Ds12 scores much worse on these sorts of tests than I would expect, based on his reading level (went through all 10 Barton levels and now reads at a 12th grade level, supposedly) and his IQ. When we talk about questions he missed and why a different answer would make more sense, he looks at me, says ok, he understands, and moves on. But he continues to get ones I'd peg as "simple" wrong, and his scores on things like readtheory quizzes consistently put him at a 6th-ish grade level. I know multiple choice questions are just not ideal for autistic and dyslexic kiddos, but is there anything structured I can do or he can study to help him improve in this area? We test very infrequently, but I'd like to figure out just what is actually breaking down.

We struggle to get kids speaking German as well. Here are a few things we do or have done, with varying amounts of success. Many of them are geared towards younger children, but you didn't say how old your kids were, so sorry if none of these are applicable for your situation! 1) Find friends who speak German and have German-only playdates. (By far, this is the best and most efficient way of getting them speaking.) It helps a lot if the parents speak ONLY German with their kids, so EVERYONE is speaking German. 2) German in the afternoon(or morning, or tea time, or whatever you want to make it). Start with 10 minutes of "only German is spoken." Work your way up. 3) Understanding spoken language is so, so much easier than speaking it yourself. They may really feel very frustrated. When my kids say, "I just don't know how to say it!" I ask them what they want to say, and then repeat it back to them in German. Then I have them repeat the translated version back to me. My goal is to get them comfortable with the words coming out of their mouths -- fluency and comfort will come with time. My older two can speak it in a pinch (like when we travel to Germany), but my younger two can actually not communicate in German what they want to communicate -- English is SO much easier. And until German actually gets easier, it's not going to come naturally or fluently. So I spend a lot of time repeating them back what they just said in English, but doing it in German. This works especially well if they actually want something from me or want me to do something, because I just wait to do it until they actually repeat it in German. 4) Agree with above comments about only doing German for media/movies/etc. Most netflix originals come dubbed in German. 5) When in doubt: pay or bribe. "If you can speak only German and no English for 10 minutes -- INCLUDING amongst yourselves!!-- you can have a dollar/sucker/whatever. Every day, we'll add 1 minute to the timer before we get the prize!" The biggest issue I have run into is that the more outnumbered I am by children, the more they speak English amongst themselves. And the more they speak English amongst themselves, the less German there is all around. If you have older and youngers, you could assign an older to read aloud in German to a younger?

To me!!! To me!!! (Assuming they aren't board books, which my kids are mostly outgrowing at this point.) ETA: I sent you a private message, too. 🙂

I also think LiPS is doable with just the manual. I read it cover to cover several times and watched a few videos that had a lot of similar content, and used it effectively with two kiddos. I met someone formally trained in it years later, and they confirmed that I’d been using it correctly, which was a great boost of confidence. 🙂

I’m having a hard time finding information on the pros/cons of adaptive standardized testing for kids with learning disabilities vs fixed testing. Can anyone point me to some good resources?

I know there are lots of posts about learning ASL, and I'm not saying they're not good, and I also don't want to minimize the complexity of deaf culture, but I am looking for a crash course for ASL to get my family basic conversational skills as quickly as possible. We have unexpectedly found ourselves in a situation where we are interacting with a deaf family on a regular basis, and we cannot find an interpreter (we live in a super rural area), and writing notes on paper is extremely cumbersome. If we were willing to devote 1-2 weeks of doing it full-time in our homeschool, could you recommend something for this? We will do it slow and "right" in time - just looking for a jump start!

What tests, specifically, will test this kind of thing? I've gone through College Board with the PSAT, but I don't know if they're more forgiving with that than the SAT/ACT? We had available our neuropsych evals and formal diagnoses, but all that we submitted initially (and it turned out to be enough) was a list from our normal psychologist stating the diagnoses and suggested accommodations. We got every single one we requested.

