Conceptualizing these kinds of problems is where manipulatives can be so flippin' handy. I know I've said this before, but I absolutely love our Algebra Lab Gear blocks. They have their limitations, but they're fun and useful for what they are. One of the creators has his original stuff, including printable paper versions of the Lab Gear and out-of-print textbooks, free on his website. https://www.mathed.page/

They're signed up!

I've got two boys begging to take that Dragonology class.

Yep, you pretty much summed it up, with the one additional reason to do American history being that DS 12 will be doing it. -- my thought here is that he'll be subjected to DS 10's and DS 8's read-alouds and audiobooks regardless, so it would indirectly benefit DS 12 for DS 10 and DS 8 to do American history...? But I think you're right. I just need to figure out world history. Thank you for the resource list! Yes, please! I'd love it if you'd share your book list.

Help! I can't make up my mind! I can't decide if I want to teach my two middle kids ancient world history (or maybe ancient and middle ages combined) OR early American history next year. Doing early American history would be terribly *convenient* because my oldest will be doing early American history through online public school and I just downloaded the updated BYL grade 5 (early American history), which looks amazing. Like, seriously, I wish we could have used this version the first time we went through BLY 5 two years ago. However, DS#2 *wants* to study ancient history next year. He was in PS until winter break, where they didn't really do much in the way of history or science. DS#3 did American history (the old version of BYL 5 and 6) last year and the year before. This year he did some random topic studies on ancient Greeks and Romans and now WWII. His last thorough pass through ancient history was when he was in preschool, so he doesn't remember much of it at all. I'm also a little tired of American history at this point. BUT! I can't find a good literature-based, secular world history written at the middle school level. I have The Usborne Encyclopedia of World History, The Kingfisher History Encyclopedia, SOTW vol.1-4, and The Human Odyssey vol.1, so I could pick one or more of those as a spine and hunt down tasty historical fictions and whatnot to flesh it out... but that sounds *hard* and I am still adjusting to having four homeschoolers instead of two (because one was in PS until Jan and the final one made it home in Mar because of covid19... and it's looking more and more likely that they'll all continue HSing in the fall). Can someone talk some sense into me? Help me decide what to do!

Has anyone here used or heard of Five Senses Literature Lessons? It was recommended to me on a FB group for homeschooling SN. After spending some time pouring over the website and online samples and reading through Cathy Duffy's review, I'm leaning heavily toward buying the Foundations and Fundamentals set, but I wanted to check for reviews/experiences here first since I'd never heard of this program before. With a little tweaking, it looks like it could be a good framework to build our language, pre-reading, and number sense activities around. https://www.5sensesll.com/index.php/our-store/foundations-fundamentals-level-orange/

I wanted to get the dot patterns Ronit Bird ebook but don't have any apple devices, plus I'm in the US and can't pay in £. Is this content incorporated into any of the books sold from Amazon, or is that totally different stuff? TIA!

oops

Have to go back a page and finish catching up! I've never noticed... I'll have to pay more attention and find out. They're both ASD-1 and exceptionally/profoundly gifted. It makes for an interesting spread in abilities. DS 12 can pass for NT and wasn't diagnosed until just a year ago. The road to diagnosis for him was an epic saga, seriously. I could write a book about it. We'd been doing ASD-specific interventions off and on since toddlerhood because they worked, but under different diagnoses. I'm pretty sure you and I had an exchange about that several years ago (At least I think it was you, maybe, possibly, probably, under a different SN?) where I mentioned that we did ABA for my non-ASD kid and you were were questioning why/how that would work... well, it worked because he actually did have ASD, lol. DS 8 has adaptive scores low enough to qualify as developmentally disabled, but he's also undeniably brilliant. His self-care skills totally hit the -3 rule, social communication is more like -5, but he makes up for it by being able to follow directions. So even though he can't brush his teeth independently, if I talk him through the process (every single time) he can do all the brushing himself with me standing there telling him how to do it. DS 6, on the other hand, needs me to actually brush for him, and then there's a high probability that he won't cooperate and it'll turn into a 2-person job or not get done at all. Same thing for getting dressed. DS 8 might try to leave for therapy in shoes and a pair of underwear, but if I tell him to put on pants and a shirt and hover nearby, he'll do it. Meanwhile, DS 6 will strip down naked and then when I try to get him redressed he'll turn into a freaking octopus and 20 minutes later I'll maybe have managed to get pants on him. So, yes, totally different levels of support needed, lol! Very cool, thanks! They did a rapid naming test with DS 6 at his 6yo eval. He had a scaled score of 3 on the color one, which I think is 1st%. Processing speed was in the borderline range.

