I finally made it through the halfway point of Don Quixote! Whew! Dealing with sickness here myself and with the kids, but think we're through now. I'm seeing a trend with sickness in this thread.

I switched to AAS halfway through ABeka first grade, because ABB wasn't working for my unnatural speller. ABB's phonics is excellent however, and so ds flew through AAS levels one and most of two. We will be switching to R&S after level 4, though, because I need something more independent for my son, although I really love AAS and think it is what is needed for struggling spellers. R&S sounds like a perfect fit for your situation however, if you're phasing out of ABB. I have more thoughts on ABB spelling here (scroll down to the section "my personal thoughts"): http://itavitaafrican.wordpress.com/2014/10/07/abeka-book-spelling-spelling-comparison/

Not sure if this is answering your question, but a series of biographies that we find interesting and on a 2nd-5th grade ish level is the Who Was __? series. We just read Who Was Queen Elizabeth in conjunction with our SOTW Middle Ages studies, but they have bios for up through modern times, like Who Was Ronald Reagan, or Who Were the Beatles, etc.

Thanks for asking! The optometrist wrote a prescription for reading glasses for my oldest. He said I should see an instant change in his reading using glasses. We have a more intensive evaluation scheduled for tomorrow that includes an eye movement assessment or something like that. If they say the same thing, I'm done spending money (except for glasses). :)

The point in having the evaluation done here is that I am not sure if there will be anyone able to do it up where we live (in the poorest province of S. Africa). If it is the case that we might have to drive 5 hours to Johannesburg to have it done or for therapy, we'll have to cross that bridge when we come to it. At least the evaluation could be done while we're in a big city, IYKWIM, but maybe this isn't something Americans can relate to... (I'm American, and there's just a big difference between all of the services available in other countries as compared with the US.) That also answers the second question perhaps. All medical work is much cheaper over here. I just had oral surgery this year with a specialist for $80. :) Positives and negatives to having medical issues here!

Helpful article, thank you. From your assessment, does it sound like a 30-45 minute exam could sufficiently find the vision problems described as needing therapy?

We're on holiday right now in Durban, so we've made several calls and have an appointment for my 7 and 5 yo Monday morning with an optometrist who supposedly also does vision therapy. We'll see what comes of it. I'm a little nervous, as I have no idea how good he is or what to expect. He was described to us by another office referred to us by a COVD doctor (this is the third link in a chain of referrals now...) as an "academic," because he teaches and writes on the subjects as well. Anyway, it's $40 for each child for a 45 minute evaluation. Does that sound right? (not the price--I know that's great! At that price I could always get a second opinion!) Anyway, we've talked to probably 6 offices right now, and they're all booked through the time we will leave for our home 14 hours away, so we're gonna take this chance. Would appreciate your prayers for wisdom and clarity on the matter! As far as another phonics program goes, I'm pretty happy with Abeka, which is what I've used for K-2nd grade. We're almost done with 2nd grade now, and he is reading very well...except for the skipping/guessing habits, which I wanted help with. I don't think another phonics program will help too much actually (we also use AAS for spelling). If I continue with phonics, I plan to use Elizabeth's site if I can figure it out. ;)

My #4 was born when my oldest was still 3 weeks shy of his 5th birthday. I also live overseas. However, I'm not sure I can help much since I've only looked at MEP, not used it. I use Abeka for K math, and then switch to MUS. I like ABeka for K, even though it's not as conceptual as MUS or RightStart, because it is very open and go, it helped me know as a teacher how much to drill to have a sort of spiral review with MUS, and it would be great for your girl who likes to color. Some of the workbook pages are color by number using addition or subtraction. But you would still have to ship the books, and it's not as cheap...

I have an app called FlashToPass that counts how much time 20 flashcards took. You can set it to level or just review a certain times table for example. I like it, but I like xtramath better. Xtra math computes which problems my child is weak on and reviews those more. I really like that.

This is incredibly helpful. Thank you ever so much!

I am in South Africa, but I think I can find a children's optometrist or opthamologist (sp?) about 75 minutes away. How do I know if they're just putting a "patch" on a worse problem, such as recommending glasses when he needs therapy? Should I go to an optometrist or opthamologist? Thanks so much for your thoughts.

