PEOPLESCAPE: Woodbridge mother starts home school program

When Melinda Kinnear’s boys — Ethan and Ian — weren’t getting the education she felt they needed, she stumbled into home schooling quite naturally.

Kinnear, an adult education teacher turned program director, followed her military husband, Steven, to Woodbridge from Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, in 2005.

In Kansas she’d started teaching at vocational schools and corporate training, until she landed a job with evening hours as the adult education director at an area high school.

Her schedule worked well with small children.

When she moved to Woodbridge, she taught medical coding and billing via an online school, which still allowed her the flexibility to be near her children.

“I advertised through eBay and built out my business until 2007, when I decided to take a break from work to home school my sons,” she said.

Kinnear had had enough of the Virginia education system.

“In Kansas, Ethan was in private school and Ian was in public school,” she said, “and when we moved, the kids were tested to see where they would place here. Although Ethan tested over his grade level, the school system would not place him in a higher grade, and there were other issues, too.”

“Leavenworth didn’t have a gifted program,” Kinnear said, adding that when she pushed for it in Virginia, the school system tried to label Ethan with disabilities such as Attention-Deficit Disorder, Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Asperger Syndrome, an autism spectrum disorder marked by difficulties in social interaction.
She found these disabilities difficult to swallow considering that at 6 years old, Ethan tested a 125 IQ, an above average score.

Her children — talented gamers and artists — just have vastly different styles of learning, she said. Ethan being a visual kinesthetic learner — meaning he benefits from graphs, charts and hands-on activities, such as science experiments and theatrical skits — and Ian an auditory and visual learner — meaning he’ll do just fine with lectures.

“[This] school district wanted to send him to a school for disturbed children,” Kinnear said, “and then, they started in on Ian.”

That’s when Kinnear, 48, decided in favor of home school.

“We felt it would be traumatic for [them] to go to school under the conditions,” she said.

She’d heard about a charter school, which provided how-to workshops, providing online materials for kids and teach-at-home strategies for parents, and tackled the challenge head on.

“I wanted to dedicate all of my time to the boys,” says Melinda.

But she needed an outlet, so she created Kitchen Sink Learning Solutions, an online correspondence learning program for home schoolers. Kinnear said it includes math, social studies, science, health and creative writing, or as her grandmother would say, “everything but the kitchen sink.”

She said she caters the programs to each student’s style of learning, something she said she learned from her own children can differ significantly from child to child.

Kinnear said she adapts assignments to a child’s personality.

“I will ask a parent to tell me about their child and what typically holds their interest,” she said. “When I am teaching, I also make sure that before we move on to another concept that the child understands what we have just learned.”

She said she disagrees with the national standard of “teaching to the test” or “speed learning.”

Kinnear said she’ll let her children, now 13 and 15, choose science experiments and add movies every now and then to keep them motivated.

“I don’t let my kids get too comfortable when learning at home,” she said. “They have organized schedules, and I have to keep their curriculum interesting.”

Kinnear said her business strategies and motivation also rubbed off on her children.

“My boys have decided that when they grow up, Ian will be an illustrator and Ethan will be a game developer. They are going to sell themselves as a package deal... . Look for them in business in the future.”

Shannyn Snyder can be reached at shannyn@jeff-snyder.com.