1. Don't worry about the two week thing. No one is going to check on you. I have never heard of that before. 2. State mandated testing in charter schools doesn't start until 3rd grade. Some charters may have their own testing earlier than that. Ours does not. 3. Generally your student's performance on state testing will not affect you personally. It's more for the school's accountability with the state. I'm sure there are exceptions of course. My 8yo isn't reading either. My teacher says that when she does the testing next year, it's on the computer, and if she can't read it/can't answer correctly, the computer will be able to tell and the testing will end/adjust. Or something like that. I'm not concerned at all about the results. I'm a little more concerned about it being overwhelming/stressful for dd, but I don't think it will be. 4. The way to have a good experience with a charter is by getting a personal recommendation for a good supervising teacher. You may want to wait until you have some good connections in your new locale. My teacher is wonderful, but I was also in a charter with a bad teacher before (at least she wasn't a good fit for us), and I quit after 6 weeks. I had hives the whole time. So I left.

Well don't just leave us hanging!!

I make this in a sheet pan, frost it, let the frosting set up then cut it into servings and put them on a nice platter. My ugly pans never have to be seen in public.

I'm in a charter and our schooling is almost all done orally. I only do written samples once a semester but I just print off the easiest worksheets I can find for our written samples. They usually have nothing to do with what we've been actually studying. I don't know if that would fly if you turn them in monthly. What about a reading log? We're allowed to turn those in. Or have your child copy a few words from something you read.

These are all great. Thanks! And thanks Lori D for the link. I have one of Peggy Kaye's books. The format is hard for me to get into...each game has an anecdote with it when I really want just the rules and format. But I should pull it out again.

My 2nd graders love games. We play the Right Start games instead of doing lessons and they're doing great. I wonder if anyone knows of language arts games in a similar vein? I'd love to cover: Mechanics Grammar/parts of speech Reading practice Comprehension Analyzing literature ...anything else... Ideally in one book or set so I don't have to Google and create a game for every concept. Thanks for any ideas!

Which post has the Dark Side picture that shows up in the feed? I want to see it.

I decided to back up a bit w/the 2-syllable words (we're in lesson 5). I took a page of them from the fluency drills, and used a card to show only the first syllable. Then I had her just read the first syllable. It's seeing the whole word that makes her guess/freak out. Also, if it's a word she knows how to read, the quality of the vowel (long vs. short) doesn't even register with her because she knows it. Then I wrote out a page of open syllables mixed with a few closed syllables, such as pa, bu, huk, etc.... all nonsense. Tomorrow she'll read that. I think that'll help. She still freezes up when we talk about open vs. closed, long vs. short. You can have my printable for just $5.95 via paypal. Hahaha, just kidding. Does anyone else wonder why Barton does not include this kind of single-syllable practice? At least I don't remember seeing it. It also reminds me of the old readers, such as McGuffey, etc, that would 1) have pages of syllables to read, 2) break up words by putting spaces between the syllables. Also, how SWR has you write words w/a space between syllables. This would make reading a lot easier for my girls.

We don't study the spelling of the sight words, but I printed the fluency drills and have them read the sight words regularly. For some reason they are very easy for my girls to read, even though they can't spell them. So they feel successful, and it's helped them to be able to read more on their own. One day we'll work on the spelling, probably using SWR rules/methods too. But it won't be for a while. (My girls are on the end of Level 3 and Level 4.) SB's sight word techniques haven't helped here either, I think mainly because my girls are pretty young (7 & 8). When they need to spell a sight word, say in a dictation exercise, I just show it to them and they copy it. The contractions (Level 3, lesson 10) have been a bear because they're all based on sight words (would, have, etc.) but I just don't expect mastery. They just copy them and apply the contraction rules as well as they can.

That's a good point about Scottish rite. I will be talking to our therapist soon. I don't think they can do more than once/week but it would be great to coordinate.

