Evan Moor Daily Science is a really quick get-er-done program. Lots of facts and vocab, short worksheets, and a few scattered (optional) activities. You could throw in library books about the topics as you go and have a pretty complete program with structure and a bit of pre-designed output. https://www.evan-moor.com/daily-science-grade-5-teacher's-edition-e-book

I think I'm finally at a place where plans for next year are semi-solid enough to share. Some things are still up in the air, but this is the plan until further refinement: DS14, 9th GRADE Math: - WTMA Advanced Calculus AB (AoPS curriculum) English: - Finish IEW SSS 1C and move on to 2C in November-ish if it's still a good fit by then - Fix It 5 - Online G3 Dystopian Lit (fall) and *something* for literature in the spring (BW boomerangs? FishTank? SEA Teen Book Clubs? Another G3 lit class? Other??) Science: - OM Environmental Science (w/ DS10) Social Studies: - OM World Geography World Language: - WTMA Spanish I Electives: - Online G3 Science and Societies in Science Fiction Movies (spring) - Adobe Photoshop (found a free curriculum to follow) - P.E..... of some sort, possibly weight training - MTG group?? DS12, 7th GRADE Math: - Davidson Explore Algebra I class (Davidson says that kids usually test into whatever level they most recently completed, and this turned out to be true for DS12. He completed algebra 1 in PS this year, but I think that he needs more time to mature anyway and that he will probably enjoy the flipped classroom style of DE classes.) English: - finish MCT4 grammar, vocab, poetics - finish Sequential Spelling 3, begin 4 - Fix It 4 (new ed) Mowgli and Shere Khan - Writing... restart IEW SSS 1B? W&R books 5 & 6? More Killgallon? Other??? - possibly Athena's Book Explorers class Science: - Something outsourced, but not sure what. Considering Athena's Terrestrial Biomes class (fall) with some other Athena's class for spring or perhaps an in-person class or coop kind of situation. Social Studies, geography, and literature: - Torchlight 5 Equity & Ethics (w/ DS10) EF & Social/Emotional: - Gratitude journal - CBT - anxiety management workbook Electives: - Fencing and martial arts are on his wish list. He'll have to pick one. - MTG group?? DS10, 5th GRADE Math: - AoPS Online Calculus and/or Intermediate Number Theory and/or Olympiad Geometry?? I'm trying to postpone in-person college classes as long as possible. Science: - OM Environmental Science (w/ DS14) - More Biochemistry Literacy for Kids live online classes for fun, maybe study for and take the AP Chem exam English: - Davidson Explore Writing and Popular Young Adult Fiction class - Handwriting (HWOT, perhaps?) Social Studies, geography, and literature: - Torchlight 5 Equity and Ethics (w/ DS12) World Language: - WTMA Spanish 1A EF & Social/Emotional Learning: - continue stress and anger management workbooks - yoga - meditation - an EF curriculum if we can squeeze it in... deciding between Gen:M and Unstuck and On Target, which were both on the list for this year, but we never got around to them. Electives: - coding/programming something or another, no idea what - swimming - OT for sensory - Speech therapy - Hoping to find him a local D&D group And youngest kiddo is the opposite of an AL, but I've not excluded him from the planning thread yet and won't be starting now! DS8 (turning 9 this summer), 3rd GRADE Math: - SRA Connecting Math Concepts lvl A, RS (1st ed) A, MUS Primer -- just kind of rotating through when he gets stuck, and hopefully moving on to the 1st grade level(s) of some or all of them at some point in the year English: - SRA Reading Mastery, reading strand -- finish K, move on to 1st - SRA Reading Mastery, language strand (aka Language for Learning)-- finish K, move on to 1st - SRA Reading Mastery, spelling (aka Spelling Mastery) -- finish K, move on to 1st - SRA Reasoning and Writing level A - SRA Read-Aloud Library, grade K?? (we tried this year and it was too challenging) Science: - Blossom & Root level 0 nature study - Let's-Read-And-Find-Out-Science level 1 books - Considering trying out the scheduled TL science, but I'm still undecided. The discussion-based SCI curriculum will *not* work for my language-impaired kiddo, but maybe the other stuff...? Or maybe Mystery Science grade K lessons? Social studies, geography, literature: - Torchlight level K Worldly Wisdom, skipping chapter book read-alouds since the language is too complex - KiwiCo Atlas Crates (I've had the subscription going for a year+ and have been saving them so I can line them up with TL topics!) EF & Social/Emotional Learning: - Little Spot of Emotion curriculum - lots of picture books about feelings and problem solving Electives: - OT - PT - speech therapy - adaptive swimming - sensory diet

The Medieval and Early Modern World series from Oxford University Press https://global.oup.com/academic/content/series/m/medieval-and-early-modern-world-memw/?cc=us&lang=en&

You might want to start a new thread for your question.

