The Idea of an Essay, Volume 4

196 The Idea of an Essay: Volume 4 not to say that the research is inferior or sub-par in its nature, but rather that it is small in its quantity. Regardless of quantity, though, the body of work offered so far provides adequate insights into the literacy rates of home schooled students. Overall, home schooled students generally have higher rates of literacy than public or private school students. As Murphy (2014) points out, home schooled students tend to score higher than the national norms on their literacy tests. In a 1997 study, home schooled students scored in 87th and 80th percentiles for reading and language, and a 2010 study showed that they had improved to scoring in the 89th and 84th percentiles (Murphy, 2014). Both of these scores are higher than the averages for public and private school students. Concomitantly, a similar trend is seen in SAT critical reading scores. Home schooled students have averaged a score of 568 compared to score of 501 for public school students (Murphy, 2014). Additionally, there is another aspect of literacy proficiency that is found with home schooled students. Generally, the educational development of the parent(s) tends to influence the educational development of the student. According to Murphy (2014), homeschooling tends to lessen the effect that parental education has on the child, even if the parental education is very poor. Statistically, this seems to indicate a higher level of literacy among home schooled students. However, a question still remains pertaining to the function of home schooled individuals in society. In general, home schooled students will have a lower level of interaction with other persons than a private or public school student will have. Obviously, much of this is due to the nature of each type of schooling. As such, concerns have been raised in the past that this lack of daily, social interaction may prove to be a hindrance to the communication skills of home schooled students. A poor grasp of proper conversation and social norms can be just as damaging to a student’s literacy as a lack of adequate grammar and word knowledge can be. The question becomes: Does such a deficiency exist? What the evidence shows us is not that a deficiency exists, but that a difference exists. Using the word “deficiency” indicates a lack of sufficiency, which in this case would be an insufficient number of social peers. Homeschooled students do generally have fewer peer contacts (11 compared to 20 for public schools), but this is not an