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Hottater

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  1. A reading/ writing compare and contrast comprehension pretest for the Stanford was done today, ds immediately told me a contrast to the question verbally, then I told him to write it down, he took 45 minutes to write one sentence, again.. Zoned out between each word spelled hunt=hont and another easy Cvc word wrong, most of his words I corrected spelling on. I told him to write sentence number 2 and glazed over eyes so I told him do 10 push ups, he got in three more words and then again with the zoning..staring away another hour as I am with him trying to keep him focused. He had 2 bananas right before the test and a bathroom break. I had told another co-op friend that my ds has had issues with me during certain subjects he doesn't like. She offered to administer the Stanford test with him for me. But now I don't know if I will need to have him answer questions with her that aren't going to take all day. Or, should I give the writing questions to her and see if he reacts the same? It will confirm if it's just me that going loony over waiting for him to answer or maybe she'll show me how to get him back on task?
  2. Lol no... I told dh that I think ds has learning deficiencies so I tested my son to show dh where the deficiencies may reside. My dh thinks the more I read twtm forums, the more I think our son has more problems than a normal kid, so I tested ds with several online self testing reading sites to show my husband where ds may have problems. I edited my post above.
  3. Ugh hubby thinks I am a hypochondriac with this stuff... I just tested ds words per minute reading out loud fluency for The Ballad of the Civil War book which is a Lexile 680 late 3rd grade one. it was 37.8 words per minute and for the Wizard of Oz it was 59 words per minute the second book is an Abridged 3rd grade book.. So he's reading is at a second grader's fluency and is behind in reading aloud. going to use the 40L test like Elizabeth B suggested, and BTW, we took ds out to sweetFrog for doing so much testing this past weekend. Ok score was 3.8 for graded accuracy in leveled reading. For ds.
  4. I was just talking with my friend who has 2 dyslexic kids-- It doesn't seem like he has it, because of the reading- it's not as big of an issue anymore. She knows my kid and thinks many of his issues are "normal" problems. Maybe he's a "normal" VSL? The price tag and complications for np testing seem out of our budget. Reading -I had an IEP as a toddler for my son, cause he didn't talk much until 14-18 months. Then we had problems with reading -- using OPGTTR, he would try this whole word thing rather than break it down, he thought I was dumbing it down by my having him put his finger on each word. I had to force him to read each individual word and put my finger down for him to read. My brother was dyslexic, and I know that dyslexics have problems with floating letters, so I made him follow with the ruler or index card from the very start regardless if ds had dyslexia not. Fluency didn't click until the end of last year. Unlike my daughter, she is doing really well with the abeka basal readers and OPGTTR. Something about my friend mentioning the two review and one new could have been my user error. I wasn't teaching him with enough review. Reading at a 3rd grade level now though with fluency. So, I am not sure that dyslexia is a problem. Just some syllable work which is normal for 3rd graders I think? Writing and spelling are the bigger culprits. Not handwriting. His cursive is beautiful. His print isn't as good, but can be and takes awhile per word - maybe motor dysgraphia? Trying to figure the best approach still. When taking dysgraphia checklists like http://www.ncld.org/types-learning-disabilities/dysgraphia/common-warning-signs-of-dysgraphia-in-children-in-grades-3-8 Thoughts to paper issues still is huge. My friend said that I should just focus on writing down his summarizations of a chapter or what ever we read and have him copy what I wrote --instead of working on his being able to dictate his own writing into 3 - 5 sentence paragraphs for now. I did help him with every sentence and ask questions to help him form his sentences at times depending on the chapter.WWE did that but he hated it. Friend said that switching spelling too much may be the issue, but he's in the 2nd grade r&S we'll see, it has some pictures. He'll be done by the end of summer, start 3rd grade R&S next year. And I will have him put the spelling into art form. Hopefully it is ok. If we switch to LLATL (the portions of writing and spelling are smaller chunks) , maybe use it to reinforce all in shorter segments, maybe keep the the R&S spelling or drop it depending on time. I just don't know the scope and sequence well enough of both writing and spelling subjects to implement it well. Math facts memorization with xtramath.com for +/- during 1st grade was aweful for two months straight-- addition math facts didn't click until I bought MUS and used their manipulatives. Then I reinforced with Singapore and schoolzone or 1$ books. Multiplication.com is what I used for memorizing visual multiplication facts by association. It works sometimes, he needs to be reminded which story is being told. But he loves the colorful math pictures of singapore. Hates the black and white of MUS and the word problems but loves the manipulatives. Gonna stick with Singapore for now, using 2b and will try to get through 3A and 3B. Since 2B and 3A are considered 3rd grade, he would be 1/2 year behind. Considering the mislabeled child, and Christlike Parenting.