AoPS doesn't exactly line up with regular public school math. It follows a different order and includes a bunch of topics that aren't in the standard PS sequence. I'll list the order AoPS recommends below and then give the approximate public school equivalent. See their recommendations page for more details. https://artofproblemsolving.com/school/recommendations (eta: same as link shared by daijobu above) 1) AoPS Prealgebra = honors pre-algebra 2) AoPS Intro to Algebra A class/ 1st half of the book =roughly honors algebra I 3) AoPS Intro to Counting & Probability = no PS standard sequence equivalent (HIGHLY recommended before moving forward) 3.5) AoPS Intro to Number Theory = no PS standard sequence equivalent (not necessary, but very useful to have before moving forward, and pretty fun) 4) AoPS Intro to Algebra B class/ 2nd half of the book = most of honors algebra II + some non-standard topics 5) AoPS Intro to Geometry = honors geometry and an intro to trig 6) AoPS Intermediate Algebra = the last bit of honors algebra II + much of the algebra parts of honors pre-calculus + some algebra beyond high school level 7) AoPS Precalculus = the bulk of the trig part of honors pre-calculus + an intro to linear algebra 8 ) AoPS Intermediate Counting & Probability = no PS standard sequence equivalent, supposed to be similar to an intro college level C&P class 9) AoPS Intermediate Number Theory = no PS standard sequence equivalent, supposed to be similar to an intro college level NT class 10) AoPS Calculus = AP Calculus BC = college level calculus I and calculus II 11 & 12) AoPS Olympiad Geometry and Group Theory classes = college level of some sort

My first thought is to recheck their eyes. Did they pass a vision screening this year? I'd try working on visual discrimination separate from letters and numbers to see if it's a visual discrimination thing. If it's solely a memory problem, and since this kiddo is so verbal, you could try using stylized letters/numbers with stories, such as Alphabet Tales or Writing the Visual, Kinesthetic, and Auditory Alphabet by Sarah K. Major (she also has stuff for math like I Can Sing from 1 to 10). Dianne Craft also has some stuff along these lines if I'm not mistaken. Also, of course, make letter and number practice as multisensory as possible. Touch Math and Touch Phonics might be worth trying out. Since this sounds like a relatively bright child with specific learning difficulties, I'd also encourage you to work with this child on higher level math concepts that they *can* handle outside of the reading/writing print numbers realm. For example, you can have them adding and subtracting smaller and then larger numbers verbally with base-10 blocks or other non-numeral manipulatives. You can work on math story problems verbally. You can have them work on sentence structure, using coordinating and subordinating conjunctions, and organizing ideas for "writing" all verbally (check out the verbal exercises in The Writing Revolution). This way, when the missing pieces finally do fall into place, they'll already have the framework in place for many concepts and be set up for catch-up growth in these subjects. And, in the meantime, they'll get something interesting to engage with in between the frustrating remedial work. My youngest kiddo has static encephalopathy (birth related brain injury) and has immense trouble learning pretty much everything, but he's also autistic with a significant language impairment, so your student may not need the same kind of interventions. That said, my kiddo has made *immense* gains over the past eight months (schooling year-round) using Direct Instruction, aka DISTAR, supplemented with extra kinesthetic and tactile materials (e.g. I use the ASL alphabet with him; he traces the entire alphabet and numbers 0-9 on Magnatabs every day; we build letters and numerals out of food, playdough, blocks, our bodies, etc; he uses home-made number rods that match the characters in the Dragonbox Numbers app, which he also plays regularly). I have him using Reading Mastery Signature Edition grade K and Connecting Math Concepts grade K, both from McGraw Hill. I bought the digital version of the teaching materials (online teacher subscription through ConnectED) to decrease costs, but kiddo still uses all the printed workbooks and test booklets. These are VERY repetitive programs that incorporate Errorless Learning techniques, and the workbooks reinforce the lessons beautifully with visual discrimination, identifying, and writing exercises.

