FairProspects
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Posts posted by FairProspects
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4 hours ago, 3andme said:
While Human Geography has a reputation as an easy AP, only 13% of the students get a 5. It is easier in that it is equivalent to a one semester course in college vs. some AP's such as the sciences or Calculus which can be equivalent to two semesters of college work. If your student is interested, I would definitely take the exam. My ds took the AP Human Geography course and in researching AP credit for potential colleges, I have found the majority of selective private and public colleges do give credit for this exam. If you are looking at Ivies and top 20 that may be a different story as they tend to be more strict in AP credit overall including required scores. If you have target colleges in mind, just google the college name and ap credit to see their policies.
If you don't mind sharing your geographic area, perhaps someone on the boards might be able to help more specifically.
His dream school is Embry Riddle, which looks like it gives 3 elective credits for a 3,4, or 5. That may or may not be worth his time. I'll have to talk with him about how interested he is in the topic and whether he wants to put the time in studying for it or focus on some competitive choir opportunities and actually building & flying a plane through a teen aeronautics program instead.
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4 minutes ago, 8FillTheHeart said:
It is frustrating, but to put a positive spin on your situation, the human geography course earns credit at very few schools. If your syllabus was approved by CB, you can still keep the designation on the transcript even if she doesn't take the exam.
Really? I was about to start planning this course for older ds to take next year. He has a spatial strength and interest in geography, although he is ultimately more STEM focused. Would this course not be worth his time? It would be a huge amount of time and effort for him, but I thought it also might be a way to show a strength in humanities that is not otherwise as apparent. If it won't be accepted or won't matter much to earn credit, he may be better off spending his time on foreign language or additional science work.
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On 12/21/2018 at 7:40 PM, madteaparty said:
I think it’s just you and I that share this view. Bizarre.
You people are my people. I feel exactly this sentiment and just as Roadrunner expressed about MCT - grammar, vocab, and all.
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Outside of teaching, does GPA matter for jobs at all? My dh is an undiagnosed dyslexic and did poorly in several reading heavy classes at the end of his college career. It has not made one iota of difference for his career, and this is including the one class he passed with a D- or a 0.7. All that mattered was that he passed the requirements to get the degree. I can't speak to the other concerns and if there financial reasons, that does change the picture a bit, but poor EF skills and grades are not a reason I would consider pulling an adult out of their current situation.
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For the closest WA equivalent to your Ocean Grove, look at Columbia Virtual Academy or OASIS through the Orcas Island school district. Those both have fewer dollar amounts per student that what you may be used to, but are more similar in structure to what you are describing. WA ALEs do face significant laws limiting them, so you'll have to determine if their approved curriculum lists meet your needs or not.
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34 minutes ago, Roadrunner said:
But if everybody’s score was lower, then wouldn’t the threshold be lower?
The threshold is only lower for the kids who tested on the alternate date. The students who tested on the original scheduled date did not face the harsh curve since they took a completely different test with a different curve. It is beyond unfair.
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7 hours ago, madteaparty said:
You know, you can’t really go by this. One of the many surprises to me of 2018 is that for whatever reason, most people, including highly educated ones, don’t actually care that much. They went to the local public all the way and turned out fine, you see...
This is so true and exactly what happened at our private school as well. People just wanted to throw money at experts to educate their children. They didn't really care about the details of educational philosophy or child development, as long as the sports teams won, the arts programs came home with distinguished awards, and kids achieved good grades & top scores. If the school got to be too much of a bother on their time with the educational details, they would just switch to one of the other prestigious private schools who would take care of more of the tasks for them.
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I'm in this exact situation right now and it is HARD. He is home this year for 6th and does not like it. I have considered changing course at least half a dozen times already this year. I'm not sure what the right answer is. I wish some of these private schools wouldn't also follow the educational trends. It's really frustrating.
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I agree that she more than likely has the skills she needs for high school writing. However, if I get to that place of burnout that you are describing, I have this resource bookmarked for future reference. It is more like a customized writing tutor and he can work month-to-month.
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If you can go without an answer key, I really like MCT Practice Island for this purpose. MCT does not teach diagramming; it teaches parsing, but I think that parsing is a helpful pre-diagramming activity. Once the sentence is parsed, I have my boys diagram it in the margin below. PI does not have an answer key for diagramming, like I said, so you will need to be able to identify any errors in diagramming yourself, but usually IMHE, having the parsing above allows you to do this fairly easily and quickly. Also, the MCT Practice Island sentences are generally simple, which makes it easy to see repetition errors based on misunderstandings and correct them at a foundational level.
