Thanks! And you don't think starting in the middle would be a problem? I thought about buying A just to be able to go through things more slowly if necessary. But they're not exactly cheap- I'd rather not unless it's likely to be a necessary step to catch up.

Any thoughts on starting a first grader on RightStart B when he hasn't done A? He's fairly but not crazy strong in math (in the advanced math group in his public school, but not ahead grade levels or anything). And he had the good fortune of being in a public school that offered Singapore math, which I know focuses on mental math. He's still not as strong in this area though as I'd like. He is comfortable with the number line, and with addition and subtraction- but he brute forces it each time, counting each number up or down. If you were to ask him 30 minus 10, he would sometimes count down by ones, and he would definitely do that every time you asked him 30-9. His subitizing skills aren't very strong. And I think he'd benefit from manipulatives and a real focus on the power of 5s and 10s in calculation. But he likes math now, Singapore math is pretty rigorous and isn't *not* working for him- there will be curricular continuity when/if he does return to school. I could just get the next set of Singapore math books to work through at home. Thoughts? Other suggestions?

My kiddo really likes to write stories now. He's 5, and going into K (but with a December birthday, will be one of the oldest of his class). Attached is an example of his writing. Our school system is going almost entirely remote next year, and (like many I'm guessing) I'm being thrown into this home schooling thing a little unexpectedly. From my uneducated eye, his penmanship is great, I love the stories, the structure, the fact that he's telling the world we only make cookies from store bought packages. Heh. His spelling is totally off, but phonetic, which seems age appropriate. I think what I'd like is just something to keep him loving writing and telling stories. Maybe a collection of fun prompts? Then get some lined paper? Or should I be bringing in more spelling/handwriting work? Should I be doing it in sync with whatever reading program we end up using? Ideas would be good here. Writing and math are areas where he has a lot of enthusiasm and is able to self-start. So I'm afraid of killing the joy and turning learning into more of a chore. In case it matters, this was done a few weeks ago with no adult help apart from the suggestion that he use first, next and last in three sentences. He decided to write a recipe book.

Homeschooling isn't an option. I'm a single mom who works full time. My job is remote and flexible, except for one day per week, so that helps a lot- normally I only work about 3/4 hours during the day while he's in part-day preschool, then the rest when he's in bed (was going to change that once he's in school for a full day). But fitting in home school and work and various life tasks still seems daunting, and it'd also be problematic financially/engagement-wise to figure out something for the three hours per day and one day per week I need to work. He's not a kid who can self-entertain for a block of three hours, unless we were to buy a tv and I park him in front of it, which I don't want to do. There's a well-rated combination public school/home school program that I've looked into. Test scores are phenomenal- something like 97% proficient or better. And parents have to do either 80% of the teaching or 20%. I could do 20%. But there are no extracurriculars and very limited recess in order to have limited school hours. That would be setting up my kiddo to fail/require a lot of extracurricular/social supplementation, which I probably couldn't manage on top of work/20% teaching. He also really thrives/shines around his peers, who appreciate the one-man show a lot more than his teachers at this stage. So I'm not looking to have to struggle to find socialization outlets.

I'm a little all-over-the-place when it comes to my son, and while we still have a year until kindergarten, I'd love some level-headed, not his-mom biased thoughts about steps I should take to make sure my kiddo has the smoothest possible transition, academically, socially and with his teachers next year. He's a very bright kid. I don't know if "normal bright" or "extra" largely because his background throws my reference points for a loop. I adopted him from foster care, and he joined my home when he was 2, nonverbal and with failure to thrive diagnosis. I fully expected him to have significant, probably lifelong cognitive and developmental challenges, but this amazing little boy has blown me away at every step of the way. Within a year he had caught up to peers in English, and his vocab, grammar, punctuation- it's his strongest area, and he's now ahead of most kids his age. He also knows how to read at about a third grade level, but that's because we've been working on it, and he's interested. Not the same interest in numbers- he can identify 1-5, count 40-50ish before mistakes, and seems to understand one-to-one counting up to about ten or so. We do "subtraction or addition" on our fingers or with items without calling it that and he follows well. Frankly, I probably wouldn't have focused so much on teaching academic skills if his first two preschools hadn't been such a poor match. Both refused to continue having him in the class unless he was medicated for ADHD. I have nothing against mental health diagnoses- I have ADHD myself and being diagnosed and medicated as an adult was game changing. But he's a baby, and he was exposed to trauma and has anxiety- both of which can result in ADHD like systems. His pediatrician is on board with waiting. He's not violent or mean, just flitty. Anything we do learn is in two minute increments, he really just can't sit still, and volume control and being too rough with toys are things we've addressed ad nauseum. Some of this is age appropriate, and I'm glad that because of our district cut off he'll be one of the older kindergartners when he starts next year (December birthday). I'm hoping some added maturity helps things. For now, he's in a great, truly nurturing outdoor preschool that's delightfully hippy-dippy, non-academic, and fits him perfectly. It's the kind of preschool I'd normally want my kids in, I just wouldn't be supplementing the academic parts on the side. But while I know this sounds a little nuts, I've wanted him to get to kindergarten so strong that he stands out as the "smart kid" before he's written off as the disruptive one. It broke my heart when he came home one day and told me that he and another boy were the bad kids (as a three year old). I absolutely don't want this to be an identity that others give him and he accepts. Is that nuts? Should I just chill? Or are there specific things you would make sure he has down before he goes? Like I'm pretty sure we could move onto more formalized addition/subtraction. I just don't know if there's any value to that. And what about school options for next year? His current school stops after this year. On the table is the "best" Montessori- private. Looks amazing, and friends have their kids there, and I got a good vibe, but I don't have any personal experience and the last two fails were Montessoris. The plus would be more flexibility and a lot more outdoor time- comfortable saying the general standard of teacher is better, and his classmates are likely to be good students with parents invested in school. The downside may actually be that flexibility- I'm not sure he'd learn all that much unless "self-directed" gets a lot of assistance. It also would take away all money for basically anything else, including extracurriculars. The other options would be a good public school or a good dual language (English/Spanish) public school. My son's Hispanic, and it's important to me that he feel comfortable and be able to speak it as an adult. But not at the expense of making school too hard. His facility with English makes me think he'd pick up the language quickly, but it'd definitely increase the stress levels. I know that's a lot of questions/issues and a lot of word vomit. I just love this kid, and want everything to be as smooth as possible for him next year. But I get bogged down in all the complications/details. So would appreciate thoughts on all or any part of the issues I've brought up.

