imagine.more
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Posts posted by imagine.more
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No, couldn't happen unless you didn't really have a period (a lot of people think 3 days of spotting is a period because their doctor has falsely told them that it is). But if you're having fake periods (like people do on the pill or when having anovulatory cycles or in early pregnancy) then there's no ovulation of course.
Sperm can last 3-7 days and ovulation typically happens at the 10th-18th day of the cycle, sometimes later but almost never earlier. Even if say a woman ovulated on cycle day 7....not as common but definitely possible....the sperm would have needed to last 8 days since the first day of the period is cycle day 1.
There's also the fact that the day before your period you'd have dry cervical fluid, which is a poor environment for sperm to survive long. Then bleeding isn't a great ph environment for them. So between unfavorable environment + super long time between s*x and conception then it'd be crazy unlikely.
Now, if you had not ovulated yet and ovulated super late that cycle (I think my personal record is like cycle day 26, haha!) then conceived and then had spotting you thought was a period because of the timing then yes it's possible. Ovulating late is very common and can happen in times of stress or anything even if it isn't your norm.
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My dtr is language impaired and struggles with this also. The strategies recommended by her Nueropsych was to use number lines, pictures, diagrams, 100 charts etc. My dtr is 13 and is still thrown off by the term "more of " etc. So I would work with your child one on one to train them in the habit of making pictures of what is being asked step by step (because eventually word problems become more complicated). Then step away from time to time and see if she is using the strategies.
Yes, this is exactly how my daughter (13) is too. Language impaired, doesn't get those terms in word problems, and often is confused by why her answer could possibly be wrong. I suspect a combo of language problems and number sense problems account for the difficulty in both the OP's daughter and many of our kids struggling with these concepts in math.
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Thanks for the suggestions, I'm going to check into both of those tonight!
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Thank you! Such helpful responses. Our interview went very well. Both my husband and myself were comfortable and impressed by the doctor. My son was comfortable, too. It was a very relaxed environment.
The doc did say he's not "impressed"with Barton. He prefers Lindamood and O-G, based on research. I get it. He's published several papers on dyslexia diagnostic tools. He is informed. It feels like we hit the jackpot. I am starting to feel a bit sensitive though that we'll find out a bunch of good info for ds and that I suck :/
I'm glad the neuropsych interview went really well, that's great!
I wouldn't stress too much about his personal opinion about Barton. And Barton is Orton-Gillingham, it's just one of many different 'flavors' so to speak, so he's kinda making a false dichotomy there saying that he prefers O-G to Barton. Barton is unique but so is every O-G program honestly, each one is very reflective of the particular experts who put it together. I was trained with Fran Bowman's O-G "Plus" in Maryland and hers is much faster than Barton but that's because most of the kids she's working with are gifted dyslexics from wealthy and motivated families. Her program moves too fast for my slow learning daughter and would have caused exasperation. But the elements are almost identical to Barton Reading and Spelling. So we use Barton and I utilize my personal training in O-G now to supplement when we get stuck or when I feel DD needs more/different review. Bowman had some amazing examples of games and just ways to make things more hands-on and fun.
Barton is imo best for older dyslexics, it's no-frills so it doesn't feel too babyish once you're past Level 1. I suggest it for anyone who doesn't have access to or money for O-G training and I highly recommend it for anyone with overall slow learners.
Wilson is also good for older dyslexics and has more high-interest, low-level sentences. I'd do Wilson with a student who has average or above average intelligence but just never 'got' reading because of dyslexia. But ONLY with proper O-G training, the materials are good but not self-explanatory.
Bowman's is imo good for a wide range of ages but only for average-gifted students. Her tutors and materials are fantastic and really highlight the multi sensory aspect of O-G and get really creative with teaching concepts.
All About Reading & Spelling is perfect for younger dyslexic students and ones who a parent suspects might have dyslexia but they aren't sure. Like Bowman's I think it sometimes goes too fast for slower learners or severe dyslexics, but for mild to moderate dyslexics it's fantastic and not bad price-wise.
Different people might have different impressions or preferences on the different O-G curriculums out there than mine (and there are more programs than these ones) but the important thing is to realize there are several of them and mostly all are good, solid programs because they're based on research for dyslexia. As long as you select one that works for you as the tutor and your child as the student I think all are fine choices.
We haven't used Lindamood ourselves (too expensive) but I've heard wonderful things about it. You're lucky your neuropsych knows about these things! DD's neuropsych had never even heard of Orton-Gillingham, ugh!
