mathmarm
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Posts posted by mathmarm
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41 minutes ago, Lori D. said:
I read it as: because OP mentioned the Cathy Duffy review which says that the Saxon 3 Grammar & Writing is advanced, the OP might be wanting a gentle first exposure before doing the Saxon 3, in order to have a little familiarity with Grammar to have more success, rather than jumping in cold with an advanced program. Just a guess. 😉
Interesting, I understood Saxon Grammar and Writing 3 to be a beginning grammar program. It might be more advanced than other grammar texts, but if the text itself is put together well (and Saxon has a reputation for being well put-together) then in my mind, it'd fine to start it as a 3rd grade grammar program next year with a student who doesn't have a formal grammar back ground.
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Why do you feel the need to do something for grammar before starting with a beginning grammar program?
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15 hours ago, PeterPan said:
Given what you've described of your own experience (do you think your dc's situation is similar?), maybe working on RAN/RAS would be a better starting place. https://www.dropbox.com/sh/4rcl6f0uo70esmv/AAAaGAHw3_YTMEQZSw_WI-t_a?dl=0 Here's a link to my RAN/RAS files. Print, pop in page protectors, and read the rapidly aloud. Good RAN/RAS (rapid naming) is highly correlated with strong readers and poor RAN/RAS/rapid naming is a common lagging deficit in dyslexia and reading disability. So it's something free and easy to work on to improve reading speed.
Also, I think that a middle or high school "speed reading course" might not be what adults call speed reading. https://www.understood.org/articles/en/why-isnt-my-child-reading-fast-enough I would be very concerned about working on speed and aggravating other issues (decoding weaknesses, poor visual tracking or convergence, etc.) that were the actual underlying causes of the poor reading speed. Reading speed naturally increases as one reads more. Vision therapy can also increase reading speed simply by improving how well the eyes work together and process visual information.
So I would be most inclined to:
-work on RAN/RAS
-get the eyes checked by a developmental optometrist
-make sure decoding is strong
-provide more opportunity/incentive to read more
Thank you for taking the time to write all this out and for sharing some guide lines.
I'm clueless about the RAN/RAS stuff. I'm sorry, I have to admit that I have no idea what you are talking about with the RAN/RAS stuff. I don't understand what it is, what it's for or what the purpose might be. My child has finished 2nd grade, he can recognize (and name) his colors and numbers quite fluently.
We've never pursued vision therapy--I really don't think he needs it. What is Vision Therapy for? and how do you determine if your child might benefit from Vision Therapy?
His decoding is rock-solid and fluent and he reads everyday as a part of his schooling as well as for leisure (though not always his first choice of activity if there is something physical or buildable around).
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So, first consider whether or not the planner that you currently have meets your needs.
If she writes "History - Ch 4"
Is that enough for her to know that she needs to
- listen to Ch4,
- do the map work,
- read and outline the article and
- answer her review questions
Of course the same applies to math, Literature, science, etc?
If she needs to be reminded of the various sub-tasks, then you might create a check list of the sub-tasks that can be pasted into the cover of her planner.
Also, there might be a list of various small independent tasks that she does
Typing, Instrument Practice, educational video etc that can be placed on a Daily Checklist that goes in the opposite cover of her planner.
You can make "Daily Checklist" a subject and enter it in the planner where she knows to go through the independent work between X and Y:30 each day.
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I would have her write assignments for a couple of days at a time.
Which subjects does she do?
1) Always use the same order when entering your subjects. If color-coding will help her, then by all means color code as well.
So don't put ELA - Science - History - Math on Monday but list them them Math - ELA - Science on Tuesday.
Decide on the order of entering subjects and stick to it.
This doesn't have to be the order that she completes things in, but it needs to be the order that she's copying them down in.2) Teach her to ------ out a line when there isn't an assignment for that subject on any given day. So, for example if there is no history this Wednesday, she'd still write in History in it's usual spot but will dash through the line for "Assignment"
3) Always review the planner with her.
So if she needs to read Ch3 in her Novel, I'd have her enter something like
4) Start simple and stay consistent.
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Can you post sample pages or a link or something?
How is it different from other student planners?
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At 6 I wouldn't say that it's a problem. (At 3, it's wonderful that your Baby is using irregular verbs correctly!) If the 6yo shows no awareness of any irregular verbs then that could be a problem.
