No book ideas, but i would work him through my syallbles program so he can read even harder books. Once they get to the "4th grade level words," 5th, 8th, etc, it gets very motivational. They are clearly labeled this way in the Webster's excerpts document. There is a link to a YouTube playlist, I have the first few on YouTube and the rest will come out in the next few months. The kessons are complete in written format. http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Reading/syllablesspellsu.html After he completes the syllables program, he might be ready for things like A to Z mysteries and magic school bus.

Latin is fairly close to Spanish, my Spanish helped me teach Latin. It would be easy to learn a bit of Spanish as a family!! (Just what you need, right, another thing to do...)

If you want more, Dehaene has a book "Reading in the Brain," and Seidenberg has a book called "Language at the Speed of Sight," here is Seidenberg's website: https://seidenbergreading.net Stanislas Dehaene also has several articles online: http://www.unicog.org/biblio/Author/DEHAENE-S.html

Stanislas Dehaene's book and YouTube videos about reading and the brain are interesting, but the shortest one I had found up until now was 30 minutes. There is now an 8 minute version. I have a list with his longer videos, this shorter one, and a few about how brain function changes after you read a book. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJLxBWdK_5l1u9v4FTXD3CXgCBIGeSZpM If anyone knows any good ones along these lines I missed, let me know and I'll add it.

I like the online Read, Write, Type as a fun phonics supplement for your 6 year old. You could also add in some of my phonics videos as a supplement, and they can play my phonics concentration game together to get in practice in a fun way. http://www.talkingfingers.com/read-write-type/ https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJLxBWdK_5l0Z941Cy1INrADEO9Sy4ZWz http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Phonics/concentrationgam.html

I have a free phonemic awareness test linked from my dyslexia page, but it sounds like you already know this is a weakness, I second the recommendation for LiPS. Also, you can buy the cheap manual "Recipe for Reading," it is under $20 and you can teach the basics of OG phonics with just that book and a white board. There are more cheap and free ideas on my dyslexia page. http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Reading/dyslexia.html Also, I would read and try all the things on my YouTube Pre-Reading playlist and try the syllables from Webster, they are the easiest things to learn to blend and read and later form the basis of larger words. My blending page also has some phonemic awareness things and explains why learning to blend and read can be difficult. http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Reading/blendingwords.html You can work on oral blending and spelling while you are trying to figure things out. I would also recommend reading some things about what is going on in the struggling reading brain, like Stanislas Dehaene's book "Reading in the Brain." He also has some good YouTube presentations:

Don Potter couldn't figure out how to access his old YouTube channel so he moved some of his videos over and is making new ones on his new channel. There are a lot of ones that may be useful to folks here. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrE2sfPXJZv4sS_cmxfP7Dg/videos?sort=dd&view=0&shelf_id=0

Yes, the frog. Under $10 from amazon, that little frog never tires of repeating himself. Worth every penny and then some.

Try syllables, for example ack. Here is the syllabary: http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Reading/webstersyllabary.html And how to teach Webster: http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Reading/webstersway.html Some YouTube Webster, including Don Potter's complete reading of the syllabary: Blending and pre-reading ideas, keep working on phonemic awareness: And my blending page with more ideas: http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Reading/blendingwords.html I would not teach sight words as wholes, I have remediated too many students who have problems from that, here is how and why to teach them phonetically: http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Reading/sightwords.html Recent brain research shows that the brains of good readers are not actually reading words as wholes but reading every letter or letter group (like sh or oa) in the area of the brain that processes sounds, just super fast in parallel.

Can you make a trip to the library when you have time now and you and your older kids screen books and make lists of the good ones? Have each child take a letter of the alphabet to go through if they are alphabetical.

The first lesson is up and the next 6 are on time to be released one a week over the next 6 weeks. I am working on converting the last 3 and uploading and checking them on YouTube.

