When you are working on spelling, it is really important that she not only be able to recognize the phonograms, but also be able to write the phonograms from memory. I was a year into SWR before I realized how important this was. My dd could drill those phonograms really well, but when I gave her a written quiz, she missed a lot. Also, I make sure and have her sound out a word before she writes it, and clarify which phonograms she is going to use. When I mess up and let her spell it wrong, the wrong spelling gets in her head, and it is a lot harder to get it out. So with a word like "clean," for example, I would first have her sound out each phonogram, and then tell her to use "ea" instead of "ee," because there is no rule that would tell her to use that phonogram.

Helping a child with these sorts of problems takes long-term, intense training. When my dd was 5yo, her reading was advanced, but I could tell that she couldn't sound out new words. She just had a great memory and could remember the word after only one exposure. I started using Spell to Write and Read, which is an intense, explicit, multi-sensory phonics program. It took over 2 years of consistent use/training before she started to sound out new words on her own. And to my knowledge, my dd does not have a learning disability affecting her reading/spelling. I would recommend consistent use of a multisensory explicit phonics program so that she can lean on her strengths (visual/kinesthetic) while strengthening her weakness (auditory).

I don't know if this will help at all. But when I was in middle school, I had a class where we had to keep a journal. I thought I was pretty good at writing and relatively insightful. But I consistently got my journal assignments back with B's and C's, along with questions like "Why?" and "How do you know?" and "Why is this important to you?" written back to me. Somehow, a year of someone challenging what I thought completely changed how I saw the world and how I viewed those who were in teaching positions. Before, I had been the quiet kid that just regurgitated information. After that year, I was the kid that the good teachers loved and bad teachers hated, because I had learned that it was okay to question things, and even that doing so was desirable and necessary for learning.

A bright or gifted child who has a learning disability may be compensating for that disability such that the disability is not really noticeable. When my dd was first starting to read, I noticed that her eyes would flit all over the page. I realized that she was looking at pictures and other words and sentences to figure out what she was reading. She did it so quickly that she seemed to be reading fluently, but she wasn't fluent. Now, she doesn't have any sort of disability affecting her reading, but it presents a good picture of how a student could appear to read fluently when they are not. And at 10yo, your dd may be quite aware of the fact that her reading is not fluent but may not have the words to convey what it actually happening.

My natural reader is not a natural speller. She is a good speller, but I wouldn't say natural. Using SWR has kept her spelling skills at (almost) the same level as her reading and composition skills, greatly reducing her reluctance to write. She can't tolerate writing anything she cannot spell on her own, so keeping her spelling skills high is a great boon for us.

I think you could easily do it with younger students if they have a good grasp of language and are accustomed to being read to out of good literature. I am doing it with my dd8 this year, and she is doing fine with it. But she is very good with language, so YMMV.

Mine get an hour of screen time per day. I have one dc who has addictive tendencies. Usually they show up when I have been lenient about enforcing our screen time limits. Generally all I have to do is start enforcing the limits, and the addictive/obsessive behavior disappears. But if that doesn't work, then we spend a week practicing being without it. I don't present this as a punishment. I just say that we seem to have lost the ability to think about all the other wonderful things to do in this world, and we need to practice doing that for a while. Fortunately he has a sister who is really good at thinking up things to do and is all too happy to pull him into her world. It would be a lot more challenging if I were the one helping him think up things to do.

We read all of the books. Every.single.one, including alternates and most group read-alouds, because dd8 can't get enough of history, and we have listened to all 4 volumes of SOTW audio CD's numerous times each. I don't bother to read the notes. I tried for about 2 weeks, and it is just too much. With all the reading we do, I haven't felt like I really needed it. As far as our week, we generally read history right after lunch. Sometimes, dd8 reads a book or two on her own. Occasionally, we will read at bedtime, as well if it is a heavy week. I stopped doing most of the mapping, because my kids already know a ton of geography for their age, and the maps are either too easy for them, or they are way more detailed than I want to deal with at the LG stage. I stopped doing the activities, because dd8 already has so many of her own projects do work on that I can't keep up with it all. But I give her the activity books, and she will sometimes do the activities on her own, or with her brother or father. I kind of feel bad about that, but I am just not a craft/project type person, and the activities on top of all of the reading she wants me to do were just killing me.

I have 2 kids that both learned to read by sight, that is, by memorizing the words. They both did so at a very young age before I started reading instruction. So by the time they were school age, although they were each way ahead in reading level, they had gotten in the habit of guessing new words. I started Spell to Write and Read with my dd when she was 5.5yo. The program trains children to sound out words by teaching them first to spell them. It took over 2 years of this intense instruction before my dd could sound out new words on her own. It was about that time that she started to read a much greater volume of material on her own.

Yes, it would help to know the ages of your children. My oldest is almost 9yo, and in addition to what you mentioned, we also add spelling, grammar, and writing. I have TOG WriteAids, but I do not like it for elementary children. We are also adding foreign language. With older children, I would think that the only thing you would want to add would be the foreign language if you wanted that.

It hasn't all arrived, but I have made all my purchases. This is very early for me. But I have been eyeing MCT for 2 years, and it is finally time to try it out. I also am going to have to choose between continuing with WWE4 or using the MCT writing, or some combination. I wanted to have plenty of time with it before we started. And then my dd8 will be moving to the next level in TOG next year, and I wanted to see those books before I make too many plans. I also need to review the TOG writing portion to see what, if anything, I want to use from there. With so many choices to make, I needed my stuff early.

