Jump to content

Menu

Cake and Pi

Members
  • Posts

    834
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by Cake and Pi

  1. This year has been a logistical nightmare. DS#1 and DS#3 have each taken a couple of classes per semester at our local university, which is a 40min drive+walk (walking-only campus) to the north and sometimes I have to go there twice in the same day. DS#3 is unusually young, so the university requires that I sit in class with him. In addition, DS#1 participates in one class period per day at our zoned high school which he gets bussing to but then I have to drive 15min south to pick him up mid-morning. Also DS#2 and DS#3 participate for one class period at our zoned middle school, but I have to handle transportation to and from. Oh, and DS#4 is full time at our zoned elementary school, which is too close to ride the bus, so yes, more pick-ups and drop offs every day. We're in a pretty small city now that only takes maybe 25 minutes to span in its entirety, and yet somehow I spend 2.5 hours a day (or more!) shuttling kids around to their respective schools and classes! So. My priority this coming year is to streamline things. DS#1 and DS#3 are taking the same, single in-person class at the university this fall. I'll reassess in the spring, but I'm thinking that I'm only going to OK an additional in-person university class for either of them if it's back-to-back with the first class or kid (this only applies to DS#1) wants to get himself there and back using public transportation! DS 16, 11th grade DS#1 isn't really HOMEschooling anymore. I mean, legally he is, but he's only taking classes from the university, the high school, and an online provider. I'm not teaching anything. Math: Calculus II (spring) at local university, possibly through their web-based program if the schedule isn't going to line up nicely Science: Physics for Scientists & Engineers w/Lab I (fall) and II (spring) at local university Social studies: WTMA U.S Government class (fall) and WTMA Economics class (spring) ELA: Composition II (fall) ONLINE through local university World language: 3rd year Spanish at our zoned high school Electives: TBD but possibly Military Science II at the high school (full year) and/or Intro to Organismal Biology and Principles of biological Investigation (aka bio II w/ separate lab) or Organic Chemistry I at the university (spring only) depending on if he can find and get into a section that is back-to-back with his other class at the university so there's only the one trip for me to get him there and back each day. DS 14, 9th grade DS#2 is starting high school this coming year. He's still not taking his studies very seriously and is difficult to motivate (PDA flavor autism). I'm more than a bit nervous about him not passing the online classes he's signed up for, but I guess it's his life and his choices at this point. Math: Algebra II through DAO (assuming he continues passing DAO geometry this semester; he cut it pretty close last semester) Science: self-paced, mom-graded Clover Valley Advanced Honors Chemistry Social studies: World history origins to 1450 using a mix of OER project and DIG (previously SHEG) materials ELA: Unsure, but leaning toward a mix-and-match of Fishtank units from grades 8-10 (or maybe I'll invent our lit studies myself to align with history...?) paired with MCT level 6 World Language: self-paced Spanish using Rosetta Stone Electives: WTMA Computer Programming II class (year-long), Learning Outside the Box Statecraft 2030 class (fall), and if he's doing well enough in everything else Learning Outside the Box Investment Game class (spring) DS 12, 7th grade I'm trying to pair DS#3 up with DS#1 or DS#2 where possible to streamline things. Math: Next up is Proof Writing for Math/Sat Majors, which I don't feel he's socially/emotionally mature enough for quite yet. I'm probably going to have him take the year off of math and focus on other things to give him some time before this next class. He will have finished all the calculuses, diff eq, and linear algebra before the fall, so I figure I just need to keep him involved in other subjects that utilize those higher math skills so that he doesn't get rusty with them. Science: Physics for Scientists & Engineers w/Lab I (fall) and II (spring) at local university w/ DS#1 and also self-paced, mom-graded Clover Valley Advanced Honors Chemistry with DS#2 Social studies: World history origins to 1450 using a mix of OER project and DIG (previously SHEG) materials w/DS#2 ELA: Davidson Explore Critical Thinking in the Humanities online class + MCT level 6 w/DS#2 Electives: WTMA Computer Science II class (he's already taken Computer Science II at the university, but they only use C++ there and he wants to learn more Python *shrug*), and if things are going really smoothly after the fall semester AND we can make the schedules align, I might let him take the next C++ based CS class (Computer Organization) or Fundamentals of Electrical Engineering at the university in the spring. DS 10 (turns 11 late summer), 6th grade DS#4 is headed to middle school! He'll be in a self-contained sped ASD program full time in public school.