My 7.5 yo when reading often skips words or guesses at words. He doesn't seem to enjoy reading. I've thought for a long time that maybe he was simply lazy, or that he'd grow out of this, or that he was ready for silent reading, like perhaps he was skipping words because he wanted to read faster in his head. I tried to have him do silent reading, but then he doesn't comprehend the story very well, so I'm pretty sure that he's doing the same skipping or guessing habit that he seems to fall into when reading aloud to me--actually I suspect it's worse in silent reading. He will often skip little words or guess at big words, even when the little words are easy for him or there may be only one big word in a sentence. When I have him go back to the word skipped or mangled, he usually reads it easily and quickly. He can decode just about anything, if I can get him to focus on the word(s) he missed. I try to remind him to follow the words with his finger, and that seems to help, but he doesn't like to do it. It's sad to me, because I want him to enjoy reading, and his fluency has greatly improved. I am impressed with his phonics skills. But I really think the reason he doesn't enjoy reading, is that he makes so many mistakes through skipping or not careful reading, and so therefore doesn't comprehend the story, and therefore can't really get into a good story. I was talking to an older homeschooling mom who said that one of her children was just like that, and it turned out that she had tracking issues. One eye was much stronger than the other. She suggested I have an evaluation done. I know there are moms on here who have been down this road. What would you suggest? Does this sound familiar for some sort of vision tracking issue? Or is this something that is normal and will stop on its own if I'm more patient or work differently in some way (what, exactly?) with him? TIA for any thoughts or advice.

Thanks for asking! I've not liked the recordings I tried, and didn't want to download more if they were all like that. We have Moby Dick from Lit2Go, and that reader is EXcellent! I think our version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is from there as well also with an rxcellent narrator.

I have a take it or leave it opinion on them. I don't think they're necessary, but sometimes they do provide a stretch for the brain. Sometimes they're just fun. So look at them when you get to them and see if you think they'd be helpful for your dd or if they'd just be busywork. Probably depends on the chapter. We're almost done with Gamma right now.

Oh, also I wanted to agree with Veritasmama in that blogs and forums provide community and ideas for those without IRL support. I'm in the middle of a village in Africa, and sometimes reading these blogs or forums provide a relaxing yet educational or encouraging outlet for me.

Yes, they can be edifying. But those posts also take the most time and emotion to do them well. Also if there the blog is heavily weighted towards heavily emotional posts like that, I think the overall tone would not be uplifting IYKWIM. So it's difficult to balance your tone. I'm sorry for your experiences with miscarriage. I just went through my third 10 days ago, and thought about saying something on my blog. I decided not to. :)

I didn't participate in the survey because as another poster mentioned, the posts were coming a bit too fast and meaty at times for me to keep up with. However, I did notice the main question on the survey was related to what direction did we readers want the blog to take, and in that latest post, they referenced that question, saying that people seemed to want to know how to implement Schole into everyday homeschooling life. That's what they were already doing on their individual blogs. Therefore, why do another one that just takes more time? Their decision is understandable. On another note, I really liked the recent post on how to be a good reader and forwarded it to some friends. As to what blogs are meant to be...I thought they were just an online journal. I have a few purposes for mine. It does seem that most bloggers drop out of blogging when they're homeschooling high schoolers. I suppose they're too busy? I enjoy reading ones like Ordo Amoris for the deeper discussions of important things in life (for a homeschooling mom), not the giveaway everyday type with "you're my hero" kinda titles. Maybe some people like blogs in the same way they like reality shows on TV. But then you get a dilemma with blogging: if you get too "raw" or "gritty," it's depressing rather than uplifting and comes across as if you're complaining. I often feel that tension when I try to blog about missions. If I say the way I really feel sometimes, it won't come across right, it's too personal, or people won't understand it. So rather not say anything. Even so, my husband often tells me to be careful about my tone or how often I come across as negative.

My Fathers World www.mfwbooks.com

I posted last week, and got zero replies as well. I'm not sure what's happening, unless people just post in the other accountability thread? Anyway, here's our weekly report! We only have about 5 weeks left in our school year. Yay! Typical Homeschooling: Drop Stuff Off Your Roof

Rightstart math games.