Thanks, Karen. That's exactly how I interpreted your statements. And I sympathize very much with your honoring your daughter as a learner. My son is obsessed with reading. It's not pressure that's coming from me. As mentioned, I didn't learn to read until in school, and did just fine. But he wakes up every morning and the first thing he asks is " can we do another reading lesson?" Three weeks in, my options for addressing it are a) struggle through my fumbling and figure out a way to teach him that works for him b) redirect him, and tell him reading is for when he's older but we can do "x" if he's truly not ready. I'm open to b being the case, but I saw some signs that there was probably more I could try, and I also want to respect his passion- learning's so much easier when you're motivated. It's why I don't care that he still has no motivation to write, or draw representationally, why it's fine with me that he has no special interest in learning numbers or manipulating them. There's so much time, and why fight upstream? But it's also why when he became enamored of dinosaurs and sharks, I supported it, checked out the books and bought museum passes, and now he's *that* kid, who can identify more than 50 dinosaurs and 30 sharks by name and tell you all about them. He doesn't even know all his letters yet, but I'm sure he'll get there, because I see the same light. If I stopped trying to teach him how to read, he'd be disappointed. We, neither of us, may be ready, but I hope so, and am not ready to throw in the towel yet. Doesn't mean I have any idea about what I'm doing. He's my first, and I'm no teacher, so I'm really glad I stumbled onto this forum :)

Thanks so much for all the suggestions. I'll take them to heart and appreciate knowing about so many different blending-specific games and additional practice. What was confusing me is that he seemed to have so many blending skills- easily doing the "rhyme mmmmm with at" without a problem, etc. Someone above suggested just focusing on the first blend and covering up the rest of the word, and another poster suggested using a different phonics program that spent more time on two-letter blends. That was totally it! I realized the rhyming is actually just one blend at a time, while most of the words jump to two, and today we did a reading lesson and I covered up the second half of the word, and had him blend the first part first, before adding on the second blend separately. And it totally clicked, and he did amazingly. He would occasionally say the sounds with a pause, but could then go in and self-correct to blend them. So gratifying (for both of us :) I think we'll probably continue with this amount of scaffolding at the moment. Hopefully with more practice in breaking the word down, he'll slowly become more confident about doing it more than once per word. But again, so appreciate the other resources for if we get stuck. And thanks for pointing out something obvious, that wasn't remotely obvious to me...

Thanks. My hesitation with readers was worrying that he'd learn things as sight words instead of phonics. Is that something to be concerned about? I learned to read with whole language and it was fine, but I know that's not the case for a lot of other kids, and would hate to set him down the wrong path.

I have a 3.5 year old, and I'm not remotely anxious for him to learn to read. But he is. He's showing lots of signs of readiness- asking what every sign says, pointing and sounding out words he sees (whether rightly or wrongly), very comfortable with rhyming and figuring out words that start with the same sound. And he just really wants to do it. He's super-motivated and asks for his reading lessons all the time. But when they actually start? Another story. He's super fidgety and we can rarely get through a whole lesson- needing to break it up a few times per day. Certain parts are really easy for him. He didn't know many of his phonics before, but has quickly learned those that have come up, and even asks about others to learn them. He does the say it slow/fast well, easily recognizes words said slowly, and aces the rhyming part, which is basically just blending with half the word missing. But we're on lesson 20, and when it comes to reading actual words it's still very hit or miss. He almost never blends until I model it for him after he struggles with it. He says each sound in isolation- so he can't recognize the full word, or he'll guess based on the first sound of the word, or recognize the "at" in "that" and just call it "at" or "rat." Basically, lots of different kinds of errors that I think stem from not blending. Often he gets overwhelmed and just guesses completely randomly. While he continues to ask to do reading lessons, there's often a lot of frustration within one. No tears yet, but some "I can'ts" and "This is too hards" and "I'll never learn to reads." I'm not really sure what to do here, and I've never taught anyone to read before, so I don't know what's typical. Should I just give up for now? He really is so enthusiastic and wants to be a reader, but I don't want to mess with that enthusiasm by continually ramping up lessons he already finds over-challenging. Should I just continue going through and it will click? Go back to an earlier lesson and start from there? Is there helpful blending-specific practice anyone could point me to? Or is there a better reading program for his age/strengths? Reading is such a powerful thing, and I love that it's one of our favorite things to do together. I separately also adore reading. So I feel really nervous about wrecking this- really? I didn't read till school, and I'm totally fine with just backing off until he's older/taught by people who know what they're doing if that's the way to go :)