I wanted to mention the auditory processing test scores. They did SCAN-C. She was in the 27th %ile, which is the very low end of normal, so not enough to get APD diagnosis. The only section she failed was auditory figure-ground. The rest were 50-60th %ile. They did a dichotic digits test, pitch pattern sequence test, and random gap detection test. Again, borderline to normal, with some strange inconsistencies which I would guess were from her spacing out/not sure exactly what to do/trying to guess what the "right" answer should be. The dr. recommended having her retested in 12-18 mo to make sure she's progressing normally. So that's that. I was just re-reading the report and thinking, that I think if I really wanted therapy, they would do it for me. It's the university clinic, so relatively inexpensive?? --$400/semester for 1x/wk. Anybody have any thoughts about that? As to the spelling, I think my next step will be to talk to the SLP at Scottish Rite and see what her opinion is... and then soldier on w/Barton, not worrying about mastery of the spelling, and perhaps supplementing w/the I See Sam readers as time permits. I feel so wishy-washy. But today was a pretty good Barton day. OhE, you asked about LiPS. She did fail the Barton screening. But I went ahead w/Barton anyway. 1+ yrs into Barton, last summer, I decided to go back to LiPS, and it did help w/a couple sounds she was having trouble with, but by then she could already do the colored square task w/CVC, like SB says, so I did not see the point.... I was actually thinking maybe I should revisit LiPS to go farther with it, and teach her to read w/that instead of Barton. But man, those vowels in LiPS are just mind-boggling.

Well, I found a home test for RNR and she doesn't have any of those reflexes. when I mentioned physical and learning issues together, the ped gave me referral for a geneticist. I have no idea what kinds of things the geneticist would look for, but at least it's something. And I got PT and OT referrals. Thanks for your help and support! I am truly grateful for the wealth of experience here.

Evals: Scottish rite did a bunch and she got a dyslexic profile.Auditory processing, she failed the background noise part, but passed with low scores on the rest. It wasn't a super comprehensive test imo. I'll look at High Noon. Thanks for the hugs. I think dd's age is a lot of the issue with Barton. And she has improved a lot since we started. It just feels very cumbersome and more than we need at this point.

OhE, thank you for the permission. :) Ottakee, is I See Sam for struggling readers/dyslexics? I like the looks of it, but I hate to switch yet again. One thing that's hard for me about Barton is reading 3-letter blends (and blends are extremely hard for dd) but not -er or silent E yet. So many books for early readers are still inaccessible for her. I like that she could do more stories with iseesam.

My 8yo (2nd grade) goes to Scottish Rite for dyslexia therapy, and we do Barton at home (level 3, just started lesson 10). She is not really a reader yet. She could read a Bob book on her own, but say, Little Bear, she would guess/substitute many longer words. She rarely to never picks up something to read, or even tries to read a sign or paper laying around, so I think it's still hard for her. Well, we're doing Barton, and I'm realizing it's so much about spelling at this point. We finished Milk Truck and Catch Lunch rules. We just started contractions. Contractions are completely blowing her mind. The whole idea even of a contraction, there's a lot to process. I don't mind going slow, but I feel like we spend all our time on spelling.... but she never writes anything outside of Barton. We homeschool so I don't make her do copywork, writing, anything like that. She also never chooses to write anything, like pretend grocery lists, imaginary letters, etc. I would understand if she went to school and did a lot of writing, that we should work on spelling. I dropped the sight word spelling words a long time ago because they did not stick. Even "of" and "a" did not stick. She can read them, but she can't consistently spell them. So, I'm wondering why put all this time into spelling, when she really needs (and maybe even wants) to learn to read? And, I can't imagine that the Milk Truck and Catch Lunch rules are actually going to be retained for the next ______ years until she needs/wants to use them. I'm thinking we're gonna have to go thru it all again when she's older to learn all the rules. My 4 bio kids were very quick learners. I did not do spelling with them. Not that they were all natural spellers, but they eventually got it when they were older, one was a teen before he was a good speller. My 10yo is not a natural speller, but I just correct her and she intuits the rules. IOW I'm already in the "less formal spelling" camp to begin with. Now, I do realize this is not going to happen w/my 8yo. But it seems like her time would be better spent putting off spelling for a couple/few years. Is there a compelling reason for me to work on spelling w/her now? She also has auditory processing issues, and expressive language issues. She often cannot think of the correct word, can't remember names/places, her vocab is probably fine for her age but a lot of the words we read and spell in Barton just have no meaning for her, such as "winch" and "quench". I wanted to poke my eyes out trying to explain the difference between "your" and "you're". Or that "you've" is a word. I mean, when does she ever think of that as a word? Also "a" vs. "an", she literally did not believe me that we should say *an* apple because she says *uh* apple. [note to self to work on that...] Sorry, getting carried away. Any ideas or advice? Should I switch to something else that is just reading?

My dd failed the screening too. We went ahead and did Barton even though she failed. We just went really slow, and did phonemic awareness stuff over and over. It helped improve her PA. But she needed more. Scottish Rite has really helped her with PA, and it is free. We did LiPS after about a yr of Barton. IDK if it helped. It seems like it's just helping them discriminate individual sounds. She didn't have a problem w/that. It's the blends and longer words that are hard. Thing is, Barton doesn't really help if you have severe phonemic awareness. But at the same time, LiPS, up to the point SB recommends doing it (before starting Barton) isn't enough either, at least it wasn't for my dd. Scottish Rite hits different phonemic awareness stuff, and it is every week, not "ok you've mastered it, let's move on to reading now." My 7yo just got to level 4, lesson 5 of Barton. I noticed it now drops phonemic awareness because "Your student should have strong phonemic awareness by now." That little pa exercise at the beginning of every lesson was definitely not enough for my 8yo. Just an observation, FWIW. And work on phonemic awareness. You don't have to use just LiPS. Google other exercises or books. In my dream world, I would take her to Lindamood-Bell. But that ain't gonna happen until I win the lottery.

Two weeks per lesson is great. We're like a month per lesson. We only do 15-20 min/day, 4 days/2wk though. It's a lot less than SB says to do but at this point it's about all my 7 & 8 yo dds can handle.

Interesting. When I did some reading and found a home test for reflexes, the cross-tapping of knees one reminded me of Dianne Craft.

Look up Focus on the family radio theatre. Audible has tons of well read audiobooks.

Re: trouble concentrating with background noise. That could be auditory processing disorder. It definitely affect reading. And it is unrelated to being able to hear. Just something else to research. I cannot imagine that one year in PS would do anything but make it worse. Our homeschool charter has special ed. All schools have to have it. But special ed/utilizing their resources takes soooo long that I think it would be very frustrating. I have the best charter, administration and special ed teachers available to me but basically even they don't know anything about dyslexia. My 8yo only does 15 min/day of reading instruction/practice. No handwriting outside of that time either. She doesn't like it. It's still hard for her. So I want her to have time to do the things she is good at. There's no way she could keep up in a classroom. I know eventually she'll get it so I don't worry about pace. Did someone mention Scottish Rite? They do free evals. And if you have a university with speech dept, they'll probably have a clinic with low cost evals and therapy.

I wonder if he needs more practice just on syllable division since the trouble is multisyllable words. My dd started guessing on multisyllabic words. Now we divide 2-3 words into syllables at the beginning of our session as a warmup.

It's helpful for me to have search terms. Thank you. Is the primitive reflex thing an "alternative" view or widely accepted? It helps me to know if medical/healthcare people are gonna look at me weird before they do. :) Who do I ask about low tone? PT or ped? Thank you to all for not being dismissive. That is the most frustrating and I have encountered it so many times in regards to my adopted girls, who are so sunny and determined that outsiders have trouble believing me there are issues.

OhE what evals to start? Just OT? She had PT eval in the fall. Is it worth talking to pediatrician about dyspraxia?

OhE good point about ot. Maize she's been in gym 1x/week, we just went to 2x. She's been in gym for 2 yrs. I've wondered recently if she needs more so we increased to 2. I have wondered if swimming 3-5x/wk would be better.

I thought you meant a regular snack vending machine and the kids would have to pay to get snacks. Now that is genius.