Teaching Advice Needed - Apraxia, Sensory, Dyspraxia

[noble]

I am looking for wisdom. I have been homeschooling my son since Dec. he is 9 years old and delayed a bit.    Previously he was in a school that has 9 children.  We pick the curriculum that is being used for each child, it is like being in an old school house setting.  

  

Currently I am using Saxon Math 3, First Language Lessons, Writing with Ease, Explode the Code, Handwriting without Tears , All About Spelling.  I have also been using A Beka Language 2 and Letters and Sounds.  

 

As you can see it is alot, I feel like it is too much.  I guess the reason I continued using the A Beka was because I thought it has a good base for phonics.  I love Writing with Ease and First Language Lessons but I did not know if I should keep going with this list of work.    

 

I am tied up in knots when I think of what to do.  I want what is best for him, I need wisdom and wish someone could tell me what they think would be the best scenario.  I know that is hard as I am the one that knows my child but was not sure if anyone else is in a similar situation. 

 

As you can see I am not great at getting my words out on paper but hopefully someone out here has some wisdom.  

 

Thank you

[Kiara.I]

I don't have a lot of experience with some of those things. But explode the code is for teaching reading, isn't it? If you're still teaching reading, should spelling wait?

 

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

[Rosie_0801]

Read up on retained primitive reflexes. 

[noble]

Thank you Rosie, I have read up on that and will look more into it.  He definitely has some of those things.  He was born at nearly 32 wks and his weight and measurements were that of a 27 week old baby.  We are so thankful that he is doing as well as he is.  We have OT four hours a week and this has helped him so much.  

[OneStepAtATime]

You might cross post on the Learning Challenges/Special needs boards...

[dragonflyer]

It might help narrow down:

How is his reading? Barely sounding out CVC words? Frog and Toad books?

How is his handwriting?  Can he remember how to form his letters?  Is he beginning to write his letters without thinking about how it should be written?

How is his spelling?  What level of AAS are you using?  How is he doing with the dictation section?

 

It does look like you have a lot of repetition and overlap in language arts that could be pared down, does he seem to be learning with any of these curriculum?

 

Are you happy with Saxon for math?  Does he seem to be learning and retaining from this program?

[kbutton]

It might help narrow down:

How is his reading? Barely sounding out CVC words? Frog and Toad books?

How is his handwriting?  Can he remember how to form his letters?  Is he beginning to write his letters without thinking about how it should be written?

How is his spelling?  What level of AAS are you using?  How is he doing with the dictation section?

 

It does look like you have a lot of repetition and overlap in language arts that could be pared down, does he seem to be learning with any of these curriculum?

 

Are you happy with Saxon for math?  Does he seem to be learning and retaining from this program?

 

I am wondering the same things.

 

Rosie mentioned reflexes, and you said OT...do they do direct work on the primitive reflexes, or do they rely on general OT to integrate the reflexes? My son progressed with a lot of things in OT, but the reflexes just kept gumming things up. He finally had direct work on reflexes in vision therapy, and he was a different kid within about TWO WEEKS!!! (He has minor sensory stuff, apraxia, oral motor difficulties, ocular motor issues/poor visual development, auditory processing problems, and general, persistent problems with coordination that didn't rise to a diagnosable level.)

 

I would want to know if the apraxia is standing in the way of phonics at all. I imagine handwriting is a struggle with the dyspraxia--do you accommodate that at all? 

 

I would encourage you to consider cross-posting to the Learning Challenges board as well. You'll get some good suggestions in both places, but sometimes people tend to hang out in just one area of the boards.

[PeterPan]

I am tied up in knots when I think of what to do.  I want what is best for him, I need wisdom and wish someone could tell me what they think would be the best scenario.  I know that is hard as I am the one that knows my child but was not sure if anyone else is in a similar situation. 

 

Oh dear!  Well welcome to the boards.  My ds has apraxia, ADHD, ASD, SPD (of course, lol), not the overall dyspraxia, and then SLDs in math, reading, and writing.  I agree with the strong encouragement that you come make your home on LC.  You'll fit right in there!  

 

Do you have other kids you homeschool as well?  And is he still in that small school setting of you've brought him home?  That's some AMAZING OT btw.  Four hours a week, wow!  How are you getting that done?  We're out of the house a lot for therapies and classes, and it's very real.  I guess I would park there a minute and talk about your schedule, about Mom burnout, about how real that is.  We are in this for the LONG HAUL.  The absolute best, #1 thing you can do to be a good mother to him is to TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF.  Because a burnt out, sick mom can't help ANYBODY.

 

Has he had a neuropsych eval yet?  Because of his disabilities, he should have a neuropsych eval, probably with at least 6-8 hours of testing.  Have they done that?  If you have, bring the results to LC and let people go through them and help you APPLY them.  If you've not had the evals yet, it's time.  Without evals you don't have data to sort this stuff out.  I can make some guesses, ask questions, but it would be better to have data to pair with your observations.  

 

Your list of curriculum is very thorough, very traditional.  Was it what they were using in the school?  What of it worked for him?  What things are *not* going well?  

[noble]

It might help narrow down:

How is his reading? Reading is very good, he is currently reading a 4th grade book with A Beka.  

How is his handwriting? Handwriting is getting better.  We just finished book 2 and are now starting book three which is cursive but not your normal cursive that is very loopy.  This is much more like the Australian cursive.   Can he remember how to form his letters? Yes he can remember to form his letters.  Is he beginning to write his letters without thinking about how it should be written? I believe so.  When he writes a sentence for a worksheet in Abeka he may ask me how to spell a couple words but he does pretty well.  

How is his spelling? His spelling is doing pretty well as long as he gets plenty of time to go over them each day.   What level of AAS are you using? We are on level 3 of All About Spelling  How is he doing with the dictation section? Dictation for Writing with Ease has been very difficult.  I was doing it with him up to about week 15 or so but felt like we were not getting anywhere.  I would have to repeat many times and I felt like it was frustrating for him to have to spend so much time on writing one or two sentences.  

 

It does look like you have a lot of repetition and overlap in language arts that could be pared down, does he seem to be learning with any of these curriculum? He does seem to be learing, he loves the poems in First Language Lessons and does a good job remembering what a noun is , verb is etc.

 

Are you happy with Saxon for math? Saxon Math has been okay.  He does well with the first sheet for the most part but the drill sheets can be overwhelming, once he gets started he can get going with it and is able to answer questions.  We use a table with the numbers 0 through 20 and this has helped alot.  Then he can put his finger on 5 and count up 4 and get to 9 etc.  

 Does he seem to be learning and retaining from this program? I think he retains much but when it comes to the fractions and things it is harder.  I think that since they do not spend much time on it, it is hard to learn it.  

 

As far as OT they work on many things,  reflexes, helping him process, for instance talking about how to make and obstacle course, then doing the obstacle course and at the end talking through what he did.  they do excercises as well and work on handwriting.  

We live overseas as we are full time volunteers for a charity.  So we have the OT come to us which has been a huge blessing to our family.

We used to go once a week for 45 minutes and that was terrible as it takes quite a bit of time getting from point a to b.  So much faster where we lived in the US.  

Thank you all for your help.  I will definitely post this in the other group as well.  Blessings.