I think Biology can be tough for kids with LD's. DS is dyslexic and anything requiring memorization was pretty tough for him. It helped some to learn the roots to the biology words. There is a program out there that we used but for the life of me I can't remember what it's called but it went along with Apologia. We used Bozeman, Crash Course, and Khan Academy for the tougher subjects. Basically he just really had to be willing to work hard, but he wasn't. He found it interesting but not enough to study hard. As an aside- I'm not surprised that she is struggling with the crossword puzzle. Dyslexics and other kids with LD's will struggle with word puzzles. I would have DD talk to the coop teacher (learning to advocate for herself)about an alternative assignment to those kind of worksheets. Maybe use the terms in a sentence or label a diagram etc. I honestly doubt that she would see an assignment like that in a college science class its just busy work IMO.

Can you just make copies of the summaries? I make copies of pages of textbooks for DS a lot. Made copies of review questions at the back of the chapter from the Physics book yesterday. DS has trouble tracking so this way he didn't have to flip back and forth through the chapter. Kind of spendy but for biology there are only 16 or so chapters right? Or if you have a scanner you could scan them and then edit and print them out in whatever format you need them to be in.

My dyslexic kiddo used the mp3 some and the cd version of the book. He struggled through the text so I did a lot of supplemental videos from Khan Academy, Bozeman science and Crash Course biology on Youtube. We didn't have a coop so it was just the two of us and I modified tests a little bit for him to help out. Good Luck!

I really like this resource for the civics aspect of a Government class - http://www.whatsoproudlywehail.org/book#praise - I think it would make a really good one stop supplement for a program you might find a little bit dry. The book all by itself is pretty good but the corresponding website makes it a really nice resource.

We used EIL last year for an intro to lit class as well as some Sparks notes etc. DS (Dysgraphic and Dyslexic) really struggled with the writing assignments so we scaled them way back. The reading was ok for him but we use a Kindle fire and buy the books and audiobooks which sync together. I think this helps a lot but makes an otherwise inexpensive lit program more pricey:( We couldn't do that with short stories so that actually made them a bit harder to complete. This year we are doing American Lit and I am combining Education Portal with the Norton Anthology of American Lit. Norton has a website with online quizzes and a link to video lectures and the Ed portal has some great animated 5 minute explanations of lit with mini comprehension quizzes. All free:) Writing is our Epic Failure. If we talk about Lit he is actually pretty knowledgeable but to write it all down in answers to questions let alone papers(even using dragon)is something we have not had success with. Good luck to you- I included the links to our American Lit resources below in case you're interested. http://education-portal.com/academy/course/american-literature-course.html http://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/naal7/contents/A/quiz.asp http://www.learner.org/amerpass/index.html

Do you have the Teacher Manual? Hewitt gives a pretty good guide to the pacing in that. He suggests skipping either Unit II or III if you need to cut content to get through the year in the introduction. At the beginning of each unit he also gives suggestions for which chapters you can omit. Like in Unit 1 he says omit Chapters 15 & 16.

What a good discussion. DS is 17 and still pretty immature. I am hoping the maturity will kick in soon and he will have a fire in his belly to do the hard things. (So thanks Tokyomarie for providing hope in that area) OhElizabeth- I hear what you are saying about the other boards-I sometimes get discouraged that I don't have a kid who is trying to get into a stem program or a really good college, or whatever. We are scratching and clawing our way to a HS diploma. It even makes me a little depressed because there are people who have kids with LDs that are progressing more rapidly than mine. I kind of question whether or not I am screwing up my kid. But then I remind myself that we pulled him out of PS after one disastrous semester in HS on the premise that there was no way we could mess things up worse than them! I think I can honestly say we have met that goal:)

When we moved from Colorado to NM DS was going into 7th grade. I can't say for the 2 1/2 years he stayed in the PS we had any textbooks come home for me to have an idea of what they covered. I kind of think it depended on the teacher as to whether or not they covered the materials in the textbooks-if they used them:) The one thing I do remember is that the middle school math teacher didn't use a math book because she wanted to plan her own material. Fine-but the school didn't have money for making copies so the students had to copy the problems off the board. Made me absolutely crazy-ds is math phobic and it was very difficult to help him with assignments with no book and problems that may or may not have been copied correctly from the board. Not really a surprise that the district was a failing district.