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All About Spelling for a dyslexic. Definitely. It's OG based, which is considered the gold standard for dyslexia. Unless you have some additional information from a neuropsych or educational therapist that indicates a specific reason why OG would not be the best fit for your particular dyslexics, I'd recommend AAS.
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On 11/10/2018 at 12:55 PM, mom31257 said:
I am using it with two co-op classes, but I can't imagine getting a lot of benefit from it at home.
I use Evernote to make weekly assignment lists that ds can check off as he goes. I can input links where needed. It can be accessed from my computer and the laptop he uses. The free version only allows 2 devices, though.
I find it incredibly useful at home. But I have two dysgraphics and they type all of their school work. With Google Classroom I can upload their science tests from their outside teacher, and they can type the responses right into the document. I can also upload anything I want them to read or complete for history and English. I use it daily in our homeschool, so I think it just depends on your teaching style. It has allowed my boys to be far more productive and work on grade level without their handwriting issues getting in the way.
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Kami has been the best for us. It plugs into Google docs on desktop and is all my younger ds uses for his work. You do have to speak punctuation and he has to go back and capitalize by hand, but that might be just him in not figuring out the right code to tell it yet.
I should probably add that we like Kami because it allows speech to text on PDFs as well. I can upload any worksheets I want the boys to complete into Google Classroom, and they can use speech to text to complete them. The conversion features of Kami (Word to PDF within program) and the ability to use speech to text on PDFs, make it worth the fees to me.
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13 minutes ago, PeterPan said:
Since you (op) know it's a disability area (even if it rocks for other kids), my two cents, having slogged through it with dd, is to wait until her last year or two of high school to give her the MOST TIME to be mature, have her study skills in place, etc.
And I guess I would say we prefer the opposite approach. Sure, I think it is wise to have the study skills in place or scaffold them like crazy for kids who need help with executive function, but from my perspective, if something required is going to take oodles of time and effort, I'd rather have my kids do that in grades 8-10. This way, by the time they are sick of the effort and burning out on it, you can drop the foreign language and focus much more time on areas of interest and strengths. I just think that creates more motivation knowing you will have loads of time freed up to do something you love, but maybe that's just my planning for ds. I dropped math my senior year and the relief for me to take extra performing arts credits was incredibly motivating. Plus, it seems like there are so many time intensive activities and options as high school ramps up towards graduation.
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So my oldest 2E dyslexic has always been super interested in foreign language and linguistics. I mostly put off foreign language with him though because I wanted to strengthen his English skills (grammar, spelling, vocabulary, etc.) as the main priority. We did a bit of Latin & Latin roots for fun in elementary, but once he went to private school, I opted him out of their foreign language component for two years. This year, 8th grade, he told me he really wanted to take German. We discussed that it would likely be more work for him than the average student and that he would have to keep up with high school level pacing (slow processing speed can really bog him down depending on topic). He said he was interested enough to put in all the work and extra time so I enrolled him in WTMA German 1.
He has a 96%!! I have done virtually nothing with him on this class other than make sure he writes the due dates in his planner. I haven't informed the instructor that he is dyslexic, and the workload has not been an issue for him. He says it is his favorite class this year. He did say that ALL the grammar I drilled into him over the years has been invaluable for German and he is grateful we did so much grammar and skill work early on, even though it was challenging for him.
All to say, I would do exactly what I have done all over again if I could. I would wait on foreign language, strengthen the English weaknesses, and start a foreign language of interest around 8th grade or early high school. I may even go the Latin or ASL route with my 2nd, depending on his interest. Interest in the topic is so important and can make up for a lot of weaknesses, but I definitely wouldn't stress about foreign language and dyslexia. English is THE priority.
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Haha, that's hilarious. No, my kids are not capable of working independently. My 14 y.o. can maintain some independent practice for a short period of time *after* he has had direct instruction, examples, and teaching, but my 11 (12 next week) y.o. cannot do ANYTHING without me at his elbow. Both are 2E and have some executive function issues though.
I'm also a super involved teacher though. I'm often grading one kid's work while another kid is completing some kind of assignment. We do literature, analysis, and history work all together talking it through, and then the boys usually have to write something. They need my most direct attention during any kind of writing assignment.