This one off Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08TPR8VYK/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 And my middle schoolers use this other one that doesn't have the subjects pre-labeled: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08TPVVJ69/ref=ppx_od_dt_b_asin_title_s00?ie=UTF8&th=1

Our main visual schedule is a color-coded clock. I have the colors marked with Roman numerals for "class periods," and then I can just list what our plans are for each period on a white erase board. This way we have flexibility in any given day (can do subjects in any order or plan on an appointment, playdate, or therapy during certain periods, etc.) but also predictability, especially around meal times. Each kid also has their own planner with daily lists of things to do that they check off as they go. The one I attached below is DS10's. It's for the coming week, so it's not color-coded yet. Each morning we go through his check list and color code the boxes with colors to designate during which period we plan to complete them. That said, I *also* incorporate picture cards in our visual schedules much of the time. My youngest is the only one who can't yet read, but even though DS10 has been reading well for seven years, he still seems to do better with words *and* pictures than with words alone, especially for micro-schedules (visual schedules that break down step-by-step processes like hand washing, sweeping the dining room, or getting ready to leave the house). I get our picture cards with words and templates to put them on from Lesson Pix. https://lessonpix.com/ The schedule clock: DS10's weekly planner/ check list of daily activities:

I feel you. I have four kids, all with alphabet soup diagnoses, and every one of them needs several different kinds of therapy. Forget paying for it all, it's not even logistically possible to get each kid to all of the separate appointments each needs in a given week without two stay-at-home-non-working parents! Our solution: we don't do everything at once! We usually only do one or two kinds of therapy per kid at a time, and we cycle through the needed therapies and supplement with a sprinkling of recreational activities that can help work on areas that are on therapy breaks. You could reasonably alternate between kids and rotate through therapies, especially if you continue working on at-home exercises (therapy homework) between rounds. (Admittedly, we have gone into significant medical debt trying to meet all our kids' medical and therapeutic needs. Lame sauce. No particularly helpful advice for that one. One of my kids recently qualified for buy-in Medicaid for disabled children and that has already made a huge, HUGE difference for our family finances.)

That's a pretty common profile. Sometimes it's associated with underlying 2e (esp. ADHD) issues, but sometimes not. All of my gifted kids have big processing speed and/or working memory gaps. One has about four standard deviations difference between processing speed and nonverbal indices. It hasn't negatively impacted his learning as far as we can tell, and he actually performs better academically than similarly gifted siblings with smaller discrepancies because he does not have any specific learning disabilities.