I have used this approach informally with DS who is dyslexic. I find that the movies or light introductions have often steered him into exploring the Bard more on his own. My son enjoys musicals and "Kiss Me Kate" really got him to look into Taming of the Shrew which I think is a pretty good story for teenagers. With the light intro I hope that he will be more receptive to the actual plays and a bit of literature analysis.

I think you should be fine. There are a couple of chapters that build on each other but, the later modules on the Kingdoms of Animalia and Plantae could easily go toward the beginning. I would think you might want to hit the first chapter for an over view of the whole Kindom-Phylum idea. These sections are the ones that your student probably feels the most familiar with to start off with anyway.

It is very frustrating to have a child who is way behind and doesn't feel that sense of urgency that we parents feel. My DS is entering 11th grade and we are just starting Algebra 1 this summer. Does he feel that he is way behind and desire to do what he needs in order to catch up? No way. I told him he has to do math year round until he graduates and if we are lucky we will make it through Algebra 2. You can get DD through Geometry by Christmas, Algebra 2 by next fall if she is up for the challenge. Don't panic! If she isn't up for the challenge there isn't a whole lot you can do other than be and encourager at this stage in her life. If you haven't already done this, I would have a serious conversation with her and tell her year round math is the reality she is facing in order to graduate. She is old enough to have a real conversation about what specifically she hates about math and what you can do to help her. Good Luck!

I agree that you might try a class through community ed. The tutorials are an okay place to start but they probably won't interest your student much. Also you might check out Lynda.com. I haven't taken anything from them but they are pretty popular. I am an accountant and use excel and I do think that with a teacher or lesson plan assigning a project in which you need to use the shortcuts and formulas etc. to create something useful (like a budget)would make the content more memorable.

DS has dysgraphia and is 17. Today he wrote his signature on a sign up sheet at church and it took him a long time and it looked awkward and he knew it. Like many have shared, if he has time his writing is quite lovely, but if he feels pressured or there are too many distractions, it looks like what he wrote today-and that was just his name:) He had OT for years in school and this is where we are-accommodate, accommodate, accommodate. However we still work on stuff every now and then which brings me the long way around to share a link my cousin who is an OT shared on her FB page the other day. It looked interesting so you might check it out. http://www.ot-mom-le...older-kids.html PS-We tested early on, but,like you, I didn't want to label my son so I didn't tell him what his problems were for a long time. When I finally explained to him what was going on he was very relieved. He thought he was "mentally challenged" or probably more accurately "Stupid" and not an incredibly bright kid who learns differently. The kids know there is something wrong and a label for the problem can sometimes be a relief.

Yep-not a huge American Lit fan but I do like a few. Willa Cather- O Pioneers and My Antonia- I read My Antonia in HS and loved it. Pearl Buck-The Good Earth(not an American story but an American writer). Most things Twain Thornton Wilder-Our Town Arthur Miller-The Crucible and All My Sons O Henry for Short Stories-Ransom of Red Chief, Gift of the Magi Robert Frost-Poetry I remember reading Edna St Vincent Millay in HS but all I remember is her name:)

http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/476073-conceptual-physics-final-exam/ Here is the Post for the tests.

