There are lots of ways to teach reading. Just because your child is dyslexic doesn't mean you have to stick with Barton or anything else. Do what works. Your instincts will tell you if you've pushed your child too far and need to back up.

My oldest son did just fine going from SM 5 to AoPS Algebra (before the prealgebra book was out). Most kids would not be ready for that transition. Either need to work on more fundamentals such as exponents, negative numbers, fractions, etc. Some just need more maturity before jumping into AoPS Algebra. My second son went from SM 5 to AoPS Prealgebra, then needs Dolciani algebra before AoPS algebra, because he doesn't like the constant challenge of AoPS. I'd say if you think your son might be ready, get the book and start. If he resisting or not understanding, either slow down or pick something else up for awhile.

My 9th grader just took the Center for Lit high school class and really like it as well. The only other online classes we've done are math (AoPS).

It's probably not so much the fact that looking at a screen is hard, but making his eyes work together is hard. If people are looking at something up close, but not using both eyes together then they will either see it blurry (or double) or simply suppress the image from one of the eyes. The brain is amazing in that it can just ignore the confusing input from the second eye. With time suppression is very bad in that the sight in the suppressed eye tends to get worse and worse. With the exercises your son is doing, it sounds like it is forcing him to use his eyes together. Exhausting, hard work when you are not used to doing so.

I'd talk to your doctor, but it is probably headaches from HARD work. I've had to keep in mind that VT is one our primary goals this spring and not to worry about the things we don't get to.

Also, many colleges want four years of math done in high school regardless of what classes were done in 8th or before.

I break the course down into bite-sized chunks. For some, I may say read one chapter per week - student to schedule how much per day. Other classes, I plan more of day 1, day 2, day 3... I don't assign calendar dates to the plan so it can be easily adjusted. I have endpoint goals and then might say must finish x assignments (or days) per week to finish by x date. If everything is finished early that's great. IF not finished by the end of the semester or year, we just keep going. For me, most of our classes don't have an endpoint of finishing everything by the "end" of the schoolyear. I spell out what is complete for one credit and when the work is done, we move on to another subject. Sometimes my kids want to pack it all in quickly and get it done and othertimes spread it out longer. I give some fixed guidelines, but am pretty flexible. If my kids are finishing multiple subjects early in the schoolyear, then I give them options of how to self-educate. Math and English keep going as long as mom says. They then have the options of spending school time doing more computer programming, more teaching company videos, starting the next science text or history book, reading more literature or working on other projects such as engineering projects or electrical, etc.

Science - I'm with the others on doing interest-led science in middle school and then moving to college texts for high school. My boys know more science than most everyone else. Math - Work at their level, but be sure to challenge your student. I use AoPS starting in middle school. My math loving child flies through those books and does everything he can in math. My second son does AoPS more slowly with some traditional math textbooks and NEM thrown in. Start computer programming if possible.

One other thing to consider besides academics is if she's going to be in 11th grade, is she coming home for good (the last two years)? Some school systems are very difficult to transfer homeschool high school credits to return to school. Some school districts will work with you and give credit if she can pass a test, others don't transfer any homeschool credits and make her repeat everything. Of course this isn't an issue if she plans on graduating from homeschool. Good luck with all the decisions.

Alcumus is a great, free online learning system for math. It's also somewhat addictive if you are math-inclined. You do have to sign up with an account, but AoPS does not bother you with emails or anything else. As pp poster said, you must send in written permission for younger kids to create an account. I first made an account for me and then my two oldest boys. Alcumus gives you a problem and you have two tries to get it correct. I encourage everyone to read the solution regardless of whether you got the problem correct or incorrect because you can learn lots from the solution. Depending on how many you miss or get correct Alcumus will move you along to new topics quickly or more slowly. It will also throw in some random hard problems and build in some review of topics already mastered. Alcumus starts with prealgebra and moves up from there.

When babies are learning to control their visual systems, they get to be fed and sleep whenever they want. As older kids/adults we are still expected to do life and it can be exhausting. Some kids can state they have a headache or such, others are just tired and grumpy. My daughter is wiped out after doing lots of near work or doing anything that requires quickly shifting her focus back and forth from far to near - like tennis, racketball, etc. She's been wiped out sledding this week and I think it is from the fast motion making her motion sick with her vision.

