Just had my 15yo translate those lyrics for me the other day in the car, lol. Not a song, but when my DS was younger he asked me about President "Broccoli Bama." Oh, and my DH used to think "Spirits in the material world," (By The Police, for all you youngsters out there...) was "there are spirits in my cheerios..."

We did, and are doing, Singapore Dimensions Math 7 and 8. Don't know why more people don't use this. If you like Singapore, it is a superb program.

My almost 8yo, dyslexic DS is not reading fluently and just started Singapore 2B yesterday. I have done Singapore with all three of my children, two of whom are dyslexic. I would not hold him back in math at all due to reading fluency. There is plenty of work in the Singapore workbooks that can be done independently by a student who is not yet reading. We do the lessons together and the word problems together. I help with the instructions in the workbook. When I want extra independent work, the mental math at the back of the instructors guide is great. If Singapore is working, there is no need to change. It's such a great program.

Yes, the teacher's manual contains solutions for all the problems.

I have used Singapore Dimensions math for two students so far, and I think it is fantastic. With my first, who is now 15, we started 7A after finishing Singapore Primary Math (US) 5B. My current 12yo DD is finishing 7A, which she started after completing 5B and a few chapter from Singapore 6. I checked out a few other things (we did Russian Math for a semester and tried Dolciani Pre-Algebra and looked at Forester, tried Tablet Class) but nothing else had the same Singapore feel. I like the way that it is set up, all contained in one book. For each section in the chapter there are basic practice problems, further practice problems, word problems and a couple challenging problems. If we need additional practice on any section we turn to the workbook (which has tons of extra problems, but is not necessary for the curriculum). If not, we just move on. When I say nothing else had the same Singapore feel, what I mean is that I love how the Singapore problems incorporate review right into the problems. So, when you learn something new, you must use what you have already learned. So, even though you are working on percentage discounts or finding the value of an angle, you are using the skills for solving and simplifying linear equations that you have learned in previous chapters. There is a complexity to the problems that I have not seen in other books. The program is integrated. 7A covers some pre-algebra, beginning linear equations, ratio, percentage and beginning geometry. 7B continues with Algebra and geometry, as well as data handling and probability. My first DD did 7A, 7B and 8A. She then did one semester of a standard geometry course and is now in a standard Alg. 2 course. The whole 7-8 series covers pre-algebra, algebra and geometry, and many algebra 2 topics.

I think there is something to this. I have done a fair amount of long distance backpacking. When I start a trip, I lose 10-12 lbs in the first two to three weeks, then nothing after that. The initial weight loss makes sense. I am hiking 10-12 hours a day, between 15-30 miles. But my body definitely adjusts. On the other hand, my purely anecdotal, non-scientific experience tells me there is a female component to this as well. I live in New England, and spend many hours hiking in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. So every summer I meet AT thru-hikers who are nearing the end of their 2000+ mile journey. With few exceptions, the women I meet look fit and trim and strong. Almost all the men look gaunt, emaciated, and essentially starving. The men (and some women, although I am never able to eat enough to make those places worthwhile) go into town every 3-4 days and eat enormous amounts of calories at the all-you-can-eat places that cater to hikers. Even so, by the NH and Maine, their bodies are essentially consuming themselves.

The Barton pre-test might be a good place to start.

I have had the exact same experience. Anything outside answering the wellness form questions is considered an added office visit. And, even if you answer the questions and that precipitates discussion (in my case I was not sleeping well, my DD was preparing for surgery so duh) it is coded as an office visit. Guess I wouldn't mind so much if they informed me on the spot and if they actually gave me the extra time of an added office visit. I have concluded it is impossible to get a free wellness exam. Our pediatrician, on the other hand, is careful to code physicals as just physicals, so we can ask whatever questions we want. But she works alone in a single office. Thank goodness for that.

