So great to hear, Tiramisu! It's barely 4 mths since ds graduated from VT. His focus and stamina has improved so much. No more headaches or dizziness in the car! He's a lot more cooperative and easy going. Yesterday, we were bowled over by his swimming. He's learnt since he was 1, but could never coordinate his arms into a rhythmic freestyle swim. It was always this jerky movement despite weekly coaching. There was a time he stopped going because he felt left behind as his friends and younger kids were getting promoted to more advanced classes every few months :(. But suddenly, it's smooth, efficient, and controlled. :o Maybe it isn't VT per se, but it coincided with a some sort of maturation. I read from a VT site that when the frontal lobe is bogged down with trying to manage information input, it can't do its job of overseeing and planning (executive function). This is akin to a restaurant manager who has to do the job of cooking and serving when the employees don't show up. When they do, the manager can go back to actually running and overseeing the business. In the broadest sense, this reasoning may apply not just to vision issues alone. If we can help our kids find their "employees", there could be a significant boost to overall functioning because a primary resource is being freed up.

Glad things are working out, Halcyon! It's all about building up knowledge and stamina steadily. You son sounds awesome! Hang in there!

Dp

Woot! Congratulations to you and your ds!!!

Congratulations!!

We're starting a class at the end of the month too (ds' 4th) - Geometry. :001_smile: #1: How much did I help? In the earlier classes, probably a 3. The most recent class, it would be a 2 (not my help, but a tutor's). I helped out when ds was a lot younger. I put a "3" because, while he probably could have done with more help, he wasn't keen to receive it. I know that's good and all, but this guy was prone to big tantrums, eww. Anyways!! The most recent class at 11yo (ds just turned 12 btw), I hired a tutor for an hour a week to discuss and help with questions he couldn't crack. The teacher of course knows more of the material, but AOPS is such that they both had to work together, and ds had"the insight" many times ahead of the teacher, simply because he's growing up with the material. Ds loves the discussions and sizzles with energy when the tutor comes. #2: Supplement? No. And reading upthread - no calculator. Ds' answers gets picked a lot although he's not a particularly fast typist. I think it's because he does what I'm about to write in the next para that allows him to answer. The most effective way for ds to tackle the classes is to do the teaching problems in the text book (he's tried just reading the solutions - not good enough). Next, actively follow the class and attempt every question that the teacher sets. This provides feedback as to whether ds has understood the material or not. Usually after this step, ds is able to answer most of the questions in the homework problem set. Otherwise, he can go back to read the transcript, post questions on the forum pages, or go back to the textbook. I don't help in this learning cycle as I'm out of touch. The tutor is a good sounding board for everything else, or for honing in what ds has already solved but needs more reinforcement. It took ds a while to evolve his methodology, and there will be more evolution yet. It may make sense to think of the Pre-a class as part of a long stream of classes - I wasn't smart enough to think of it this way, but as it turns out, it's been great for work ethic/character development. Good luck to all the families embarking on this journey! :hurray: :hurray: :hurray:

Last week was a tough one for us as illness, lack of sleep, and the fresh energy from a long X'mas break petered out. My reaction has been to slow down and realign. What worked before last week? A strong focus on learning from mistakes, being happy about small but solid gains, and being forward-planning (ds was a star in that he looked ahead and planned). What didn't work so well this week? Dwelling on mistakes and feeling irritated by them. Ds, that is. I'm trying hard to turn the ship back to the previous weeks of cheerful learning. I'm also trying hard not to lead, but to support. Ds is older than most of the kids here. He is 12, and he has strong ideas of what he wants done. I'm keeping my mouth shut about what he should be doing daily to fulfill his own weekly goals (which we worked on together). As long as that is worked on with some resolve, I'm fine. We can always adjust the pace. Maybe this *is* part of being on track - to explore, make mistakes about attitude (esp for a kid) and muse over them so as to avoid doing it again, over time. On a separate note, ds read his way through a ton of books. I can see his absorption level increase, and he's raring to go to the library today. He's loving his Great Courses DVD (mental math). We've also had very good heart to heart chats about his perspectives and feelings. Communication is critical all the time, but I feel it very keenly now. The goal this week is to encourage ds to write in his planner, which he skimped on last week. And to help him think of making small but steady steps.

Hi Desertflower, no I haven't. Many people I've spoken to have seen the kits abandoned after awhile. Maybe because it's too open ended? Depends on the kid too. Have you had success? What is a good entry point into that? TIA!!