We are constantly changing things up, but today was a pretty typical day for my 9yo, age-grade 4th, 2e son (ASD, ADHD, anxiety, enormous processing speed gap, but *no* disabilities in reading, writing, or math). Core academics: 40 min math 40 min writing disguised as science (including reading about science and discussion before the writing assignment) 10 min writing disguised as history 30ish minutes listening to me read history aloud 50 min actual language arts instruction (10 min grammar, 10 min vocab, 20 min W&R, and 10 min reading comprehension) Interspersed between: 1 hr 15 min social skills group 2ish hours "educational" Marvel movie 1 hr playing in Scratch -- but he was supposed to be in a G3 webinar and forgot 1ish hr reading whatever he felt like while I tried to get him to pay attention to what I wanted him to do 1ish hr playing with Zome Tools 30 min video games 1ish hr playing outside 2ish hrs eating (for real) *We school four days per week on average.* Curriculum: Right now he's using Fix It grammar, MCT vocab, and Writing & Rhetoric. A few weeks ago language arts looked like IEW Structure & Style for Students with Moving Beyond the Page. In a few more weeks he'll be starting a writing workshop through Athena's and probably switching from W&R to a Fishtank literature unit or going back to MBtP. I hope to get through the rest of the MCT components at some point as well, but I don't mind if this level bleeds through into next year. We've been all over the place with language arts, but we keep coming back to MCT, W&R, and IEW. Fishtank is new for us this year and is surprisingly awesome. I also like to incorporate The Writing Revolution style assignments into other subjects. At the moment he's doing a mash up of EMF, Khan Academy, and Alcumus review for math, but he's asking to take another AoPS class, so we'll probably switch to that soon. Today he worked for my scheduled 40 minutes; however, he often works for longer because he likes math. Right now I'd say he's averaging around 80-90 minutes on math per day. As of this week I have him doing a Fishtank science unit because it's easier to get him to write about science and math than about literature. Before that he was doing a combination of Mr. Q Advanced Chemistry and Biochemistry Literacy for Kids. When this Fishtank science unit is over (or earlier if I decide it's not working the way I want it to or he decides he's not into it), we'll probably go back to Mr. Q and Biochem Lit for Kids followed perhaps by a second Fishtank science unit in the spring. In the past we've had good luck with REAL Science Odyssey and online science classes. History is perhaps our most consistent subject. I read aloud our spine(s) and/or related literature at bedtime -- usually around 45min, but anywhere from 15 to 60 min. Then the following day I give a short TWR-style comprehension assignment, a 2-3 sentence dictation, map work, or a History Detective worksheet. We've had this same history routine working for us for more than a year now, so it's a "win" for sure. I feel like we are constantly switching things around and readjusting in general. My kids get bored and crave novelty. DS 9 and DS 12 both get very resistant, especially towards writing, if we stick with the same program for too long. DS 9 is often appeased by being given a choice between two curricula when we hit natural breaks/transitions within a curriculum. My 2e 12yo, who has more extra Es, including SLDs in reading and writing, is much more tricky. He ends up going on academic strike, and it's hard to get his buy-in. I'll say, though, that he's had several years of public school, and they haven't had any better luck getting him to cooperate than I have. Putting him in school just gives us a break from each other. It doesn't improve his learning in any way.

Maybe you could come to my house and teach my DS8 (low-average IQ + learning disabilities), or DS11 for that matter (gifted, but has ODD and won't learn anything he doesn't want to). It would expand your experiences and perspective in ways you don't yet realize are possible. Educators simply don't have as much control over the minds of their pupils as you are giving credit for. Although you may be bestowed with bright, compliant children, it doesn't always work out like that. The student has agency and their own unique wiring to contend with. Teaching is not something you do to a child but with them -- or not, if they can't/won't.

When we spend most of our time around very bright children, friends, and family, I think we tend to mistake average kids for being slow and high-average to above average kids as average. What you are surrounded by becomes the normal you measure others by. I was pretty sure none of my kids were gifted until I had scores in my hands. Yes, this. So much this. It is hard to fathom the number of repetitions needed by children who are actually "slow" with a low-average or borderline IQ when you're used to kids learning something in just a handful of repetitions. There are things my youngest has failed to learn after thousands of repetitions. Like, if people understood the sheer volume of repetitions needed for some kids to learn, they'd see that there aren't enough hours in the day for these kids to achieve beyond grade level, and that doesn't even take into account the delayed reasoning skills and the way new information is never generalized without explicit instruction. I agree that incredible teaching will accelerate a child's learning relative to how quickly they would have learned with less adept instruction. That does not necessarily result in acceleration relative to the norm, and it certainly does not translate into the kind of radical acceleration exhibited many of the kids whose parents frequent this board or responded to this thread. I'd estimate that clinical giftedness is in the majority among the active posters on this board, and there's a disproportionately high frequency of parents of kids who are identified as profoundly gifted. I mean at least 10+% of the folks on this particular thread have kids tested at or over the 99.9%. I would argue that the limiting factor in the vast majority of low-performing US schools is low socio-economic conditions, inequity, and poor or no access to all kinds of resources middle and upper class folks take for granted. It's hard to learn when you're hungry, aren't getting adequate healthcare, and are in a constant high-stress state from living in poverty and/or witnessing violence in your home or neighborhood, regardless of the teacher's skill. I'm also pretty fond of Direct Instruction. It really works. However, while your kids, who very probably have ballpark-similar overall, above-average cognitive abilities, may be likely to spend a similar amount of time on the same instruction and come out with comparable skills, this will not be the case for all kids. Example for perspective: My two oldest kids learned to read with TYCTR in 100 EZ Lessons. They had no reading or alphabet instruction prior to beginning 100 EZ. They spent 15-20 ish minutes per lesson (less for the earlier lessons), and by lesson 25 or so they were able to pick up easy books from the library and figure many of them out on their own. They had the reasoning skills to generalize what they learned and move beyond it without extra instruction and knew more than the program actually taught. They did this within a couple of months at 3-4 years of age. Contrast this with my youngest. At 3yo he, too, began instruction in the foundations of reading. He went through four years of public school with an IEP that gave him daily O-G tutoring from a highly qualified specialist. He also did three years of summer school and had about 6 months of literacy instruction through the language and learning department of our children's hospital. This is now my second year homeschooling him, and I'm using Direct Instruction with him too. He's 8yo, age-grade 3rd, and I've got him in SRA Reading Mastery Signature Edition grade k, which is the curriculum 100EZ was chiseled from (100EZ is basically the rapid cycle track through RM modified for home use). Over the last five months of 5x/week instruction, sometimes more, he's managed to get through 40 RM-k lessons, the equivalent of roughly the first nine (nine!!) lessons in 100EZ. However, instead of a reading lesson taking 15 minutes like it did for my ALs, it takes an hour or longer. Instead of finishing that lesson and moving on to the next, he often has to repeat lessons or specific exercises from lessons because there's just not enough repetition built in. We can't do more than one cycle through a lesson in one day, either, because he spends just as long on math, oral language, fine and visual-motor skill practice, and medical care each day, and he's really got to have time to play and enjoy being alive squished in there as well. Now, DI is *working* for him and by the time he finishes, assuming he doesn't eventually come to the dreaded developmental plateau, he's going to have those skills mastered. But, it's going to take him a very. long. time. to finish. He is also not going to be generalizing anything. Absolutely every little thing will have to be taught, unlike my ALs. DI is great, but it isn't going to turn him into an "accelerated learner" or get him working above grade level.