  5. Self assessing, he doesn't have blatant dysgraphia with reversed letters or numbers or spacing letters - I take that back,maybe a little with the letters being spaced. But yea, it's like 5 minutes per word. Getting thoughts to paper. Normally, I could tell kids my dd or or my ds's age to write three letters at a time onto a piece of paper and flor ds it takes a one by one or two by two approach with distraction sometimes. End of ordinary- Yes, I've done the all out sword thing.... I tried all of the curricula methods, classical, CM, unit study through Konos - kings and queens unit study was fun. My Boy shedding testosterone energy just didn't happen every day, maybe twice a week. (So, now I can understand that my requirements needed time restructuring... More time everyday to get the wiggles out. )I did this so that I could figure out what curricula and what would be the right method (I read Mary pride's guide) for my kids. It is the unit study/ high energy ones that work the best. I get tired of lesson planning though. The language arts/writing/reading/ was and is the hardest to figure out. I wonder if I did sequential spelling right. But definitely will change it up with drawing picture words for him, whatever curriculum. Heather- is that more explicit? I just want to be on the right path. To execute stuff but not drop everything like I did last year. I got so burnt out by the end of spring last year , I totally ditched all the curriculum. I was impatient and for three months I just stopped everything. Couldn't handle much, and then we worked like crazy over the summer. Lol I still handed in our slim state portfolio review. Tiramisu, yep I got that message too :) Assessing myself - I am visual sequential maybe?
  6. Wow.. http://visualpractice.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/characteristics.png I get it.... Holy moly ..yowser.... But what I don't get is that I used spelling power and sequential spelling and it didn't work well when he had to apply the spelling in sentences. It's made specifically for dyslexics (not sure about dysgraphia students.) I also cut the 25 word list down in half, because it was too much for him in one day to do 25 words. I started off with this because I believed my safety net -- if dyslexics can use it, maybe it would help him just in case if he did have spelling issues in the future. -- I figured, start off with the stuff for kids that cover the most possible LD's cause he seemed like he didn't have any LD's I knew about- that had more obvious signs and if he did, it would be something like ADD,dyslexia, dysgraphia something like one of those least noticeable learning difference issues. As a music teacher, we were taught about noticing certain early signs but not all. Disgraphia wouldn't have been one. Auditory issues, but not writing and spelling issues. So I choose the better ones or so I thought, with a chance of less remediation needed as possible. After reading more about dysgraphia, wow, my ds was having really bad reading then fluency just popped onto the scene when he was 7 .kind of like some of the descriptions on some slide shows.. Thanks!
  7. So did LLATL work for your VSL? I am really interested to know, cause we have the orange workbook and the spiral Teachers book. Anyone else have a vsl and use LLATL and it work?
  8. Oops, my previous post was written during the previous posts by pen and heather. Pen thanks for the positive affirmation comments, it's not li didn't start off that way... But, When I get ignored, it ticks me off. What are your break times? And sample things to do during break that doesn't require a 1/2 an hour toy clean up?
  9. More so people say what not to do. Can I have better what to do situations? I would've fired myself long time ago. It's not the first time I would've said this. But being a classroom teacher and home parent teacher is totally different. I don't know how to separate parent from teacher moments or that I should even do that.
