Just thought I'd stop by and update a bit in case anyone is interested. At the very least it helps me to process things a bit. Because I love and want to help my child I've requested an eval through the PS. I joined the local parents group and have only heard how bad it is to deal with the PS regarding learning disabilities. Not one PS parent at the meeting was looking to figure out how to help their child at home. I had an extra deep appreciation for the parents on this forum (I've been reading for years but don't usually have much to say). I have a meeting with the PS this week so we'll see where it goes. Right now I look at it as jumping through hoops in case we need more help. Getting wrapped up into the politics / legal aspect of it and discussion of "rights" isn't really something I'm keen on at the moment. We got the Mindprint results and they were what I expected - some really strong areas coupled with some mediocre skills. Kid definitely has something going on, but it's not working memory (as measured by n-back). It did call out the visual processing/memory. It specifically called out reversals. He never makes reversal errors - but did in the past, before we did vision therapy exercises. I think because it was a timed test it picked up on that underlying processing problem even though we've remediated it enough to no longer be a functional problem. IIRC those kinds of timed tests are designed to be that way and that's how a cognitive exam can diagnose a dyslexic who has learned to read / spell. Guess we'll see what the OD, COVD says this week about vision. I just don't know at what point the "vision" issues can be helped more vs. it just being a neurological issue. I guess that's something I'll talk to him about. I bought and read Lindamood Bell's Seeing Stars book (USED!) and have been implementing the techniques along with Barton and some additional sight words from a high freq. list. So far so good. It really seems to be helping. On some un/sub conscious level he has the imagery for the words because he reads them fast and accurately but for whatever reason it's difficult for him to visualize how the word looks for writing. It is too soon to know whether he'll retain long term - but using a sharpie to write a bunch of cards probably left *me* with a few less brain cells. The SLP evaluated him last week. She's going to work with him on his "s" (about half the time it's a 'th') and he's been self correcting more so that he doesn't have to spend time going there. He had started saying 's' correctly more after we did LiPS and he had the visual/kinesthetic feedback from the program. I wish I'd done LiPS a couple years ago!!! We also talked about the possibility of him being a clutterer (sometimes he talks fast and it gets all mushed together, but it isn't all the time). He didn't do it during the eval. I don't know what other tests she gave him (we're discussing this week) but she mentioned that he scored higher than any other kid his age that she's evaluated. I'm guessing expressive language/vocab/ or verbal reasoning. He's great with language as long as he doesn't have to write. OT eval got cancelled last week. Hopefully she'll keep our appointment this week. I think there will be something she can help with and I'm anxious to go. I went through the process of visualizing all the letters individually with him and gave him a refresher on printing (he abandoned printing for cursive about a year ago). The visualization process has helped with his writing some, but there still seems to be some fine motor hang-up that makes it a bit tough. We upgraded from a binder as a slanted writing surface to a nicer slant board and he's liking that a lot. We got some of those erasable gel pens and those are a big hit. We also went to the store and got some new mazes and dot to dots. Dot to dots are no problem but he's enjoying them for the first time ever. Mazes are still "not fun, mom" (maybe some visual motor integration issues?). Colored gel pens are at least making doing the mazes less bad :-) Well that's my book for today - if you're here thanks for reading :-)

This is on our radar screen. My husband has called a few places but since we don't have behavior issues /complaints they advised my DH that they thought, I forget the term, but basically spend our money working with dyslexia specialists who could help identify some of the weaker areas and work on them. This was 2 or 3 offices pointing him in this direction, and all of the places we've called took at least a week to even provide a call back. Two places said they wouldn't see us unless we had testing done through the school system first. One only would test if we were looking for help to get school accommodations. A couple that would be happy to see us had really bad online reviews. The homeschooler referrals we've gotten were to the offices that apparently only see kids where there is a behavior concern. So we've been investigating other options. One "educational therapy" type place uses the results from Mindprint, so I had my son take that and now I'm waiting on the results. It's like a very lite version of a cognitive assessment that a neuropsych would do. Looks well done and I didn't read the study but they say it's well correlated to the WISC and WRAT. It was a good price through homeschool buyer's co-op and we figure that if there is anything concerning we can always follow up with a neuropsych to dig deeper - and then we'd have a specific reason to meet that we could express in their language. I know that the neuropsych is the gold standard, but this seems like a good step for right now. And at a 50th of the cost, it allows me to do more with our $ for actual help rather than just information.

