This is great to know! I'm actually glad we won't be reading in it daily since I would have to read it to him and I'm already having to be hands-on with everything he's doing right now. Thanks for your input!

I'm loving the look of this and I really think my son will enjoy it. He's a little discouraged and unmotivated to do school (recent diagnosis of dyslexia) but I thought the style of this might be more fun for him, of course I would have to help him read a lot of the dialog. We have been using CLE and I love it and really don't want to replace it. Would it be too much to do both? Has anyone used this just as a supplement?

Good to know about the psych eval. I really wanted to avoid going through all of that, but it sounds as if it may be necessary. I'll start my research on that and find someone to get that started. SR cannot do an official diagnosis, but said she definitely believes he has dyslexia and wants us to start with book 1 of explode the code at home while on the wait list. It could be 3-4 months before they get to him and I'm ok with that, it will give him time to get his eyes where they need to be. We will do ETC, math, and I will read to him, but take a more relaxed approach while working on VT. I appreciate everyone's feedback, it's refreshing to hear from moms who have been through this and can lead me in the right direction :)

So the vision eval showed convergence insufficiency which is causing double vision, inability to track, unable to focus up close, and visual processing disorder. It showed he was in <5th %ile with his up close vision abilites. No wonder he won't sit still for more than 5 minutes to do any schoolwork! They said he'd need therapy 2xweek for 4-5 months. However, they do not bill insurance, and want $4,500 up front to do the therapy on top of the $200 I paid for the testing. I've found another clinic in town that takes our insurance and will bill them, my part will be about $10 per therapy session, rather than me selling a kidney ;) He goes next Monday for them to do their own evaluation. We are going this morning for the testing and consult with Scottish Rite clinic to get the tutoring started. Poor kid is going through the ringer with all of these appointments, but being the youngest child, I think he's enjoying all of the attention and 1:1 with mommy :)

update... I just found out after visiting with my sister (who is a former school teacher) that there is a local (10 minutes from my house!!!) Scottish Rite clinic that offers FREE consult/eval and tutoring using OG for dyslexic children. I visited on the phone with the clinic director and she is sending me a packet to fill out. She said there is a several month waitlist, but considering we homeschool and are flexible with our schedule, we should be able to get in very soon. She was very encouraging and pro-HS, so I'm very excited to see what we can accomplish. We are starting this Tuesday with the eval for VT and then will move on to the tutoring. Best part is, DS is excited about going! (I think he is as frustrated with our working dynamic as I am :crying: )

This is exactly what I thought, about needing the VT in order to benefit from the O-G. I have a sales guy that's been contacting me from Lexercise, and while I understand it's his job to sell his product, he was condescending in saying that VT has no scientific evidence and that to never use an optomitrist, only an opthamologist, and on and on with his laughing condenscending tone. I explained that we have only done the dyslexia screening tool on the Lexercise website and that convergence may be the problem (since we have gotten 2 docs to examine and give this dx) rather than dyslexia, and I need to get a thorough professional evalutation. I've just got to quit accepting his calls ;-) I think my son has a great grasp at phonics, I really think he's just struggling seeing them on the page. We have soared through Levels 1 and 2 of AAR and AAS, and he GETS it, then it's a new day again when he tries to apply it. Some days are great and I think we are making progress, then others he asks me every word on the page, or he wants to get a snack, he has to use the bathroom, stand on his head, he's too tired....ANYTHING but reading and LA. We both end up in tears. I think we will do the VT, see how he improves and move on to an O-G program if needed at that point. I really appreciate the feedback.

My 7yo son was diagnosed with convergence about 2 years ago and wears glasses for it. After a lot of struggles with reading, I'm now discovering that this is causing more problems than we realized. He saw an optomitrist today that specializes in convergence and she has set him up to do a full 1-2 hour evaluation in the next few weeks, and begin a plan to do vision therapy. I was excited and feeling we were on the right track and now after a little research, I'm seeing that there are varying opionions on whether vision therapy is a vaild treatment, or to go with a program that implements Orton-Gillingham approach. Either way I go it seems that it's an expensive prospect, but I'm willing to do what we need to in order to see him succeed and improve his confidence. I figured many of you might have some insight on the best approach. Thank you!

I have 3 of them and it's getting more out of hand now that daddy is deployed and not here to have "wrestle time with daddy" when he gets home from work everyday. I just started reading "Wild Things-The Art of Nurturing Boys" and it brings a lot of these issues to light. I have to keep reminding myself that it's normal, but I'm one of 3 girls and have never experienced anything like this in my life! DH is one of 4 boys, so he doesn't understand why I'm constantly telling them to settle down. I can't tell you how many times a day I say "Get away from each other! Why do you always have to be touching?!?!"

:lol: Last week DS7 was telling my friend that his daddy's birthday is next week, March 15th, the same day that Julius Ceasar was killed by the senate, then continued with yelling "BEWARE THE IDES OF MARCH!" She is a kindergarden teacher and I don't think she had any idea what he was talking about :tongue_smilie:

DH was active Army and is now National Guard. He has always said if he had it to do over he would go Air Force. He told me a story about when he was young and stationed in Germany, some AF guys were assigned to live in the same building as the Army guys, and when they reported the condition of the living quarters to their chain of command, they came and checked it out and had them moved, said is was "sub-standard living quarters". Seems that it was OK for army guys, but not Air Force! Right then DH knew he had picked the wrong branch:glare:.

