The Mislabeled Child and The Dyslexic Advantage by Brock and Fernette Eide are great resources, too. Both books are based on current scientific research and really help explain things, including all the possible strengths that you may not be aware they have. In fact, I think both books should be required reading for public school teachers and administrators.

I thought of a few more things that might matter to you (sorry!). 1. Barton IS expensive but far cheaper than what we were paying for specialized tutoring. We were burning through $800+ every month and a half. It was horrible. And the kids were not progressing with the tutoring sessions nearly as well as they are now with Barton. Barton has a high resale value, too, so once you are done using it, you can resell it for nearly the price you paid for it. 2. As someone else mentioned, the materials are really sturdy, too, so they will last for a long time. 3. To determine initial cost, each level is about $250 and Level 1 and Level 2 go relatively quickly, so you will almost certainly need to purchase both in one year and if your kids pick things up sort of fast, you may start Level 3 that year, too. After that, some parents use a Level a year, with lots of review. Others go more quickly and cover 2-3 or even 4 levels a year. Even with all the review we are doing, we are trying to complete 3 levels in one year, but the levels get much, much longer and more intense after Level 2. Level 4 is the longest and arguably the most intense, so many take an entire year for that one. 4. I have had friends who completed a Level then took 2-3 months off for summer break and discovered their children had lost almost everything. They had to start over with the previous Level before they could progress to the next one. I don't think they reviewed enough and I think they progressed through the previous level too quickly, but even so with dyslexic kids especially, you have to keep reviewing, no matter what system you use. During the summer, we took 2 weeks off, then did short sessions every day for a month, then took another 2 weeks off and went back to sessions every day again. It worked well. The kids felt good about the fact that they were retaining the info and we still got to take breaks. During this school year we are going to try taking a one week break every 6 weeks. 5. Once you complete a level, if you cannot afford to buy another Level right away, just keep reviewing the level you already have, even it is only twice a week. The kids retain the information and getting additional review will help them progress more smoothly in the next level anyway. 6. I also hear that AAR and AAS are really worth the investment, too, but that system does not start with really basic sound associations like Barton does in LEVEL 1. Some kids don't need to go back to that really basic step, but my kids definitely did. LEVEL 1 seemed SO basic that I thought we had made a mistake in ordering it. I was wrong. It helped tremendously as we heading into higher levels. Not all kids need that, though. Sorry i am so long-winded on this. I didn't have anyone to advise me when I was first looking for help for my kids and we made a LOT of mistakes along the way. I just wanted to give you as much info as I could think of so you could compare it with what others are saying and make an informed decision. Parenting kids with special issues is challenging, but teaching them is even more so. Again, good luck!

One more thing, the videos really are pretty boring for teaching tutors to teach, but if you can just ignore that and follow her instructions, including for when things don't work, it DOES work. I am so grateful for those videos no matter how boring they are because they really do help. Now that we have been doing the system for a while, I don't need nearly as much hand holding but I still watch the videos for each lesson to smooth out my own delivery and make certain I am not missing a step. You cannot rush this program. Also, she goes slow and is repetitive on the DVD not because she thinks we are all idiots but because many parents have never tutored before and some may be dyslexic since it runs in families. The DVDs have to support the newbie and dyslexic parents as well as the tutor savvy ones. It may not be fast paced enough for some, but if you are the type that just has to rush to the finish line without taking every step to get there, this program is not for you and your kids will not succeed using it. All kids are different and all parents are different so it is hard to know what would work best for your family. I hear that AAS, AAR, Apples and Pears, and Sequential Spelling are all good, and I know several people using AAS and AAR very successfully. However, each approaches the situation differently. It may take a while to find a good fit. Good luck!

