We went through the school district because it was free. I know some districts are wonderful and can be a great source of help and support ... but that was not the case for us. Their main focus was to get ds enrolled in their program as a full-time student, not just receiving special services. And although our district was supposedly well-known for the training of its special-ed staff in autism spectrum disorders, I was very disturbed by the lack of patience demonstrated with ds and the ignorance demonstrated by people who were supposed to be the experts. For instance, the occupational therapist informed us that ds' struggles with ball skills were due to his having been homeschooled. Nope, couldn't possibly be that kids on the spectrum often have problems with coordination and low muscle tone. As time went on, there was less and less adherence to his IEP, and everything felt like a fight. It was not a good experience.

If you have a child whose seizures are well-controlled with meds, is there any advantage to the ketogenic diet? Or is it really meant for kids whose seizures have not responded to meds?

For those of you who use Medic Alert, are you happy with it? I'm thinking that that's the way I want to go -- he'll still wear a bracelet with his condition, meds, etc. on it, but the other info (name, phone numbers, etc.) will be accessible only through Medic Alert.

what information do you have on it? Ds is back on his antiseizure meds after having a grand mal seizure last week. He'd been weaned off his meds and cleared two ambulatory EEGs in the spring. His seizures had been completely controlled for several years, and I'd gotten lax about his wearing his medical ID bracelet. I got it out again the other day, but he needs a new one. This one has cute little trucks ;), and the info on it is minimal -- just his condition, his medication, and his blood type. After doing some reading online, I see that many parents put a lot more info on their kids' IDs -- name, condition, meds, blood type, contact numbers, and a doctor's number. I can see the logic in all of those, but I feel funny about putting his name and our phone numbers on it from a privacy standpoint. Then again, if he has a seizure and I'm not with him, I want whoever's with him to have every bit of info they might need. So what do you do / suggest?

What a timely thread! I've been thinking about just this very thing. I too love R & S math. If it were consumable, I would use it with ds2 (struggling right now to find the right program for him -- TT is not getting the job done). I used R & S with dd2 a few years ago and thought it was wonderful. But ds cannot handle the copying aspect of it. I've also used CLE, and I like it a lot, too (and it's consumable). It's at the top of my list for what to switch to with ds. But I don't think the TM is as awesome as R & S's. So what I've been contemplating is using CLE, but having the R & S TM on hand for help in introducing concepts, the oral and mental math activities, and the supplemental practice problems in the back.

I don't remember how I stumbled onto a website about OAS, but when I did, I felt validated, too! It was like, "YES! I am NOT crazy!" I'd had problems off and on for years -- apples, bell peppers, and carrots were really problematic, and if I put my hands anywhere near my eyes while preparing raw potatoes, I had a terrible reaction. I miss raw apples the most -- the wonderful taste and sensation of biting into a crisp, juicy apple. But having your throat swell up is scary. I can live with cooked apples instead.

I hate it, too. I've been getting back on my low-carb diet, and I made a huge, lovely salad with grilled chicken, beans, cheese, and fresh romaine, tomatoes, and cucumber. My reaction hasn't been severe, but it's been noticeable enough that I can tell that one or more of the vegetables is irritating my throat. Usually I experience that with bell peppers, so I leave them out (or just don't eat them raw). I've never had issues with the other veggies before. It makes it hard to eat healthily if you have to avoid fresh vegetables! I already have a problem with a number of fresh fruits. Ah, well. I can always eat cooked veggies instead.

The publishers of TT told me in an email that there are sometimes new concepts toward the end of the book -- not the very end, but in the last 1/3 or 1/4 of the book -- that are designed to appear in time for the student to learn them for standardized testing that often happens in spring. (I had wondered why new topics would pop up toward the end of the book but not get much treatment. Apparently the idea is to give the student a passing acquaintance with such topics in time for testing.) But given the amount of time TT spends reviewing at the beginning of each book, you're probably fine just moving on to the next book.

I know. ;) A consensus isn't necessary, though -- I just need to see my criteria and the programs that fit it through objective eyes.

