thank you ladies, with your thoughful and quick replies! i very much agree as i have done this naturally, asking the student, what do you know? what do you remember? rephrase the problem. Great, great reminder! (still i like to have them review little bits) teresa

I have a young son who is forgetting basic math EX: fractions, percentages etc while he is taking higher math courses. I have noticed this in my neices who are so advanced in math but while shopping can not figure percentages to find a sale price!!! Is there a curriculum that addresses this like daily grams for grammar review? baisc 7/8th grade math! Thanks, teresa in MN

I am trying to help a friend who took her son out of priv school this yr. As far as i can tell he is a bright 3rd grader who reads above grade level and spells grade level. In reviewing the phonograms with him he is not familiar with these ei, ie, ough, gu, and a few others. instead of a phonics program i was thinking that AAS would be a great 2 for 1 deal. i am taking him through the early books to see what he knows and he is flying through them with some stops here and there. Any other ideas, advice, curriculum choices for his mother and home-schooling friend? thanks, teresa

http://www.centerforlit.com/default.htm love this for lit analysis! i love to read and now, well, it is even more enjoyable at a deeper level. this program along with IEW really helped us get up to speed in this department :) teresa

dont get hung up on doing a whole lesson. we take our time and often dont do the phrases and sentences in later books until the next day and often take a day for review if needed. words that wrong are written on a flash card in blue (for consonants) and red (for vowels and vowel teams). he studies these by visualizing them, writing them with large arm movements in the air and other practices we have learned from too many other spelling programs we have used! we absolutely love this program. have fun and enjoy! teresa

started over AND used new curric every yr with my daughter until we reached highschool math and teaching textbooks came out. I did not use MUS with her and wish i had! we have used it with great success and then went on to TT and LOF with three sons. NO math majors here but our son just socred very high in the ACTs. my ten yr old is still in gamma and he is just getting multiplication. long ago he could get the answer but not be able to tell me how or understand the underlying concept. i could have scooted him ahead..thinking what a bright boy but i know better now. if there are no learning disabilities to worry about then take your time and shoot for understanding. take a deep breath. YOU are a great educator and will find what works for your dd!!!! teresa ;)

we started with a half yr and decided to do a whole year which included how to use his new vision in learning. so very worth it. we made VT the center piece of our hsing day as if this didnt work what the heck would we do next. so we were very religious with the exercises and did them to the max allowed. (gonna get my moneys worth) :) We cut out a few subjects that year and extra curric things. for my son it didnt make sense to do spelling and lots of reading etc. so we took a break sorts on those subjects and he listened to books on tape on our long rides there and found alternative type programs for science and history. Good luck!

this saying while making the d: little c, little d (c comes before d) teresa

we have used lips and it was very helpful for my reluctant reader. we also used a product for speech at home called straight talk http://www.nathhan.com/straight.htm this program works wonderfully IF they do not have motor/muscle issues. if they do they need a medical speech therapist. Pam marshalla or therapist that use her method are wonderful to work with. here she is on youtube http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=pam%20%20marshalla%20%20speech&search=Search&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&spell=1

we use testing as an opportunity to "learn how to take a test". otherwise it just irritates me (esp in the younger years) check out the pass test by hewitt http://www.hewitthomeschooling.com/test/tmain.asp we have used many and we finally settled on this as the least nonoffensive.

we love IEW here and my junior in college is NOW thanking me! yahoo group was a must for me! Just do it and keep on with it is the best advice. we muddled through with it for a few yrs before i felt real confident. consider co-oping with another family. that kept me focused and accountable. i know you will enjoy it! psssst: it took me most of a summer to watch all those teacher dvds but at the time i had little ones.

i do not use the whole system but bought these cards with the visual pictures. used it with the phonics road program with great results! [Orton Phonogram Flash Cards List & Examples] http://www.yesphonics.com/

boy i was looking for this earlier this year and couldnt remember the products! get thread, thank you all! teresa

we have used all of the above. the people at TT are so kind, always had great customer service! We really like MUS until and if they understand what they are doing. we go back to MUS when we need to learn something new that they just arent getting! TT or saxon with the dives has been a God send for us. no tears, no fuss, no power struggles. when learning the math facts, math it has been fun and helpful, computer games, skip counting with ball bouncing etc. get those bodies/mind moving but the most powerful and helpful too was using different colors on flashcards and using visualizing. visual memory- looking and closing eyes and picturing it their minds has helped my sons tremendously. Also funny little sayings for those last hard multiplication facts did the trick from MUS: 8x8=64 i ate and ate til i was sick on the floor: 8x8 is sixty four.

we have used iew for many years now. for us there was a learning curve and sticking with it was very much worth the growing pains and time put into learning the system. they rec that you, as teacher, need to do the teachers dvds and have the manual. you will consult it many times ;) then you do start with SWI A, B, or C given the age of your children. the material is similar but each moves at a faster pace and geared to older children. once you complete say swi A, you would proceed with A continuing, B continuing, C continuing. if you start with B then you go on to B continuing, C continuing. It is pricey but usually found quite easily used. It is much sought after, too,so selling the teacher dvds after a number of yrs is not a problem. for me, the best year of using iew came when i asked a family to join us. it really kept me going and accountable. We then started a co-op and shared the teacher dvds as long as the teachers bought their own manuals. We shared the cost of the student dvds as long as the students each purchased a student pack. i believe they have free lesson plans available now making the program very easy to use. I received much help over at the yahoo group for iew. i could not have done it with out the wonderful families over there. hope that helps! teresa