I make my own. I use Fels Naptha or Zote bar and grate it in my food processor, add in washing soda and borax and mix it up. I can't tell you off the top of my head what ratios I use, but there are a lot of recipes out there. I just use a little less than 2 Tablespoons in my HE washer and it does great. I tried one of the liquid recipes and it was a mess, it would separate and I had to stir it before use and it was just too messy for me, but this way works great. I have a little guy with eczema and he doesn't have any problems with this soap. I've heard you can use vinegar in your rinse cycle for a fabric softner, but I'm not willing to give up my Downy just yet.

Thanks so much, Laurie! That is a lot of help. To answer some of your questions, he was diagnosed with ADHD through his pediatritian. He seemed to fall into every catagory for it, especially the impulse control. He has always struggled socially until we moved him here with us and he seems to fit in ok with the other kids, but he doesn't really have anyone close. It wasn't until DH and I started pushing him to have friends over that he talked with anyone outside of church and school. When I had him home and was homeschooling him, he was content to not talk to or see anyone his age for weeks at a time. That really struck me as strange for a 14 year old. He is very immature and untrustworthy. I can not leave him alone for any length of time. There are other kids at church younger than him that I would trust to babysit my children and I really can't leave him alone with them at all. He IS very naive, and no, he doesn't get sarcasm. A friend of mine said a lot of the kids say that he tries too hard to be liked. He got bullied and picked on a lot at his last school. The fine motor skills I'm not sure about. Off the top of my head, I know he likes to fish a lot, so he has to tie lures and hooks, so it can't be too bad, I guess. His hand writing is average, it's readable, which is more than I can say for a lot of 14 yo boys. I'm going to go read up and educate myself on nonverbal learning disability and see what I can find. Again, thank you SO much for your help!

After many years of struggles with school work, I asked the school to test my 14 yo nephew. I needed to know if it was lack of effort, lack of getting the basics at an early age (he was raised by his grandparents until he came to live with us a year ago), or if he just wasn't mentally capable (there is also the question of whether his bio mom used drugs while he was inutero). He kept telling dh and me that we expect too much, that he just can't do the work, he's not smart enough, etc. So, I just got the results and from what the psychologist says and from reading the report "he's average". He is medicated for ADHD with Vyvanse and took this on the testing days. Can anyone here give me a little more insight into what these scores show? He struggles mostly in math and English. WISC-IV Verbal Conprehension Index 106 Perceptual Reasoning Index 94 Working Memory Index 110 Processing Speed Index 88 Full Scale IQ 101 WIAT-II Reading 103 Mathematics 83 Thanks for helping, I play a never ending game of phone tag with the school psychologist so I hope someone on here can be more of assistance.

I am just on my 3rd week of hs'ing my nephew. We are remediating a lot in grammar and math and I've gone as far back as Delta with MUS and he is sailing through that wonderfully. My problem is science. It has always been his favorite and best subject so I bought him Apologia Physical Science to stay somewhat on the 8th grade schedule with that. However, we can't get through the first module because of the conversions of measurements and units. He has always struggled with fractions so this is something we will come to later as we advance through math. Should I just shelf the whole thing until he gets to a level mathamatically to handle it? I was thinking about just letting him do an interst based science and let him get books from the library and then write about them to help improve his grammar and writing skills, and then come back to a more formal curriculum when his math skills have caught up. Any suggestions on how to handle this?

thanks everyone for all of the wonderful advise. I think I've made some decisions, but was wondering if you think the teachers manual is necessary for the MegaWords, and which level should I go back and start at?

My nephew, who is in 8th grade, came to live with us last year and although I am homeschooling my younger boys, I put him in public schools because, well, truthfully, it was too much to take on at the time. I thought that if we gave him discipline and structure and help with homework that he could catch up to his grade level. He is again failing in ps and is so far behind he is embarrassed to ask his teachers for help. I've spent many hours in prayer trying to come to a solution and I've decided to pull him out of ps and hs him. I know that God will not bring me to do anything that he won't equip me for, so here I am. Trying to get equipped! I think I've decided on Apologia Science, that has always been his strongest and favorite subject, I've read many posts that Teaching Textbooks is great and I may have to go back a level since math is the biggest area of struggle, Mystery of History, but I'm still not decided on LA. He is not a strong reader, needs a lot of help with vocabulary, spelling, and grammar. I don't want something that is going to burn him out since we are going to have to go back and redo so much, but it needs to be thorough. Oh, and did I mention, he is VERY ADHD! He's medicated, and there is definite improvement, but still some struggle. Any advise? Also, any good Bible studies that include character and moral building for a 14 year old boy with a bad attitude? I appreciate any help you guys can give!

My nephew, who is in 8th grade, came to live with us last year and although I am homeschooling my younger boys, I put him in public schools because, well, truthfully, it was too much to take on at the time. I thought that if we gave him discipline and structure and help with homework that he could catch up to his grade level. He is again failing in ps and is so far behind he is embarrassed to ask his teachers for help. I've spent many hours in prayer trying to come to a solution and I've decided to pull him out of ps and hs him. I know that God will not bring me to do anything that he won't equip me for, so here I am. Trying to get equipped! I think I've decided on Apologia Science, that has always been his strongest and favorite subject, I've read many posts that Teaching Textbooks is great and I may have to go back a level since math is the biggest area of struggle, Mystery of History, but I'm still not decided on LA. He is not a strong reader, needs a lot of help with vocabulary, spelling, and grammar. I don't want something that is going to burn him out since we are going to have to go back and redo so much, but it needs to be thorough. Oh, and did I mention, he is VERY ADHD! He's medicated, and there is definite improvement, but still some struggle. Any advise? Also, any good Bible studies that include character and moral building for a 14 year old boy with a bad attitude? I appreciate any help you guys can give!