imagine.more
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Posts posted by imagine.more
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I also haven't found Singapore Math to be at all teacher intensive. I mean, I have to dive in and explain concepts and show several examples occasionally but that's like once a month. Otherwise DS does it pretty much independently. I sit nearby and check his work of course but so far he is doing quite well on his own, he rarely gets one wrong on the practice. I probably spend about 5 minutes per lesson explaining the concept to him, then he flies solo. He's over halfway through 2A right now, we did 1A-B last year. So yeah I think you're right to try to stick it out. And maybe you could step back just a little bit? Sometimes slowing down a bit can allow the kid to be more independent, or at least maybe scale back your explanations and see if it makes sense to them still with a shorter/simpler explanation?
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I know, right? Maybe now HSLDA can upgrade us to orange instead of red!
I was thinking the same thing! I think at least we can be upgraded away from "most restrictive homeschool state" because, uh, we definitely fit that criteria before this change :) New York or whoever can take over our spot, haha!
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So excited about this new portfolio and diploma law, this is a huge improvement on things!
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For a 6 year old dyslexic I'd actually do 4 day a week school and not take summers off. That way it feels like a break to him but is actually the same amount of work and it would prevent any summer backsliding that might happen while you are remediating his dyslexia. We took too much of this summer off due to circumstances outside my control and I regret it for my dyslexic daughter's sake. Anyway, I'd do 4 days a week of regular school (math, Barton, etc.) and then one field trip day where you do the more fun stuff. Even a nature hike or a big messy science project. That day could be Fridays or Wednesdays, I know homeschoolers doing each. Use that fifth day and afternoons/weekends to let your DS pursue his passions and incorporate things he's good at. Many dyslexics are strong in art or math or science or sports, try everything until you find his particular talent and then run with it. Teaching to weaknesses gets exhausting for the kid after awhile. My dyslexic DD is good at swim and art, so she does swim team and we keep her supplied with art stuff. I want to build her self confidence while giving her more things to be confident about, kwim?
I have a 6 year old son and he does 4 days a week of school, none over summers, and about 2.5-3 hours of work a day. He's ahead of public school kids in every subject except handwriting and even that he's solidly on grade level. Now of course a dyslexic child needs a bit more remediation, hence the summer work, but I'd be careful not to overload with schoolwork.
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Like OneStepAtATime I worried a lot in levels 1-2 that it wasn't *enough* for language arts. I did make my daughter do a couple silly literary analysis stuff based on read aloud picture books just to keep the superintendent off my back (I live in PA with draconian homeschool laws). But now that we're in Level 3 and now that I've discovered all the extra tutor resources on the Barton websites I can say that Barton is definitely enough for language arts with the caveat that you read aloud 30 minutes daily. There is reading work, spelling (online she has 2 spelling tests per lesson so you can do weekly spelling tests which is a good way to show progress in a portfolio), and grammar (starting in level 2 kids identify the who, did what, and where phrases of sentences which is remedial grammar).
When we do read-aloud work the next 1.5 years we'll be doing notebooking with the read-alouds. So we'll study vocabulary, draw pictures, do oral narrations, etc. Basically a full literature course but with no reading by DD and very little actual writing on her part. With obvious Reading, Spelling, Grammar and Literature happening I can't see anyone questioning DD's progress or the completeness of our Language Arts curriculum.
I think for us I'm going to keep going with just Barton through next year (7th grade for DD, should complete Level 6 at the end of the year) and then I'll slow down on Barton (maybe 2-3 times a week) in 8th grade and add in a grammar program for deaf/hoh students.
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Yes, do it.
You will get so many more ideas, and get to see hands-on techniques. You may be able to practice giving a lesson and get feedback from an instructor. Or ask for this if it is not included :)
I would jump at it, if it was doable. If it is a stretch for you to do the scheduling and get there and pay for it, I would not do it, if just doing it would be stressful. But if it would not be stressful -- I would go for it.
Then come back and tell us about it :)
I think the techniques are flexible or need to be flexible -- it is not a slavish thing of going in a certain order. It is techniques. I think it will be a good deal. It is not going to be like "here is how to do Lesson 1 of our preferred curriculum."