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Since our son was our firstborn we didn't realize anything except that he was a bright kid until he was 2.5 and he learned how to read real words and suddenly was not only sounding out all sorts of CVC words and such but also sight reading signs like "Veterinarian". We were both in honors classes and such and SIL is incredibly gifted (Ivy league, near perfect SAT, talented gymnast, etc) so we figured our kids would be smart. But we weren't anticipating a truly unusually gifted one and it's honestly a little overwhelming and isolating sometimes. Looking back I suppose the earliest signs would include alertness as a baby (many comments on this, but we also are a sleep training family and all our babies are very alert because they're well-rested quite frankly). He didn't learn to talk particularly early but when he did it was in phrases. One of his first 'words' was "Here you go" at maybe 15 months. Mostly he just picked things up easily and learned mostly by osmosis. He doesn't need direct instruction in much. I think now having one gifted and one intellectually disabled that direct instruction is the biggest difference....intellectually disabled means I have to teach my daughter absolutely everything, she doesn't pick up anything except a few hands-on skills by osmosis. My son could honestly educate himself given the right exposure and direction towards materials.
It'll be interesting to see how my younger two (three once baby is born) turn out. I suspect DS (4) will be bright but more in the right-brained, mechanical kind of way....an engineer like his grandpa. I think DD (2) will turn out to be in the gifted/advanced learner range for sure, she's been slow to start but that was DS1's MO too. They watch quietly and then explode with language and new skills randomly.
Someone above mentioned Sensory Processing issues and my older son definitely has those though we never pursued a diagnosis. I fit every criteria for SPD myself so I'm not surprised by that. The biggest help we've found for that is early sports involvement and specifically gymnastics. Half the stuff they do in gymnastics is stuff my friend's OT does with her SPD child. Especially for toddlers/preschoolers.
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We tried combining literature, history, and science this year. It was my plan all along, most moms I'd talked to suggested it as the only and best way to do multiple kids homeschooling. But for us it's been a disaster. My oldest is too far behind and my second is too far ahead and so neither one is happy. Next year I'll be trying all separate subjects so my oldest can have her special needs kind of stuff and my second can have his advanced curriculums and my third can do his preschool stuff and focus on just learning to read. We'll see if it goes well but this year was such a disaster in history/science that I figure it can't get worse, lol
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I closed my Facebook account and opened a new one under a nickname and only friended a select handful of long-distance friends I actually want to keep up with. All of them are polite enough to not post political nonsense.
Honestly it was too stressful to me and I couldn't just unfriend neighbors or un-see the fact that one thinks Catholics are going to hell and another thinks people on welfare are lazy. It colors my view of them negatively and we're not that close...I'd never talk about these things with them IRL but it's upsetting to see them post it on facebook when they know perfectly well for example that I'm Catholic and that as their Facebook friend I would see that. The political stuff like welfare opinions, gun laws, etc are not personal so they're annoying but not personally upsetting. But to see someone post something that applies to me is super offensive. And honestly when I see too many of those political posts I start to see the person in a different light and not a positive one.
So yeah, I keep a private account for my long-distance friends and some groups, that's it. It's much more manageable and I don't find I miss out on much that way. My DH has had a Facebook account for years and has no problem with it, he has friends with wildly opposing views on religious and political topics on both sides of any spectrum but he's so chill it truly doesn't bother him.
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DD13 has dyscalculia and all sorts of learning disabilities. She's currently working in Math-U-See Gamma on multiplication.
She is good at calculations but very poor on number sense. We've already done remedial number sense activities which has improved the basics but hasn't carried over to money skills. She has very little understanding of money. She knows what each coin and dollar is worth and can sort by biggest denomination to smallest with some thought. But then when it comes to using money in real life or word problems she's a mess. Today she couldn't understand a word problem (read-aloud, so not a reading issue) about a girl having $100 to spend on gifts and wanting to buy gifts for 10 friends and how much can she spend on each person? She first tried to subtract 10 from 100, then to add 10 to 100 then tried to guess random numbers as answers. I had her get out play money and she still couldn't figure it out even with my help. I ended up having to give her the answer basically.
So, I'd like to know a program or more than one program combined together that cover money skills from the basics all the way to real-life budgeting and such? I have the manipulatives and am willing to work with her, I just do not understand where her brain is failing to understand the concepts so I need a well-done program that can walk me through it if possible.
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Check this out
http://www.cilscpa.org/programs/index.html
Says they offer sign lang classes throughout the year. May be helpful??
