kerenlynne
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Posts posted by kerenlynne
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Honestly, wouldn't we all prattle about ps parents who didn't see to it their kids are doing their homework? Maybe we just expect something that we shouldn't? Don't know, just thinking?
My own personal experience with the PS tells me that I would find out too late. DS has LD's and we kept him in PS because of the services. When he got to HS, even his IEP couldn't help him. You would think that the IEP would guarantee prompt notification of the fact that DS was failing multiple classes, but no. I received a hint of the problem in early October when we were setting up PTC that he was struggling, but counselor didn't seem too worried. By the time we had our "legally mandated" meeting it was nearly mid-semester and there was no way the grades were going to come up. Ultimately it was his fault, but I still am mad at teachers who knew DS had LDs and didn't think an email or a phone call to his parents might be a good idea. Probably a bad school district and it wouldn't happen everywhere, but I am glad to know daily when there are problems.
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It was also due to him being unsure how to proceed in a couple of classes and instead of asking me :glare: he just sat there goofing off.
This!
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Never heard it called this but it is the only way work gets done consistently with DS. Yesterday let him work on an assignment by himself and he did well. Today got nothing done. Is there a rulebook for how to do this effectively as a training tool? It tends to be more of a punishment at my house.
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Annie Get your Gun, Kiss Me Kate, Brigadoon, An American In Paris,Guys and Dolls- I am looking at a list of top 100 musicals and so many of them have great music but themes would be a little mature-Camelot, West Side Story, Showboat, etc. I think if you googled Danny Kaye, Esther Williams, Frank Sinatra. Dean Martin and Bing Crosby as well as Fred Astair you could get a good sample of the old fashioned musical without the super mature content. I love, love, love musicals and am thankful that one of my boys will tolerate a musical with me once in awhile.
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Sounds like you might benefit from Keys to Fractions. It's cheap and would really beef up that area.
We are currently remediating 16 yo with Life of Fred. Just finished decimals and are starting Pre-Algebra. We have had to supplement and I don't think it is for everybody. My thought was that it is a unique approach to math for a kid who had been so totally turned off on Math by PS. If he understands the concept, he can move through the unit very quickly because there is usually only 10 or less problems for each assignment. If he doesn't understand the material, I supplement. He seems to be building some confidence and doesn't dread math quite so much, so I feel like that is half the battle. DS does not know his math facts and I don't think it will ever be automatic for him. I let him use a Math Grid or a calculator for the basics. I figure if he understands what 5 x 7 means, I am not going to hold him back forever because he can't memorize the facts. We have used IXL, Keys to Fractions, Coolmath.com and whatever else I can find for extra practice.
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I have thought and thought about this over the years. My brother and I have decided that there are a lot of kids,(mine are very much included) who have never experienced difficulty and so they aren't very motivated. I grew up with a chronically ill mom and generally took care of her from age 10 on up in various ways. DH grew up on a hobby farm and had chores galore. My kids whine when it is their turn to unload the dishwasher. Do I wish for them to experience my early life-no way! I think motivation is directly proportional to maturity. If you are forced to grow up at a young age, you won't be so lazy during your younger years. Things generally change as they mature, as long as you are reinforcing appropriate behaviour. The other aspect that others have touched on is personality. DH must always be busy or he is bored. I on the otherhand like to sit and dream. I don't consider myself lazy, but I am sure that if the right person walked into my house today and saw the dirty dishes in the sink from dinner last night they would think I was lazy:)
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We are currently using Biology with a Pre-Algebra math for a non-mathy kid. No problems so far on the Math aspect. The most complicated thing we have done so far is calculate percentages.
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For science I let the scores stand, but I don't test until I am confident he understands the material. He wants to do the material on his own so I give him some room, but when we do a chapter review and I see that he doesn't get something, we go back over it before I give him the test. DS struggles with the need to take notes and study etc,. he seems to think he will magically understand the material on test day:) That being said, he still gets mostly B's and C's on his tests so in my mind, that is the kind of science student he is. In Math the concepts build on each other, so if there is no mastery, it seems wrong to move on. In biology, I can let him struggle with a chapter on DNA, but I know he will do very well on a different chapter.