My eyes are glazing over. I have read reviews until I'm blue in the face. I desperately need some objectivity. So I'll tell you what I'm looking for, and you can throw out suggestions. ;) I need a comprehensive math program for ds, who is working at an upper-elementary level. The ideal program: 1. Is not computer-based. 2. Is consumable. 3. Has a helpful teacher's manual. 4. Can be mastery if there is fairly frequent, periodic review (a la Rod and Staff, which I used with dd and liked a lot, but it's non-consumable). 5. Can be spiral if there is sufficient time spent on any new topics in each lesson and lots of opportunities for practice. :bigear:

See my original thread here. I've been looking at CLE Math and giving serious thought to switching from Teaching Textbooks to CLE. Ds2 has been through TT3 or 4 and is now in 7. He has done very well until recently -- he has seemed to understand the concepts, and the format (short lessons with a consistent structure) seems to agree with him. But his recent performance on standardized testing shows that either he has forgotten a tremendous amount in a short period of time (less than 2 months) or the concepts weren't as solidly in his head as I thought. I could chalk it up to summertime learning loss, but I suspect that the problem is that as the concepts have gotten more difficult, he's needed more practice than TT is providing. So I gave him the placement tests for CLE. He placed into the 400 level. I know that CLE's levels don't correlate strictly with grade level, and that CLE is considered somewhat advanced -- but I was stunned that he could be in TT 7 and place only in CLE 400. I also know that different programs have different scopes -and - sequences, but there were things in CLE that he has not covered in TT. What concerns me about this is that TT 7 is the last book before pre-algebra. I don't think TT is terrible. (I know there is a wide range of opinion on it on this board. ;)) But I'm really wondering if there is something to my theory that the spiral in TT is (fumbling for the right wording here) not wide enough for some students. I think that between the short lessons and the comparatively narrow spiral, topics may not be covered long enough or often enough for some students who need more practice (which might explain why some students do well in math later on after TT and others don't). To try to explain what I mean by a narrow or short spiral, it's sort of the difference between Mercury's orbit of the sun and Mars' orbit of the sun. Mercury goes around in a shorter period of time because it's not spending as much time doing it. Mars spends more time because it covers more distance. I'm reluctant to change programs because, well, because maybe I'm in denial ;) and just want to believe that if we just keep plugging away and add in some extra practice, things will be fine. But this whole process has really made me start to think that maybe TT is no longer the best approach for him because it's Mercury and he needs Mars. ;) BTW, I'm not concerned about him being "behind" or "below grade level." I just want to make sure he understands math. If we have to backtrack so he gets it, I'm fine with that. Help me think this through...

It's been a few years since we used this, but if memory serves, there were some questions about which continent(s) certain animals could be found on. Your dc might have just known the answer without having to consult the maps, and that's why you didn't miss it. ;) ETA: We used the actual workbooks -- this was quite a while ago.

Going over ds2's answers on his standardized test (I'll get the results back in a couple of weeks, but I wanted to know *now* which areas he's struggling in), I can see that what he's learned this past year is not sticking very well. He went through Teaching Textbooks 6 and has just started 7, before we took a break. I'd planned to have him do math 2-3 days a week over the summer, and that lasted one week. We are just all tired and burned out from the last school year that came on the heels of our move. There've been other summers when we didn't do any math, and he didn't seem to have any trouble picking back up with it in September. But in the 8 weeks or so since we stopped doing school, he's lost a lot of ground. TT6 covered a lot of material -- lots of new concepts in fractions, decimals, and percents, combined with real-world lessons on things like car loans, taxes, computer storage space, etc. It was a lot for him to grasp, but I made sure that we carefully reviewed the relevant concepts in each lesson. Even so, he just hasn't retained them. (I like Teaching Textbooks in general, in large part because the format is so nonthreatening to ds, but it does tend to be inconsistent in terms of pace. Either you're crawling along at a slow-and-steady turtle's pace, which is what ds needs, or you're off to the races. ) My plan, since he is only about 1/3 of the way through TT7, is to continue with that. I'm not averse to changing programs, but I don't want to do it unless I am strongly convinced that it's necessary. What I would like to do is add in some focused review of the topics that he needs more work with (i.e., fractions, decimals, percents). Although the spiral approach of TT is what he needs, since it provides frequent review of topics, I think he needs more time on some of those topics than the spiral in TT is providing. Not a mastery approach in which you immerse yourself in a topic, learn it, and then don't revisit it -- he needs the review -- but something that maybe spirals a bit more slowly or more widely? Does that even make any sense? What got me thinking in this direction was the review of Math Mammoth at Rainbow Resource. Here's the part that caught my eye: This is what I think ds needs -- he needs to spend a longer period of time on each topic, even if it means covering less ground during the course of a year. But he also needs to revisit and practice those concepts once he's moved on to the next ones. So Math Mammoth looks good in that respect. (Am I right in that? Does it have built-in review?) I've used the Key To books and am considering them again, but I think that because they are basically self-instructional, they might not be as good a teaching tool for ds as MM. I'd like your feedback re: MM, Key To, and helping ds to retain what he learns. FWIW, he has ADHD and it seems to be more severe than ever this summer.

