The first level is small. Really small. Like 1/10th the size one might expect for something that costly. If I hadn't been prepared for that, I would have been seriously disappointed. Plus, there's a screening one should do before starting level one, and if your child fails the screening, be prepared for disappointment. If your child does the remediation to get to the point of doing Barton level one and then takes a month or more to do level one, you might find yourself disappointed because it illustrates the extent of your child's struggle. My ds went through this all at age 8 and it took months; his twin sister passed the screen and got through the entire level in one afternoon. Otherwise, by the later levels there are lots and lots of tiles. Find some kind of system to manage them so you don't have to start every lesson laying out all those tiles. Or buy the app, which wasn't available when we first started. ( except, I think I'd still go with tiles). Losing tiles or having younger kids mess with costly materials is disturbing. One of mine clearly needed all the remediation that Barton provided. Not everyone does, and I'm finding myself less motivated to continue going through all of that work for a child who's already reading. My six younger children have all had some lessons with Barton. I want to do it with them in theory, but in practice, I'm just not as motivated to do it for children reading at or above grade level. And while my others enjoyed doing Barton with me, my youngest (5) really doesn't like it. For a young child, it's not a "fun" as some of the other ways to learn how to read. It was developed for people with dyslexia, so it's not specifically for children.

Some things I like in my kitchen: Convection oven!!! Double oven Gas cook top - I prefer cooking with gas as it gives instant heat control Pull out cabinet door for trash & recycling Ice maker with crushed ice dispensed from refrigerator door Adequate counter space for serving banquet style Nice counters that look good with our woodwork (I liked our woodwork much better after we found a counter specifically selected to look good with it.) "Work triangle" (stove/sink/refrigerator layout) Lazy Susan spiner in bottom corner cabinet Deep sink with no center divider

Well then you learned "regular school" isn't the answer to solve your child's educational concerns. Honestly, that's a valuable lesson, and if it took a year to learn it, that's okay. Many-a-homeschooler has wasted time questioning ourselves and second guessing our decision to homeschool. As your about to undertake tutoring your child with LiPS, be confident that you can do at the very least as well for you child as "regular school" did. :)

Duplicate :)

How exciting! I remember those feelings of anxiety and hope when waiting for LiPS materials to arrive. We only worked LiPS up to the CVC point and then moved to Barton. (I'd already purchased Barton level and then discovered the screening and my ds' need for LiPS. ) It took several months to get that far, (and much longer than that to get through the Barton levels that covered the information in the later portion of LiPS.) It's a journey not a race. Take as much time with this as your child needs. :)

Some things went really well, and others didn't. We're going to continue working on a few subjects over the summer. Biggest homeschool news from the school year here: ds 16 returned to homeschooling (he'd been at brick and mortar high school). Several things have confirmed for us that we made a great decision. ds 13 finished Barton 10!!!! dd 13 did high school level work, (and her twin, ds 13, kept up with some of her reading in the first quarter!) dd 5 started reading little books with little words third grade and fifth grade went fine for dd 9&11. I didn't do as much Barton with dd9 as I'd hoped, but she's able to read normal 3rd grade materials We started Weekly Tea with poetry--the girls love it and even started writing their own poems to share. The boys tolerate it because they get sweets. Thinking back, while it had it's ups and downs, it was a good school year.

Are you getting rid of all of it? Why not keep a couple of those well-loved items? You could set a few things aside for a while, get rid of the bulk of the materials, and then after a period of time, see if you want to keep or sell those few remaining items.

Wow. I want to discuss this but don't even know where to begin. I'm really curious to know the implications of this discovery on all neurological diseases.

If you decide to do this, I'd love to read about your experience with it.

Thank you!!! As our school year winds down, we're doing less, yet I fear we haven't done "enough" this year--whatever "enough" might be. This article was refreshing to read. Perhaps my children and I are doing not just enough but more than enough.

