If I had to choose, I would probably go Verticy but after the placement test and with the advice of an education counselor there. They are a really big help, and have dealt with all sorts of children with all sorts of issues. DD has some complicated issues, but has done very well so far.

You should also consider what your teaching preference is, as that does help. For example, I like Calvert Math as it is very much the sort of way I was taught, Math U See is great as the DVD explains everything, but I (personally) don't find the Singapore/Math In Focus methods as intuitive. I felt it would take me longer to get up and running with that program, although I would have loved to start it for K or 1st grade. I noticed that you mentioned place value was a weakness - Math U See is particularly strong on this I recall. We started with Alpha and did most of Beta and some of Gamma before moving to Verticy 3rd grade.

DD has used Calvert/Verticy since 3rd grade with Calvert math. Before then we had used Math U See, and I still use the Math U See manipulatives and techniques when things get difficult. She is now in 6th grade and just finishing up 7th grade math (she really wants to start that 8th grade book before she turns 12!). She started in 3rd grade at or below grade level in math, but has achieved a great deal over the last few years. Regardless of the curriculm, I think you will see the biggest gains just from one-to-one teaching at your daughter's pace. Calvert math is a good traditional way of teaching math. I did look at Math in Focus with Calvert, and it did look very good, but we were too far along for it to be sensible to make the change.

Does anyone know of an accredited HS diploma offered by a curriculum provider that does not have US history or US government as compulsory credits? I am thinking of places like Keystone, K-12, Laurel Springs, the university affiliated high schools. We are overseas, and I would prefer that DDs social studies credits are all in more broad areas of world history/geography etc. It is not always clear from looking at websites what the actual siuation is, so I thought I would check here and see if anyone has previous experience.

Got to run now, but have you given the work to Calvert to assess for placement? You don't have to commit yourself to anything, but it may give you some useful information as they will be able to compare the results against many other children who have taken the same test.

Yes, the Calvert placement is for entry into that grade. For free you can have a child do the placement test, and then have it reviewed by one of the Education Counsellors for a recommendation where to place in the Calvert program. There is no obligation to go ahead and enrol. I would also suggest, with the language issues, you take a look at the placement for Verticy which is Calvert's program for language learning differences. We did this in 3rd grade, chose to go with Verticy and have done so since. I would also say that school is not a great place at this age. DD (soon to be 12) joins in with some subjects like PE at a local school. They are a reasonable bunch of girls, but are very unforgiving of anyone different - especially someone who is not very 'mature'.

DD will probably start 7th very late in the year, rather than the usual August/September date, but will do: Calvert 7 for history/geography/reading/science/computer technology Calvert 8 math, although this may be Algebra 1 if the current pace keeps up Calvert 6 grammar/composition/spelling Art, woodwork, PE, cookery at local school It's so nice not to have to think about planning - but I do enjoy seeing what everyone else is going to use.

I think my worry would be, given the changes to Calvert scheduled for Fall 2015 for all grade levels, that the Calvert math offering may not be available for many more years. I love Calvert Math, but going into second grade allows a big change in curriculum without being disruptive. You would have the advantage of having the materials on hand well before you need them so that you could get yourself used to a different way of doing things. I have seen some of a Calvert math manual that goes with MIF and it looked very straightforward to me.

Agreed with Calming Tea - I don't think you need to supplement Calvert math at this stage of math as it is quite solid across the range of skills. Some people do use Singapore word problems as a supplement, but I don't see Calvert as being weak in that area. What we did was to play with Hands on Equation and the Dragon Box app when we felt like a break, rather than another curriculum.

DD is using Calvert 7th grade math now (in 6th grade), about half way through. She has used Calvert since 3rd. I did look at the benefits of moving over to Math in Focus for 7th, but decided this was not a good point to jump across as the scope and sequence is quite different and we would both have to get used to a different teaching method. I also consulted the education counsellors on this point as well. 7th grade has her solving equations such as 2x + 3 = -7, and getting used to using equations to represent problems and then solving them andI understand that is a more advanced progression than MIF. 8th grade will extend this and solidify everything ready for Algebra 1. If you want to take Algebra 1 with Calvert without going through all the previous levels you can do so if successful with the placement test. I have not told DD that as I want her to have a solid foundation even if she would like Algebra 1 now! We are accelerating as DD is finding a lot of her math is review of 6th (which is no bad thing as a lot of material was covered), so will 'probably' finish 7 by May, and finish 8 by the end of 2014. I am waiting to see whether Calvert's Algebra 1 course, for high school starting Fall 2014, will still be the Prentice Hall text.

You asked does it get better or go away. Here it has got better, in spite of very little remediation (we are overseas with almost nothing available). Maturity has helped, reading has helped, talkling and listening has helped, but the main development is that dd11 has herself developed coping strategies and can 'fake it'. That works sort of okay until she is either very excited or very distressed, when the language disorder becomes obvious. Academically she is fine (advanced in math), as long as I change how I deliver the curriculum and what I expect for output. It is getting tougher to find higher level materials that do not rely on advanced language skills. However, I don't know how she will ever be able to learn in a traditional academic environment with scores in the percentile range of less than 5 for receptive and expressive language so I guess that college is not going to be an option. More importantly, I worry how she will be independent with such an issue. Nobody would realise her fantastic strengths if she were judged just on how she presents herself verbally.