I've given this test to my kids for years. The publisher (Hewitt) used to send out placement tests for each of the tests (reading, language, and math), and after you took the placement tests to determine the right levels, then you took the actual test at the appropriate level. They don't do that anymore, at least not after your first year. After the first year, they determine your level based on where you tested before. The thing is that although the PASS test covers grades 3-8, there are more test levels than there are grade levels. The reading test has levels 1-8, the math test has lower math levels 11-17 and upper math levels 13-19, and the language test has levels 21-29. (I don't know why there's the overlap in numbers in the math tests.) Last year ds2 took reading level 5; this year he was placed in reading test level 6. No problem with that. Last year he took language level 24; this year he was placed in language test level 26. They skipped over a level, and I'm guessing it was because he did so well on level 24. Kind of presumptuous, but I can deal with it. Last year he took lower math level 15; this year he was placed in upper math test level 17. In order for him to be placed there, they had to skip over lower math levels 16 and 17 and upper math levels 13, 14, 15, and 16. (Maybe it's not that straightforward -- obviously they don't expect kids to pass through each level.) He did well in last year's level, lower math 15. But this year, in upper math 17? I've looked over his answers, and he's not doing well at all. It's obvious that this level assumes knowledge of certain concepts that we simply haven't covered yet. And really, is it reasonable to expect that just because a child does well on a math test, he will cover concepts at an accelerated rate before his next test? I don't have to report these results. I plan to use them to guide my teaching. But I do feel that it is a waste of my son's time, my time, and my money to take a test at a level that someone assumed was right for him. And I'm sure that if I took this up with Hewitt, its response would be that "placement is an inexact science." Which it is -- and which is why they should bring back their placement tests, rather than making a guess at which levels are right. If you're familiar with the PASS test or have run into this, I'd like to hear your thoughts. Thanks. :)

I have heard about this. What is it about it that makes it good for comprehension issues?

A minor quibble ;) but I count only 51 on the list. I'll have to compare it to my set of DVDs. ETA: Found the missing title -- it's MSB - Show and Tell, about archaeology.

