I don't care about oil drips or spice powder or anything on my shelves. Maybe I'm too lax. But I would just wipe up any spills when they happen (or when I happen to notice... ) and call it good. Contact paper sounds like a whole lot of work. Plus, there's nothing dirty about shelves really, is there?

I can't wait to hear how it goes after a few weeks. Sounds awesome!

Considering people are down and out for 7-10 days with the flu, and then on the mend for a while after that, I don't think it's reasonable to expect to be able to do so much 10 days after a hysterectomy. I feel exhausted for 3 days with a plain old COLD, and then semi-sick for a few days after that. With a cold, I have trouble watching fluffy TV, and fall asleep on the couch at the drop of a hat. And that's pretty normal! I can't even imagine having major surgery. I think you're doing great 🙂

This, for sure. My dyslexic readers are much better at longer words - they're more distinctive, and the kids don't apply any real decoding skills to them... they just make sense in context. Telling the difference between pool, pole, pale, etc. is much more difficult.

This one looks great!

I do like the Spectrum books quite a bit - I wish they had about half the problems on the page.

Thanks for all these possibilities! Excited to go through them... 🙂

Uh oh, not doing that one then!! Sheesh!

Although, if your DS is already decoding the words well, he may not be as interested. It was the right level of challenge/fun for my students, for now anyway.

YES, and they are awesome!!!!

Well, now I kinda want to get you started... but I don't think a Biblical lesson would go over so well in PS 😄 I do like the idea of doing a few word problems each day, just to keep skills fresh. I also like that 180 days of lessons, lots of review. I've made my own review sheets each day, but that would be a lot easier. Only trouble is if the review in the book doesn't match what we've done in class. I think those How-To books could be great! Thanks for finding them!!

For example, this one looks pretty good for my purposes: http://lookinside.carsondellosa.com/zhdv/ovsh/index.html#p=6

I'm on the hunt for a really basic, plain math workbook (grade 3-4ish). I want something that covers a year of math, but without a lot of bells and whistles... just plain pages with not too much writing on them, but not single-topic workbooks like math-u-see. I like the Key To series a lot, but I need to cover multiplication and division, multi-digit addition/subtraction, etc., and the Key series doesn't go down that low. Miquon appeals to me, but it's still not quite plain enough. Does such a unicorn workbook exist?

I would also encourage you to not be afraid to drop down the difficulty level to where she can actually comprehend easily. This may be way below where she would be by grade. I'm really loving ReadWorks these days. You can choose either a grade level OR lexile level, and filter articles that way. She might partially hate the comprehension you're doing because it's too hard. And ReadWorks is FREE! They have multiple choice and open-response questions that go along with articles. Sometimes the multiple choice questions are unnecessarily wordy, so I just cross them out 🙂 I love Lawyer&Mom's suggestion of making it a game. Also, if the student's answer and the test-maker's answer are not quite the same, maybe the OP could convince her daughter to write down what SHE thinks is a good answer (or have mom scribe), and also circle what she think the test-maker thinks is the best answer. I also 100% support further testing, like the TNL, so you know exactly what you should target and what she's good with already. 🙂

Turkey baby food is what my cat eats after an illness, too. Also check that it's just turkey + water, no cornstarch (makes them throw up). The brand I buy is Beech-Nut. Sorry about your sweet kitty 😞

I'm not too fussed about "subtypes" of dyslexia, or even identifying a reading difficulty as dyslexia at all. Whatever it's called (or not called), you just gotta roll with it. I just haven't seen as many kids with average or above average phonological skills, and below average orthographic skills. I do think drilling flashcards for phonograms, and also for word parts (un, an, in), etc, is really helpful for the brain to identify common word parts. The Seeing Stars kit has cards like that, but you could also make your own. Sorry to hijack the thread... I should start my own 🙂

That's what I thought, I just wish there was more specifically for orthographic processing. Some of my students have an unusual presentation of average phonological skills, with super low orthographic memory. Guess we just keep the nose to the grindstone 🙂

Those phonological scores look good! The rapid naming... not so much. Rapid naming affects reading so greatly because it's a measure of how quickly her brain can connect the letter on the page to the sound the letter makes. Even if she KNOWS the sounds cold, if it takes longer to GET those sounds, everything gets thrown off. Imagine being slow at retrieving each sound for p-a-r-t-i-c-u-l-a-r-l-y, and then having to blend the sounds together. It's cumbersome. The good scores on phonological awareness are really good news, though 🙂 Many dyslexics have both low rapid naming AND poor phonological awareness. Practice, practice, practice is going to be important to make words automatic, in addition to teaching her how to decode the words. She will likely need many more exposures to words than an average kid, in order to make retrieval automatic. As much time as you can have her read aloud, I would do.

Have you done any interventions for orthographic processing? Just curious how to go about that 🙂

I feel for you. My husband has a PhD in math and did all the usual things... got an academic job, and it was not what he expected. His classes were large (40+ kids in a calculus class) so he spent most of his time answering emails. He never had time to actually make connections with students, which was his favorite part of teaching. He felt like a cog in the academic wheel. After 4 years, I finally got a job in a different state, and he was burnt out enough to quit his job. I still feel bad about it, because math is his passion, and so is teaching... but the emotional toll was not worth it! I was watching him disintegrate before my eyes. Now he has a boring, but non-stressful, job. He's planning to look for other work eventually, but for now, I think his brain + body are healing. So sorry you're going through this. It's hard to support someone who is under so much stress 😞

All books by Alexander McCall Smith are wonderful. The 44 Scotland Street series, Isabel Dalhousie series, and the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series are my favorites 🙂

True, that's no good. My student that I think a lot about DOES know he has dyslexia, and it's been a relief to him and a classmate. They both refer to it often - but one thinks he can overcome it and learn, and the other thinks it means he'll never learn 😞

Definitely!! Well said.

This makes me sad for the boys, too. There obviously wasn't much of a growth mindset at that school! I agree with you that each student needs to be handled differently.

I vote for being a major pain in the butt! 😀