We have used Calvert since 3rd grade (now in 6th) but before that we used all sorts of curriculum. I stick with Calvert as, aside from the curriculum itself which is very professional, the 'box' means I spend my time actually teaching our daughter rather than spending time and money shopping for the perfect blend of materials. I realised that I was using a lot of energy curriculum shopping and hopping - which was more about what I found fun to do - rather than committing time on making what I had work. DD11 works across three grade levels, and our 'box' from Calvert reflects this as they are increasingly flexible with their packages. Within the package I have a great deal of freedom to do more, less, faster, slower. I have significant learning issues to deal with. I have learnt that it is not so much the materials that I use, but how I use them that makes for success.

We school year round with no long holidays, so instead of doing one lesson per day we just commit to a certain number of hours (for us no more than 4 hours for 6th grade, both DD and I lose the will to live if we go any longer). The Education Counsellor has recommended that we do 'chunking', which is working on a whole batch of a single subject rather than doing a bit of everything each day. So, for example, for 20 lesson days - which will take us probably 6 weeks - we will do 20 lessons of reading, then 20 lessons of science, then 20 lessons of history, then 20 of geography, or whatever we We won't move onto the next batch of 20 lesson days until all the subject areas for the first 20 days are finished up. We do math and language arts daily. I agree with Calming Tea about the first couple of Prentice Hall books, which are heavy going on chemistry with not a lot of pictures. However, as science is my thing, I do appreciate that the actual content of these books is excellent even if the presentation is dry. The'chunking' of subjects also means that if we have an afternoon of chemistry, there is the time to use on-line supplements or do some hands-on work to illustrate the concepts presented. If we were jumping around between subject areas each day, I don't think we would get to that. For discounts, I have looked back over my ordering pattern over the years, and see that there has been a 30% sale in November before. Not saying this will happen again, but you may be able to persuade an advisor to give you a hint about forthcoming offers.

DD has used Calvert since 3rd grade, and is now in 6th grade. I strongly recommend you have your child take the placement test and talk through the results with a Calvert advisor - there is no charge and no obligation. Pros: Calvert has a brick and mortar school, as well as over 100 years experience in homeschooling, so they really do know what they are doing. The curriculum is very complete,and I particularly appreciate that technology is used across all subjects. The benefit of the lesson manuals (which from 6th upwards are written to the student), access to educaton counsellors, and interwoven on-line materials such as Discovery Streaming, really do mean that you do not need to supplement. There are lots of ideas for enrichment activities if you choose. High school will be available from September 2014 (9th grade). Cons: The price, although I do maintain it is good value when you add in all the extra features it has over and above just the books. There is a lot of material, which can be off putting until you get used to the fact that you don't need to do everything in the lesson manual. Things that you will hear about as being cons: The biggest con that always seems to come up is the lack of flexibility across grade levels, mostly as a criticism from those who have never used the program, or did so in the lower elementary grades or many years ago. This is not the case now. We are currently using a custom curriculum with them that is a mix of 5th/6th/7th grades. You don't have to use their math at all. We have always used ATS. I find, especially as we go up the grade levels, that I have difficulty fairly marking work (I am too tough!) especially for compositions. The marked ATS tests form a very good portfolio of the year's work. As to whether it would be hard transitioning in for 8th grade, I think that would be best answered by Calvert themselves after the placement test.

We have gone through a sort of similar situation with DD related to repeated 'losing' of people and animals, either as they move overseas or die. I am not sure that anything much works to stop the regression. The regression in itself is a bit of self-therapy (I'm still a baby and don't have to deal with bad things), and is completely to be expected. You all must be feeling very raw, and he will of course pick up on this as well. What I have done is to try to keep a basic schedule going, so that as much of normal life exists as possible. Normal is difficult in a motel room, but maybe a visual schedule of what is going to be happening will give him some reassurance that tomorrow will come and that things will be okay. The regression will not last forever, I promise.

DD was happy at pre-school (in the UK system). Reception at 4 yrs 3 mths was simply awful. The class size was bigger at just under 30 children, and there were 4 adults in the room as well. The school was committed to full integration of special needs children. Reception usually involves some sort of structured learning in the morning. DD was capable of this, but being labelled special needs meant that the expectations of the teacher were very low. If you are struggling to understand the teaching due to a language disorder, then the class had moved on before you have absorbed the material. The sheer chaos of a 'child-centred learning' classroom is very difficult if you don't understand what is going on. Surprisingly, the worst part of reception was the unstructured activities such as playtime, art and music which are supposed to be fun. We went on to part time reception, part time homeschool in the second term (she was not yet 5 so not of compulsory school age). She came out totally during year 1, when it was obvious the amount of strain the whole family was under. I got so frustrated dealing with the system. If I could change anything, it would be to have ditched the school system after preschool and not listened to all the education experts who know best. I think your idea of preschool plus homeschool and therapy sounds just wonderful.