This approach is *exactly* what we've used with his neurotypical brother, ds1, who is starting high school. But ds2 lacks the emotional maturity to think realistically about the future. (Then again, when I was his emotional age, I wanted to get a gig as a London tour guide in hopes of catching a glimpse of the Queen. :D) His goals so far have been to: Work at his favorite pizza joint Organize the Lego shelves for WalMart And he has zero interest in college, which he refers to as "giant schoolery." We have that rule, too. If he's not working specifically on academics, he can choose from other specified activities. But he doesn't get to use the computer or watch a movie until a certain time in the afternoon, subject to his work being done *and* his behavior being acceptable. I think of ds being fairly high-functioning, but now I'm questioning my own definition of it. Clearly he's *not* high-functioning when it comes to dealing with schoolwork, because his inability to handle frustration is short-circuiting his ability to function in that environment. As to whether he can do the work if I force him, it depends on his frame of mind. Even in math, his best subject, there are times when he seems to have forgotten things he knew the day before. And he'll say, "It's too hard -- I can't do it," and at first I won't believe him because I *know* he knows the concepts, but then I'll realize that for whatever reason, today the work really *is* too hard for him and the fact that I don't believe him just frustrates him all the more. And at those times, he will have a meltdown that is either anger or tears. He does have ADHD. We haven't medicated him for it because he was on other meds for seizures, but he's off those now. Our pediatrician has suggested that we might want to try something like Seroquel or Risperdal or Abilify to help ds deal with the emotional issues; he says that these meds can help a lot in kids like ds. I waffle back and forth on it but really need to make a decision -- this is his life, and our family's life, that we're talking about here. ;) I want to work on character issues this year, so our academics are less intensive than they've been in past years: He's going to continue on with math (Teaching Textbooks); grammar will be covered with games; we're going to give Typing Instructor another try; for reading, we'll be using the Great Illustrated Classics versions of novels that he's chosen; spelling will be All About Spelling (level 3 -- he's doing well with this program); vocabulary is a word roots game; history is SOTW 1 with some Magic Tree House books (he has requested to learn about ancient history); geography is covering the countries we missed during our last go-round with world geography (also his request); for science, we're using the Magic School Bus DVDs and doing experiments (which he loves); for music, he wants to learn to play the organ, and I've told him that he can do that if he will let me teach him piano, since the keyboard is the same; and for art, we do informal picture study and he draws all the time. I haven't listed writing because I still haven't figured it out yet... But even though he's weighed in and requested to do certain things (and these requests were made out of the blue, not in response to my asking him what he wants to study this year), all that will be forgotten the first time the going (or in this case, the schooling) gets tough.

Interests: war, spiders, sharks, movies, nature, fantasy Strengths: very visual-spatial -- can build amazing creations of his own design with Legos. Likes to draw and his drawings are very detailed -- but subject matter is limited to war machines and Bionicle or Hero Factory warriors. He possesses an encyclopedic knowledge of all things Titanic, but says he's no longer interested in it (more on this in a moment). Has an almost intuitive grasp of math. Loves to be read to. Likes to cook, as long as it's something he likes to eat. :D Weaknesses: handwriting; anything involving sustained effort or attention. He gets extremely frustrated when he can't do things quickly and "get them out of the way." Anything can become a frustration to him, even something he likes, if there's the slightest element of delay or perceived hard work in it. As skilled as he is with math, he still insists that it's hard work. And I'm only just starting to understand that it is, in its own way. It's not that he doesn't understand the concepts. It's the "process* of doing them that is hard for him. On his own time: if left to his own devices, he would watch movies (sometimes the same movie over and over again), play games on the computer, build Lego creations and then take over an entire room creating a world for them, or draw for extended periods. We live in a much more developed area now, but where we used to live, he would also spend hours outside looking for snakes and frogs or other things in the creek in our backyard. What we've used, instruction-wise: we've tried, and eliminated ;), a lot over the years, based on what worked and what didn't. We learned very quickly that anything that was "schoolish" was likely to be a bomb. With math, we've found that Teaching Textbooks works well ("well" meaning less frustration than with other programs -- it has the constant review he needs with a consistent format, and the lessons are fairly short with a minimum of distraction). Writing, I keep to a minimum. Usually he dictates and I write, although this past year we did very short writing assignments that, while frustrating to him, he was still capable of doing. Have tried a typing software program with less than stellar results (in terms of his frustration level). Hands-on resources, which I thought would be helpful, tend to be too much of a distraction for him. And we did a lapbook last year on the Titanic -- I think that was what killed his interest in it. He hated finding the information and had no patience with creating the graphic organizers for the lapbook. Part of what is so hard to understand is that what's "supposed" to work with a child like him, he doesn't like; and what he says he likes, doesn't work (if that makes any sense ;)). He doesn't like most hands-on learning; he says he wants things that are straight and to-the-point -- "Just give me the work and let me get it done." That sounds like workbooks, right? But workbooks overwhelm him -- all he can see are the pages he has to complete. Short lessons with frequent breaks should be ideal for him -- but he doesn't like that approach. Again, he wants to do the work and get it over with -- but he doesn't understand that if he tries to tackle it all in one fell swoop, he is emotionally incapable of handling the frustration which that causes in him. Sometimes it's hard for me to feel that he is not being arbitrary or just plain defiant. But I really don't think he is. I really think this is just that hard for him. Oh, my. I'm so sorry. That is a LOT to deal with. I used to live in a heavily regulated state, and I had to jump through hoops for my district. I hated it. And any time there's an upheaval in your life, it makes you feel like you're just barely going through the motions with homeschooling (which can also cause a lot of guilt). Add to that an unsupportive family, and you've got the perfect storm. I hope things get better for you -- even if on just one front, because that would lessen the stress on the other fronts. There are many people on these boards who have experienced the kinds of things you're dealing with. :grouphug: I've got so much more freedom now that we live in a different and minimally-regulared state -- I just need a vision of some sort, some idea of where we are going. Ds2 is 13, but more like 8 or 9 emotionally. It's amusing to listen to him talk, because he has that pedantic "little professor" speech so common to Asperger's, but he is still very much a kid who still believes in Santa Claus (not the Easter Bunny or the Tooth Fairy, though ;)) and thinks there might be monsters under his bed. So I'm teaching a teenager, but I'm not. It's ... different. ;)

