Yup, phonics. I like it and so does DS2. I don't know headsprouts ,so I can't compare.

Check out www.theautismhelper.com. I have gotten several things from her tpt store and they are great!

Thank you! These were very helpful and, I think, answered my question!

This week was mostly off for us. We're trying a 3-4 weeks on, 1 week off schedule this year. So far so good - it gives time for extra outings :) and for me to clean the house :/ We went to see the fall leaves on Skyline Drive. It was great! We did an easy hike (everyone did great, except the 3 year old!). I also worked on sorting everyone's too small clothes out of their closets. I sorted, boxed and labeled 0-5T! Tomorrow I have to finish DDs clothes. Tae quan do was closed this week and it turns out DS1 really needs those workouts! He usually goes 3x a week. By Wednesday he was bouncing.off.the.walls! I am looking forward to his 13th birthday when he can use the gym with me. DS1 is doing an AoPS class, so he did keep up with that this week and he is almost through Lord of the Rings. When he finishes, he and his grandma are going to watch the movie together. DD is plugging away with reading. See my post about her LMB screening this week. For next week, I'm hoping to make it through Monday without too much complaining, for DS1 to stay on schedule with Chemistry and Arabic, and for DS2 to get reading done with me every day. He's going through a resistant phase. Our library has a new early learning area, which is fantastic! I'm going to try to have DS1 get some work done there while the littles read and play with new toys. *fingers crossed*

We are doing that this year. It has made a tremendous difference for me!

I've been looking at the kit, that may be the best option. I would love to sign her up to work with the center director - she was great. That would be worth the $115 an hour. I was not impressed with the rest of the staff. I saw exactly what you described above. They're paid $15 an hour - they're advertising on craigslist. It crossed my mind to apply and go to the 2 week training and then quit! Is that terrible? Lol. I guess that won't work now that I've met them!! DD failed the Barton placement test. That's why I thought to try LIPS in the first place. Right now she's using reading mastery - it's based on how to teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons. It's going miserably.

Cool, is that her screen name?

Thank you! Her IEP is next week. I'll see if they will. I doubt it, but it's worth a try!

I took DD tonight for her screening at Linda Mood Bell. The screening was do find out if she was able to do their full evaluation. DD worked with the center director, who turned out to be a psychologist. She was GREAT with DD! I have to admit, I was surprised. I wasn't expecting her to know how to work with DD, but she was ready with tokens and a toy chest! DD came out smiling. After the screening (45ish minutes), the director talked with me. She hit on DDs obvious weaknesses but also said that she would probably start her in the Seeing Stars program, pending the results of their full evaluation. I was anticipating a flop, but it turned out to be a great experience. Can anyone tell me about Seeing Stars? Can I do it myself?

I got a TON of ideas from http://www.1plus1plus1equals1.com/. Also Pinterest. For reading aloud, I also vote for not doing that during the twins nap time. Definately try to use that time for core instruction for the older kids. Something that has saved me in the last couple years are these 2 books: http://www.amazon.com/Managers-Their-Homes-Scheduling-Homeschool/dp/0966910702/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1414558372&sr=8-2&keywords=managers+of+their+chores http://www.amazon.com/Managers-Their-Chores-1/dp/0966910796/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1414558372&sr=8-1&keywords=managers+of+their+chores Overlook the religious emphasis if that doesn't match your lifestyle, but seriously, the plans here changed the way I do things. This was also helpful, but not as much as the above. http://www.amazon.com/Large-Family-Logistics-Kim-Brenneman/dp/1934554499/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1414558567&sr=1-1&keywords=large+family+logistics Something I find myself saying to my bunch a lot is that we are a family. We work together for the good of our family. That means we all pitch in to do what our family needs to be done. I can't possibly do it all, they have to help. It's simply not a choice anymore! Things may not be done exactly the way I would do them, but it's FAR better than them not getting done at all. My oldest DS has a lot of responsibility - to include a few meals a week and watching the littles while I do reading one on one with DS(5) and DD. He also recently took over FIAR for the little boys. He asked if he could and I said, sure, let's try it. He's doing a better job than me:) DS(5) unloads the dishwasher and sweeps under the table after each meal. DD and DS(3) can pick things up and put them away with DS(5) telling them where to put them. DS(5) can occupy the baby (within earshot of me) for a good 15-30 minutes. I structure our schedule so I don't have to ask them to do these things. It's their job at that point in the day. Because DD has special needs, I effectively have 4 littles. I feel your pain! Take a step back and realize that you are doing an amazing and difficult job!! This too shall pass and then you can look back to see what a good job you were actually doing.

OMG! What a great thread! I just added about a dozen things to my Amazon cart....

What is unique about this program? My DD is 12 and stuck also.

After the third kid came, I quit sorting kids clothes by color. It was too much work. We have a laundry basket in the kids' bathroom and when it's full, I wash the whole basket on cold. It has worked fine. If whites are looking dingy, I collect just whites throughout the week and run a load with bleach. Voila, good as new! Oldest DS is in charge of his own laundry, and also in charge of putting away (supervising the little ones putting away) the 3 and 5 year olds laundry. I usually fold it, but not always. I put away DD and baby clothes. Oldest DS or DD carries baskets up and down the stairs for me.

Congratulations!