  10. Momof3il. And other moms – What do you do during breaks and for how long? Heather - I don't know the acronyms wm and. LL7? I understand testing does not define him or his character either. But I want him to understand how they can be used and for what purposes and how they rank with other students in his age group. But I still know that it does not define them on a personal level -God does. That's why infrequent testing is important to me and using them as tools for learning is important to me. I was told stanford and Iowa were good tests. I liken them unto recitals for my students. It helps them assess over the long-haul how well they've writ done. I understand there many philosophies on this and it's totally okay to not test if you know where your kids are. I just like to use it as a learning tool. Also with the reading – he finished the OPGTTR . So he does need slight remediation but not sure how far to go. Like I said he'll get stuck on some multi-syllable word he hasn't come across before, but it's a good dictionary stopper I guess. I used a Beka basal readers all the way up to third-grade reading materials. I assume that he's doing okay. Because he does read aloud to me and I feel that it's a normal set to read for his age. It has built in reading comprehension questions. And He seems to answer them fine. He seems to have the five word test rule per page okay – meaning they say if you make five or more mistakes on a page the reading material is too hard. So most of the stuff that he reads is less then 5. I am only focusing on grammar this week because he is at the end of his grammar book. But that isn't stopping him from reading for example – he is reading the Civil War ballad 15 pages a day aloud to me.
  11. I need to assign a grade because he needs to understand how grading works. If he's never had it at all, he doesn't understand the concept of actually keeping score. Also, I believe in doing it to prep him because we are going to do the Stanford Test next week, I want him to go through major academic testing at least 3 times in his life. It helps him prepare for SATs later in life. I have never graded him until this year. I personally believe it is appropriate for 3rd, 8th, and 12th grades. I understand the "don't test method." It's not necessary in lots of regularity for homeschoolers- per se - technically, it's the same as handing out another practice sheet for the most part. But this is an end of year test. I have to know before if we intend on switching curriculum overall for LA (still on the fence as to using what I have or what) how he is doing and in what areas. I believe that he needs to know what ranks mean, but not every year, just enough so that he's thinking that grades do matter somewhat for more improvement later on.
  12. PRAISE REPORT: On his Adverb Test and Pronoun test he got A's and it took him less than 1/2 hour each page, because we both adjusted our attitudes. And, the tests were one page as opposed to 4,5 pages. He can do it... maybe I've been too hard? Maybe... I don't know... Test anxiety when he's feeling shut down? Maybe I shut him down too much? BUT!! LOL math/teacher problem for Grammar grading on his capitalization test. So do you/would you grade on a bell curve? Cause he got 7/12=58% right in the capitalization portion of his grammar test. BUT!!! Most of the questions have 4-7 instances where he had to correct the capitalization per question. Eg. 2. last sunday, i took my dogs to riverside park. 2. Last sunday, I took my dogs to Riverside Park. = 4/5 correct that he did on this question. 2. Last Sunday, I took my dogs to Riverside Park. - actual answer. So do I give him 7/12=58% or do i give him 47/52 =90% Or hubby's suggestion count .5 point off for each item wrong. 5x.5=2.5 thus, 9.5/12= 79% ?????? Thanks sbgrace... I think it may help, I read dobson's, ezzo's, leiman's books. Not the one you suggested.
  13. Heather LL7? Oh, btw I already have the MUS blocks and someone gave me a pizza fractions game... maybe it might be enough? Oh and I think I might try http://www.visual-learners.com/support-files/challngtchr.pdf for spelling http://www.custom-homeschool-curriculum.com/support-files/spelling-for-visual-spatial-learners.pdf same concept. We BOMBed out with sequential spelling. I think it was because there were no pictures. We did 80 lessons, and when it came time to put them into sentences, all of it came out wrong... :( I also had an older edition without the expensive other book they reccommend go with it. Elizabeth B- was totally thinking-God is awesome, cause right after I told hubby that ds has problems sometimes skipping words and muddling through longer words without properly enunciating each syllable, you posted. Oh btw, he would refuse me every moment for k, Gr1 and part of gr2 when I tried to make him read using his finger to break down the syllables etc. He always wanted to guess at the whole word. It's probably the whole to parts learning issues.