Yes, a dyslexic CAN love to read. My high schooler (stealth dyslexic and severely dysgraphic) reads a novel every 2-3 days. He is excellent at reading comprehension. However, it is very difficult for him to read aloud. It is extremely difficult for him for him to read math and science. He can comprehend math and science just fine, but needs it read aloud (not explained). He listens to a little bit of classical literature on audio such as Charles Dickens, but reads most of it himself. He recently started vision therapy and the doc thinks it will help both his reading and writing. We'll see. My 10 year old dyslexic listens to books for hours a day either parent read or by Learning Ally. She started vision therapy recently and is reading her first books ever for fun in the past month. I suspect her reading will soar as her convergence insufficiency issues improve with vision therapy. She has all the classical dyslexic problems of phonemic awareness as well as slow processing speed (not just vision issues). My 7 year old dyslexic struggles mightily with phonemic awareness at this point in his life, but hopefully will be a reader before too long. He loves to listen to books right now.

You are welcome to ask questions here or on the AoPS forums without latex. Also, we found it helpful to learn formatting and variation of formatting by right clicking on the problems on the AoPS forums and it will show you how it is coded.

I got new glasses along with my kids. When I got home, I was very surprised to find out that I could read better with my teenagers microprism glasses compared to my bifocals. I talked to the doc again and he ended up reexamining my eyes and adding microprisms to my glasses (at his charge). I've been patching and doing the kids homework. I've talked to the therapists and they say that while some parents will start formal VT, it sounds like I can make a lot of progress following along with my kids. I'd talk to your doctor - if you can understand what is going on, you are going to be able to better address it either on your own alongside your kids or more formally with therapy. My main problem is that I'm suppressing an eye.

My daughter is in VT and still gets headaches and is exhausted with near work. When she is getting like this I often let her watch a movie. I stay away from ipad/computer/near play when her head hurts since it just tends to make it worse. She is improving but has a long way to go. I also have two boys that recently started VT - they don't get headaches, but you can tell it wears out their bodies. I have vision issues can it wears me out to just patch and do eye stretches, etc. and I've been going to bed hours earlier.

I'd consider charging less for a friend. I charge $20/hour for high school math - student travels to me.

Students that come for a few weeks but never pay. Administration deciding a few days before co-op starts that instead of having families pay the teachers, we'd rather teach for free. This for a class that had filled with students in spring registration, I bought lots of supplies over the summer (I was dumping the entire amount I was to be paid into supplies) and then told I was to donate my teaching and supplies rather than be paid and this decision came months after people registered with the intent to pay.

In my 10th year of homeschooling and never once regretted it.

Oops. Here's the link for a bunch of free phonological activities. Scroll down to the student activities and you can download the pdfs. http://www.fcrr.org/for-educators/sca_k-1.asp

It sounds like you have a lot of things going on. If he's only at level 1 of Barton then he shouldn't be doing any sight words or other reading. He should do no reading except concentrate on Barton. It does sound like he's going extremely slowly through Barton. I'd call up Susan Barton and talk to her. Consider LIPS as others have said. Some easy things I found to help with phonological processing are Hearbuilder Phonological Processing - I have the computer cd, but not it is also available as an app (not sure if it's exactly the same, but looks similar). Here's a link to some great free phonemic awareness activites. They are pdfs that you can download. Start with the early activities - rhyme, syllables, sentence segmentation, phonemes. I downloaded and printed out the activites and they went a long way in helping getting started with Barton. As others have said, if he hasn't had a vision evaluation it should get done by a developmental optometrist (covd doctor). He could have 20/20 vision and still have a huge impact on reading from his vision.

I like Art of Problems solving. Logical, precise, not a lot of review - but hard problems. Not sure if AoPS is his style.

On our vision therapy days, we get up and do one subject - usually math. We listen to an audio book in the car for travel time. We take the rest of the afternoon for PE! We either go to the pool or play racketball or some other sport.

I think vision issues (like tracking, convergence, binocular vision, etc) need to be addressed by Vision Therapy. I think many reading disorders can be simply vsion problems, but many kids have overlapping problems of both vision and dyslexic difficulties. The label of dyslexia is sometimes used for anyone that has trouble reading reguardless of the underlying problem. Many people reserve the definition of dyslexia for problems with phonemic awareness resulting in difficulty reading. When I told our psych that we were doing vision therapy, she said we could save a lot of money because there's an app for that. I think many people are misinformed about visual problems and their treatment. If the neuropsych is a good evaluator for learning disabilities, I wouldn't worry too much about what they though of vision therapy unless they treat you differently because of it.

I read pdfs just fine on my ipad. It really depends on whether you can read the print when the page is shrunk to the size of your reader.

Bravewriter - there are samples of combination literature/writing on the website - I think they are called the Arrow and the Boomerang. Excellence in Literature may also give you ideas.