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So maybe you do enroll him in school? I enrolled my oldest at 11. We were not getting along and I couldn't deal with it anymore. It was fine. It didn't stop the developmental behavior (which eventually he grew out of anyway) but he is a heck of a lot more grateful to be homeschooling now. And he did have some wonderful social experiences. I'm not saying it's a perfect solution, but I don't think I would have done anything differently.
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1 hour ago, Ktgrok said:
Hormones.
People joke about girls and their hormones, but boys are just as bad. Make sure he gets enough sleep, enough outside time, and enough food. Way more calories than you probably think he needs. More sleep, too, actually. And quiet time.
Seriously, think of how you were as a tween girl, all hormonal and angsty (or was that just me? I was a miserable PIA). He's going through the same. Or think of how you feel when you have PMS and hate the whole world. That's how he feels.
Susan Wise Bauer reccomends shower, nap, and sandwich as the options to offer when they are being miserable. Or all three. I'm finding it also works with my 6 yr old who is having a growth spurt, actually.
Also, TRY to back off the discipline a bit. It seems counter intuitive, but right now focus on your relationship. find things to praise. He probably feels badly about himself, so find ways to build him up. Do chores together right now, instead of sending him off to do them, if that helps. Find things to do to have fun together. Find ways to laugh together. It will help.
Yup, this. For both my boys 11ish has been the worst so far. My 14 is downright normal and a joy compared to my 11 y.o. most days. I think this 10-11 stage has been the most emotional so far for my family.
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I use Google Classroom constantly for homeschooling, but not for lesson planning. I use it to create a paperless homeschool (or close). We also use it to get around dysgraphia and to allow typing on PDF work. How are you using it for planning? I like Planbook for that personally.
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The Handel's Messiah Family Advent Reader is my favorite for this purpose. Someone mentioned it on this board a few years ago, which prompted me to buy it. I'm so glad I did because we all love it.
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Looks like you already found some, but Sorel is awesome. Their boots are so well made and grip well. They last forever too.
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He didn't get a dysgraphia diagnosis along with the dyslexia? What you are describing sounds a lot like red flags for dysgraphia and it often accompanies dyslexia. One of the best things we ever did was Read, Write, Type. It is a typing program that reinforces the phonics from an OG program while getting you around the hang up of dysgraphia. You can buy online licenses for a period of time.
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This is essentially what we are doing this year. It's hard to completely describe because I'm a secondary history and English teacher, so honestly, I'm just teaching it. Some of the books we are using are:
Textbooks - Human Odyssey Vol. 3, SOTW 4, DBQ project mini-Qs in World History vol. 3
Novels/autobiographies/plays - The War Horse, The Diary of Anne Frank (both play and diary versions), The Devil's Arithmetic, Hitler's Canary, Under a War Torn Sky, Code Talker, Farewell to Manzanar, Year of the Impossible Goodbyes, The House of Sixty Fathers, and I'm debating The Book Thief.
With an advanced, less sensitive student, you could potentially also use Night or The Boy in the Striped Pajamas.
The Great War YouTube channel is awesome.
Look for some of Lori D.'s posts - she has very comprehensive lists of resources on these topics.
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1 hour ago, summerreading said:
Good to know. I think we will give a try. So each book has several narrators? Do you find that distracting at all?
I just asked ds and he said that for novels Learning Ally almost always has the same reader for the entire book. He did say that for textbooks, like his science book, the readers switch, but it doesn't bother him at all and he has come to expect it to be random. This is coming from a kid who hates the digital voices though. He'd really rather have any human reader, but he says it isn't distracting.
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Talk to me about lab reports
in High School and Self-Education Board
Posted
At what level should students be completing lab reports? How many lab reports per semester or year are appropriate for high school science lab credit? I have a STEM oriented student who will be beginning 9th grade next year, so it matters to me that he is well prepared for college science. I never took lab science at the collegiate level, so other than what I took in high school I have no frame of reference. During my education, we started lab reports in 7th grade and wrote them throughout Earth Science, Physical Science, Biology, Chemistry, and Physics, but I don't remember how many or any of that. I'm assuming lab reports are still critical for college level science, yes? He has not yet written lab reports outside of science fair projects completed in both elementary and middle school years. Ds is ultimately not looking to consider Ivy League schools, but hopefully top state schools or honors programs, and some fairly competitive private schools. Can you all help me guide him through this? He will be in Geometry next year for math (private math teacher) and probably taking Biology of some kind.