Hi all, What are some other online homeschool forums you have found? This by far seems to be the most comprehensive and fun, but just wondering if there are any other forums out there I am missing out on :)

Thanks for your input! I am not sure how well she decodes nonsense words, that is not something we have tried. The Barton assessments include a lot of nonsense words, so I think I will be able to gain more insight once I give DD those tests. A school psychologist administered DD's test at the beginning of the school year, and the psychologist diagnosed the SLD in fluency. I do suspect DD has dyslexia despite what the psychologist said.

As previous posters have mentioned, this is going to vary a lot among professors. I am also an adjunct at a community college, and I post all grades electronically with comments and feedback. I never hand students anything physically back to them because everything they submit is online. Still, I have everything posted with grades and comments within a week. At our college, if a student has a failing grade in the middle of the semester, we are required to report it. The student’s advisor then contacts the student about their options. I am a firm believer in teacher ratings/evaluations. As an instructor I look at them closely. If a student has constructive feedback about how the class is run, I will definitely take it into consideration. As teachers we are there to make the classes better for the students. I think most (good) teachers will take constructive criticism to heart.

My DD8 struggles with reading but has made great strides this school year. We had her tested in the beginning of the year for dyslexia. The tests showed that she did not have dyslexia, but an SLD in reading fluency. She is a great decoder and reads well, but she is very slow. We have been working on fluency through repeated and timed readings, and drilling common phrases. She reads at a good rate once she has read a text more than once. When she does a “cold read†however it is still painfully slow. Is this just always to be expected? Will using Barton help me address her fluency issues? I have been looking at Barton materials for awhile. Since we use another Orton-Gillingham program, Susan Barton emailed us their placement tests. While I have not yet given her the tests, I believe she would place around Barton Level 3. Do you have any suggestions in addition to what I have been doing in order to address the fluency issue? Will using Barton help with these issues?

Reading/Phonics: AAR 2, ETC 4 and 5, and I See Sam Readers Handwriting: Zaner Bloser 1 Math: Continue Right Start B and move onto C History: SOTW 2 with older sister Science: Probably Nancy Larson Science 1 with older sibling, but looking into Mystery Science Grammar: Copywork from various readalouds Music: Piano Lessons Lots and lots of readalouds and audiobooks. Co-op classes: Art, Sewing, Chorus, Astronomy and Legos

I love Goodreads! I use it to track the books that my kids read, as well as to add books that they may want to read in the future. It also gives you book recommendations based on what you've read (like Amazon does when you purchase products). My kids are on the young side, so I am not sure if an older child would like interacting with it

Yes! I have been waiting for this! :hurray:

I agree with the previous posters. K'ers should not be expected to know how to read before K. Yes, there will be some kids in Kindergarten that can read, but many will not. At that age, kids are going to be all over the place in their reading ability. My mother has been a Kindergarten teacher for many years, and the beginning of the year is difficult with assessing everyone. Some know their letters, others do not, and some are already reading. If your daughter is already reading 3 letter words and she is 4, she sounds like she is doing just fine :) As previous poster said, Progressive Phonics is a good program and is free. If that is not a good fit, there are MANY phonics programs out there, and you can ask and scour the boards for advice on that. Good luck!

I actually work at a college in TN and we have accepted students from both Daniel I and Homelife Academy. The only major difference between going with certain umbrellas vs a private school umbrella is when dealing with the Hope scholarship. The Hope scholarship requires a 21 ACT OR 3.0 GPA for students in public/private brick and mortar schools. For independent homeschoolers, and those under certain umbrellas, it is a 21 ACT AND a 3.0 GPA. Berean Christian here in East TN is a popular umbrella that is linked to a "real" school, and those students fall under the OR category. That is the only difference! All of these options are considered real high school diplomas and colleges will recognize them as a real diploma. Of course you have quite some time until you have to worry about that, but still don't let anyone bully you out of homeschooling. We currently use Homelife Academy, and as previous posters have said, you just have to enter grades once a semester, report attendance, and they leave you alone. If you need/want more guidance, a private school umbrella may provide that, and also local co-ops.

Just echoing what others have already stated, do what works for you. For us, this may vary year to year depending on what we have going on. We take vacations when we want, (which is usually during the off season so we can take advantage of less crowds). We take a break in the summer, but it is shorter than your traditional summer break. We also try to do reading practice whenever we are on break, My kids are still building fluency so I think it's important to keep that up. And yes, definitely count your trip to Europe as school! :)

I have a free subscription as well, but still have not used it. Your post has inspired me to give it another look! :laugh:

In full disclosure, I currently use Horizons as a supplement to RightStart. I have used Horizons in the past as a standalone. I have never used Saxon so I cannot compare the two, but I have found Horizons easy to use. I only use the workbooks, not the teacher's manual, and have not found the need for it. I would imagine that it is necessary in the higher levels, but K-3 is pretty self-explanatory. From looking at Saxon samples in the past, Horizons is definitely a lot more colorful, but spiral in nature like Saxon. It is all worksheet based, and I simply introduce the concept, and then hand the worksheet off to my child. Hopefully someone with experience with Saxon will chime in and give you a better comparison.

Nim's Island is a book that features a homeschooler as the main character. It is next on my readaloud list, but I have heard great things about it.

All About Reading 3 All About Spelling 2 I See Sam Readers Set 6, 7 Explode the Code 7 and 8 One Minute Reader App Finish up Rightstart C and move onto D supplemented with Horizons Story of the World 2 Zaner Bloser Grade 3 Cursive Nancy Larson Science *My 3rd grader is a struggling reader, hence all the reading reinforcement. We also do a TON of readalouds and audiobooks. I am hoping to choose a couple of books and dig into them really deeply ala Adam Andrews/Teaching the Classics style.

Do you co-op or not? Yes, we co-op, although it took us several years to find a co-op that is a pretty good fit for us. My children are only 8 and almost 6, so for me at this point, the purpose of the co-op is to meet friends, and do "messier" projects I would rather not do at home (science projects, certain art projects, etc.) Another reason I co-op is to give me a break in the middle of the week, there I said it. We also started a homeschool support group, which is another alternative to co-op if the only reason you want to co-op is for socialization. Do you teach? No, but I already teach part-time so I don't want to add anything more to my plate. Do you one co-op or more? Just one, but we have done two. When both my husband and I were working, we needed it more for childcare so we could go to work.