We have problems with words like fast which we pronounce f"ah"st... and there are numerous others. My children however have heard enough American television that I just tell them to spell it like the Americans say it and say it as we do afterwards. I think having an understanding initially that the aim of reading is to make sense of the text leads them to pronounce it as they usually hear it even if when sounding it out they get something different - "make it make sense" is something I say to any child who has read something and missed a single word's pronunciation. Usually that corrects everything (but then I seldom get my children to read words individually and if I did I would make them say the word in a sentence afterwards).

I use bath time and bed time with my children for afterschooling - usually I read to them while they are bathing, but for my younger child I also give her a set of 10 duplo blocks and work daily on the facts that add to 10 using the manipulatives (they do not use enough manipulatives in her school) and any others that need reinforcement. Five minutes really is enough for math facts review if it is done daily and consistently. At bed time my younger child reads to me (you could use this time for phonics review if necessary) and we do 5-10min of Math. For my older child I have been doing about 15min of Math and she may read a chapter or an article to me. I also do some language skill with her which must take about 10min. They get weekly homework at school, so I try to get as much of that done on Monday or Tuesday which gives us the rest of the week for other work, but if the school homework is not teaching her anything then I will rather do something else with her and her teachers have been happy with this. If you are consistent with what you are doing and the school is doing extra then your child should catch up, but it will take some time depending how much repetition your kids need.

I did SOTW1-4 over 4 years with my eldest and we have started again bringing the younger child in (as both are still pretty young). Nonetheless the way I used it changed over the years - like you I also like reading good books so we incorporate them too. My elder now has a good view of how history flows and I can read her any book from any time period and just fit it in with the information she remembers, but my younger one could do with a full read through of SOTW to get the concept of world history. You could always do SOTW2 and then incorporate BF as you start getting to American History - we were emigrating at the time we reached SOTW3 when all the history of all the countries we had been in and were going to started to fit together so many times during SOTW we took a break to look at a particular country's history more in depth. The U.S. history is not separate from world history - it is part and parcel of it as in any country's history. My children have enjoyed knowing what was going on in their own towns/provinces/states/countries while other exciting things were happening in the world.

Write a business letter to an important person in the SOTW chapter suggesting they change something in their decision making. Draw a map and explain what might be encountered on the route taken. Write a menu for an event described in a reading. Write the narration as if it is a piece of fiction - this is actually quite a difficult thing to do without changing the actual key points of the narration. Write a descriptive essay on one aspect of the narration that has not been fully described in the piece (may require some extra research) For older students: Compare past history with a news article from today/this week which shows similar choices being made and state what may be the same or different and debate why this may be so. : Compare this history to a book or fictional story known to the child - how are they different/similar Do one narration where only the key words get written down (no sentences) with illustrations. Write a blog post Write an email to a friend Write the narration as a text message with a word limit and use text message abbreviations but keep the narration understandable and still convey the message Write the narration as though it is the blurb of a book - will have to leave out conclusions in this method (this can be tricky) Write in the third person but as though that person was actually there watching the event or was a very minor character not mentioned in the account.

My 4 year olds enjoyed Pippi Longstocking, Milly-Molly-Mandy and books by Dick King Smith as well as any of Johanna Hurwitz's books for younger children (Nora, Elisa or Russel) - she does write books for older children which were not suitable. They also liked The Boxcar Children and many of The Magic Treehouse series which were shorter for them. It was only by age 5 or 6 that they became ready for The Little Princess, The Narnia Series and other classics. I found there was a transition for my children where early reader chapter books were great for reading aloud to them to make the transition to longer chapters with more difficult plots and subplots.

I used Horizons K for both my children and then moved them to Singapore 1 and both did well with this approach. My eldest also had some MEP thrown in and both are doing Life of Fred as a supplement. We do not buy full curricula though and work from year to year so that I can re evaluate what is working and what is not. Despite the fact that I do think that sticking to a curriculum is important in the long run, in the very early years just getting the basics down with whatever works for you and them is best - there will be no gaps since you are right at the beginning with them so feel free to try different curricula (MEP is free which is why it found a space for us initially).

The Story of Doctor Doolittle for my 5 year old. The One and Only Ivan for the 9 year old and The Horse and his Boy and Miracle on 34th Street for both of them. We keep many books going at once - both girls are reading at least 3 others each as am I.