I really wish there was a different word for the flavor of neurodiversity commonly known as "gifted." It's a terrible term, but I have yet to come across anything legitimately better that doesn't have similarly unhelpful misconceptions wrapped up in word choice. Yes, my kids know they've been diagnosed with giftedness, though they certainly don't always feel smart -- that gifted perfectionism can wreak havoc on confidence, and one of my gifted kids has enough extra Es to perform at or below grade level in many things, regardless of effort. However, they've all had some involvement in public gifted education, and it's not like you can hide it from a kid when they attend a gifted magnet school. Like Jackie's kid, one of mine needed explanations when he started preschool and noticed some pretty extreme differences between himself and other classmates. Also, as Dmmetler pointed out, kids tend to negatively label the differences they notice on their own if not given guidance. Why not give them the words and positive attitudes we want them to internalize from the start? And there are absolutely differences in individual ability that cannot be accounted for by effort. It's simply not true that hard work will have the same results for everyone or in every endeavor. Believing so fails to honor individual strengths and challenges and minimizes the end results for those with disabilities. Hours of individual tutoring every day by a caring, invested, well educated adult using systematic and well planned instruction will help any child reach their potential, but that potential varies significantly between individuals. I find it outrageous to assert that acceleration can be achieved by anyone given enough resources and effort. It's really quite harmful to claim that good teaching and hard work are the sole ingredients of academic acceleration. We give ourselves as teachers/parents/tutors entirely too much credit while discounting our students' unique abilities when we presume that it is our work together that causes a child to excel or do poorly when compared to typical age-based standards. I can nurture what is already within a child, but if my 9yo can handle college-level math topics, it's not because he or I worked that much harder than other hard-working homeschoolers, and if my 8yo still isn't potty trained and doesn't know the whole alphabet it's not due to a lack of effort on my or his part either. Neurodiversity exists. Hard work will take you as far as you can go. But let's honor and celebrate the differences between people instead of insisting that everyone is basically the same and could do what our accelerated kids do if only they or their parents tried harder.