Yes, SKL is right, this was a thread about early readers. I was merely responding to a post that expressed frustration about the fact that it looked like everyone one had or had been early readers. Just wanted to remind everyone that the bell curve is still pretty accurate, even among homeschoolers. The over-representation of early readers in these threads is not limited to threads specifically asking about early readers. To be honest, I find the above quote a bit insulting. There are plenty of families with kids who read at ages 6 or 7 or later who do actually think academics are important, who do actually have other kids homeschooling, who do have books in the house and read to their kids. Seriously, there is still a ton of natural variance in when and how kids learn to read (meaning what their brains are doing when they are reading), and most of that variance has absolutely nothing to do with how seriously their parents take academics or whether they are reading enough books, or whether they noticed or nurtured reading skills.

I expect you are expressing the sentiments of the vast majority of readers. This became obvious a while back when someone did a poll about the ages kids started reading. If you looked at the poll results, the curve mirrored the expected averages exactly, with most kids starting at 6-7 years old and outliers on either end. But, the posts in the thread were very heavily weighted toward the early readers. My conclusion... early readers and those whose kids are early readers like to talk about it. While we give lip service to the idea that early readers are not more intelligent, that mythology is still very powerful. Imagine a scenario where we convinced people that early readers tended to be more pedantic, unoriginal thinkers, and late readers were actually more intelligent, creative and accomplished in life. I expect we would see the opposite effect. In fact, neither is probably true, and the reality is that we can't tell much at all about intelligence from the age that someone begins reading. Nevertheless, we always see posts in these threads weighted towards early readers. It doesn't reflect reality at all.

Only on TWTM forum is a 7 yo reading fluently a late reader.... It's actually right smack dab in the middle of average.

I don't know about memory, but Stanislas Dehaene's research on facial recognition and illiteracy suggests there are indeed trade off to learning to read. The facial recognition skills of illiterates far exceed those of readers, and those skills diminish as illiterate people learn to read. So the brain borrows circuits from one area to do something else. Fascinating stuff!

Seems to me the only thing the article gets right is the fact that precocious reading is not necessarily related to IQ. The intelligence assumption that goes along with early reading is what is so damaging for kids who do not read early. "Oh look at that little one over there reading, he/she is so smart..." We do it and think it without even realizing it. What that mythology misses and what the rest of the article completely ignores is all the fascinating research about what is actually going on in the brain when we are reading. We tend to think of reading as a sort of path and kids are just walking down the same path but some are faster than others or some are more "developmentally ready" before others. Hence we think those faster or developing faster kids must be somehow smarter. The reality is the human brain has not evolved for reading. So when we read we are actually adapting parts of the brain that evolved for something else and using them to engage in the series of complex tasks that make up reading. There are more and less efficient ways to do this. And, I don't think researchers are as of yet clear as to why some brains go straight for the most efficient methods and why others use take more circuitous route to do the same thing - i.e. read. I once heard a neurologist describe it as if one child were walking in a straight line down the path and another child was twirling and spinning and dancing circles for each step that the first child was taking. The downside for the second child is that they take much longer to do the same thing. The up side is that the second child is making many more neural connections when they are reading. But the important thing is that the brains are actually doing very different things while supposedly engaged in the same task. That's why you have so many highly intelligent dyslexics, and why being dyslexic can have advantages. All different kinds of readers can be highly intelligent. But the precocious ones certainly get the reinforcement earlier. All this to say that I think the article misses the fact that the precocious readers and the Sudbury type late, but apparently natural, readers probably do not have brains that are working in the same way. And, those readers may be different than dyslexic readers who need specific instruction. Who knows? But there is lots of great research currently taking place on this topic, and the very light article (as most Psychology Today articles are) doesn't seem aware of any of it.

No need to re-invent the wheel here. There are a number of longstanding math programs that teach this brilliantly - Singapore, Right Start, Math Mammoth etc... If you really want to understand how to teach this way, then spend some time looking at the first and second grade levels of these programs.

