If I were doing this for my kid (and I might once she gets a little older), I would just call up an OT practice in my area & ask. The field is growing at such a fast rate, I'm sure they would love to share their knowledge with a prospective OT student. If you have any friends with kids who receive therapy, start there. Any kind of therapy - I have found that therapists know their colleagues in other therapy fields. In fact, that's how we found our OT - it was through our speech therapist, who also pointed us toward our behavioral therapist. Another place to try would be a rehab hospital. That's where my mom received her OT services.

Hi all, For various reasons, I had to drop math from my DD's coursework back in the fall. She's currently an 8th grader. She does continue to get math practice through Clover Creek Physics so I'm not overly stressed about her mostly math-less year. We plan to bring math (specifically, geometry) back into her course work in March, when her schedule frees up. Her math will extend through the summer. So, my question is, Do I count her geometry as part of her 8th grade or 9th grade work? She'll start the class as an 8th grader and will finish just as her 9th grade year begins. Also, would I include it on her transcript since geometry usually appears in the high school math sequence? How would I justify (or would I even have to justify?) that she took it at a weird time of the academic year? Thank you for your input!

I've seen my mom go through OT after her stroke and my son go through OT for autism/sensory issues. And I gotta say, if I could do it all over, I'd go into OT as a career. There are few jobs out there where you can say at the end of almost every day that you made a difference in someone's life and OT is definitely one of them. (I'm a big fan of all the therapies...visual rehabilitative therapy is another life-changing career. They're the folks who teach blind & visually impaired people how to live independently. Think cooking scrambled eggs, organizing clothes, etc.) Although I haven't pursued the career, I have seen it from the client side. I know that adult OT and pediatric OT are different. Adult OTs work on functional living skills, like putting on socks when you have no balance. Pediatric OTs work on stuff that affects your body's "spinny" senses (vestibular) and "where I am in space" senses (proprioceptive) as well as stuff like pencil grip. My sense is that you can begin to work with clients with the 2-year degree but if you want to be the one who designs a program for a client, then you might need more schooling or certification. I just know my son had COTAs who worked with him (certified OT assistants), and they had to consult with OTR/Ls to change components of his program. It might just have been the practice we went to. As for using art during therapy sessions - my son made drawings and collages as part of his therapy programming. There's a lot of OT that goes into being able to cut along a line, cut in a circle, trace a template, color in the lines, kneading putty/clay, etc. So, there's definitely making art in OT. I don't know much about art therapy itself so can't really speak to how much the 2 disciplines overlap, but I'm sure there's a lot. My son also received some music therapy in the form of listening to certain pieces that were altered to affect his sensory processing. I loved it because he seemed to really enjoy the music and was a lot more mellow after listening. Hope this helps! I'm afraid I've only given you info from the client perspective but hopefully it helps you picture the job a little better. Maybe find an OT practice in your area and ask if your son can meet with some of their employees to ask about the career options? Good luck with your research!

Open Tent Academy - look for instructor Jonathan Meola. He uses a lot of videos in his instruction. My neurotypical DD is in his class on US History from Reconstruction to the present. She gets a little bored watching all the videos but I know for sure he likes to use videos in his classes. (His background is in film studies, I believe...I think I read that in his instructor profile.) If you sign up your daughter for the US History course that uses Joy Hakim books, you can get them as audiobooks. That's what I did for my kiddo - although I did that more for expediency than for reading support. She listens to the audiobooks when she goes for walks in the afternoon so she gets in her P.E. while doing her history reading! Good luck with your search!

Thank you for the input!

Hi all, I have been looking at Hands-On Equations for my DS10 who will be a 5th grader next year. He's autistic but has no cognitive delays so he's working pretty close to grade level. (If he's behind, it's solely because teacher keeps taking...ahem...professional development days.) 🙂 My question: Has anyone used Hands-On Equations with their kiddos? And if you have, at what point did you find it helpful in their math instruction? Does it function as a supplement or can you use it as the primary source for math instruction? Currently, DS is making his way through Math Mammoth Grade 4 and has done well with it. (This is our 2nd year using Math Mammoth.) I frequently use c-rods and fake money to help him visualize concepts, such as multi-digit multiplication and making change. Just trying to line up ideas for the years ahead as the math gets harder! Thanks!