Does the 6yo use most irregular plurals correctly? Mouse-mice, Goose-geese, child - children, etc
It's not uncommon in my family for children up to 8/9 to mess up some irregular verbs/plurals. I'm not sure we're normal (we have a lot of Deaf/HoH relatives so the children in the family tend to have a mixed experience with whether or not they're ELL/ESL by the time they get to K.)
I would explicitly teach and practice with her the most common irregular verbs. We love picture books here!
Some picture books that teach about verbs in a grammatical sense are:
Words are Categorical series by Cleary:
To Root, to Toot, to Parachute
Slide and Slurp, Scratch and Burp
World of Language by Keller
Kites Sail High -- this may go over her head a bit--the beginning of the book is very graspable but then the author goes more advanced with moods and Very Grammary Stuff.Nouns and Verbs have a Field Day
If You Were a Verb
Of course most picture books are in the past-tense anyway. So once she's aware that verbs exist, you can spot and point out verbs in the books you're reading together. After you teach and talk about what verbs are, practice identifying verbs in story books that you read to her and with her. When you've IDed a few books that she really likes, then upon rereading them you can ask as you finish a page what a character just did.
So, if a pirate sang a song to a horse you can ask her leading questions like "what did the pirate do to get the horses attention?"
You'd help her to say "the pirate sang to the horse" rather than "singed to the horse"Additionally, don't make it a grammar lesson, so much as a grammar immersion. A series of oral games/exercises that we do while we're folding laundry, chopping veggies, shopping, walking a trail etc. You can have a mental list of irregular verbs (just 3-7 depending on her abilities) and you can say "tell me how to say____ if it.... is happening / has already happened / will happen "
If you do a calendar time or circle time, that's when we incorporated grammar/language work for our littles.
"Let's talking about ..." pull a verb from the jar "the verb--dig. Dig is an action word, so I know it's a verb!" Let's pretend to dig--let's do the action dig."
Then point to the calendar as you use the verb in a sentence for that time frame.
"Yesterday we dug in the garden. Today we will dig in the garden. Tomorrow we will dig in the garden too!"
Let's say that together."Yesterday we dug in the garden! Today we will dig in the garden! Tomorrow we will dig in the garden too!"
Start out with a mix of very common verbs--regular verbs and irregular verbs.
"This verb always follow the same-old, same-old pattern, so it's a Regular verb!"
"Regular verbs follow the same-old, same-old pattern. They always do what you expect!"
"This verb never follows the pattern--it's irregular!"
"Ir-regular verbs are unique! Some times do their own thing."
If, after a month of direct instruction, explicit and systematic practice I saw no improvement, then I would mention it to her pediatrician.
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I've started exploring book apps to make and have found Libib.
I want to be able to keep track of which books I own, so I'm going to be giving this book app a shot--it supposed to let me track up to 5,000 books--does anyone actually own that many?
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My personal feeling is to never retain or advance a child on paper without a darn good cause. Since it's in your gut and heart to do so, I think that you should do the IOWA or Stanford so that you may determine objectively where he is at, but don't use the results to retain/advance him.
It doesn't sound like he has a learning challenge so much as he had a vision issue that is now being corrected, yes? Or does he have another diagnosis that would impact his cognition such as ADD/ADHD, Dys-something or anything like that?
For now, if he is Neuro-typical (aside from the vision issues) then assume that spelling will be much easier to learn once his vision needs have been met and remedied.
Since he is on grade level in reading and math, what does he need to "catch up" in? It sounds like the writing component (and it's many sub-components) will come into place once his vision is remedied.
My gut reaction is to wait until he's completed his vision therapy (all 40 weeks) and then assess where you are at and make a game plan from there.
In the mean time, work on oral composition so that he can continue practice organizing ideas and scribe for him while he's working on his vision needs.
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we can't be the only ones who have a lot of books and need some concrete help on organizing and keeping track of them all.
We have about 8 shelves (kinda like these) that we are going to consolidate into 1 area this summer but I still would like some tips on organizing them most effectively.
Also, do you store board games with your books?
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2 hours ago, daijobu said:
@mathmarm I want to emphasize that this comments in this post are entirely tongue in cheek, but I couldn't help pointing out I was a bit alarmed at the idea of children running toward a burning building to save a dog. It's only after the dog has been rescued that someone decides the fire department should be called.