  2. Yes, but much more active (the official DYS online community forums) or much, much, much more active (the unofficial Facebook groups/DIGs). And folks set up small in-person meetups through both online communication systems outside of the annual Summit as well. We met several DYS families this way years before we ever attended a Summit. Actually, this summer was our very first Summit even though we've been part of DYS for about 6 years now and I finally met people I've been talking to online for years. It was pretty cool. I still vote for applying to DYS for your son. There's really no reason not to, and then he and you have the resources available if you ever want to use them. If you don't end up using them, you still haven't lost anything. With no portfolio requirement, you've certainly spent more time on this thread than it would have taken to apply 😉
  3. Yep, with qualifying scores on accepted tests it does seem to pretty much be an automatic acceptance. I've never heard of someone with qualifying scores NOT get accepted, and I know some parents of very 2e, academically struggling DYS who absolutely do not fit the outlier trope. They think deeply and/or make fantastic connections, possibly only in areas of interest, but they aren't what folks typically think of when they try to conjure up an image of a PG kid. Yes, this! Plus, OP, it's free. It takes very little time or effort to apply. Then you have access to the resources and hive mind, whether you choose to use them or not. Multipotentiality, a fantastic conversation starter. But seriously, this is a legit and common PG profile--I'm in the boat that says anything DYS-qualifying counts as PG. Honestly, they can't differentiate between theoretical HG, EG, and PG levels with the testing instruments available. And over 145, higher scores don't seem to correlate with higher achievement, so you can't really differentiate HG, EG, and PG by that either! And honestly, achievement seems to hinge largely on personality and interests. My DYS that couldn't get nominated for the gifted program in 2nd straight up failed half his core classes in online public 6th grade. This after we called the year before a gap year. He has historically shown zero interest in anything academic. Suddenly now that he's getting close to 14 he's got goals! He wants to learn Japanese so he can watch his anime shows without subtitles, asked for a stock market class so he can learn how to take over the (financial) world, and applied for (and got accepted into?!) DAO Geometry because he enjoyed the format of Explore Algebra, liked the kids he met in the class, and really really didn't want to have to learn math from me. Ah, motivation. He's never going to be radically accelerated like his younger brother and isn't at all spikey, but that's okay. It doesn't make him any less PG.
  4. Eh, some PG kids just blend in better and/or have extra Es so that they don't appear so in-your-face PG. Two of my DYS tested with the exact same GAI, but one is radically accelerated while the other is pretty close to age-expectations. His teachers in 2nd grade public school didn't think he was gifted at all and refused to nominate him for the gifted program when I requested it. That's how not-an-outlier he comes off as. Still, I've found a lot of support for parenting and homeschooling him in the DYS community. There's a surprising number of 2e, underperforming, and happy-to-do-whatever-age-peers-are-doing DYS kids, and it's nice to have folks to commiserate and troubleshoot with. And just like with the more out-there kids, you get actually helpful, supportive suggestions and stories when you ask instead of "he's already working at/above grade level--what is there to be worried about?"
  5. Totally worth it to apply since you have the scores. The DYS program has been great for networking and finding folks on a similar wavelength, both for parents and for kids in our family. It's so much easier to relax and be ourselves around other DYS families. It doesn't feel like we need to hide who we are or what we spend our time doing, you know? The secret Facebook groups by themselves make the effort involved in applying worth it, in my opinion. It's fantastic having a hive mind of other parents who actually get it, who have actually experienced it, that you can ask questions of. For example, when my then-6yo wanted to take AoPS Online classes, I was able to ask and then read experiences from several other families who had already had 6-7yo kids take AoPS Online classes. I don't know where else I could have asked and gotten that kind of actually helpful response. In fact, anywhere else and I'd probably have gotten no help at all, just a bunch of "Wow, that's amazing! Is he, like, a genius?" and "You should just let him be a kid 😠 -- stop pushing him!" and "You need to make him go back and focus on foundational stuff because kids who do algebra super early don't really understand what they're doing and will eventually fail because of it." Kids being DYS also streamlines applying for certain other Davidson Institute programs, such as Davidson Explore online classes. We enjoy Summit. Haven't tried other summer programs yet. I got a lot out of our Family Consultant before they were replaced with focus groups. I'm sad the FCs are gone. Haven't tried the focus groups yet, but I suppose they could accomplish roughly the same thing.
