Again I want to say that I appreciate EVERYONE'S opinions that have posted here. I've given thought to trying to explain in more details but I simply don't have time to lay out his 12 years and list all that I know now in hindsight. I will say that I think there are multiple factors in why he was late learning to read. Ultimately I don't worry about any of those factors now because he has been reading fine for quite a while now. He has good comprehension. His only real issues with reading right now are fluency and automaticity because I didn't have him read aloud enough or require him to read enough in the past. Both things on the "basics" agenda for the next several months. At this point he doesn't struggle with anything. He's just behind because of the reasons I've stated in previous posts. As soon as he was reading I should have stopped and done this. Nevertheless, I'm doing it now before it is genuinely too late for me to. I had a moment of weakness a few days ago where I feared I was going to scar him for life. My head knew this wasn't true but a mothers heart panics sometimes. I needed to hear that I wasn't going to scar him for life. I appreciate everyone's responses. It helped me look at history and science with a different perspective. Every response has made me think and I am grateful for that. ;)

Thank you all for your encouragement and opinions, even when they disagreed with my thoughts. I feel like my question shouldn't have been about dropping history and science completely. Just dropping a scheduled curriculum is really what I was going for. As you can see we are using HOD for science and history and there is not a thing wrong with it. I am just finding it hard to get it all done. I'm not 100% sure on the path we are going to take right now but I'm leaning hard towards still using the books that HOD schedules and just read through those on our own schedule. My son likes the astronomy book he's using so we decided to just work through that book on our own schedule using the lab kits that can go with it. So in no way do I plan to drop it completely. I just plan to come at it differently than we have before. When I think about having 6 focused months to work on basics and not have to worry about checking off the next lesson in history and science I feel so much relief. And I know if I could do that with my son he would make leaps and bounds. I simply haven't given the time to him on the basics as I should have. He's been a hard one and teaching him has been trying to say the least. I failed him by letting it get to me and skipping the "hard" work (it's not really hard for him...he just doesn't want to do it in reality). I'm striving to change the attitude about school in this house. I'm looking hard at how I'm approaching every subject for each of my boys. My dream of what our homeschool would look like doesn't come close to the reality of what it has been. I've been the first and foremost person to make that happen. So we will in no way be dropping history and science. I'm just going to drop my minimum weekly requirements for them while we are focusing on the basics and as he progresses I'll slowly add more back in to our week. And I'm going to approach them differently. I'm striving to teach the child not the curriculum. ;) Thoughts and opinions are still welcomed :bigear:

Ok ladies and gentlemen. Go easy on me. I'm already feeling like a failure with my older son and I'm just trying to correct some things before it's too late for him. He's 12 year old and had a horrible time learning to read. He hated doing anything "schoolish" from the very beginning. He reads fine now but sheesh the early years were so hard and I made tons of mistakes with him. I let so many things slide with him and now we are playing the catch up game in the simple 3 R's area. I feel strongly that I need to go to nothing but the basics with him but I am having a very very hard time feeling like I can let history and science go while I do this. I just feel like the basics gets dropped first if I have too much on my plate since I'm also trying to not make the same mistakes with the 5 year old. He's going to struggle all through highschool if I don't do what needs to be done. Of course we've done history and science but I'm not feeling like it was ever as focused as I would have liked. It feels to me like we haven't done any real history or science even though we have. Clear as mud? Please tell me it's ok if he doesn't really do any real history or science before high school? I know we could probably continue to read some living books a few days a week. Will that be enough? Tell me to take a :chillpill: please. I'm scared to death I'm cheating him by stopping history or science beyond reading yet I know I'm severely cheating him by not focusing on the basics with him. Hows that for manic depressive?? P.S. I'm struggling with some things today if you can't tell :001_unsure:

I am in the midst of taking my 12 year old through Passport to Purity right now. You can find it at CBD. http://www.christianbook.com/passport-2-purity-weekend-retreat-kit/9781572296565/pd/296569?product_redirect=1&Ntt=296569&item_code=&Ntk=keywords&event=ESRCP It's really designed to be done by the father with their son and over a weekend but I've just done it over a couple of weekends with my son since it's not possible for my husband to do this with him himself. We are also using the resources in HOD's RtR manual. Boyhood and Beyond, From Boy to Man and What Is God's Design For My Body. Hope that helps.

