My son's therapist says that the preschoolers she works with make much better progress than the elementary age kids she works with and she enjoys working with them because she can see the progress. It is harder to fix the problem when they get older. 4 is a good age to get them in.

That is definitely not normal at 4. At 4 the majority of what they say should be understandable.

I have nothing to add about what I would focus on because everyone said it so nicely and I agree with them. I'm sorry you were faced with the possibility of time being shorter than you thought. Your family is in my thoughts. I hope they are able to get him into the trials or he goes into remission.

I am an atheist but we go to a Unitarian church that my kids love going to. They learn about all kinds of beliefs and about compassion for everyone. If they don't want to go anymore and it was a pattern not just a they didn't want to go one morning they wouldn't have to. If they decide when they are 14 they believe in God and want to attend church they will be allowed to do so on their own. I don't talk to my kids much about beliefs because I think they are too young and I don't want them to just follow mine but as they get older I imagine there will be more conversations. I will have a hard time if they believed a few things but I will always accept them and allow them to follow what they believe unless it was a cult.

I didn't believe what they were teaching me in church at that age and was forced to go. I would do anything I could think of to get out of it but was still made to attend on a regular basis and go to the religious classes. All that did was cause resentment to me. As soon as I was old enough to decide for myself I stopped going and it was a relief. Being forced to go did not make me all of a sudden become religious and I got absolutely nothing from going to the classes. I always had a problem with daydreaming and focusing but I would learn a lot anyway but at those classes I would nod off and just not get anything because I didn't believe it. If my parents tried to get me to see the light it would have driven me away. I know my parents probably wish I go to church and was a believer but they respect me and accept me for who I am and I do likewise.

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Yes they can. One of my 3 did.

This conversation about apraxia is interesting. I don't think my ds has it it and he is doing really well with the therapy he is getting but I wonder about my friend's ds. He seems to fit what you are talking about. I know during the time she was getting it looked into she heard from someone who didn't believe apraxia was real. He is a really really picky eater and I wonder if it is partially a muscle tone issue. I don't even know if there would be the right kind of therapist here and it isn't an option to go to another city farther away when you live in Alaska.

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My 4 year old DS is the exact same and my now 6 year old DD went through the same thing when I started with her at 5. Some kids don't go through that phase but many do. I don't know why it eventually clicked for dd despite the large effort and many steps back but it did and now she is reading well. DS is going even slower than her but he is over a year younger so that makes sense. He pauses between his sounds instead of blending without pauses too. I wasn't an early reader because I wasn't given any instruction at all until school but I picked it up with no effort so this is all new to me and I didn't know what it should look like.

I think poor kids are compared to other poor kids and rich kids are compared to other rich kids not poor kids compared to everyone and rich kids compared to everyone. They are trying to show that it isn't just poor kids that are dragging us down. I went to a talk on school choice. My state is the lowest on the list of states with results and when they were talking about rich and poor kids results they were compared to other rich or poor kids. It is sad when you are in the worst testing states in one of the poorest testing industrialized nations. If New York's scores are so dismal I can imagine how bad our state's results are. We do have a good homeschooling network and can get money for that from the state and there are a few really good performing charters at least.

Thanks. She was counting to add but I do encourage counting on rather than counting everything. I had Cuisanaire rods but didn't know what to do with them but finally watched some of the Education Unboxed videos today and did that with her and ds. She does Saxon at school but I want to use something else to do a little math work each day. Both kids really liked working with the rods. They said it was their favorite part of the day. I worked with her today again and she can now count to 100 and skip count by 5s without the chart so just her 2s are left and she almost has that down.

It hasn't happen to me either. I do use Pinterest and Facebook and do lots of google searches.

She is not the top kid in her class. There are kids ahead of her, Since it is kindergarten the skills in her class vary widely. She is the oldest in her class. Her class is still working on pretty simple words that she can do with no issues. She needs some work on multi-syllable words. It has been coming up in books she likes and she doesn't really break them up so she can tackle them. I don't want to wait months before she gets instruction at the level she is working on and needs work on. I have been working on her with reading for a while now. I just meet her where she is at and provide enrichment in different subjects.

I saw this article and I figured there was a little more to the story and they chose community colleges for a reason. I think that there are way to many students being left behind and graduating functionally illiterate though and way to many who never even graduate. The science scores in my state are abysmal. The scariest thing about this article is the comments. Instead of having an intelligent conversation on the topic it is all blaming it on the simplest things and there is out right racism.

My dd is attending a charter that uses Spalding. I don't think they follow it to at but I am debating trying to get a copy and using it. She ahead of what her class is working on and I wanted to work on her with multi syllable words. These accounts of the 6th manual being really confusing and needing to read it over and over and over are not helping at all. I usually don't read books more than once. I can barely find the time to get through a whole book.