We are using Barton and had bumps at first but the system is definitely working for both of my kids, now. My daughter, who was TERRIBLE at spelling and frequently earned single digit numbers on her spelling tests even after studying every day for a week, just passed a criterion referenced, independently administered test of a list of words she had not seen and did not study ahead of time with a 100. Through the whole test she was using skills she learned with Barton to figure out how to spell the words. I love Barton because my kids are no longer dependent on having seen a word before to know how to spell it. Reading is also improving quite well. We aren't at grade level yet but we are far, far closer than we were a year ago. We move slowly, do lots of review so the rules because automatic, and incorporate games. We also do shorter sessions 5 days a week (sometimes as short as 20 minutes) instead of 2 or three long sessions. The kids don't burn out, they are far more enthusiastic about using the system now and there is plenty of review to help them retain the info. long term. Sometimes, people rush the program and the information doesn't stick, so we are trying hard not to do that. My daughter actually takes 2 weeks with each lesson or she doesn't retain the rules. Just this last week, she was frustrated that a rule wasn't sticking. I reminded her that with practice, review and enthusiasm, she had overcome other hurdles. She kept trying. Suddenly, this week she was spelling out words and looked up at me with a huge grin. She realized she hadn't had to think through the rule at all. It just came automatically as she was writing. By the way, my son has an auditory processing issue. I know that you mentioned one of your children does, too. That can really negatively effect learning in subtle but debilitating ways. Even if you don't go with Barton. take the free, very short test they have for tutors and then administer the student test to your kids. If either has an auditory processing issue that the beginning of LiPS didn't remediate, the test should catch it. That really needs to be addressed BEFORE you start them on Barton or AAS or Apples and Pears. We re-mediated my son using LiPS even though he hated it, then re-administered the Barton test and he showed remarkable improvement. He now does Barton and does well, but he still sometimes substitutes sounds that don't belong, so we go slow, follow Barton's recommendations and it works really well. I was always a good student in school. I do not have dyslexia and language arts was my strongest subject. Even I am learning a LOT from this program. It was kind of irritating to use at first, but once I embraced the system, used the recommendations they have for when you get stuck or how to handle resistant pre-teens and teens, things really smoothed out. After my daughter passed that criterion referenced spelling test, she ASKED to do extra Barton lessons because she saw that it was reaping results. Barton isn't for everyone, but if your kids are really struggling, i recommend you at least take the free test then give it to the kids. It may help you determine what the issues might be.

I sympathize so much! I know this is hard. I'm so sorry. We have been working to find things our own kids can feel successful at. It has not been an easy road. My husband was extremely fortunate in many ways in his own experience with extracurricular activities. Our kids have struggled mightily to find things they feel successful doing. Not being able to read, having extreme difficulty with math and coordination make life challenging, especially since they are both very bright and know EXACTLY where they should be and where they are not. Homeschooling helped, but didn't solve everything. One thing that helped for my son was a LOT of additional instruction in things that hold his interest. For instance, he started karate a little less than a year ago because a friend of his was in the class, but my son's coordination is poor. At first it looked like a terrible match. We talked to his instructor and asked if they would give him private lessons every Friday to reinforce what he was learning in group lessons. One of the instructors would work with him over and over, in a very encouraging manner, every week, to improve his right left coordination and help the basic movements become automatic. Progress was slow at first, but then we could all see improvement. He also began practicing about 20 minutes a day on what they were teaching him, every single day, but he would only practice what had been reviewed in the private lesson to make certain he was practicing the correct moves, since he would frequently mis-remember a move the first time it was taught. On the last private lesson before one of his belt tests, he had improved so much from where he had been that his instructor and his instructor's wife had tears in their eyes. He has now advanced 3 belts since his first class and has been promoted to a higher class. Will he end up as a 9th degree black belt running his own dojo? No, probably not....but the confidence he now feels and the improvement in motor control have gone a long way to helping him in other areas. He also loves History and wanted to learn Latin. Trying to learn another language (especially one that isn't spoken anymore) when you still struggle with the structure and vocabulary of your own is quite challenging. We are taking it in small, systematic pieces, with a lot of auditory and visual stimulation through DVDs and games. It is slow going, but I don't assign any grades. As he masters one piece of the puzzle, we move on to the next while continually reviewing the previous ones. I don't think his Latin has improved tremendously much in the past several months, although there has been SOME progress. However, since English is actually 50% based on Latin, this is helping him with his English language lessons, which is great.. I try to make the Latin lessons as fun as possible so he remains enthusiastic. My daughter has good eye-hand coordination but terrible sequencing issues. What has helped her is the music program Simply Music plus systematic, small step, supportive art instruction without a lot of rigid rules to further those areas of interest. She also wants to learn glass blowing and woodworking. I am still trying to find an instructor for those two areas, since I don't know much about either, but if I can find someone, I will do the same thing I did with karate for her brother, try to get lots of one on one, supportive instruction until the basics are mastered to give her the scaffolding she needs to feel successful. In the meantime, I keep art supplies in large quantities all over so she can grab them on a whim, plus I have instructional DVD's anytime she wants to pop one in for additional instruction. I know this is a challenging road, but you are not alone. Reach out to as many sources as necessary to help you and help him. And because your son has family that cares and is involved, he will find a successful path. It just may not be readily apparent today or next month or even for several years. My family and I wish you all the best.