My son was behind that, and my daughter was ahead for her age. My son now reads at a 12th grade level and faster and smoother than average for his age. Keep working on his phonics more than the reading, some children, especially boys, need a lot of phonics review to become fluent readers. My Syllables Spell Success program now has the first video on YouTube and is on track to release one video per week until complete. I will add the link to the videos and the program, you need to print some of the linked documents to use it. http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Reading/syllablesspellsu.html

Ideas from a functional medicine doctor: https://trmorrisnd.com/2016/07/17/depression-the-defining-disorder-of-our-time/ He is taking new patiends and does phone consults.

I hate comic sans too, but it is an appropriate font for young children. Interesting, good for young children and reading disorders. My students with a visual element to their problems have liked the dyslexie font.

My syllables program can be done in 6 - 10 hours, and uses nonsense words, 2 syllable nonsense words with syllable division from lesson 1. That might help, but you may also have a developmental vision problem going on that you should check for. http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Reading/syllablesspellsu.html There is also an optional nonsense word document, I would make it non optional and use it to build up nonsense word accuracy. Track speed too and do 50 words a day, but go for 100% accuracy. Speed will come with time and accurate practice, although if there is a fairly severe underlying vision problem accuracy and speed may not improve until that is fixed. Here is the covd website to learn more about development vision and vision therapy: http://www.covd.org/?page=learning I don't know of a font like that, but you could try highlighting uppercase letters with a blue, orange, or yellow highlighter and see if that helps. Papyrus might be a bit but is is not easy to read.

http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED128835.pdf Don found it a few years ago, a lot of info here, albeit in user unfriendly form. I posted a few years ago but it has been a while. A study of the sound spelling patterns of the most common 17,000 words in English.

My syllables spell success class gets good reviews for an academic class. I have also had 4 children say it was their favorite co-op class ever, including one 9 year old boy who was inspired to take up a study of Greek and Latin roots after the class. He also wrote me a hilarious thank you note with every other word spelled incorrectly. His mom made sure I knew it was on purpose, LOL. I personally would not vote it my favorite if I was I child and I really like languages and phonics. There is a transcript of the entire 10 lesson class and all the materials are free to print. I am converting the DVD lessons to YouTube and should be on track to have 1 per week starting August 1st. I can also mail beta versions of the DVD for cost. I do not have the teaching tips done yet, I have only done 1/10 of them so far, but you all should be good without that portion. When I teach it as a co-op class, I have the parents do the reading grade level test before the first class and after lesson 9, with the MWIA as well for anyone reading below grade level. I spend the first bit of the first class testing any holdouts while the rest of the class colors in their vowel and consonant reference chart or some coloring pages for lesson 10 holdouts. Then, I announce the average class imorovement at the end of lesson 10, doing the math while they play scrabble. http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Reading/syllablesspellsu.html

You are doing what you think is best for them now, just as you were doing what you thought was best for them then. Plus, they have an awesome educational foundation! My hundreds of remedial students could have used a better foundation. Some of them I recovered to grade level, but others were complex cases or we moved before they could get to grade level. There are a lot of students like that out there.

If you post a city or at least a state, I am sure there are folks here who would love to donate and/or have ideas good for that area, we have lived in a bunch of different states and the best places to buy vary. You could give out the school address or give the address to nearby folks in PMs. I know a have a few things, but shipping is more than I paid for them and more than they are worth for the most part.

The owner of the 3rs plus read website was one of the original authors of the I See Sam books, he updated them. He has samples of each of the series on his website, and it looks like they might have free electronic copies currently if you e-mail them. http://www.3rsplus.com