Thank you very much for sharing your DD's experience.

I didn't really explain that well because I was trying to be concise. DS 6 can scream nonstop for an hour or two, and he gets where even giving him what he wants doesn't get him to stop. Sometimes these can come out of the blue, as when he screams for an hour that he wants a banana and there are. no. flippin'. bananas. in the house. Nothing I say or do will get him to calm down. Other times I can spider-sense a meltdown coming on and I will respond to his initial bit of screaming (that isn't yet hysterical) with structured "outs" so that he can communicate in *some* way to get what he's needing and the rest of us don't have to be stuck in the car while he screams bloody murder for the entire trip (and possibly for some time after we get to our destination). This is something I learned in DS 8's ABA, where they give him other ways to ask for a break besides just "I need a break" when he starts to get worked up and is past the point of being able to use complete sentences. DS 8 can reduce to single words, "break" or "done" or touch a break card, and so I have just modeled what I do with DS 6 after that but with expectations more appropriate for where he's at. So, no, I don't always require asking nicely, but when I don't it's intentional and part of my master deescalation plan, lol. Also, we normally (sans COVID-19) run such a tight schedule that there just isn't time to pull over basically ever. We have one thing after another after another scheduled. Well, after 3.8 years of public school, he is still crying most days at drop-offs. We're at the point now where he has a designated morning transition person who meets us at the front doors (parents are not allowed past the main office) to distract him and entice him into letting go of me. When this works, he gets to blow some bubbles or something and gets a star on his chart to work toward a bigger prize. When it doesn't work, which is usually about 3 days a week, I have to carry him kicking and screaming into the school, pry his little arms off of my neck, and pass him to the clinic aid, his transition person, so she can gently restrain him while dash out of the building. It sucks, and we've been doing it near daily for almost 4 years! When he first wakes up in the mornings he sometimes asks if he has to go to school and will cry and ask not to go if I say yes. He says hes scared, but I've never gotten him to say anymore than that. It's just, "I'm tared." He can't tell me what he's scared of. He's never told me about anything bad happening. Granted, he doesn't really have the skills to tell a story about something real that happened earlier in his day yet (though there was one time when he talked at length about the time our cat died... a year before), so he wouldn't necessarily be able to verbalize a bad experience. He does say that he likes his teacher and his friends -- and this kid is beloved by half the school. Everyone knows him by name. Every day when I go to pick him up there are at least 3-5 kids calling out to him, waving, telling their parents, "That's my friend M!" It's astonishing how well loved he is at school. They assure me that he's completely happy within a few minutes of my leaving, that he has a great time at school all day long, and that he has lots of friends. I'm promised that they've seen no indication of other children mistreating him, and they say that he seems to really like being at school. Like I said, anxiety medication is probably in the cards for him at some point, most likely sooner rather than later, once we get through the 6-9 month wait list for an intake eval and then another 3-6 for a medication eval. I'm not interested in taking him anywhere but our big, regional children's hospital for financial and quality-of-care reasons.