I'm a dog lover. I believe dogs should be saved from burning buildings. But it's a tricky question when saving involves children standing on each other's shoulders and leaning in to an alarming cloud of potentially toxic fumes.
Also, shopping bag lady seems remarkably mellow standing so close to a burning building. I think my inferential paragraph would be quite different from what was expected.
Yes, it's definitely a fiction story that they're telling.
On top of being a well-designed writing exercise, it provides a teachable moment for any child who doesn't know better. Plus some modern history because my child didn't know what a payphone was so that was a fun discussion as well. This program was published back in 1991.Jr. noted that Maria never once put down her bookbag.
The illustrations serve as a sort of visual rubric. Children know where to begin writing and what scene to leave off at. They are instructed to write what happened in the pictures, but not after. Their story would stop at the illustrations. For enrichment, we'd sometimes come up with an extra picture or two for the kids to write off of.
2 hours ago, daijobu said:Looking again at the illustration I notice one of the key words is "groceries." I'm wondering if groceries is the most significant word one can use in this situation. I might replace "groceries" with "dog" or "lung damage" or "organic kale."
As for "groceries"
The children would've already mentioned the dog from frames 1 and 2, they've been well trained to describe the scene and include what the characters are talking about. So "dog" is a given by this point in the program.
"lung damage" can be included so long as you weave it in logically.
If you want to say something like "The children were so worried about the helpless little dog in the window that they didn't think twice about the danger of burns or lung-damage. Ann and Mario raced toward the house to save the dog without a thought of pain or injury." you most certainly could. Most 2nd graders wouldn't but some of them certainly would.This program teaches children to introduce characters and tell the main thing that they are doing. So, in this example children are expected to write something along the lines of:
Mrs. Wilson carried some groceries and rushed over to the children. She said, "You saved King!"
Or
Mrs. Wilson came over to the children with her arms full of groceries. "You saved King!" she said with a note of wonder in her voice.
Or
Mrs. Wilson, her arms full of groceries, stared in amazement at the kids. "You saved King!" she cried happily.
By lesson 89 the children have practiced determining what information is given in a picture and what information is not given in a picture so in the bounds of this program it wouldn't make sense to say something like "organic kale" because
1) it isn't relevant to the story (children are taught to write about important things that must've happened.)
2) there isn't anything in the picture that lets you know she bought organic kale.-
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1 hour ago, UHP said:
It's very appealing. Thanks for all these details.
Looking around on amazon, maybe not where you got old editions, I remember how confused I was shopping for the DI math stuff last year. Can you give me a little guidance? There are (at least?) three things called "reasoning and writing C." I see a "textbook," a "workbook," and a "presentation book." What should I purchase if I want to give what you're doing a try?
For a couple of months I've been using this website's "Writing With Ease," which I'm not unhappy with but still has me unsettled.
Presentation Book is 100% essential. It's the teachers script for the lessons and instructions.
If you can't find the PB, you can't really make use of the C level of RaW.I would find the presentation book first, then get the textbook and workbook to match the PB.
The components that we use to do RaW Level C (1991 edition) at home are:
(ISBN:: 0-574-15721-2) - Presentation Book
(ISBN:: 0-574-15725-5) - Textbook
(ISBN:: 0-574-15723-9) - WorkbookYou can do without the Teachers Guide and Answer Key at this level. You have to kind of watch for the books. I hunted around eBay, Amazon, Abebooks and other used book stores and sites for these.
The 2001 edition has something called Writing Extensions. I don't know what that component is but we haven't suffered without it.
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8 hours ago, UHP said:
I'm very curious about this! A year ago I browsed some of the math programs advertised on the "NIFDI" website — just what comes up when you search the web trying to find out about the authors of "100 easy lessons." But they were available from only one publisher, very expensive (maybe priced for schools making bulk orders?), and I thought I they would disappoint me by being too hard to adapt to a one-on-one situation. But it sounds like that's what you've done for writing? What is it like?
We purchased the older editions 2nd hand online. We have RaW C-F, and have 1 child who has completed C and D. I have a child working in Level C currently.
Keep in mind that I'm not well versed in a lot of home school curriculum, but some things that really impressed me are that the students are systematically taught to check their work. The writing tasks often have checks written and after the students write, they go through the list of "Checks" to determine if they've done all the essentials.