I liked Drawing on the Right side of the brain which also has a workbook you can use. It teaches you how to look so that you draw more realistically which is what an 11 year old is usually after. I found doing this with an internet course on perspective (sorry can't find it now - if I do manage to search and actually find it then I will post it) helped greatly.

I never used a pre-reading curriculum - it just came naturally mostly by reading books with rhymes and talking about the rhyming words, pointing when reading so they got the basics of left to right, teaching letter sounds only and NOT the alphabet song (that came later), and blending, blending, blending while speaking for them orally without doing it as a reading lesson so that when they got to saying the letters and blending themselves they had heard it done so many times that it was natural. The syllable game came much later and I taught it while teaching reading starting with words ending in -ing and -ed where they just learnt to get rid of it and say the root word adding on the suffix later. I spent a lot of time with them reading aloud to me when I worked on the multi-syllable words as they came up and only once fairly fluent did we go back and use curricula that dealt with multi-syllabled words in depth. As for phonemic awareness - my children had a good awareness without much teaching, but other children I have worked with who struggled did best with using their own names to expand their phonemic awareness as most had a good understanding of the sounds and letters of their own name (even if the phonics involved was more complex) and then using the letters of their own name we could do words beginning with the same letter and words with the vowels in them and so on working towards beginning and ending sounds and then middle sounds as needed. Each child is so individual - you adapt to the child in front of you.

My child won a calculator in a Maths olympiad competition in first grade - so I let her play with it but she has never been allowed to use it for mathematics. The other day she came home from school having calculated very high digit multiplication (millions times ten thousands) without a calculator - something that one would probably not do as an adult without a calculator simply because of the time it takes, but she was proud of herself - no one feels a sense of achievement by pushing some buttons and being told the answer. And nor do they learn how much concentration and how many careless errors can occur simply by pushing buttons. Finally elementary math is mostly about learning basic math facts in arithmetic and using them to solve problems - you cannot learn the facts if someone else keeps giving you the answer. Pre-algebra they should still be learning how numbers work by playing with the patterns involved (incuding with percentages).

I like lots of math curricula - my eldest did a number and my younger child has only really used 2 different ones - and I'll be honest my elder has a better grasp of math concepts - but I think she always would have as she was always good at recognising patterns from a very early age. I would choose one basic math curriculum and then have a day or two a week for different types of problems - maybe pick them from all the math curricula you have lying around - only doing some of the more interesting problems from these. That way you get to see them all but have to choose wisely. Set a time limit on his Math - and for a 7 year old that should be very short - my two children are using Singapore and Life of Fred but because they are now at school too Math may not take more than 15min a day and it is usually being done at bed time - and this is fine. They are both working well ahead of what is being done in their schools even despite the eldest having been moved ahead at school. It may feel like a loss to let some things go, but sometimes once you get over that, it becomes a relief and you cope with it and your child is happier for it.

My eldest child did well with BFSU and we made it work for a single child alone. I think it is a curriculum that has to be adapted - that you cannot really do it "wrong" as long as the child gets the concepts and knows how to think for him/herself. I know she has a very good scientific basis now - since going to school I have not done much science with her and would love to continue with BFSU2 some more but it has become too much now for afterschooling. It sounds like you are coping with BFSU and so I would recommend continuing with it - don't let doubts get in your way - you will probably have doubts about what is happening with any science curriculum - its so broad.

It is not natural for people to respond to oral questions in full sentences - my child also fought me on this when doing WWE. I just insisted and she knows it is only for WWE or writing answers to comprehension questions now that she is in school. It would be very unnatural if I asked her: Where are you going? for her to answer "I am going to the shops." It is far more natural just to say "to the shops..." but writing does need to occur in full sentences - I see WWE as a step towards that.

I used base 10 manipulatives with my eldest. With my youngest however I have adapted all sorts of things to "make" base 10 sets and have even printed base 10 sets off the internet which are just made of paper - and yes loads have been vacuumed up or torn and it really was fine... We have used duplo blocks and lego blocks in a similar fashion to cuisenaire rods. Manipulatives are there to work for you - not for you to work around them. I have even taught my eldest daughter multiplying fractions with flowers picked in the garden and a stem to thread them on... whatever works really.