He could repeat all of the words correctly, but when the word had 3-4 syllables, he still only clapped once or twice. DH didn't even ask him how many claps were in the words, just to clap out the words like he did. Yes! Those super short sentences are exactly the kind he does well with. Thank you! Yes, and I will probably put him back on the 2 year wait list to get reevaluated around the same time they want to redo his IQ, but at this point it doesn't matter much. He has a developmental disability dx and qualifies with our community centered board. He's got tons of minutes in his IEP, and we haven't had any issues getting insurance coverage for private therapies. I don't know about ABA for him... I guess I've only seen it implemented with DS 8 and DS 12, who present quite differently from DS 6. He looks ASD from the restricted/repetitive side of things, he's got the sensory issues, and overall communication struggles. However, he is very socially related. He's got that joint attention. He points to show interest, follows points, checks in with adults, is appropriately affectionate, is socially motivated and interested in what adults and other children do. He is very expressive with clear (intense!) emotions and appropriate affect. He has these delays that look like ASD at first, but then something clicks and it stops looking so ASD. Like, he didn't imitate at all, and then suddenly around his 2nd birthday he imitated everything (and he still does!). He had basically no imaginative play until maybe 4.5yo, and then suddenly became this super imaginative little boy. He does pretend play and roll-playing type play in ways that DS 12 and DS 8 have never done. He has a rich make-believe world like DS 10's. His social skills are delayed, but they do seem to develop right in line with his receptive language. I mean, he's constantly changing and we may well end up with another ASD dx by the time he's 10-12yo, but for now I think I agree with the doctors who have evaluated him. He just doesn't meet ASD diagnostic criteria. That's how they came up with "other specified neurodevelopmental disorder" as his main dx. He's clearly got a neurodevelopmental disorder like ASD, it just doesn't seem to be ASD right now. And the school doesn't care what his diagnosis is. I've spent years (like, literally since he was 5mo) fighting for services. He used to get speech, OT, PT, and sped. Now he's down to speech and sped with almost negligible PT minutes, but his overall minutes are higher than when he had more kinds of school-based therapy. Their argument against OT and PT is that his lagging physical skills do not impact his ability to access the classroom, curriculum, or playground. If they had any stairs, the story would be different, but there are none. Much of the OT and PT we've done privately has been targeting skills like chewing, sensory integration, strengthening his core to help with pelvic floor control, and balance. These aren't things that impact learning at school, so the school feels he doesn't need them from them. The thing is that he is very well behaved at school. He is extremely good at blending in a group. He's quiet. He follows along with the other kids. They sit down, he sits down. They line up, he lines up. He doesn't cause disruptions. He just sits there quietly doing nothing while everyone else works on the assignment until the classroom aid comes over and does the work with him or he gets pulled for interventions. Last year, his first time through kindergarten, he came home every week with empty worksheet after empty worksheet that someone else had written his name on. They sent home his math workbook at the end of the year, and it was so empty that we were able to send it back to school with him this year and not have to pay the fee for a new one. Honestly, it was heartbreaking to observe. He likes to cut paper in to tiny shreds. He could do that for hours as long as I'm nearby. He likes to glue things together, draw, and color. Recently he's been into tracing simple stencils. He also likes play dough. He likes dot-to-dots, but he needs support to do them correctly. He has this Automoblox wooden car thing that he takes apart and puts together over and over and over and over. He loves Baby Shark, stuffed animals, bunnies, and rainbows. He loves to help cook or really help with anything the adults are working on. Big brothers are origami masters, so he also likes to fold paper up even if it doesn't look like anything when he's done. Actually, he enjoys playing with his brothers in general and tries to do most of the things they do. He's also very affectionate and loves to cuddle. He LOVES these things. No, he hates them. We listen to audiobooks a bunch in the car driving to and from school, therapies, and doctor appointments (all those specialists DS 6 sees, plus occasional weight checks, etc. since he's still barely 32 lbs), mostly because the older kids like them and I got so tired of hearing the same songs on the radio. But, no, he really, really, really dislikes this practice. Sometimes he cries and screams until I turn the audiobook off, in fact. And then, of course, I listen to the other three complain for the rest of the drive. He probably has anxiety. Developmental peds thinks an underlying anxiety problem is probably the cause of most of his restrictive, repetitive behaviors and trouble with