Thank you! I showed my husband this and he was all "oh yeah, when the deaf school returned our call that's what they recommended" ....of course he never told me this, oy! They did just get back to us last week but still, sheesh! We had called them awhile ago to see if they knew any resources out here and they had said they'd look into it and call us back.
We'll definitely be contacting them tomorrow and see when their next class is. It won't be quite the immersion a deaf school would offer but should get Ana and us started and I'm sure we can try to do some independent study after we have the basics.
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We really want to have her learn ASL but the nearest deaf school and nearest classes are in Pittsburgh 2 hours away. We've called multiple places to find ASL closer but nothing is available except through the private colleges as a full $3000 semester class for adults getting a degree. I think it's absurd nobody has taught her sign language before but because she is not deaf just hearing impaired and at 85% hearing with aids nobody thought it was necessary. But like I said we have no resources to learn or teach asl in our city.
Her 5 years of therapy was split between 4 therapists. One in CT, one in Reading, two in Altoona here. The first ones were before she came to us in Altoona. She also had therapy in school of course but just 20 min 7 times in a grading period.
She is diagnosed mild intellectual disability, iq 69 so right on the edge. And dyslexic and mild adhd Inattentive type.
She can now read at a high 2nd grade level after 12 months of Barton. Previously she was a non-reader basically. We're almost through level 3, 2 more weeks, yay!
As for gestures I didn't mean she can't understand words, just that if I'm explaining 'underneath' for example I'd obviously gesture under a table or under a book to demonstrate the point.
Hopefully that answers the background questions. Now off to read more responses :)
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So DD13 has been in speech therapy since they figured out her hearing impairment at age 8. About 5 years ago now. And yet looking at her old assessments on vocabulary and articulation, teacher comments, and what the speech therapists were working on at each point she's made hardly any noticeable progress.
Her articulation has improved slightly, she can in theory make all sounds in isolation though in words or sentences she still struggles a ton with /s/ /j/ /z/ and blends (especially st blends and tr blends and xt she cannot say at all). She still deletes ending or beginning consonants frequently, still has a lisp with her /s/ sound (she sounds like she's whistling when she does it).
But her vocabulary has improved only marginally in 5 years and certainly not enough to catch up her delays. According to tests she has the vocabulary of a 6 year old....and she's 13! And not a smart 6 year old quite frankly, like a bare minimum 6 year old because I have a 4 and 6 year old and both have higher vocabularies than their big sister.
Her current therapist (old one in our town could not fit her in more than once a week for 30 min. so we looked for a new one) tested her vocabulary with the most basic of stuff! Of course she knows what an apple is and of course she knows what it means to ride or to run. But what she doesn't know is much beyond that, kwim? Every day she asks "what does that mean?" to basic words we use in everyday life like "fascinating" or "feisty" or "beyond" or "repair" and she doesn't know basic vocabulary for school like anatomy terms "uterus, vagina, intestine, lungs, etc." or like terms for geography "island, peninsula, reef, lake vs pond or lake vs ocean". We stop and explain words a lot, often needing to resort to gestures and hands-on explanations and googling pictures because she even gets confused by the words we use to define the term. So we're working on it at home and I'd love to work on it more.
But, in speech therapy they're working on low-level skills still, making no progress, this new one also says she doesn't need therapy more than 30 min once a week, and when I ask for ideas of stuff to do at home they give me no advice or homework! I'm so frustrated.
What can I do to fix this situation? She's on medicaid and gets therapy through that and I got approval from insurance to cover more speech therapy but the overbooked speech therapists don't want to see her more often. She's adopted and I've even debated petitioning for a higher stipend (she already gets a decent one) though that makes me uncomfortable or looking into social security though I don't know if she'd qualify (she has moderate-profound hearing impairment, intellectual disability, adhd, and dyslexia). DH is under-employed right now and while we're fine with our normal bills I don't see a way to add private speech therapy to the budget right now, kwim? Plus where would I find someone who would take her?
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No advice but I'm seeing a similar trend with DD. She was getting along okay socially until she hit 12 and suddenly the expectations increased in social skills and just maturity/attention/executive functioning. Now at 13 she seems woefully behind her peers and most of her friends have kinda dropped off. I'm hoping it will even out later like you've seen with your son in different phases. And like yours our DD is definitely not autistic, it's mostly language processing and immaturity and for her low intelligence.
I wonder if simply limiting social interactions for a year or so, having very guided and supervised times to hang out with friends or extra guidance in any classes would be enough to just get him through this time. That might protect his self confidence and give him time to catch up and then he can kinda ease back into bigger social situations.
