Our school send home for little readers in first grade but they no longer does that for second grade. That's why I try to find a way to supplement him some similar leveled books to read at home in addition what we have been doing. Same like your son, my son also skips little words when reading on screen. I switch him to my 7" google tablet for now. He likes and reads better for non-fiction books.

Thanks for the comments. The computer/monitor is on my desk which is adult size study unit. I had him sit at his own desk/chair to read on my 7" google tablet last night. He was doing a lot better. His desk is specially made for children. Both desk and chair have been adjusted to his height and desk can also be tilted for easy reading position Yes, he uses his fingers to point on paper sometimes and he is not able to do so with computer screen. Last night, he expanded the font and made only one line appearing on the screen each time when reading on tablet and he did not miss any sound this time, Next time I may also try to adjust the backlit or put on tinted background. Thanks.

Recently I discovered something from observing my son reading. We have been working with his reading since late 1st grade and he is making steady progress. We are using Dancing Bears (just start C yesterday) and I SEE SAM (now on ARI3/set6). We also went to COVD and found he has farsightedness on left eye. After wearing glassess, the skipping lines issue reduced. COVD said that he does not need VT. He has no issue reading I SEE SAM stories even in ARI3 (set6) that we just started. He rarely misreads word in I SEE SAM unless he is really tired and cannot focus. Last week, I signed up trail for Raz-Kids as recommanded by a friend. My son's school is using similar leveled system and he has been complaining teacher does not allow him to move up level because he still does not read fluently at lower level. I have been puzzled because he is reading 2nd grade level books at home and why he cannot pass these lower leveled assessment to move up to reflect his actual ability. Therefore, I think Raz-Kids may help as the leveled books are similar and he can get familiar with them. However, when he starts to use it, I found he read choppy when reading from the computer screen (i have 21" LCD screen) even for easy levels. He will miss ending sound -s/-es and skip little words more often than reading the real books. He used to have this issue with real book as well. However, after many practices, now he does not miss too much ending sound when reading real books. However, the same problem came back when he reads on screen. I switched Raz-Kids to my tablet and it seems improved a little bit. Is it normal or do I miss any potential issue with his reading?

We have been using library books (the topic he is interested) and phonic controlled books (I SEE SAM) for reading instruction at home and he reads well with those. He does not miss ending sound too much with I SEE SAM. However, he often misses ending sound (-s/es) with easy leveled books at school so he cannot move up to his actual level. Anyway, his reading is not perfect but he has the skills and should not get trapped at lower leveled books while he is able to read higher level books at home or from library. I am thinking maybe he needs to get used to read those leveled books that are similar to what school uses so that he is able to pass through it. Therefore, I signed up trail ar Raz-Kids last Saturday as recommanded by a neighborhood friend whose school uses for elementary kids. My son started doing 3 books a day. First cold read, then listen sample and then read again. Last he will take 5 question quizes. Anyone uses it now or used it before, please share your experience.

It has been too much snow this year. We get another snow day today!!! Children in our distrcit need to make up the school day later on. I think they may need to go in on president's day for makeup school day. If it is 1 or 2 days through the winter, I am fine to let him play all day long and treat it as a lucky break. However, so far we got 5 snow days this year already and it is only beginning of Feburary.

Yes, educational DVDs are great. We normally not allowed screen time during school days even it it snowing. We allow our son to watch those educational DVD or games after he finishes the assignment and got tired of playing snow outside. He loves Liberty Kids, Magic school bus, Eye witness series and Brainpop Jr. It is really freezing this year!!

My son's school switched to GO Math as well. We are working on 2nd grade. Honestly I like it better than Everyday Math. You can go to critical thinking site to view the resource. I recently also purchased their supplement books from Amazon and I found very helpful. I got Reteach book and Enrich book. When my son got puzzled with his homework, I can use Reteach book to go overy the concept again. After he done with homework without issue, I let him work on Enrich book which is a bit more challenging than workbook but not too hard like Singapore Intensive Pack. Once in a while, I will throw in Singapore math workbook and intensive pack.

When my son has snow day, normally I still need to go to office and my husband stays home with him. Daddy does not do any teaching because he does not have that patience. Therefore, I have to assign my son some independent works so that he does not need to bother Daddy. Below is my standard assignment for snow day: 1. Violin 30 minutes 2. Reading 30 minutes 3. Chinese homework 2 pages 4. Math - timed Addition (min. 60 questions in 10 minutes max.) - timed Subtraction (min. 50 questions 2 pages in 10 minutes max.) - Singapore math workbook (1-2 exercises) 5. Growing with Grammar 2 lessons Above are items that he needs to complete before I get home. Then we will continue same after school routine (reading instruction, review all his works etc.) as regular days.

Hooray!! I think this is a magic program for struggling reader. We've just done with fast track and will move on to C shortly.

Great list. So far we have been doing 1-6, and 9. We also use Nordic Naturals brand fish oil. We first used liquid fish oil (proEFA) and now we switch to gels. We use adult verison Nordic Naturals EPA (EPA/DHA ratio is 4/1) for my 8yo. He has no problem to sawllow adult verison gels. He first bites through gel cap and then swallow it one by one. He takes 2 gels with breakfast.

