I actually didn't realize when I posted originally, that fast track WAS a remedial program. What age is remedial for, anyway? Preteen? Teenagers? Adults...all of the above? I guess I thought a lot of people used it for their gifted young children or those that read easily...so they could cover the material quicker. I was looking at it, because I was wanting something quick we could go through that would reinforce what ds already knew and would help him with the "word-guessing". So, I apologize for my ignorance on that point. As far as the use of the English/British words...I never once said (or even vaguely implied) that I was offended by those...or even questioning the use of them....which I have repeatedly tried to clarify. I was only checking the SPELLING differences, compared to American spellings (trying to avoid confusion for my boys with SPELLING). In fact, I actually see the beauty of using the unknown words now...even BETTER than using nonsense words. I GET it. That was NOT what I had a problem with. I am VERY happy for your son. I think that is AWESOME that the program helped him. I really do. I am curious...if you wouldn't mind sharing...how old was he when he did the program? I'm just trying to get an idea of what "remedial" is and what type of programs I should be looking at. There's the whole "better late than early" theory and I'm really not sure what category we fall into. As far as your last comment: "But if you'd rather have "Mat sat". "Jill and the cat ran." more power to ya!" I REALLY don't see why THAT comment was necessary??? When did I EVER....EVER ONCE say I questioned the methodology or the technique of the actual phonics lessons in DB??? I didn't. That is never what this was about and if you would actually READ everything I've written thus far, you would know that. I truly am sorry if I offended you or anyone else. It was not my intention...AT ALL! Peace....

have you addressed the ADHD? If not, I would start there. Do either one or both of the boys have cognitive delays? Some FAS kids do, others don't. Our son is the most mentally impaired out of his siblings but other than 1 brother, he is the least behaviorally/emotionally impaired by the FAS. Math is TOUGH TOUGH TOUGH with these kids. I would honestly look at your son's abilities and decide, is learning tally marks REALLY needed? For us, we dropped most math to try to focus on the very basics he needed (remember mine does have a cognitive impairment too) so we did basic money, time, measurements, etc.........stuff he needed for the real world. It is still tough for him as math concepts are so hard. _________________ Yes...been addressing the ADHD for 3 yrs. now. Yes, both boys have cognitive delays (ID-very low IQ's). Our daily Math lessons..... :angry: :willy_nilly: :mad: :scared: :sneaky2: :tongue_smilie: :confused1: MOM at the end of it- :ack2: :crying: LOL! GOOD point about the tally marks!! LOL I actually thought it would be something that could be helpful in real life. The neuropsyche did say to concentrate on life skills. I'm still in denial to some point, I think. :closedeyes:

Mainly "pointed it out" just so others could be aware of the content, especially for those families dealing with cognitive and social difficulties with their children. We don't shelter our kiddos from beer or drinking either and OF COURSE they know that as you put it, "drinking a beer does not make one a bad person.". I didn't mean to imply that and HOPE I didn't? TRUE (no duh comes to mind :p).... as you said, " They're certainly not going out to drink beer with friends because of a remedial reading program." And..."NO"...I have to respectfully disagree with you that I am "overthinking" it....not with the way my boys are. It would definitely not be appropriate to use it with them. Everyone has their own standards as to what their children read, learn from, etc. There is such a plethora of curriculum out there though. Good....better....best is our motto (that we strive for) as far as what our children read and watch AND, if there is a reason for what they are reading/watching...if there is something to be learned from it. IMHO, the content in DB just seemed unnecessary and pointless. SO....we ARE looking for something else. Thanks for the advice, though. Especially the "If it makes you uncomfortable, don't use it" advice. Got it. Didn't mean to offend....just to inform. :blush:

:iagree:

LOL! Okay...let me explain. The "raiding the fridge thing at night" is something WE have trouble with because our adopted kiddos have issues with food...sneaking food...lying about sneaking food, hoarding food....ETC. I probably shouldn't have even mentioned that reference. The one I quoted about "feeling unwell" wasn't about being sick. It was about LYING about ACTUALLY being sick...to get out of doing something. That's what I didn't like. Let me clarify again about the WORDS. I was NOT offended and did not see the words as "worrisome". I just included them in my review, so others would realize that they were there. I didn't think they had bad meanings or anything. I just was pointing out that there were a lot of British words, so others would be made aware of it and could make up their own minds whether they wanted that in their reading program or not. The main thing I was looking for originally, was words that were spelled differently. :001_smile:

:iagree: The more I think about it, I love the idea of them learning new words from other cultures, etc. Not sure what I would do about the spelling differences, though??? Not that big of a deal, though. Especially if I loved the content/stories.