I'm afraid I can't answer your questions directly because I supplemented the lessons with a lot of my own personal knowledge. (I worked for 10 years in the Deaf community and am proficient in ASL.) Also, I used the lessons with my 7th grader so we weren't doing them for credit. So, I'm sorry I can't answer your first question. As for pacing, we did one lesson per week, using the divisions that Vicars provides (Part A, B, C, & D). If you don't know ASL, then I would recommend you watch the video of Vicars teaching the class. If there's a sign you don't understand, then you click through the vocab links in the lesson to find a snippet of just that sign. The story at the end is for students to practice using the language. It's so the flow of ASL syntax & grammar becomes more familiar to the students rather than the single sentences & words used in the lesson. It reminded me of those silly dialogues I had to learn in high school French. "Excuse me, where is the shoe store?" "It is down the street on the left, behind the train station." Because we all need to know where the shoe store is in Paris, right? ? Hope this helps!

I don't know anything about Sequential Spelling, but I can talk a bit about Spelling You See. I've got a rising 4th grader who can decode well but has trouble with comprehension. So, please understand that my feedback is from that frame of reference. Basically, I love SYS. DS is very visual so the color-coding has worked well for us. Also, it has helped his comprehension tremendously because he works with the same passage for the entire week. Lots of repetition, lots of exposure to the same words & ideas. Plus I love that each book is themed around something that is relevant to other aspects of learning --- we've done Wild Tales, Americana, and are now halfway through American Spirit. And I also love that it allowed us to do copywork & dictation. So, it's been a win-win-win for us! All that said, I have to admit that DS is naturally a good speller. I don't know how that came about, but he is. So, copying words like "mountain" and "Roosevelt" didn't bother him at all. When he did misspell something, it was usually one of the letter combos that we were NOT focusing on that week. In other words, if he had to color-code it, he usually remembered the letter combo. It seems to me that if a student has issues with decoding, SYS may be challenging because one of the ways we identified letter combos was whether or not the two letters made a single sound. (For example, "sp" is not a letter combo because it makes both the "s" and "p" sound; however, "sh" is a letter combo because they make a single sound.) So, if decoding is a challenge, this may add a layer of frustration. But again, this is just my observation as an outsider since my kiddo decodes well --- he just "can't see the forest through the trees" so this program has worked well to bolster his comprehension. Hope this helps!

I saw the OTA post about the class last night --- was that you in the pictures? The class looked really cool; I wish I had known about it. It seems like something my DD would have really enjoyed. (If the pics were really of you guys, then I gotta say, I like the symbol you chose!) ?

CAtoVA --- Our kiddos will be in the same Open Tent class! I actually "met" another boardie whose kiddo will also be in that class. I'm excited to know DD will have some good company. We parents will have to trade notes! ? I forgot to ask DD about the spammer! I can't believe I forgot to ask! (Actually, yes I can... So many details lost in the sieve that is my brain...or what's left of it.)

The WWE approach to narration did not work well for my DS9, who has language issues. As I began homeschooling him 2 years ago, I realized that his reading comprehension was not where it should be...and certainly not where it needed to be in order to use WWE. He does much better with stories that deal with the here & now, the concrete, rather than trying to picture what happened a long time ago in the wilderness. So, it may be that your student doesn't have the reading comprehension skills to picture historical stuff. If he hasn't experienced it, it's hard to ask him to imagine/picture it. The way I addressed it with my son was to ditch WWE and go with a program that focused specifically on reading comprehension issues (in my case, Visualizing & Verbalizing by Lindamood Bell.) This curriculum is fairly pricy, though, so perhaps you can substitute with non-fiction or realistic fiction early readers. I had my son draw pictures to go along with the text, which quickly showed me what he did & didn't have in his knowledge bank. (Fish = yes! Kelp forests = no! Ok...let's Google kelp forests & see if this will help you understand the story better.) Another approach that has helped my DS with narration is to use IEW's key word outlines. I let him jot down 3 important words from each sentence and then have him use those words to tell back the story to me. This approach, coupled with his illustrations, has been a huge help! Caveat: It takes us 2 days to narrate a 5-sentence paragraph because we spend about 20 minutes on Day 1 doing the drawings and then 30 minutes on Day 2 developing the outline & doing the actual narration. Hope you find something that works!