transitions. I don't know what would lessen that. All three of the older boys and I have diagnosed anxiety. It runs in the family. Possibly some medication eventually. I think bringing him home officially and ditching PS would improve his quality of life, but only if I can pull it off while still meeting everyone's needs, which feels overwhelmingly impossible from where I'm sitting right now. This is an interesting question and it has a complicated answer. No? I don't think so? But I had a hard time learning math until it was presented in a way that made sense to me. Really, my math-learning pattern mirrored what happened in reading. I went from not reading at the beginning of 4th grade to reading and understanding 1,000+ page adult novels by the summer between 5th and 6th. In 6th grade I had zero understanding of fractions, could only add or subtract by counting on or off, couldn't multiply or divide, had a super funky mental number line, and was failing math (except for geometric stuff! that always made sense). In 7th grade we got a new teacher and she implemented new curriculum with blocks and other manipulatives. Suddenly, numbers became quantities and math made sense! By 8th grade I was being given extension materials in math and granted independent studies because I'd surpassed the highest level group in the school, and by 10th grade I was placed in calculus. However, since there wasn't anything at all after calculus, I putzed around for most of high school. That said, I had a serious lack of mental math strategies. I got all the way through engineering college without ever learning the multiplication/division facts (I'm a calculator ninja!). I learned to add 2-digit numbers mentally from RightStart back while I was teaching DS 12. Much of what I accomplished in my own educational career was intuitive. What I really needed was some guidance. I've been learning alongside my big kids all along. Yes, I already see this issue with not transfering skills now. He can read his name if it's written with a capitol first letter and the rest lower case. If you show him his name in all caps, he has no idea what it says. He can show 1-5 and 10 on his fingers without fail, sometimes 6 too, but with anything besides his fingers he has to count if it's beyond 3. Perhaps, eventually. My kids all have seriously complex ADHD and every one of them has required a lot of trial and error finding meds that work. They all see a pediatric psychiatrist because they've proven so complicated. My kids seem to get all the rare side effects. We spent about a year and a half trying to figure out what works for DS 10, and DS 8 is still trialing different things now with nothing really helping more than it hurts so far. We shall see, though. I wonder if my copy of RS 1st edition is somehow different that what you guys used. I don't remember it being at all about memorization at all. In fact, I *loved* the way multiplication was handled in RS level C. It was beautiful, really... In our copy, at least, they approached multiplication from multiple angles like they were separate topics and then tied them all together in this nice, neat package. They did skip counting (lots of skip counting -- possibly overkill on the skip counting) and looking at patterns in the skip counting sequences, arrays of beads on the abacus and of 1" tiles, area, and repeated addition each like they were separate things. Then they tied them all together. I remember my DS 12's big ah-ha moment when he realized they were all different ways to see and do multiplication. They did some other interesting things like pointing out how you could cover a standard multiplication table with tiles and the number under the bottom right tile matched the total number of tiles in the array (that was in 2nd edition, though, I believe). They had this brilliant exercise where the kid had to lay out the skip counting number cards in rows: ones, then twos, and so on. Then when it was time to clean up, they asked the kid to pick up the cards in columns instead of rows to show the communicative property in a creative way. That was another big ah-ha moment. My older kids, especially DS 8, all loved finding patterns in the skip counting sequences. RightStart has you write the sequences in specific ways and then notice patterns. Like, every other number in the 2s skip counting sequence is the 4s, if you arrange the numbers of the 3s sequence in rows of 3 you add 9 every time you go straight down from a row to the next, with the multiples of 9 the 10s digit increased by 1 and the ones digit decreases by 1 each time, that kind of thing, except it went way deeper and DS 8 took it far beyond even that. RS taught really solid multiplication strategies. From RS we *all* learned that the 4s are double the 2s, so you can double and double again to get a multiple of 4. The 8s are double the 4s, so you can double-double-double to get the 8s. The 5s are half the 10s. The 6s are one more grouping than the 5s (super intuitively presented distributive property: 6xa = 5xa + 1xa). The 9s are one less grouping than the 10s (again, using the distributive property without ever calling it that: 9xb = 10xb - 1xb). RS taught "check numbers", which is just the remainder when a number is divided by 9 taught from a pattern perspective. Really, everything I know about multiplication, I learned from RightStart as an adult.