I figured there would be mixed responses and those who would think I was overreacting. ;) IMHO, it may be fine for older kiddos...that don't have any learning, social, or adoption-related sensitivities. However, MY boys have all three, SO.... for US the curriculum is a "no-go". :wacko: I just felt it was necessary to "put it out there" for everyone to be aware enough to make an informed decision...whatever their philosophy. Thanks SO MUCH for the recommendations! I've never heard of either of those programs, so YAY! More curriculum to research! LOL :D

Thanks so much for taking the time to share those! Very cool! I wondered about that myself...the obscure words. Sort of like having them read "nonsense" words. Thanks again for the education! :thumbup:

Oh, I have NO doubt it would be the same if reversed...as far as "our words". Funny about the khaki pants! The thing that surprised me most about the drinking thing was, a. that there were so MANY stories/sentences about it and b. that they included the drunkenness! WHY? What purpose could THAT possibly have? And then, to ask my CHILD to chime in on how "drunk" he thinks the character got (how much he thinks the character drank and if he fell down)! :eek:Wow.

No, it wasn't the British spelling that bothered/offended me....at all. I just included that, since that was the original thing I was looking at...to see how prevalent it was. There WAS quite a bit.

I don't know?? Fast Track is the only one I looked at. LOL...I thought the same thing about the word "beer"! How 'bout some nice stories about a talking DEER? There were talking horses and talking goats! lol. Oh yeh.... they also used the word "queer" (as in, "strange/peculiar"). Oh wellll..... I think I'll stick with my Phonics Pathways. I'm debating about purchasing Reading Pathways to go with it. :-)

promethean trust dot org

I ran into this with our oldest two. Ended up writing my own and designing my own timeline notebook to go w/ it. Anyway, I will tell you what sources we used that we really liked. Maybe you could use some of them with Hakim? All three of these are by Walch: U.S. History Map Activities Short Lessons in U.S. History American History Challenge (quiz game..."jeopardy-like"...she could even quiz herself) By TCM: Take Five Minutes: A History Fact a Day for Editing ( I put them all in chronological order ). By Barchers and Marden: Cooking Up U.S. History Second Edition (dd loved to cook...younger brother didn't mind either :thumbup: ) This book has wonderful book, CD, and DVD lists, categorized by genre. Each time period has its own vocab list as well. Each time period has at least a whole page of "library links"...questions for research about the time period, people, etc. The recipes are wonderful and are not all edible (ie. berry ink, hand soap, candles, etc.). I also pulled from the Lessons from History Guides and Lessons from History the Art Part (really fun addition) because I had them all on my shelf already. We also used an awesome resource called, Learning with the Movies. I'm assuming with you being overseas that this one would be out, but I include it here for others that might be peeking in with the same questions. Anyway, I found the movies through our interlibrary loan system and had a movie form they would fill out afterwards. They also took notes during the movies. Both kids LOVED this part of the curriculum. I also had our oldest work through the 8th grade geography course: America Land I Love & Western Hemisphere. She actually said she really liked it and learned a ton from it. Both kids read and reported on several books I different genres...on their individual reading levels. I used the list in the cooking book as well as Lessons from History and Reading Through the Ages. So, the first two books and the cooking one would be easy for you to coordinate...she could actually do that herself and they are independent studies. You could also require she choose a certain number of books to be read and reported on from certain genres (from your SL core 4/5) and then she could read them along with the appropriate time periods. You could pack them up and take them with you. Plus, if SHE chooses the books...within your guidelines....and not having "too many"....I'm sure she'd enjoy the reading more and sort of "own it"...kwim? Not sure how you feel about A Beka, but that one can easily be done independently as well. This was our first actual "textbook" and at least with our dd...she liked it. She too is a very independent, "check-it-off-the-list" learner. :001_smile: Good luck to you! Hope you find the perfect "fit"! Sorry if I just confused you MORE! :blink:

Okay, I WAS really considering this, until I looked at the samples! My "original" main concern in checking out the samples in-depth was the different SPELLINGS of the "Englsh" words. SHEESH! THEN....my concern became the "message" the readings would be sending to my young boys. What on earth!? As I kept reading on, I kept saying to myself, "Seriously!?". Okay so, I have sat on this for a couple of days, so I wouldn't overreact....I know....some of you are saying I didn't sit LONG enough, right? LOL. I just think this needs to be OUT THERE for those families who DO care about the actual content...this type of content. First of all, the story/stories...are quite.... WEIRD! LOL. Okay...maybe that is part of the plan...cuz kids really LIKE weird!? After all, Explode the Code drawings and sentences are a bit strange...but just in a funny/silly way. I will post here what I was really surprised by and those considering this curriculum can go take a look at the samples for themselves. Mainly it is things I wouldn't want my boys either repeating verbally, emulating, or thinking was an okay way to conduct oneself. Plus, MY boys repeat and emulate constantly (both of them mild-ASD, ADD, ID). Anyway... I just think the stories/sentences send the WRONG message. I apologize if all this has already been hashed over here...I didn't see any major postings about it. :confused1: I will include not only the questionable subject matter, but also the vast number of very different "UK" words...some with completely different spellings, some I just have no idea what they are/mean. The sentences I quote are taken directly from the online sample. OKAY, here goes... Kerb... as in "Mack and Seth will sit on the kerb." "Beth did well in maths this term." "Chick will kill you if that duck quacks." Who will get more beer for the boys?" (for the BOYS!?...yes, we sometimes call our men "boys"...but MY boys would think it meant literal BOYS!) Yes, I know I could explain that....but.... REALLY, should I HAVE to explain that...coming from their PHONICS program?? lol WORDS: luff quid quaff pert busk larch quoit bung erne serf dux bort chink quid swot ruck kith corm Okay, next is a "reward story" it was called........ The title being, "He Just had Beer and Roast Beef for Lunch". "..............left the pond to see where Bart had got to." "had got to"?? That just didn't sound right to me,,,,grammatically? Maybe it is, it just didn't sound right. Gotta love the goat named, "GROIN"! :laugh: LOL MORE WORDS: woad aft chit berth (birth??) tosh quoin fen baize tod teg mort fid spoilt (spoiled?) And they would like to teach my boys some brand new name-calling words: twerp, nerd, twit Another story title: "Beer with Bart" He is told, "Wait and the maid will bring you a beer." :confused1: "Vern, Bart, and Froid drank the beer, AND THEY COULD NOT STAND UP". My emphasis added. My jaw literally dropped at this point! :huh: SERIOUSLY?? WORDS AGAIN: erst nipper stoat bairn larch later in the story.... "They had drunk all the beer." "We sell swell shorts for tall tramps." "My dad likes to have a smoke with his beer." Mark asks for a glass of milk and the snake says he doesn't have any, then proceeds to say, "But would you like a BEER?" The horse asks if he makes his beer with oats because oats make the strongest beer. Snake gives Mark beer. Then the text says, "....but Mark could not drink much of it, for it was very strong.". After that, the QUESTIONS your child is supposed to answer at the end of the story: "Do you think Mark drank much oat beer?" AND..... "Do you think he can stand up?" I am NOT joking! :confused1: Here's another couple GEMS: "If you do not want to go, you could pretend to be unwell." "I like to raid the fridge at night". These two really hit a nerve, because we struggle with honesty and food issues with the adopted kiddos. UGGH! Not to MENTION the alcohol....both of our boys have some form of fetal alcohol effect from their birthmom's prenatal drinking. Double UGGGH! And it goes ON.... "My dad asked me to fetch his glass of scotch." Title of next story: "Beer at Dawn's" "..... horse took a large pail of beer and went off to soak it up with Floyd." THAT'S where I STOPPED! :cursing: I guess I thought that was enough. Siiiiigh............ I could just HEAR one of my boys saying to Grandpa, "Hey, Grandpa...wanna go raid the fridge, have a smoke, get a pail of beer, and go soak it up with Grandma?" Or worse yet, "....with one of those tall tramps with the swell shorts!?" LOL :laugh: Sorry... couldn't RESIST! Seriously, though...I could totally hear them quoting sentences from this! That's what they do...hear...repeat....hear...repeat. Grandma would say, "WHERE on earth did you hear THAT!?" And they would proceed to tell her, "From our PHONICS program in school!" :ohmy:Oh, NOOOOOO!!!!!!!! LOL! Hope no one takes this the wrong way. Like I said in the beginning, I just thought it needed to be "out there". You all can decide for yourselves what you think of it. ;)

You AND JAN!! OH MY GOOODNESSS! That is a LOT of guides....and books....and guides...and BOOOOKS to juggle!! :tongue_smilie: LOL! Can I just ask you one thing...........WHY!!?? :confused1: SORRRY..... I just HAD to ask! LOL :lol: We are doing Bigger with BOTH of our boys and I planned to keep them in the same guide each year (just tweaking what each of them DO). I am curious to hear your thoughts about this. Maybe I won't want to do that??? WOW! My head is spinnnnning, just thinking about doing what you are doing! :svengo:

:iagree: about the neuropsych. I think he did do the right thing. It was just disappointing. I don't thing attachment is a problem with our boys. We adopted them as infants and they are definitely loving and close to family members. Our oldest however, will latch on to a "friend" he has just met and say he's his best friend, etc. I blame that on the lack of social cues, etc. though, because he definitely has THAT problem. They both show empathy and affection and our youngest more and more is showing some signs of reciprocity. So.... I don't know? I will check out your link though. Tweaking...YES....TWEAKING is my middle name! LOL :laugh: Constantly, tweaking..... THANKS!!