  6. I did a lot of compacting, which for him, yes, did involve some skipping of entire lessons in Right Start and MEP. If the lesson had a worksheet I might have him respond verbally, do only every other problem, or select just the hardest 3-5 problems for him to complete. On the other hand, he did every book problem in BA (never tried online, don't think online existed back then) until BA5, at which point I switched to only *requiring* that he do the starred problems since he was already taking the Prealgebra class. However, he usually did more than just the starred problems in BA5 because, you know, he *enjoyed* the BA workbooks, especially the "extra fun" puzzle-like problem sets. Before he hit Prealgebra, I often gave him two (nonconsecutive, if necessary) lessons from RS/MEP about different topics plus perhaps one more lesson or chunk of time from another program (BA, Stick Kids, Algebra Lab Gear, Didax Pentominoes, random workbooks from Costco -- kid really enjoyed workbooks) each day. So, for example, one week in K he did lessons 94-95&97, 98, 99-100, and 104-105, (commas separating days; we did school only 3-4x/week) in RS lvl D alongside pages 53-65 in the BA 3C workbook. So it looks like the first day that week he probably read from a bar graph, verbally answering the lesson's worksheet questions, and then constructed a bar graph, verbally responding to the questions afterward, practiced telling time to the minute, and did however many pages in the BA3 chapter on division that he wanted -- probably 2-4ish based on how many pages he covered over the whole week. RS-D's lessons 94 and 95 had the same warm-up questions with different numbers, so he probably only did the warm-up from 94, or we might have skipped it entirely if the warm ups were quite similar the previous week and he had already crushed those. Usually a non-drawing RS lesson would take him something in the 5-10 minute range to complete, and he could usually complete anywhere from 4-8 pages in BA per hour (but sometimes more, most I remember seeing was 18 in one hour) without skipping any problems. So what I just outlined for that day probably took 30-40 minutes altogether. Looks like RS-D's lessons 96 and 101-103 were skipped that week. 96 was review, and the others were area and perimeter, which I must have looked at and decided he understood well enough to not need to do. 🤷‍♀️ Thanks, I'll look into those! Uhhhhh, just the proofs they do as part of the AoPS writing problems and whatever was covered in the "Methods of Proof" class he did at Epsilon Camp a couple of summers ago.
  7. Yes, yes, exactly! I also have three gifted students, and only my DS#3 has thrived with AoPS done the way AoPS intended. I really feel like AoPS is great for kids who enjoy doing math for the sake of doing math and/or who are so radically accelerated that it's in their best interest to give them something they have to really stop and chew on before plowing ahead and getting too accelerated in more superficial programs. But for other kids, even most gifted kids, it's hit or miss (mostly miss from what I've seen!). My DS#1 is also "mathy" in that he's like 4 years accelerated, but he does math because it gives him access to science and engineering. When AoPS ran out of videos to watch, which effectively circumvents the whole AoPS methodology anyway, his satisfaction with AoPS dropped dramatically. He found no joy in the struggle to figure out how to do math. He wanted someone to EXPLAIN how to do it first, and then he wanted challenging problems to apply that knowledge. For this reason he's done very well with WTMA's AoPS-based classes. And my DS#2, while equal in aptitude to DS#3, has never liked math. We keep cycling back to AoPS, but he gets so frustrated and just wants math to be over with as quickly as possible so he can focus on what he's actually interested in (not math)! It's been a struggle for me to find math programs he'll willingly work through, though. All the curricula we've tried have been either too easy ("Boring!" or "Insultingly easy!") or too hard (really just AoPS). I'm trying to figure out geometry and algebra 2 for him right now. Are there any others you would recommend, or are Foerster's and that geometry book you shared up-thread your go-tos?
