Ooh, Math-U-See looks promising :thumbup:. How do you do composition? I admit the thought of doing composition intimidates me, but I think dd would enjoy it. She tends to do better with creative, big picture tasks than the various sub skills that make up the task, and she's occasionally used the iPad to write stories. Dd8 uses the computer some in her free time, but she hasn't done anything to learn to touch type yet.

Yeah, I was afraid of that. I haven't done any grammar yet (was focusing on handwriting/spelling), and our spelling is LiPS when I can and otherwise working our way through the word list from Let's Read (it's the program I used to teach her to read and has lots of sentences with 100% known words I can use for dictation, which dd8 likes well enough) - she spells the words with Dekodiphukan sound picture tiles and then writes them, and then we do sentence dictation (with the writing on a whiteboard with colored markers because that makes it more fun/palatable). For LA we do copywork (dd8 usually chooses verses from hymns we are learning) and oral narration of all content work. The narration is rather like pulling teeth, tbh - output's always been a bit of a struggle. And I've been trying to figure out how to increase the amount of copywork; she does about two short sentences worth a day, and that's pretty comfortable now - I can leave her unattended and it gets done ;). But I can't fit too much on a page without causing problems (she locks up), so I leave lots of white space between words and don't fill the entire page, and she's not a fan of doing more than a page at a time. We've also started cursive, at her request, and it's done wonders for her handwriting in general, actually. Today with the StM placement test she had to write 20 short words, and I wasn't actually sure if we could do it all at once, but she didn't have a problem - it's like she's finally getting automatic at it, not having to use so much of her brain on just trying to get the letters written :thumbup:. And actually, wrt the copywork, she can do her page in 2-3 minutes now, compared to taking 10 at the beginning of the year, and with better writing, too. And even in the last few weeks her spelling in her own writing has improved quite a bit.

No? :tongue_smilie: I have no idea what the law is here or what sorts of services the ps provides wrt evals - probably a good thing to look into :yes.

Fortunately (miraculously) she's reading well. I appreciate the suggestions, but they all sound very parts-to-whole, and dd8 does so much better with big picture, story-based things. (I think that's why LoF has been a consistent hit.) Are there any whole-to-parts and/or story-based open-and-go programs for skills? Or am I just dreaming - that 10-15 minutes of taking our math medicine and spelling medicine and grammar medicine and writing medicine's really the way it's got to be right now? In which case I guess I'd alternate back-and-forth between skill medicine and content feasting in our homeschool day. That's a lot of transitions, though - right now it's content-centered morning time first (everyone's happy to get started on that) followed by math and reading/spelling blocks (with a read aloud/snack break between the skill blocks), to minimize the number of times I have to corral everyone. But sometimes we only get one skill block in.

Yeah, I did a lot of buying-ahead-used, and my ambitions for what sort of teacher I'd be do not match my current reality ;). I gave dd8 the StM placement test, and she did surprisingly well - got everything but "such" and "teeth", even got all the nonsense words. I might try starting it, or maybe I could continue what I've been doing but just skip ahead to the consonant digraphs - she was just placed too low. (She saw me looking at Spelling You See today, though, and rather likes the looks of that, and it's got open-and-go copywork/dictation.) WRT powering through the dull bits: it's not so much being dull, but that keeping her focused becomes a full time task. I don't know how much is her preference for novelty and how much is she's already mastered it, but whatever it is, day 1 she can focus beautifully and enjoys the challenge, and by day 3 she's more distractable than her little sister and I'm having to redirect her literally every 30 seconds (skipping ahead resets the clock back to day 1 if I can find the right place to skip to, but finding the right place isn't always easy to find). The amount of doodling on the margin of the page tracks this - on good days, with a good mental challenge, there's hardly any doodling. On bad days, the entire page is covered with doodles but the actual problems are blank (if I sit with her the entire time and direct her through the page still gets covered in doodles but at least the work gets done, too ;)). She'll do her best to refocus when I point her back, but her attention inevitably wanders within seconds. It's important to learn to focus no matter what, but days upon days of work that's that unengaging is kind of hell for both of us. And the worst part is that she *loves* math when there's a mental challenge - will spend hours on it of her own accord. And it feels like I'm ruining math for her when it turns into nothing more than day after day of drudgery, kwim? It doesn't have to be a laugh a minute, but there ought to be sufficient material to engage the mind more often than not, right?

