@PeterPan Thank you sooo much for all of this. We have done zero testing; I had to Google most of the acronyms you included to even figure out what you were referring to, haha. My initial thought is "no, there's nothing majorly wrong with her, and she doesn't need testing." But obviously my instincts aren't that good if I missed probable dyslexia for so many years. Actually her teacher this year said that she noticed a huge improvement in her spelling when she moved my daughter closer to the board. Their school has very tiny classrooms, so its possible there's a basic vision issue that's also been flying under the radar. I didn't even know that "visual memory" was a thing, but it does ring a lot of bells. My eldest son is an excellent speller despite me never really teaching it, and its because he is incredibly visual (to a fault). He can just see the words, whereas obviously my daughter can't. Last year in 4th grade they were doing just a simple spelling list per week, and she would literally get every word wrong, no matter how many times she would write it. I would even just have her focus on 5 words instead of 20, writing them over and over and over, and she would still get most of the 5 wrong.
Kinda rambling, sorry. All that to say, I think you are right that I need pursing testing. Even if it all comes back negative, I need to rule it out so I'm not always wondering. I feel a peace about going forward with that now. She'll be in private school through the end of the year, so we can try to get all our ducks in a row before starting homeschool and probably Barton in the fall.
So did you stop all language arts when you did it? Did you continue learning through audio books or something else?
She has enjoyed writing for fun in the past. Obviously she doesn't like writing for school, but I imagine most kids would say that. I found a 2 page story she wrote last year, on her own initiative. The handwriting is better than it is now, but the spelling makes it hard to understand. Practice=Pakt's brother=duthr trophy=chrofe I asked her today if she likes writing and she said "well I would if anyone could read what I wrote! Even I can't read it." But she does do quite a bit of writing at school. Essay paragraphs, answers in complete sentences. Her teacher said that if she can sound it out and tell what my daugher meant, she counts it correct even if the spelling is mostly wrong.
My plan was almost exactly what you said: get levels 3-4 with 2 sets of extra tiles for resale benefit, and then switch to the app when the words get longer. My husband has said he doesn't care about the cost, but that we need to go ALL IN on something and really make a strong push to get her skills to a workable place.
Thanks again. I've been reading through tons of old posts regarding Barton and dyslexia. Reading through bits and pieces of your journey has been super helpful.