They sure are! One sure thing that can cause a regression is a virus. I think one mechanism in play there is the effect of viruses on myelin. Demyelination when there's a virus. Stress also impacts myelin but IIRC it's an opposite effect - there is something that there is too much of. Can't remember the name now

Yes, What's interesting is that the Palmer reflex appeared integrated for him but obviously something was still going on. I'm convinced that it was something about using the fingers independently and developing strength independently that helped. Last year I ended up with a herniated disk in my neck (related to car accidents) and as I was healing I noticed that when I played the piano I would sometimes get a pain up a muscle that goes up where my jaw hinges. There's definitely a lot of interconnection in the body that can be difficult to work out. That's why I have evals scheduled with the OT and SLP next week. I feel like I've gotten some of the major big things resolved and now need some professional help on the last bits. My son can speak okay - people understand him enough, and he can make all the sounds, but his speech sounds kinda mushy rather than crisp and clear. I'm guessing that some of those muscles aren't developed enough and that they need to be strengthened.

Exercise_guru, How are you using MyScript? It looks interesting. My son is using Dragon Naturally speaking so that he can get his ideas out without the spelling/writing component bogging him down (it works when he slows his speech down the right amount), but MyScript looks interesting for some other things or potentially down the road.

Retained reflexes are indeed an interesting topic, and I think your story, exercise_guru, about the tongue jaw disassociation reflex is the most interesting one I've ever heard. My kids are twins and both had torticollis when they were born and I don't know if they would have crawled on their own a lot or not, but PT didn't help us fast enough to fully resolve the issue in time for the crawling months and they both went from rolling to walking. In the process of doing integration exercises DD was complaining of neck pain and so I took her to a special chiro for the upper cervical spine who was able to figure out what was going on and help her. After a few adjustments TONS of things changes so quickly for her - including some vision issues she had. I totally get where you're coming from about finding the small, sometimes out of the box, things that need to be resolved or broken down to components.

Edited for typos formatting

Yesterday I went to an open house at a local "literacy center". I talked to the owner and chatted a little bit with her about one of my kids who has a hard time copying words. I brought it up because I've been thinking about having his working memory tested to see if working memory is the root cause. We talked about his ability to do mental math (excellent), play games that involve working memory (he is excellent at the games she brought up), and other things. Then I told her how hard it was for him to learn our phone number. She told me that she thought this sounded like a symbol problem (can't remember if she said "symbolic working memory", "symbol imagery" or symbol something else). Until last night I had been thinking of it as purely a working memory issue, but now I'm wondering about this symbol issue. Does anyone know of a way to screen this at home? I saw this video ( ), but I don't understand how it's different from visual memory. Can a SLP assess it? How are symbolic imagery/memory and visual memory different? Do you know of ways to work on this at home? Lindamood Bell's Seeing Stars program dominates my google search. Are there other options? Does the Barton program address this skill (I hate to go off on a tangent if unnecessary)? Quick overview of this kiddo: Can read, can sound out unknown words, did several levels of AAR, has been stuck on AAS Level 1- knows all the sound cards and rules forward and backward and just cannot use them when trying to spell. We finished LiPS earlier this year (he didn't pass part C of the Barton screening) and have started Barton (we're on Level 2). When he tries to copy a word he only feels comfortable doing it one letter at a time (and it ends up being illegible because he writes while looking at the other word so he doesn't lose his place). I tried working with him on breaking words into chunks (via syllables, etc.) in order to copy and it is just too hard for him. Smart kid - advanced in math, budding engineer. No other LDs besides what appears to be dyslexia. Look forward to hearing what you all know about this.

This is very useful feedback, thank you!

I'm investigating the idea of using TTRS with a student who already has some basic typing skills but is just starting Barton. Can both be started at the same time, or does there need to be an off-set? Would it be best to get through Level 1 of Barton before jumping into TTRS?

My 3rd graders love the Murderous Maths book series. I had planned on reading them together but I think they've both read through the series twice now on their own. I still need to read them so I can't comment on quality/content.