Well, we're 3ish weeks into the school year and I think I've finally just about got things figured out. We've had some last minute adjustments, and second semester still feels a bit up in the air. DS#1, 8th grade Math: AoPS Precalculus through WTMA English: MCT 5 Lens I Level + Fishtanking Learning grade 8 + Online G3 Essay Essentials 1st semester and some kind of literature 2nd semester (probably Shakespeare) Science: G3 physics class 1st semester and TBD second semester, probably another G3 science class. Social Studies: (with DS#3) OUP The Medieval and Early Modern World + corresponding literature and historical fiction + bits from World History Detective + HQ Middle Times reader Extras: Digital art and graphic design with Adobe Photoshop, Athena's Money Sense class 1st semester, TBD elective-type online class for 2nd semester, swimming DS#2, 6th grade Math: Algebra 1 class through homeschool charter English: GT language arts 6 through public school district's virtual academy + finish Sequential Spelling 3 + whatever we get through in Killgallon middle school stuff and/or MCT 4 Lit Level on the side when he cooperates Science: Physical science class with homeschool charter Social Studies: 7th/8th grade U.S. History class through homeschool charter (they use Hakim's History of US as a spine) Extras: P.E. and digital photography through the homeschool charter; fundamentals of flight, rapid prototyping, tool skills, and genius hour through the local aerospace academy's middle school level enrichment program; CBT, Tinker Crate, probably swimming but he'll have to alternate with DS#3 since they're in the same level and won't play nicely in the pool together DS#3, 4th grade Math: Still not really sure. He's currently reviewing Intermediate Algebra with Alcumus after a 7-8ish month long break from math, and he has renewed interest in EMF and may work on that for a while. He's also interested in statistics and dabbling a bit in that via Khan Academy. Might spend some time working on improving his proofs with material suggested by one of his Epsilon instructors. I think he'll probably eventually get back into AoPS Precalculus and/or start Intermediate C&P, but I'm not sure if he'll do AoPS Online or self-study with the book(s) at this point, and it's looking like it won't be until the spring semester anyway. English: IEW Structure and Style for Students 1B + Fix It 3 Frog Prince + MBtP ages 10-12 + (maybe, possibly, if we get around to it) MCT 4 Literature Level. Science: Biochemistry Literacy for Kids + Mr. Q Advanced Chemistry + MEL Chemistry boxes Social Studies: (with DS#1) OUP The Medieval and Early Modern World + corresponding literature and historical fiction + bits from World History Detective + HQ Middle Times reader Extras: Online G3 Scratch class, Athena's Write NOW workshop, Athena's math club (but he's not really liking all that much 4 weeks in, so might not continue), social skills group 1st semester, Unstuck and On Target curriculum (either independently or we'll get him in a group through our children's hospital) 2nd semester, Tinker Crate, swimming (alternating sessions with DS#2), probably TBD Athena's/G3 classes for 2nd semester, also hoping to restart therapeutic horseback riding in the spring. DS#4, 2nd grade (the opposite of an AL, but I choose not to exclude him from the thread) Math: SRA Connecting Math Concepts grade K + Ronit Bird + Activities for the AL Abacus + ST Math grade K English: SRA Reading Mastery Signature Edition grade K reading and oral language strands, Heggerty Bridge the Gap, handwriting practice, SRA Read-Aloud Library Vocabulary and Listening Comprehension grade preK at half-pace, half-ish of the literature from Blossom & Root Early Years vol. 1 Science: Second pass through Let's-Read-and-Find-Out-Science level 1 + the nature stuff from B&R Early Years 1 Social Studies: Built into our literature selections from SRA Read-Aloud Library and B&R Extras: Speech therapy, adaptive swimming, the whole Highlights My-First-whatever set, easiest snap circuits kit, Koala Crate --> moving into Kiwi Crate mid-year, Cooking with Kids Integrated Curriculum level K-1 (aiming for 1/4-1/3 this year)

As Not a Number said, the books are also online. If you bought the physical books from AoPS directly, you can reach out to AoPS customer service about a book upgrade. They sell the online book as a $20 add-on to the physical book bundle and will generally let you tack the online book onto a physical book order at a later date if you ask nicely.

Last one is tonight at 6 PM Pacific/ 9 PM Eastern! Check your email for the link from the camp director.

Yeah, it's only for parents of this year's campers. In normal years when camp is in-person, Epsilon runs a parent program while the kids are in classes. It's pretty awesome to be able to connect with and share resources and experiences with other parents of kids who are so enthusiastic about math. It was probably *my* favorite part of taking my kid to camp in 2019. (You know, in case you were looking for something fun to do next summer, lol.) They didn't really have anything planned for parents during the virtual version of camp this year, but another AL board member and Epsilon parent volunteered to put together a series of Zoom-based happy hours for the parents that are running most of this week. Since these weren't part of the original program for this year, I'm not sure if all the parents are aware of them yet.

