Oh Elizabeth, thanks, problem is that the vt that I talked to said she accepted our insurance then I called my ins. carrier and they said she isn't in network. So they wouldn't pay. This is after I had called twice just to make sure. My Insurance does list an ophthalmologist that has worked with a friend of mine's ds who had muscle problem in his eye that caused focus issues, I don't know how similar his issue is compared to my son's situatuin . But I'd hate to discontinue just before the perceptual test with the current doc, because they don't have their credentialing for in network services corrected. Along the lines of delay- my ds just got his glasses my hubby wanted to wait until d's' eyes adjusted to his new glasses. We kinda agreed to a one week trial before a second opinion test. Hopefully it's all covered. I really want to not delay and work hard on it through the summer. So we're not going into the school year with the major 4 month added push back. What is low tone?

Doh! Tirimisu- you are correct! My wording was wrong Accommodative insufficiency is a focus issue, can be coupled with depth perception issues issues because of the time it takes to focus. Elizabeth b thank you for helping me know how to proceed. I had in mind the aas phonograms, and so glad I purchased them my d's loves them for spelling. Besides line readers I'm not sure about how to proceed with spelling and writing and math.

Apparently the accommodation insufficiency is a depth perception issue that the person get headaches.

Just got the report today its accommodative insufficiency. Still trying to wrap my head around what this translates to as I teach and read further. It's not convergence insufficiency. I know how she used the infrared goggles to track eye movements, and I could see the back tracking. Am interested in how they plan on correcting spasms. I didn't know you can correct eye spasms.

http://www.readinghorizons.com/blog/post/2010/07/19/Optimal-Silent-and-Oral-Reading-Rates.aspx I timed him twice using this. and he was reading at first-graders timing level still using this test. It matches the COVD analysis. As far as slowness. In timing.

I am really sad. My DH doesn't approve. He thinks it's a developmental thing that he will grow out of. (I told him it's been two years, and he's still slow). I'd rather pay the money (he thinks it's a waste of money) than to slug through more slllooww years. When I talked to the doc, she said both his eyes are working well together, just that when he is reading his eyes have a tendency to back track across the line, and that he needs 4-6 months of VT so far and maybe 6-8 if he also has peripheral issues. IF my insurance makes me pay a co-pay then I'd be spending $750 out of pocket for all the VT visits. IF they don't cover it, then it's out of pocket. What do you think of programs like rocket reader? Their free test helped me read from avg to good reader. http://www.rocketreader.com/index.html ETA... does anyone know what a normal person's tracking looks like? I saw my ds' on the screen. But I don't know how to compare that to other reader's his age. They said he was tracking at a 1st grader's age. They gave him 1st grader's reading too. ETA...Going through with the second test on peripheral testing issues two weeks from now and the Special Ed eval at the end of the month. Glad I am getting some answers and at least he is loving AAS tiles in the mean time.

Thank you everyone... it's confirmed tracking issues. He needs Vision therapy. I saw how his tracking issues were like a 1st grader. I'm not nuts. They put on the prisms and visual tracking monitor goggle things and his eyes were jumping all over the line in the reading. Wow... I had been trying my hardest to make him track with my finger or a index card and now a line reader/view finder since k4 and I'm glad I was at least close in my trying to help him read but now it's clearer that he back tracks way too much when he's trying to read.

Ok, meesa happy now. I have my ds's developmental optometry visit next week (he gets his glasses then :( -- I wish it was this week....) apparently $25.00 copay. I have a school psychologist and a speech language pathologist that will be at the IEP meeting through the nearby elementary school system through Child Find. Whew! so glad I don't have to fork out $2500 or wait 6 months to find out what the issues are. Sigh of relief.