  8. He did start with BA 3, but it was in kindergarten, or, well, the very end of pre-k. And the first BA 2 book was released after he finished BA 3A, so he did that in K as well. And I guess it would have been more accurate to qualify that he only did one final chapter from BA 4 in 1st grade because he did the rest of BA 4 in Kinder. Before AoPS I ran 2-3 different programs in parallel at all times with him to keep him happy. He always wanted MORE. So I may have oversimplified with the earlier summary of what he did in each grade to keep it short. It looks very smooth and flows easily in my two-column list of weekly math in my Excel homeschool records, but it looks pretty convoluted when I type it all out! A more accurate list of what he did, approximately in order, for the early grades would be: Pre-k/K4: second halves of MEP-1 and RS-B, MEP-2 and RS-C with the 2nd half of Stick Kids Money Mania, and then BA 3A. Kindergarten/K5: RS-D with Didax Pentominoes, BA 2A, BA 3B-3D, and Algebra Lab Gear: Beginning Algebra; then RS-E with BA 4A-4B; and finally BA 4C with AoPS Prealgebra Ch.1-4. 1st grade: AoPS Prealgebra Ch. 5-7; then BA 5A, 5B, and 5D alongside AoPS Online Prealgebra 2 and Algebra Lab Gear: Algebra 1; then AoPS Online Intro to Algebra A with BA 4D and 5C and the beginning of AoPS Online Intro to C&P; and finally the rest of the AoPS Intro to NT class alongside self-studying Intro to NT from the book (then he took the class for Intro to NT in 2nd grade). -- This was the year where he had a 6-ish month stint of almost nothing but math and math-adjacents. Yes, of course. He started typing at 3yo, but he didn't have much use for it and didn't care to get better/faster until he was in his first AoPS Online class. At first I sat with him during the live sessions and typed whatever he asked me to, but 1) he would get frustrated that I didn't type it *exactly* the way he pictured it in his head, and 2) he LOVED LaTeX and wanted to type all of that himself, and there's nothing quite like the fury of a 6yo who can't get their answer pushed through to the AoPS classroom because they can't type fast enough! I also started off scribing for him for the writing problems, except for the LaTeX, which he always did himself, and usually the first sentence or so that he typed himself before getting tired/frustrated with his own slowness. He was HIGHLY motivated by his AoPS Online classes to become faster at typing, so that's what he did. He typed more and more of his own work and asked me for less and less help until he was doing it all on his own. Took... maybe a year, year and a half, something like that, to get to typing independence, I think? Limited by the university. The MathRocks competitions are monthly (but I think they're a Nevada-only competition?), and MOEMS was monthly from November through March -- and he competed in both the elementary and middle school divisions. He also did AMC 8 (it didn't occur to me to sign him up for AMC 10 or 12 until afterward) and the state math championship. It's worked out to 1-3 competitions pretty much every month all school year. He *just* started participating in math competitions this school year. Where we lived before they wouldn't allow him to join any math circles or competition teams due to his age, and he wasn't interested in doing any competitions alone at home. Here they've welcomed him. He's actually not amazing at competition math, and his processing speed is low enough that he'll probably never perform exceptionally well in math competitions. However, he enjoys it and is interacting positively with humans, and that's all I really care about. I'd love links to any resources you have. I'm always looking for things to entertain and engage DS#3's interests 🙂
  9. I guess it comes down to figuring out what kind of mistake the student made. Depending on the kind of mistake, the instructor can figure out if the student is making silly errors (from impulsivity, poor handwriting, lost negatives, more basic miscalculations), correctly executing an incorrectly applied method, or if the mistake reveals that the student lacks understanding of a new process or concept that is being taught. Then remediation goes from there. Most kids really will come across problems they can't figure out how to solve on their own. With some hints, they can probably get there. Sometimes they just need to read the solution. But, yeah, AoPS does not scaffold *at all,* so it's not going to be a viable program for a kid who usually or often needs math broken down into tiny steps. Honestly, it's not likely to be a great fit or even average or above average math students. The program is written specifically for especially high performing math kids who don't need the scaffolding of traditional curricula and can instead focus on creative problem solving. AoPS assumes the student will grasp the concept and process quickly and easily with minimal explanation. In fact, AoPS will push the student discover it themself! Then AoPS will ask the student to use that newly discovered concept and apply it to novel situations without modeling or explaining how. AoPS be like, "Here's a little creek. Figure out how to get across it. Good job. By the way, here's how we would have done it. Okay, now that you have that figured out, go ahead and cross this enormous river. Good luck, and if you get too terribly stuck there's a cryptic hint for this one at the back of the book."