I completely agree with all of this. I had the opportunity to get trained through the generosity of a friend and a nearby training center and it was really invaluable in my own confidence and my ability to truly understand and remediate individual tricky spots. I still choose Barton over the method that the woman who trained me uses because I think Barton is better quite frankly. But now I understand the 'why' of all the Barton methods, which helps me be better at 'how' I do them and it helps me to stray and review things easily when needed. Also, if Barton is ever not a possibility I know I can keep my daughter going in O-G with hodgepodging things together because I have the underlying knowledge base.
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That is an amazing achievement! You and your DS should be so proud, that is a lot of hard work!
We're still in Level 3 with DD12, so your dedication is inspiring to me :) And no, there is NO WAY your son could have made that kind of progress in public school because almost no public schools have Orton Gillingham instruction, certainly not 5 days a week for an 11 year old! With the right method, smart dyslexics can learn to read really fast. But with the wrong method even a smart dyslexic will make little-to-no progress for years. You got the right method, so you were able to tap into your son's innate giftedness. He would not have magically learned to read without all that tutoring. Don't let anyone else rain on your parade, what you and your son have done is an impressive accomplishment born of hard work and smart curriculum choices.
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Like others mentioned, this could be hearing loss or auditory processing issues. And hearing loss is such a spectrum that it's good he's getting a proper test to check for that. My DD has moderate to profound bilateral sensorineural hearing loss and she really struggles to hear in large groups. With her hearing aids one-on-one she's often fine but in groups she really struggles to differentiate sounds. I can definitely see how a kid with mild hearing loss could have symptoms first appear in group settings. Especially if he's had hearing loss for awhile. My daughter didn't realize it wasn't normal to hear things sort of fuzzy and still tries to leave her hearing aids off occasionally and thinks she gets by okay without them. People can get used to a lot of less-than-ideal hearing or sight :)
If he passes the hearing test with flying colors I'd maybe look into auditory processing.
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I have the same fantasy!
I send my kids to VBS for a week in the summer and do exactly that :) It's not perfect but it keeps me relatively sane and helps me catch up on house stuff a good bit. I just need to find a good overnight camp for a week each summer and the dream could happen! haha!
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I am in the exact same boat! I haven't gained a ton but definitely am at least 10lbs over my ideal and mostly i'm just woefully out of shape. I didn't realize how bad it had gotten until we had family pictures done 2 weeks ago and I wanted to cry looking at every single one of myself :( (note: the picture in my profile is from 4 years ago and my face looked thinner then at 7 months pregnant than it does now not pregnant, ugh!
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AmyontheFarm, oh geez! That sounds awful! Your dad must have felt so bad he didn't believe you, what a freak accident!
OP, we've used the Malem bedwetting alarm and it worked like a charm. It sounds like your sensor might be bad and since it's so new I bet they'll replace it for you. I'd check it with water and see and then you can call them and ask what the replacement procedure is. Ours worked perfectly every night and within 3 weeks my 6 year old who had never been dry really was dry consistently and *knock on wood* hasn't been wet at night since then and it's been 1 month since he stopped wearing the alarm. He stopped wearing the alarm after 6 weeks. Now he wakes himself to go pee about half the time, the other half he just sleeps through dry.
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My first two (boys) I got my period back at 6.5 months postpartum. My daughter I got my period back at 10 months postpartum. So apparently it can vary a good bit :) I don't think I did anything differently between the three either, if anything my second boy was the most odd since I exclusively pumped for him due to reflux.
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I just tried to PM you but unfortunately it keeps giving me an error message. I'd love to ask a few questions about the job if you wanted to try PMing me (maybe it'll work from your end?) or e-mail me at imagine.more at yahoo dot com.
I'm curious if it's a full-time position. I'm asking for my own husband, who has been contemplating a career change (I'd be happy to give details in a private message). We live in a small town in PA but have coincidentally been considering moving to Michigan or a few other states to find work since our area doesn't have many educated full-time positions :)
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I have allowed my son to play outside without me since age 4. I peeked out at him regularly and usually keep a window open so I can also hear him. He's 6 now and is allowed to roam as far as the sidewalk with his scooter or can go to the neighbors with his big sister (12). I still keep the blinds open and window cracked so I guess he is supervised but I'm not out there with him. My soon-to-be-4 year old is less reliable, but when he turns 4 I'll happily let him play outside in the yard with his brother with me keeping a close eye from the window. If we get a fence I'd probably check on him a lot less obsessively :)
I think any neurotypical child should be able to play outside alone by 5 or so with or without a fence, providing an adult is within hearing distance and can peek out at them occasionally. I want my kids to have the same kind of childhood we had. My DH has fantastic parents, very involved, and they let him ride his bike across town (Watertown, WI) to his friends' house at 6. He was roaming the yard eating rhubarb and blueberries at 3. My mom was considered crazy overprotective but even we were playing outside alone at 5 and riding around the neighborhood on our own by age 8.