I "mispoke" earlier, by the way. What I meant to say was don't let your son, or you. or his teachers, define him ONLY by his academic achievements or failures during his school years. Success in academics is a great feeling and I don't mean to say it isn't important. It just shouldn't be the only focus in his life. There is so much more out there that, in the long run, is far, far more important than how you did or didn't do on a specific test or subject in a specific grade level. We, as parents, and our kids' teachers, lost focus, and only cared about their academic successes and failures for quite a while, as if test scores are the only thing in the world that will determine if you are a happy person and a productive member of society once you leave school. They aren't. Not even close. But if that is your only real definition of who you are, and you don't do well on something, your feeling of failure can carry you well into adulthood and negatively effect so many things in your life and give you nothing to stand on in the end..

I am so glad that things are going well! I will keep my fingers crossed that his successes continue. I would only add a couple of things. One is a word of caution. Even though my son's teacher finally was able to provide accommodations in her classroom, she really didn't understand his issues. She was very negative about her approach, especially at the beginning of the year. She, without malicious intent, turned his 2nd grade experience into something so toxic, we were forced to pull him from school mid-year. Even though we knew that our son who had once absolutely adored school and was much loved by peers and teachers alike was becoming withdrawn, defensive, defiant and began having nightmares, we kept thinking things would work out, especially after we finally had an evaluation and the school was trying to help. We waited too long and he still suffers tremendous emotional scars. I was not proactive at the beginning when he told me he was having difficulty with copying and reading. His relationship with his teacher took a steady decline and by the time we pulled him, the sound of a pencil on paper would cause what amounted to post traumatic shock from all the times she yelled at him, belittled him and made him feel like a "bad" kid. He would shake all over and cry the minute a pencil hit paper. He STILL, one year later, is terrified of writing with pencil, only wanting to use marker or write on a dry erase board. If he is forced to use pencil, his hand shakes so badly that his handwriting is completely illegible. You are in a better position than we were since you already know that your child has issues, and so does the school. Hopefully, that will make all the difference. I just wanted to mention this to encourage you to be proactive. Don't ignore warning bells. Clinical depression and suicide are on the rise in dyslexic children because of all the schools being forced to teach to standardized testing, focusing on all a dyslexic's weaknesses and none of their strengths. Finally, don't let your son define his self-worth by academic performance. Academic performance doesn't mean anything if you cannot apply it to a marketable skill and useful life=skills, something that teachers, students and parents frequently forget. Who cares if you got an A in Algebra in 9th grade if you cannot balance a checkbook and you cannot get a secure job? Find something that really peaks his interest and that he has real strengths in, then provide him with every opportunity you can to help him master that skill or skills. My husband is dyslexic, dysgraphic and probably dyscalculic, and struggled quite a bit in school but he is also a brilliant engineer and computer specialist, and a great airplane pilot. His parents encouraged his interest in computers LONG before most kids had any access to a computer (pawn shops were great for this) plus his interest in aviation (he started with the Civil Air Patrol quite young) and in high school he was very lucky that they had a Broadcast Television program. That program and his interest in computers and involvement in the Civil Air Patrol kept him feeling good about his abilities, even when he struggled in certain academic areas and it gave him great job and life-skills. He was employed early on, he wasn't even out of high school yet, and though he STARTED going to college while he was working, he never finished college because his workload and continual promotions kept him too busy. He is now Vice President of Engineering for a major company, having never completed his college degree, but also having never been unemployed and never laid off. He is now highly respected in the industry and I doubt most people who work with him would have any clue he had difficulties in school. A college degree now would be pointless because he already knows far more than a college professor in Broadcast TV, and had much of that knowledge long before he was in college..