I haven't seen that website but there are some great posts on Conceptual physics on the boards. There is one post that had a lot of links to resources for the class. As to tests- Annabelle offered to share a PDF Test Bank file on a previous topic called "Conceptual Physics Final" via private message. I thought this link was pretty good- http://w3.shorecrest...Peck/LPeck.html this is one is the book with videos? - http://www.dsusd.k12.ca.us/users/phealy/physics/Ebook/htm/_cp9e.htm

Reversals on their own at this age are not really worrisome, but in combination with other issues could be a sign of something else going on. DS has severe dyslexia and had always had trouble with B,D,P,Q,9,&6 even today at 17. Other issues he had were an awkward pencil grip, strange shaped letters, problems counting to 100, reciting the alphabet, and some minor speech issues. It was actually the speech that ended up getting him diagnosed with LD's and put on and IEP. I had real concerns with DS because he is so bright but school was so hard, but I waited didn't pursue additional help as soon as I should have. If something feels not right about your child, start reading the websites like http://www.ncld.org/ or http://www.dyslexia.yale.edu/ and move on from there.

We had some "unofficial" tracking back in HS which I am sad to say was probably close to 30 yrs ago:( I think the writing classes were college prep or regular but the Lit Classes were taken by all. We used anthologies and it really depended on the teacher as to the difficulty of the class. My counselor wouldn't let me take a class from a particular teacher b/c he knew the teacher was pretty bad. There was one teacher who was particularly challenging and she has recently said that at the end of her teaching career she couldn't give the same kind of assignments to her students that she had given in the past because they would buy papers off of the internet and other things like that. She didn't address the reading level. Interestingly- My dad who went to HS in the 50s,and I suspect is dyslexic, said his teacher gave him a lot of "Classic Comics" to read instead of the real books.

I like this one http://7sistershomeschool.com/ they have a lot of stuff relating to Literature and Fine Arts. I like this one as well http://quarksandquirks.wordpress.com/ I think this person might post here on the boards. There are several good ones and I think some are better at certain things than others. Some blogs I read simply because they are using the same curriculum as we are and they have some great ideas to go with that curriculum. Are you looking for someone blogging about the homeschool experience? or topics that you are interested in? Learning Challenges, Gifted students, large families, small families, working parent homeschoolers, see the list is endless:) I am interested to see the suggested blogs you get.

The Scarlet Pimpernel might be easier than A Tale of Two Cities. I feel like Tale is a really tough one to get into and understand what is going on but the end always makes me cry. We used an audible version for DS(16) which was helpful. We also watched the movie afterward.

A Little Princess(1995 vs) /Sarah Crewe

Attaching the list. I do want to make clear that the Crash Course Videos are highly secular, refer to evolution A LOT, and are probably geared towards college students so there are jokes about beer, etc. I recommend pre-viewing the videos if these areas are a concern. There aren't really that many Khan videos that matched up to Apologia. The sections were more topic driven while the Crash Course Videos feel like they are following a classroom progression.Crash Course Idex for Science and History Supplements.pdf Crash Course Idex for Science and History Supplements.pdf

There are some helpful blogs out there- http://mindfulrambli...ologia-biology/ is a good one with links to others. Some other helpful sites we have used this year are crash course biology on youtube, http://www.biologycorner.com and http://www.bozemansc...ology-main-page is good as well. IMO I thought Khan Academy and Crash Course videos were quite easy to match up with Apologia for the most part just by looking at the titles. I have an excel spreadsheet that is very rough and nothing special but it does link the titles with the episode numbers for the crash course series that I would be happy to share but I don't know how to attach :confused1: I think I just got the course title from Wikipedia but if you are interested in my list, I am happy to share.

We redshirted both boys-May and June. June boy definitely needed it and the cutoff was in September. We moved to Colorado and in our school district the Cutoff was June so he wasn't older than anyone in his grade. May boy could have gone either way but since the cutoff was June we decided to give him time. Now we live in Texas and I think they are both back to being older than everyone else in their grade:)Go figure.

I read it a few years ago and it was a pretty easy read for Russian Lit. Like someone above said it reminded me of a Soap Opera. It might be interesting to read it and then read something from Dostoyevski and maybe Anton Chekov as well since they were his contemporaries. IMO I feel like Russian literature is in a category all its own.