  14. I quoted this from another thread from Lori? I just needed this in one place so that I could reference everything that everyone has said. I might be vsl too but teach sequentially... I am a piano teacher and can never remember what people say, and am always having to write every thing down. My son and I might be more alike than I know.. And all of the Math curriculum that I have used are on this list. He did use FLL1,2 and was able to memorize the poems and stuff even though it is very verbally based as opposed to visually based. Heather- I might have been teaching him explicit multisensory based all along... just don't know which fall into what category or target area? . I know that my the 20 minute segments weren't happening though. And output needed to be re-standardized maybe. http://www.custom-homeschool-curriculum.com/visual-spatial-homeschool-curriculum.html Does any one know if vsl's would fail at vpl curriculums? I have LLATL for 4th, don't know if it would be huge set back to use?
  15. Am researching for my kid too, maybe we should try this? They are great at art, why not have them make a picture for each work on a index card before drilling them at the end of the week? http://www.visual-learners.com/support-files/challngtchr.pdf
  16. Heathermomster - I am hearing you on the VSL, and typing. He said that he enjoyed typing more. Maybe I will continue to have him just do the apologia scripture in cursive (once every two weeks), and have him type everything else. Easy grammar is mostly circling and underlining except for the irregular verbs, nouns and tense changes... I was trying to avoid curriculums that were writing intensive but employs application,less black and white and more color filled- like spectrum writing workbooks are more colorful, singapore math too. I give him Rod and staff spelling words on Spelling city sometimes rather than on paper -- so he types the words instead of writes them in his book. It has helped some. I just can't imagine something that is open and go for VSL's that don't have people or I spending a fortune on manipulative s. I just bought LLATL Teacher guide and student workbook for fourth grade do you think that is bad or good for a VSL? I hear that it is less intense. Perky - It's hard for me being a tiger mom. I don't want to be a helicopter mom. I want to enjoy my kids, but I don't know how to sometimes. Work and play at the same time doesn't make sense to me. When newly four year old lies to me about brushing her teeth, wets her bed, my bed and sister's bed, and then looks cute to play off not doing things and interrupts me every 5 minutes. I start reaching for my straight jacket ;) I don't want ipad to be placating my children. My husband does that when he comes home from work, I don't want that happening during school time. I don't know how to not be me. I am more on the stern strict side or nothing gets done. I hate yelling, it's not like I like it. I tell them how that when they don't listen, my voice elevates, and if they don't want me to get mad, they need to listen and follow the first time. But explaining that is many times on deaf ears too. I also agree with teaching to how the student learns, but changing style of teaching is really hard for me, if I don't know how to implement someone's curriculum to teach it, I have a tendency to buy curriculum that I wouldn't have a problem teaching KWIM? For example I am a sequential teacher and learner, I don't get abstract easily, so to teach it is hard. I forced myself to use Konos, in order to break up any monotony of work-bookish type of learning.
  17. Heathermomster- I thought my child was just "a 3rd grade boy" so I would not have been teaching him explicit multisensory tasks because I don't know that he had or has any deficits to begin with. I thought his timing issues was just a difference between boys and girls, defiance cause he just doesn't want to do something so he plods along hoping that I would put writing or related subjects off, and girls at this age are generally faster learners. I posted in this board, because I was hoping someone would help me discern, yes/no this is a problem yes/no I need testing for him, or I need parental guidance myself , cause I need to change something or he needs to change something in our environment. I burnout easily because I teach my kids and I also teach in the evenings because I am a piano teacher. Seeing all the ps kids do way better then my kids with simple listening tasks is disheartening.