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I'm wondering about the same thing so I'll be following this. The best answer I got from the O-G fellow who trained me was picture vocabulary, to just practice picture vocabulary extensively. So what we're doing right now is we're going through Memoria Press' Read-Aloud & Enrichment program (for first grade, so mainly high level picture books). Each book has a list of vocabulary so I'm creating picture vocabulary cards for each word with a basic clipart pic from google printed on the front and the word and a very short definition on the back. I hold them up as I read the book, just casually pointing out the words as we get to them to connect them with the story. I figure this gets things in context and visual, both things that seem to help dyslexics retain knowledge.
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I just did the training this summer because a dear friend paid for it, otherwise we never could have afforded it. If like you said you need to go outside the box and really add more fun and color to your O-G lessons then the training will be invaluable to you. I think what I got most out of the training was really understanding the 'why' of Orton Gillingham. What I had dismissed as silly attempts to be fun and cool and entertaining with hands-on materials in O-G actually totally make sense because you are tapping into the child's right brain, which is often unchanged or even stronger than normal because of the deficiencies in the left brain. Also, I now know about 10 different ways to teach syllable types....and 10 different ways to practice phoneme sounds or sight words or whatever. Before I could follow Barton but I didn't 'get' it. Now I get it. I still like Barton best, I like it even better than the program of the woman who trained us (though she is brilliant and her program is certainly great for some kids/tutors), but now I feel better equipped. In fact, because my husband just got laid off and I have no homeschool budget anymore I am basically combining my training and my Wilson Readers with the scope and sequence of Barton so I can continue tutoring my daughter this year without spending much of anything. That's a benefit I hadn't anticipated needing when I took the course.
So anyway, if you are truly strapped for cash like us just know that you can tutor your child without the training and you will both be FINE. But if as you said your child is the type who would clearly benefit from teaching each concept and practicing it in multiple ways and you have the reasonable ability to do the training, it's absolutely a valuable thing to do.
I did mine in Columbia, MD if anyone is interested, with Fran Bowman's Educational Services. We had about 12 other people taking the course, 3 of us were there just as parents, another 5 as tutors, and the rest were private school teachers whose schools paid for them to be there. We all got a lot out of it but definitely in different ways.
ITA with Kassi that a big part of the value is in being able to stray from your curriculum and trouble-shoot when you hit a snag. Though not everyone can tutor with it, it just depends on your area. There is zero market for O-G tutors here in central Pennsylvania, nobody here even understands what dyslexia is and almost everyone assumes the schools are doing just fine and there's no need for extra stuff. So while I'd love to tutor there's really nobody who has expressed interest here. So not everyone can make the money for the course back through tutoring on the side.
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Backyard Chickens is a great site for information!
We just got hens this spring and love it! We got 6 day-old chicks at Tractor Supply, kept them inside until the temperatures were consistently above 40 degrees night and day (around early June) and then put them in the coop my DH built under the kids' playhouse. It's got a big covered coop with doors and windows and a perch for roosting at night and 2 nesting boxes. Then the run is under the playhouse and is about 7 x 7. We got White Leghorns and so far they are great with our 4 kids (ages 1-12). A skunk got in and killed 3 of them (horrible traumatic, make sure your run is 150% animal proof!) and so we replaced some with 2 Maran hens, which are nice and lay eggs regularly already since they are older.
We fed them chick feed for the first 16 weeks and then switched to laying hen food since our two older ones are laying. They also eat grass, bugs, etc. We throw grass clippings and some vegetable leftovers to them and occasionally hang a head of lettuce from the top of the run and they love to munch on that. Very cheap and easy to feed! We also have a waterer hanging from the ceiling of the coop so it's away from the shavings.
