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dmchr6

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  1. We did test my oldest on the recommendation of his vision therapist, but only because we lived near one of the nation's premier gifted testing centers and were able to get an intern to do it for a hugely discounted rate. Ask around if you can get an intern anywhere! It confirmed that he was very bright (I could finally prove to dh that the kids was actually smarter than most, lol). And he did hit the ceiling on a few of the tests, but who cares. I've never told him his IQ and I don't think I will, since of course he's smart and already knows it. The main think I got out of testing, though was his learning style, which really explained why he seemed so bright, but didn't do simple things like read until he was 6 (but went from beginning phonics to harry potter in 6 months), or memorize his math facts until he was... well... much much older. He's never been in school since kindergarten, and now he's high school age, so gifted programs don't matter so much anymore. I was just glad to have the test so that I could let his varied abilities develop at their own pace and let him be a kid. That said, I won't get any of the siblings tested. They do say that generally sibs are within 10 points of each other on the IQ test. Don't know if that's true, but good enough for me!
  2. Even though WTM recommends lots of more formal grammar, I found that kids who love to read tend to just know grammar. And if they don't get it when younger, they catch up fast when older (13-14+). It's mostly review every year anyway. LLATL has enough grammar and is a great program. But the problem I had with LLATL was that my son was really advanced in some areas but not enough in others (like in a given level the reading was way too easy, but the spelling too hard.) LLATL probably would've worked find with the next kid, though, but the ability gap is always a consideration.
  3. You can get vision therapy kits to do at home, google and see what you come up with. Much cheaper that way. We spent probably $3500 on vision therapy before I knew about that option. Plus you're doing most of the work at home anyway. We would go weekly, but then still spend 45 minutes every day doing the homework. Another thing to do is get a second opinion. Did you ever get your son evaluated by anyone else? I'm sure your case is different, but in our case, after we finished vision therapy (he hit a wall and never progressed after a certain point) another dr told us that simply patching one eye would've had the same effect and been much cheaper. Can you arrange to go every other week and do more at home? That would save money. Also, do you really spend that much money on books? If so, wow, you could go on some great educational vacations for that much! :) While your kids might be worlds apart academically, it really seems like you're going to burn yourself out. Just reading what you were doing was making me tired. :) Family reading time can be so helpful for all ages, even of totally different levels. When I read to the kids (ages 2 to 14 -OBVIOUS ), they all enjoy it (the little ones mostly play, but they pick up on a lot more than I think.) If you can come with more stuff to do together and really try to simplify, you may help your sanity a lot - I remember doing the same thing as you when I had kids similar ages to yours and we were on the fast track to burnout. The kids started hating it and so did I. Now we just do family read aloud time (mainly for history and literature, but sometimes we'll do science and math together) and then the kids 8+ work on their own stuff (I help them set goals at the beginning of the week for what they want to do, and they ask for help as needed during the week), while the younger kids are much more relaxed. We do littles school where we play games and read more age-appropriate books to them, and they read to me and do workbooks if they want to. Remember, even Susan Wise Bauer and her mom said WTM was way too intense for the younger grades, they just put the schedules in there because the editors wanted them too.
  4. Yup, I've had one of those. Allergies is a good point, mine had trouble with dairy & wheat. But the biggest thing was probably personality and the fact he needed to be taught to learn to control himself. He needed to learn that angry outbursts, screaming, yelling and so on is not appropriate, but the hardest part was that his parents really needed to follow through with him. He also needed to learn to follow instructions that I give him, and if he didn't want to, he needed to learn to disagree appropriately. This took a lot of time to do, but he's sooooo much better now. He spent much of his 4th through 6th years in time out. We also did the "X" method, where if his behavior was inappropriate or he misbehaved, he got an "x". If he got 5 "x's" he lost all privileges for 24 hours (privileges he helped come up with - like having snacks, playing with friends, riding his bike, etc.) He's now 7 and hardly ever loses his privileges or gets into timeout anymore. I got most of the method we use from http://www.teachingselfgovernment.com. I still need to do a better job implementing this method with the other kids, because the funny thing is that now my 7 year old is the most obedient kid (we ended up spending most our energy on HIM!)