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Everyday! I need this thread EVERYDAY! Today while supposed to be working on History fun project-Favorite subject and an easy fun project-I find DS watching youtube videos! But hey! I am so not understanding and yes he was working on his project and I am so mean. To top it all off, when apologies are issued DS starts the apology with "we could have both handled that differently" I thought I was going to explode.
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The OT acted shocked, "You didn't know he dragged his leg?" Well, he's 11. It has been more than 10 years since I saw him crawl!
That's not bad. Just took my son to the Dr. for an ear ache and he mentioned the fever and was I suprised by it? I just kept quiet because I never even took his temperature:( World's worst mom! Same son who was repeatedly diagnosed with ear infections as a baby on well child check ups, and multiple other things along the way. If they aren't crying, I'm not worried.
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Wish I had found this forum before we pulled DS out of HS. So many choices. Using EIL intro into lit with Dyslexic son because it is what I feel like English should be. Since it is homeschool-I adapt. I like the idea of the whole book English and he needs to learn to write a paper. I also like all of the links to supplemental sources and that it is pretty affordable. I just don't always assign the paper or all of the papers for the unit. It seems to work pretty well for us and yes there is lots of handholding but it is just part of what we do in every class so I don't know how to do anything differently. His papers are pretty simplistic so far but we are working on upping expectations with each unit. I definitely will evaluate our program at the end of this and might switch to something less intense for American Lit and Brit Lit.
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If your child can memorize well, I think that is certainly an option for spelling. At least for the most common words. I think that is how I learned because if I don't know how to spell a word I write it down and see if it "looks" correct. I really don't know the phonics rules very well at all but am a pretty good speller. (lots of reading probably helped) DS has a terrible memory and I still have nightmares about 2nd grade spelling tests. He had 2 a week (one phonics and one sightwords) and would bomb them both even after hours of practice. I finally decided spelling wasn't all that important for him. We did a couple of levels of Barton with him and I am really not sure if that helped his spelling or not; but in combination with a lot of remediation, he reads well and can spell better now. (At least he throws in a vowel or 2 in every word)
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Eta, I had the strangest conversation recently with an OT who specializes in teaching touch-typing to dysgraphic kids. He claimed that the College Board wants the SAT writing portion to be handwritten because that involves executive function skills, unlike typing where one can go back and change things. Speaking of which, I have read on the boards here the rumor that SAT writing samples that are in cursive tend to get higher scores than printed ones. Here's to hoping they allow typing by the time my kids are in high school.
This seems kind of contra educational trends because most public schools are dropping the cursive and just teaching the kids keyboarding. I don't think my 12 year old in the PS can write in cursive much better than 16 yo with dysgraphia. Also-if LD's affect executive function, aren't they setting themselves up for lawsuits based on the ADA? Curious.
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Absolutely! I write notes, lists, print a calendar, and still work doesn't get done. Excuses are "I forgot", "I did't know what you wanted me to do", "I didn't want to bother you", on and on. When we have a come to Jesus meeting DS is all apologetic and beats up on himself and the good work lasts for a day maybe! It is a battle between being too soft and too hard, but I hope when I get to the end of this school year, there will be a trend of things being a little better. Deep Breath! And as Scarlett says "Tomorrow is another day!"
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Typing is good. Spell check and grammer check are encouraged, but with a kiddo who struggles with organization and planning, he usually doesn't even notice the red and green lines in his papers highlighting the mistakes:) We started Dragon this year and basically it really helps speed up the process. It requires A LOT of editing because of unclear speech so it is really just an alternative to typing. We waited on the dragon because there is a learning curve and DS is not the most patient individual. As a side note the older they get the more independent they want to be and the technology helps kids achieve that.