Yeah, I've got great speakers set up on my desk top. I did things like only pulled down 3 tiles when I was supposed to pull down 4, pulled down 4 when I was supposed to get 5, straight up couldn't think of what the "word" would sound like with a sound taken out. I couldn't remember the sounds separately. I could remember the whole "word" of sounds, but then when one was taken away, I couldn't think of what would be left. If I'd written it down I totally could have done it, but she said specifically not to write anything.

Following up... Retained reflexes: Couldn't find a site with instructions on how to check for these. My google fu skills have failed me. Anyone have a link I could follow? Clapping a rythm: Nope, can't do it, even if I ask him to clap along with me. Barton screening: Failed all parts. Part A: Could only repeat back the shortest sentence. Repeated them for him a few times and he was able to get one more, but still didn't pull down tiles for each word. Part B: Got the 1 and 2 syllable words correct! Got all the 3 and 4 syllable words wrong. Part D : He did surprisingly well on this part! He only got 5 wrong (max wrong allowed = 2). He needed a lot of repetition, and he was pretty confused at first about using the same color tile for the same sound. His mistakes were often repeating the correct sounds in the wrong order or repeating the correct sounds in the correct order but then not getting the corresponding tiles right (e.g. the sounds were s/sh/s, he said s/sh/s but then pulled down red/red/yellow). Aaaand, a slight hiccup in my plans... I failed the Barton tutor screening. DH gave DS 6 the student screening for me while I watched. However, doing a daily reading lesson is not something he could do for me every day, or even most days. He could probably work with DS 6 on something like this about twice a week, so I need to figure something out. So, uh, what do I do to make myself Barton-tutor worthy? I am a slow but fluent reader. I use highlighting or a piece of paper under the line I'm reading to make it easier. I'm probably dyslexic, but I was never diagnosed and never received any interventions because my mom was convinced I was really smart and just being lazy. (Thanks, Mom.) I eventually (in 4th grade!) figured out how to read all on my own, but I think I did it by memorizing whole words like they were individual pictures. When I used TYCTR in 100EZ Lessons with my oldest, I learned a bunch of phonics (-igh says "I," lol!) and I can totally sound out words now. But, I bombed the first part of the tutor screening where you're supposed to pull down tiles for each sound in the word and then change or remove sounds. I did well on the second part, where she gives the sounds and you say the word.