I bet there's an active Deaf club in the Frederick/Germantown area. I wonder if your teacher can point you in that direction. I worked in the Deaf community for about 10 years - for a nonprofit in Silver Spring and then at Gallaudet. Both of my bosses lived in Germantown as did many of their friends. So, you definitely live in the best spot to find Deaf resources in the community! Have fun with your search! It can be intimidating (I remember being soooo nervous the first time I set foot on Gallaudet's campus) but it was delightful to realize that I *could* communicate with people using ASL. Hope you & your daughter get to experience something similar! ?

I second LifePrint, also known as ASL University. It's free and seems to have the most robust lessons. Bill Vicars (the teacher) teaches the most common vocabulary used in conversations. His lessons also include some aspects of Deaf culture and ASL linguistics. I've also seen a few lessons from ASL That (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7fVfWv6FL7HeTFeSLz-muQ). His lessons seem pretty solid but they aren't laid out nicely like ASL University's and I also get the feeling that these videos go with a class that he teaches. Homeschool Buyer's Coop has an ASL program called Signing Online. I don't know much about the lessons but I know the person behind the program (Dave Stewart) sat on the Board of Trustees at Gallaudet University for several years. (I worked there and provided administrative support to the Board whenever they were in town.) He was Deaf so I trust the curriculum he put together. If you want to find classes, you can contact the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf and ask if there are any interpreter training programs (ITP) near you. (Or you can search for yourself at https://www.rid.org/about-rid/about-interpreting/become-an-interpreter/about-interpreting-education-programs-2/). ITPs are typically at community colleges and will offer advanced levels of ASL. I see that you're in Maryland. Which part? If you are near the Frederick area, you could always try the Maryland School for the Deaf. They may be able to provide some resources. If you're in the Baltimore area, Catonsville Community College has an ITP. Silver Spring is home to the National Association of the Deaf (NAD) and several other Deaf advocacy organizations. They may be able to point you in the direction of Deaf clubs that meet up. When I took ASL, we always had to attend a Deaf event as part of our course requirements. It can be intimidating but I found many folks were very friendly and happy to share their language and culture with interested learners. And of course, there's always Gallaudet University in DC. That's a great resource for learning about Deaf history. Unfortunately, they don't offer much in terms of classes for the general public but they often have guest lectures and performing arts events on campus that are open to the public so you can see ASL in action. Also in DC --- the National Gallery of Art offers gallery tours led by Deaf docents (https://www.nga.gov/calendar/guided-tours/accessible-programs/american-sign-language.html). You can email them ahead of time to ask if an interpreter will be available for the tour. When I took my daughter, we had an interpreter with our tour...and also some ASL students who were clearly there to satisfy a class requirement to participate in a Deaf event. ? Hope you find something that works for you! Good luck with the search!

I've got a 9yo DS with ASD - started homeschooling him halfway through first grade. He doesn't have decoding issues but he does have comprehension issues, so my language arts recommendations might not be exactly what you're looking for. For math, we've had a lot of success with Math Mammoth. The lessons are very clean & orderly on the page - no excess graphics, etc. She teaches multiple approaches to solving a problem; for example, to figure out 7 + 6, she uses dots & sticks first. Then she introduces the idea that you can break 6 into 3 + 3 and use "10 buddies" to get (7 + 3) + 3. Stuff like that permeates all her lessons. I have found some of the alternative methods to be helpful for my kiddo; many aren't, though. Anyway...I tried Singapore Math out of the gate with my kiddo and that was not fun for either of us. We've both been much happier with Math Mammoth. I have found her lessons to provide more scaffolding than Singapore. I also use C-rods and base-10 blocks a lot with him. For language arts, our focus is comprehension so I've used a lot of Lindamood Bell materials (sold through their publishing arm, Gander Publishing). What I like about their materials is that while we focus on strengthening reading, the passages are all about things in either the natural world or history, so I haven't had to do much in terms of history/science for my kid. It's all done through reading. Like PeterPan, I have found that reading affects *everything*, so I made the deliberate decision to drop history & science as dedicated subjects and instead, spend that time on shoring up reading. This coming year (his 4th grade year) will be the first time I attempt a dedicated social studies (geography) and science (Mystery Science) program with him. The past 2 years have been all about strengthening his reading skills. So, that's something to consider. But back to program recommendations.... Spelling You See has been a huge success for us. It's one of the few programs we have used from Day 1 that still gets done. I picked this program because DS is a strong visual processor, and this program works on getting students to recognize certain letter combos that occur frequently in words. Students color-code a single passage for an entire week, doing copywork for the first 3-4 days (depending on what level you use) and then doing dictation for the last 1-2 days. Passages are non-fiction, so again, we get the double-whammy of working on language skills while learning about stuff in science/history. Love this program! Finally, I've also had great success with Linguistic Development through Poetry (from IEW). I picked this program because DS has a great memory and learns lines from TV shows & books really easily. I figured if he could sing the whole Nick Jr theme-song canon, then he could also learn some Emily Dickinson or Ogden Nash. 2 years and 38 poems later, I am so glad I picked this program. It has done wonders for us, in terms of growing his vocabulary (and our confidence as a mom-son homeschooling team!) and helping him picture the story. Plus it's a great way to pass time...and the grandparents love it. ? Poetry memorization is probably a little more time-intensive on your part than you wanted, but I thought I'd put it out there because it really has made a big difference for us. It takes me about 20 minutes to get through a poetry lesson with him each day. Poetry & spelling are the 2 subjects that he is happy to do anytime, anywhere. Good luck with your curriculum hunt! There are so many details to consider. If you have any further questions, feel free to PM me!