Yes! Yes! to this. Don't fight it, embrace it. I am on my third child working through Singapore math and I, myself, am so much better at mental math now than I was as a student. If you accept that it is good to teach both the traditional algorithm and mental math techniques, then this child just needs more practice with mental math. But, she probably needs to be required to do it in order to get that practice (I have the opposite problem with my 7 yo DS - he wants to solve all problems mentally and I allow him to do it, and then have him check his answers by also solving them using a positional algorithm. He doesn't always want to do this, but I require it because I think it is important to be proficient in both). It might have been ideal if she had been working on this for a couple years, but it's definitely not too late to start now. She's in elementary school for goodness sake. And, it's ok if a kid struggles a bit while learning this new skill. That's probably why teachers are giving partial credit for attempts even when the child does not get the correct final answer. They have to change the motivation. When a teacher is teaching a new way of thinking, you want the kids to try that new way of thinking without being so caught up in the idea that the be all and end all is one single right answer. You have to make room for mistakes, so that they can practice. In the end, the better conceptual understanding will lead to fewer mistakes. It's hard to make big changes to curriculum, so anything like common core was always going to be a rough ride to implement. Teachers, too, have to gain proficiency in new methods and that will take time. And, the testing regimen complicates the implementation. But, overall, the move to more conceptual understanding is a good thing.

I do think there is an issue of socio-economic disadvantage at work here, and this will continue as more states and municipalities roll out universal Pre-K programs. It will be interesting to see how universal Pre-K plays out in NY City. But, this is not just a problem in new, publicly funded, universal Pre-K programs. In the school district where we reside (which is a wealthy, high preforming district), kindergarten is now a bear. Kids have homework, and are expected to be reading by the end of the year. So, preschools, which previously included almost no academic work, are now changing to accommodate the new kindergarten expectations. And, almost all the districts have moved to full day kindergarten, so kids are coming home so worn out there is little energy left for the kind of free play kids this age really need (not to mention the growth of organized sports for 5 and 6 year olds) However, I also think the article is also trying to get at a broader point (and hopefully the forthcoming book will expound on this) - specifically, that it is not about "balance." It is not an issue of academic seat work balanced with ample time for free play (which in itself would be am improvement on some emerging preschool experiences). Rather, the question is whether academic work (i.e. direct instruction in the form of pencil and paper work -math facts, worksheets, naming and labeling, reading instruction etc) is in and of itself counter-productive. In other words we actually stifle creativity and intellectual development by not allowing learning to occur in a more organic fashion at these early ages.

Just found this great blog post on crushing rocks..... What young kid wouldn't prefer this to a desk and a classroom? This is what pre-school and kindergarten looked like when I was a kid. http://www.letthechildrenplay.net/2012/07/never-underestimate-rock.html

I think what I really liked about the article is that it begins to get at the larger question of what the general curricular goals should be for pre-school and kindergarten aged children. So some kids will work out the code for themselves, no doubt (I think research shows that is about 1/4 to 1/3 of children if they are regularly exposed to text). But, "reading" is quite different than "decoding." The types of interactions between skilled teachers and students that the article references are what make the foundation for reading, understanding and thinking. That stuff is hard to measure. You can't just sit a kid in front of a leveled reader and time him and count his mistakes. Kids who decode early and easily still need a conversation rich, exploration rich, play rich environment to give words real, personal meaning. And, decoding is not the be all and end all goal of pre-school. That it has become so is just sad and grim. The biggest takeaway for me is that all this focus on academic readiness is not actually making kids more academically ready. Crazy, and crushing and ultimately ineffectual. I'll take watching the birds at my bird feeder over academic kindergarten any day.

During this season of giving and gifting, this new article in The Atlantic reminds me of the wonderful gift we have given our children by not sending them to school. http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/01/the-new-preschool-is-crushing-kids/419139/ This paragraph really struck a chord with me The shift from an active and exploratory early-childhood pedagogy to a more scripted and instruction-based model does not involve a simple trade-off between play and work, or between joy and achievement. On the contrary, the preoccupation with accountability has led to a set of measures that favor shallow mimicry and recall behaviors, such as learning vocabulary lists and recognizing shapes and colors (something that a dog can do, by the way, but that is in fact an extraordinarily low bar for most curious 4-year-olds), while devaluing complex, integrative, and syncretic learning.