He was evaluated for autism at 3.5yo by a 3-person multidisciplinary team in developmental peds at a huge children's hospital that serves a 7-state region in the West. At the time he was pretty delayed across the board with most skills in the 0.1% and a relative strength (2nd%) in visual reception, an estimated IQ in the 50s and an adaptive composite in the low 60s. He had very delayed social skills, but everything was delayed fairly similarly. Social skills were at the level of a 14mo, but receptive language and play skills were in the 10-11mo range, and then he had fine motor, gross motor, and expressive language all clustered in the 19-22mo range. They said the ADOS was technically inconclusive, but they felt strongly that he did not fit an ASD diagnosis. From the report: "... he does not meet diagnostic criteria for autism spectrum disorder. Cognitive testing is significant for overall delays which are most significant in language, especially receptive language. Social interactions, overall, appeared consistent with his development. At this time it does not appear that autism would be an accurate diagnosis." We did a follow up at 4.5yo but the developmental pediatrician didn't feel a repeat of the ADOS was warranted. They commented on notable gains in language skills (up to 2nd% receptive, 8th% expressive iirc) and sent us on our way. Neuropsychology saw him right after his 6th birthday and reported, "Similar to his earlier evaluation with [big regional children's hospital name] Developmental Pediatrics, it is our impression that M is a socially related child and from informal observation, a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is not likely." I have my doubts as well. I mean, at 3 they thought it was in the low 50s, at 4.5 a non-verbal IQ test was borderline, and now we've got this low-average score. It just keeps going up as he gets older, or as I see it, as his receptive language improves. That said, he did get exactly the same score on the WIPPSI and the WISC 6 months apart, which makes it feel more likely to be accurate. I go back and forth on this. Sometimes I get glimpses and I'm like, "Yes! There is someone really smart inside this little boy dying to get out!" He checks some gifted boxes, especially emotional sensitivity, and his memory can at times be phenomenal. And then other times it feels like wishful, unfair thinking, like I'm failing at accepting him for who he is just because he's nothing like I expected. His current IQ estimate is like 4 standard deviations below his brothers, who are all clustered within about a 5-point range. No, he functions like a gifted person with an ID, lol. His adaptive scores are in the 60s. He requires an immense amount of care at home, and in many ways just seems like a child several years younger than he is. However, he also has splinter skills, amazing spatial skills, and he occasionally does something incredible. Like, he knows where everything is (unless he, personally, lost it). If something is lost by me or one of his brothers, he can point to it or take me to it. I've seen him do things like draw pictures upside down so that they're oriented correctly for the person he wants to look at them. And today when I was working with him trying to check his skills, I asked him to do something he either couldn't or didn't want to do and -- I kid you not -- he wrote "no" so that I could read it and it was completely sideways for him! And, yes, he is curious. He randomly asks some pretty creative questions. "Do adults have birthdays?" "Do cars have houses?" I'm not too happy with what they're doing in speech this year at school. Last year he had an hour of speech and 30 minutes of sped 4 days a week. This year they switched it to 30 min of speech and an hour of sped 4x per week. Previously speech was working on language. This year they seem to have changed gears to focus on his articulation, which, admittedly, is in need of some help, but what I *want* them to work on is language, especially receptive. The problem is that DS 6 is remarkably good at having conversations now. He's made tremendous progress with his expressive language in the last year. You can now talk to him and he says completely appropriate things back, but if you keep this up long enough, at some point he says something so completely off the wall that you realize he has no idea what the heck your talking about. So the folks at his school like to try and say that he's doing so well and has met his language goals, but I think they're missing some pretty significant issues. Private SLP and neuropsych both noticed it and pointed out that he's still using scripted language and echolalia, but he does it so fluidly now that it's hard to get the school to agree with me. (We've only been doing private speech during the summers.) He does a lot of humming, vocalizing, and reaching, but he also speaks in complete sentences. Some verbal interactions from today (changed to correct pronunciation for ease of reading and typing): Him: Ah ah ah ah ah. Me: Use your words. Him: Mama, can I has a piece of paper so I can draw star? Me: Here you go, buddy. *climbs onto my lap and starts talking as he traces a stencil* Him: See the pencil keeps going and making the bumps. See I made it. And have to put them in, right? We have to first make the circles. I made it! I made one of these! *Later in the day. He's not wearing pants and it's cold in our house.* Him: I want you to know where the blanket was? Me: I don't know. I haven't seen it. Him: But where's the blanket that I was holding? Me: Are you cold? I wear pants when it's cold. Pants. *He walks away and comes back a few minutes later, wearing pants -- this is a relatively new skill, putting on pants by himself* Him: Mama, two chocolate chips for had pants on? *I reward him with a chocolate chip* Him: These are my last pair of pants. Why do I have more shirts? Me: Well, you have long sleeve and short sleeve shirts in your dresser, but your shorts are put away for the winter. Him: So, we're all shorts together. My last explanation was just too long and so he didn't understand it. Sometimes I just forget to change the way I speak to accommodate him. I usually try to say a normal sentence followed by a pause and a short phrase or key word from the longer sentence. Not sure if this is legit, but I'm hoping to both expose him to longer sentences with correct grammar and syntax and whatnot, while still getting him to understand what I'm trying to say. It seems to work most of the time. Articulation example: "My wook why an jus take tuff off?" = "My work why and just take stuff off?" -- That was him asking me how the thing he glued to his paper fell off. It got late quickly this evening! I'll be back tomorrow to continue...