Good luck and have a great time!

What a nice article. He looks happy and content, what a great look for a young man! I hope he continues to find fun an challenging work :-)

I've done this too. The girl who sells in my neighborhood has receipts with her just for this. It ends up being a tax deductible donation (buying cookies is not).

Yes! Economists do talk about this. I don't want to be super boring or get too nerdy but I've been really interested in economics for the past decade I feel like the questions you asked are important ones that there is very little public discussion about. I know you didn't ask about economic history, but there are some things related to the topics you bring up that I feel are important to include in my post. In the U.S. we have a mixed economy - it's not a fully centrally planned economy (think communism or socialism) and it's not a free market. The Federal Reserve (Fed) (our central bank) plays a huge role in this by controlling the money supply and interest rates and since the Fed Chairman is a presidential appointment there is always power, politics, and crony-ism involved. Fed policies are geared toward "growing" the economy. The Federal Reserve was created by the most rich and powerful bankers in the world (who's interests do you think they're looking out for!). One source for the history of the creation of the Fed is the book The Creature from Jekyll Island" (Jekyll Island is where the bankers met to flesh out the idea). The intellectual roots of our mixed economy are from John Maynard Keynes, who bucked the progress in ideas of the classical economists which sought to explain rather than manage the economy. His economics focus on using data (called aggregates, and are based on models of the economy) to manage the economy - with a focus on growth. Inflation (the expansion in the supply of our fiat currency), low interest rates, deficit spending, and a push toward consumerism are important elements in this branch of economics and most college economics courses teach from this school of thought. Friedrich Hayek would be considered the biggest intellectual opposition to Keynes and be considered a free market economist (and free market economists are generally in the "Chicago School" or "Austrian School"). Hayek argued that human interactions were too complex and could not be modeled accurately by economists and published his criticism of central planning in The Fatal Conceit. Hayek won a Nobel prize for his research and analysis of economic processes. This seems decent about some of that history: https://www.econedlink.org/lesson/593/Keynes-vs-Hayek-Rise-Chicago-School-Economics Or if you want something more entertaining there's this Keynes vs. Hayek rap battle. I'm not a big fan of rap but I'm really impressed that someone put this together this intellectual debate in such an entertaining way (I don't recall any language issues but there are women in skimpy dresses and over-consumption of alcohol): So all of this to come around and say that there are economists who think about this and who would agree with your statement of, "I don't personally see how economies worldwide could all keep growing indefinitely in real terms." One example is the study of Austrian Business Cycle Theory, which examines the boom and bust cycle (economic booms and then recessions/depressions) and seeks to explain and correlate that process with economic intervention from the government and central banks that are focused on "growth". They also tend to publish a lot of books about how Keynes was wrong - there are volumes and volumes out there musing about the points you bring up :-)

Hi Robyn! It makes me so sad to hear what a rough time you both had with school, but I'm glad that home school is an opportunity for you. I hope you both end up loving it. My twins both had a physical issue (torticollis - the shortening of the muscle on one side of the neck) that they had from birth, probably from being crammed in the womb together. We weren't able to fully resolve the issue quickly enough and neither of mine did their crawling either. It definitely had consequences. It sounds like maybe you're getting help in this area, but in case you need more resources to look at: I used this exercise program with mine (Assessing Neuromotor Readiness for Learning: The INPP Developmental Screening Test and School Intervention Programme https://www.amazon.com/Assessing-Neuromotor-Readiness-Learning-Developmental/dp/1119970687/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1513634870&sr=8-1-fkmr0&keywords=inpp+program). It changed our lives. Once those physical developmental issues are helped I think you'll be able to make a lot of progress in the other areas - especially the dyslexia. You may even see some of those issues become less severe on their own. If I were in your shoes, but with the home school experience I have so far, I think I'd spend a good amount of time just getting into a daily rhythm and getting used to being together so much. I think I'd figure out what time of the day you think the most learning could take place and start structuring days around that. I'd start with good books to read aloud, or listen to audio books, and get into having a day each week you go to the library to re-stock. Start playing with mathy type things in a fun way (like with pattern tiles). Play games. Do some cooking. Doing all of this will give you a picture of her skills and her strengths and weaknesses, you can bond and work on the relationship of spending time together every day, and begin setting the tone of having a certain time every day to do some work. Then you can figure out a way to work forward finding curriculum that would be most helpful to improve skills. For example, there are lots of great math programs but it could be frustrating if you need to work on lower grade skills and it seems like its for little kids or something. Something like Life of Fred doesn't have grade levels so you can start at the beginning and work forward. Also, I'd go to the park a lot and smile and play A LOT to shake off anything that might be hanging on from school. :-) Good luck and have fun!