In level C, there is a textbook and workbook for the student. All other levels have only a textbook.
Level C focuses on narrative writing primarily and has 110 lessons, every 10th lesson there is a test. So Lessons 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, ..., 100 and 110 has a test included.
Level C starts with having students supply the subject to sentences based on pictures.
Copying sentences, or writing sentences based on picture prompts. I honestly felt that it was too easy at first, but Hubby and I'd decided to give the program a chance and I'm glad that we did. My kids really like the picture based exercises.For most of the writing tasks you're given a series of pictures with a list of vocabulary words and a task (ie Write a sentence that reports on the main thing each person did). Level C starts off
- teaching the students to discern what information is given vs implied in various illustrations,
- Students complete or copy sentences about the pictures
- teaching students about subjects and predicates (but without the jargon of "subject" and "predicate")
- giving pictures and having students identify the sentence which describes the scene the most (the main thing the person did)
- teaching you to write in the past-tense (but without the jargon of "past-tense")
Starting in lesson 9, RAW-C has students compose sentences based on pictures and check their work. There are 3 criteria:
1) Does each sentence began with a capital and end with a period?
2) Does each sentence tell the main thing the person did? (You've practiced this in lessons 1-8, and the illustrations make it clear)
3) Did you spell the vocabulary words correctly?You complete this same exercise for next several lessons.
In Lesson 15, students copy a short paragraph and check their work. There are 3 criteria:
1) Does each sentence began with a capital and end with a period?
2) Did you indent the first line?
3) Did you start all the other lines at the margin?Students are taught that paragraphs are groups of sentences that tell about the same topic. The first sentence is indented and all other sentences start right at the margin. For the next few lessons, students are composing original sentences based on pictures and copying paragraphs.
Now, I will admit that the sentences and paragraphs are straight-forward. At first they seemed under-whelming but the exercises are where the "meat" is at. We also used the Spelling by Sound and Structure Rod and Staff series--the word lists weren't the most challenging, because the exercises themselves were the main teaching tool. the Reasoning and Writing level C is similar.
In Lesson 19, students are given an illustration, a set of vocabulary, a topic sentence and told to complete the paragraph by writing 3 additional sentences and check their work. There are 2 criteria:
1) Does each sentence begin with a capital and end with a period?
2) Does each sentence tell the main thing the person did?Since the students focus is now on copying/completing a paragraph, the spelling expectation is secondary, but I still require that they spell each vocabulary word correctly.
The book keeps moving like that. In Lesson 21 kids have to write a sentence for a group of people. They begin learning to write paragraphs by introducing the group of people, then giving more detail about each person.
In Lesson 23: they're assigned a paragraph to write but they aren't given any written checks--the checks are in the Presentation Book that the teacher is holding. However, Jr. knew exactly what to look for because he'd been trained to check his work for several lessons.
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A trio of janitors cleaned an empty classroom. Pam thoroughly cleaned the chalkboard with some cloths. Ben stacked the chairs on the desks neatly. Joe swept all the trash to the front of the room with his big push broom. The whole classroom looked spic and span!
In Lesson 25, students are introduced to the grammatical terms: Subject and Predicate though they have been using them in their writing exercises since lesson 1.
As the lessons progress, students learn to punctuate dialogue, rules of capitalization, how to write good description, how to vary the order of sentences. "Tom ate breakfast after his morning run." vs "After his morning run, Tom ate breakfast."
In story telling, they learn to set a scene by describing where characters are and what they're doing, set up a problem and resolve it. The final story is in lesson 99. They write a story based off of a single picture and they have 5 checks.
We really like that applied grammar is integrated into the writing program and that the students are systematically taught to check their work. What I've experienced is that it prevents that situation where kids learn grammar in the abstract but don't apply it to their writing. The writing instruction is very systematic, but that works really well for our family. Jr. loved the narrative writing so he actually asked for more picture-based writing prompts.
Around Lesson 50, you begin inferring what happened in the pictures and writing about it. Jr. struggled at first but then he "got it" and he loved the inference exercises throughout the program. The exercises are based on a series of 2-4 pictures.
For example: this is final exercise in lesson 89.
