I can go with that! (I'm out of likes, BTW, people, consider your posts all liked!!)

I am against all cults that are a true cult! The articles I read, they all seemed to follow a common pattern. But, there is not much you can do about adults, legally and morally, but when kids become involved and there is some kind of abuse going on, that is when I personally think there should be something done. But, I also wonder if more people were aware of how cults work and how they draw you in, if people would be less likely to join a cult.

It seems to me that the main problem with the girls who are not getting an education in certain regions is that they are being controlled by a cult, not a homeschool specific problem. I read a bunch of cult articles and most mentioned that once people get in, if you directly bash the cult that just drives them deeper in. What do we as a society do about cults? What is the best way to prevent people from joining and how to draw them out if they are in? How do we balance true religious freedom with whatever measures we have against cults? ETA: The specific cult I am talking about is ATI/Gothard where they don't allow girls to get an education. But, if you read a few articles about signs of a cult and how to get someone out of a cult, they all are alike and based on the same "business model," I thought it would also be helpful to discuss how to promote awareness of how cults work.

You are doing great! That is way more than their minimum. I started the poll to find out numbers of people who were not educating well since a few posters seemed to see a lot but most of us don’t. It seems to be a regional problem, mostly tied to a cult.

That sounds pretty bad. It seems from the replies that there are a few regional pockets of bad. Are these private Christian schools? None of the Christian homeschoolers I have known have ever said anything negative about private Christian schools. (Generally, they just complain that they are too expensive for them.) And, I have known folks who don't read Harry Potter or use anything other than a plain hair clip and always wear dresses...

If it is vision, nothing will help much until you get therapy. And, at first it will be painful and make everything else harder before it helps. Some of my remedial students did better with larger font or reading on the kindle with larger font and bigger spacing. Some were also helped with colored overlays or colored overlay strips. (A tiny bit of help.) You can do some of my tests to see if there might be other problems, the MWIA 3, and the 40L quick screen test and the nonsense word test, all linked at the bottom of my syllables page: http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Reading/syllablesspellsu.html

The young kids don't know who Dick Tracy is!! I've tried to explain the whole Dick Tracy thing and why we think it's funny to my kids and their friends to no avail.

That's why I asked the question. I wanted to know what regions people were seeing this in and what people thought the numbers were. As you've said, and I agree, even one is too many, but numbers are good, too. I like numbers. I used to work as a statistician. I actually started out as a math tutor! But, reading is more foundational, so I'm sticking with that for now. I keep hoping someday they will quit making remedial students faster than I can help them, though, but I'm still here 24 years later...

I think one is too many, too. I also think one in the schools is too many, too. Many of my students are so crippled they have absolutely no self worth. My students all have very low self-esteem to one degree or another. For many, it is crippling, it impacts their whole life. Also, most of them were given remediation that didn't work in the schools, either more of the same with Reading Recovery, the same whole language based methods that failed them in the first place, or once a week OG methods that will take 10 years for them to be at grade level, they are designed for a true dyslexic student, not someone who can be quickly remediated with phonics and nonsense words. Here are some stories from Children of the Code, they have a whole series of videos talking about the shame from not being able to read well: http://www.childrenofthecode.org/Tour/c3c/index.htm They have access to books but they can't read them, and many of their parents don't understand that because of the subtle nature of functional illiteracy where they can read very low level things and know the most common 90% of words but have to guess at the rest.

I'm going to add some data. Arkansas used to have what I thought was the pretty good law balancing freedom and accountability: you must test, the state paid for it, but there were no penalties and no minimum score. They have dropped the testing requirement because the homeschoolers consistently did well, but I know a few families who it was a wake up call for, they upped their game after low scores. This report is the average scores of homeschoolers, and since the requirements were so minimal, I didn't know anyone who didn't sign up and take the test. This report includes scores for 2008 - 2012 http://www.arkansased.gov/public/userfiles/Learning_Services/Charter%20and%20Home%20School/Home%20School-Division%20of%20Learning%20Services/2012_Home_School_Annual_Report.pdf Here are even more years of testing results and the number of homeschoolers by county: http://www.arkansased.gov/divisions/learning-services/home-school/home-school-reports