It sounds interesting. By working there you could get paid to learn techniques that they use there, and you could then determine if you found it worth the time and effort to use with your own. It's kinda like the other parents would be paying that place to let you use their children as guinea pigs. Did you also want my thoughts on your working in general?

If the classes cost $695 each, and my child enrolled in seven of them for a full year of course work (math, language arts, history, science, foreign language, theology, and some elective) it would cost $4,865. That's far, far less than the actual cost of brick and mortar schools. Private b&m schools that cost near or less than that are usually heavily subsidized by a church or other benefactors.

Covering up mistakes can get some grown ups in legal trouble. In hospitals and medical clinics years ago, charting was mostly hand written. We were not allowed to erase or use white out in medical charts. Mistakes could be crossed out with a simple line, but we were never allowed to fully covered up. Covering up mistakes in the real world can cross a legal line when involving questions of malpractice or other serious allegations. Attempting to hide some types of grown-up mistakes can be criminal. However, as far as children's work, I don't mind erasing or white out as long as the product is neat. I prefer a simple lines crossing out the mistake over a hole in the paper or many hard to read words written ontop of dark smudges.

Great thread! Another idea: serviceberry tree (or bush.) It's really pretty, tidy small multi-trunk tree, with blossoms in spring and beautiful fall leaves. The berries taste similar to blueberries, but with larger seeds. Birds love them, so if you plant them you might never get any. We've eaten them, but mostly we just leave them on the tree as bird food because the birds here eat them the instant they're ripe.

That sounds yucky. At least you know now what the public school's principal is like and what you might encounter when trying to get an IEP or even just an evaluation.

I'm going to be the one nitpicking now, except I consider what I'm doing as participating in this discussion. :D 100 years ago, odd behaviors or not, most people didn't get to pursue their dreams. They worked on a farm or in a factory, or some other form of menial labor. In truth, we diagnosis many of these quirky things now because we have time to worry about quirky things like this instead of things like are we going to literally starve for lack of food or freeze for lack of warmth. I was lamenting one time about dyslexia with a family member who had spent a few years in a third world country decades ago, when she presented a different perspective. They didn't have a dyslexia problem--the majority of people were simply illiterate and barely managing to survive. She presented it like this: "Can't read? Here, have a shovel." And to the person who could read, "Here, have a shovel." My B IL was diagnosed late in life after his father died as being on the autism spectrum. My FIL and MIL both grew up on a farm, but lived in a city. FIL would often comment about how BIL would have been able to manage life on the farm fine. He moves slow but does okay with routine and is reasonably strong. He not only knows how to read, but he can use a shovel.

Yes, he's dyslexic. That was clear, no doubt I my mind. (Phonological problems to the point where a speech therapist documented and tried to treat it, and he still couldn't pass the Barton screen a year later.) But he ALSO had something going on with his eyes that made reading harder for him too. After vt, his eyes didn't tire as much so he could read for longer periods of time. On a side note, his batting average for baseball also improved dramatically the next baseball season after vt. So, yes there was something there, but not everything the first covd thought. His vt with the second covd went even faster than the second covd initially expected. It wasn't nearly as much as the first. My son was good about doing the homework on his own. I couldn't help him as the exercises gave me massive headaches. If I were younger, I'd be a vt candidate--but that doesn't get in the way of my reading, so I was initially quite distrustful of the whole idea of vt to help reading problems. The second covd won my confidence when she told me that if I was just going to do one thing for his reading it should be an Orton - Gillingham program like we were already using. There was no promise that vt would fix his reading, but just the suggestion that it may lighten one more difficulty he had with his eyes in addition to his dyslexia. If you are in doubt, get a second or even third opinion.

Yes. We saw two covd. I didn't believe the first report accurately portrayed my ds. (As in the covd forgot everything we had discussed about all the dyslexia remediation and blamed all his reading troubles on his eyes because he passed the little dyslexia screen. Duh! After years of Barton and LiPS, he passed it.) But I worried maybe there was something to it, we saw a different covd. That one heard me out, read the other covd ' s report, and did some more testing. He went to vt at that second clinic.