Students would write a multi-paragraph narrative to tell the picture and check their work. There are 3 criteria for this exercise
1) Does each paragraph have no more than one person talking?
2) Does your first paragraph tell where the characters were and what they were doing?
3) Do the rest of your paragraphs give a clear picture of what the characters said and did?Each lesson has multiple parts. Students are editing paragraphs in their workbook before
You also have students write the end of stories that you read to them based on a images in their textbook. The whole system is just really well thought out and put together in my opinion.
The scaffolding is genius--I'd never seen a writing book quite like this and neither had Hubby. I haven't used the A and B levels so I can't recommend them, but we've had good experiences with Level C.
Of course, I'm not a curriculum expert. There might be programs of a similar caliber or quality out there somewhere but I don't know about them.
Additionally, the last 10 lessons of the program focus on general writing skills, not so much on narrative writing. By the end of Level C, students write passages about a specified topic, write declarative sentences based off of a question and answer, they revise their work, write letters (friendly letters and complaint letters)
By the end of lesson 110, students have mastered how to correctly use various bits of grammar. They routinely apply the grammar correctly in their writing! They write passages with dialogue and include dialogue in their stories correctly. They can correctly use nouns, pronouns, verbs and adjectives (more if you layer in the additional teaching!) as well as identify them by name.
The Reasoning and Writing books are well-constructed and so it's easy to add things in if you and your kids want. My kids often want more and so we're able to have the best of both worlds. We get the foundation placed in a systematic and highly intelligent way, my kids learn and master the basics and we can go beyond that as we want.
We teach additional sentence patterns, all 8 parts of speech, and do additional creative writing prompts. But honestly, I think that the reason Hubby and I are able to do expand successfully is because we have RaW guiding us very concretely. If we drop all supplementation, we have a robust rigorous program still.
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It does have a ring of truth to it for me. Many times, an adult can struggle to communicate to children what they need to do. It seems so simple. We tell kids "add these numbers" or "read this word" without always explicitly explaining what adding is or how to do it or how to read a word.
By the time we are adults some "preliminary" skills are fundamental and deeply understood by the teacher/adult almost on a subconcious level, it is so blatantly obvious that we can blind to how many "sub-skills" are required to intelligently add some numbers or read a word.But if you say "integrate this function over this region" people are more easily able to appreciate that there are a lot of sub-skills required to correctly calculate that integral.
Direct Instruction programs have been a huge help for my family. Two of the main benefits are that they are wonderful teacher-training tools as well as lesson plans. I find it easier to add on to or to extend the exercises in a DI program than to try and make up a quality program myself, because I often over- or under-estimate what kind of support a kid will need to complete the sub-tasks and tasks correctly and to learn the intended skill from them. The lessons in the DI programs we've used are so well scaffolded and the individual tasks are so well thought-out.
There is no "busy-work" in the programs that we've looked at. Every assignment--whether oral or written is leading to something specific. It's easy to accelerate the DI programs in a homeschool situation because 1-1 the lessons go quick--around 20 minutes instead of an hour for a class.
Like you, we were also impressed by the teacher manual pages of Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, though we didn't use the book itself, we applied the same techniques to a more comprehensive phonics scope and sequence with superb results! So far all of the kids have learned to read well and it's taken anywhere from 6-14 months. The lessons are fast-paced, carefully sequenced and they've enjoyed it immensely.
While, we're perfectly comfortable teaching mathematics, we really needed lots of guidance for the language arts because we want the kids to have strong language skills. I just wasn't jazzed about the ELA stuff and we were desperate that the kids learn to excel at and love language things.
We had considered using the Reading/Language Arts program put out by the author but decided against it due to cost. However, we do use Reasoning and Writing (an actual DI program) for a combo of logic and composition and have been very happy with it! Where other programs give you lots of theory and a few assignments, DI programs give you lots of assignments and you live the theory through executing the lessons.
We are a household where both parents work outside of the home. The scripted nature of the DI programs ensure that we're able to confidently deliver the same caliber of teaching no matter who is teaching the lesson at that time. It allows Hubby and I to know precisely what the kids are learning/expected to know and what steps to take to get them there. The kids love the DI programs--they feel like games. They succeed at them and they always want to "do the next lesson"--which is good. You want the kids to want more. Stop before they're bored or overwhelmed and end on a high-note.
