celticadea
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Posts posted by celticadea
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Each school district is a bit different but i'll give you a bit of a rundown of my experience.
My daughter was not speaking (at all) at her 18 mo checkup so we did the referral to Early On. She was tested and qualified for services. EI tests for more than just "academic" things since infants do not have academics. In the testing that they did, we also found out that she had problems with sensory integration (the reason she was either super happy or super upset and would shriek constantly and run and spin and climb....etc.....)
At 2, she hadn't been making much progress in her speech, so we did the Special Ed Eval (leads to an IEP). She qualified again and they increased her services. At this point since she's <3, all of her services through the district are at our home. She's been making progress but in August will turn 3 and will go into the school for services and oddly the level/frequency of services tends to drop for ages 3-5... :(
Anyway, this led us to get a private eval done to get a formal diagnosis (childhood apraxia of speech) and look into our future treatment plans. We started treatment at the private place a couple weeks ago but will continue to utilize the school district SLP. So far they've been willing to coordinate with the private SLP. We live far away from the private clinic I chose so can only go 1/wk. Working with the school ups the frequency of services.
End result...definitely push for the eval by Early On. At worst, they decline services. Also consider pursuing a private eval (schools won't officially diagnose).
As his mother, you know something isn't right. Don't let them push you off. You have to advocate for him. The more and better treatment kids get when they are littler, the better they will do. Good luck!!
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I'm still pretty torn. My older DD will turn 5 in August and is excited to do K (currently doing MP JK). I will probably "officially" start K after her birthday. This past year, she insisted on starting school on the evening of her birthday and cried when I told her we would start the next morning! I hadn't planned to start til September but I'd told her we would start school after her birthday.....she took that very literally! lol
anyway, in general, I'm planning to do the MP K package with some possible substitutions ....
Reading: AAR1 or FSR (maybe with AAS1)
Math: Singapore MIF K (got a crazy good price) or R&S (MP plans)
Writing: MP
Lit: MP list, Aesop's Fables, other fairy tales etc we already have
Religion/Catechism: Bible stories and continuing to learn prayers. But I haven't really figured this one out, maybe "god's chats with little ones" or just reading the St Joseph books, and/or the Rosemarie Gortler books . I haven't found a program I really like yet.
Science: MP guide, Learning resources science kits, Magic School bus vids, Wild Kratts (they _love_ this show!), Elemental Science: Intro to Science, Usborne Childrens Encyclopedia (maybe get some of the next age ones from Usborne or DK)…. …? Still quite torn. probably will be pretty informal this year with some fun hands on things to play with.
History/Classical: (Aesop’s fables), maybe Elemental History (American) if everything else is going well. if not the whole program, then the read alouds
Art/Music Appreciation: MP plans
For Fun:
Geography: Evan-Moore Beginning Geography, Geopuzzles: US, & maybe more (she loves maps!)
Art & Crafts: MP enrichments; &/or Evan Moore: Seasonal activities or Art for All Seasons (I’m completely NOT creative and need it all put together for me :))
I’m really interested in the Lollipop Logic books so I may add those in.
Speech and OT
Gymnastics
Some challenges came up this year & some recent diagnoses are contributing to my indecision on our curriculum. My whole plan has gotten more complicated than I'd ever thought it would be…I’ll first focus on reading and arithmetic and then worry about adding the rest, of course reading aloud to her will continue
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I'm sorry that i don't have any specific recommendations, but you might get more responses if you start a new thread with your particular question.
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I know my brother did much better in school and other activities once he got his glasses. he could finally see what was going on! hope your daughter enjoys her improved sight! :)
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I bought kinder and pre recently thinking there would be some sort of useful information to help plan. at least in those grades it was just a collection of poems, fairy tales and some short "history" stories. no scheduling, scope, sequence info of any sort at all. I returned them.
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My daughter (currently 2.5) started getting services through Early On at 18 mo for speech (apraxia) and while during that eval found out the reason behind all her behaviors was SPD (specifically sensory seeking for motor/proprioceptive with some avoidance left over for some tactile).
I'm pretty certain that if she'd been out of the house instead of home with me where we can work on speech and I can work on her self-regulating behaviors and sensory needs, that she'd be a holy terror! I think it'd be a rare teacher/situation who could devote the time and energy to truly help her get the stimulation she so desperately needs but also be calm and not just crashing into everyone. Even just all the kids having a good time, would have had her on the ceiling for days.
I don't know if our school system would have worked on just the SPD without the Apraxia but I'm glad we were able to start there. Now that she's transitioning soon (when she turns 3) to the in school method instead of at home (level of services drops dramatically), we've looked into private therapy and found a great place in SE Michigan. Luckily she also tests as being low tone so insurance is willing to cover it. Has anyone ever actually tested your dc for anything like this? low-tone doesn't equal weak. my dd is quite capable of climbing and running but it was pointed out to me at her most recent eval how she compensates for her lower tone with her arms, legs, and head.