I think maybe dropping him back to half a day of classes would be good and then make the transition to full day in 2 years when he is more mature and can be successful with it. Middle school age is hard for any kid! Never mind one who lags a bit on new stages.
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My husband likely has ADHD and he drinks insane amounts of coffee. When he decreased the amount just because of being busy he gets irritable and distracted and very unproductive. He also drinks coffee to fall asleep, it calms and focuses him.
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Are there no solutions? I might be spoiled by having a very good public school system in my state, but there has never been any indication to me that no help is available.
In our school district no there are no options. Our adopted daughter for reasons related to just unstable home life and then moves into foster care learned almost nothing between 1st and 5th grade. The school tested her 4 years behind in reading and 1.5 years behind in math at the start of fourth grade. But in 5th grade at our district they refused to remediate her saying their policy was mainstreaming children with disabilities for their own benefit. They had no reading specialists and tried to drop her speech therapy because even though her vocabulary and comprehension of basic language was 5 years behind she had decent articulation for a HOH child. They had nothing to offer her besides sitting in a classroom and being "accommodated" in tests so they fed her the answers so she'd get A's and B's.
To make us feel better about her 1st grade reading level and zero progress halfway through 5th grade the school told us "don't worry, she's not the only one, we have lots of kids at a lower reading level than her." And it was true! 20 kids out of 70 in the remedial reading class and all were reading on a K-2nd grade level....in 5th grade. That's criminal educational neglect imo.
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Interesting. I think my normal gestation is 40 weeks-ish. My second was born 6 days early and he seemed ready but a tiny bit early, didn't have fingernails that needed cutting and still had that yucky white stuff on him. My third was born at nearly 42 weeks however and she didn't seem overdue at all when she came out. Her skin was good, coloring good, placenta looked like a normal 40 week placenta according to the midwife, and DD wasn't really too big at 8 lbs. And I know my dates on all of them because we use NFP and I chart even when we're TTC cause I'm a dork and like numbers :) My doctors never believe my dates because my babies heads' measure big but I'm always right. My first DS was born on his due date even. The third I think only went so long because they stopped labor at 31 weeks when I was contracting a lot (I told them it was my pattern and I was definitely not in real labor but they wanted to be 'safe').
I figure babies know how long they should be in there, scientists should start listening to moms more often.
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Thanks, y'all! Any suggestions for how to drill. I have Math Busters, but that seems a little too easy.
You can just do basic flashcards or find timed worksheets. It's boring, but effective :) Basically just set aside one day a week to do some timed math facts drilling and keep records to show progress overall.
But honestly, I'm always much more concerned about number sense and understanding of numbers than fluency. Fluency is important of course but if I had to sacrifice one over the other I'd easily sacrifice fluency! My oldest daughter did public school math and was 'on level' in computation until 4th grade then everything tanked because the whole time she had zero comprehension or number sense. Math is a big source of frustration now, she stalled out at multiplication and can't really do division because she doesn't even understand multiplication. My older son has done Singapore Math only and he has excellent number sense. This year he's on Singapore 2 and I noticed he wasn't strong on his multiplication facts so we do a little drilling of that. He likes this practice for multiplication facts: http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/maths/ma13time/game/ma13tabl-game-tables-grid-find/timestables_2.swf
And I agree with what someone else said that if they're working one grade level below then I'd expect them to be a tad behind on standardized tests in some areas. No big deal. As long as you have a plan for where they're headed in math long-term then I see no need to worry. If you want them to get to Pre-Calculus or Calculus level by 12th grade you'll need to eventually double up somehow and get them ahead. But no big deal, I took Algebra II and Geometry simultaneously in public school so I could get to PreCalc by 12th grade and it was hard but definitely doable.
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I'd say maybe they could use more drilling in addition and multiplication facts. I know the public school curriculum (in general) heavily emphasizes calculation and fluency and really de-emphasizes problem solving skills and understanding of math. Singapore is the opposite.