Welcome!

I found that Math on the Level was great for helping me determine what still needs to be learned and what is missing, but I am uncertain if a child could navigate it without teacher assistance. We actually pair Math on the Level with Math Mammoth and Teaching Textbooks. Math on the Level is not structured by grade. It gives you a way to look at ALL math concepts that are supposed to be learned by 8th grade and then shows you how to learn those concepts and when to interweave new ones. It also gives lots of real world examples, since the goal of this system is not to teach to standardized tests but to give really good comprehension skills for math concepts and how those concepts will be needed throughout life. I had never thought of math holistically before. This gave me a whole new perspective on math.

Just thought I would post that my kids and i have found two great systems for learning music. Both kids are dyslexic, one is also dyscalculic, and the other also has dysgraphia, sensory integration issues and a mild auditory processing issue but is also gifted. No music lessons had ever been successful for either of them, until this year. My son wanted to learn guitar but with his dysgraphia, etc. it just seemed impossible. We found Chord Buddy just a couple of months ago at a convention. Originally it was created for those with arthritis. We started the program and it is working great! We both love it. It has DVD instruction that you use as you play, so it really makes it easy to understand and follow. The other system is Simply Music on-line for home use. We ordered it through Homeschool Buyer's Co-op (great site for educational products for anyone, not just homeschoolers). It was originally created to teach piano to blind people but they found it does great for anyone, especially anyone with sequencing issues or tracking issues, etc. My daughter wanted to learn piano but can't sequence anything. We started a week and a half ago watching the instructional videos, which last about 10 minutes, then we would practice another 15-20 minutes each day. It was really quite simple, but brilliantly done. We both are already playing one piece that includes movement with both hands and we both now know the keys on the keyboard. Just this evening, my daughter created her own piano piece based on the methods she learned through Simply Music, then taught it to me and we played a duet. It was a terrific moment for both of us! I don't get any compensation from either of these companies. I just really was so happy and excited that there were systems out there that finally made music accessible to my kids (and me). Thought I would share, in case anyone out there is looking.

never heard of it, but I will look into it. Thanks.

I agree wholeheartedly with herekittykitty. I have so many friends and relatives that got only very surface assessments from their schools. They simply are not trained for useful, overall, detailed evaluations. The one my son had through the school took about 40 minutes and told us almost nothing truly useful. When we finally bit the bullet and had a detailed independent eval, for both kids it was like night and day. The evaluation for each child lasted all day (although the lady was so good my kids didn't mind at all and came away feeling pretty good about themselves) and I came back on a different day after each evaluation and after she had compiled all the data so she could spend 3 hours explaining it all to me. There was so much information about not only the weaknesses but also hidden strengths we didn't even know existed. For instance, we found out that my daughter has tremendous strengths in 3D spatial relations, but terrible comprehension in 2D. Constructing something in 3D really helps her understand, but a 2D picture or manipulation of 2D objects helps her not at all. My son has tremendous strengths when presented with items in color coupled with an auditory component. If something is presented in black and white, his comprehension drops below grade level. Take away the auditory component, too, and comprehension is almost non-existent. Without the independent evaluation we would not have known any of that, along with a host of other things.

I found it really interesting too, and you are right, as parents trying to choose the best path for our kids, it isn't always clear what to do. Pros and cons and all that....