We used to own the first one, but it was not a good fit for ds2. Most of the pictures are taken in a school setting. He had a horrible, horrible time in ps, and just seeing the pictures would bother him immensely. But I like the looks of the newer one -- will have to check it out. :)

Michele, thanks for that breakdown. :)

My eyes! My eyes! Ack!!! I could forgive her original picture from the 80s because that was the way things were back then ... but this latest photo screams "Eva Gabor Wig."

:lol: Is she wearing shoulder pads? 'Cause that would clinch it. :tongue_smilie:

Joyce Swann contributed to Mary Pride's original Big Book of Homeschooling (which I have sitting next to me), and in it she says that she instituted a five-day-a-week, three-hour school day and a twelve-month school year. The only holidays they took were New Year's Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving Day (with school the day after), and Christmas Day (later she made Christmas Eve a holiday, too). Their other rules were: 1. No talking about anything not directly related to schoolwork 2. No timewasters like gazing out the window or daydreaming 3. No food or drinks at all during school 4. No breaks except absolutely urgent bathroom breaks It sounds extremely stream-lined.

Ds2, who has Asperger's and sensory issues, sleeps wrapped up in a blanket, including his head. It hasn't ever been a problem. I read a book years ago about several children in one family who died mysteriously over a period of years. The mother claimed that they got wrapped up in their blankets and suffocated. (She was later found to have murdered at least one of them.) Anyway, these were not infants. The one whose age I remember was 5. A doctor who testified at the mother's trial said that once you get past a certain age in early childhood, it is very unlikely that you will suffocate from your blankets being wrapped around you. He said that the body has an instinctive will to live and breathe and that it will fight to get the blankets off it, even when you're asleep, to get the air it needs to survive. It's an automatic response, and as long as you have the motor ability to thrash and twist around to get out of those blankets (which an infant might not have but an older child would), your body will make sure you do not suffocate. Not sure if that's helpful or not, and it's certainly not the definitive word, but I thought I'd pass it on.

Thank you for posting, and welcome. :) Ds2 was homeschooled until his diagnosis with Asperger's and ADHD at the age of ... 8? ... it's all a blur ... ;) When the diagnosis came back, we put him in school because he needed to be with the "experts." Your term "soul-crushing" is a very apt description of what that year was like for him. It's been over 4 years now, and he still reacts with a great deal of negative emotion when he remembers what it was like for him in school. (We brought him home again afte a year -- he was having daily meltdowns that lasted long after he got home, but the school insisted everything was fine.) He's tough to teach. Hates school most of the time, no matter how the subject matter is presented. It's hard to feel boxed in -- to know that school would destroy his spirit, but to also know that teaching him myself is such a struggle. Definitely not what I thought homeschooling would be like. But I love him, and this is what I have to do. Just thought he and I might enjoy it more. ;)