For the commercial DI programs, the Teachers Guides, while optional, are helpful in that they show the breakdown of each skill and where it's taught and how often. If a kid is really enjoying a particular exercises, or if they need more of a particular exercise, we're able to tell when to begin supplementing it easily. We can make more activities that mirror what the kids like or need.
As the teacher, I can apply what I've learned from teaching the DI programs to anything. I find that if I teach the program faithfully a few times, then I am empowered to teach without it later.
You can apply the DI principles to other subjects as well, because it's just the principles that enable you to teach something so that the learner can master them.
@bookbard I disagree that with DI you can only teach what's pre-planned. For the most part, DI is typically used on teaching skills and facts--ie, foundational/fundamental information and skills. However, you can apply the exact same principles to learning and mastering content in science and social studies as well. In my experience, using DI (the principles or a published program) doesn't prevent you from exploring an answer to a students question. That's an extreme version of making the curriculum the master.
If kids want to know why throwing a rock into a puddle makes rings, you can absolutely say "let's find out." if you want to. Using DI doesn't prevent you from not using it in basic life situations.
OP, I may have to read that book myself.
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Is he self-disciplined enough to be trusted to do his work if you allow him to stay home?
Given the social and health issues, I am inclined to let him start out at home with the caveat that we're going to be reassessing every 4.5 weeks and that if he won't take his education seriously at home, then he can blow it off at the Public School.
I would plan the academics to be realistic for the student in the particular situation and I guess just explore some non-traditional scheduling ideas--doing school in the evenings/weekends, doing work the 3-4 days that you're off and having lighter assignments or 10-20 math practice problems on the days that you're working.
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This is a small town, will the people who bullied him in Jr. High be at the same Highschool?
(About) how many kids will be in the 9th grade at this school?
From the outside looking in, I'm not sure that this has to be an Either-Or situation.Can he stay with a relative during the school year and attend a different/better school?
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On 6/13/2021 at 8:52 PM, Xahm said:
I'm curious what you mean by speed reading and what your goal is.
Speed Reading, as I understand it, is reading text rapidly without sacrificing comprehension and with the ability to retain/remember what you've read.
My rising 3rd grader reads around 230wpm when reading nonfiction and between 190-230wpm when reading (children's) fiction.
Most days he reads aloud from 3 different types of texts Magazines: (National Geographic/American Science) a "classic" novel that we buddy-read as a family (The Hobbit, 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, Journey to the Center of the Earth, etc), and Poetry/Speeches.
He also spends 30-90 minutes reading silently to himself each day, depending on what else he wants to do that day. This year we're doing a Lit based philosophy list and have high hopes for it.
He has been loving word roots and etymology. Last year we did WordBuild Foundations 1 and 2 within a semester so we got and Vocabulary Cartoons, English from the Roots Up 1 + Rummy Roots last year and he loves them too. We're going with SBSS 7 and 8 this year because we've had strong success with and have enjoyed SbSS2-6.
He knows and understands setting, plot, characters and figurative language, he can ID and discuss each one. He doesn't struggle with visualizing scenes--he can illustrate, retell, act out or describe most any scene that we might ask him to from books. All of that to say he's going into the 3rd grade and he's a highly capable reader and on track to develop into an even more capable reader by the end of 3rd or 4th grade.
I personally was never a highly talented reader when I was young, so all that to say, we are wondering if Speed Reading is a skill that he might be ready for and benefit from in a year or two (around 4th/5th grade, when, in my experience "it's typically taught").
I'm not set on anything, I just assumed Speed Reading was a skill that was still being taught some time between elementary and middle school. My elementary school taught it to the best readers. Hubby's school taught it in 5th and again in 6th (he went to a K-6) so to us, based on our experiences, Speed Reading is just a part of the "typical learning to read" continuum.
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6 hours ago, prairiewindmomma said:
My apologies for the colloquial turn of phrase which appears to have given offense. I still hold by my statement that teaching speed reading is largely developmentally inappropriate for elementary aged students.
