Honestly, it is the first tablet we have had and we don't use it for much except Barton so maybe I just haven't noticed an issue with the touchscreen otherwise. We quickly learned to have one finger on the screen at a time and it's funny because sometimes it works perfectly and other times it seems to be going nuts. I will check for updates just in case though.

Cream Cheese! A little cream cheese melted into tomato soup is the bomb but I don't know how it would be after you added all the other stuff.

I'm not sure if it is because of buggy software or something is wrong with my touch screen but the tiles jump across the screen. My son will try to add a letter to the end of the word and it will jump clear across the screen beyond the front of the word. I've restarted my tablet and I've cleaned the screen but sometimes it just doesn't help and it adds frustration to an already difficult subject. Does anyone else have this problem? If you do what do you run the app on, android or apple? I will probably still do lessons on the app but I need to magnetize all my old wood tiles so we can keep them on a magnetic whiteboard instead for when my child needs to practice spelling. :/

Love it. Sadly, my son has a strange inability to bs which you would think would be a good thing but no not really. It seems to be a requirement.

It definitely helps knowing they are most likely going to add a class. Thanks for the info.

I love the idea of three days a week but the only school that I see that goes beyond German 2 is Potter's School. My daughter is also looking at German but as she will be a freshman next year she has the option to get to German 4. Am I missing somewhere?

As DS and I look at colleges we are seeing foreign language requirements for a BS degree. He was hoping to take the Latin SAT and be done with foreign language. He wants to focus on science and math but if he is taking a language he has to keep on it year round or it all goes away. He is terrible at it and it is a time hog if he is to make progress at all or even just not regress. He would really like those hours in his day to be used on something else. I suppose we could not worry about it and he could start over at level 1 in Latin or a romance language and he would at least be able to keep up with his studies because he has 4 years worth of Latin background. My question is, do most colleges require foreign language for a BS or is it just the ones we have checked out?

So glad you are feeling better and your husband is being so supportive. I know that its not like a day off solved everything but I have one with dyslexia too and it is harder to help them be more independent. I actually had to go back and erase half my post because I'd somehow missed that. One more thought and I'm sorry if I missed it in the thread but could your husband work with the 14 year old on deciding on helpful chores. He probably doesn't have the time and energy to check them but if they aren't getting done you could mention it to him and he could deal with it. You already have to deal with the two year old who needs someone present all the time and that will drain you fast and you mentioned that your relationship is such that you can't ask much of your daughter. My 14 year old daughter gets along better with her father than me so I understand that. We love each other and share a lot but things can go sour and sometimes its nice to let him deal with something.

Things didn't turn out how I expected and honestly, you need your husband's help. I want to be mad at him for you but I don't know, maybe you supported him in this decision. Now he needs your help and you need his and you're both too busy. It is too late now probably or maybe it isn't? I don't know if he would have a job available with his skills that came with a weekly paycheck and sick days where he could spend some time helping you! It is so much easier to be an employee than start a business and giving you a few more years so that two year old can take care of herself and has had more mom time to train or just snuggle would make a huge difference. Every single one of your children would be that much more independent in 3-4 years barring health issues or special needs. But no matter what the circumstances are you have to be the one to make a decision about what you will do with your 24 hours. I know I don't get to do things like I originally planned. Not at all, but I know I must choose what I will do and how much margin I do have now. I have to make the most of where I'm at now. (((hugs)))

I'm not sure if it is the reading or the spelling that is the problem. If it is the spelling I would continue on with the program and just spell the words for your student. You will find that many of the words can be spelled phonetically later in the program. Also, if your son is an auditory learner we just say the word funny (how it's spelled) etc. I don't mean I say it when I'm dictating but I teach him to say it to himself. So he hears me pronounce Wednesday regularly but he pronounces it to himself "Wed-nes-day". He may have a semi poor memory for poems or other audible things but his visual memory doesn't seem to exist at all. I know there must be some ability there but it doesn't feel like it. My son had the hardest time with sight words and Barton's method didn't last long. He has very poor recall but loses attention if not actively engaged. Yes, technically having them picture the word is "actively engaged" but explain that to an energetic quick thinking young boy. He would sometimes manage the letters but almost never with the correct order for spelling and usually ended up thinking about something else after word one or 1/2 way through word one. Obviously if the letters are all out of order he wasn't visualizing much. Forgive me if I'm remembering the process wrong. We didn't do it long before moving to more suitable (for him) methods. Sight Word mountain is fun if you have stairs and he is young. A teen would find it offensive though. :) Put flash cards on stairs (one per step) he would read the cards until he got one wrong which would cause him to roll/slide down which he loved of course. The goal was to get to the top of the stairs of course before quitting. I strategically placed the harder or newer cards near the bottom so even after he got them he often got another chance and another and another. ;) Plus, he got to use his energy up mid-reading. You may want to do this last if your child gets wound up though. For someone older you can do the one minute reads. You would have to make your own sheet. I would type randomly the words he is working on; repeating them multiple times and then just cut and paste large sections so you don't have to type so much. So you have a whole sheet of the same words repeated. Then see how many he can read correctly in one minute. This worked well for my son. They were super repetitive and he had to be corrected right when he said the word wrong and look at and repeat it which of course took up his time. It was over and over but more fast paced and it felt more fun and didn't give him the impression that he was stupid because he kept getting a few little flash cards wrong over and over.