Here are the free Blend Phonics stories. Also boring as hades, but I think all books for that age are boring. I wrote them and tried to make them as interesting as I could, but I'm no Dr. Suess and it is hard to write a good story with limited sound/letter choices. They are PDF, so should be able to be downloaded into iBooks and read on the iPad. They go to a higher level of phonics than the first few levels of the I See Sam books. Story 19 adds in 2 syllable word and syllable division, I would start there. Don Potter wrote the comprehension questions. I am not a big fan of comprehension questions for that age and for supremely boring stories, but he says his students really like the questions and many people want comprehension questions, so there you go. I skip the questions with my students, although most of my students are remedial guessers so I just do word lists with them until they quit guessing, but I have had a few students with speech problems and no guessing problems who I have used the stories with. http://www.donpotter.net/pdf/blend_phonics_stories.pdf You could also try the sentences in Webster's Speller, focus on the "4th grade level words," "5th grade level words" aspect of it, that is always motivational, and it is in PDF form, here is how to teach the syllables and it: http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Reading/syllablesspellsu.html You could also download some good older phonics books, Pollard is fun, you need to get Google Play on your iPad and then they load. If that works well, you can start a thread asking for suggestions. The stories and sentences are more interesting because if the sound has not been learned yet to move the story along, she puts in a little picture of the word, for example, she will write "Jack has a cat and a [box]," with the box being a picture of a box or a trunk. Or, "The [bird] sang," with a cute little picture of a bird in line with the text. https://books.google.com/books?id=e5AAAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA1&dq=first%2Bsynthetic%2Breaders&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false Pollard has a whole series, here are the collection of links from my page, the link above is the first reader, but the First Book for Little Folks is also good in that range of phonics, the Pollard books are about halfway down, scroll down a ways. http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Reading/phonicsandspelli.html

And then there is Texas! They like their state and you can get any state product you want...ornaments, noodles shaped like Texas, waffle makers shaped like Texas, etc. I actually liked the noodles as part of a welcome gift, fun but consumable so you're not giving out random junk that will just take up room. We lived in Texas several times during our time in the military.

14 year old boy, 17 year old girl.

My mom worked a bunch of different temp jobs through a temp firm and then applied for a job she really wanted. She liked trying a lot of different things and meeting new people, but she is a huge extrovert. She had taught preschool for 11 years when we were younger but then had a long employment break. (She taught when we were at school so she was always home when she got home from school, it was nice, even in junior high and high school.) A good way to figure out the best types of jobs you are suited for is to match up your MBTI type to common jobs for that type. I worked several different jobs while in the military before kids and the jobs I liked best fell under those suited for my MBTI type or similar, for example, I am an INTP but also some of the INTJ and INFP jobs match well. I did an ENTJ/ESTJ type job my last assignment in the Air Force and did well but it took a lot more emotional energy than a well suited job. It was a leadership position and I knew my strengths and weaknesses so I was able to delegate a lot of ill suited tasks but it was still harder than my well suited jobs. Online quick list of good matches: http://www.businessinsider.com/best-jobs-for-every-personality-2014-9 More extensive list that looks promising: http://cms.bsu.edu/about/administrativeoffices/careercenter/explore/assessment/typefocus/whatpersonality "Do What You Are," a whole book dedicated to the subject, good but you should read a few MBTI basic books first from your library if you are not familiar with the MBTI. https://www.amazon.com/Do-What-You-Are-Personality-ebook/dp/B00ECE9N2G/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1501140350&sr=8-1&keywords=do+what+you+are "Gifts Differing," my favorite MBTI book, goes a little into good careers and majors by type, again not a good first book but very informative. For example, they noted that of the two types that most went on to be lawyers, (I forget the exact two types and an exchange student is in the room with the book) the P's dropped out at twice the rate of the J's, probably realizing that the strict rule nature of it was not conducive to their personality. https://www.amazon.com/Gifts-Differing-Understanding-Personality-Type/dp/089106074X/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1501140419&sr=8-1-fkmr0&keywords=MBTI+gifts+differeing Two good basic MBTI books to read to understand it are "Type Talk" and "Please Understand Me," most libraries have these or other MBTI books. Here is a good online MBTI test: http://www.humanmetrics.com/personality

I think so, too. But, I loke color better than colour, but I enjoy seening them all in a book. I read so many British novels that I am never sure the right way to spell grey and a few other words. Of course, I love language and teaching phonics and reading, so I am not the average American. In fact, we probably are not representive of the average American here as a whole either...