My 8 yo can read at a college level. Of the time that we have together for education, I will see greater benefit teaching her the things I mention in my first post than in teaching her speed reading. Slow readers tend to be slow not because of the visual perception/function end of things (though I had a kid who needed vision therapy so it’s possible), they tend to be slow in the cognitive bundling of information for processing. A child with faster processing will naturally reader faster WPM as they practice. Speed reading, as a technique, is often called bunk science for this reason.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.livescience.com/amp/speed-reading-possible.html
I appreciate that you are saying Speed Reading isn't ideal for elementary age and I'm open to the idea that Public Schools got it wrong and that it's not even a good idea to try and teach it in elementary school--but as you know first hand, being an Ultra Speed Reader, Speed Reading is most definitely possible.
I imagine that you get plenty of use out of it or you wouldn't have gotten to the level of being an Ultra Speed Reader yourself.
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That's phenomenal! Wonderful job to you and your son!
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Our Summer Plans are mostly outdoors this year.
--Every Local Nature Trail (we apparently have a few dozen of them). We've made a check list and go to a few each week. We just walk until we're half-tired, and then turn around and come back.
--Run/walk in some local 1K, 3K and 5K
--Grilling with grandparents
--baking with uncle
--Yoyo Competition
--Unicycle Club
--K'Nex Challenge Club
--Camping
--Library Reading Challenge
--"Camp Grandma" with cousins
--Vegetable gardening
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18 hours ago, prairiewindmomma said:
Oh my heck. I just read your bio. Your kid is finishing second grade. My youngest is the same age. Gently, I think you're nuts if you're considering teaching your child speed reading at that age. With my daughter, I'm just letting her read for fun outside of school time. I'm helping her develop a love of books. I'm helping her create mental pictures of what she's reading. We're working on vocabulary of more complex words. She's narrating the occasional plot line to me, and we've talked about characters, setting, etc. But, goodness, there's no way I'd be contemplating speed reading with her.
I say this quite firmly, do not call me names.
I am asking for advice. When I was in elementary school, the best readers were taught Speed Reading around 4th and 5th grade. I wasn't selected/eligible for the program, but I have a 3rd grade student who is a really good reader so I'm just trying to figure things out the best that I can, same as many others on this board.I do my research and plans 18+ months in advance--that's just who I am. I'm simply exploring and trying to understand options that are available so that Hubby and I can determine the best route for our family. I don't deserve to be mocked or ridiculed and I won't be called names. Sheesh!
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So,
@SKL@Clarita@Resilient Do you feel that Speed Reading was poorly taught at your school? Or was it well taught and you've just never got much use from it? What was the criteria for getting into the Speed Reading program? (If you knew/ remember)
@Xahm Do you remember what the Software was? We really prefer a screens-free education and childhood for K-8. We've made an exception for foreign language, but is there any reason that a speed reading software might be more effective than say, a speed reading book/course?
Currently, Jr. reads children's novels and nonfiction around 190-230 wpm depending on the density of the text and he has really solid comprehension.
We are aiming for a Lit-rich secondary education for him if we continue to homeschool, and we also have a couple of private schools in mind for him, and both of those schools have a big workload in math and reading material involved. -
1 hour ago, Resilient said:
I. Agree. Similar experience and results.
Thanks for the feedback!
2 hours ago, Clarita said:I actually remember doing a speed reading class in elementary school (Public School graduate 1- college). I was taught things like how to skim for important information, etc. If that's what you are talking about where you would praise a kid for how quickly they can read a book and summarize it, my answer would be NEVER.
I found being able to "speed read" detrimental in my adult life and when schooling required me to actually study/gain information on my own.
Thanks! I was never selected for the Speed Reading course at my elementary school--you had to be at a certain level of reading fluency and I never did well enough on those tests. I didn't do the Speed Reading course summer before middle school because of a schedule conflict.
I remember being bogged down in the reading requirements for 7th-9th grade for sure. It was terrible. I was a steady, but not particularly fast reader. I knew other kids who'd been through a Speed Reading program and they all seemed to benefit from it greatly especially in High school.
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Assuming that the child is fluent in reading, around what age would you teach speed reading?
How important is this when choosing a curriculum?
in Logic Stage & Middle Grade Challenges
Posted
Since the videos are meant to be an extra, then I would read the explanations within the text itself and have her read the explanations within the text to make sure that she understands what's being explained.
You can also buy a printed supplement for algebra--take a look on Amazon, I'm sure there are a couple of dozen.
Ultimately, it's about finding the resource that's best for your kiddo. It could be that Saxon is a fit for her. Good luck with it!