Oh, I forgot sight words were one thing my son could study on his own! How could I forget that! I would test him of course but the next day I would make a list of his 3-5 words he got wrong. This is when I knew he could read them and I did it with him the first few times so he knew what to do. He was to look at the word carefully as the manual suggests to get it in their mind then he was to cover the word and write it and then check right away before he tried a second time. He was required to show me when he was done of course so I could see he'd done things correctly but that took me less than 30 seconds.

OneStep (and others), you said you started a writing program after level 4 of Barton. I'm curious what you did. We have just started adding free reading but the next step is some kind of real writing other than the dictated sentences in Barton. We are just starting level 6. It doesn't have to be a whole program. I was thinking of starting out with some exercises once a week like "describe this picture" or writing in a journal, or sentences based on story comprehension questions just to get us started. What did you do?

Your schedule looks good. It will probably change over the years as your child struggles with one aspect or another and you find certain things come easy. It is wise to know what will or won't happen because it won't help to plan something and not do it. I just want to say I agree with the others that it is a marathon not a sprint. It is frustrating because none of us (as parents) signed up to spend so may hours of our life on reading. I'm going through this with two children also. One isn't dyslexic but has speech issues. Sure maybe he progresses with Barton faster but then I have to do all these speech drills. Another needs help with social interaction. I get it. Rant and complain here. Then when you are with your child take it calmly because stress doesn't help them at all. But! I want to encourage you that it is very unlikely that it will always be this slow! I got stuck on level 4 for well over a year but level 5 took 3 months. I'm always thankful that often an easy "for us" lesson comes after one of torture. Your child will also have different abilities with a middle school brain than an 8 year old brain. If blending is hard for your child then maybe splitting the word apart will be easier as mentioned above. So you can rant and we will understand but don't be discouraged. Just keep putting one foot in front of the other.

I completely understand. I would continue to keep up the 25-30 minutes of Barton with the focus on the phonics part of the lesson. I would schedule the sight words as a completely separate thing. So maybe do Barton in the morning. Then before you eat lunch do just the sight words or sight words and fluency drill before and after. You can make the flash cards and keep them in a separate folder with the checklist so it feels like something different. Maybe have him write them on a white board instead. Whatever works for you but make the sight words like a different activity all together. Really my boys can still only handle 40 minutes of Barton at a time and we worked our way there. Over the years I have experimented with a wide variety of schedules to move them along faster but not totally depress us. If you split things up too much it takes all day and that is depressing. But two sessions isn't too bad especially if you get the one that is more difficult out of the way first.

Well, one can be an authority in a subject matter without having a specific position of authority so I think there is more than one way to use that word. I have also found some people are natural leaders and can influence change and people willingly follow without that person having a position of power or being bossy. Whether it is pure excitment or speaking skills or people have learned to respect the leader from past experience it is something I have seen. If you are a in a position of responsibility you don't always have to be authoritative but if there is a circumstance where someone isn't cooperating or you flat out disagrees with something then yes, you may need to excercise that privilege of power because ultimately you are the one responsible for the results.

Well, we are sticking with Barton, read alouds for history, tinker crates and science books with Dad. We are switching from RightStart to Teaching Textbooks. I just can't do everything with everyone (I have four). I can still help at times but hoping this relieves a little pressure. Also we are adding keyboarding and I'm hoping if the new schedule allows more speech related activities.

I think it is less about any particular style than she actually cares and notices the personalities, likes, and dislikes of those she buys for and knows them well enough to buy appropriate things versus just buying something she likes or worse purposely trying to change someone else because you don't like their style. I think that is pretty cool.

My parents and in laws both commented on my daughter dressing like a granny. I didn't say, "No, that would be dressing like you." :) My daughter likes classic styles, scarves, etc. To me she looks cute/retro but I will give them credit. At least they were willing to take clothing back and really want whatever to be something she will wear.

You are in level 5. I'm curious, when you say he needs to mark up the sheet and then can read it are you talking only level 5 sheets? If you handed him a level 3 sheet could he just read it within a reasonable time frame? If not that would definitely make me think about changes.

Celebrate. Life is too short to waste on being angry over something finished.

I guess you could say it depends on what area of public. An outside park where your a decent distance from others no big deal but in planes or subways or restaurants absolutely completely rude and inconsiderate. I had a night flight where most people were sleeping and a young man in probably his 20's was watching a show loudly that I didn't even want my children to see. It was totally inappropriate.

Nm, you covered it.

I do find the Lower 48 very different Arctic Mama. We seldom can apply our rules down there. Do you know there are places where it is illegal to live without running water? Crazy, right? It is a different world and they have way more private property and way less park and stuff so I can see sleeping as a major concern.

I wish it was as difficult to get a license as a CDL. That would solve a lot of problems. I shoot guns but I don't consider it other people's problem to stay safe around me. It is my responsibility. If I talked like most motorists I would simply shoot where ever and tell people to stay away from the front of my gun. Nobody is safe with American drivers. Not animals, children, motorcyclists, other drivers, and pity the person whose car breaks down on the side of the road. But I suppose I shouldn't detract from the main point of the thread. Obviously, the OP didn't want her spouse to take this particular trip because she felt it was dangerous and there are certainly roads that aren't safe to do just for fun and yes there are designated spaces for speed. Please cyclists stay off the freeway but the American motorist is a creature that drives me insane though I am one. I'm sorry for those who spend their whole lives in fear. I think that would be depressing. I can't but feel sorry for you.

Sparkly- You switch over to them. They are like little screws driven into your tire. They pretty much like car tires with studs.