I heard eggs are good for focus. My son's breakfast contains carbs (bread or soft bun), portien (egg or ham), fruit (half of pear or apple) and a cup of 1% organic milk. He takes his multi-vitamin with OPC before meal, take two fish oil gels (nordic naturals EPA) with meal and starting today we add one focus factor for kids after meal. I never thought of giving young children coffee. Will hot chocolate work the same or add unsweeten chocolate powder to milk?

You also need to determine what system you want your son to learn. There are Traditional Chinese and Simplfied Chinese. For pronounciation, there are pinyin and zuyin. For 5 years old, you may start with youtube or some DVD. I ordered DVDs and books from my home country and read to my son in Chinese was 2. We all speaks Chinese at home. It could be hard for non-Chinese speaking family. It will be better to get a real tutor or send him to Chinese school. Our Chinese school offers bilingual track for non-Chinese speaking family. Teachers will use English to explain in class and most of materials will have English translation on it so parents can understand and provide some assistance with homeworks. If you want to take it seriously, it is huge time commitment to keep up Chinese learning even for Chinese speaking families.

I think I saw it somewhere: K: bk 1 1st: bk 2-3 2nd: bk 4-5 3rd: bk 6-7 4th: bk 8 My son is second grade and almost finishing book 5. The phonics addressed in book 5 are nothing new to him but some of vocabularies inside the book are quite challenging for him as he is ESL student.

Can you share some experience for Mathnasium? I am thinking to add it for my son's summer plan. However, I am not sure about their time commitment (they suggest at least 2x per week?). We have 1.5 week off and plan does not sound too exciting to my child. We will visit SIL in Texas and go for a small road trip togather before Christmas. The rest of break, my son will have to go YMCA for holiday care because we need to work. At night, reading tutoring once a week will continue and daily reading instruction from me will continue. My son is going to get his own 1/8 and 1/4 violin after Christmas (no longer renting!!) and probably will spend some time to get used to the new 1/8 violin. We will also spend some time to prepare for his Chinese final exam on Jan 4th.

My son likes eyewitness DVD. We borrow those from library.

My son and his friends are in to rainbow loom recently and they spend more time on that in after school.

We have no screen time Monday to Friday. My son stays in after care and once in a while, they get to computer room to play some free games for half hour (1-2 times per week). He has walking club at school recess time twice per week, basketball class at aftercare once a week, gym class at school twice a week, and swimming class on Saturday evening. He also has Saturday Chinese school from 12:30 to 2:30. After that, he needs to go grocery shopping with me so basically he has only Saturday evening to Sunday night to have screen time. My tablet only has wifi so he cannot use it on the go.

Our school switches to new math curriculum (GO MATH) due to common core as well. I had issue with that at the beginning and now I think I am getting it. Yes, " 5+5+5+5=20" is something they want to see. In my son's homework, he has this "explain why" thing on every word problem. They are not looking for something real compicated, but want children to express in words or picture to demostrate their understanding of the concept. Like one of the word problem he had earlier last month is: There are 6 ants on the log. Then there are 8 ants coming to the log. How many ants are there on the log? Please explain in words or picture. It's a simple word problem that he can do in first grade already. He wrote answer 14 directly but does not know how to put explanation in words. I asked him at least wrote down the math equation to show how he get 14. However, they not only want the equation, they also want him to explain in words. It once confused me. Later I realized that the teacher just wanted to see something like "I add up 6 ants and 8 ants to get 14 ants in total". Nothing fancy or complicated.

I feel your pain. I only have one and you have two. I drop my son to YMCA before care and they will bus him to school (about 5 minutes drive). I actually can drop him to school directly (they allow drop off after 8:10) and then go to work. However, he is used to take bus with his YMCA buddies so he dislikes to be dropped to school directly. I told him if he does not act faster, I will have to drop him to school directly. Normally he can make the deadline. I also use timer sometimes. I actually wakes up at 5 and do all the stuffs (pack lunches, cook breakfast and do my internet browsing etc) first. My hubby wakes up at 6:30 and drags till 7 to go downstairs. He is on his own. I have no time to take care of him. My son wakes up at 6:50 and normally drag over 7 as well. I will have to bring him his vitamin drink when his alert goes off at 6:50. And call him for breakfast by 7:15. While he is eating breakfast, I get dressed and put out his outfit on my bed. I will issue final warning call at 7:40. When he is done with breakfast, he goes upstairs to brush teeth (he has braces), wipe face and get dressed. Then the car has to be out of garage by 7:50 or he cannot catch the YMCA bus at 8.