What do you think? Is it regional? I have personally seen perhaps around 1% not educating well, mainly daughters, and even those were doing better than the public schools in their area for reading, although most not for math. We have lived in a lot of different states and I have interacted with a lot of different homeschoolers. My kids like having homeschool friends, so in the past, we have always joined a few local co-ops and organizations to get to know people. (Now that my husband is retired and we are staying in one place longer than a year or two, they have neighborhood and activity friends and we don't currently have a local homeschool group other than my comments on the local Facebook group and an occasional activity.) I also give out reading grade level tests to all parents I know and have found various levels of illiteracy among the neighborhood kids, ranging from 20% to 40% depending on how well the school teaches and the percent of parents able to afford tutoring. They are functionally illiterate because of sight words, 2 to 12 grade levels behind but appearing to be able to read on the surface because they have a stock of sight words that they know. I have given out thousands of grade level tests. In one neighborhood where we lived every single family but one did the test or had me give it. (I offer to give it for them if they want me to do it instead, telling them that I'm practiced and it will just take me a minute, some of the parents are functionally illiterate and this gives them an easy way to not admit that. I also give recommend various remedial materials but help parents who can't figure out how to teach on their own.) I feel bad for anyone who is behind for whatever reason and help remediate everyone I can, I was just wondering what people thought the percentages were.

if you travel a lot and walk around in new cities, you don’t have to look like a lost tourist, the directions appear on the watch, and it buzzes you when there is a turn coming up, so you can leave your phone in your purse and just glance at your watch for directions.

What is her reading grade level and how did she learn to read? I would give her the MWIA 3 and my 40L quick screen reading grade level test. Whatever you choose, getting her to a 12th grade reading level should help if she is not there yet. http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Reading/readinggradeleve.html

How fast does she read orally and silently? Do the MWIA 3 and both the adult and child silent reading passages and my nonsense word oral reading speed test at the end of my Syllables page. I would also give my reading grade level test. http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Reading/syllablesspellsu.html Depending on speeds and reading grade level I will have different ideas.

Don Potter has ALL the words in Blend Phonics on cards. http://www.donpotter.net/pdf/blend_phonics_decoding_card.pdf I would definitely start with the long vowel syllables for learning blends, but cards are nice to carry around and do games with, a bunch of different things you can do. I have fun ideas for cards and making the repetition fun in a video showing you how to make phonics more fun: Don Potter also has the syllables and some words from Webster on cards, but they seem kind of small font. http://www.donpotter.net/pdf/websters-spelling-book.pdf

Great job not letting her guess! I agree you need to work on fluency with simpler things. I would watch Don Potter's Phonovisual movie and do a daily review of my one page chart, it is similar, they are both based on a 1914 chart. She can color in my one page black and white chart while learning how it works, let her color it while you explain it. http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Reading/Resources/40LChartsCombined.pdf I would have her watch one lesson of my Syllables movies per week and do the exercises for it, then spend the rest of that week focusing on word lists with those type of words. For example, week 1 is short vowels, do all of the short vowel words in Blend Phonics, Word Mastery, whatever you have on hand. Don Potter has links to a lot of different phonics programs that are free to print. Week 2 is long vowels, which includes long vowel simple syllables. That week, I would just do the syllables, that will get you work on the blends without having a lot of extra letters to work on. For example, bla ble bli blo blu, all long because they end in a vowel. Do the single consonant ones (like ba be bi bo bu by, ba is long a like in ba-ker) the first day, then the blends. (Save the c and j syllables for later.) The next week I would review the syllables and work on the other long vowels in Blend Phonics/Word Mastery. Keep going like that. After lesson 6, you can do a few words from Webster table 26 daily, the fact that they are 4th grade level words should be motivational. She can watch lesson 7 and have some fun with the Greek word roots and bingo and building Greek words, but is not yet ready for lessons 8 - 10. After lesson 3, add in daily review of my 2 letter vowel chart. http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Reading/Resources/OnePageVowelChart.pdf It is possible there is another underlying issue besides her speech problems, but I have also had students who have had past speech problems who were eventually very good readers who were reading at about that speed and level at that age. The problem with blends is also common for people with underlying present or past speech problems. Totally optional, she is blending fine now, but to explain to her why it is taking longer for her, you guys can watch my blending movie together, it explains why blending is hard and why letter sound approximations do not exactly match words, it also explains why syllables help and why she will do better learning the blends in syllables.

I have remediated hundreds, so have a lot of practice with phonics! My daughter learned much faster than my son, he needed a lot of repetition. I was actually a bit of a better teacher by the time I got to him but he took longer. She needs more repetition with math than him. A few girls and a lot of boys need a lot of repetition before reading clicks. I suspect math is the opposite but I only have worked with a handful of student with math.