David Barton is on TBN right now talking about education. I thought some of you might be interested in watching. It looks like this show might come on every Tuesday from the looks of it. I'm totally drawn in at this point. I'll be recording this for a while to watch myself. The name of the show is Building an American Heritage.

I wish I would have done MFW K and All About Reading. We started out with BJU K Distance Learning classes. My 5 year old doesn't like them and we now only do the math. In hindsight I would have preferred MFW K. I may order it in a few days to finish out our year and summer. So many fun character lessons and wonderful science activities and books, books, books.

Ok so I'm not really sure what is really necessary. He saw me looking at everything online and liked the slate. He looked at the wooden pieces but honestly I think he's beyond the pieces. He really just needs to write and practice. I think the wooden letter pieces would be an expensive waste right now. I looked at what the website says and here is what they recommend for K. Capital Letter Wood Piece Set Letter Cards Mat Slate Chalkboard Blackboard with Double Lines Kindergarten Teacher’s Guide Letters and Numbers for Me student workbook Big Sheet Draw and Write Paper Draw and Write Notebook Wide Rule Double Line Paper (100 sheet pack) What do you are recommend for an older K student? He knows his letters and just needs to learn how to write them properly and practice. Thanks again!

Thanks! I forgot to say that he will be 6 in April. Not that that should make a difference. He's really had no focused handwriting and my gut says go with K so I should probably listen to my gut. If 1st had enough real instruction then I would feel ok doing that but he also needs a decent amount of practice when he learns a new letter.

I am wanting to start HWOT with my 5 year old. I am not sure if I should use K or 1st grade book with him. We've been using BJU but I haven't pushed the handwriting with him. He doesn't write the letters the right way. He does things like start at the bottom, etc. I basically want to start from the beginning with him so I can correct any issues we are having. Would you recommend starting with the K book or the 1st grade book? Any other things you would recommend besides the workbooks with either of these levels for his age? I'm wondering if the chalk and slate would be a good thing to use with him. Thanks for any help!

I feel the same way reading it! I also just want to cry reading it because it's exactly how I want to do things. If I could just get out of my own way...... I'm making some mental progress though. I've decided to not buy stuff immediately when the tax return is deposited this week. A few days ago it was a sure thing :001_huh:

I bought AAR Pre-1 when my son was a late 4 year old but more than ready to learn to read actually. I worried that it would be a waste of money and he would be beyond it but AAR 1 wasn't out yet. There wasn't anything else I wanted to use. So I got it but wasn't consistent with it (story of my life :ack2:) and decided to sell it to purchase BJU K Distance Learning. BJU K was a complete flop and 3 months in I broke down and bought AAR Pre-1 because AAR 1 still wasn't out just yet. It's been the best decision. Pre-1 has done so much more than teach us the letters and their sounds. In looking over AAR 1 I see so much more than simple phonics. AAR is like AAS in that there are steps in the curriculum but those steps are not lessons. A step could take 1 day or 5 days or anything in between. If your children are reading CVC I still recommend starting at the beginning and move as quickly as your children need. Looking at some of the middle and latter steps I see much richness beyond CVC words. You might move quickly in the early steps but find that you have to take some steps closer. Just remember to go at each child's pace. I think that you will be pleasantly surprised and at the depth of AAR (I'm assuming you bought AAR 1). I'm pretty passionate about AAS and now AAR. Marie has made it so simple to do each day. She took OG methods and made them so easy to teach. That really is the beauty of AAS and AAR to me. It teaches me how to teach. Because of the ease of use it gets done more consistently then most other things. AAS has helped my older son so much. I'd pay the money all over again if I had to. It's worth every dime to me. Every time I sit down with my 5 year old to do AAR I wish I'd had it for my older one. As you can probably tell I believe in it :tongue_smilie: If you have any questions feel free to PM me.