I will check if he can keep a rythm, do the Barton screening, and check for retained reflexes (if I can figure out how...) and try to report back tomorrow. Puzzles: He can do 12-piece independently, 24-piece with a little help. Retelling a short story: NO, he is not able to do this yet, but if you tell him a story with pictures he can sequence the pictures correctly. He hates being read aloud to unless there are lots of pictures and few words per page. Movies/TV: He's still mostly in toddler shows, I think. He'll sit for Blippi, short Elmo clips, Blue's Clues, and Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood. He only started liking these in the last 6-9 months or so. Before that he showed no interest in videos. Hearing: Yes, tested multiple times with audiology, plus an auditory brainstem response test because his behavioral tests were so inconsistent. They thought for a while that he had fluctuating hearing loss, but couldn't come up with a physical cause for it and ultimately decided that it's probably an auditory processing or attention problem, not a physical hearing problem. He *does* have mild hearing loss, but it's mild enough that it shouldn't affect normal speech development. Other: We're still working on potty learning... and by working on, I don't mean he sometimes still has accidents. I mean he's in the phase where he sometimes goes to the potty instead of in his pull-up. We don't know. He's highly unusual is all they can tell me. He has some extremely weird memory issues, and basically every professional who has evaluated or worked with him ever has commented on it. He is actually better able to remember a string of gibberish or unrelated words than he can remember ideas in context. He has had echolalia since about 2yo, but it isn't something he can control and it's not functional. He can repeat 8-12 "bits" but it's so random and nonfunctional and not something he can do on command. He also has weird lags in responses. So you might ask him to do something and he doesn't respond, but then two days later he does it. Here's an excellent example: When he was a toddler, maybe 16, 17-ish months old, DS 8 (then 3) took a toy out of his hands. He immediately screamed and bit DS-then-3. His EI SLP was in the middle of a session with him and modeled placing her open palm on her chest saying, "Mine," very emphatically. At that time he wasn't yet able to imitate words or gestures and just gave her a blank stare. Three MONTHS later, when he still wasn't talking or communicating at all, the same scenario happened again with DS-then-3 taking the same toy from him in roughly the same location in our house. He put his hand on his chest just like the SLP did and perfectly replicated her intonation while saying, "Mine." It blew me away. But he's done tons of things like that since then. When he was 3yo and only using occasional single words to communicate he ran into the kitchen yelling "Mama! It's 10:43! It's time to GO!" which is something one of his brothers had said to me a few weeks before when we were running late for a playdate. This was actually him trying to ask for an afternoon snack. I caught his urgency and understood what he wanted because he ran into the kitchen, but his speech was completely nonfunctional. I forgot to mention that he also has diagnosed recall issues in addition to memory issues. So, sometimes even when he knows and remembers something he can't recall it or demonstrate that he understands. We mitigate this by giving him choices. (e.g. Me: What color is this? -- Him: Blank stare. -- Me: *after waiting 8 seconds in case he's processing* Is it blue or red? -- Him: Blue! -- Me: Right!) He's been evaluated by developmental peds, the concussion and rehab clinic, neuropsychology, neurology, audiology, opthamology, had brain MRIs, an ABR, countless x-rays, a swallow study, and so many other tests and procedures; he's followed by genetics, endocrinology, neurogastro, urology, the colorectal clinic (his potty learning issues seem to originate in his brain stem); he's done years and years of OT, PT, speech, feeding therapy. No one can explain anything. They finally just about 6 months ago they settled on neurodevelopmental disorder associated with his prenatal/birth history. They say it all comes back to that. We know he had compromised blood flow in his brain before birth, a couple of teeny, probably benign genetic mutations, and an itty bitty cyst in his brain (that should only have the potential to affect growth, vision, or possibly cause head aches). He doesn't fit in any boxes. He has a low-average IQ. He just has problems understanding, learning, processing, remembering, and retrieving, lol. Future hyperlexia is a real possibility. Thank you for bringing this up. He already says more than he can understand and uses cocktail speech (not sure that's an official term, it's what the SLP calls it when he throws together words and phrases but not in a way that is functional). That said, he does have age-appropriate understanding of single spoken words. It's when words are strung together that his comprehension breaks down. I'll look up your thread on language work! I'd love to homeschool him. However, I *am* homeschooling the three others, and I fear we are already at max capacity. DS 12 is ASD1+ADHD+mood disorder+dysgraphia+gifted, DS 10 is ADHD+ODD+anxiety+dyslexia+dysgraphia+gifted, and DS 8 is ASD1+ADHD+anxiety+gifted. Just for the older three each week we normally have CBT, DBT, ABA, social skills group and/or behavior group, OT in cycles, speech in cycles, and many of these are for multiple kids. As my siggy says, it's all sorts of complicated. So, I don't really have much in the way of free time. I can probably devote about 60 minutes a day of focused time to DS 6 right now because we're in a shelter-in-place situation with no outside therapies, though we should be getting at least some of those set up via telehealth in the coming weeks. Honestly, it's been pretty crazy in the house with no therapies or ABA support for the last week. I am stressed to the gills trying to keep the household running and everyone quiet enough that DH doesn't loose his job (his company's policy is that he can work from home only if he has a quiet, distraction-free area... which was pretty hard to pull off this week with all these kids in 1,700 sqft and crappy weather). Also, DS 6 spends a lot of time each day crying/moaning/humming (really, he's almost never silent) and he is pretty near incapable of entertaining himself. I'm trying to set up a rotation of the older kids "mentoring" him for chunks of the day (reading to/playing with him nearby) while the other two do lessons/ mom-facilitated therapies. That works with DS 10 and DS 12, but DS 8 is more significantly impacted by his ASD and probably will end up needing me to directly coach most of his "mentoring" of DS 6... which I'll probably do to encourage that growth, but isn't going to free up any time in my day, lol. I already own RightStart and am super familiar with it after already going through the whole program with the three older kids. That's sort of why I planned on it. Do you think it can be adapted to suit our needs? I'm totally fine going off script. It's also first edition, which was was much more gentle than 2nd ed for level A. It only covers number sense, place value, and addition. There's no subtraction or intro to multiplication/division as in the 2nd edition. What is different about Ronit Bird? How does it work? PS uses Wilson Fundations for handwriting. In the summers we do private OT and learning and language group therapies and they use HWOT in OT and something I've never seen or heard of before in the learning and language groups. I already own HWOT (bought a set of 4 when I first ordered for my DS#1 six-ish years ago, completely expecting to HS them all at that point). He lost his school-based OT this fall at his IEP triennial because his fine motor skills are in the normal range now. The learning specialist works with him on writing letters as part of reading intervention in that he must write letters from sound dictation, but his letter formation is not being addressed at all. Pretty much every letter possible starts at the bottom or middle, he's got reversals out the wazoo, and he somehow manages to even write letters sideways sometimes. I believe that with some focused instruction he's entirely capable of writing well formed letters. He makes wonderfully detailed drawings and loves to color. We tried mazes and he didn't seem to get the point of them. Not so far, but we were notified last week that they will be!