Complicating this is that I'm just about on the verge of making a doctor's appointment for *me*, because of unexplained fatigue. I really don't think I'm well, and it limits what I can do, which is why I wanted to reassess and streamline.

Is this even possible, for a likely gifted and VSL student with phonological processing weaknesses and maybe dyslexia and/or dysgraphia? So the "no school for two years" thread gave me a kick in the pants to break out of the winter doldrums. And I was looking at what works and what doesn't, and what works is "do the next thing" open-and-go programs. What sort of works is following a scope-and-sequence in a subject I know inside and out, but where I have to create my own custom materials each day (I lose time by making them just-in-time, right before handing them to the kids). What only works on good days are teacher-intensive programs that require me to learn it before I can teach it. What doesn't work ever are open-and-go programs that aren't, because dd8 isn't an open-and-go kid (the pattern inevitably is that day 1 is a good fit, right amount of challenge; day 2 is teetering on too easy; day 3 is just this side of mind-numbingly boring; day 4, if I even try, is a disaster; re-place and repeat until I give up in frustration). Either I turn them into an expensive scope and sequence and source of problems (although often trying to adapt the problems is more work than making up my own) or I chuck them entirely. I wanted to simplify things by switching to open-and-go programs in the three R's: a math program to replace my custom stuff loosely based on Singapore Math and a spelling/writing program to replace custom spelling/copywork/dictation and to give me something that can be done every day (unlike LiPS, which is a good-day-only curriculum). All our content subjects are read alouds where we just "read the next chapter", which works (and as such has formed the base of our schooling). Despite needing LiPS, dd8 is a prolific reader well above grade level (reads for hours a day) and gets a lot of content that way, too. But as I started researching new programs, and thinking about whether I need yet *another* program when I have all these programs collecting dust on the shelf, and so thinking about why is it that I'm not using the ones I have, I was forcibly reminded that we've never managed to use a math or spelling curricula as written for more than three days, ever. Even my custom spelling stuff, going through the book I used to teach her to read, spelling the words with tiles and then using the sentences as dictation, is hitting the "third day boredom" problem. (She drew between every word - it was basically drawing time interrupted by the occasional word.) Placing her is trying to hit a moving target, and the gap is huge (and seemingly growing) between her pace of learning and her interest on the one hand, and her ability to hear and manipulate sounds on the other (and write - her stamina is well below her peers (although she's improving there recently), and she needs a ton of white space - one of the many reasons me writing up custom work is so helpful). In math she's such a concept girl, but is held back by her calculating ability (and difficulties lining up her own problems - I mostly scribe writing out problems), and IDK how to realistically get non-soul-killing daily calculation practice in while simultaneously feeding her concept-love - it tends to be one or the other, calculation practice until the boredom/soul-killing becomes an issue, and concept focus until lack of calculation becomes an issue, and though it works, it feel very haphazard and inefficient, and involves hitting more roadblocks (with attendant tears) than I like. Also, I'm feeling increasingly at a loss with how to provide concepts, and it's been more of a calculating focus lately, which generally requires me to sit next to her and constantly redirect her back to her work. I know, evals would help make the whole thing less of a shot in the dark. And we could use our tax return to do it - I haven't because we have a very limited savings that only gets replenished from our annual refund and this would be a giant chunk - but I've been battling the moving-target-placement issue and the wide divergence between her strengths and her weaknesses for a while now, and while the custom work *does* work, it's still a rapid series of shots in the dark some days. But tbh, trying to find the doctors and make the appointments and find the money and deal with insurance - all that's all pretty darn overwhelming itself - how do I find the energy for *that*? I mean, I have phone phobia - the idea of calling all those strange offices and talking to all those strange people is overwhelming itself. The whole point of this was to *reduce* my workload, not add to it tenfold, kwim? And also, what do I do in the meantime? How do you streamline and reduce your workload to what you are able to get done each and every day, when you've got a kid who defies all norms??? (Programs I have, if anyone has suggestions how to make them work for both me and dd8: Math: Miquon, Life of Fred, Singapore Math, RS Activities for the ALabacus & card games, Beast Academy 3a, Kitchen Table Math 1-3 LoF is the only program that's actually worked for more than a week, so it would be our best bet; we're doing it as a fun supplement now, so dd8's only in Cats, which is pretty behind where she can calculate. I guess we could pair custom five-a-day practice to keep up her current skills while we do several chapters of LoF each day till we caught up. Spelling: WRTR, SWR, AAS 1, Words, R&S 2, Spelling Through Morphographs; of these, StM looks the most likely to get done on my end, but IDK whether it will work for dd8, although I'm going to give her the placement test to see if she's got the necessary skills to start it. I'd love to do LiPS every day, but the prep is killing me. Suggestions on streamlining and routinizing the process of making custom work are welcome, too.)