Interestingly, when we finally had a decent and accurate, independent, evaluation of both my kids when my daughter hit 5th grade (she suffered through years of no help from the school, no remediation, no accommodations and me having to reteach virtually everything because NO ONE believed she had dyslexia although she showed classic signs way back in 4k) the evaluator told me that a new scientific study was showing that many people learn better with movement and frequently with music and that I should consider trying to implement those two items. I grinned and said, "Really? That's very interesting because..." By the way, for anyone interested in incorporating music lessons into their day, but fearful that the drills and sequencing might be an issue, my daughter and I started piano lessons on-line using Simply Music's home version. We ordered it through Homeschool Buyer's Co-op, which has TONS of educational materials at terrific discounts, not just for the homeschooling community. Simply Music uses a very different approach to piano and was originally created to teach blind people how to play. After it's creation it was discovered that this system can work really well for children with any sort of learning issue. Personally, I think it would work beautifully for ANYONE. I actually took piano lessons when I was younger and had a terrible time learning to play. I love this system. We started a week and a half ago. My daughter has an awful time with sequencing and has no patience for drills, but by the end of last week, we both already knew a piano piece using both hands and knew the keys on the keyboard. Tonight, she created her own piece using both hands, taught it to me and we played a duet. It was a simple piece, but fun to play and sounded really great. What was even better was that my 13 year old daughter actually enjoyed spending time with Mom. My son is using a system called Chord Buddy to learn guitar. His dysgraphia made it really hard for him to develop the finger strength and coordination to play a guitar until we found Chord Buddy at a homeschooling convention. That system was originally created to help people with arthritis play guitar, but it could be used by anyone. Again. a really great system that hardly anyone has heard of. They have a website, if you are interested. I may start a new thread mentioning the two system on the main LD sight in case there are others out there with kids who want to learn music but who may not do well in a standard piano or guitar class, but thought I would mention it here, first. Good luck to all. Glad some are having success stories and hope it continues!!!

Actually, my son has never been officially diagnosed by a professional for dysgraphia. I haven't found anyone in this area that is trained to do so. In fact, in our first assessment, the assessor said his handwriting was fine for a boy his age. The school had no way to really test for dysgraphia, either. They just looked for really bad handwriting and assigned labels. My son had really, really slow handwriting, but it was very legible all the way through 1st grade. However, when he went into 2nd grade and independent handwriting expectations increased 10 fold, he could not keep up with the workload. We then found out through extensive research and a few on-line consultations, that what he has is stealth dysgraphia, which can take several forms. In my son's instance, because he was explicitly and systematically taught in 4k, kinder and 1st, he can write on large line tablet paper, with the dotted guide line in the middle. However, he is not capable of judging how to make a letter smaller or space smaller letters correctly, or how to write on blank paper. He would stare and stare at the board, trying to figure out how to take what he saw and put it on the college ruled paper he had been given. Since the teacher knew he was very intelligent and had had no real issues with handwriting in 1st grade, she assumed he just didn't want to do the work and really treated him pretty badly for it. He kept getting in trouble for having a bad attitude, even though he had never had issues in school before. He could not articulate what the problem was and frequently came home in tears with most of his work incomplete. Finally, I started asking specific questions about his issues with copying from the board, had him try to copy at home using the same paper they were using at school, and realized there was an issue. After all the research, etc. I went back to the school and explained what I believed was going on. They were understanding and agreed to implement accommodations, but the teacher herself was lost as to how to make accommodations work in her classroom. That was where a lot of gentle one on one meetings with her and some small clearly written info regarding dysgraphia really helped her to get on board with implementing accommodations... I really, really hope his first test went well today. I am keeping him in my thoughts. Good luck! Let us know how it went.

O.k. Thanks.

O.k. I have used their Building Thinking Skills products before. It was interesting watching both of my dyslexic children do the same Thinking Skills worksheets. With some concepts my son would fly through and my daughter just wouldn't get it at all then in other concepts it would be the polar opposite. The brain is a fascinating and confusing place to be.... Anyway, I will try that. Thanks.

Subitizing! That is the word I was looking for! People with dyscalculia have difficulty with subitizing. There is a book written by a girl with this issue called My 13th Winter. It is interesting to read, even if it doesn't really give any suggestions for how to help. I agree that you need to see how well your child does in her native language, if that is possible at this point. As I previously mentioned in my other post, my daughter was determined to probably have dyscalculia (although no one in our area does official diagnosis for this issue). My daughter hated MUS, but I started her at the lowest level for 6th grade (when we began homeschooling last year) because she was three years behind in math and had to count on her fingers or use a number line or a multiplication grid for everything and didn't seem to grasp so many basics of math, including elapsed time, reading a clock, etc. In fact, she has virtually no sense of time.. Her lack of math skills really frustrated her and made her feel like a failure while she was in school. Couple that with dyslexia so she couldn't read directions on her math papers effectively and she was doomed to fail. She had the same math teacher for three years in school, and the teacher had no idea how to help her so she just kept passing her anyway. We didn't realize how behind she was until we had an independent eval done. Anyway, when we started MUS at the basic level last year, she hated it. She hated the manipulatives, she hated the work sheets, everything. I think back now, though, and maybe it was because it was so basic it made her feel like I didn't think she was capable of anything but 1+1=2. I guess maybe I should have started at a higher level? Has anyone else done that? Now she is 13, in 7th grade and we are using Teaching Textbooks because she wanted some independence from me. She loved the first couple of weeks because she could log in and do everything on her own. However, just the past couple of days, we are hitting a few snags with computation. I have been supplementing with Math Mammoth and Math on the Level, but I really wish there were another option, too. I have always struggled in math and still count on my fingers, too. I will read How the Brain Learns Mathematics. I recommend others read The Mislabeled Child. It at least got us questioning what others were saying were the issues and helped us debunk a lot of garbage we were being fed.