I couldn't vote because it truly does depend on the child. I'd vote 6-7 if that were an option though. My older one started K at 6 so he was 7 while in 1st. My 5 year old, on the other hand, is doing K this year and will be 6 for 1st.

aprilsblessings, For phonics my hands down absolute favorite is All About Reading. My 5 year old LOVES it! I wish I'd had it for the older one. :thumbup:

Oh my goodness this thread is absolutely brilliant! I was just talking to my husband yesterday, while crying, about how our days are just not what I want them to be. I can't seem to strike a balance. It's either this rigid schedule where we end up checking off the next thing and being stressed if it doesn't get done OR we get nothing done. Why can't I find the balance that I want? :sad: I truly don't think it's the curriculum (obviously) but me and my whole mind set and attitude. I'm already regretting the loss of my K year with my 5 year old. I want to change the way things are done for my middle schooler and I want to start out differently with the almost 6 year old. This thread gives me some serious food for thought. I've got a budget of $1400 for next year and I've got to give some serious thought to how I want to spend that money. I'm also off to PM Carol in Cal. I suspect I'm not the only one PMing her :D

I'm speaking strictly from my experience with my older son who is 12 right now. We've done mostly BJU for grammar. Now that we are in 6th grade in hindsight I feel like it was a waste of time to do it. We've dropped grammar for this year and we will pick it back up next year for 7th grade using Analytical Grammar. He just never understood or retained it. Given my experience I have no intentions of doing much formally (as in curriculum) with the 5 year old has he progresses until around a minimum of 4th grade. That doesn't mean I won't discuss things with him as needed regarding grammar. I just don't plan to use a curriculum for him. I do, however, reserve the right to change my mind at any given point in the younger sons education :tongue_smilie: If need dictates, I will start using something formally earlier.

I'm at about $1400 for a middle schooler and a 1st grader. That's a little higher than most years because we are starting some new things next year that we need to buy manipulatives for so start up costs are higher for next year. Also a great deal of what I'm buying will be able to be used for the younger son when he comes along. More right now and less later. This amount is also buying everything new and none of it used. I might try to get some of it used and that cost will go down...maybe...

I'm another person that must know the name of that iPad app. Please? Pretty please? ;) I also whole heartedly recommend AAS for beginner spellers. I wish oh wish that I would have had it when my older son was that young. Now that I've got the 5 year old starting I will be using both AAR and AAS with him. LOVE LOVE LOVE both. And for what it's worth my older was struggling but it doesn't appear that my 5 year old is going to have the same struggles. He's catching on with record speed to learning to read. I will still use AAS with him.

Heart of Dakota, All About Spelling, and All About Reading. Wish these were around or I'd known about them when my older son started Kindergarten.

I need to help my 12 year old build reading fluency and automaticity. He also doesn't phrase well when reading. He reads and understands well but hates to read aloud. Any recommendations for an older child like this that aren't babyish? Thanks!

Here is a direct link to the book at How Great Thou Art. http://www.howgreatthouart.com/products/111.html Here is the direct link to Carrie's post regarding using this book. http://www.heartofdakota.com/board3/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=11011&hilit=Sneak+Peek

Ohhh I'm off to read! How come I didn't know this already!!

I read your blog so I know your packaged curriculum ;) I get the same thing but it's so worth it to me. Boy ain't this the truth? I did the same thing. I can relate.

:D

Me? I never read it in the evening for the shear enjoyment. Nope I don't. :leaving:

These are my questions also? I almost always recommend placing in the later age range of most guides unless you have a truly gifted child. HOD can be deceptive in what's required in skill level. Of course it could be that HOD isn't for you. Life is definitely too short to sweat it if it's not for you but if you do like most of it you might just need to make some adjustments in placement and how you use it. We just made a change that would appear to be small in how we use HOD. After 1 day things are better. Do what works for you and your kids.