I do think it is a very different dynamic when the spouse is dyslexic. For a long time, my husband also resisted to seek out a diagnosis for our son. (It finally changed when I said that I was at my wits end, not knowing where to go, and needing more support). But, also, if money was an issue, personally, putting money to a good dyslexic curriculum and/ or a tutor would be where I would go to move forward. I hope that the school can give you some answers and hopefully offer you some places to start. In our case, that was the best thing that came out of the eval....Although, having documentation for accommodations has also served quite useful.

I would say an educational assessment because you would likely get information about how best to instruct in areas of weakness and harness his areas of strength. I would do a lot of calling around and seeking out referrals. After that I would discuss openly with the evaluator that you homeschool and are not looking to put your child in a school, but instead are looking for best practices to help teach him.

HBO. We have Comcast.

Inspiration

I am so sorry. Prayers of peace and healing.:grouphug::grouphug:

Friends? We are inviting some friends over to watch it (I won't mind seeing it again).

Letting you all that on OnDemand is "The Big Picture: Rethinking Dyslexia" with the Drs. Shaywitz. I watched part of it this morning while on the treadmill...it absolutely is wonderful.

I love Kidspiration/ Inspiration. I certainly learned to use it very well from Verticy. Ds uses it for every single writing project. The Inspiration website is a wealth of tutorials and ideas...so much so that I never fully explored it. Perhaps download the 30 day trial, explore the website and see what is holding you up, and then look for more info. There are plenty of books about Visual Tools, etc... I am not a huge of a fan of the iPad bc the beauty of Inspiration is that your web is flipped to an outline that you can immediately start word processing from (with an embedded graphic of your web to serve as a visual reminder).

What's going on with his reading?

I am thinking, since the mom has never homeschooled, a curriculum that is scripted and pre-planned may be very helpful. I would look at Barton to remediate reading skills. Alternatively, if you are looking for an all-in-on curriculum, you could look into Verticy (very expensive), but all laid out and very straightforward with lessons plans for the mom to easily follow. It is a curriculum designed for language based differences. They have a placement test to get you into the right level.

Have you asked these questions to the NP you are scheduled with?

$65-100+ for once a week...

I have seen, at the middle school/ high school level, parents homeschool a single subject. They can legally fill in the intent to homeschool and take responsibility for a class. A thought......

:thumbup: I like it!

:grouphug: Best of luck in the transition.

Well, one reason is that the diagnosis of dyslexia is a medical diagnosis. Therefore, teachers. even school psychologists, are not qualified to make that judgement...thus, there are various alternatives that are said, for example, non-specific learning disability. I think it is also tricky to "arm-chair" diagnosis dyslexia because there are other things, as people on this board have discovered, that seem like dyslexia and are not. So possibly people are aware of those, and do not want to muddy the waters. I do understand the frustration you feel. I am not trying to excuse seeking advice/ feedback and being given none. For a long time I also felt VERY frustrated with the homeschool community's "wait and see, better late than early, and when he turned 13 he could magically read and write essays type of stories". I was really frustrated that no one said that this was something to look at...that it could be dyslexia, or adhd, or a learning disability, or processing speed/ working memory, or SOMETHING-- ANYTHING-- that was out of sync and I should seek extra feedback from a professional. Now, if someone in the homeschooling community tells me something that they feel is "out of sync" I tell them they should trust there gut and seek more input, instead of waiting.

Carol Greider, Nobel Prizer winner 2009 is also dyslexic. She talks in this article about both dyslexia, and how her GRE scores reduced the number of graduate schools that would consider her. http://dyslexia.yale.edu/greider.html

What about typing? This was a godsend for my dyslexic/ dysgraphic son. He learned around 10/11. As far as state testing, I would be looking into accomodations.

Reading Reflex (book on Amazon) has some really neat phonemic awareness instruction. (I bought 2 of those books when ds was little so I could cut one up to make the letter tile and bingo games)

I personally wouldn't be quick to jump on dyslexia...there are other possibilities (ADHD, for one) What does his spelling look like? How fluent is his outloud reading? (words per minute) As far as an eval, often a neuropsych is the way to go, but that can be super expensive. An educational psychologist would be cheaper. If you are near a medical center/ university that might be another place to look for an eval as I know some on this board have had luck in that direction.

AWESOME!!!!!!! :lol:

Sorry, finally getting some time to respond... I am so grateful for this board and that we can offer this place to hear each other's stories and what is inside each other's hearts. I think that initially I experienced a lot of confusion and isolation. Something was up with my ds, and he wasn't reading, behaving, writing like the other kids (or at all!) Then with the diagnosis there was relief that there was a name, some understanding and direction. I wish we would have found that out much earlier on in our journey, but looking back, that time when I would just sit and read to ds for hours (because he was not capable of reading the books at his intellectual level), those are some of my happiest homeschool memories. I did indeed experience the grief that many have spoke about....about feeling "not perfect", about worrying if my ds will find success in life, about how hard things can, and will, be for my ds. Then there was the phase of working incredibly hard and remediating. This was probably one of the more stressful times of my life....mostly between the hard work and the worry about where we would end up. Luckily, we had incredible support and given a vision about what a remediated dyslexic kid would look like (one who still needs accomodations but could do "just fine"). These days I am feeling a lot less worry as I see ds take on increasing challenges and excel, along with his ability to work independently. I am even feeling some joy as we approach upper-level material-- seeing how his brain works and what he is capable. Of course, I still worry as we get ready to launch him to high school next year. I see the areas of struggle, and how easily I can accomodate those at home (extra time; typing/ speech-to-text; electronic materials to allow text-to-speech), and I wonder if he will be as easily accomodated in a school setting. Mostly, these days I am just trying to have faith. Our past has shown that we can "solve" things for a better outcome, we have been able to seek out appropriate support/ interventions/ accomodations, we have been understood and supported, and ds has shown to be a gregarious, conscientious, hard-working kid (when he is not being a 13 yo :lol:). This is where I am trying to put my energy....less worry, more faith.

I. I recommend reading (1) Overcoming Dyslexia by Sally Shaywitz (2) The Dyslexic Advantage by Drs. Eide II. I would recommend working with a tutor. We were able to remediate in about 10 month (with once a week appointments) what would normally take about twice times the time (and twice a week appointments!) by finding a tutor that would assign homework, and likely having an older child that we could progress quickly. (If it makes you feel better ds was 11 when we did the reading/ spelling remediation). If you don't work with a tutor, I do highly rec. using Barton, which is highly scripted, research based and very well regarded with measurable outcomes. III. Reading along with audio to increase fluency. I would aim to get that up to 1 hour/ day. All the best....

:iagree: I was thinking duplo/legos

My ds is classified as 2e...I tend not participate in Accelerated Learning. Maybe because "accelerated" is not the goal? Maybe because it is easy for me to see/ understand where his gifts are so I don't feel that need for support, but it is trickier to understand the dyslexia?