Spalding, and I think all the related programs (we use SWR), teach three sounds for A, /a/ as in map, /A/ as in late, and /ah/ as in dilemma. That last sound is one that comes from Latin and is prevalent in most other European languages, as well. The Spalding-type programs don't teach the schwa sound, because all of the vowels, and many of the multi-letter phonograms would say that sound in normal speech, so it doesn't really assist with spelling. It is much easier to simply exaggerate the proper vowel sound in order to remember how to spell it. So, for example, if I ask you to spell the word "about" using the schwa sound, you are not going to know which of the 5 vowels to use. But if I tell you to think-to-spell /A/ bout, then you know to spell it with the vowel A. During a spelling lesson, I would tell my child, "We say 'about,' but we think '/A/ bout.'"

I don't even see Thai listed at LiveMocha, which seems to have the greatest variety of language offerings I have seen. Sorry! What a great opportunity for your daughter. I wish her all the best.

This is sooooo frustrating. No, you are not the only one. I run a play group, which helps a lot. We invite everyone we know to come over at a set time. That way when people flake out or get sick, we still have a play date. We meet only 2x/month, and even with a dozen families invited, we have still had occasions where no one has shown up. But we generally have at least a couple of families show up. We get more people when someone other than me hosts it (novelty, I guess, is more inviting) or when someone plans a field trip. So overall, it has been very good, but still frustrating at times.

There is no way any of my homeschooling friends would say anything like this to me. We all have different styles, and we all butt out of each other's homeschooling decisions unless someone is seeking advice. If she is a good friend, then you need to have a heart-to-heart with her. If not, then I would tell her that I disagree with her and that it is an inappropriate topic of further discussion.

I guess I got lucky to have my social one be the oldest. But even though she is 8yo, she still struggles with being quiet during my time with ds5. Something that has worked really well with her when she is too chatty to get a lesson done: I give her a pile of mini-chocolate chips. I tell them they are hers as long as she doesn't talk about anything off topic. Every time she talks out of turn, I get to eat one. It sounds mean to me, but she really loves this game. She tells me she likes the challenge of keeping me from getting the chips, lol. For a 3yo, you might want to consider modifying it by setting a timer for a certain amount of time and telling her she can eat the treat when the bell rings. If she talks, she starts over. Start with just a couple of minutes and gradually work your way to 10-15 minutes. Make sure she has something to occupy her. I really love the Time Timer for things like this. (We have the 12" one!)

Oh, please don't say it starts this early! My dd, almost 9yo, just had the weirdest day recently where she cried over the strangest things. It seemed very hormonal, but she is not even quite 9yo!

I just found out that I have family from Croatia coming to visit in the fall. My children are 3rd generation American, so we do not speak the language, and I am pretty sure they do not speak English. My dd8 really wants to learn Croatian, and I found it as an option on LiveMocha. But I can't figure out how it works. When I signed up, it looks like you have a certain amount of "currency" to spend. I don't want to invest in it unless I know how much it is going to cost us in the long run, but I can't find anything definitive on the web site. Does anyone have any experience with LiveMocha?

My dd8 loved, loved, loved Wheel on the School. Maybe it is boy thing. The Family Under the Bridge is actually in my library bag as our next read-aloud! I will look for the other. Thanks!

I recently found a book called Wheel on the School by Meindert DeJong, which I have never seen mentioned before in these types of threads. It is about a school in a little Dutch village that decides to find a way to get the storks to come to their village. It is such a wonderful book with really deep characters and beautiful themes of overcoming weakness, battling prejudice, and working together. And there is also lots of science--storks, dikes, weather, etc. We also just finished the book The House of Sixty Fathers by the same author, and it was also wonderful. It does deal with the tragedies of war, though, so I wouldn't recommend it for sensitive children.

Coming from a mom that is totally not hands-on, yes I would. I have a dd8 who loves the hands-on stuff. But I just can't do it. Hands-on stuff terrifies me, because it is so foreign to me. I have a dh that does that for dd, but if I had a the chance to send her somewhere for it, yes, I would.

I completely and totally disagree with this on both counts. When I did FIAR with my oldest, I spent about 3 minutes per day to prep. I just scanned my options and picked whatever was easiest. (Occasionally, I would do something extra if I thought dd would really love it.) I added math and reading, and that was it. It was more than enough for K. I have never quite understood the need to add to it at that age. My ds is in K right now, and he is not tagging along with SOTW, because dd8 is doing TOG. Every day he turns on the computer on his own while the rest of us are busy and decides what stories he wants to listen to. We don't do the AG, just the audio CD's. We have a huge world map on our wall, and he knows where all the stories are taking place. He pretends the stories all the time. I get books from the library related to what he has been listening to, and he spends a lot of time with them. It is perfect for him, and easy for me. People are amazed at what he knows. You have to know your child. What does not work for one may be perfect for another.

For my dd, FIAR was a wonderful precursor to SOTW. It provided her with some basic geography and history that became a backdrop for our history studies. FIAR was a complete flop for my ds, though. He just never cared about being read to (especially not the same book every day), nor did he care about the activities. He did them because it was on the schedule, but he got nothing out of them. However, by the time he was a K'er, we were heavily into SOTW, and he spent a lot of time listening to the audio CD's on his own. So I would say it really depends on what kind of kid you have.

This is the very first thing that our speech therapist trained us to do. The worst thing you can do is to correct your child or make them repeat something correctly. Our role was to model the correct sentence without pointing out that it was wrong or making the child say it right.

Regardless of what speech errors she is making, the fact that she is not intelligible should make her eligible for speech services. Have her officially evaluated so that you can get services for her ASAP. The longer she is making those errors, the harder it will be to fix.