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One of the things I’ve loved most about teaching Boy1 at home is the ability to truly individualize his learning. I’ve written before about the trial and error that comes with finding the right curriculum, figuring out what works, and setting meaningful goals—but the truth is, that process never really ends. It’s always evolving. And honestly, I love that, because we’re all works in progress. Always learning. Always changing.

When we first began our homeschool journey, independence was at the heart of everything we wanted to do. It’s actually why we named our homeschool Independence Academy. Our goal has always been bigger than academics—we want both of our boys to grow into independent, confident individuals. That’s looked like a mix of things in our day-to-day learning: hands-on, real-life skills like following a recipe or learning basic budgeting, along with more traditional “book work” like reading and math. We still have a ways to go with those foundational skills, but we’re getting there.

One of my long-term goals for Boy1 is simple, but meaningful: I want him to be able to read a menu and order his own food. There are so many layers to that goal—communication, confidence, independence—and we’ll get there, even if it means using accommodations along the way, like pointing to a choice instead of saying it out loud.

For a while, though, I was stuck in very “inside-the-box” thinking. I believed he needed to sound out the words on a menu in order to truly read them. Then, while I was working on a treatment plan for one of my patients, something clicked. He doesn’t necessarily need to master phonics to order his own food—he just needs to recognize the words and understand what they represent.

There’s a skill where a learner matches a written word to a picture or object, essentially labeling or “tacting.” It’s very similar to how children learn sight words. Many young children recognize the word “apple” not because they’ve sounded it out, but because they’ve repeatedly seen it paired with a picture of an apple. That realization completely shifted my approach.

Now, our focus is on helping Boy1 match written words for common menu items to their corresponding pictures. And the best part? He’s excited about it. He loves when he can do things independently, and I can see how frustrating it’s been for him when a menu is placed in front of him and it just doesn’t make sense yet. This feels like a step toward changing that.

Side note: kudos to restaurants that include pictures on their kids’ menus. Seriously—just bravo. 👏

What’s a small independence win your child has had recently?