Hubby wants to go to school....but....

[Pamela H in Texas]

My hubby tested a few years ago and he was to be placed in the lowest level classes in Reading, Writing, and Math.

 

I'm confident in our chosen math course and my ability to help him there.

 

I'm less confident about the other two.

 

Does anyone have a suggestion on a Reading and/or Writing program that would get hubby onto a college level?

 

ETA: The program that he wants to do has an 18credit certificate program as part of it. He can do those credits before he's officially college level. But for the degree programs (Assoc then Bach), he would have to be able to do some liberal arts credits (English, Math, Psych, etc) which requires him to be on a college level.

Edited February 23, 2009 by 2J5M9K

[lionfamily1999]

Do they have remedial classes? I never took Chemistry and am going to take Intro to Chemistry this summer, no credits, but I need it if I want to pass anything Chemistry related in the future.

[Pamela H in Texas]

He could take remedial classes but my understanding is that that costs so much and would take him 2 to 2.5 years to get from where he is to where he needs to be. I know with homeschooling that generally, things don't have to take as long as they would in an institutional setting.

[lionfamily1999]

I would've never thought of that...

:lurk5: (waiting to see what's suggested)

[NCMom]

For writing, I think IEW is always a great choice. And Aleks would be very helpful as a supplement for whatever math you are using.

 

And fwiw, I am tutoring someone who is in remedial Math and English (but not Reading) classes at the CC right now. They are a joke. I suggest working very hard to test out of remedial math if they use Modumath. Blech!

 

The English class is disjointed and useless, kinda reminiscent of my high school English classes, lol. So far, the class has written 5 paragraphs total, and this is the highest of the remedial courses! And the student has rec'd NO feedback at all since the class started Jan 6th.

 

hth,

Georgia

Edited February 23, 2009 by Georgia in NC
forgot something

[lllll]

..

[TxMama]

Does anyone have a suggestion on a Reading and/or Writing program that would get hubby onto a college level?

 

 

 

More Reading Comprehension across Varied Subjects helped my poor test taker improve her reading scores dramatically. You do not need to do the previous books in the series. She had dramatic improvement after just completing 1 book in the series.

 

Jensen's Format Writing for writing from paragraphs---various kinds of essays---to research paper. I like it because it gives the "forms" to write and you get to choose the subject to write about. Format writing gives you a very structured writing course. You could complete Format Writing fairly quickly if you desired or use as a general reference for years. I also like Jensen's Grammar and Punctuation if he needs review in that area as well. JG helps with the mechanics of sentence structure and can be finished fairly quickly if you desired. I'd save Punctuation and use only if he needs further help after JG.

[Pamela H in Texas]

What kind of reading problems are you talking about?

 

I'm not positive what the issue is now (this isn't really something we've discussed much). As a kid, he repeated a grade, did a resource class, and was dx'd dislexic. However, as an adult, he's a bit slow, but he reads whatever he wishes at whatever level. He has done a systematic Bible study with readings, questions, discussions without an issue, for example. He does fine at work. And though not comprehension, he does crossword puzzles daily so has the vocabulary and reading skills enough to do so.

 

I think one thing we're going to have to do is be very honest with one another in order to figure out exactly where he is to get him where he needs to be.

[Heather in VA]

I'm far from an expert but I grew up with a brother who has a learning disability and a mother who was a learning disability high school teacher. It sounds to me like his problem may be a learning disability. Over the years he has been able to adapt to the disability - he reads well, but just takes more time. He has the ability to process and analyze as he's shown with the Bible studies etc but when he had to take the test he hasn't been able to adjust for the types of skills needed there.

 

I'd sit down with him and talk about the test he took. What things gave him trouble. What things were not a problem. Then go from there. You'll need a different approach if the problem is more with showing knowledge and abilities he already has than if the problem is just that he needs to learn new things.