Our coop has a linoleum floor on the bottom so we can scrape it out easily and we fill it with shavings. The run was grass but that turned to dirt so we added sand and now it's all sand, which they hated for a few days but love now. They roll around and take dust baths daily :)
With 2 hens we get 10 eggs a week. Once they're all laying (the Leghorns should be slightly more prolific) we should get 2-3 dozen a week. The Marans cluck when they lay, as if to show off, lol! So we always know when to check :)
We haven't even successfully kept a garden but the chickens are so easy to keep. We love them, the kids love them, the neighbors love them. We live in a city on a typical city lot but they fit in just fine. They're cute, friendly, no noisier than the song birds in our yard, and pretty low maintenance. Our 3 year old picks them up, our 1 year old tries but they run away from her, lol! We feed and water daily, pet daily, and once every 2 weeks we clear out the shavings and rake up the sand in the run and hose it down. If we ever get land I'd happily have a dozen hens and let them free range more too.
If you want to see our coop on the day we moved the hens outside here it is: http://planningonit.blogspot.com/2014/05/moving-dayfor-chickens.html
I have a few more blog posts on the chickens and at least one with pics of our two newest additions.
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Yeah, our only homeschool co-op for over an hour in any direction is exclusive (by making people sign a faith statement that is very Evangelical Protestant) to Catholics, LDS, and (though I don't think they mean to be) Orthodox, Episcopals, and Lutherans. I am Catholic, therefore not a Christian and not worthy of having social interaction for my kids apparently.
So a friend (Protestant Christian) and I (Catholic Christian) started our own homeschool co-op, and now ours is bigger and better (52 students, 17 families so far and our session is in September) and we have our own classrooms in a basement of a Presbyterian Church, ha! We have Protestants, Catholics, Agnostics, a bit of everything in our area (small area, no LDS but we'd be happy to welcome them if there were). Everyone is united in our desire to educate our kids and provide a healthy community and help each other teach the subjects that are difficult for some to teach or are more fun in groups. We assume everyone is teaching faith at home and in church and respect those beliefs, we come together on subjects we all share in common.
So if you find there are no inclusive homeschool groups in your area find some other like-minded parents and begin a new co-op. I bet if that is truly a policy of the group then there are others who were disappointed and frustrated to find themselves excluded. If you're willing to mingle with others of various faiths then you can start a non-religiously based co-op. If there are many LDS in your area you could see about starting a specifically LDS co-op. Or just call it Christian and write a faith statement that is so specific to your faith's doctrines that nobody else can sign it and tell them they're not Christian since they can't sign it ;) (just kidding about that last one of course)
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Well we're adopting a girl older than our oldest so yes ;)
It's worked out fine in our situation. Not every family or kid is the right fit for that situation but some most certainly are. Our daughter is 12 and our next oldest is our 6 year old son and then 3.5 year old son and 1.5 year old daughter. Our 6 year old had a bit more adjustment to her coming because he got kind of displaced as eldest but he adjusted just fine. It's like when a kid is youngest for many years and suddenly a new baby comes along and they are no longer the youngest. It's odd but for us his transition has been very similar to that. Sometimes he likes being in the middle and sometimes he wishes he was oldest still. It helps that he's still the oldest boy, he takes great pride in that. He loves his sister though and was all excited about the adoption all the way through. She's very motherly towards the younger ones, so we often have to tone down her parentified behavior but really that's not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. We only address it for her own sake, we want her to have a real childhood in the little time she has left to be a kid.
I think if you're going to disrupt birth order there are a few things that can help to at least consider.
1) do not take birth order theories too seriously. Birth order does not determine your destiny magically for life. Most kids at some point transition from youngest to oldest or youngest to middle by a new baby being born. Oftentimes because of divorce, remarriage, or simply growing up and moving out a kid will change birth order slightly. It's a real transition worthy of attention but by no means traumatic or all negative
2) recognize that different kids' personalities will react differently. My firstborn is a PK (pastor's kid) so he has had to be flexible from birth whether we wanted that or not. We knew he'd adjust fine and he did.
3) prep your kids for it ahead of time, keep communication open but always be no-nonsense and positive about it. Do not ever let a child decide whether you conceive/adopt another child! I've seen families do this and it really messed up the parents, the child who resisted the adoption, and the poor child who ended up being sent away.
4) Be picky about your placements. Better to be safe on the front end and only take kids who really seem to be a good fit that stretch beyond your limit and end up disrupting a placement. The right kid is out there if it's meant to be. Our daughter was specifically listed as "would be good in a family with young children". They wanted young parents because she may take longer to live totally independently and she's deaf and very naive so she's easily taken advantage of by kids her age and older, even her own older bio sister. Kids play tricks on her because she can't hear them all the time. She feels safer around little kids and wants to be a preschool teacher aide someday. She adores our 1 year old, the two girls are inseparable!