Story - yeah, CLE doesn't seem like it would be good for a VSL Heather - Ugh -- he overhears everything, and we can't keep some things from him. Not because we want to share, but he needs to know what we are going to do next. Plus for me to talk to the assessment people from the school system, grr... there's nothing I can actually "hide."

story- No, I totally get you. I have had problems with that myself. Knowing what to give up and what to keep and just get extra practice. Abeka math - he did spiral and in 3 months did all of kindergarten math without me using the teacher's manual. Math u see, was ok... until the word problems. My friend said schiller math might be a better choice too. But I am just wondering if he's just not practicing things in his mind well enough. He loved the switch to colorful singapore, but their mental math is great but he isn't linking the some concepts fast enough before it moves forward. Carrying of concepts in the order of operations is getting him bogged down at times. Or, just reading the word problems. See, I don't have enough time in the day to do full intensive teacher programs for all subjects- I have to mind the other kids in my house. I need to have him work some independent work. I don't know how to accomplish this. I will be having his LD testing by our school system this month hopefully before school lets out. Whatever math program - it must be colorful and less time intensive on the teacher. CLE - is it for a VSL? Is it very teacher intensive?

Reviewers -They do not dictate what type of curriculum or what grade level the curriculum is – we as parents do that. So for instance, Singapore math it's in levels it's not in grades the suggested grade level for a third grader is 2b and 3a. So I am just teaching him at where he is. He has just finished 2b-- with some issues. So I will be remediating the parts that he does not understand. I don't know if he will be done 3a by the time September rolls around. So if he isn't then it would be better to remediate him and say that he is on third grade again for our ds then to push them forward into where everybody else levels their work. Because everyone asks, "what grade are you in?" And they cover division in 4th. He's not ready for it. Some of his math facts and double digit work has gotten confused. My kid is a half a year behind across the board it seems for typical 3rd grade work with the exception of science. States don't have control of the curriculum you choose or the level, just that you do have to show it on your form what you are using to teach xyz. I mentioned before, never having taken Stanford or other tests before, maybe I should have shown him test taking skills before the Stanford. I know i screwed up the testing a tad, but it was done in a fairer way-- I didn't tell him answers, I just helped him go over his stuff intentionally rather than just skim and put down guesses. Wouldn't it have been more demoralizing to let him see everything in the red, knowing he didn't understand test taking skills? There wasn't any writing on the 3rd grade Stanford 10 so...other the what I hear other students doing in that grade, that's where I derive "normal third grade."

Yeah cross posted - didn't see one step's post, I hear you guys on the demoralizing. I hope to put a positive spin on the red shirting if that's what we decide to do. We can start reading more historical fiction and science like magic school bus. We had but only little spurts this year. His interests are in science and we spend LOTS of time on it. Art is his interest too, but we don't get much in because of all the other necessary subjects. If he does have more issues aside from the astigmatism, I'm more prepared with other teaching modes and curriculum for teaching than I was before. Except for writing. He likes spectrum more but hates writing in general. I will focus him on typing it out maybe? One step- Yes we submit curriculum choices too on our review.

Heathermomster- the reading portion that he took was from a disinterested third-party. He scored below average on all of that. Including the listening portion which I administered was very fair, he also tested below average. My dh administered the science (way above avg) and social studies portion (average). I have school portfolio next month and will need to tell my evaluator what grade he will be in. The developmental eye test is next week. I hope the eyeglasses help and such. And you are right I am 3 weeks premature withe the redshirting question. I am pretty certain that had I not made him go over his questions and write out his thoughts on scratch paper that there would've been more red below average on the Stanford 10 test but i may have not thoroughly taught him those testing skills on pretests. So length of the test time that he took is partially my fault during the math and spelling only, but at the same time, his little sister outpaces him on homework time. She did reading writing and spelling in the time it took him to just do his writing which was copying a grandmother's letter from his workbook yesterday. He took an hour and a half. Her writing is a long bible scripture. Her reading lesson is Opgttr and her spelling is spelling workout. We had a quick break in between and I accounted for that. So I know that his slowness now could be accounted for because of astigmatism. I am excited that he will be getting glasses. I needed the Stanford testing too, cause I am not very knowledgeable when it comes to assessing English skills. Our material has been very eclectic. And sometimes I don't know how thorough I am being in the teaching that we do or curriculum choice. Story-Singapore is long spiral compared to Abeka but still spiral. Mus is totally mastery approach.you do addition the entire year, subtraction the entire year, etc.