I agree that no one needs lectures from someone who isn't both doing their best to live what they preach *and* is actually achieving some level of success at doing so. I used to think the right theory got you 75% of the way there, but now I think you can't truly understand a theory unless you are living it out - theory and practice are so intertwined that one without the other is means that even the one (you think) you have is seriously, seriously lacking. And that if you hold a theory that you mean to live out but can't, then there's a problem with your theory or your understanding of your theory. Not that you have to perfectly live your ideal for the ideal to be valid, but that if you are perpetually "about to start" living it out - that at no point have you actually managed to for-real live out your ideal, however imperfectly, for more than a few days or weeks at a time - then that raises red flags not just about your practice but about your theory, too. A theory that can't be lived out - even if it seems like it's for unrelated-to-the-theory-reasons - is a fatally flawed theory. It might just be *your* interpretation of the theory that is fatally flawed - but that certainly means that *you* shouldn't be teaching it to others. But she still might be doing her best to live out what she preaches. It's not a very good best, and in fact is not good enough period - and *definitely* means she shouldn't be teaching others - but if she is doing the best she can do, then I don't really consider her a hypocrite. Although looking at the Pharisees - doing your best *and* thinking it is good enough when it isn't is what Jesus calls being a hypocrite. In which case maybe she is, if she really does think her current best is good enough, or presents it as good enough.

I can imagine just sort of falling into it - kind of a variant on being a theoretical expert on parenting before kids or homeschooling before actually starting. You know how you *mean* to parent and homeschool, you *know* it will work - you just haven't quite gotten around to fully implementing it yet. But you're *going* to, you truly sincerely think this is the best way and you're totally going to do it as soon as you can get things together. And every day you mean to make it better - living it out is always just around the corner. And the fact you spend all your time escaping into your theoretical fantasy of how to live the ideal life just makes that life seem all the more real to you. And you know it's the ideal, even if you aren't living up to it right now (and really, do any of us embody an ideal perfectly?), and you know *just* how to achieve it - as soon as you manage to muster up a bit of self-discipline you'll be following it, too, and you *know* it will be wonderful. Yeah, when you're a person who loves theory and sees the move from theory to practice as just a "short hop", when life hits it can be a short hop from theory to fantasy. For me that sort of avoidance correlates with being depressed, and when I was barely functioning I had lost all perspective of how far I'd fallen - I knew it wasn't good, but I really, truly had no idea *how* not good. When I started coming out of the depression fog I was shocked at how skewed my perception had gotten. So she could very well know that the current situation is not ideal - that there is a gap between what she preaches and what she practices - but to see it as a much smaller gap than it really is, comparable enough to "no one meets an ideal" to be "ok".

Part of the problem for me is that I *didn't* blend in English, so I couldn't apply my non-existent English blending skills to Greek ;). I just didn't *realize* I couldn't blend in English, as I had (mostly) enough workarounds to make up for it. Which actually is the story of my schooling career - I didn't realize how not-normal my "not an auditory learner" stuff was, because I had enough workarounds to compensate. And the places where I didn't I was able to avoid, or didn't realize it had an auditory connection. (I was reading about auditory processing disorders - I had no idea that difficulties interpreting social cues can be a consequence of APD, and that's been a real trouble area of mine.)

I've read the same - that blending is a developmental skill - but it's a developmental skill that for some reason never clicked for me (or dd8 or my mom). And whether it's the lack of blending or the underlying reason for lack of blending - whatever the reason, it's caused me quite a bit of trouble (in figuring out how to pronounce words not in my oral vocabulary, and in trying to learn foreign languages). For the longest time I thought I was "just not good at languages" - it was a revelation to realize there was a very specific, hopefully fixable reason that I had trouble with languages. Both my dds flunked the Barton pre-screening, although dd8 was to all appearances fluently reading, and in fact loves to read :hunh:. Spelling's been an issue, though, although as we do LiPS she's improving.