I did a comparison of IEW and WTM on the Middle School board: https://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/674071-iew-online-classesreviews/. This was for my neurotypical DD, who is a rising 8th grader. She will be taking writing at Open Tent this fall so all I can tell you is that I hope it's good! ? I've read lots of good reviews of Ms. Eva and my email exchanges with her have always been great. Eva is very responsive and is willing to talk through ideas with parents. (I wasn't sure which course to enroll DD in and Eva helped me figure out the options.)

Mainer - I *just* picked up Henry Huggins at the library yesterday! So glad to hear that it was successful with your group. It's on my to-read pile (which is quite deep but I'm working on it!) to see if DS might be able to sit through it. Thanks!

Select products are 20% off. One of the select products is the Story Grammar Marker quick start set and another is the Critical Thinking set. I've seen both discussed on this board so thought folks might like to know! Looks like the sale goes till June 30th. Happy shopping!

Oh gosh...lots to think about here. PeterPan --- DS just went through a pretty thorough neuropsych evaluation a few weeks ago. I expect to get the report within the next few weeks which should give us some pointers. The psychologist did say that he thinks there may be some attention issues present. So, I'm still trying to noodle through if his interest level is a reflection of bona fide comprehension issues or attention issues. I don't think there are other medical issues present. I like the thumbs up/thumbs down check-in. I often do stop to talk about what we're reading to make sure he's with me. Although, I admit, some days I have more energy to do that than others. ? I'll have to check out Mindwings again since I've seen it mentioned several times. I researched it a year or two ago but I think I went with V&V instead. And also hop over to the Narrative thread to find the resources you mentioned. Anything to help us with comprehension! By the way, I clicked over to the list of books you referenced. Lots of nice choices there! I am rather partial to anything written or illustrated by Peter H. Reynolds (whose book is 9th on the list). Ish is one of the best books I've ever read & it's one I would give to every kid if I could. Dot is a close second. But since we read Ish first, Ish still holds top spot in my heart. ? Another great book in that same vein (vane?) is What Do You Do With a Problem? Thanks, as always, for all the suggestions!

Love the idea of having a running story that we make up as a family! That's such a great idea! We actually use V&V. I've been using it with him for about 1-1/2 years now. I think it's a great program but it's very draining (for both of us) because it takes a lot of energy for him to come up with the pictures and then the words to describe his pictures. Not an easy task for a kid with expressive/receptive language disorder. I try to keep our read-alouds light and relatively easy for him for that reason. (Our read-alouds are not part of our "official" school day; they're mostly done at bedtime or when we're both really excited by a cool find at the bookstore/library.) ? These books look cute! I'll have to see if my library carries this series. Thanks!

Oh my gosh...I'm loving The Whole Story concept! Thank you for introducing me to these books! I'll have to put them on my Wish List for when kiddo gets a little older. And I haven't tried the Wayside School series, although I've seen it around. I'll give it a try...thanks!