We are FT user as well. We are almost toward the end of FT (page 120). The decode skills and automation have been improved. Now he can read more fluently for slightly below grade level materials and we start to move our focus to comprehension part of reading. The flash card comes about a week later if I recalled it right. You can find the pdf printout from their site and make your own. Just print, cut and paste to same size construction paper and you are ready to go. For cursor, we use it heavily at the beginning of program and show sound by sound as instructed. Now his eyes are trained so I show a whole word at once. If he misread the word or cannot segment the sounds of the word, I will use cursor to show him sound by sound.

Maybe you should visit reading specialist like what I did. My son is in pullout 5 days a week. While he is pulled out, the class is doing guided reading in group or with class teacher. He is also starting guided reading in pullout now which is doing exact the same thing but may be at different reading level. They don't use any controlled readers in pullout. They use regular books with marked reading level for guided reading. And they also do other reading the regular class hours. Last time when I met reading specialist, I mentioned the reading level thing to her and she made the note of it. She said that she will observe if the level he was tested initially is too easy, there is no reason to make him stay at lower level. From her reaction, it seems like it is not abnormal a child was not tested correctly at the beginning of school year. They will do another benchmark test in January and see how much he improves. I don't mind if they let him read something slightly off his level to build up his confidence but I don't want something off too much. We also do guided reading at home daily. Mostly we will choose something more challenge for his reading level so that it can compensate a bit if the readers he read at school are on the easy side.

We learn traditional Chinese and zhuyin. It is more difficult than simplified Chinese in some way. He will start to learn pinyin at 3rd or 4th grade as well. The strange thing for him is the more strokes that character has, he can remeber it faster. They teach 6 characters every week and have unit quiz ever other week. We are in traditional track which is all Chinese in class and progress is faster. The school also has bilingual track for those parents cannot speak Chinese at home. Most of my son's school friends are in bilingual track. I will take him home next summer so he can have opportunity to really speak the language with grandparents and his couins. He picked up more vocabularies every time he went back. He does have some Chinese friends here, but most of them do not speak in Chinese already (they all can understand but just don't speak it) so it is hard to get them practice orally even we set up playdate. Even in Chinese school, children all speaks English with each other in recess. Now at home I speak English with him as I am the one who look after his school works. My husband speaks Chinese with him. In the past, we knid of mixing both languages and I think he gets confused and his progress in both languages are lagging. Now his English is almost catching up to peers but Chinese is far behind. Every week, we have him talk to grandma over the phone or skype with his cousins but he does not like it too much as his vocabularies in Chinese are not as many as English. He has hard time to express himself at the same level of English when speak in Chinese. To love_reading If you do not have such resource near you, you can consider forming a mommy teaching group by gather the families who also use the same language in your area. The Chinese school we go is from this kind of mommy group 30 years ago. Till now, we have about 300-400 students but the school is still operating by all parent volunteers. I also know some of the friends who live in the area that does not have such resource or they do not want to be tied up whole Saturday for the Chinese school, they order the materials from home country or online, then homeschool the home language by themselves or alternate with other moms in the group (like co-op). If there is no teaching material available in US, you can consider asking your relatives in India to buy for you and pick up next time when your son goes back for holidays. Another option is sending him back for a year. My son's classmates (twins) from his Chinese school go back to my home country this year to attend 1st grade (in US, they should go to 2nd grade this year) in local public school. Next year when they come back, they will start 2nd grade. I spoke to their dad one time and he said they are doing very well there. I think it is also an option if one of you can go back with them for a year or you have someone trusted who can take care of them there for a year.

You give me some hope. I am Chinese and English bilingual as well. My son goes to Saturday Chinese school. I was pulling my hair last year as they have quiz every 2 weeks. I found that I constantly yelling at him because he cannot remember how to form the character after I asked him write it 10 times. He seems doing much better this but I do not like the textbook too much. However, my husband thinks that the most important thing is keeping him interested in the language for long term and meet up some friends in Chinese school. Therefore, I should not stress myself too much on those Chinese homeworks and quiz.

You want SLP to work for your own language? I think they will only do for English here. Some of my bilingual friends also have speech delay children due to multiple languages exposure. The SLP only works with them for English and asks parents to reinforce English skills all the time. Often they will have to cut down the multiple language situation and accomdate that. I used to have an Indian neighbor who also have 3 languages at home and her girl has speech delay. Their doc asks them to cut to only 2 languages and their girl improves a lot in speech. I have never seen they do it for other language. Does he have pronounciation difficulty for language 1?

For eye contact, sometimes it could be a culture thing or just the habit because we did not eninforce it. I was afraid of making eye contact when I was kid as well. Even now I can do it fairly well, I have to force myself to do so. I cannot do it automatically. My 7yo had the same issue in K-1st but he had very good eye contact when he was a baby. I did not think it's a big deal at that time so I did not ask him to look at me every time when I talk to him unless it's something really serious. When he was in social skills group last year, therapist wants us to gently remind him to make eye contact all the time by using body hint like tapping our glasses when he is not looking at me. We also told teacher that we were working on the skill and hoped she can reinforce it at school. If you do not want to look into someone's eyes, you can look at nose or forehead instead. It has been getting a lot better this year. He can make initial eye contact automatically but sometimes he still moves away after couple minutes.