Well, now that you are postponing your start date, you probably will not need the heavier sleeping bag anyway (at least at the start). One other option is to carry an additional sleeping pad during the colder weeks. I don't know exactly what your sleep set up is, but I will sometimes carry a ridgerest or z-lite to use under my neoair when I am worried about cold. The closed cell foam pads are bulky, but very light, and that extra layer of insulation on the ground does make a difference. But, doing a flip flop, you likely won't need to worry about this until the end of your trip and you will be a pro by then.

I completely sympathize with your dilemma. My DD is 2E also, also dyslexic, and classified, in our state, as a young sophomore even though she just turned 15 a few days ago. She is only doing 4 academic classes (she is also a dancer, so she has limited time to get work done). We both recognize that it will likely take five years to complete something resembling a high school course load, and that's with including a good number of performing arts credits as electives. I think when people with more average or typical children talk about output they simply don't understand the mental exhaustion these sorts of kids have been dealing with all their lives. That said, we have lived at an elite boarding school for 20 years. It is very common to have students repeat ninth grade (in fact the local private feeder school goes from K-9 and students typically then enter as ninth graders), and it is common for students to do a post graduate year. It never fails to amaze me what lengths the heavily advantaged take to give their children what appears to be an edge over other students. So, IMO, it is not a problem to do either of the things you suggest. Repeat ninth grade and she will likely mature some the next year (bright dyslexic students are notorious for being late bloomers) or call the fifth year a post graduate year. You can justify either if necessary, although it might be easier for her just to get the extra year in now.

I have a second grader who is just beginning level 3 of Barton, so not yet reading in a way that would allow him to do second grade work independently. Here's what I do for the rest of school. Math - he is doing Singapore Primary math 2. We do lessons together, he can work the problems, I read the word problems and instructions when necessary. Writing - We do narration and copywork from WWE level 1. He narrates very well, so we might bump up the narration passages, but the level 1 copy work is just right for him. He is learning cursive handwriting with Cursive First, which is good review of phonograms. We do lots of science. We pick a topic and I real aloud lots of books, we do activities, projects, experiments. Literature is read aloud. Independent reading will be added when he is able. Lots and lots of audiobooks for free time.

I think the folks with early readers just tend to talk/post more about it. Those of us who have later readers (i.e. normal) just keep our mouths shut. There are many, many homeschoolers who are homeschooling in large part because they disagree with the current academic push in K. I think homeschoolers are much more diverse in this regard than you might think. And, the folks with early readers, whose children read seemingly magically, are always giving advice to people struggling with teaching reading. Go figure?? Can't generalize much about the "best" way to teach reading because we simply don't have brains that have been doing it for all that long. The vast majority of the worlds population has had exposure to written text for a very short period of time (historically speaking). From an evolutionary perspective, this is a very new thing. Our brains don't all do it the same way. Pre-reading skills are vital. Phonics works well for most kids by age 6 or 7. Kids who struggle need more specific teaching.

You could try coconut oil. One of our dogs had horrible skin problems. The vet was worse than useless. The only thing that finally worked was bathing in Malaseb (veterinary anti-fungal/anti-bacterial shampoo) which we got on amazon, and two daily tablespoons of coconut oil with his meals (he's a big, skinny dog so if you have a smaller dog you could try less). It took 6 months but he improved slowly and streakily.

I would seriously look at purchasing a dog from a long time, well-respected breeder. A good breeder should take back any dog that does not work out. Supporting responsible breeding is just as much a moral good as rescue. Rescue seems to have become an ideology these days. And, some rescue groups are downright insane with their expectations (I have fostered dogs for a rescue group, so it's not like I am ignorant of the plight of so many abandoned dogs). Seems rescue groups are themselves turning people away from rescue. We once had a cat rescue tell us they couldn't let us adopt a 12 week old kitten because the kittens were not used to being around children???? Really? They're 12 weeks old. They're not used to anything yet.