At age 4, DD was presenting much the same, although her language scores were even lower (I think at 4yrs 5 mths her language was around 18 mths-2yrs). She was assumed to be ASD, but it has become obvious that she misses out on some of the key factors for this just like your daughter. I would agree that the UK can be very poor at providing any services, and you will usually find they are keen to diagnose but not so keen to provide remedial services after diagnosis. The biggest thing we have found to help was learning to read. I suppose it makes sense that if you can 'see' good language as a model, then this can carry over into life. She was reading basic material just before her 5th birthday, and starting to read little books by her 6th birthday by which time we had ditched the school system altogether. The other things that helped were the 'More Than Words' and 'Talkability' books from the Hanen organisation. If you can find a Hanen course for parents - often run in the UK - that would be useful for you. Videos with modelling simple language were also good. We used Maisie Mouse a lot, and UK tv programmes with the presenter Justin (sorry can't remember his surname, but the programmes are often targeted at a special needs audience). Just to give you an idea of where we are on our journey, DD is now just 11. She has just finished 5th grade successfully, is half way through 6th grade math, but oral and written language are still troublesome but functional. The language issues meant that she presented as having cognitive issues, but none have been found.There is no school setting that would work for her at the moment, as her learning relies on a lot of work one-to-one and using multisensory techniques which are unlikely to be found in a school setting. Hope this helps.

I would head for a speech therapy assessment right away. Language impacts on all areas, and I would expect to see all the things you have described in your post. I am not an expert, but DD(newly 11) has a very significant receptive and expressive language disorder. She also is good at decoding, but has to work much, much harder making sense of what she reads. Math also becomes a language problem once you get past the stage of just learning math facts. I would worry about what she is spending her time on at school. If she does have a language problem much, if not all, of the instruction will be missed altogether, and it would not be surprising if she was not making progress there. Even remedial programs are no use if they are not delivered in a way that the child can work with. Hope this helps. Good luck.

I don't have much in the way of answers for you, but DD10 has a similar profile and her issues are ADHD and CAPD (with a significant language disorder).

Having gone through the FF program with DD10, I can really identify with being wiped out. It takes a phenomenal amount of concentration. But it was worth it for us in the long run. I don't know what part of the program you are on, but my view is that it counts for reading as you are working on phonemic awareness. Later on it covers a good bit of spelling and grammar too. So you have 90 minutes working on language arts! She is also working on computer skills as well Math you are okay with. What we did for science and history was to read together and talk about some highly illustrated books. At this point she was not able to listen to me read aloud or audio books (ears too tired) but was good with pictures. The sort of thing that we looked at are the books that Usborne produces - some I have found on the shelf are Mysteries and Marvels of Nature, First Encylopedia of the Human Body, Time Traveller, Book of World History. Looking back, she retained a lot during this time, and is was good cuddling up on the couch after the FF session as we both needed a hug. We also did science experiments on bad weather days, and took field trips on good days. I did read aloud some good books at bedtime as that gave us a big gap in time from FF. Hope some of that helps. If there is anything more I can add just let me know.

A hit with us: Calvert 5th grade. It is not perfect, but it gets done with no gaping holes. A huge hit with me: Verticy Green level grammar/composition and Calvert 6th math. They have enabled me to deal with areas of both strength and weakness without pulling my hair out! I particularly like the video instruction for the math lesson, as this is getting DD used to someone else being the teacher. A huge hit with DD: Sonlight D, now called 4 I think, which she is doing independently for comprehension work while we take a break before 6th grade. Dragon Box and Hands on Equations, which enable her to be smart, while still playing (her words). So-so: Phonetic Zoo A, (too early to say yet), Early Reading Comprehension in Varied Subject Matter books A-D (nice, but a bit too easy) No misses, as I have finally learnt to spend more time teaching, and less time searching for the perfect curriculum. If we fancy a break, we take a look at what we already have on the shelf.

DD10 (almost 11) has an expressive score on the 5th percentile, but a receptive one on the 2nd percentile. It sounds very poor, but it is improving. Our initial pointer was toward an ASD diagnosis, but it has become clear, now that her language has improved to the point where it is functional, that the language issue was the root of all the problems. She definitely has CAPD. The use of 'not' or 'don't' is a classic for CAPD, as if you drop just that word it changes the meaning of the whole sentence.

Cost was $1500 for a four month session of therapy using an on-line at home provider. We did it for 60 mins/day, 5 days/week.

DD10 had some good gains using Fast ForWord. But I think we have seen a lot of improvement through maturity (she works through some of the issues herself), reading aloud to practice good language, and a lot of talking and listening.

I am researching the options myself (although we are some way off, I need some sort of plan). One of the things that we are particularly looking for is for a lot of help to be available for scheduling, feedback, and just questions about the material as we are trying to encourage independence within a good support structure. I was very impressed after talking for some time with people at Laurel Springs about the amount of tutor and counsellor support that is available to students. At the moment, Laurel Springs is the one ticking most of our boxes, with University of Missouri and University of Nebraska coming up behind. There are cheaper options, but some of them are not so much cheaper when you factor all of the costs in and there isn't the level of support we will need.