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VickiW

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Everything posted by VickiW

  1. And I have done both the teacher screen and the student screen on the Barton site at your prompting before. It may come down to this. The more I learn about it, the more I'm thinking my 6 year old would benefit too. DS might enjoy interacting with someone other with me for a while. I know I could use a break.
  2. We have the testing completed. Dyslexia -dysgraphia- ADHD is the diagnosis for my 11 yr old ds. I'm having trouble finding a Tudor. Does anyone have thought on Sylvan learning for a tutoring option. I'm asking questions at Sylvan but can't seem to make sense of it. I'm not hearing key words or phrase like "Barton, O-G system, systematic phonetic approach..." and it has me concerned. The guy just keeps talking about how great his software is. His approach for my kid is to build his vocabulary. He thinks the phonetic window has closed because of his age. I really trust the experience you all have here. Thoughts?
  3. Our health insurance paid for testing at a learning disability clinic at Vanderbilt. It took months to get in and get all the testing but it's finally done and we have paperwork ready for our next steps.
  4. It sounds like you have a lot on you and this kid really needs help. You need help too! If you are truly in the mental healthcare black hole you described, there is a good chance the public school system might not be prepared to offer the assistance your child needs either. This is what I'm discovering in my small town in conservative land as I'm just now going through similar testing for my son. Fortunately, I can travel about to a major hospital system to receive excellent care for my kid. But the doctor's recommendations for schooling was not in favor of public school simply because they don't always recognize issues like what we are facing. So they certainly are not well equipped to deal with them. I think that once you get through the testing phase of this with your kid and begin to pinpoint what's going on, the doctors will begin pointing you in the right direction. I hope you find resources close to home.
  5. I really appreciate this! While I wouldn't have any trouble giving similar recommendations to another struggling mother, I often have trouble seeing through my own fog. I'm learning along the way too that, while educating my kinds is a good thing, I can twist it into something it's not meant to be very easily and begin to worship the idea of education just like a lot of other things that seem utopian. Thank you!
  6. We have been using graph paper for math to help with organizational skills. One digit per square. Everything lines up nicely. I was required to use very small graph paper in college when my math problem might take three pages to solve. For my kids, I get quarter inch size. If you haven't tried it yet, you might want to give it a shot. As far as the botany interest. It's a little quirky (raised eyebrows concerning Aspergers) but his knowledge is vast especially concerning cacti! He also enjoys reading about reptiles and amphibians to some degree. He keeps an aquarium and terrarium. We are letting him dig a large koi pond in the backyard. That helps with the H part of the ADHD and feeds his interests.
  7. The only pleasure reading he might do would be on the topic of botany. He is not a big reader as you might guess. We have been doing classical education from the start and this year was Middle Ages for both dd and ds. We started off strictly Memoria Press but now have a nice combination of MP with WTM. Every year I stray further and further from MP. X
  8. For instance, he writes in cursive. We started cursive handwriting in first grade. We try to approach learning from lots of different angles, sensory, visual, auditory..... We are beginning to incorporate more technology. (Looking for a good keyboard program now for the iPad - it has a keyboard attachment).... I'm allowing him to keep a city of the multiplication table at his desk to refer to. We would have called that cheating for my dd. But she never needed it.
  9. We have begun working in some technology this year. I have turn an old iPad mini into our educational iPad for the kids. His literature was difficult for anyone (Robin Hood) but he was enjoying the story. So I downloaded audible and have been letting home read the digital version side by side. I plan to do the same for King Arthur. He is also struggling with memorizing the multiplication table. I keep looking for just the right app to assist with that. I'm trying to incorporate more visual and auditory methods for his schooling. After talking with his Dr yesterday, it sounds like I'm on the right track. Any suggestions you have for apps you love? I'm all ears!
  10. Wow, thanks so much for all the helpful responses! I apologize for leaving out some of our critical details. My son is 11 and in 5th grade. The testing revealed he is writing at a late 3rd grade level. The dyslexia profile fits him to a tee. We have been going to Vanderbilt for his testing and I do have a great deal of confidence in the level of care he has received there. The Dr. we met with yesterday was very pro homeschool and praised his progress thus far. We had already done many of the things she would have recommended as part of his course work over the past 5 years and she could tell all of that effort had brought him farther than he would have come had he been in a public school setting. I was quite encouraged by this since my last 5 years have seemed like such a struggle. I was given a list of resources and I'm busy pouring over it all. I know Tennessee homeschoolers do have access to some level of assistance from the public school system. The Dr. feels as though very few schools here do a good job of recognizing dyslexia and fewer schools know how to help kids overcome it. Also, I'm not in Nashville. I'm in a small town over an hour away with even fewer resources. You all have given me many other ideas and suggestions as to where I might look for assistance. Thank You!
  11. Dyslexia- Dysgraphia- ADHD I started asking question many years ago concerning this child and was told "he's a boy", "give him time", "this is not unusual"..... Last fall I decided I had to push through and try to find out more. Yesterday we finally made it to the one appointment I have been waiting for since September. Our current diagnosis is the aforementioned trifecta. I'm not surprised. I'm kinda relieved. I'm also exhausted from years of trying so hard to just wait it out with no resources and everyone telling me there was nothing wrong. So, here we are. We are moving forward as of today. In all honesty, we shifted our homeschool experience over the past months to more oral work already. We dropped some of the rigor. It's just that now I have confidence that this is perhaps the right direction for this particular child. My question concerns the tutoring that was recommended. Part of the reason we homeschool is because private school tuition is not within our family's budget. Are there funds available to help offset the cost of tutoring a child with dyslexia/dysgraphia? If so, how would I go about finding those resources? Thanks in advance, Vicki
  12. Thanks for the responses! How do you eat an elephant? A- one bite at a time....
  13. I've been homeschooling for several years but now the baby is starting K and I've stalled in choosing a phonics curriculum. My other two kiddos went to the MP school in Louisville when they were younger and when we moved, we took MP school in a box and worked it from home. Over the years we have gradually transitioned to some other wonderful curricula such as PHP. I thought this year I would simply come online and purchase K in a box from PHP. In all honesty, i'm burned out and exhausted. I need a break from the rigor the MP demands. Looking at their phonics program makes me want to throw up. There has to be a more gentle way that doesn't involve 27 books and a secret decoder ring. Can anyone identify? Help me choose a phonics program for the DD. Suggestions please!
  14. We have been using MP literature for 4 years at home and three years before that at the school in Louisville. They are intense but very rich. My advice, depending on the child of course, is to not feel obligated to fill in every blank. The amount of work can be daunting if you feel compelled to answer every question and fill every blank. Often we answer just a few key questions in written form and orally go over the rest. An older child might accomplish more of the work. A younger child might need help in reading the difficult passages and will enjoy the enrichment sections. The studies do offer a deep level of study and excellent discussion. While I'm moving away from some MP curriculum, I will retain the literature portion in our studies.
  15. My DD has completed both. DS finished the insects study last year and will be moving on to Trees this year before Birds next year. They are beautiful, lovely and and encouraged both of my children to take in interest in studying nature on a deeper level. Now the 5 year old feels compelled to take her field guide along with every walk around the neighborhood.
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