  10. Oh! I like Direct Instruction! A couple of my kids learned to read with 100 EZ Lessons, and I used CMC with my developmentally disabled DS#4 for a year before we moved him back into public school. Kiddo did better with CMC than any of the other curricula we tried (Right Start, Math U See, Ronit Bird, local public school math). He never finished the kindergarten level, though. I'm out of littles to teach, but I'm very curious about the upper levels. However, if it's similar to Saxon, I guess I'd worry that it would be too straightforward and easy (as in, not enough true problem solving or out-of-the-box applications) for a very math gifted/accelerated kid.
  11. I say ask her what she wants to do and go with that. Enrichment should be fun!
  12. I gave him the most challenging, in-depth math I could find, which was Beast Academy and then AoPS with a sprinkling of EMF (Elements of Mathematics Foundations). I also usually ran multiple curricula at the same time until he hit AoPS Intro to Algebra. I wasn't necessarily trying to slow him down, though I'm sure it did to some extent, but I wanted to make sure that if he was zooming ahead it was with the most rock solid foundation I could possibly provide. So 1st grade was Beast Academy 4 and 5, AoPS Prealgebra, Intro to Algebra A (the class for the 1st half of the book), and Intro to C&P. 2nd grade was AoPS Intro to Algebra B, Intro to NT, Intro to Geometry, and a lot of Intermediate Algebra, plus the first 5 courses in EMF... because he thought it was fun and interesting. In the first three months of 3rd grade he finished up AoPS Intermediate Algebra. Then he got really, really, really sick and didn't do any math (or much of anything else besides an online science class he was passionate about) for the rest of the school year. I don't understand what happened, but it was like his brain stopped working. He forgot how to even add 2-digit numbers for a while there. It was frightening. That summer he was mostly recovered and started from scratch relearning basically all the math he'd previously learned up to that point. A couple of months into 4th grade he resumed where he'd left off but at a much slower pace. He only did AoPS Precalculus and Intermediate C&P and EMF modules 6-9 (again, just for fun) that year. I'll say that Saxon is absolutely fantastic for teaching math computations, but only meh for problem solving and application. I taught Saxon Algebra 1 to high schoolers at a small charter school one year, and the problems it were significantly easier than what I'd seen in AoPS Prealgebra. I'd encourage you to look into AoPS (maybe even back up and do some Beast Academy) and EMF. Those would be my top choices for a very accelerated younger math student.
  13. He's in a competition math club and works with the AMC 10/12 group of kids weekly, plus 1-2 math competitions per month. He already took the AoPS intro and intermediate C&P and intro to NT classes (they haven't offered a section of intermediate NT during the school year that fits with our schedule yet). And he attended Epsilon camp for a couple of summers, but it cost's like $6,000+ to go and we just couldn't fit it in the family budget this year after a change in heath coverage for our medically complex youngest kiddo. I think he'll be too old for Epsilon by next summer. Sleep-away camps for older kids aren't a fit for his S/E development just yet, but I have considered C&! for next year, depending on what finances look like. I do expect him to do some branching out into computer science soon, and he's limited to two university courses per semester while he's got non-degree-seeking status, so there will certainly be some detours in the coming years!
  14. Uhhhh... I honestly don't know. We're just taking things one semester at a time right now. He's 5th grade by age and just took his calc 2 final at the university today. He's signed up for calc 3 in the fall and it sounds like they expect him to take either diff eq or linear algebra in the spring. Then for 7th grade...? Proof writing for math/stat majors and whichever of diff eq or linear algebra he hasn't yet taken? Sometime in the next year or so he probably needs to meet with an advisor to get things figured out. There's still plenty of math available, though. It sounds like he should be able to continue taking one math class per semester (not summers) and not run out of math all the way through high school. He's super spikey with barely-accelerated language arts and delayed social/emotional skills, so we don't have any intention of graduating him early at this time.
  15. My mathy kid has been very interested in math since about 4.5 years old. He's not interested in humanities at all, and I've allowed him to skimp on those subjects so that he could peruse even more math (and computer science recently). We even had a year where all he did was math. He took multiple math classes at the same time, read books about math and mathematicians, wrote solutions to math problems, and learned about a teeny of the history of math. And, that was it for school work! I don't see a problem with following the child's interests. If I had a languagey kid rather than a mathy one, I would totally let them dive deep in that while skimping on math instead.