This would be a good question to ask at one of the Epsilon parent happy hours. There is one coming up focused on homeschooling, but you could ask at any of them this week and potentially get some feedback.

DS#2's oral reading was qualitatively... different. He'd skip words and say words that weren't there, pulling in words from the lines above and/or below. He'd substitute words with synonyms (e.g. book said "angry" but DS#2 read "furious") or change the order of words. If I covered up all but the line he was reading, he'd keep going past the end of the line even before I'd uncovered the next. Essentially, he was predicting the text and saying what he expected without reading everything. He was missing a lot of the actual words, but he was able to compensate by being familiar with writing patterns and by having a very wide and deep knowledge base. This worked for him with longer passages and books. He aced reading comprehension for these kinds of things and tested at a 5th-6th grade reading level in kindergarten. However, I saw things break down with shorter passages, written instructions, and especially in *math*. It's hard to get a word problem correct when you miss-read a quarter or more of the words! As you know, changing the order of a few words in a story problem can change everything about the math involved. And even though school said he was reading so well in K, they measured almost no reading growth after that. When I pulled him to homeschool half-way through 5th grade, the school asserted that he was reading at an early 7th grade level. Interestingly, when I had him tested privately the following month, the psych found his reading comprehension to be12th grade level and his reading fluency to be 1st grade level. Originally I attributed the things I was noticing to his young age. He started reading at 3yo, whereas my older kiddo didn't read until he was almost 5. I thought perhaps I'd forgotten about DS#1 going through a similar stage or maybe he skipped the stage because he was older when he started reading. Then we found out that DS#2 needed glasses at 4yo and I thought that explained everything. We saw a big jump in his reading level after he got his glasses, but the differences remained. Then when DS#2 was around 6yo, then-4yo DS#3 started reading aloud and *didn't* do any of the odd things DS#2 did. DS#3 quickly outpaced DS#2 in his reading ability. That's when I started to feel really concerned. I tried talking to school about it. They blew off my concerns and said I didn't know what a real learning problem looked like (They obviously didn't know I had DS#4 with an IEP already, lol.), but I wasn't going to let it go. Very long story on the testing, but he was eventually diagnosed with dyslexia, dysgraphia, ADHD, anxiety, and PG, which explains a whole lot of the big picture we see with him. When I pulled DS#2 to homeschool half-way through 5th grade, he couldn't spell spin (public school doesn't do spelling beyond 2nd grade here). His difficulty with spelling made it so he couldn't get his thoughts out on paper. He had big ideas but got too frustrated when he tried to write because he couldn't spell the words he wanted to use, so he gave up and refused to write just about anything. His difficulty with spelling ended up holding him back in other seemingly-unrelated subjects, so I've had to do quite a bit of remediation in everything to do with written language. I've had him home for a year and a half now, and he's making wonderful progress, but this would have been so much easier if we'd been working on it all along. My DS#1 was always homeschooled; I just didn't prioritize spelling. I first started him in a spelling program in 4th grade, and that was really too late. He needed to start near the beginning, but many programs seemed too babyish to him. By mid-way through 7th grade he was most of the way through Sequential Spelling 4 and was OVER spelling. He felt he was too old to do spelling, and it was cutting into time that he wanted to spend on more advanced/complex language arts instruction. If we'd started when he was younger, I could have gotten more spelling instruction in before I lost his buy-in.

I was told that scripting and delayed echolalia were the same thing but that scripting is the more commonly used term in behavioral sciences (such as by an ABA) and delayed echolalia is more commonly used by SLPs and self-advocates? My understanding was that scripting/delayed echolalia could be either functional and to communicate or non-functional, like a stim, and could be a recitation of just about anything: lines from TV shows, things family or friends have said, things electronic toys say, etc. Is that different than what you're saying? And I was told that this kind of thing *is* scripting/ delayed echolalia. I wonder if these terms have regional differences in use and application. I'm glad it sounds quality. Sometimes I second guess what I'm doing with him. 😄 I might not have expressed my thoughts clearly. The first bit of my post was my immediate response to the discussion on syntax. If my kid is repeating verbatim a sentence or phrase that works to get his point across, I find that preferable to the word salad or non-word vocalizations (that I often can't understand) that we might get otherwise. The second part of my post, which I didn't do a very good job of transitioning to, was about my attempt at home-cooked language therapy and trying to harnesses the tendency to echo/scrip to end up with more language with correct syntax.