Lecka --- Branches! I forgot about that series. He loved Kung Pow Chicken, Haggis & Tank (I love those names), and Owl Diaries. Haven't tried the others you suggested, so will put those on my list to see if the library has them! And yeah...I'm not good about skipping over stuff on the spot. I don't always pre-read the books and then I'm halfway into a passage, thinking, "Abort! Abort!" but I can't figure out how to get out of it, except to just close the book and say, "Oh, I think we've read enough tonight..." ? HeighHo --- I've heard of Jan Brett but not Steven Kellogg. I'll look them up at the library. Are you thinking of any specific fairy tales or tall tales they've illustrated/written?

Hi all, I was wondering if you could share with me some book ideas for read-alouds with my DS9. He is not so good at picturing the images or action in his head, so I like to read books with lots of illustrations to support his comprehension. I often look at booklists of early chapter books or 1st read-alouds but many of the tried-and-true for the neurotypical crowd are complete bombs with my kid. Wondering if any of you have had the same experience. For example, Cricket in Times Square? He spaced out through most of it...listened to me patiently but I don't think he soaked up much of the story. Little House on the Prairie would be another bomb because he has a hard time picturing stuff that we don't see anymore today. Plus lots of descriptive writing = brain has to work too hard to understand so he stops after a while. Toys Go Out is another highly recommended book that doesn't work for us because one of the characters says things like, "At the vet's office, they use needles the size of carrots!" Statements like that have a high probability of turning into a negative association for my kid, and he'll be afraid to go anywhere near a doctor or vet's office, for fear of needles the size of carrots. (We've discovered this, unfortunately, with Mercy Watson and butter. Can't say the word without eliciting a warning about a pig barging through our house.) So...now that you know what I don't want...what DO I want? ? I recently got Elise Broach's Miniature World of James & Marvin, which has a nice 50-50 split of text & illustrations on the page, which got a huge smile out of him --- so more like that would be awesome! Zapato Power, Nate the Great & Flat Stanley are decent transition books --- they have slightly fewer pictures than James & Marvin but they were simple enough to hold his interest. We just discovered Geronimo Stilton (I know...I'm late to the game on that one!) so I'll be trying out more of those. He enjoys the pictures but I'm pretty sure at least half of the content isn't getting through. He loves graphic novels --- the sillier, the better. But, what I'd really like to do is start building that bridge to books that are heavier on text so that he has more options available to him. I just want to get him there gently and happily so he'll still enjoy books, even when they're hard to read. I know...tall order for any kid, not just ones with reading challenges. ? But I figured if anyone could give me ideas, this group could. Thank you!

I use a workbox-like system with the hanging files. It works for me in that it keeps all my kiddo's books & papers in one spot. He uses workbooks, like Spelling You See, and math worksheets from Math Mammoth, so it's easy to load those into the folders. Each weekend, I go through the box to make sure I've got the upcoming week's assignments in it. I tried to use the system for my older kid, but it didn't work out so well because her classes used bigger books that don't fit so well in the box. Plus many of her assignments were files on the computer (e.g., writing assignments) so she rarely went to it. It's now another piece of plastic cluttering our small, small home. ? If you want to see pics of my kiddo's workbox, let me know. I'd be happy to share.

CAtoVA - we stopped doing Fix It, too, although I took waaaay too long to give my DD the green light to drop it. I wonder if our kids were in the same class. I'll have to ask DD if there was a student who typed a lot of spammy stuff in the chat. I had thought about switching to another teacher at the semester break but thought I had to stick with the same one for some reason. Wish I had tried another class! And we are also switching over to Open Tent's writing class for next year! DD will be taking Middle School Writing with Eva on Mondays. Wonder if our kiddos will be classmates! ? Glad to see we weren't the only ones who hated Fix It. On the surface, it seemed like a great idea - esp. since DD loves to edit & revise. But it became so tedious after a few weeks....

I know! I wasn’t expecting it, either, but there she was! And so kind - I had a follow up question for her which she happily (and quickly) answered. I love how, as a homeschooler, I’ve been able to ask questions to many of the big names in the field and get answers from them! That’s one of the perks of homeschooling, I think. Hope you get an answer from Barbara Getty, too!