That's great to know, Arcadia! I'm a total noob where programming is concerned. I remember ds' happy days when all he wanted to do was Lego and Mindstorms (his building was better than his programming :)) but all that has vanished in the last 2 years. I haven't exactly been active in helping him find the next progression- Tynker didn't work out. I shall look at more robots.

I get what you're saying, Mike. Exploration is what I'm hoping for too. Ds never took classes to learn Scratch. He was doing Tynker on the Ipad (sorry I mixed it up. Tynker is Scratch-like however). His complaint was that the "correct answer" is too prescribed. He doesn't actually have a problem with the logic, but wants to do things differently. This is a kid who, from young, didn't like to directly cancel out fractions when multiplying but would work it to a factor for easy conversion into percentages. It isn't as deep as it may sound, but the logic is definitely convoluted. He really thinks those are the clearest routes, maybe because it sets the stage for something else he has in mind. Typing that out, I'm wondering if the starting point is a meaningful project rather than a specific language. We don't have the EV3 nor the Raspberry Pi. And he may want to explore the Scratch community, as Slackermom posted above.

I've been watching this thread too, but have been shy about jumping in because I have nothing helpful to add. Anyways! Ds loves the *idea* of programming but dislikes the straight through logic. He does well with the discovery method but doesn't have a very direct (?) way of thinking. The comment about math being like art in my siggy is his, and it's this type of thinking that seems to hinder him in liking Scratch or the process of programming very much. That, and some LDs (dyslexic profile, insidious vision issue) are what seems to hold him back. In any case, he's expressed interest in programming again. Would there be resources or types of programming that are suited to this type of thinking?

https://www.bernell.com/product/BC109/1080#header_member_link I hope that gives you the link to Brock strings (the beads on a string) for $5.95. Otherwise, it's www.bernell.com whereupon you can do a search. I couldn't find the flippers for non professional purchase at bernell.com probably because they come in an assortment of powers. Can your new dr buy these for you, at the appropriate power level?

I saw the thread on homeschoolers who've graduated their kids, Soror. I can't like it enough. Thank you for asking! I really need to slow down to figure things out. This year, we've been rushing all the time because of the added therapy ds is doing. Three more months of this ...

Hope you manage to catch some sleep today, what with the baby so near too. :grouphug:

(I'm a day behind.) Yesterday turned out great. We came back early from a social, and in between the next social, ds put away quite a bit of work (math, science). I had to ask him to do it though. Yes I wish he'd spring up to say, "I have all this work to do and I'll do it now!". Yah right. But he didn't fuss one bit although he wanted to get on with reading his book. Come on, me, be grateful! This is a 180 degree turn from even a year ago, I remind myself. Today is a tight day, with two classes. Not much home-work done. I got some therapy exercises in today - not all, but we'll give it a rest for today. Ds is with his math tutor now tying up what he couldn't do on his own. Having a discussion partner works for him. Ds is talking a lot, which means it's going well. More math mulling tomorrow as they don't usually finish. This evening, we'll watch a documentary (haven't decided) after dinner. I got on with my book and started a new knitting project :D.

Hugs. Fwiw, ds calls them brainfarts. We leave off and try again later/the next day. And kudos to you for understanding, mama! I was more freaked out than you when ds was younger. *I* still get the episodes, but increasingly, I'm able to dish out a "meh" response.

Soror, glad you're feeling better. I didn't read backwards to other previous posts. Knitting is wonderful! Glad your kids went to have their eyes checked. Mine is seeing huge improvement! Hoping to nudge ds up in a bit to make his, cough, 8am wake up. I'm starting to accept 8.30am, which is a good interim compromise. Another short day. Tomorrow is worse. Friday is our long day- we hit the books the whole day.

I don't know about Latin, but we tend to move ahead to the next book when ds is ready. We don't school according to grade level or to a fixed year, but according to level of material. Where I think he is on shaky ground despite finishing the text, I would introduce a different curriculum but at the pre-existing level. This avoids repetition (he's allergic!) while at the same time serves as revision. I've also done unit study type revision, particularly for math. Ds tends to be faster for math, and slower for language arts. For LA, we move as and when he finishes, which isn't always within a prescribed year. I've added lots of concurrent material to help him along. The idea is the same- we start on the next book when he's ready.

Yes it's school related. It's a Nat Geo presentation on Antarctica. Can't wait! It actually runs for an hour but it gives us an excuse to get to the city and romp around the rest of the day with friends :D.