Two of my kids were similar and finished 100 EZ Lessons at 4-5yo. We didn't do anything afterward beyond reading whatever they wanted from the library and later copywork and then dictations. One turns out to be dyslexic (yes, truly, even though he read very young), and I really wish we'd jumped straight into a phonics-based spelling program after finishing 100EZ. I don't think it would have mattered much which spelling program as long as it was phonics-based. If I had a do-over I'd do that with both of them, actually. We eventually did spelling, but it would have been much better to start right away. Another of my kids already knew how to read when I pulled out 100 EZ Lessons at 4yo to teach him. (Surprise!) I had him read through all of the decodable readers in a mainstream program (Sing, Spell, Read, and Write -- because I had them) just to make sure there weren't any holes and then took him through Wise Owl Polysyllables, which is *not* phonics-based but teaches to break longer words into syllables to sound them out. His spelling naturally developed alongside his decoding and with copywork such that I never directly taught him spelling. This approach wouldn't have worked for my older two who really did/do need explicit spelling instruction.

Yup. It might be good to remove eye contact from the goals list altogether. Always seemed like a waste of time to me anyway. Lol! I'd like to see that. The longer I'm on this journey, the more I think scripting is perhaps an acceptable end-point. I mean, it works. Right now I'm teaching syntax to DS#4 basically through rote memorization -- and it's WORKING! It's not a very efficient process, but it's better than anything else I've tried so far. I'm using the language strand from Reading Mastery, which I *think* may be equivalent to the separate SRA Language for Learning program, but I haven't quite figured out how the different DI programs overlap or don't. It's really just drilling short scripts with sentence frames and errorless learning. For example... Teacher: This is a clock. What's this? Kid: A clock. Teacher: Yes, a clock. Say the whole thing. Kid: This is a clock. Teacher: This is a pencil. What's this? Kid: A pencil. Teacher: Yes, a pencil. Say the whole thing. Kid: This is a pencil. Teacher: This is a book. What's this? Kid: A book. Teacher: Yes, a book. Say the whole thing. Kid: This is a book.... Rinse, repeat like 5 bajillion times per lesson with various nous, then do the same thing again in tomorrow's lesson and the day after and the day after and the day after and after for a couple of months.... Tada! kid can now say "This is a _____" about things he has a label for. 🙂

A child this age cannot "fail" school; it is the learning environment that is failing the child. Studies show that except in certain, rare circumstances, grade-retaining struggling students not only doesn't help them, but it is likely to actually harm them long term. By a couple of years post-retention, they generally are doing worse academically than kids with similar profiles who where not held back. There are often negative social and emotional consequences, especially in adolescence, and grade-retained kids are more likely to drop out of high school and/or end up in the justice system than similarly struggling kids who were promoted on the regular schedule. I mean, think about it. If the classroom instruction didn't work the first time, why would doing the same, unhelpful thing *again* be any better? She needs individualized, targeted interventions, not more of something that clearly didn't work. There are entire books on this subject, but here's a brief summary: https://www.du.edu/marsicoinstitute/media/documents/Does_Retention_Help_Struggling_Learners_No.pdf I chose to have one of my kids repeat kindergarten in public school. He had a long list of exceptionalities that made his situation unlike that of the typical struggling student (young for grade, super small, immature for age, language disorder, multiple years behind on *every* measure, etc.), and I still go back and forth about whether it was really the best decision. The only reason I ultimately chose to retain him was because he wasn't going back to the same unsuccessful situation. He was repeating the grade, but in a new classroom with a new teacher and with an updated IEP -- an IEP decked out with supports, accommodations, and interventions informed by new neuropsych testing and years of data collection. Since you prefer not to homeschool, I urge you to consider switching to public education so that she can get interventions and support to help her succeed. If you feel private school is the only option, please get neuropsych testing done so you can find out why she's struggling and at least know what the school *should* be doing to address her needs.

Brain imaging supports the notion that eye contact may be distressing for autistic individuals. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-03378-5