I have another son and plenty of nephews. I know normal boys' noises and noisiness...perfectly normal. THESE boys' noises are different and literally CONSTANT...the youngest, esp. A lot of times it's drumming sounds, because he loves his drum set and is into that now (so there's drumming going on in his head constantly and it comes out his mouth) lol. Other times, it's theme songs or parts of songs from cartoons or shows he has seen and as he re-enacts those scenes, the music comes with it. It's random stuff too, a lot of gibberish and babbling that makes no sense (to me anyway)... not vrooomm....vrooooom while playing with cars or pow or bang when pretending. It's just NOT a normal type of "boy noise". :-) You'd have to hear it to understand, I guess. I normally tune it out because I'm so used to it and then other people "comment"... like my sister, friends, etc. Some days though, it just....... gets to me. You know? On those particularly hormonal days when I hear and feel.........EVERYTHING. LOL. Anyway.... just wanted to clarify *MY* ramblings. :-)

Thanks, everyone! This would be for remediation for one of our boys...I guess that's what you call it? He is 11, but has been diagnosed ID and ADD (w/out the hyper part).:-) He finished 100 Easy Lessons and is still really struggling to read. Our older 3 kiddos went through 100 EL and just continued on with Pathway readers and library books. Our 11 yr. old despises the pathway readers (never had THAT happen either! lol). Our youngest is also ID and is 9. He just finished up with Get Ready for the Code books. He is starting ABC the KEY and loves it. I was also considering LOE and the Foundation books. Talked with the author, who recommended starting both boys in that and maybe going through it a couple lessons a day. I'm really, really torn on what to do! Plus, LOE is SO expensive. I also looked at All About Reading (& Spelling). I AM planning on doing LOE's handwriting (cursive) along with the phonics sounds, regardless of which program I use. Thanks again, Ladies! Appreciate you sharing!

I am considering using this...very literally...as written... with the following: Pyramid reading exercises Games - Blend it, Treasure Hunt, Echo, Short Vowel Shuffle, etc. Also with "Roadblock" game...from "How to Get Your Child Off of the Refrigerator..." Making the Dewey bookmark only 10-15 min. lessons Stay on same lesson 'til mastery (automatic recall) The 7 step plan for vowel sounds (as outlined in the guide pg. XVII) Using a joke book. Plan to use it with Rhythm Handwriting - Cursive and the tactile cursive cards along with it. WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS, please? :bigear:

Yep. I pm'd a gentle reminder to someone who put a link to amazon on here. It really IS too bad, though!! I have been helped by so many of those wonderful links in the past! Has this always been the "rule" and just no one followed it, or is this something new? Also, can we post something like "blahblahblah at something something dot com"...written out?? LOL!? Or do we have to say, email me and I'll give you a great link for that? Thanks!