5) Look at each situation individually. Sometimes a bigger gap is easier than a smaller one (even the most immature 12 year old has freedoms even the most mature 6 year old just cannot). Adopting a different gender than the kid who is being displaced can help. My son still takes pride in being the oldest boy of the family and he asked to stay the oldest boy, which we felt was a reasonable request and will honor. Also, kids differ in maturity and street-wise-ness. My daughter is so not street-wise, lol! Yes she's seen drugs and stuff but she didn't understand it fully and didn't hear half of what was going on around her. So she might mention her mom smoking crack casually but I've never even heard her use a swear word once. And she's very socially intuitive so she doesn't mention bad stuff around the little kids, only alone with me and DH. So yeah, not all older kids are the same.
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We're adopting straight from foster care and have not truly fostered ever. We did end up getting dual-licensed but got placed with our daughter before we had a chance to be asked to foster.
In any case, everything has been free for us. The most we've paid is $20 for fingerprint clearances and I think we were even reimbursed for that. We got pregnant in the middle of the home study process, lol, so we took a break, bought a bigger home, had the baby, and then finished up so we got licensed when my youngest was 1 month old. It took 9 months to get a placement though....a LONG 9 months! We inquired regularly about kids on the waiting child lists for our state and worked with our social workers. Finally we were interviewed for and matched with an 11 year old biracial girl with hearing impairment and learning issues. We met her, she spent a weekend with us 2 weeks later, then she moved in. She'll be adopted right at the 1 year mark from moving into our home, which is a typical timeline. Our experience has been overwhelmingly positive. Now of course there are issues to work through (anger at/sympathy for birth parents, silly foster care rules, adjusting to a whole new person with her own likes/dislikes and habits) but really it's been no big deal.
Don't let "special needs" labels scare you away, everything in foster care is a special need. Being not-white, being over age 5, being a sibling group, or having even minor physical or mental special needs. Our daughter might not transition to adulthood the way other kids do but she'll be fine. She's learning and finally making progress with lots of remediation and her hearing impairment is not a big deal actually. We just make sure she can see our lips when we speak to her and I may have gotten a bit louder since she moved in :)
Our daughter loves little kids and gets along really well with our younger 3, especially the baby, who she adores.
But you also need to be realistic about some of the experiences these kids have had, especially younger ones who cannot process what's happened to them and may act out in anger or just ignorance. One mom I spoke to said she had to teach her foster kids what a toothbrush was. My 11 year old daughter didn't know where babies come from still or that all people die eventually. We've had some odd conversations to be sure, lol! I suggest reading up on everything you can so you can prepare for the worst and hope for the best. That's how we approached things. Also, don't be afraid to be fairly restrictive for safety with other kids in the house, we were. We said no to any kids with histories of sexual acting out or aggression. Even with that we know stuff can come up later that nobody knew about so we put up some healthy boundaries like separate bedrooms and kept baby monitors in the little kids' rooms even though we didn't need to. That has been a non-issue for our daughter but I'm still glad we took the precautions. Also, do not assume that a child under 5 will not have those behaviors. If they've been abused they may not realize what healthy boundaries are and it'll be up to you to teach them.
Also, I highly recommend finding a trustworthy babysitter you can use to get a break every now and then. It's stressful to keep to the rules that require you never leave the foster-adoptive child alone without an approved caregiver, it means you can get burnt out and overwhelmed by the sheer neediness of lots of kids even if they're good kids. My daughter is awesome but she's also very ADHD and overwhelming to me as a bookwormish introvert. So getting a few hours a week where a college girl comes and plays with my kids while I run errands and hide out reading in my car elsewhere has provided much-needed balance for me. It also teaches her that Mommy can go away for a bit and always comes back when she says she will. Her birth mom used to ditch the kids for hours or days at a time to do drugs and they couldn't find her so for many months my daughter would get super anxious anytime I left the house at all.
So yeah, that has been our experience :) If you have any more questions feel free to message me!
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I love old-fashioned names. I just don't like when they get popular again. My #2 and #3 have "old-fashioned" names that are suddenly really popular and it bugs me. We used them because they are family names and I love them.
Names of kids I know-- Henry, Ezra, Asher, Grant, George and for girls Cordelia, Penelope, Mabel, Hazel,
Me too! This happened to my mom, she named me Amanda after an old woman in the nursing home she volunteered at....and then every other woman named her daughter Amanda (or Ashley or Britney) in the 1980's too. Ugh! I hate my name.