I'm an afterschooler right now. My 6 year old is going to a charter school for kindergarten. She is well above grade level in reading right now but not in math. She is learning stuff she knows already with reading and she does have trouble focusing and completing things. She on other other hand enjoys going to school and is happy there. She has kids in her class she likes. She isn't an outgoing child but she does talk to kids in her class and they say hi to her and are friendly to her. If she was severely unhappy and hiding under a desk all day I would probably either pull her from school or try to figure out what was going on by talking to the teacher and possibly looking into an evaluation done if I felt it was warrented. I worry the charter school will not work for ds because he is very unfocused, active and I am guessing he will be quite above grade level by the time he goes to kindergarten at 6. Time will tell. I will start him there and if it doesn't work out homeschooling would be a strong possibility. I enjoy working with my kids and teaching them things. Even though dd goes to school I also take time to work on things with her.

I have AAS1 and AAR1 and my dd uses WRTR at her school. I prefer WRTR to AAS but I do like how AAS is open and go. I don't like having to read a manual and do lessons on my own. I'm not good at that. My ideal would be an open and go WRTR . ;) From what I heard about SWR I think I would prefer that to AAS. AAS covers spelling and AAR covers reading. AAS seems to go a little slower than WRTR with teaching phograms and spelling words and you need to purchase multiple levels. I like how the other methods teach reading through spelling. You learn a bunch of phonograms then move onto spelling with them and then when they worked with spelling for a while you give them real books. To me it seems less frustrating for my kids who each went through the phase where they had sound out words and didn't recognize them right away no matter how many times they blend it out. It is frustrating to try to read for kids like mine that go through that phase. The fluency sheets in AAR are a lot of work for ds even divided up. He can do them but he isn't gaining fluency from them. AAS and AAR is a very good program though and it is really nice how it is open and go.

I been wondering how to teach this. I should try signapore. What is HIG?

I been focused on getting dd6 to learn to read that I have been neglecting math lately. She is going to kindergarten and doesn't seem to struggle but I think I really need to work with her more. Right now she understands the concept of simple addition but she needs manipulative to add or she gets the wrong number. She can add 1 without needing manipulative but she can't do something like 5 + 4 unless she draws it out or it has objects shown for her. I know that can be normal but what are some strategies I can work on so she can do this mentally? I want her to be able to know it but I also want her to understand why. I have been working on skip counting with her and she knows her tens and sometimes her 5s but she still needs to use a chart for 2s and sometimes she messes up when she count to 100 without looking at a number chart. She recognizes the numbers on a chart and can do it with a chart. She understands the concept of place value. I feel really bad because I should have been working with her more on her math skills and I am worried she is going to start struggling. She should probably know more at 6. I'm working with her brother who is 4.5 on similar skills right now and he is doing fine with it.

That is good for a 4.5 year old. Just keep doing what you are doing and build from there. I am working on that with my 4 year old now and my 6 year old in kindergarten isn't much ahead of that because I have been neglecting working on math with her. I started a little late with her but I am starting to be focused in teaching her math skills and spending more time on that.

I don't know where you are or what climate but spindly plants usually come from not enough light. Right now my plants need a little extra light. I am in a far north latitude though. The little greenhouses do work but you can improvise and cover plants with row cover and that works too.

I'm an afterschooler right now but I was considering homeschooling. I was in some crunchy mom groups and schooling style tended to be more dividing than religion. People accepted people's religious beliefs but they mostly followed very different educational methods. I guess maybe since I am not in the bible belt religion didn't seem to divide but they were very opinionated about style. The majority of people seemed to be relaxed homeschoolers or unschoolers. It was accepted if you were a religious homeschooler but if you mentioned a more structured method with academic rigor or taught a kid to read on the earlier side crickets were chirping and what you said was ignored while everyone else liked comments related unschooling or relaxed schooling. I was hoping for conversations discussing how different styles work for different parents and kids and discussions on how certain things were taught but that wasn't happening. Now that my oldest is in school it is similar. I am fine with the child led schools or waldorf schools we have here and a lot of people I know are very happy with them but it just wouldn't work for my oldest. She is going to a more structured school with high expectations on behavior and academics and a very academic and rigorous curriculum. I am pretty sure I am very different politically and with my crunchiness than most parents at that school. I still know a lot of crunchy types and I can tell they do not like the type of school dd goes to but I just tell my reasons why it works for us and they are usually Ok about it. It isn't just schooling but it seems like so many issues are divisive lately. I wish there was a way to have more open dialogue about topics related to parenting without people acting like their parenting or eating choices are better. I hope as we get to know more families at dd's school they accept us for who we are.

Dd was in a phase where she could do the AAR level 1 books I had for my son and Dr Seuss. From there she moved onto first grade books without a lot of lines and quickly progressed from there. The step into reading books are good but they do have these random words that were hard for a while but I did find first grade books were working. I like scholastic books. Once she moved beyond phonics readers and Dr Seuss she progressed much faster and gained the fluency she needed to move through levels.