 

Heather

[Myra]

I would suggest talking, in person - make an appointment, to the counseling department at the college that he's planning on attending and see what they suggest. Perhaps they have tutoring programs (for free) to help in this situation. It has usually surprised me, pleasantly mostly(!), how helpful the counseling departments can be and how much info they have to help you out.

 

Myra

[Colleen in NS]

What kind of reading problems are you talking about? When my 35yos was 14yo, I tried to hs him. I tested his reading level and it was 6th grade (he was in 9th grade in ps). I talked to a man who was working with kids with reading problems (mostly boys, btw) in the local high school. He was using WRTR and said he was having a lot of success with it. It's actually phonics, but apparently some people with reading problems were just never taught phonics.

 

I'm not positive what the issue is now (this isn't really something we've discussed much). As a kid, he repeated a grade, did a resource class, and was dx'd dislexic. However, as an adult, he's a bit slow, but he reads whatever he wishes at whatever level.

 

My Mom taught WRTR in her elementary school classroom years ago (and showed me how to use the how-to-read-and-how-to-spell portions with my kids). But she also taught adults. It's great for all ages, so I recommend it if you find that it's the mechanics of reading that is a problem. I got lots more confident in my own reading after I started using it with my kids, because, finally, words I hadn't memorized made sense to me - I could decode them easily. WRTR is also excellent for dyslexia because of the exact ways that everything is taught, from the drawing of letters, to the order of the English sounds, to the logic of how to analyze the spelling words (which reinforces the reading skills).

[Anne/Ankara]

Here is a treasure trove of PDF books from Learning Express for some of the types of learning your DH might want to tackle... they have lots of English books listed... the link is a bit unreliable, but here it is:

 

http://www.learnatest.com/LearningExpressEbooks/home.cfm?CFID=11811638&CFTOKEN=769c7bd3529ee33c-55C12DE5-BCDF-04A2-B06EDD132A45CFCB

[ElizabethB]

My online phonics lessons are designed for older remedial children and adults. They have helped several individuals who were diagnosed with dyslexia.

 

He could give them a try. (link in signature below)

 

They are free!

 

For older students, I also like "We All Can Read" by James Williams, it has a lot of nonsense words, which I've found helpful. "Back on the Right Track Reading Lessons" are also designed for an adult. Marcia K. Henry's "Words" is good for someone who need help with reading/spelling and also wants to do a bit of words study, it breaks things up into Anglo/Greek/Latin and then analyses then.

[Sara R]

I don't have any high school kids, but I do have experience in grading poorly-written introductory college papers, and I have some ideas about what kinds of skills are missing in their writing. I have experience with my oldest probably-mildly-dyslexic daughter.

 

You could break down writing skills into three parts: spelling, grammar, and organization. Spelling is writing at the word-level; grammar is writing on the sentence-level; and organization is structuring those sentences into a paper that makes sense.

 

How is he at spelling? I'm using Susan C. Anthony's Spelling Plus with my daughter. She has a course for remedial spelling for adults called Spell Well. Here's the word list. I like Spelling Plus for my daughter. The drill is simple but effective. Spell check catches a lot of problems, but it doesn't catch the most common, embarrassing problems, like its/it's there/their/they're, and so on.

 

Grammar is important as well, especially for people who are not naturally good with the written word. You could go through whatever grammar program you have used with your children that you think would work well for him, or something like Easy Grammar. In the papers I grade, I read so many run-ons, fragments, and convoluted sentences that make no sense. How can I communicate what is wrong with the sentence? The only way I know how to do so is through the language of grammar. So study grammar with the goal of being able to write sentences that make sense.

 

I haven't used any general writing programs yet; you probably have though. I think I've heard SWB recommend the last Writing Strands book for this purpose.

 

ETA: If his reading problems are not serious, but they are preventing him from passing the test, I wonder if he could pursue a learning disabled label so he could get some kind of accommodation.

Edited February 27, 2009 by Sara R