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DS is Dyslexic with Dysgraphia no AS. We did OT for years for the Dysgraphia and other fine motor skills. We have used dicatation, keyboarding, oral work and have finally transitioned to Dragon this year. Now at 16 he is currently using a hybrid format of keyboarding and dragon when writing. For what it is worth- I think I would really keep writing to a minimum at age 9. Imagine forcing someone with a broken leg to get up and run in PE class. Eventually the person with the broken leg may be able to run in PE but it might take some physical therapy and extra time for them to catch up with everyone else. Same with kids with a writing disability-they have to be conditioned and strengthened before they can even begin a skill that is normal for so many other kids. At least that is what I tell myself when I am discouraged about DS and his progress. Don't let yourself get caught up in that comparison of kids which can sometimes be hard to do on the forum. So many families have such accomplished kids(which is so awesome ) but the purpose of these forums is really about how to make sure that your child has a well trained mind-it is not about achieving a specific accomplishment by a specific age. Good Luck!
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DS is dyslexic so we are just going very slowly. I like Apologia's writing book Jump-In for Reluctant Writers for the way it breaks down the writing process into easy bits . It was a good way to get DS into the idea of writing but I am sure there are other curriculums that would do the same thing. I combined that with Daily Grammer which is a quick grammer exercise to keep up the skills and then I added some reading. This January we have moved onto Excellence in Literature which will end up as English 1 on his transcript. For the difficulty in reading we use audible books. Fortunately the EIL relies on classics so even the audible book versions are pretty affordable. For the writing part we plan for lots of re-writes. I decided that since he is right brained he might understand grammer better in the big picture format of the paper. If Language Arts is not a strong point, I don't see a problem with using that Freshman year for practicing on Writing and Introduction to Literature and Call it English 1. Then you can move onto American Lit, English Lit, and World Lit or something else. Excellence in Literature or Epi Kardia http://www.epikardia.com/our_name.html are two very affordable courses that base the writing part of English on the Literature the student reads. I hope you find something you like.
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My DS is LD and was in the Public School for a long time. We were constantly struggling with pulling him out precisely because he was socially awkward and would live in his room 24/7 if we let him. He is a loner and starts every conversation with obscure facts. (we call him Cliff Claven) We need to let him know when we have a social event coming up so he can prepare and he gets worn out by people very easily. We thought the PS would help him with those skills but I honestly just think it wore him out. I once asked him about the kids on the bus to see if he could make friends with any of them, he told me they were all democrats so it really wasn't gonna happen. I tried to convince him that maybe he could be friends with a dem but he is too black and white. Sigh..... The PS really didn't hurt him socially but it didn't help him much. There is a whole spectrum of social skills and most everyone needs to work on those skills but I doubt the resources of the PS will help that with your kiddo. If you are concerned about the skills, you will be in a better situation to help your child improve than an overworked teacher with 20 + kids in his or her class.
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Reading, reading and more reading. Comic books and graphic novels are something that helps my kids practice without them feeling so frustrated by reading something they don't understand or something for babies. My oldest has done some of the Barton levels thanks to help from the school and a sister-in-law who owns the whole set. I think All about spelling is pretty similar but more affordable and is worth a look. They have a reading program with it and are very helpful if you have questions on what might be appropriate. Both sons listen to audible books rather than read if they can. It can be expensive, but if you have access to a good library, you could probably get around that. Writing at grade level is probably a problem as well. Do some alternative assessments to get around the written part of any Language Arts curriculum for the start. I agree with Laughing Cat and I wouldn't spend money on Wordly Wise. We have used it with limited success and my son is reading at grade level. (It mainly just discourages me about his chances of getting a decent score on the SAT) For a 9th grader the Freshman English can be kind of a basic class so I would just work on the reading and writing skills. She will see those deficits affect every area of study-understanding the texts that are not a story can be a bit frustrating and even reading questions on tests will be an issue. Read the tests and assignments to the student. Sorry if I am rambling......and Good Luck!
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I have a 16 year old boy with Dyslexia and Dysgraphia and he swears he has Dyscalculia. He is reviewing Pre-Algebra after failing Algebra 1 and it is really slow. We use a calculator and a math grid to help with the "Math Facts" that he never learned. Sometimes we use graph paper which helps with the dysgraphia problem in lining up problems neatly etc. I make him show me each step so I can see that he didn't just plug the numbers into the calculator. It takes the pressure off but it doesn't do a darn thing to help him get a problem right if he doesn't understand the concept. I would suspect your student will struggle with word problems because of the Dyslexia. DS can tell me what 80% of 100 is but when that calculation is part of a word problem, its not so good. The Keys workbooks might be a quick way to review Fractions and Decimals without wasting time on stuff like Roman Numerals. Once you know what he is missing you could work on those areas while moving ahead in Algebra. After a year of homeschooling Math, I think my son may never love it, but we have moved past the fear of it. We have been using Life of Fred to make math fun for him and he enjoys it. When we finished the Decimals book the author talked about how you now know more math than something like 60% of the World. That really was something that made the Mathphobic child feel successful.