So I was super careful when naming my kids, like insanely cautious about potential new popular names. I was so far successful with my boys (Tobias and Peter) and sort of successful with my girl (Tahlia) though I've been excited/concerned to meet several young Tahlia's recently, though I think most were spelled Talia. If we have another baby they will be Atticus if a boy or Charis if a girl I think, Abraham and Charlotte are two other names on my short list of favorite baby names but Charlotte is getting too popular for me to risk.
I love seeing names like Ava, Charlotte, Ida, Hazel, Claire, Clara rejuvenated. I've met a couple Benedicts in Catholic families and I love that name. I think a little boy named Benedict but called Ben or Benny would be so cute :)
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Her hair is definitely a 4. It's thin, so not sure if it's an A or B.
Do you have a picture of a TWA? My other daughter wore her's very short for a while. Our biggest problem with it was her feeling upset that folks would call her a boy.
A friend put in her locs. No recommendation on a hair care product. We bought some shea butter moisturizer stuff, but she refused to use it.
When did she wear it short before? At 15 she might look girly enough now to not have that problem anymore. I can see that being confusing at 10 or 12 since really boys and girls look so similar but I've seen adorable mini afros on young black or puerto rican women. Maybe a few highlights would make it look more distinctly like a style, or she could always just throw a headband in. The thin ornate headbands are very in. My daughter also wears the simple brightly colored headbands you can find at Target and Wal-mart that are non-slip. Scarves are also popular among the 20-somethings, she might be able to utilize that as a headband style too. Check out ThreeBirdsNest etsy shop for ideas on scarves/headbands (though they're all shown on the white store owner I think it'd look great on black hair!)
Another idea is to google toddler or preschool hair styles, those will often show really cute short hair options for braids and such.
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Pamela and Gregory are my inlaws names
Mine too :) My son Tobias' middle name is Gregory. We considered it as a first name but realized we didn't want FIL and son to share a first name, too confusing. But we liked honoring him with the middle name and I actually really love the name Gregory.
I also vote that Mildred and Gertrude not making a comeback anytime soon, lol! I don't like the name Richard (my DH's middle name actually) and I don't see it becoming raging popular anytime soon but I can see it holding out as a name for many years just from families naming their kids after dad/grandpa/uncle. I see it holding on fairly steadily as a middle name.
Someone mentioned Clara but I've heard that in a couple young girls. The authors of the YoungHouseLove blog have a daughter named Clara.
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Oh, and I used to think I was being a wuss because my mom and MIL insisted they had pretty much no morning sickness. But then my whole family got the stomach flu and was vomiting nonstop for 2 days straight. I got it but only threw up once and felt "a bit queasy, kinda like pregnancy" and pushed through with my normal routine. So then I realized that my 'queasiness' during pregnancy is valid morning sickness and not me being over-sensitive or anything.
If your child was reading at 3 years old (X-post)
in Accelerated Learner Board
Posted
I used OPGTR when my 2.5 year old was begging to read. I held him off for 6 months (he started asking at 2, no joke) and started just after Christmas when he was 2.5. He already knew the letters so we skipped the first lessons and started in with the first real reading lesson. He enjoyed it and learned well with it. We just did 5-10 minute lessons a few times a week over the next 2 years. By Kindergarten he was reading on a 4th grade level. Now in first grade he's reading on a 7th grade level. I suggest starting there, double check that she knows ALL the basic letter sounds (sometimes they miss X or some obscure one early on) and then if she knows them all then start with lesson 27 in OPGTR. Bob books are fun for that age too, Tobias was very proud when he got his first Bob Book to read on day one :)
Just don't tell ANYONE you are doing it! Seriously, I don't even tell people IRL that I did it in the past. People automatically assume you're a crazy tiger mom if you admit to teaching your young kid to read, no matter the evidence to the contrary. I was told I was ruining his imagination, pushing him, etc. whenever anyone found out. Which was crazy because these people weren't in my house seeing him begging me for more lessons (I said no a lot) and seeing that these "lessons" were just sitting with mommy on the couch learning a new type of word for 5-10 minutes. Certainly less taxing than preschool. Thank goodness my DH and SIL were early readers so my in-laws understood and accepted DS as normal. And he both has a healthy imagination and loves ready still.
I'm now about to start my 4 year old in OPGTR because he brought me books and said "mommy, you have to learn me to read" about a month ago. When they're ready, they're ready :)