Check out www.theautismhelper.com. She has a TON of resources for her students. I've gotten several things from her Tpt store and I LOVE them!

After the longest time of DS struggling (I mean me nagging and fighting with him) to get math done, I signed him up for an AoPS online class. Last night was the first class and today, he is doing his math with no problems and no nagging for the first time in forever!! Share my joy :)

I agree about the LMB center! We'll go for the screening and check it out, but I don't have $7K for this. Hopefully one of the SLPs I contacted yesterday will call. She learned to talk with PROMPT. Silly me, I didn't even think to try it for reading! DD is boarder line ID. She's been very difficult to test in the past due to her behavior issues. Past testing puts her ID and she has a Medicaid waiver. I've been hesitant to get her tested recently because if she scores over 70, she will lose her waiver. She is probably somewhere in the 70-80ish range now that she is appropriately medicated, so says her psychiatrist. She's been working on sight words at school for YEARS. She can't remember them. I watched some videos on rapid prompting. It looks interesting; I'll have to do some more digging about it. OhElizabeth, I found an old thread of your about LIPS. Did you ever go back to using it?

So there's a Linda Mood Bell site not that far from me. I called and talked to them and the recommended LIPS as well. She has a screening scheduled for next week. They want to work 10-20 hours a week with her for about 6 weeks and then taper off. This sounds great, except they want $115 an hour. That's nuts, right? An hour or even a few I could probably do, but how do people afford that? Can I just get the materials and do it myself? I contacted a couple PROMPT SLPs within reasonable distance. We'll see if that works out. Bdjjmj, thanks for the resource ideas. I'm going to check them out. We've done and done and done HWOT. I love the program but she just doesn't get it. She traces well, and has since like kindergarten. But she can't seem to make the transfer to writing without tracing. We've been told it's a motor planning/processing issue and not so much a fine motor issue (though she is weak). I got the new Keyboarding Without Tears and have been very disappointed. In the k level, she is expected to hold the index finger of one hand down and then press keys with the other hand, while keeping the index finger down! There's no way she can do that. I gave he OT her login info last week to see if she can come up with an idea to accommodate her fine motor issue. I'm glad it only cost $6.50!

PROMPT is how we taught her to talk. I'm very familiar with it and it is awesome! Her private speech therapist who did PROMPT and was NDT certified retired a couple years ago. I've been trying to find someone as good, but am still looking. At school, she gets speech, OT and PT. The OT and PT at her school are excellent and I don't feel the need for extra outside. She gets an hour of OT and a half hour of PT a week and they work with her together. Speech at school is ok. Very knowledgable but doesn't do PROMPT. She gets an hour and a half a week. We haven't tried LIPS. I'll check out the video you linked to, thank you! I did do the Barton placement test with her recently and she couldn't pass it. She couldn't count the number of words she was saying. But she also has no idea of 1:1 correspondence? Who does LIPS? I know I've heard of it before.... Thanks for the ideas!

I haven't posted about DD in awhile. The last time we were in a TERRIBLE behavior place. Now, 12-18 months later, she is doing so well! The behavior issues are mostly under control and she is enjoyable to be around mist of the time. This is thanks to correct meds and a great private ABA school with 1:1 support for her? At the end of last school year, she even started to make some academic progress. That had been impossible before due to her extreme behaviors (multiple hour tantrums, property destruction,etc.). Over the summer, she mastered counting to ten (which has been on her IEP since probably kindergarten!!) and she can now match upper and lower case letters. Small things, but HUGE at the same time. I had a meeting with her new teacher last week who said that she can sequence numbers 1-25 independently and that she knows more phonics than we thought! All this is super exciting and life without her prolonged tantrums is soooo much better. My husband says that I should be happy enough with that, and believe me, I am! For the first time in a long time, I feel like she may have a future that doesn't involve a residential facility. Now that she doesn't spend her days screaming and I don't spend my time with her desperately trying to keep everyone calm, I see so much potential for her future. She has quite a sense of humor. She loves to have books read to her. She loves to do arts and crafts. Her comprehension of language and texts that have been read aloud are excellent. Here are the major problems: 1. she can't read. She knows a handful of sight words, but that's it. Since the summer, I have been working with her and she's stuck at blending. She knows the sounds of individual letters, but can't put them together. She can't stretch out the sounds, does that make sense? 2. For math, she can rote count to about 15 and sequence numbers to 25. No idea of how many any of the numbers are. 3. She can't write. Not even her name. 4. She has significant articulation issues,. 5. She has a serious lack of functional living skills. 6. Her fine motor is terrible. So I guess here's my question. From the above list, what are the most important for a 12 year old girl? What areas are really important for her long term? TIA.

Thanks for all the ideas! I hope one of them works :/

Birthday cake. Without plates or forks. And soda.

A year and a half ago we were at this point with my daughter. The thing that finally put us on the right track was a SPECT (low resolution PET) scan and a psychiatrist who had worked a lot with rage and uncontrollable tantrums. She was put on 2 different mood stabilizers and what a difference they have made!

We're stuck on blending. Single sounds are ok, but not blending more than 1 sound. I've tried and tried and tried! Has anyone else gotten stuck here? What did you do?

I'm taking Arabic grammar. So far so good, but it's really making me think!