Interestingly, I *do* hear the words in my head as I read. In fact, I *cannot* read a word unless I can somehow figure out a pronunciation for it - otherwise it's just a bunch of meaningless squiggles (this is true in English, too). Which is one reason why I keep hammering away at learning to decode Greek phonetically instead of just trying to read it by sight (which is what my dh does). It's weird - I'm so intensely visual and have such glaring auditory weaknesses that for the longest time I thought I was a "visual learner". But I'm starting to wonder if I'm more of an auditory learner, just one who's had to adapt to using visual input to get around the auditory weaknesses.

I may be conflating a few things. Where I'm coming from is the idea that blending seems to act as a proxy for some important phonological processing skills - meaning that the inability to blend can be a sign of underlying difficulties that can make it hard to read phonetically, even learning with a method that doesn't involve blending. Also, Spalding involves segmenting words into sounds, right? And segmenting - breaking a word into individual sounds - is the flip side of blending (putting sounds together into words); kids who can't blend generally can't segment well either. Maybe I should add that into the poll.

I actually deliberately avoided languages that required speaking in school because of the auditory processing thing :tongue_smilie: (although at the time I thought I was "just bad at languages") - that was why I chose Latin ;). But a language program that had a ton of auditory input with complete transcripts of everything said - that might work. Because, yeah, hearing a native speaker pronounce it would help a lot - but I still need that visual component to make up for the auditory issues. (I mean, I always watch TV and movies with the captioning on - without it I have to concentrate so much more, and if the room's really noisy I feel like I "can't hear", no matter how loud the sound.)

I'm trying to figure out how common this is. My answers are two "can't blend but learned to read anyway" (me and dd8) and one who was "can't blend and so can't read" but seems to be moving to "took a fair bit of explicit work to teach to blend" (dd6). So my perception's a bit skewed ;). ETA: Adding in segmenting, since it's the flip side of blending and the two are correlated.

That sounds helpful :).

Interesting re: study. My problem's not so much with not having overlearned the individual sound-spelling correspondences of Greek, because I really have done that after all this time. What I *haven't* done is overlearn Greek *syllables* - I mean, I've worked through the various syllable charts in Bluedorn's Greek syllabary a few times, but that was both painful and not overlearned by any means. To give an example of what I mean, dd8 learned the basic sound-letter correspondences of the alphabet when she was 2 - knew them cold. (I sort of thought she might start spontaneously reading, but no.) Fast-forward *several* years to when she *finally* seemed to grasp the idea of blending, and I started on the usual CVC words. Only, even though she definitely knew each individual letter sound, very well (we'd been doing it for literally *years* by this point), she had the roughest time decoding any new CVC word. It wasn't until I started a program that had a separate lesson to introduce every new word family (-an words, then -at words, -ad words, and so on), and did all the short a words before introducing a new vowel (and so on and so forth through all the short vowels), and had quite a bit of cumulative decodable reading practice for each lesson that dd8 could start making some progress. She had to learn to apply her letter-sound knowledge to each new word individually and explicitly, in bite size chunks with lots of practice before adding a new chunk. She didn't start generalizing to new words until halfway through blends and some two-letter phonograms (at 6.5, after about a year of consistent lessons). (And as it turns out, she *still* can't blend and flunked the Barton pre-screening *after* she appeared to be reading fluently and reads far above grade level, for hours every day.) IDK, given the general talk about kids learning to reading here and how most "regular" programs seem to teach the alphabet and then go straight to blending CVC words of all varieties together - the whole "needing to explicitly learn to apply her overlearned letter-sound correspondences to each and every new word" seems to be more than most kids needed, kwim? (And it makes sense in retrospect, given that she couldn't blend and so had to apply her phonics knowledge indirectly and by analogy to words she could already read - using what she knows about the individual letters and phonetically similar words to intuit a pronunciation - but she had to get a big enough store of words she knew how to pronounce into her head before that worked. Fortunately for dd8 she only had to figure out a word once to know it. Dd6, otoh, seems to need to blend each word to read it, and I only just hit on a method of blending that actually works to teach her to blend. Or a close-enough facsimile that magically allows her to connect the printed letters with the oral word.) And that's kind of where I am with Greek, that me and my mostly non-blending self need to explicitly (over)learn each and every syllable combination individually - in a way very comparable to how struggling readers learn to read in their first language. (Isn't blending supposed to be a developmental skill? How many people reach age 30 without being able to blend?) That's a sort of daunting amount of work, tbh. It actually seems to be partly an alphabet issue, but also a *language* issue - because anglicised Greek names are *much* harder to sound out than equivalent-length unfamiliar English words. That it's not just the familiarity of the alphabet, but the familiarity of the phonetic patterns of the language. I mean, I'm pretty sure I read the way dd8 does - some sort of phonetically informed intuitive guessing that's as good as my underlying sense of how the language sounds. Which is reasonably good but not perfect for English - my schema for syllable division, placing the accent, and choosing the right letter-sound correspondence when it's not the usual one is pretty inflexible (but it only affects words that *aren't* in my oral vocabulary, words that I learned solely through reading), but getting better as I've learned blending and explicit phonics rules. But with Greek I not only have the new alphabet but also I'm trying to read without an internal sense of the language. That internal sense is what allowed me to read English, including deciphering new words, without being able to blend. But with Greek, I *need* to be able to blend - or work through and memorize each and every combination, which is basically what dd8 did to learn to read English. But every non-native speaker's got the same issue wrt no internal schema. But *not* everyone's got the no-blending issue. I guess maybe my question boils down to: how many people don't learn to blend? (And maybe the easiest way for me to learn is something with a ton of audio - read along while listening - which actually is suggested for dyslexics to improve fluency. (The auditory processing thing means pure audio with no accompanying words is extremely hard for me to understand - I have to have an underlying schema already in place to have a hope of understanding - which means learning something new through pure audio is pretty much impossible.) Or put myself together a Greek version of LiPS and learn to blend ;).