I don't attempt to tie them together. If you're teaching MUS the way they say to, you shouldn't really have to remind them about it; they should have mastered the concept, and will probably see the connection themselves. In fact, if they just mastered it in MUS, they probably won't need the supplementation at that time IMO. I just teach it separately. If it's not in MUS (most topics are covered in MUS, but for example, SM level 1 teaches beginning multiplication, and I actually skipped that in our review because I didn't see a need to teach my 1st grade son that yet), then I just teach it separately as a new topic; if it is in MUS, we usually just spend a day maybe (?) per lesson because the material was already covered well and mastered in MUS. I use the review-with-SM method right now because ds1 is quick with math, and so we went through Alpha more quickly than I expected (I wasn't used to mastery curriculum, having come from ABeka K--traditional daily lessons). I was surprised and wanted to make sure we didn't move on too fast and then perhaps find out later that he wasn't ready for some topics or that he had forgotten other foundational lessons. I also thought it might help review from a different approach so he might grasp things better with another approach. We should finish Gamma by the end of 2nd grade in another month or so. So at the beginning of our school year in Jan 2015, I'll begin with the SM review because I don't want to start MUS Delta just yet. I want to make sure to cement in the concepts and not go too quickly. Anyway you can try to tie them together if that's how you like it. It just makes it harder for me, so I don't. :) I would cut back on doing all 7 pages of MUS if she's already mastered the topic. In Alpha for example, we didn't do all 7 pages of each lesson because he already knew it from ABeka K. So if he already knew how to skip count by 10 or 5, we only did one or two practice pages, one new and one review, and then took the test. If he aced the test easily, we moved on. If she hasn't mastered the topic, then I'd do all 7 pages and then use MM if she still needs more help on that issue. In other words, I personally wouldn't cut out MUS pages in order to fit in MM supplementation. I'd master it with MUS using however many pages were needed and then if needed I'd use MM for supplementation. JMO LOF: I have decided I don't want to use it for early elementary, but may use it for the Epsilon and Zeta levels when we get to topics like fractions and decimals. I might also look at the Key to... books Lori mentioned. It's kinda pricey for the lower levels A-J, and my kids don't seem to need it yet, and I don't know if they'd like "story" math. Also while I like supplementing with SM right now, I'm not sure if I'll want to at levels 4B-6 because then the approach might be quite different and confusing...not sure. So I thought at that point I might use something like LOF. Another potential is Rightstart math games!

I use MUS as our spine, and I have MM's blue series "just in case" we need extra supplementation. So far we haven't, except for some MM clock work I printed out just to help me son review a bit more on that subject. I also have SM, and use it the way Lori described in her second #3 above. It's too confusing to me to try to line them up. I use one program and then review with the other, flying through most of it, since MUS is so far doing a great job for us! But still I find myself looking at Beast Academy and Life of Fred for future supplements. :)

I sympathize. My son still does some of the guessing and skipping of words when he reads, rather than taking the time to decode them, although he usually doesn't struggle so much with spelling dictated words so long as the dictated words are well within his phonics ability. But I have seen a lot of improvement this year in his fluency, and I'm grateful for that. It's hard to know sometimes what to do--whether to address a character problem (like you mention stubbornness, or in my son's case, I think it was more like laziness), in which case you keep plugging away, because they need consistency and practice, both for the skill and for their character; or whether this is a developmental issue, in which case a break or a switch to another program or therapy or whatever other solution is necessary. I decided to keep plugging away, as I thought that my son just needed to work on fluency and working at something that didn't come easily or "fun" for him. And it worked. He's much better now. Would it have worked just as well if we'd put the books away for a while and picked it up later? I dunno. :) you're the mom, and you'll have to make that call for your child. One more thought--and you can take it with a grain of salt--but I use ABeka phonics, and then AAS, and it seems to me that the Spalding type phonics programs would have been harder for my boys to start with for the same reasons that boscopup mentioned--too many sounds for each phonogram at the beginning. ABeka introduces the sounds separately, so for example, in the beginning of K, you learn that /y/ says its consonant sound "y," and towards the end of K, you learn that it can say a long I sound like in "fly." In the middle of 1st you learn that it can say a long e sound like in "baby" and later in 1st, that it can say a short I sound like in "Crystal." This piecemeal approach seemed easier to start with. Than later when we do AAS, it's easier to compile all of the possible sounds for each phonogram into a list per se. I'm not saying you should switch from Spalding, just maybe help more with the sorting of all the sounds for spelling, as Ellie suggested? I also don't think you need to drop WWE, but it's up to you if you want to drop FLL or not. ;)

Cuz CM said I have to. :laugh: :gnorsi: Just (kind of) kidding.

I haven't been able to report for a few weeks because we had a busy month. So here's a short summary of our last three weeks (4 weeks of life, but only 3 of homeschooling). I was in survival mode regarding homeschooling, so it didn't seem super fun. Just got through. We're in our fourth quarter of school, and I'm tired! Blog or not, feel free to join in here on this thread.