Edited to add that our county expects us to state his grade level.

Story girl, Singapore is spiral. One step-As much as I love homeschooling, I keep on top of what our local school system does because, if I held him behind earlier, it would be a less catastrophic effect on self esteem now than later if he ever had to go into the system and getting held back in a later grade. I think other than science all the other grades were average but that was because I helped him. Had I not helped it would have been way lower.I forced him to write out all his math problems and spelling words. I never gave him answers. Yes, I know where he is. But it also helps to know how he would do In xyz curriculum based on grade. We do report to our county reviewers the grade they are in. Also has anyone ever heard of the Irlen Syndrome? I hope my eye doc tests that too!

Just got his scores back for the sat 10, he was below average on everything related to reading except for his vocabulary. I knew his science scores would be awesome, math is average... Thinking about red shirting him and if I should red shirt him ie... Keep him back a grade? Disappointing seeing all the red bar lines. My vsl is totally red bar (below on the listening skills...) definitely NOT an auditory learner! All of the reading portion was administered by my friend. :( He would have never made it in public school. Wow.

Dianne Craft -Teaching the Right Brain Child video wow for spelling for my vsl/kinesthetic learner and - WOW --- I just used her method but with AAS tiles and he spelled the 4 previously misspelled spelling words backwards. Easily. Holy cow, I think I get it.. My ds is a visual spatial/kinesthetic learner but the astigmatism gets him staring off into space trying to focus sometimes. for multiplication I'm gonna test it out. Hmmm... a lot like www.multiplication.com

That's the thing, I just called the eye doc's office -- She is a covd doc. She is doing the "developmental test" next week and the optometrist aides said that she wouldn't have suggested that that he get glasses if there was an issue, because she knew about the developmental test next week. Astigmatism is a light refraction problem. My son has slight astigmatism. I have it too. (I can't believe I didn't think about it earlier!) That is corrected by regular glasses (even with near sightedness or far sighted ness). That may be one of the issues that he takes so long. If the astigmatism causes the eye to blur any thing he sees, because light gets scattered within the eye easy then that could be one reason why he takes so long to do word problems, etc. What he reads gets distorted a tad, and he takes a lot longer to cover any written material. I wonder if because the astigmatism may distort what he writes, he just doesn't want to write anything because he's too afraid of #1 imperfect spelling, and #2 the astigmatism blurring it in the first place. Simple eye correction by reflective coating and glasses could be the whole issue.. Holy moly.I hope it's the only issue. The problem with thoughts to paper is the biggest issue for me in writing. And on Math, he did do some Crazy things on the singapore review equations at the end of book 2b- like subtracting the minuend from the subtrahend of a double digit equation. He learned this all last year and reviewed it this year. I had to make him use his scratch paper on the stanford 10, cause he was just guessing. He's been through Both Singapore math and Math u see. Math u see, of course is VERY sequential black and white and mastery. I did all MUS first -the whole of level 3(gamma). Then I did Singapore math - very colorful, has concrete to abstract math and very mental math oriented all of US edition 2A and 2B. I am thinking that the abstraction in singapore is causing him to confuse his order of operations. He wants to do it mentally without writing it down, but is still not well versed enough in his math facts (which I thought he knew because we drilled it) to complete it their way quick enough. With ALL of the equations he has done in both math programs book I am surprised he didnt know his math facts well enough by now. The borrowing from the prior column shocked me too. It was odd, he would forget to put one less the number that got crossed out and would just plug a 9 on top, assuming all numbers were zero. I hope that the astigmatism correction is all he needs I hope I am not dealing with other more difficult processing issues. Just got off the phone! We decided to get the developmental test done next week. Thank goodness, they are only going to charge us one co-pay because we have a health insurance that would pay for it. Out of pocket expense would have been $430 for the developmental visit! Thank goodness, that my hubby has a great benefits package, I should be refunded some money because they put the charges into the wrong insurance company.