Over this year (8-9 years) I have gradually moved away from my child. I jump in if she is writing messily though as I know there will be errors with messy handwriting as she is now working on more difficult problems. I think it is an individual child thing - my youngest often asks me to close my eyes as she writes an answer in - she far prefers being independent. The elder one does not want to have re-do work and yet likes the idea of a test to see how she is doing and often uses the reviews as tests, but wants me right there correcting as she goes while working problems that are not part of a review. I teach though using more than one curriculum which gives my child the chance to take a break from one curriculum if we are struggling with it or if they are not enjoying it and still get the review in a different way through another curriculum. If there is a specific aspect that needs more work then I will work on it separately in a way that suits that particular child. If you know what your child is capable of and then see issues that you were not expecting in independent work then maybe you need to hang around without helping and watch your child - is there day dreaming, did she maybe have a bad day, does she get distracted, is she anxious without you, is the handwriting an issue, is she rushing, is it just too much work at once (I never do a review in one day with either of my children), is it carelessness - you can address any issues you pick up then, but maybe let her do just one sum independently a day rather than an entire review and see if that helps.

My DD5 (nearly 6) has had speech and mastication issues since she was a baby - she also went to a speech therapist from age 3 and I worked extensively with her at home, but lately she seems to be hearing less and less (or listening less) so I am interested to read this post - what was initially a C/K, G, QU, F, W, L, R, TH problem has been narrowed now to blends, L and R with C/K now recognizable but not quite correct. She is chewing better though still battles and has been underweight most of her life from eating too little - she also has no appetite and has been on appetite stimulants. My DD has never been diagnosed with a hearing problem but I have to say everything 3 times and often go down on her level and make sure she is facing me before I speak to her - I thought perhaps it was just the age she is at, but maybe there is more to it.

My 3rd grade daughter read a number of them this year. They probably are more suited for boys but she got through a number of them anyway. I may use them as light read-alouds for my younger child as add-ons to SOTW through the appropriate topics - my children are in school now and read-aloud time has become shortened so I prefer slightly easier and quicker read-alouds for my own children especially if connected to history or science and not just as a general read-aloud.

I ran through the entire series with my eldest child starting in kindergarten with SOTW1 and doing a book a year. She is now in grade 3 and we finished SOTW4 recently and I am now starting again in SOTW1 with my younger child and with the elder tagging along this time (first time round the younger tagged along.) However for read alouds now I am including some more advanced books for the elder child, the geography that we do alongside it is basic for the younger and is being extended for the elder. And we continue to talk about modern history (as in world news) in the areas we are dealing with in SOTW which was something I only started introducing in SOTW3 with my elder child. I find SOTW to be very adaptable to whatever situation you are in. You can take your time over it or go through it rapidly. If certain issues in SOTW4 bothered my child we skipped through them rapidly and focused on parts that interested her and that were less traumatic. The discussion of various types of governments was not terribly interesting to her either unless viewed from what she understood about the news and that was fine. While my younger child did listen in and a couple of topics were interesting to her (even at age 3 and 4), it is only now that she is getting anything much from it. For me the idea is to introduce ideas, for my children to show interest in history and not necessarily to remember it and also for them to understand that history can be learnt from and that it influences what is happening to today. That everyone has a history and that people's history can influence other people today and even in the future. My aim is not for my children to learn numerous facts from it and remember the whole book or even most of the events...

We were homeschooling til April and DD entered grade 3 this year (start in January). I am doing Math with her at home as she is advanced in Math, spelling (she was slightly behind there) and plenty of read alouds in all subjects including discussing the news with her. My younger DD (entered kindergarten this year) is doing reading and Math with me as well as read alouds in all subjects. My elder does not do school homework for Math. My younger has very little homework fortunately - I have turned the sight word reading into teaching sight word spelling instead as she can read mostly fluently.

The cat on the mat is flat - by Andy Griffiths maybe? Another by the same author is - The cat, the rat and the baseball bat or - Ed and Ted and Ted's dog Fred These are all beginning reader chapter books that will be enjoyed by adults - the first one is the full book, the other are adaptations to the first book and are shorter versions.

My 9 year old daughter has rules for word problems - she can do what she likes, but she cannot ask me for help unless she has done the following: 1. Attempted using smaller numbers 2. drawn a picture and/or a bar model 3. Reread the question at least 3 times 4. shown some written work of some kind and if she thinks she has the answer (no matter how she has worked it out even if she ignores all of the above) and wants me to check it she must either have written a sentence as an answer to the question asked or she must be able to verbally give me the full sentence required as an answer and not just a number. Only that way can I find out what the problem and usually having done these steps there is no problem except that she may be writing too messily (and I have found a way to fix that too - just cross it all out and tell her to come back when it is neat and legible) Bar models required a lot of me drawing it for her while explaining before she could draw them herself and even now with new concepts she needs help understanding how the bar model fits together or how to go from the picture in her head to the bar model (this may be age related). My youngest doing Singapore 1 is nowhere close to understanding bar models, so I am just introducing them so she will have seen them and understand they can work.