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I have consciously stayed away from the local homeschool groups because my kids are 2.5 and 4.5. I understand that the groups/activities are for school aged kids and mine would get nothing out of it. my problem tho is that I have trouble finding social opportunities for the 4.5 year old because _everyone_ sends their kids to preschool so even my moms group that I've enjoyed just doesn't have anyone there to play with for her. she's in gymnastics for various reasons but its not really a social opportunity since the kids are following directions the whole time.
we recently have received some concerning news about some special needs concerns for both and now I'm really concerned about getting the older one opportunities to learn/practice socially normal behavior & speech but .....we're stuck in the too little for the big kid groups and too big for the little kid groups stage....I'm honestly considering putting her in a 2 day preschool just to get her this practice....tho at this point, for her, I don't know if it would be helpful or make her shut down which is an entirely different/off-topic concern.
for now, for homeschooling support I am on the local email lists and read lots of these forums. I do kinda feel like I'm sitting in the foyer waiting to be allowed in ;)
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it would be silly to do all of K just to increase fluency. you can also just order parts to mix and match levels for your subjects. you can get lesson plans for individual subjects for $3 if you want them. if your plan is to do MP 1 for next fall, you'd have plenty of time to increase fluency before then.
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I know that some people do some of the reading in MP (story time treasures etc...) for the kids and work on getting the child's fluency up. (ex, alternating paragraphs or one paragraph a page) but if they're really not ready at all, I think they recommend working through first start reading. maybe the later books if she can read at all, or maybe some of the first grade readers. I know many people do a lot of the questions orally and either have the child write out one or two or the parent writes out a sentence the child said and then the child copies it.
the read alouds are intended for the teacher/parent to read to the child.
I think there's been some conversation on the MP forum about handling a child's reading level with these grades.
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here's a scope and sequence comparison from singaporemath.com for US v Standards
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the Smart about 50 states isn't getting great reviews, so I was planning to try out the united states of america: a state by state guide to use with this next year.
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I didn't do anything formal at age 3 with my oldest (4.5 now) but as practice for following directions and monitoring readiness, I used the 3-4 year old preschool books from R&S. She didn't seem to think standard workbooks I got from the local stores counted ;) Informally I taught her shapes, letters and a couple numbers drawing on driveway and colors while reading books or playing with a melissa and doug fish puzzle. mostly I just let her play :)
I started hs'ing this year with MP JuniorK curriculum (at age 4) more as a trial of hs'ing for me than for any other reason. In general I like it especially because it's all scheduled out. I don't know that it would be appropriate for a 3 year old especially since it works quite a bit on writing. Many 4 year olds aren't ready and for the first few months I had her just tracing with her finger or playing on the chalkboard etc instead of doing the actual writing. Within a few months she was able to do the writing and now doesn't have any problems with it. Each week you work on a different letter and number (or other simple math concept, ie more, less, shorter, longer) a science topic (show & tell: color, mammals, fish, etc), a poem, a read aloud book with vocab/questions, arts/crafts related to the story and another for the letter.
Not all of the read alouds have been my favorite but I'm also learning that I should do the reading a few times with them (the 2 year old listens too but doesn't answer q's) before working on the questions. I wish there was more referencing for the science-type material so I bought us the Usborne Childrens Encyclopedia and the Berenstain Bear Big Book of Science which have worked very nicely. They have a nice craft book now to go along with the Read-alouds and letters.
For my upcoming 3 year old (next year) i'm planning to do more of a planned curriculum if only to keep her busy while I work with her sister. Also, she has a speech disorder so I want to make sure we cover the standard 3 year old items even if she's not talking about them. I'm currently looking at using lots of toys from timberdoodle (preschool/prek) &/or MFW preschool, lauri puzzles, games listed in the 'games' post on this forum, read aloud lists from Sonlight (3/4 & 4/5) and either the 3-4 preschool books from R&S or the earlier Kumon workbooks. Personally I can't decide if the Kumon books are worth the price. I'm also planning to get her the primary science mix & measure set so she can play with that while her sister does some science things. (I should add that my younger daughter has crazy good fine motor skills (likely as a side effect from not using up that resource to learn to speak correctly!....working on that!) so she already loves to trace and draw.)
I'm planning to use either the planning folder from Timberdoodle (pre-school/prek) to give me a start for a plan to put it together or buy either the 3/4 or 4/5 sonlight guides.
I don't know if any of that helps but maybe it will give you some ideas.
ETA: i also like a lot of the Mama's learning corner downloads for early matching and other puzzle type games.
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did you post on MP forum? Tanya will probably have answers for you early in the am.