See, that's the thing, she the developmental eye doc said that the other types of tests that would help determine what more would have to be done would have to be on different visits.

I envy my friends who live in apartments or rowhouses. They don't have lots of space and they are able to shave stuff down, and let go of a lot of stuff in their house. I come from a bunch of hoarders. LOL Sentimental and "what if I need it?" mentality.I got LLATL for 1st and 2nd level free. So I went to the eye doc's and he had slight astigmatism and near sightedness so he's going to go get glasses! I did schedule with him some more tests with the developmental optometrist, but I am thinking that maybe I should just let him try his glasses out first and maybe it might be a motivator? And just wait to have him do the testing with the Developmental optometrist? I was thinking that maybe I should let the school system handle other testing first before I pay out of pocket $200 plus for the developmental optometrist fees? I am not really happy with paying so much outta pocket yet. The regular eye exam plus glasses just made me fork over $220 today. I really want to try these new methods out first and the glasses, and see before I plunk down more moolah.

My problem is wanting to find things that match curriculum. Like a whole set of xyz curriculum. LOL OCD'ing over curriculum fairs is really hard for me. I had a BLAST ... this one lady just literally gave me tons of FREE stuff. I wished I didn't go to the first person's table and spend a boat load over veritas press cards and other Sotw stuff. But hey... I want to get that time line in for my kids at one point in their education. It really ruined my history experience not knowing history facts in order growing up. I was always bad at remembering dates. I had the special ed appt and they will contact me in one month to do a preliminary evaluation about my concerns. The set up today was just registration, not me actually talking to the education specialist. She has to determine which specialists need to be seen by my son. So one month for the preliminary eval. Then 90 days for the set up of the specialists to do a full eval. I also took my dd's to a new primary care doctor... she totally shied away from the developmental optometrist ideas. She asked if I wanted vision screening for my kids, and I said, oh, I am taking them to the eye doctor -- developmental optometrist tomorrow. So... it was really freaky having such animosity from my kid's pediatrician about seeing a developmental optometrist.

Couldn't resist!The Lord provides. I am a curriculum junkie!! Couldn't help it but spend the money on some sequential history curriculum. And I got the AAS phonograms for level one. DD is using SWO level one but who knows? If it takes less time to do one vs another program, I would love to implement whatever. Also got LLATL 1,2 for free. Couldn't argue. I got a ton of books downstairs and upstairs, I hope my kids develop a love of reading.

Heather -cringing with you.... Wow, I just read 1/2 of the first chapter of the mislabled child book. One step- thank you for your encouragement and correcting me about the "careless" comment. I am so wrong in my wording...learning how to be more understanding. It'a hard because I grew up in the school of hard Knox.. Grrr...definitely on the teaching challenged side here.

We have an appointment on Wednesday with the child find program through the special ed department for testing. It's not a whole neuropsych or anything but they can do testing for other areas if I need a occupational therapist if I need a special reading specialist or writing specialist. Maybe help determine dyslexia, dysgraphia, etc. They would provide services in the public school system to help him but not at home.

That has been my issue. Lol I never meant to fear monger or cause mommy wars LOL. Wow. I am grateful for the responses, because it gives a clearer view of the state of the parents today. I thought public school was an option for us. But when talking to our neighbor, I thought, wow maybe my kids might be ahead a little because we would do books and stuff outside on the playground and other fun stuff. But because upon hearing my neighbor's statements, my kids haven't yet performed those tasks upon entering, they would automatically deemed behind. So I can understand the needs for single moms and disadvantaged economic families. I work too. We live in the no 1 ranked state for education. They probably push our states' kids harder academically because they want to keep the ranking. My neighbor and other teachers here complain about teaching to the test, then the common core,and the no child left behind. I am in generation x and was trying to get a feel for what people feel and also how I keep on hearing how they at shifting academic content into earlier grades, and in the back of my mind hearing "I didn't do xyz at prek or even k and I turned out alright." The quote coming from me, friends and family who have had college degrees.