Many young students need a lot of repetition and need larger font and get overwhelmed with a lot of words on the page. I would stop all sentences and stories and work on building up fluency with word lists so it is easier to sound out words than to guess. Also, move to a whiteboard or something with larger font. They longer you guess, the harder it is to remediate the guessing. You can play my nonsense word game to help stop guessing and add in some fun to building fluency. http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Phonics/concentrationgam.html Also, if you are teaching any sight words as wholes, here is how and why to teach them with phonics instead: http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Reading/sightwords.html Here are some word lists to use: http://www.donpotter.net/pdf/blend_phonics_reader_cap.pdf http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Reading/Resources/NonsenseWordsbyLesson.pdf Or on cards, watch my how to make phonics fun video for ideas to use them: http://www.donpotter.net/pdf/blend_phonics_decoding_card.pdf And, a bit early yet, but things to screen for if there are still problems and not much forward momentum after a few months of doing words in isolation, how to screen for phonemic awareness or vision problems and dyslexia: http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Reading/dyslexia.html You can also have him watch some of my videos and some of the videos at Sweet Sounds of Reading to get in a bit more phonics learning when you don't have time to work with him. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHnIVm9OG9zIdtOtUHAtoUw

If your son is beyond the I See Sam Readers, he could do the Blend Phonics books, or after he gets to the highest level of the I See Sam books. http://www.donpotter.net/pdf/blend_phonics_stories.pdf

It has a keep warm function that automatically engages. Also, you can use it for other things besides pressure cooking so you could toss your crock pot. The whole lead crock pot thing worried me a bit.

They are written for children, but there are adult themes and interesting ideas about the tripod series by Christopher. I re read them every 10 years or so and there is something new to appreciate each time. It was some of the first sci-fi I read. Don’t read the prequel first!! https://www.amazon.com/Tripods-Collection-White-Mountains-City/dp/1481415050/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1508019303&sr=8-3&keywords=Tripod+Christopher

That is a good list. I loved Nightfall, it is a really interesting concept, I read the longer version of Nightfall and liked it but still enjoy the short version as well.

You can get a good feel for the military sci-fi sub-genre with any of the anthologies, "There Will be War." With the recent death of Jerry Pournelle, they are on sale for cheaper than usual and many of them are free if you have kindle unlimited. https://www.amazon.com/There-Will-Be-War-I-ebook/dp/B00WONO0C0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1508013568&sr=8-1&keywords=there+will+be+war Orson Scott Card's books span several different genres, but I don't like his more recent stuff as much. Dune, Hyperion, and Asimov's foundation series are classic staples. A good modern book is "The Martian," the book is even more interesting than the movie.

Depending on how slow you read, it might just be faster to watch the videos, then! There are 70 or 80 minutes total over 10 lessons. Also, I'm not entirely sure which portion of it is improving people's reading speed, My hypothesis is the nonsense words and syllables but some of the obscure spelling rules I know and teach might also help. Here is some of the brain research about why it might help, short answer, brains of good readers are processing every sound in parallel on the side of the brain that processes sound and oral language. I think that the focus on sounds in nonsense words and syllables and over learning the sounds most people have not spent a lot of time learning and most of my students don't know well, the two letter vowel teams, will help you read faster. (I also have a bunch of spelling rules about endings about them, ai/ay; oi/oy, native English words don't end in i, ou/ow; au/aw, native English words don't end in a u.)

If he does some nonsense word training and over learns the 2 letter vowel teams, that may improve his reading speed and allow more time per question and allow him to easily finish the reading section. I've had students who have taken my Syllables class as a co-op group class just for spelling or word root study who were reading at or above grade level who improved their oral reading speed after doing the nonsense words and syllables. They have said that they were able to read their books faster, too, but I've not timed before and after silent reading speeds, I've just added those tests recently. You can work through it quickly with the transcript and then just do the nonsense word fluency, the nonsense word syllable division, and a few syllables. For over learning the 2 letter vowel teams, go over their their sounds daily with the one page chart, link #9 in the student folder. http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Reading/syllablesspellsu.html You are most likely to improve your reading speed if you read the nonsense words at less than 100 WPM or have a slowdown on the MWIA or read below 500 WPM silently, otherwise it might not be worth trying. The tests are all at the end, the last section, including a short nonsense word speed test.