  16. KM Shea writes clean fantasy, fairy tale, and paranormal romances. I don't know if any are coming of age; the ones I've read are all young adult or new adult. She uses some particularly creative figurative language, and many of her books are quite funny as well. There's something like 12 books in just her Magiford series of trilogies, I absolutely loved the newest set with the young woman who can transform into a black cat. She spends almost an entire book trapped with an "evil" (not really) elf king pretending to be a cat and it's hilarious.
  17. So far our only experience with Biozone is using their NGSS Biology stuff this year, but we like it enough to continue on with more Biozone texts next year. We really just use the student book as a write-in textbook. DS 15 reads and annotates the lessons and does the exercises in the book. I took the summative assessments out of his book to use as unit tests. I compare his answers to what's in the teacher's edition, and we discuss anything he did very differently. Additionally, I have him research a related topic and write a mini-report (single page) each week, and I'm reusing the weekly labs and microscope labs from RSO Biology level 2. (We used RSO Biology level 2 in 5th grade, but the general labs were a ton of fun and we skipped many of the microscope labs, so I figure this is fine to do.) I'm having DS write a full lab report at least every other week and am requiring a full research report in APA with in-text citations instead of a mini-report roughly twice a semester. My plan is to continue with this system for Anatomy & Physiology and Microbiology & Biotechnology next year. I'll just have to hunt down appropriate labs for microbiology; I'm planning on counting anatomy.app plus some dissections as the lab component of A&P. I found used copies online (eBay, Amazon, Abe Books... wherever had them) by searching for the correct edition ISBNs. The Teacher's Edition was hard to come by. I had to check all my regular used-book places periodically for several weeks before I found a copy. At one point I contacted Biozone directly to ask about getting a teacher's edition as a homeschooler, and it turns out they do have a form and a process for that, but I ended up finding a used copy somewhere after all.
  18. My DS#1 will be in 10th this fall. Right now the plan is: Math: WTMA AP Statistics online class w/ AP exam Science: 1st choice: General chemistry I & II through the local university. Backup plan: AP Chem through... somewhere online, or worst case scenario I can home-cook a course (DH is a chemical engineer, so it should be doable between the two of us) and go through the homeschool AP course audit process. Social Studies: GAPro American history online class English: IEW Structure and Style for Students 2C + Fix It level 6 + Online G3 Modern Literature of Multicultural America online class World Languages: WTMA Spanish II online class Elective, Fall: Biozone Anatomy and Physiology + anatomy.app Elective, Spring: Biozone Microbiology and Biotechnology And he hopes to get some kind of P.E. credit through our zoned high school, possibly weight training or swimming.
  19. My DS#2 will be an 8th grader this fall! Plans so far: Math: Geometry class, online from... not sure yet! Science: Chemistry through WTMA Social Studies: History Quest: American History as a spine and then folding in primary document inquiry using Reading Like a Historian lessons from Stanford History Education Group English: Composition and multicultural American literature via Fishtank grade 7 language arts, also Magic Lens/Word Within the Word 1A & 1B through Online G3 and Fix It level 5. If we end up needing a break from each other, I might shelve Fishtank and sign him up for the Modern Literature of Multicultural America class through Online G3 in the spring. We'll see how it goes. Computer Science: Third pass through Code Combat, this time in C++ Electives: Stock Market Challenge online class through Learning Outside the Box in the fall and then something else TBD in the spring I also plan to have him participate at our neighborhood middle school for something non-academic. Maybe band or P.E. or something. We won't know until the week that school actually starts though.
  20. We had grades 5 and 6, but we didn't finish either. I ended up donating them to a homeschool coop. They were just okay in my opinion. I liked that each major subject was included in each level instead of focusing on one subject for an entire year. The writing was clear and relatively--for a science textbook--engaging. The kids liked the illustrations and incorporated jokes and sillies. The chemistry sections were fantastic, biology and astronomy were good, Physics was okay, but I didn't like the geology sections at all. I'm a geological engineer, and although "neutral" science was fine with me in theory, I found that I strongly disapproved of the way geological ages and dating (even relative dating iirc) and some other details were handled/avoided. It clashed with my college education something fierce. The biggest reason we set them aside, though, was that none of us enjoyed the "experiments" (that could be called labs but weren't truly experiments at all), and the lab books weren't the least bit dyslexia- or dysgraphia- friendly for my 2e kids.