Hm. Not for me. It took me way more than a few days to get fluent enough to really read (not just decode or sound out) languages that use a different alphabet, but it did click and though I have to read long books aloud--like, Dostoyevsky, Lermontov--no, I do not need to do that and did not need to do that for primer-level sentences. So I do think that there is a visual processing or other issue there that you've identified. That said, I don't know if you read aloud or not, but could that work? I learned by reading aloud. Best of luck to you. Greek is beautiful but very hard no matter what anybody says. :) Thanks for the encouragement :). I don't know if there are *visual* processing issues, but there does seem to be *auditory* processing issues running in the family, which would fit the various things I've noticed. WRT blending - thinking on it further, it's generally *hard* but it's not always *mindnumbing*. In fact, decoding individual words can be kind of fun - it's like doing a puzzle, or deciphering a secret code - it requires effort but the discovery factor rewards it. But it gets tiring after 7-10 words. It's lists of *syllables* that are both hard *and* mindnumbing, probably because it removes the fun discovery factor from the work, thus making it drudgery. I do tend to read aloud, because it helps to hear it for real. You know, I just re-read what you said about not having issues with primer material - and I think that's one of the problems. From a phonetic perspective, there's no equivalent of primer reading practice for ancient Greek (minus the Bluedorn's syllabary, which is hard because it's *all* decoding with no meaning; straight drill alone, with nothing to offer beauty or interest is hard to deal with for more than a few minutes at a time) - the very first lessons in even grammar-translation programs introduce multi-syllable words right off the bat.