  18. Cbgrace -Wow, when you posted I totally felt like I was Charlie brown's teacher "whawawawa". Like, I wonder if that is how I sound to him. Current types of reinforcement I do have – a white board with stars on it after every subject completed. Stickers for getting better at the subject or getting it done nicely. Could you suggest more examples of positive reinforcement or other methods that work for your sons? I have this positive and negative reinforcement thing going on in our house; if they get their work done quickly and then they get a star or extra free time if they do not get it done quickly, they lose their free time or don't get a sticker or lose toys to the downstairs basement. He also does get a disappointment speech for me because he's wasting my time as well I would rather be doing other things than sitting with him mulling over subjects related to writing or things that he doesn't like etc. We all have to do things but we don't like. And he needs to start appreciating writing because it is so integral to what we have to do in life. I tell him about how writing is necessary for jobs and expressing ourselves. Some of the positive and negative reinforcement doesn't work because sometimes we don't start our lessons until 11 o'clock --because they are fooling around before we get started. So, they get a lot of play time aleady which makes us cram subjects in with less breaks aside from meals. So sometimes I do not get time to enforce his positive break reinforcements. On the grammar testing situation – I need to know that it's in the long-term. His grammar has been taught all year long and he was required to do two pages a day for the beginning, and one page a day for the last three months . And, the one page he was able to do without taking two hours by himself. So I don't understand why testing has been such a issue. We did think of public school if he didn't do well. Because part of me was thinking that if it was a personality issue where my type of teaching was not good enough for him and he wasn't learning maybe it would be better being taught from somebody else. He does well with science, art, and history because I do not require them to write down any answers except for labeling countries in geography and labeling things in their apologia science notebook. And, his labeling pictures does not go without hesitation. So you think he has ADD? He's not hyper, he doesn't fool around with his pencils or do repetitive acts that are questionable.
  19. I sat with him for the first 20 minutes reviewing all of the grammar rules and what to remember to think about when answering the questions. I told him to take it into the kitchen so that he could focus. And he was probably looking out the window between every word and letter.I had helped my daughter in the other room do her homework while he was in the kitchen and would check back every 15 minutes. And when I saw his answers I knew that he wasn't really thinking about so I reread him the directions again. And told him to read it again. But it's the same things he's done before earlier in the year. His scores were pretty bad. My hubby thinks I should just give him an hour for the next test and if he doesn't get to the other questions just mark it wrong in red in front of him. Maybe his distain for getting them wrong would help him to stop procrastinating. Or whatever it is that is taking so long. I looked up the latter dysgraphia issues, and it's the thought to paper type issues. But his drawings are beautiful so I don't know if it's the same type of motor issues. I've been trying to help him hold his pencil more straight but he plays piano fine, and his cursive is nice when he puts his mind to it. It just seems to take soooo long.
  20. Math facts – could be a lot better. Word problems were always balked at. Multidigit things too. Edit, I never did FLL3 I meant we did FLL 1,2 in first and 2nd grade and easy grammar this year in 3rd. The hours that I quoted were with handholding. What is dysgraphia? Thanks for all the encouragement so far. I test because I need to know. And realistically,I believe that homeschooling is not necessarily homeschooling through high school for me -it's what God wills. If He thinks that I need to put my kids and to public school and then so be it. I actually considered putting him in public school if it's a personality conflict issue or a time management issue where he has a sense of urgency to get out the door and go to school and other people are waiting on him. I seriously hate the yelling. But when I feel ignored mommy monster comes out. Simple things like cleaning off the table when they are finished eating, pick up toys- none in the dining room... Those start every day. Then it gets into "stop whining or staring off into space and just look at what's in front of you.Stop expecting me to give you the answer and start to think about the answer yourself. Read the directions 3 times.