  21. Adding to the comment above about moving on to SRA Reading Mastery, which is the original program 100EZ Lessons was compiled from, you can access all of the levels k-5th and all of the content for reading, language arts, and spelling, except for the student workbooks and tests, with a ~$100 yearly teacher subscription from the McGraw Hill website. It's a somewhat complicated process to get started, iirc. You have to make an online account and get verified as a homeschooler, buy the subscription, make an account on their ConnectED website, and then activate a master code and some other junk, but it's totally worth it if you want to continue with the same methods and progression beyond 100EZ. It's usually pretty easy and inexpensive to find the workbooks and readers/student textbooks (if you want physical copies) on eBay, or you can buy directly from McGraw Hill. https://www.mheducation.com/prek-12/product/9780021282531.html https://www.mheducation.com/prek-12/explore/direct-instruction/reorder-components.html
  22. I agree that if you have the scores, you should apply. Honestly, though, for us the vast majority of the benefits of the DYS program have been the parent resources. The parent Facebook groups and parent networking opportunities are fantastic. We also got some much appreciated help with educational planning and with advocating in public school from our Family Consultant, but as Dmmetler said, they have now eliminated individual Family Consultants. The FC were replaced with some kind of online group discussion thing or something, but I haven't attempted to access that resource yet and so can't comment on its efficacy. As far as student-specific benefits, it really depends on the kid. All three of my DYS are 2e, but the one that's benefited most is high achieving, has no learning disabilities, and responds very well to ADHD medication such that his ADHD symptoms are well controlled, at least during school hours. My two DYS with learning disabilities and less well managed ADHD aren't the right "flavor" of PG for most Davidson programs, though one is doing well with an Explore class right now. The Davidson Explore classes have been a hit in my house with two of my DYS (mostly my high achieving DYS). For the one taking a writing class, I intentionally postponed beginning the Explore writing class sequence with him until he was on the older end of the recommended age range because I'd heard how exacting the critical thinking expectations were. I'm very glad I did. My high achiever may possibly eventually apply for DA, but the other two certainly won't. One might apply for a single course offering from DAO but not full-time. That level of academic intensity isn't aligned with his wants and needs. We haven't even attempted applying for STARS, REACH, or THINK because with their autism and delayed social/emotional/self-reg skills, I don't think any of my DYS would enjoy or do well with a sleep-away camp at this time.
  23. Nope, not recognized in the US. It's just diagnosed as Autism here. PDA folks still meet the DSM-V criteria for ASD, they just present in a particularly oppositional way. That's why I say my DS has "PDA-profile autism." When he was evaluated the psych specifically said she was removing his ODD diagnosis because we now new he was autistic and those oppositional behaviors were better explained by his autism. I offered the resources on PDA not as a suggestion that they seek out such a diagnosis, but so that they might try some of the methods recommended for managing the oppositional behaviors, potentially working with their son's neurology instead of against it. We were using most of the PDA "panda" techniques with DS years before he was diagnosed, long before we even heard of PDA, because through trial and error we found that that's what worked when nothing else did.
  24. I'm posting after some info has been removed, so I'm just making some guesses based on other responses. I'm another who thinks this poor young adult needs some evals. It sounds like his parents aren't open to that right now? Do you have any sort of relationship with the teen himself? Might he be interested in seeking out help on his own? I like the idea of just saying you know someone else who had similar struggles and eventually found out they were autistic and how it made their life so much better to understand and get appropriate support. One of my gifted boys was originally diagnosed with ODD. Several years later he was finally evaluated for ASD, which he has, and ODD diagnosis was removed. I've been told that ODD is almost never the actual underlying diagnosis and that usually it just labels behaviors actually caused by autism and/or anxiety, ADHD, etc. My DS has PDA-profile autism. Basically, demands intensify his anxiety, causing him to appear oppositional. Despite the fact that PDA isn't clinically recognized in the U.S., there's a whole toolkit of strategies that are super helpful for folks like this. Here's an info sheet aimed at parents: https://www.pdasociety.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Helpful-approaches-for-parents-and-carers.pdf And here's info specific to teens: https://www.pdasociety.org.uk/life-with-pda-menu/pda-teens/
  25. No, I've never seen anything from RFWP on sale for Black Friday or anything else in the last 5ish years of paying attention.
×
×
  • Create New...