This being difficulty in learning to read foreign languages that use a different alphabet, where the different alphabet itself is a the stumbling block. I've been trying to learn Greek for awhile, and while I was able to learn the letters and the associated sounds in a few days, the transition to actually *using* that knowledge to read actual Greek words and sentences has been a frustrating years-long process that is still ongoing. So I've been stuck at lesson 2 in any number of beginning Greek texts for a mind-bogglingly long time, because the actual decoding process is so taxing - individual words are doable but tiring, but sentences are too much - just decoding takes all my brain, with none left over for comprehension. It actually sounds a lot like the dyslexic experience, which is interesting because phonological processing difficulties (and difficulties learning foreign languages) runs in my family. In fact, as I've been investigating my dds' difficulties learning to read in English, I've realized they parallel my difficulty learning to decode Greek. (For example, a few years ago, as I was working to help dd8 learn to blend, I realized that *I* didn't know how to blend (I'd learned to read by straight whole word); so there I was, at age 30, learning a beginning reading skill *very* painfully - gave me a lot of empathy for dd6's trouble - blending is *hard* and mindnumbingly tiring.) I've been doing LiPS with my girls (both failed the Barton pre-screening), and honestly I think *I* need it, too. Anyway, though it is true I've not put in the intensive sort of practice in learning to decode Greek that I've done with the girls in learning to decode English (though over the years I *have* put in dozens of hours, maybe hundreds, and I certainly have had the letters down and the letter-sound correlation down for *years*, and that's not remotely been enough) - is that really *necessary* for most people? In discussions on learning Greek there's so many who just spend a day or two memorizing the new alphabet and then off they go - and that seems to be the general default expectation. (And I've done one of the more in-depth learn-to-decode-Greek programs, and all the Greek syllables were both hard and mindnumbing and not particularly effective compared to the misery involved (so I can sympathize with dd8's absolute *loathing* of Webster's Speller and syllables). I've dabbled with "writing English words using the Greek alphabet", but not as intensely as I'm doing the equivalent "write English words with the Dekodiphukan sound pictures" with the kids.) (Although I did the very same in Latin when I learned it - learned the sound-letter correspondences in a day and off I went (more or less). And that coupled with the fact that I learned dd8 still couldn't blend when she tried to read English words (aka words in her oral vocabulary) that were written in the Dekodiphukan sound pictures (a new "alphabet", though she know all the picture-sound correspondences) is why I'm thinking there's something about the new *alphabet* that brings the underlying phonological processing deficits to light when they weren't an (obvious) issue in reading the Latin alphabet. Possibly because of all the exposure to the Latin alphabet that one gets?) And with my *entire* family (my mom and dad, my sister and me, and my oldest two kids, with ds3 having all the same red flags) having the same sorts of difficulties, I'm having an extremely hard time getting perspective on how common this actually *is*. Although the introduction to LiPS said that approximately one-third of prospective LiPS teachers did not have themselves have the necessary phonological processing skills - that they needed to in effect *do* LiPS (to some extent) in order to *teach* LiPS. One-third - that's quite a lot, really. But I don't seem to hear about it - is that because people with these issues tend to just give up and move to another language? Or is it not that common, really?

Reading Pathways has a section on multi-syllable words, where they build them up syllable by syllable. Can she orally blend syllables into words? I mean, if you said "in" "cred" "i" "ble", with a distinct pause between each syllable, can she blend them together into "incredible"? Especially with words that aren't in her spoken vocabulary? I ask because my dd had issues with word guessing and multi-syllable words, and it turned out that she couldn't reliably blend syllables together into words *orally* - on some words she'd do fine (usually ones she knew) but on some she'd add or subtract syllables or switch the order, and couldn't ever manage to get those particular ones right - just kept repeating the mistake. It's pretty hard to sound out a multi-syllable word in print when you can't actually blend sounds together ;). (WRT the word guessing, can your dd read phonetic nonsense words as easily as she can read real words? In our case, it turned out that dd8 actually couldn't blend at all - not even two or three sounds. She could somehow figure out nonsense words as wholes (though it was hard for her) - probably the result of the year and a half of solid phonics-only reading instruction we did - but she could not blend at all, and that tripped her up on longer words. Phonetically-informed guessing was all she could do. She was good at it, too, which is why it took so long to realize she was unable to blend at all. I was the same way, as I realized when I tried to learn Greek and couldn't apply my knowledge of what sound each letter stands for to actually sounding out Greek words - all those English-alphabet-based phonetically-informed guessing skills mean *nothing* when it's a different alphabet and you don't have an oral vocabulary in that language to help you out.)

No, as a theologically conservative Christian, it hadn't been on my radar before and doesn't really bother me now. Eta: We're also fine with HP.