Since we don't need evals for PS purposes, how often do you guys repeat neuropsychological evaluations? I've read we should have them repeated every 2-3 years, but if we're not currently using any meds and feel like we are managing to meet my kids' needs at home, is there any reason to repeat an evaluation? FWIW, my kids are autistic, adhd, dyslexic, dysgraphic, and have also been diagnoses with anxiety & pervasive depression. Just looking for pros and cons (besides the obvious con of having to do hours of evaluations.... lol)

I learned German as a child (primary language until age 12) and Spanish in my teen years (C1), but stopped both for a while. I’m now speaking German again with my kiddos, but realizing that my grammar is a bit rusty. We also have Spanish speaking family moving nearer to us this year, and our most recent trip to visit them left me realizing how rusty my Spanish grammar is. Duolingo doesn’t seem to be a good fit because there’s so much repetition, and I don’t really need that. I have the vocabulary, once I get speaking it daily, I just need something to “jog” my memory and help me remember the grammar and structure that I already know somewhere deep down. 😂 I can read books and watch shows in each language, but I’m wondering if anyone is familiar with some kind of crash course in grammar in either of these languages that will lay things out explicitly and without fluff?

Ah, so one big difference is that we do it at home only (no online class)- so he has all the time he needs with no pressure to “finish.” I think my kids would lose their marbles if they had to work in that kind of online class environment... lol EF is still not strong enough for that over here, but hopefully one day!! 🙂

I went ahead and put ds at insanely hard for his Algebra book that he's working through. I did it with preA initially a few years ago, and he couldn't handle all the perceived "failure." Now that he has matured a bit more and also understands it a bit more, and how the challenge is part of the "fun", he's handling "insanely hard" like a champ and really enjoying it.

So sorry that I didn’t see this for so long! And I’m also so sorry for the confusion my comment caused! All that I actually meant, is that among the ‘Deeper’ math options that involve classes and not just text book learning, EMF seemed about on par PRICE wise with many other options. The quoted sentence from me came right after a discussion on how it seemed a bit pricey to me.

So my ds is heartbroken. Had a 90% going in to the last test on EMF, but I didn’t think to prep him for a test you can’t repeat and he’s completely used to do-overs. He was rushing to finish because he was excited and he made a bunch of mistakes and only got something like 46/76 correct and now feels like an utter failure, with no chance of redemption. 😞 ETA: I just got an email from EMF saying his score on the final exam was 83% (adjusted due to difficulty). I have no idea what that means, but I'm sure it will make him feel better!

Right now, all of my kids' work is laid out by time: they work for a set period of time, and whatever gets done, gets done. The next day, we just start where we left off the day before. But my oldest is turning 12 this year, and I'm thinking that he needs to start to have more direction in his learning (beyond me just talking with him about what he wants to learn and how to schedule his school day). So I'm wondering how to make the transition from "Read for 1 hour a day and then give me a narration/paragraph/report at the end of the hour/week" or "Do 30 minutes of math each day" to "Read this book and write about this prompt / build a lego re-enactment / create [[insert project here]]; get it back to me in two weeks" or "Do chapter 3 in your math book over the next two weeks." Three of my four kiddos are autistic, and all four have ADHD, so EF skills do not come naturally to them. I am already following the thread on teaching EF skill explicitly, but wondered if I could hear veteran advice on how you made this transition in a way that set your kids up for success. In particular, oldest DS would like to start learning how to self-manage over the next year so that he can start taking online classes independently when he turns 13 the year after next. But right now, the idea of spending Lego time to do school when his younger sisters are playing is just about horrifying. I don't know how to set him to succeed.

Right now, all of my kids' work is laid out by time: they work for a set period of time, and whatever gets done, gets done. The next day, we just start where we left off the day before. But my oldest is turning 12 this year, and I'm thinking that he needs to start to have more direction in his learning (beyond me just talking with him about what he wants to learn and how to schedule his school day). So I'm wondering how to make the transition from "Read for 1 hour a day and then give me a narration/paragraph/report at the end of the hour/week" or "Do 30 minutes of math each day" to "Read this book and write about this prompt / build a lego re-enactment / create [[insert project here]]; get it back to me in two weeks" or "Do chapter 3 in your math book over the next two weeks." I'll probably X-post on the LC board, because my kids do have some challenges that affect their executive functioning skills, but I'd still like to hear how and when you switch from a timer/schedule type of homeschool day (where kids don't really have to think about managing their school work outside of "school time") to a homeschool day that involves kids working to complete an actual project or task, where the time commitment per subject may fluctuate or where they may have to invest a bit "extra" occasionally (my autistic kiddos very much have a hard time with variable schedules.) I don't even know if my question is coming across clearly. I just would like to move (some of) my kiddos towards independence over the next year. Not achieve it, necessarily, but just move in that direction.