The other day I was watching a hawk soaring and even though I've watched hawks my whole life I thought about something new. I suppose my usual feeling is something like those motivational "Soar!" type posters always evoke - a feeling of the excitement of succeeding and the power of being able to fly. This time as I was watching I was paying close attention to the tiny adjustments that the hawk needed to stay up and to control his movement. Soaring is hard work! Well, I've had a tough decade with personal and family illnesses and I've just felt like we've caught an updraft the last year so in 2018 my word will be 'soar' because I think it will be hard work to stay steady on the wind that we've caught, but I'm ready!

I have this book: "Problem Solving Strategies: Crossing The River With Dogs and Other Mathematical Adventures". I've attached a snapshot of part of the first page of the TOC. "Crossing The River with Dogs: Problem Solving for College Students": See TOC here: https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Crossing+the+River+with+Dogs%3A+Problem+Solving+for+College+Students%2C+2nd+Edition-p-9780470464731 Look very close to me.

I think the Zinc and Vit. D will help whether the problem is pathogens or allergies, so that might be an easy starting place. We use a liquid zinc sulfate supplement here from time to time and if you use something like that you can actually do an at home test for deficiency (explained here: https://blog.radiantlifecatalog.com/bid/59012/Are-you-Zinc-Deficient-A-simple-DIY-test-from-Premier-Research-Labs ). I haven't used the supplement sold in the link - there are plenty of options to shop around from.

Thanks for breaking this out and posting the info, I appreciate the details about how the club is run - especially since I don't have a facebook account!

I might test the waters a bit and see how interested she is in the SOTW readings and then borrow some books from the library to see if she is drawn to reading them. I've done that most weeks over the years and my kids just never go for the history books (but go for other books, history just hasn't been a big draw for now - maybe later!). While your idea sounds good on paper (and sounds fun to me), my kids just wouldn't have been interested in doing that and I would have probably ended up frustrated that I had spent money on books that could have gone toward something else that we would actually use/enjoy. Library books would be a low risk way to try it. Since my kids were that age I've been reading one chapter of SOTW a week and I've just picked read alouds (literature) that are related and my kids LOVE that. They color the SOTW activity pages while I read and we do the map work. Might also be worth reflecting a bit on whether or not the timeline would be very meaningful to her at this point - it might or might not. My kids (8) are just now seeing how a timeline of events would be interesting to keep. They've needed to experience many days, weeks, months, and a few years that they can think back on (like "Remember when we drove clear across the country two years ago, well, xyz event happened 1000 times that long ago"). They're just now starting to get, in a truly meaningful way, an idea of the relationships of people in space and time and so we're planning on creating a timeline when we start the history cycle again in 2019. Because it's their idea it is work they're looking forward to doing because they're now thirsty for putting together the information like that. Like previous posters have said, look at the child and do what makes sense. All these different homeschooling ideas exist because people are individuals.

We've been lucky - no brush fires in our area and the wind hasn't been gusty today. Humidity is up about 16 percent from yesterday - it was < 10% in the house last night. There's some fires burning down in Mexico. Hubs just told me that the Santa Ana winds are supposed to pick back up tomorrow. Hopefully they'll have been able to make progress containing the lilac fire before then.

Murder, illegal and immoral.... heartbreaking.

Right now our routine is that we do homeschool any weekday morning that we're home and is not a holiday. We like to go camping so we take that time off any time it comes up and I don't worry about taking days off to go do day trips. I try to keep all activities/classes or appointments scheduled in the afternoon. Since my kids are elementary aged right now I don't schedule out our work so if we're feeling tired or need a bit of a break I just adjust on the fly but we still do mom planned things during that time.

For me, Mucinex extra strength works the best and it lasts for 12 hours.