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We started teaching my older son at 2.5 for some of the same reasons...mainly he was driving me batty from boredom ;) I instituted 3+ hours outside time daily which helped a lot, and I started Ordinary parents Guide to Teaching Reading. He really liked that honestly and he started reading right away. Like your son he was already starting to blend letters together when we started. I do think the Memoria Press Special Needs curriculum, while awesome, wouldn't be a good fit for him because it wouldn't include teaching to read yet. How are his pencil and coloring abilities? If they're decent I'd say the R&S books would be a good fit for most things. If he's not into coloring/writing (my DS was not) I'd do OPGTR and lots of math manipulatives. I got counting bears, pattern blocks, etc. and we'd just play with them every day. We did nothing else and at 5 he was able to start in with Singapore Math 1 without any problem so I really think the manipulative work was effective. Have you seen the Tot School blog? (1+1+1=1) Her suggestions might help you brainstorm tasks for him, though of course you'll want to look ahead and maybe check out what she suggests for 3-5 year olds for things that would keep him challenged. But over all it's very Montessori-ish and good hands-on work which might be good for a kid who's bright but mostly nonverbal.
I also agree with the above suggestions to maybe pair some sign language with his speech therapy just to reduce frustration and tap into his language parts of his brain. Just in case he's hearing impaired and if he's not it won't hurt. We do sign language with all our babies and it is nice to prevent those early tantrums. My 13 yo is adopted but was hard of hearing for years undetected so she's got serious learning delays from it and I wish every day someone had taught her sign language, even just a bit.
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That is frustrating, but I think you and your DS handled it really well. Unfortunately it's par for the course with a kid who doesn't fit into normal parameters for their age range. My DS was kicked out of the library big kids' section at 3 because the librarian thought he was goofing off. I had to explain that no he had asked and I gave permission for him to go find a space book and that yes he does read them. He was all confused because he got in trouble for just looking for a book :(
I think some people just look for a simpler explanation to things that seem unlikely, such as assuming your son is really having his speeches written for him. That's their own lack of imagination speaking honestly. Btw I think it's awesome your son is using his energies to be so aware of and involved in issues that are important to him. He'll do fine long-term, you're handling it well and the shock should fade a bit as he gets older and just looks older.
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Maybe you need the baby Jane Austen board books :) Plus they're just adorable!
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I've been thinking my oldest could use something similar too.
For literature I'm considering using the Classic Starts for her, they are written on a lower level and while sometimes painfully abridged a kid can get the gist of the story and they're still pleasant reads. I've even seen several of the Classic Starts on audiobook AND the Confessions of a Homeschooler blogger has 3 sets of literature lapbooks for most of the Classic Starts, which could be a good supplement to reinforce what's being read without requiring a ton of writing or comprehension questions.
For history I have no idea. SOTW was a major bust, she doesn't have near the vocabulary to understand it and was left clueless about everything even right after we'd read a chapter three times. I wish there was like a little kid picture book version of SOTW :) Like just a condensed version with 1 page full of text and 1 page that has a corresponding picture and map? Maybe SWB can get on that sometime soon, since she's probably got gobs of time on her hands and all, lol! But anyway, it remains that I wish we had something like that as a resource for younger kids or for struggling students to give a healthy broad overview of life and history in the world. If anyone knows of something similar do tell!
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It definitely sounds like she's made progress in the underlying skills needed for reading, but you're right it seems like you've hit a wall with getting her to the point of actually reading.
I wonder if AAR is moving too quickly for her? I know lots of severe dyslexics need a slower pace than AAR provides, I know it'd be way too fast for my DD who is dyslexic. My DD had working memory scores even lower than your daughter's 1 year ago but after 9 months of Barton tutoring with me at home her working memory scores actually increased a lot on her most recent neuropsych test, as did her decoding of nonsense words. It might be worthwhile to switch from AAR to Barton Reading and Spelling program. It's expensive but not nearly as expensive as Lindamood Bell. You can buy one level, then sell it for almost the same amount on ebay, then buy the next and sell it, etc. I've never had problems selling our levels. It's scripted and very thorough. In fact some online charter schools in our state (PA) use Barton or Wilson programs (both Orton-Gillingham) for their dyslexic students so you can get it free through the charter school possibly.
It definitely sounds like fluency is the biggest need right now, which comes mainly from lots of practice. And since she seems to struggle to translate her knowledge of sight words on cards to sight words in context I'd have her practice with normal print on pages, typed just like regular words. If you could get some Wilson books it might be helpful for her, they have just lists and lists of words typed in regular fonts on a page. The entire Wilson set (it's like a rainbow colored set of books) is really not expensive at all. I got it from an O-G training I did but I looked up the price and I think it was $50-100. It's not a whole scripted curriculum but the books would be a good resource if she needs to work on fluency mostly.
Another specific trick is to give her sentences she can decode that includes some sight words and highlight the sight words with a colored pencil to call her attention to them.