Just came back from therapy + library + groceries run. Schoolwork was math and writing a short essay plus a poem for the tutor. We even squeezed some home therapy exercises in the morning. There was some whining about the exercises, but everything else was smooth. Great job, us! Tomorrow is a whole day outing. I just need to figure out what to cook for dinner and take it out of the freezer tonight. This week, I'm planning to finish my book on the Borgias from before Xmas, snort.

Joining for the first time. DS is a hard worker (these days!). He wakes up very late however, at around 9-10am, and we have therapies, playdates, classes to get to in the afternoon, so we don't go much beyond 1pm. He finds it very hard to fall asleep even if he's in bed early. Our New Year's resolution: wake up by 8am everyday. Last week, he made it to 8.30pm twice. Today was 8.30am. We're getting there ... :hurray: :hurray: :hurray: I need to work out how to cook a week at a time.

DS started with SM at 5. He could do it but disliked. So I brought on the changes - Rightstart, all sorts of play math, specific topic books from Aimsedu.org, Ed Zacarro. He loved Ed Zacarro the best, and some of the Aimsedu materials. LoF did not work. Then we found AOPS, and that was it. I did try to switch him out to Dolciani, but he insisted on switching back. Many a time, I wanted to write in the forums that I didn't find AOPS to be discovery in style. But I just had a word with DS on why he likes AOPS. "Discovery", he says. "It leads you to discover surprising patterns that are delightful." I'm taken aback that he used the d word, so it must really be so. Eta: we tried MEP but ds didn't understand what I was saying (he has auditory issues). We fled quickly!

Hi kbutton, Ack. The trials and tribulations of compensation! Compensation is supposedly a good thing. It allows a kid the ability to accomplish a task without having the actual skill or fundamental ability to do so. But oh my, at what cost! It takes so much energy and effort, which is why when fatigue sets in, the child can no longer do what seemed effortless the day before. Hence we have spectacularly good days and bad days. I recently had to tell our VT that the super high TVPS scores (for visual processing) were completely unreal. I just don't see it at home. Our therapist (bless her) took me seriously and after administering a series of non standard tests, found out that ds could not not order different sizes! We're working on that now and it seems easy to fix. But ds had developed splinter skills to cope so that more complicated tasks are easier than fundamental ones). Do egg your your therapists on. Push them to try different things. They may find something that is entirely correctable!

My son has CAPD. He has stealth dyslexia, which seems to stem from his visual processing issues. But he has no receptive language disorder. In fact, he's highly verbal with off the charts comprehension. No psychologist can dx CAPD; only an audiologist can, and even then, it has to be an audiologist who is specifically trained in this area. I've read that in certain countries, the CAPD dx is still highly controversial. The problem is that it has among the highest comorbidity rates with other learning differences (I read this in a pubmed research but lost the link, sorry), which is why it's difficult to tease apart. But it can exist on its own. I have a scientist friend who found out she has CAPD when her husband insisted she test alongside her son (CAPD too, no other dx). That said, my son's CAPD presents itself as "auditory fatigue". His capacity for listening is very small and he automatically blanks out when it's filled. He had difficulty telling apart certain sounds ("b" and "d"), and voices would get lost among background noises) so that classroom listening or even watching TV was impossible. Over the years, his capacity has improved, but it's still discernible. I think he's improved to his maximum, ie, it isn't a huge problem socially. He loves discussion. Passive listening is probably out though. What he gets from TV is improving steadily. He loves documentaries now, and movies too. Audiobooks are good in a sealed environment (car or covered headphones). Has any therapy worked? Well, we tried a lot! What *i think* worked best: playing the violin. He found music to be very soothing, and he had to practice listening, which helped a lot. Possibly Interactive Metronome- again, there was a beat to pay attention to. Fast Forword seemed to work too - this is the pre-reading segment which trains the ears to differentiate among letter sounds. Ds used this well after he was reading, so the program helped specifically with listening. Bal-a-vis is good for overall rhythm and coordination, possibly because it improves the vestibular system (ear related). The listening therapies (we tried Samonas and one other, I forget) didnt do anything except get him annoyed, but it worked for another friend. An ear filter (touted by one audiologist as the *only* solution that works) was rejected by ds as it made voices sound tinny and artificial. The difficulty is that there is no universal agreement as to what works, and even within my limited experience, kids have different responses to the same therapies. We were told that between the ages of 10-12yo, there is a huge developmental leg up within the auditory system, although it may not necessarily get to what is considered as "baseline normal". I feel that we definitely helped improved ds' odds, so it's less of an issue now. Good luck to you and your son on your journey!