Mine are not as far apart as yours - they were 4 and 8 and even then it was really hard. Only now at age 5 and 9 have I managed to find some books that appeal to both. Personally I would read picture books to the 4 year old which are shorter and quicker for you to read and keep an age appropriate one for the 10 year old for now. Around 5 or 6 years old bring the younger one in hear the classics - my elder loved The Little Princess at age 6, The Penderwicks could be managed fairly young. Pippi Longstocking was good at 5 as was The Wheel on the School which both of mine listened to at age 5 and I would have loved my eldest to hear it again now at 9 (didn't happen). At the moment both of mine are listening to the Secret School - I know it is a bit beyond my youngest, so if she wants to sit and play with a toy or draw then that is fine. My eldest will still sit for good picture books too - there are a LOT now with historical themes and even topics that appeal to older children but still capture younger ones. While the 10 year old may complain, you could always have a chapter book first and then a picture book afterwards (either in the same session or one book completely finished before starting the next) and just let it be known that this is family read-aloud time. I would try a number of different books - there will always be some that one child doesn't like so much and another really pays attention to and that is fine.

I also wouldn't like to jump into bar models at level 5 - although they start using them properly from level 3, I use them even now with my 5 year old in level 1. By 5th grade your son probably has a good concept that a box/container can stand for a quantity and that boxes of the same size can stand for the same quantity. This is basically what Singapore uses the boxes for. I found reading answers to some of the level 3 problems helped me better to understand the bar method than listening to someone explain it or teach it. This is the order I would learn to use bar models: 1. Bar models for basic addition and subtraction problems 2. Bar models for addition and subtraction that use "more" or "less" concepts 3. Bar models for basic multiplication and division problems 4. Bar models for simple algebraic word problems 5. Bar models for more complex algebraic word problems Most bar model problems revolve around the concept of more and less and the relationships between the numbers - I have taught my children to draw models for problems by substituting the word "some quantity" for every number they see which helps them concentrate on the problem rather than the numbers. Also reading aloud the entire problem and underlining the word which is used the most (usually a noun, never a particular digit/number) also helps to focus on quantity relationships rather than the actual quantity itself.

Knowing my daughter was starting school this year (aged 8) I just had her write - she could write anything she liked (and I had introduced many forms of writing to her). As long as she wrote for a time period I was happy. Then I would get her to read it back to me and correct the errors SHE found (not the ones I did.) She still hates writing, but she copes at school. I tried to praise something each time - a word she spelled correctly, use of good vocabulary, getting punctuation correct, good imagery, using short sentences or long sentences depending on mood... even if the writing was very poor and she knew it, we could always find something to praise. Getting her to praise her own work also helped as she was quite aware when it was not up to standard and praising her own dismal work sometimes helped her to improve the next piece. This child of mine is a bit rebellious about schoolwork though - so what works with her will never work with my younger child. Some of what she wrote was in defiance at having to write at all - those pieces I closed my eyes to and just knew that she was exercising her writing hand and learning to get some words down more quickly than she was used to. She will now write letters to grandparents and friends whereas there was no chance she would have done that earlier this year.

My eldest child did not learn the letter names til about 2nd grade (when I taught her to alphabetize things) and even now spells mostly in phonetic letters though she can spell and also write words that are spelled using letter names. My youngest child is at school and they have insisted in teaching her the letter names - she now mixes them up and is also putting capitals where they do not belong when writing which my eldest never did. I really wouldn't worry about it. I did teach my child to read initials as the letter names earlier than grade 2 but she didn't always get this correct and also shop names with just letters and abbreviations were sometimes incorrectly read using phonetic letters, but this corrected itself very rapidly. There is always something more to learn - I remember having to teach both my children how to read dates when they were 5 years old and had already learnt thousands but now were being expected to chop a date into two numbers before reading it - if I had taught dates first then I would have had a similar problem with reading numbers in the thousands. English is just like that - it clicks in the end and they do get it.