:iagree: Thanks for writing that. It helps sum up my thoughts. I may be clueless too, but just about everybody has got something that can be found on those clinical checklist. If someone doesn't, that person is abnormal for being too "normal." ;) If the behaviors don't collectively create a problem because they are infrequent or because there simply aren't that many of them or they're not severe (or intense) enough to cause concern, people don't seek a diagnosis. If a concerned parent seeks a diagnosis, there may or may not be "enough" of those behaviors to qualify for a diagnosis. I know some people's behavior falls so far away from normal that their behavior warrants outside help and intervention from professionals. But I also am of the opinion that the range of acceptable "normal" for children has narrowed significantly--and that's not necessarily helpful. We seem to forget that children frequently behave childish and immature. Most of them eventually grow out of it. Some don't. Some need direct intervention, but the majority simply benefit from normal childhood play and activities--and time.

Nope, not crazy. Crazy is when your child's teacher won't give an extension on a book report, so you find yourself helping your oldest child with a 3rd grade book report in the maternity ward after having delivered a baby.

:hurray: I like reading "brags" on this board. :)

Last summer, I started showering with a soap I'd found at a garden supply center that has a citrus-y smell designed to repel bugs. http://www.sallyeander.com/shop/no-bite-me-soap It seems to help, as I don't have to remember to apply bug repellent. They also sell a cream with the same scent. There's more than one kind of bug repellant soap, so you might need to try several before finding one that you like. Here's another that's made and sold by homeschoolers http://www.goatmilkstuff.com/Goat-Milk-Soap-Bug-Out.html Besides doing things with scents to repel mosquitoes, make sure you aren't doing things that attract them. Bugs like floral scents, but apparently they don't like citrus.

I hear your vent and read this thread with interest. However, what inspired you to start this thread may have very little to do with what people are talking about here. Your friend's children's free tuition may have less to do with the family income and much more to do with the fact that the children have a parent who is a pastor. Some schools offer free tuition for the children of pastors, (although often restricted to pastors' families within the same denomination as the college.) Some offer free tuition to any child of their employees, from administration and professors on down to the janitors. These are perks that some denominations and schools provide to the people they employ. Employers sometimes offer nice benefits to attract and keep good employees.

It depends on the day. He'll need accommodations if he's going to attempt high school level work next year. If he delays starting high school for another year, he'd likely still need accommodations. I'm fairly sure the right thing to do is to keep working on ds' writing and typing over the summer, then start record keeping for him as if he's a high school freshman in fall. We can adjust his workload and providing accommodations as the need arises. He can demonstrate knowledge of materials either orally or tests with multiple choice, fill in the blank and matching. He require more help and time and still falls short of my expectations if his answers need to be written into full sentences and paragraphs. He'll need to learn how to write essays and reports. Exactly how much he needs in the way of accommodations for that remains to be seen. With homeschooling, I've taken the approach to just keep pushing forward with learning skills without worrying so much about what "grade" he's in. We try to remediate as much as possible, then accommodate as needed. As he nears high school, there will be less remediation and more accommodation. I'm approaching uncharted territory, and this has become my new favorite smiley :willy_nilly: .

The "daily battles of school work" exist outside of homeschooling. If you're struggling to get your child to do work as a homeschooler, don't think that battle would just go away if the child were enrolled in school. Some people have "daily battles" to get their children out of bed and off to school, then after school the battle resumes as the parents try to get the child to do homework and turn it into the teacher. On-line learning sounds tempting, you write? There's work that needs to be done in order to pass the classes too. Homeschooling or not, some children need a great deal of help from their parents in order to get through school with passing grades. You're not a bad homeschooling mom for not enjoying daily battles. That doesn't make you a bad mom at all! What kind of mom enjoys daily battles with their kids over school work? But the only part of the problem you described that's unique to homeschooling is grading.