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I haven't used their stuff but am seriously considering using one of the cores minus LA. I found that I can go to the core's page, click on the link for what's included, click on the box at the top of the list to select all pieces, then unselect the parts I don't want. check the price to see if its worth it to buy the whole thing or just the parts you want. of course if you buy at least one whole core, you get their discount on top of the package price.
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so out of curiosity.... what's your plan?
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This won't help the singing part of keeping you awake but to help with safety and leaving her bed. For various reasons, both of my children had to be taken out of their cribs earlier than would be standard for many families (18 mo & 15 mo) and, of course, wouldn't stay in their beds in the middle of the night. I put a locking baby gate (top of stairs type) at the doorway to their room. That way, at least, they were safe when they got out of bed in the middle of the night. I also keep only baby dolls as toys in their room. Maybe, if you dd really doesn't need the sleep, than having something to do would be helpful, but for mine it just gave them a reason to play. My younger dd who has some sensory processing and self regulation issues needed a lot more direct work to learn how to calm herself down and/or put herself back to sleep. She still has the music box from her mobile in her bed. She finally turns it on for herself now at 2.5.
I don't know if this would carry over or not but I think that generally working on my DD2's ability to self regulate has helped in the night-time department too. SInce it was something that we worked on during the day, I was generally cognitively aware enough to do it calmly. After needing PT for myself after messing up my neck from needing to carry her so much during the day, I learned that I really couldn't be the way that she calmed herself down. So when she's crying for no 'good' reason and reasonable assurances and fixes aren't getting through, we take her to her bed, with the lights on (I don't want her to think i'm making her go to sleep as a punishment), turn on her music, give her her cup and pacifier (current age comfort things), and her sensory bucket that has squishy, pully toys, chewy toys, vibrating bat, popper tube. She stays until she's done crying and is free to leave whenever she wants but may be put back in if she's not actually calmed down. When we first started this, I would sit down with her, rock her and hug her til she calmed down. Now I just carry her there if needed and set her down. We ask her when she's crying if she needs to sit on her bed and she'll actually say yes. Sometimes she really can't organize herself to calm down and this has helped tremendously.
The sensory things may not apply at all but maybe actively teaching her how to calm herself through her daytime frustrations as they come up (every child is cranky at some point during the day) will help overall. My dd2 has begun now to take herself to her room when she gets overwhelmed by whatever happened. In the nighttime, I sometimes can hear her turning on her music and she gets herself back to sleep.
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I apologize if this is completely off base, but my brother is dyscalculic and when he was in school they recommended he use graph paper all the time. I believe the point was to help him get things lined up so there was a possibility of him doing the math correctly. Unfortunately, this wasn't recommended until 4th grade and by then he refused to be different from the other kids so I don't know if it would work. Maybe something to try with her though?
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I'm probably going to do either Hearbuilder or Earobics at this point before we get into the others. Just trying to figure out what to use after them.
I'm planning to let DD4 try some of the examples online of both hearbuilder and Earobics and see which she likes or understands better. I've seen that in some respects that Earobics is "better" but that some kids just dislike it (The speaking voice is just odd to me!). So, for now I've decided to see which DD tolerates better.
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Thanks for the input! I was just concerned that ES might be too 'much' even though it seemed better.
Is there a different science that you would use instead of either?
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In general I've really liked using MP Junior K curriculum this year. The lit books don't "come with it" but you can order the set from them. Or if you have a good library you could borrow them. Not all the selections have been my favorite though. I really like how the activities, crafts and lessons coordinate but find myself wishing, at times, for some more background info when they tell me to discuss such and such topic(mammals, color mixing, whatever). I recently bought the Usborne Childrens's Encycyclopedia to have as a 'reference' for her/me for these topics. I get it tomorrow so I don't know exactly how well it'll work yet.
Their Alphabet books and R&S counting w numbers and Inside Outside books that they are using for letters and numbers have been working well. There's a lot of writing at first glace but we started out tracing with fingers in the books, playing with the chalkboard, etc and now she does well with the writing (tracing, writing letters & numbers).