  21. Crying as I type this, cause I am at my wits end. I have less patience with my children than other's children and I know this because when I co-op with others using Konos unit study I am way more relaxed. Reading- That being said... I don't know if my kid is learning challenged too, or if it's just me. I yell a lot, because trying to get my kids to focus takes HOURS. For my oldest especially, he's 8 and will be 9 in August. Makes me wish I had red-shirted him before homeschooling. I started him out early. We did Abeka PreK 3 and Prek 4 and Opgttr at 4.5 and he reads ok. He's at his grade 3 level in reading. (I would have thought since I started him a year early he would have been a year ahead in reading, but I think he's at a normal 3rd grader's reading level.) We read 3rd grade abeka readers and classical illustrated series abridged books (Moby dick, red badge of courage). Writing-I feebly tried to get him to write, so I forced him. He can do cursive and print and his handwriting is nice to look at, but writing in general is taking HOURS. Grammar- We did FLL 1,2 which is primarily all oral and it was great in 1st and second grade. He is now 3rd. Writing with some grammar- And we did WWE 1,2 (during his grade 1,2 years) and it was pulling teeth to the point of him crying, but I forced him anyway (yelling all the way.) He got through lesson 28 and I just stopped, cause it was killing my time with my other kids. Spelling- He is a terrible speller too. I have switched 4 curriculum and settled on Rod and Staff grade 2. He is partially behind because I started him late and partially, because he can't remember it even after the millionth time and 4 curriculums later (I took a good one or two months per curriculum)- including some words from Easy Grammar. There = Thar, shoe=shoo. Grammar-Today because his thought to paper is so SLOW, he's taken 2 hours for a 3 page nouns test. 3.5 plus hours to complete an easy grammar adjectives test (5 page test). I was diligent to review EVERYTHING before he started, and I corrected every page in that grammar workbook as we did each page since Sept. We didn't skip anything. I switched from FLL to Easy Grammar, cause it seemed to be a nice transition, and he needed to physically apply the knowledge. Writing-2 hours for any type of writing assignment. I switched to Spectrum Writing after WWE2 because I thought something that was visual would break up things for him to conceptualize into chunks better, or so I think, at least he understands how to make a list, and a word web. His paragraphs are only 3 sentences long. And if I tell him to summarize a chapter of a book and write his summarization down, there goes another 2 hours (for 3 sentences). Does this sound like any other kid? Am I missing something? Grammar- He got a 60% on his grammar nouns test, and a really low score on a verb test and I am feeling like a complete failure. Some curriculum writers are anti-testing, and some people are telling me - oh he's ok at his age. I am cringing, because I elected to have him take the Stanford test next week, and if he is doing this poorly, I fear that the test results will show that I am a complete homeschool failure despite what others say. PLUS, trying to wait patiently for that type of test will surely make me go nuts. :cursing: :scared: Now, I know that he is nowhere near the type of remediation or need for medical aid my autistic nephews are at, so technically my problems are not that bad, but I need to know if I should ask a specialist to figure out what the heck is going on? HELP! With my kindy - she can actually do all her three R's in 2.5 hours. Edited 5/31 to help the read be easier for others.
  22. I was in the same boat- I do both MUS and Singapore. Much more mental math. Math U see is great for me as a teacher - sequential, etc and for students to plug in stuff. My DS is only in 3rd grade, but I see much more associations in singapore than with the mastery approach of MUS. Both are great approaches though.
  23. You could always ask the mom what approach she would take. I had a classically minded friend comment that she didn't have her daughter near scissors, cause she was not mature enough to use them properly without harming herself. My kids LOVE crafts, so i had them cutting, and she sat out of that function. (I felt bad) but then the mom came to the conclusion that it was better to help her have guided learning. With my kids it was always hand over hand learning. They had to cut slow and be told not to be fast and take their time. Maybe just come along side the kid and just "guide" him to slowly cut? Or just comment about motor skill development of kids and say to the mom in general during class, "executive functions for kids is hard, and they wind up cutting too fast and wind up taping things together instead of slow their scissors down enough to cut properly." Maybe she would notice that's what her kid is doing, come along side her son to teach him to slow down enough to follow the lines.
  24. what are you using to teach conversational foreign language? I am all ears, I speak cantonese, but have no cantonese friends, and no substantial curriculum for it. My kids are mixed and don't know a lick of mandarin or cantonese.
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