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The WISC isn't a non-verbal test as even the "non-verbal reasoning" sections are still pretty dependent on receptive & expressive spoken language. I just read an interesting (to me at least, LOL!) journal article on problems with intellectual assessments of the deaf & hard-of-hearing by the neuropsychologist at Kennedy Krieger who will be testing my little one in June. Some of the same issues are likely to be present when testing hearing kids with ASD due to their speech & language difficulties.
The author, Dr. Reesman, found that for deaf/hard-of-hearing kids the Leiter Non-Verbal Intelligence Test, the Comprehensive Test of Non-Verbal Intelligence (C-TONI), and the Universal Non-Verbal Intelligence Test (UNIT) all were superior to the WISC. She said that the best option appears to be the Leiter. I don't know yet which assessments Dr. Reesman is going to include in DD's evaluation, but hopefully she'll include at least one of the non-verbal tests.
Not to hijack, but this is really interesting. Any chance you could link to the article? I'm interested in this since my HOH daughter was just diagnosed as intellectually disabled and while we think it's an accurate description of where she's at right now we're not sure it's a true description of her overall abilities because of the hearing loss.
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Alicia, we're really good movers. We have been living in our current place for four weeks and already feel pretty at home (no deep friendships, of course, but we have things to do and people to hang out with).
Moving is hard. But there are ways to make it easier.
At the beginning, do everything. Join every class that you might possibly be interested, join mom email lists (even if you have to pay $35 to join), put your kids in AWANA, go to every potluck, etc, etc, etc. You'll find some are good fits, some are terrible fits, and some are good only because you meet someone who tells you about some group you actually want to belong to. After a few months, begin culling anything truly awful.
The worst way to live in a city is to try to pretend it is the country. I hated living in Boston until my car broke down and I had to go everywhere on foot, bus, or bike. Then I loved it! I didn't like downtown Chicago until I stopped going to the suburbs and started riding the bus. (Maybe you live in a suburb?)
We've moved a lot (in 8 years we've lived in 4 states and are prepping for another potential move) and I'm pretty good at it too. I moved every 1-2 years as a kid as well for the most part cause my parents are odd. I do get excited about a new move each time but even with that I have a definite pattern and it's not all roses and sunshine.
The first 1-3 months is honeymoon period. Everything's new and interesting you're just so busy getting things unpacked, kids enrolled in stuff, etc that it flies by. Then the "I hate this place I want to go back" kicks in and lasts until the 1.5 year mark honestly. It fades a bit but it's there. Like someone else said once you start experiencing seasonal things for the 2nd and 3rd time everything feels better. You're more acclimated, you can plan ahead because you know this town has a big tree lighting ceremony Dec 1st every year or that in winter people hibernate so it's best to just do the same and not be offended. When we went to get pumpkins at the same farm for the third year it gave me all sorts of warm fuzzies about being settled :)
But the reason I quoted Emily up above was to second all of her advice. When we moved here after a terrible 2 year stay in WV I decided I was going to meet people if it killed me. I committed to say yes to everything! And I mean everything! It didn't matter if I hated all the books in the bible study club, I joined right up and went every week and it became the highlight of my week for the adult chatting and playtime for my kids. Someone needed help? Sure, I'll bring a meal (even if I got lost 3x trying to find their house). There's some odd festival I've never heard of? I'm there! lol! After 1.5 years I started culling all my overcommitments and dropped the things I wasn't loving and culled to just the things I felt fit our family. As a result we know more people here than in our own hometown, lol! Seriously, it worked, we're much more settled and happy here than anywhere else we've been in spite of the fact that there are big disadvantages to the area. If we can stay I'll be happy, but if we move for DH to find a better job I'll definitely be using this tactic again. It's exhausting that first year but very worthwhile.
How to stop a child from guessing while sounding out word?
in K-8 Curriculum Board
Posted
A combo of things:
- multi-sensory instruction (take the letters out of context and put them on tiles and such to make it harder to guess shape) which you're already doing with AAR.
- practicing with nonsense words like ElizabethB mentioned
- make it more work to guess than to slow down and get it right ;) For us, this looks like me making Ana re-read the word correctly 3x if she guesses. Now if I can tell she was just struggling to say it correct or if it's a word above her reading level I don't do this. But, for words within the phonics program that I know she knows and she's just guessing because she thinks it's quicker...absolutely!
Also, be sure that if he's a chronic guesser you hold him only to reading words he's been phonetically taught. Just do other things as read-alouds until he's doing better. Any new words that have a phonetic component he doesn't know "like -ght in eight" will just make it so tempting to guess.