I agree with you that it sounds like a lot of work, but by taking a year off, he'd need to do something on his own during that year to keep his Greek up. Otherwise he'd have to do an intensive review of Greek before starting Greek 3. It looks like he'd be read to read Greek authors after Greek 2, so maybe he could get a few transitional Greek readers and have at it - read a page or something every day. Maybe pair that with a Greek grammar review once a week. But he'd need *some* kind of regular Greek practice. Looking at it time-wise, it looks like the big issue would be how much harder or more time intensive next year's language courses would be compared to this year's (since I'm guessing the Eng/math/science/history are staying at roughly the same level). Can Lukeion and TPS (or the interwebs ;)) give you an estimate on how much time the AP Latin and AP French courses take compared to Latin 3 and French 4? Ditto for how much more time Greek 3 takes compared to Greek 2 (if he finds Greek about the same level of difficulty as Latin, I'd use the time requirement for Latin 3 as a baseline for Greek 3). In general, it sounds like he likes languages, and if has the drive and interest and ability to do three this year at fairly high levels, he might surprise you at how he can handle them next year. (I was that sort of ambitious kid in high school and I was a better judge of how much I could handle than my teachers.) Latin 3 can be a brutal transition (from grammar to actually reading Latin) and if he weathered that well, AP Latin might not be that much harder. I might find out the "official" time estimates for this year's classes, compare the estimates to the actual time spent by your ds, and compare all that to the time estimates for next year's classes - get a realistic estimate of how much more time would be involved, and see what that would make his schedule. Then show it to him, explain the time commitment and your reservations, and seek what he thinks. He might rather spend more time on an official class than less time on keeping up his Greek on his own, or he might welcome the chance to consolidate his Greek grammar without pressure. And he might be able to give you a picture of how hard Greek is for him compared to Latin and French, and how hard languages are for him compared to his other classes - to get an idea of how much it would truly help him to take a year off Greek. (Always bearing in mind that it wouldn't be a *true* year off from Greek, but a year of informal Greek review instead of a year of formal Greek study.)

I used to work well under pressure (actually, I *only* worked under pressure), but after burning the candle at both ends for too long I burned that ability right out of myself, and now I'm just like your dd. Stress freaks me out and I want clap my hands over my ears and loudly sing, "La, la, la, I can't *hear* you", or curl up in a ball and wait for the stressor to go away. Which of course doesn't work ;). It's an anxiety thing for me, and it helped me to read about handling anxiety. With anxiety, when the fight-or-flight reaction comes, anxiety votes for flight every time - anxiety is pro-avoidance, wants to avoid the cause of all the nasty anxious feelings at all costs. But the nasty thing is, every time you give into the anxiety and avoid the stressor, it makes the anxiety stronger, and makes you want to get away from the cause even *more*, which just increases the anxiety all the more. It's a really vicious cycle. (My mom "handles" this by having *two* competing cycles going - she starts a project when the terror of failing becomes greater than the terror of starting. I don't really want to live that way; plus I can't - when I feel the dual contradictory tugs I just give up entirely.) The way I get out of the cycle is to consciously realize what's going on - that what I want to do (avoid the source of stress) actually makes everything worse. But I can stop the cycle at any point, just by taking a deep breath and doing *something*. Understanding the cycle and knowing that the apparent "easy" path of avoidance causes *far* more pain than the apparent "hard" path of facing it (I have *so* much btdt evidence of that ;)) - it helps me stop the cycle in the early stages, when the anxious avoidance feelings are small. Because it feels like avoiding at the beginning isn't a big deal - there's lots of time to get to it - except that by avoiding at the beginning you *make* it a big deal. Avoidance just breeds more and more avoidance. Eta: General self-care measures - eating right, plenty of sleep, and exercise - all boost my ability to stop the avoidance cycle in its tracks. The worse I'm feeling when the stressor comes, the harder it is to not reflexively hide from it and begin the cycle of avoidance, which itself adds to the stress and makes everything that much harder.

To get around the "tiles falling off" issue (which happened all. the. time. when I had my AAS tiles on the 2'x3' whiteboard), I keep my tiles stored on cookie sheets. Makes them easy to store and keeps them safe when not in use :thumbup:.

How much material written in an academic style does she *read*? At 14 she might not have much exposure to reading academic works (lots of school books for elementary are written pretty conversationally), and it's really hard for any of the usual "do the academic *this* instead of the conversational *that*" writing advice to make any sense without having an intuitive sense of what academic writing looks like in the first place. And it helps to flesh out the advice when you can refer back to real life examples in context.