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Wow- I sure struggle with this on a daily basis. DS has serious LD's but is incredibly intelligent. We pulled him out of the PS because in HS all he did was fail. The school's position was "he is in HS, time to take responsibility" They passed him along and accomodated and coddled him until he got to HS and then expected him to be ok. Well, as you can imagine he failed multiple classes his 1st semester because he couldn't pull out the grades with a last minute save and he was devastated. We ended up at a hospital after he made some suicide threats. Fortunately he is fine but sometimes kids aren't ready for the consequences of their actions. That being said-homeschooling has shown me the areas where he has developed a lot of bad habits about how school works. We spend one day arguing about how lazy he is and the next day I feel guilty and overcompensate by making life super easy. I don't know where the line is and it changes daily with my mood:( I do know that LD's affect his executive function skills so he needs help with that, but I also know if it is something he thinks is important, it will get done. If he is making chicken nuggets in the oven he may still not understand the directions after performing this task 10 times or more but he will ask for help because he likes those chicken nuggets. If it is an English paper or Science assignment, and he didn't understand the task he won't ask for help because he "didn't want to bother me." Right now I am simply doing my best to teach him to do better and work harder each day. Will he graduate on time? Probably not. Will he graduate? I think so. Will he function well in life on his own? I don't know but as long as he is changing for the better each day, I am willing to keep trying.
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Both of my sons struggle with reading comprehension and the oldest has severe dyslexia. We do a lot of reading out loud, audible books, and videos when possible. If there are no Learning Disabilities I would think you could do some short reading comprehension activities to help her get used to reading for understanding. Timed readings and then practice answering questions. I just did a quick google and here is a link that gives some free practice exercises. Might be a place to start. Good Luck!
http://www.englishmaven.org/Pages/Reading%20Comprehension.htm
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We live in a small town with a not so great library and it is a pretty far drive to find a bookstore so Amazon is my lifeline. I have one regular kindle and one kindle fire. I used the Kindle a lot when I was commuting on a train but now that I am not working and homeschooling, my kids use it more than I do. I upgraded to the Kindle fire because you can now sync your audible books with the kindle version. For my dyslexic son it is so cool to have the audible version reading the book while the kindle version is highlighting each word. For this to work, you have to buy the correct version of each(learned that the hard way)so it is certainly more expensive than going to a library or buying a used book but DS would probably never read the book at all without the technology.
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Haven't used this yet but I am planning to. I think it would be a great supplement to a Government class or a US History Class. It uses stories, speeches, and songs to address why we have certain holidays, what America means etc. You just buy the book but so far the curriculum is free.
Dyslexia and learning a foreign language: What's been your experience?
in The Learning Challenges Board
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Trying Greek with DS, don't know yet how that will go. Here is a link to a revue of an ap that might be helpful http://dyslexiahelp....oreign-language .
I tried to upload an interesting paper about dyslexia and different languages for you to look at but it keeps failing:( It is interesting because Germans only have 3%-5% dyslexia rate vs English at a rate of 10%. Italian and Japanese also have pretty low rates. The scientist think it has something to do with the sounds that can change in the English Language-
The researchers tested dyslexics who spoke English, French and Italian. Unlike Italian, the first two languages have what is called irregular orthography: the same combinations of letters don't always sound the same. (Consider the pronunciation of mint and pint, cough and bough, or clove and love.) The researchers took positron emission tomography (PET) scans of the subjects' brain activity while they took both reading tests and word sound tests. They discovered that whereas the Italian subjects did better on reading tests, they did as poorly as the English and French dyslexics on the word sound tests. All three groups showed the same reduced activation of the left temporal lobe while reading.
Do a google search and see what you think. It might help you make a decision about what language to go with.