PA ~ Thanks so much for your response. You know, everything you said REALLY makes sense. Probably what doc meant by, "He is a complicated case." As far as the fetal alcohol thing...we had done extensive research on it BEFORE we adopted. Which is why on our form of "what we would consider" we put "no" to prenatal alcohol exposure, along with meth amphetamines. I have several documents/articles printed off and they really tick a lot of boxes. :crying: I can't IMAGINE my life without these two blessings, though. So..I guess God knew what He was doing...He knew if WE knew about the alcohol, we would have said, "no". :closedeyes: Lately, I'm just SO sad all of the time when I think of their future. ONE day at a time, though! Today, our 11 yr. old had a tally mark lesson in his math. OH MY GOOOODNESSS!! I could not for the life of me figure out how to get him to understand it! :crying: I thought it would be SO simple. Then he'd say, "I can do this...I get it...I'm not in kindergarten!"...as he proceeded to do it wrong again and again. We got popsicle sticks out, marker board, etc. Poor guy, he was so frustrated. He does know how to count by 5's, too...so it wasn't that. It is just very frustrating. Math has been a nightmare. Right now, the boys are "crashing" things...complete with loud noises and "dee, dee, dee's" and "ahhhhh...."(screams) , "chsschsschhhs", and "brrrhmm"s. This is their FAVORITE thing to do and has been for several years now. I just don't get it. They LOVE to destroy things. It's a constant battle. And they are NEVER...EVER quiet. There is ALWAYS some kind of noise coming out of their mouths...well, the youngest anyway(usually both of them). He really struggles not making noise while I am teaching his older brother. Siiiigh..... I shouldn't complain, I know... I know I shouldn't! I need to be thankful that they are VERBAL, right? :hurray: One positive from the day, we now have a praying mantis habitat set up in our kitchen...right beside the tree frog habitat and the boys' goldfish. LOL. We have been studying insects, so Grandma's edition of the mantis was pretty cool. We read about them and sat up the habitat today. Okay.... SO SORRY I'm RAMBLING!!! It's just tough and I have no one really to talk to about any of this. Hubby glazes over (too hard for him to handle) and friends don't understand (or worse yet, they don't believe me). I guess I don't know what I could "expect" from having them evaluated again. Is there some kind of help, like government help if they actually get "labeled"...for therapy? Will they refer us to specific therapists? I just have no idea. It would be nice to have a concrete answer. Especially on the dyslexia thing...and if there is a specific math disorder. Oh welllll..........time for more research! I'm thinking of seeing how this school year goes and then maybe re-evaluate next summer..at the children's hospital. Thanks SO MUCH for taking the time to answer my plea! Have a great week! :seeya:

Our boys are 9 and 11. The eval. was a yr. ago. We found the dr. not too far from our home and he was willing to do all of the testing in one long day. He led us to believe it would be a thorough evaluation and then he would "make recommendations". Welll...I guess he "did" make recommendations. LOL....not really funny. Anyway....we spent all this money and filled out tons of evaluation forms, etc. According to the dr., "based on our answers (mom and dad)", the boys were 98% ADD/ADHD and ASD and that our youngest had ODD. Then he said something like, "based on what he "saw" that day, he couldn't diagnose them conclusively". WHAT!? He did say they were both ID and that our youngest had an anxiety disorder. He "didn't think" there was any dyslexia. :confused1: Then he said it was "unlikely that our youngest had ADHD". WHAT!?? He had ALREADY been diagnosed with THAT...that is the ONLY thing we were SURE of....since he was tiny. :cursing: He literally ticks every SINGLE box for ADHD. Both boys are adopted (from birth) and at the neuropsych eval., the dr. explained the coding that was on the hospital papers to us. We never paid any attention to that stuff and our adoption agency was very misleading. The agency is no more and the lawyers have since lost their licenses to practice! They are involved with several court cases. Anyway, it turns out, there was substance abuse with both of our birthmoms (tested positive for alcohol and cocaine). Both boys have symptoms of FAE (fetal alcohol effect). To top off our days with the neuropsych, his "conclusion" was that the boys needed to be in a public school setting to get "professional teaching". He also recommended we take them to the nearest children's hospital to have an in-depth evaluation done. Talk about a BAD day! My husband and I felt like he was just reluctant to be the one to diagnose them. He also gave NO help or advice as far as what types of therapy, etc. would help our boys....he just kept referring us to the hospital and that "they" could give more information about that! I tried different curriculums, "therapies", ideas, etc. over the last year with very little improvements. Our oldest is reading better, though (about a1st/2nd gr. level). So...with this new school year, I am not sure WHAT to do next/where to turn! We do have a wonderful children's hospital about an hour from us and have heard good things about their evaluations. It's just the idea of putting the boys through that AGAIN...and spending the money...AGAIN! :cursing: ANY advice would be much appreciated. Thanks!

Agreeing with the others advice. My hubby is an optometrist. Check VisionandLearning dot org (not allowed to post the link here). Click on the tab "vision and learning" and the "rule out vision" tab. This is a very informative site and will give you lots of "food for thought". It may set off some light bulbs! Blessings, Denise :-)

Okay, apparently ABC the Key is based on the Orton-Gillingham and/or Spalding method. Sorry if I've spelled either of those wrong! My boys are both LD and love the computer, the online lessons, and Skiddles. BUT.... abc the key uses manuscript instruction for handwriting and I want to use cursive. I'm just wondering if anyone has any thoughts on this. My plan is to pause the video lesson when it gets to the handwriting part and do the corresponding phonogram cursive handwriting lesson in Rhythm Handwriting from Logic of English. I've been homeschooling for almost 20 years, but none of our other kiddos had any learning challenges. The "tried and trues", as far as curriculum, are just not working very well with them. SO...I'm back to the CRAZY curriculum search! :w00t: