My kids have learned more literary analysis than I ever learned and more than their peers learn in public school around here - so I guess it's "enough". I think kids still need to write, but we just haven't done it through Center for Lit. Center for Lit does not grade the online discussions in any way. As I said, my high schooler simply listens and absorbs the material. He thinks about everything said and then applies it to anything else he reads. When I have had discussions of literature with him, it amazes me how well he can discuss/analyze the literature and how much he has learned from this class. I don't know if other kids would learn as much by just listening, but it works for us.

My kids have loved the classes and I love what they have learned and how they can apply it to other books. We've only done the literature discussions and not the writing classes. My oldest took a high school lit class through them as a ninth grader. He did not last year, but after listening in on his brother's class, he asked me to be able to take another class this year. I was just planning on doing lit with him on my own, but he says the class really makes him think about everything he reads more critically and he wanted to take another class with them. Next year he'll be doing mostly world lit (with alternative classes from American lit.) The class he took two years ago was just "high school lit" and the books covered crossed over all the classes now offered. Since he wanted to do World lit, but had done some of the selections already (with Center for LIt) they let him customize his class. My 8th grader took the JR high class last year and enjoyed it. My daughter listened in on a couple of his easier classes and she has asked me to take her own class this year. If you want to sample a class, I think they have a free class this summer and/or you can buy one of their dvds which is a class on dvd so you can find out how the class is taught. The online classes are chat based. The teacher has all the students muted and you can "raise your hand" and be unmuted by the teacher to answer questions or ask questions as well as just type in comments. Most of the students participate in the discussions, but my son must listens and takes it all in. Edited to add: Here's the link for the summer lit classes: http://www.centerforlit.com/Academy/summerlit.aspx They are currently full, but if you add your name to the mailing list they will email when the class is over and you can download an mp3 recording of the class and listen to it on your own time.

I'd love the online course for coaches, but I'm not interested in paying $199. I mostly use the materials supplied by Mathcounts, old tests, AoPS Mathcount minis and the book Competition Math for Middle School Students. I've been coaching for 5 years now and have loved it.

My kids have enjoyed and learned a lot from Center for Lit. They have literature discussions with or without writing - we've never done the writing.

It's video based. I'd watch it together and both be the students.There is no need for you to be in the teacher role, but I'd still learn it alongside your student - the videos don't take too much time. My kids like the online classes through Center for LIt - if you like Adam Andrews as a teacher on the video, you might like these as well.

He doesn't fit your typical dyslexic - I originally taught him to read with Reading Reflex and some other material for dyslexics just because I liked the material (and got really lucky by teaching him reading explicitly). I wrote off a lot of the early reading difficulties as it's my first time to teach reading, but now I know better. He masks a lot of his reading difficulties by how smart he is. The first time someone told me that he was dyslexic I thought they were crazy - I've since been told my others and neuropsych testing, but (non-textbook) reading has not been a problem. He tests in the >99% in comprehension with a 1st percentile speed - crazy numbers on both ends. He's an avid reader of print books. Textbook reading is completely different and he couldn't do it which he was much older before we figured that out. I have two younger kids that are severely dyslexic and use Barton. VT - lots of depth perception Tracking exercises to learn skills important to textbook reading where you actually have to read and process every word/number (he mostly had difficulty with reading math/physics which I always read aloud since I also needed to scribe - figuring out he couldn't "read" the math problems well but could listen and do all the work in his head took awhile to sort out; he's my kid that won a four year scholarship based on math in 8th grade but could barely write his name) Lots of "easy" visual-spacial work at home - lots of taking string and guessing how long an object across the room is and then going and seeing how close you are to being correct; LOTS of step counting - how many steps to cross the room, how many steps long is the driveway?, how many steps to get across the yard?; Lots of throwing a beanbag to land on another It's really hard to explain to a smart teen how step counting and throwing beanbags will help with writing - but it did!!!

Yes my son is severely dysgraphic and also dyslexic, but he reads 100+ novels per year. He also tests in the gifted range and self-accomodates for many of his difficulties. He had trouble with "textbook" reading which the COVD doc said was actually probably from the fact that he spent so little time per word, etc. My COVD doc recommends an eval if the child is not meeting what you think is their potential. My doc says a lot of kids are misdiagnosed with dyslexia when is might only by a convergence problem, but he's quick to say that a lot of kids also have language processing problems which VT will not help. Convergence went from normal to excellent with VT. Worked on paying attention to every little word on the page and discrimination. Worked a lot on depth perception. Before VT he tested at 99% in visual spacial, but his real life spacial skills were poor - who knew? When asked to guess with a piece of string how wide a microwave was - he'd guess 10 inches rather than 30 - he's a teenager and uses the microwave everyday. He couldn't begin to guess how many steps it took to cross a room. MY COVD doc said my son was "lost in space" and probably had no idea how far away the paper was for writing and then had poor spacial judgement of letter size. I bit the bullet and paid a bunch of money for VT - he recommended 30 weeks of therapy and at about 20 weeks my son started picking up a pen and writing by his choice for the first time in his life at age 15. His writing is not neat, but it is legible and he can now fill out a form, write notes for a rough draft, and write down his own math problems. :)

My son with severe dysgraphia and handwriting issues had multiple "normal" OT evaluations. What helped him was vision therapy of all things - he has phenomenal visual spacial mental skills, but very poor real-life spacial judgement which severely impacted handwriting as well as other things.

Lots of people love it, but my son did not like it.

I just alternate book. Miquon introduces certain things much earlier like multiplication, division, parentheses. I wouldn't worry about lining them up.

Bravewriter has some family classes. The parent is the go-between the teacher and younger kids.We've done several family classes and enjoyed them.

Someone who understands the math and has a background in teaching/tutoring should be able to teach out of any book without a teacher guide.

I would tend to ask someone outside the family to assess his math skills and see what they think. Do you know anyone who tutors or who is very good in math that can pick through his skills and give you an assessment. ... I'm not a fan of MUS personally.

I'd also recommend continuing algebra 2 at a slow pace and go ahead and cover geometry as well. I think a transcript by subject might fit you well. Otherwise you can list it in the year it "mostly" was done as long as you also finish it up.

My understanding is that many colleges superscore for admissions, but much fewer superscore for scholarships. Hope your June scores turn out well.

My son's senior year will look remarkably similar. I would be fine with not adding too much. You might want to add something to make it look better - or split the AP mechanics and electricity into two credits (I'd leave it one if that is what PA Homeschoolers does). Does PA Homeschoolers only give 1/2 credit to macroeconomics? Consider: fine arts survey - can be history of music; theatrical preformances; the mathematics of music (Teaching Co. has a course on how math and music relate, etc. computer programming Look at teaching company courses and see if any appeal

Things I teach my kids that my friends don't: Math Power tools Laundry Cooking - how to use stove, microwave, oven, etc. Cooking - how to measure, mix, etc. It's amazing how many friends are excited to come over and make cookies or even mac and cheese. ... I just asked my 8 year old he gets to do that others don't - he also said math. I guess it's a poor perception when math ranks as something we teach that others don't.

The dvds do not come with supplies. It is easy to go through the supply lists for the various experiments and decide how much you want to buy. You don't have to buy for all the experiments - it's ok to just watch some on video.

I've never used any geometry vidoes and I'm taking my third student through AoPS geometry right now.

While you can split them into 2 credits, most people only give one credit for all of literature, compostion, grammar, etc. You can call it English, LIt and Comp. or anything else.. I call mine English 9,10,11,12 and then detail in the course description that English was compromised of grammar, literature and composition with an emphasis in _____ . this year emphasized world lit and composition or this year emphasized shakespeare with studies on x, y, and z.

I have my fourth child in Singapore/Miquon and he's starting Beast soon. My teenagers use AoPS. My daughter is finishing Singapore and will start AoPS soon - she's the only one that has detoured some and done a little MEP. I've never used the hig for SM. I teach - if the topic is easy, I let them do fewer problems. (My daughter needs more practice and thus does MEP as well.)

I have used some of the Ultimate Science dvds and my kids and I love them. The video lessons are relatively short for each experiment. She goes into a good amount of theory at a level that kids can understand. There is a pdf of experiments to print out with some extra notes. Last year I had a 7 and 11 year old doing the videos - they decided they don't like to do them together so they are doing different dvds. My 7 year old is very independent with it all - he watches the dvd on the computer, pauses, goes back to see all the steps and hear all the information. He then comes to me and tells me a list of things he needs for his experiment. I have a huge supply of hands on science stuff so I have most of it. (I go through the experiment supplies when I first get the dvd and decide if I need to buy anything else.) My kids have been fairly independent and have done most of it on their own. I teach tons of science in co-op and I'm learning from the dvds as well. I think they are full of good information and much better hands-on experiments than you get elsewhere. I haven't tried to correlate the experiments with any reading - we do lots of science reading as well. (I happen to have the light dvd for sale as my kids have both finished that one.)

I tend to ask myself do all the other boys who earn merit badges have the opportunity to use it as coursework or is it just extracurricular? It's definitely extracurricular for anyone in public school so I think I'd stand out if I start listing them on my coursework. I know as homeschoolers, we have the flexibility to things differently and I think we should use that to our advantage.I don't think there's a hard rule that says you can't crossover between what is school and what is extracurricular. I know I counted things learned for the first aid merit badge also as school learning toward health. If your student is going above and beyond what's required for the merit badge then I wouldn't have any problem listing it as schoolwork, but I'd probably leave off the merit badge all together as that is specifically a boy scout activity and not school.

My son did it for a little while and then gave up Fred saying that he just didn't go deep enough - he prefers only AoPS.

Not exactly along the same line of a reader, but my boys loved The Elements by Theodore Gray.