While Barton irritates me, too, at times, it has worked for us when nothing else did. One year, in just a month and a half, we spent over $800 on specialized dyslexia tutoring for our kids, and it didn't help at ALL. In fact, it confused the kids terribly. Instinct kept telling me that the tutor was using a system that wasn't working for my kids, but I decided to trust her expertise and it nearly bankrupt us. Finally, I did additional research and asked for advice from the assessor who diagnosed my kids. I convinced the tutor to let me sit in (discreetly) on several sessions and became concerned about her methods. I went to the tutor with my research findings and asked why she wasn't using certain things that were usually successful with dyslexics and why she was using other things that had been proven to NOT work with many dyslexics. She insisted that her system worked and that I needed to be patient, but everything inside me said we needed to change our course. I decided that for our financial security and my kids' self-esteem, I would have to do something on my own. I found Barton, was eternally grateful for the DVDs cause I couldn't have taught it without them, and began tutoring my own kids. We saved a lot of money in tutoring fees and more importantly began seeing results almost immediately. My daughter just passed an independent criterion-referenced spelling test with a 100, and it was a list she did no studying for ahead of time. She used methods she had learned in Barton to pass that test. Spelling had been her worst subject all the way through 5th grade, frequently getting single digit scores on her tests. Passing that test with a 100 was worth every penny we have paid for her boost in self-esteem. She even ASKED the next day if we could start Barton early and do a longer session. The system may not work for everyone, but it is working for us, and is far, far cheaper than if we had continued with private tutoring. We are not yet using the app for the tiles, but will consider it for higher levels.

Another thing about e-readers that scientific studies have discovered is that it hinders our natural "mapping" abilities while reading. When you have a book in your hand, instinctively you are "feeling" about where in the book you are and therefore about where you are in the story. You are also getting tactile stimulation from holding the book and turning the pages. Without those things, apparently, it is harder for our brains to anchor to the story, although they aren't certain why yet. Maybe that is why the speed slows down. My eyesight started fragmenting a couple of years back (sort of like looking through a kaleidescope) and using my Kindle gives me a nice big font I can actually see without too much strain. I read that way a lot for a while on a regular basis. However, I found I didn't like the FEEL of reading that way and I didn't feel as satisfied with the experience. For my kids and for me, I also realized that with an e-reader we were far, far less likely to just search back for a favorite passage and re-read it, or go back and read a passage again for clarification. That ended up affecting comprehension in a way I had not anticipated. Anyway, good luck! I know it is hard to know the right path, but I agree with so many who responded. Take the pressure off. Give him a chance to work through this issue, give him lots of love and lots of advanced audio books and I think it will all work out much better.