Ok, after compressing the pics about 6 times, they will fit.... Though I really do need to figure out this attachment issue (it now says I have a max upload file size limit of just 400 kB!!) The images got kind of mixed up and it won't let me rearrange them, but I included the table of contents so you can see the order things came in.

Ok, can anyone tell me what the max total file size I can upload is < 1 MB? Is the file attachment limit really this low, or is something wrong with my account? ETA I've had this for a while - it seems like every time I upload something, it takes away from some "total," rather than being a "per post" sort of thing. Is this a glitch?

Me too! Especially since they’re so much further along!! I really want to see what some of the other units are like!!

Ha ha, he forgot my instruction to take them, but I'll grab some tomorrow!

Gosh, so ds is about 1/8th of the way through the first EMF course, and he LOVES it so far. Says it's the best "math game" he's ever had. lol. So far, it's all sorts of cryptography and modular arithmetic sort of stuff.

Ha ha, thanks for the minesweeper hint. That sounds like a fun way to practice logic! I had him take the aptitude test and signed him for the freebie EMF course. I figured it can't hurt and will be interesting to see what happens. 🙂

He just can't do it. At all. Like, he has no idea what to write down. When he does write things down, they don't make much sense. Organizing work is horrible (very smart, but autistic and dysgraphic and pretty high on the adhd scales....) Last summer I sat with him 2 hours a day for five weeks straight, with a focus on proofs and write-ups, and I'm not sure he learned anything that entire five weeks. lol. I haven't tried since then, because I've just had no idea how to even try again. lol.

Will do. DS is in ch 2 of AoPS Algebra now, plugging along at his own pace. I confess that EMF seems a bit pricey to me, given that I have a math background and can offer an awful lot of help myself (all we pay for with AoPS is the textbook itself)... But I also recognize it's probably about on par (or even less) than many "deeper" options. I'm thinking of giving him the placement just to see where he'd land, but I notice that they say to start at the beginning and work through the whole thing, regardless of background. I'd really love to get him into something that would help him write proofs, because right now, that's an area where he's really struggling and we've made no real headway.

Oh wow- I will definitely look into it more. My three autistic kiddos definitely do better with concrete first. I wonder why AoPS is the main program I hear about for discovery based, math loving kiddos? Oh well. Thank you so much!

I am intrigued by this. I like AoPS a lot, but also really like the idea of making hard math accessible. I love discovery based math, but also have kids who sometimes just do better with direct, clear instruction. I am definitely going to keep an eye on this thread for the future and hope that it gets updated as folks give it a try. 😉 Ha ha - I definitely kept pen and paper next to my bed during grad school. I'd say that 70% of what I wrote down was pure bull and I looked at it and wondered what I was thinking the next morning. But the other 30% was pure gold and all the biggest results in my dissertation came from those night time wakings to jot down proof ideas. Yes, I just had a kiddo take almost 18 months to work through pre-algebra. He didn't do the book problems because there was no possible way he could've kept work like that organized (major EF challenges) and I have three other 2E kids (so no way *I* could've kept his work organized) -- it was all I could do to make sure he had paper and pencil for scratch work when he sat down for math (and even that was pretty hit or miss...) Instead, he read the entire book on his own, section by section, working through Alcumus, reading every solution, and got all bars blue while set to "insanely hard," which was my version of getting him to do some star level problems. He missed a TON of problems - I think his "percent correct" is something like 60%. But he's a kid that learns from mistakes and from reading solutions, so he'd often do something wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, and then things would start to click and it'd change to right, right, right, you know? Not a great record if I had to go on "total percent correct," but I don't really care how poorly he started off, so long as he's solid by the end... 😄