent work and thought, deep dive into history for a greater understanding of our nation and our culture. If you are looking for a viable educational alternative for your child that will give them the tools they need for authentic success, give me a call: 337-581-7152.

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04/20/2025

High school kids, too.

04/14/2025

We believe the content in our children's classrooms matters.

02/22/2025

I'm still trying to find out how to change my page name (to Acadia Cottage School) but I'm rebranding as a tutor in remedial skills of reading, writing (handwriting and composition), language mastery, arithmetic, study skills and Executive Function.

Do you know what your child's grades represent? what they are learning? Will your child be one of the ones socially promoted through school only for you to discover late in the game (maybe even after graduation) that they're functionally illiterate?

We do have some good teachers in the system, but their hands are tied by poor philosophical foundations set by far-removed bureaucrats. The kids at the top of the class and the kids who need additional help cannot get what they need, because a teacher cannot do that for 20-30 students every day.

If you have concerns about your child's current performance levels, I'll be glad to test your child for actual skills sets, whether you're interested in having me help bring them up to appropriate grade level or just for your own peace of mind.

Give me a call and make an appointment.

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02/19/2025

I am SO PROUD of LB who has completed 8th grade math!!! He has mastered five grade levels in Arithmetic in less than 2 years! We're going to party to celebrate, tomorrow, then on Monday he begins Algebra 1. WAY TO GO!!!!!!

I'm so very proud of you!!!

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01/28/2025

When I began this work, and this page, 2 1/2 years ago, I was expecting to be operating a higher-intensity college prep academy; instead, the overwhelming majority of my students are coming in with inadequate skills for even grade-level work. They are behind on math, unable to read efficiently. Several have been neurodivurgent; most have been on medications of some description for anxiety, ADHD, etc. Instead of college prep, I'm immersed in remediation of fundamental academic skills.

I really don't mind this. It's needed. And I've got to say, all my students are hard-working, eager, and even amazingly intelligent -- but they've been dropped through the cracks of the public school system, which simply isn't set up to help them achieve. I have students who cannot read and who have never been taught the proper way to form letters in handwriting. All but two have come in testing at 4th grade in arithmetic, and only one of those two was actually functioning at grade level.

Accordingly, beginning today, to reflect more accurately the services I'm providing, I will be going by the name of Acadia Cottage School. My focus will be remediation, using traditional subjects to teach reading comprehension and writing, and arithmetic.

I'll change the title of this page when I can figure it out; it's not as easy as I'd thought it would be.

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out.

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01/07/2025

NickiTruesdell.com nails it.

Parents, there is a better way!