Actually, movement can be EXTREMELY helpful for some children. My daughter is dyslexic, although we didn't know it at the time, and in 2nd grade we were reviewing for a really important science test. She just wasn't grasping the concepts AT ALL and was in tears from all the studying we were trying to do. It was not something we could do experiments on at home, so there was nothing but text to study. To break up another long, fruitless, study session, in desperation i asked her if she would like to swing while we talked about the material. She was relieved and immediately ran outside and hopped on her swing. I sat near her and we talked about lots of other things first, to give us both a break, then we started a dialog about the science topics coming up on her test. She started retaining the information. We did the same thing the next day, and again things seemed to be sticking. I was thrilled. I also started thinking about how I could capitalize on this. I created a multiple choice written test on a whim, then took our little plastic desk outside and set it up in front of the swing. Laura lay on her stomach and would swing forward, hold the desk while she read the question, swing back and forth a couple of times to think about the question, then grab the desk again and write her answer. My husband thought I was nuts and frankly I was wondering about my sanity,too, but we had had so many unsuccessful experiences in 1st and 2nd grade I was willing to try anything. She got a 100 on my little practice test, but how would she do on the test at school, where there would not be an opportunity to have any sort of movement? She took the test at school the next day and tied for highest grade in the class. Her teacher was so excited, too! She adored Laura and wanted her to succeed so badly but had never found an effective means of helping her. Now we homeschool (started last year for 6th grade) and I give her breaks throughout the day to sit on her swing to think (even at 13 she likes to swing because she says things make more sense when she does), or take walks around the block and talk about the information, etc. Movement, now frequently coupled with music, really has helped. Another thing I started doing with both my daughter and my son is allow them to play with clay or construct with legos or do an art project or something along those lines while I read books to them from our curriculum (it is literature based). Neither is yet reading well enough to tackle these books on their own, but having exposure to the rich content is helping their comprehension, vocabulary, etc. If they were just having to sit still and listen, they would be spending most of their energy trying to sit still and not be hearing any of what I read. I have discovered that BOTH kids learn better if there is some sort of movement involved while they learn. (Not me, I need to focus without distraction, but my kids are so different from me). Anyway, I've rambled long enough. So happy you had such a great moment. Yeah!!! Those successful moments that seem like so little to someone else are actually the motivation that keeps many of us trying every harder to help our kids succeed. Nice to see a positive post. Good luck!

I sent before I was done, so here is the second half. We started homeschooling, and that is helping quite a bit with our issues, but hasn't solved everything. Guided meditation would still very much be something I would like to pursue. Hope someone has a suggestion.

Would love to hear someone weigh in on this myself. Having similar issues with my 9 1/2 year old DS and also found that recommendations were too babyish...

You are welcome. Good luck! I wish you all the best.

We have tried many, many different systems. Math U See did not work for us, but it is a great program. Works better if you start it with younger kids, though, I think. The kids had a hard time with the format, but my daughter, especially, was already going into middle school when we decided to homeschool (after finally getting an accurate diagnosis of dyslexia in 5th grade) and switching to something so different frustrated her. Both of my kids are dyslexic and need a LOT of assistance with most of their school work. It was demoralizing to them both. They wanted some independence. To that end, this year we started doing Teaching Textbooks and they both loved that they could log on independently and do SOMETHING without me. However, I am also doing Math on the Level and Math Mammoth with them. I interweave those in to provide scaffolding since I already owned them and the kids need a lot of different approaches to really "get" a concept. Two summers ago, the kids were also enrolled in a dyslexia summer program at Groves Academy in MN. It is a great school but we don't live there so that one summer has been our only experience. There was a fantastic math teacher there that had some very useful approaches to math. For instance, my daughter not only CANNOT memorize her multiplication tables, she was unable to line up her numbers to multiply multi-digit numbers with any accuracy. The math specialist recommended using the Lattice method or the grid method for multi-digit multiplication. I was able to find references on the internet that helped me reinforce the methods that the teacher had taught her. Laura how to do those things and finally she is able to do multi-digit multiplication, as long as she is provided a multiplication grid. It gave her a lot of confidence and Laura decided that she likes math after being shown that there are MANY ways to approach math. By the way, there is a small percentage of the population that are dyscalculic (cannnot efficiently process basic math concepts, in some instances including elapsed time, money and calendars, as well as addition, subtraction, multiplication and division). However, many of these same individuals can process higher maths, as long as scaffolding is provided for the basic maths. It is believed that my daughter has this issue, but not my son. I was told to continue teaching basic math concepts to her, but not to prevent her from moving forward in math if she still cannot memorize basic maths, since higher maths may still be quite possible for her to do. Interestingly, they think Einstein may have had this issue, too. Unfortunately, there isn't a lot of research being done on dyscalculia in America, and it is virtually unheard of in our schools (therefore no effective remediation). The British have made more inroads in this area.