All I can find on our computers (Windows 10) is something called Narrator, which seems pointless. It reads everything I have no need to hear, and nothing I want it to read. I was so excited to find a list of keyboard commands online to get Narrator to read documents, but every single one elicits the response "Command not available."

Thank you so much for all the details!! And how awesome that your son is willing to work hard on this. My dyslexic son is so disheartened by his difficulty spelling (and finding nothing that seems to really help). I wonder if he would be open to trying something like this.

I have tried so many options, and none seem to work. I've mostly been trying the free versions, but I figure if I can't get the free version to work well, why would I pay for the full one? DS needs something that will read PDFs, web pages, Word documents on his computer. I'd love to hear what others are using!

Ruth, what did you do when he spelled a word wrong? Did he practice it somehow? Did you keep repeating the book until he had mastered all the words? I love this idea and crave more details!

Sorry if this is a bit off topic, but these sentiments always strike a nerve with me. What if you have a kid who gets perfect scores on every single exam with little prep? Who takes loads of APs because when he looked at the options, he was interested in nearly all of them? So do colleges assume that he is just trying to look good? Should I have steered him away from APs and forced him to come up with unique classes instead? (One of the things we did, that I'm not always sure was the best idea - was to NOT turn into a class some things he was learning about for fun - I didn't feel confident about how to do that, and I didn't want him to feel constrained by a required output. We could have done this, though - and his transcript would have looked different.) Anyway, this is definitely not a kid who feels like he missed out during high school because of workload. Nearly all of his classes were fun and interesting to him. All of his ECs were done for the fun of it, and he's had plenty of downtime. I'm also thankful that he would honestly be happy at any of the wide range of schools he applied to. He applied to some super selectives, but when asked the question "if you got in everywhere, which would you choose?" he can't answer. Every single one seems great to him. So he isn't fixated on getting into a top school, but I still feel like I don't quite understand how the game is meant to be played anyway, especially in this kid's case.

We have a kid who will take the PSAT in another country this Fall. It's not difficult. In fact, for us it is easier than begging the US high schools to include our homeschooler (at least this was our experience). International schools offering testing overseas are often set up to take any students interested. Just look up the city and country on collegeboard to find a school that does the PSAT. She may need to travel a bit depending on which city she is in. In Italy, for example, there are 16 schools that offered the PSAT/NMSQT last Fall. https://ordering.collegeboard.org/testordering/publicSearch I would contact the closest school ahead of time and make arrangements with the host family or org. well in advance. For us having the NMS automatic scholarship safety school was important.

DS got a 5 after the class with Kathryn Walker. He says the live discussions were interesting - they got better after everyone loosened up and did video :).

Ditto what freesia said regarding the overall workload. Kathryn Walker wrote a recommendation for DS, and she was the ONLY one who did it quickly and didn't need reminders! :)

Another recommendation for Kathryn Walker! She is one of DS's favorite teachers. The class discussions were interesting, his writing improved, and he sincerely enjoyed the class. A big reason for choosing her over others was weekly assignments as opposed to daily assignments, which would have driven DS crazy. He likes having his week planned out in advance.

That looks very interesting, though I suspect it will be difficult for DD. I love the concept of chunking to gain an understanding of phrases and clauses. Also love that the examples are all sentences from good childrens literature. Thanks!

Thanks!! Exercise Guru thanks for the great ideas!!

We used Wilson until her reading was at grade level, which it is now. Her spelling is still atrocious, and I've been inconsistent (and frankly overwhelmed and feeling a bit hopeless about it) - have decided to make consistency a bigger focus after the holidays.

Sounds like a good thing to try! (The link you gave was off I think - unless there is an ingenious way to use storage boxes to teach sentence structure, which would be a great concept! :-) )

Yes, but "When the big elephant sat" is a dependent clause and not a complete sentence, even though it has a noun and predicate. This is what trips her up. If the volcano erupts Where the monkeys were playing Near the laughing clown Noun? check. Verb? check. Sentence? Nope.

My dyslexic 10 yo still struggles with this. "Expresses a complete thought" seems to be the piece she doesn't get. Any advice?

DS was accepted to University of Michigan Engineering, Ann Arbor :hurray: We are thrilled, and I am relieved. This is mine and DH's alma mater, though we are now OOS, so although DS has grown up hearing GO BLUE, we had prepped him for his slim chances. Not sure he will end up there, but it feels very validating. :001_smile: CANNOT fully express my gratitude to the amazing people on this forum who generously offer advice and guidance. Thank you so much!!! :001_wub:

Well, this guy got back to DS a few hours later and was very apologetic. Ended up doing the interview spontaneously right then. It went fine, but we were pretty upset beforehand - this person should not be an interviewer (the email response after his second time standing up DS referred to a time two hours later than scheduled and was something like - yes, we're meeting at XX time, right? -- Seriously? You can't read the preceding emails to see the time you agreed upon?).

Yes, I think we should - after decisions come out. :laugh:

Yes, alumni interviews. Thanks, that sounds good!

So DS was stood up for the second time by his interviewer just now. After the first time, the interviewer apologized later and said he was having trouble with Skype (it was a strange email back and forth and frankly didn't really make sense), and he suggested a different time. DS waited for him online just now, and he never showed up, and hasn't yet responded to email. We're telling him to request another interviewer. DH is saying that for future interviews, DS should send them an email reminder the day before. This seems potentially insulting to me, though. What do you think?

Yes, I was thinking about the colleges that have not received anything from him yet - there are several he hasn't submitted yet. We did have the scores sent to all the schools. OK. I know its not essential on the transcript, which is why it seems strange to add in an "Optional Report" new transcript with that minor change. I like having the scores on the transcript because I feel like it validates all the grades.

Is it possible to submit an updated transcript on the Common Ap to include the latest test scores? I can't see how to do it other than submitting an "Optional Report" where you can submit "updated grades or transcripts", but I'm not sure if its really necessary to do it as they will be getting the scores directly from College Board anyway. Would be nice to add it in because he did awesome :laugh: but I'm not sure if I should submit a new transcript just for that. (Asking this question about a month late; I only just realized that his SAT score isn't on the transcript - oops).

One DS used the old Teen Coder Java course (self study) in 8th and got a 5 - felt it was easy. The other DS used Edhesive in 9th and also got a 5, though he found Edhesive to be somewhat difficult to use - it seemed buggy, which was funny. Both used Scratch for a few years, but that's it as far as programming experience, though both are mathy kids. I think if a student enjoys programming they will find it easy.

Yup, they will ferry that booklet around. DS did this last year, taking APs at three different schools, in three different cities, going back and forth between them all.

I don't think there is anything wrong with getting help. What seems horrible is how drastically this helper was ready to change the student's words/ thoughts/ even experiences (!) to something he or she felt was somehow superior. I can't imagine Bravewriter ever doing anything like that - I'm sure they wouldn't, as the best thing about them IMO is how well they help a student develop their unique voice. Maybe not all such services are as bad as College Vine, though - this is just the first example I've seen of how a service can edit a student's work.