I've been seriously considering sonlight for my upcoming girl (currently 3). Their 3/4 and 4/5 levels look nice and their IG's look beautiful! pricey but beautiful :)
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On the Earobics/Lips vs. AAR pre thing, I can tell you that I have a friend who did Earobics with her struggler first then started AAR pre-, and AAR pre- is STILL hard-going. Earobics is much more foundational. Yes, I'm hearing backchannel that Earobics is better than Hearbuilder. AAR pre- makes big jumps and applies a concept to just a few scenarios before expecting the dc to get it. If your dc does not get the concept (and is thus not able to apply it to a broad variety of words that he may or may not know, may or may not be able to pronounce, and that may or may not even make sense given the target age of the materials=3-4), then he literally can't play the game. So you go from happy, bubbling child with puppet to sad, sullen, frustrated child, whiz bang. That's because it's not scaffolded enough, with enough easy steps in the concepts to bring it into reach for a struggler. It will take lots of scenarios and throw them all together, things you would separate out into steps in a more careful program. I found myself having to rip the program apart and re-order it conceptually, listing all the (really good!) ways she approached the skill. The ideas were creative, yes. But maybe she worked on initially consonants and hearing initial consonants and put too many things together. There might be initial consonants, vowels, BLENDS, things that rhyme. Dude, my ds can hardly discriminate any of that! You have to break it way down. We need to discriminate with 3 words that only have minimal differences and are very similar (no blends, blah blah). And he needs to know all the words, can't be some 1980's word that no toddler would know. (Yes, there's stuff like that in it!) So where she might do it over 2 or 3 lessons, that task would have needed 20 or 30 to be successful for my ds. It was a great idea, but the breakdown was not enough. Too many leaps, too many things together, no way to break it down (conveniently for Mama) and get the discrimination. And frankly, I can't sit around assuming all the problem is Mama or timetable and pretend it's going away just by waiting. I'm not sure this is something that waiting makes better, at least it hasn't in our house.
I think Wilson has a pre level that is supposed to be good, and it's targeted for strugglers. I would do Earobics before any of that though. If they can't discriminate sounds and hear rhyme, they're not getting very far in a phonics program.
Thanks for such a clear explanation of this program. :)
One of my problems looking into Earobics is that is didn't seem to be compatible but I think that was an older version. I was able to talk to an Earobics rep from HMH to confirm software levels etc....The updated version is 3.0 and it works on Win7.
After Earobics, would you recommend Wilson as a program overall? I'm really not comfortable (maybe I will be in the future) putting this together or drastically tweaking. Heck i've only been homeschooling for 5 mo's and that's just preK! I was really planning to use a boxed full curriculum next year which has already flown out the window, I'm hoping i can at least find good reading program for her with good directions for me, the multi-sensory parts thing already put together and included and just works! :) I hope that's not a pipe dream! lol
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I honestly don't know of anybody in our family who had difficulty speaking as a child until my younger daughter DD2 (apraxic). My older daughter DD4 seems to have more of a gross motor planning issue (not bad enough to qualify for help as of yet but planning to get eval'd this summer/fall) but now seems to potentially have dyslexia. I found out over the past couple days, that most likely my dad is dyslexic (undiagnosed) so how it's all linked I just know.
I need to add, though, that both of my pregnancies were very difficult and they were both born prematurely so that may also play apart in some of this but chicken or the egg, I'll never know.
I expected DD2 to have language/reading issues as she grew up just because of the apraxia but didn't have any thoughts that my DD4 would since she had shown no particular speech issues as a younger child. She does seem to not be outgrowing some of the sound-mix up things that little ones do (gymnaskits(gymnastics), hosible (hospital), disketti (spaghetti), gist (disc). I don't know where dyslexia itself can encompass a speech issue or if that's a separate thing that we hadn't noticed before with DD4. I currently plan to use whatever I figure out to do with DD4 with DD2 and just assume, until proven otherwise, that she needs it. If DD2 ends up whizzing through it, I'll just be happy and move on.
There is so little information about Apraxia that it's not well understood so there's not much info. Some clinicians don't even think it exists!?!?! Though I remember reading that there seems to be a familial connection. Just like dyslexia, though, while it normally runs in families, it can also appear out of the blue (even things like hemophilia which are hugely familial can appear in a family without previous history).
If I had other little ones, I would just make sure to be aware of signs of slow to develop speech etc and be ready to implement ST or reading programs if needed. Making sure to consciously do phonemic awareness type activities would be good to do with any kid especially in a family where there is a higher risk of a problem.
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Thanks for the Link....unfortunately a bit pricey for me at the moment. :( I will keep the link so I can save up for it if what we're working on doesn't work. (oddly, Ms Barton specifically said that she didn't recommend LiPS for my particular child.).
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such great information! unfortunately, no Barton is not meant for younger kids (per ms Barton). my current plan is to use her suggestions and/or AAR-pre to move along til she's old enough.
Barton has a test on her site to see if a student is able to start her program. can you recommend a good tier 3 type program to use before Barton (not necessarily little kid, since even older kids aren't necessarily able to do Barton 1 yet)
or more specifically, what big gun program would you have used with your son if you knew it existed?
(OP, please forgive if this has hijacked your question, I'm hoping the info will help you too)
Magic School Bus Science Club
in K-8 Curriculum Board
Posted
The wateronthefloor link isn't working. do you know of another link for that? sounds great!
ETA:....never mind, now it magically is....hmmmmm whatever. thanks!