  5. Yes, you can definitely skip grade 8 for a bright student, especially one that likes to read. Are you making up your own transcript, or how are you doing this? If you want an accredited transcript and/or high school diploma, a good way to do it is through NARHS http://www.narhs.org. It's a high school in Maine that's super flexible and will give high school credit for almost anything you can document. They'll even give "back" credit for stuff already done. We may go that route, haven't yet decided (even though son has already done some high school courses.) The e-reader is a GREAT idea, I think that would be rough to homeschool without reading!
  6. We did Singapore too. And then moved on to challenge math books and real world algebra followed by art of problem solving! Plus reading lots of living math books like murderous maths, etc.
  7. Ds hated writing too, because his fine motor skills didn't match how fast his brain was going. I finally realized that handwriting and writing are two totally separate subjects, and it sometimes take kids (especially boys) MUCH longer to be able to write as fast as they can think of what they're going to say. So I didn't make him write anything for a long time, we just informally discussed it. My dd on the other hand, loved to write and never had a problem with making her history pages (crafty or writing or otherwise.) If your son is getting it and understanding it, there's really no reason to do the more formal stuff, it'll come. We would still practice narrations to help my son organize his thoughts, sometimes I'd write or type it for him, sometimes i wouldn't. The most important thing is you really don't want to kill his love of learning! Ask him what he hates and let him choose what you do. I could see my son was hating writing, so I didn't make him for about 4 years. At age 11, he started loving it and even dictated a whole (short) novel and soon after he could type fast enough to get his words down and now he's a great writer (14 years old.) Even now my son recalls stories from history I read 6 years ago and *I* won't even have a clue what he's talking about! :)
  8. Does your son like math? If he's got a bad taste in his math about math, he may not like any of those! And if he does like math what did he NOT like about NEM? Art of Problem Solving is for kids who like math and like to think. My son has really enjoyed this series (he's completed 2 and 1/2). Jacob's algebra is supposed to appeal much more to kids who are right brained learners, especially if they've hated Saxon. I was going to try this with my son but we went with the art of problem solving instead. Dolciani - never even heard of this one! One book my son loved at age 12 was real world algebra from http://www.challengemath.com. That's a great beginning algebra book to help you understand the concepts. He also did the algebra book from Making Math Meaningful (at 12) which he liked too, but I have to say there were quite a few errors in that book. It's self-directed and he could understand most all of it on his own. Life of Fred looks like a great book too for kids who are hating doing tons of workbooks. I'm trying that with my 12 yo dd this year. I will probably get the one for my son's level too, since he'll read it for fun, lol! The nice thing is he's still young, so he can have fun with all these great books. Rather than just pushing him through all the math levels he can spend the time to understand it.
  9. Yeah it does get better as they get older. You do have to really individualize for the kid, though, and luckily homeschooling allows that. The hard thing with bright kids is that they may really excel in some areas so we expect that in all areas (and certainly never think they may be behind!) My 14 yo ds was so far ahead when it came to reading, comprehension and understanding math, but he couldn't write worth beans, spell or remember math facts for what seemed the longest time. And of course the expectation was there that he should be able to do that because he seemed so smart in everything else! I just didn't push those areas too hard because I knew that those parts would come, and they really have. For example, I just took narrations from him till he was about 11, when he finally learned to type well and now he LOVES to write. And interestingly, the handwriting has finally caught up at least to be legible now. Another hard thing is getting books to read that are appropriate. He could read books way above his maturity level and I had to really watch what he was reading. He read Ender's Game at age 8 before I had a chance to, and I don't think I'd have recommended that at his age. It really does get better though, as the maturity level catches up. He's still very bright academically, but he can handle much more now too. My 2 year old seems to be an awful lot like he was, so here we go again... :) (Not that the other kids are dumb or anything, they just seem to be developing more in line with their maturity levels!) Good luck with it!
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