Khan Academy is a nonprofit platform that offers free education through videos, exercises, and personalized learning. It aims to help students master subjects before moving on, making it a valuable tool for homeschool families.
Research from the National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI) shows that homeschooled students typically score 15 to 25 percentile points higher than public school students on standardized academic achievement tests. According to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), approximately 3.3 million students were homeschooled in the United States as of 2023, representing roughly 6% of the school-age population.
What is Khan Academy?
Khan Academy is a nonprofit organization started in 2008 by Sal Khan. Its goal is to provide free, high-quality education to anyone, anywhere. With over 100 million users globally, it offers instructional videos, practice exercises, and personalized learning dashboards. Unlike other free resources, Khan Academy focuses on mastery. Students must show they understand a topic before moving on, which helps minimize knowledge gaps. All its materials are completely free, funded by donations instead of ads or subscriptions.
Using Khan Academy in your homeschool
Khan Academy is great for math, especially for grades 6 and up. Many homeschool families use it as their main math program. For subjects like science and history, it provides good supplementary material, but it’s not as deep as a full curriculum. You’ll want to add books, discussions, and projects for those subjects. Language arts is the weakest area; there aren't complete courses for any grade.
Understanding the mastery system
Khan Academy's mastery system is different from traditional curriculums. Here, students can't just move on without understanding the material. They go through levels: Not Started, Attempted (below 70%), Familiar (70-99%), and Proficient/Mastered (100%). Research shows this method leads to better results. One study found that students using Khan for over 30 minutes a week had 33% higher growth on standardized tests than less engaged students.
Khan Academy kids for younger learners
Khan Academy Kids is a free app for kids ages 2-8. It has over 5,000 activities covering early literacy, phonics, math, and social skills. You can use it offline after downloading the content, making it perfect for road trips or places with weak internet. Fun animal guides like Ollo and Reya help kids through their lessons. It’s completely free and has no ads, just solid early education.
The bottom line
Khan Academy lives up to its promise of offering free, quality education, especially in math. It can replace paid curriculums. The mastery system helps students avoid gaps in understanding, a common issue in traditional schools. While it shouldn’t be the only resource for your homeschool, Khan Academy is a powerful, free tool that should be in every homeschool toolkit.