Sorry, yes, they are using Wilson Fundations at his level.

I'd love some feedback on what I've got planned to temporarily homeschool my youngest, who is 6.5yo and repeating kindergarten this year. He was mainstreamed in public school with an IEP and pull outs, but things are shut down now due to COVID-19. Unless we fall in love with the arrangement, he's likely to return to public school in the fall. Background: Although he has low-average cognitive functioning, he struggles mightily to learn. He has a neurodevelopmental disorder related to his prenatal/birth history (previously dx GDD) with a language disorder that significantly impacts his ability to understand spoken language. He hit the floor of the test for auditory memory. Visual memory is low-average. Processing speed is in the borderline range. He has a relative strength in visual-spatial, which is exactly average. Developmental peds says an ADHD dx is on the horizon and likely SLDs in reading, writing, and math. My Plan: Math: RS level A (1st edition, easier than 2nd edition), but I think I'll need to adapt it to be less auditory Handwriting: HWOT kindergarten with all the manipulatives Phonics: ????? All of this I have on hand already from when my older boys were little. For kinder language arts own: TYCTR in 100EZ Lessons Sing Spell Read and Write a couple of the early Explode the Code workbooks BookShark K tons of readers of every level (including BOB Books) sandpaper letters, magnetic letters, some other manipulatives I know Barton is typically recommended on this board, but I worry a bit about alternating between what the school uses (Wilson) and Barton, especially since he's unlikely to continue homeschooling this fall. That said, I do plan to give him the Barton readiness test this week. Thoughts on this plan? What should consider changing or adding? Other ideas? I'm willing to buy other curricula, but I need to keep the total under about $200.

My younger-than-usual student's algebra-related path started with the DragonBox Algebra apps, moved to Algebra Lab Gear (books and blocks), followed by AoPS Prelagebra, then AoPS Intro to Algebra.

It is really hard to know what to do in these situations where what's best for each individual child seems to be in direct conflict with what's best for one or more of the others. We have a similar situation, with DS 8 outperforming DS 10 and DS 12 despite them all having very similar abilities. No matter how much I discourage comparison and reinforce a growth mindset, we still deal with a great deal of jealousy and resentment. I've made some compromises. I've let DS 8 fly ahead in his area of special interest, math, but I've deliberately held him back in spelling by only focusing on it as a school subject for half of the year while siblings work on it all year. I let him take the PSAT this fall but not through a talent search, so he didn't get any of the recognition or awards he would have been eligible for with his scores. In some subjects I've tried using different curricula or online class providers with different kids to reduce direct comparison, but where a particular curriculum really is best suited for multiple kids, I haven't tried to bump one to a less ideal curriculum to prevent them from knowing who is in the higher level. It all feels like a balancing act. My DS 12 struggles the most with jealousy and resentment. No amount of discussing individual strengths/weaknesses, growth mindset, or the bell curve has helped in the slightest. Him working 4 years ahead in a subject means nothing to him if his little brother is 8 years ahead. What *has* helped is simply spending more one-on-one time with him doing things he enjoys. For example, I've carved out a chunk of time just before bed just for reading aloud books that his brothers are "too young" to read with us. We have some deep conversations and enjoy cuddling. He's slowly getting more comfortable in his skin, though it's an ongoing process. This won't be an easy journey to navigate, but you'll figure out something that works.

I think the CogAT is minimally accurate. That is, I would consider any score a minimum representation of abilities, as long as the test was administered correctly and without the child being prepped beforehand (prep/training can artificially inflate scores). Assuming no prep, a kid isn't going to reason higher than they're capable of reasoning. However, underperformance on the CogAT, especially by 2e kids, is pretty common.

Thanks for sharing! I completely agree; any subject can be turned into painful drudgery, and I'm glad to keep that in mind. I'm actually kind of hoping that I can get DS 8 more interested in fiction if it's presented more systematically, I guess? He likes rules and symbols, so if we can search for hidden meanings, categorize characters and plot lines, and analyse a story like it was a math problem, maybe he'd be more open to focusing on it. He's very one-sided, and it's getting to the point where his lopsidedness is going to begin limiting his educational options pretty soon. For the last couple of years I've let DS 8 read, write, do, explore, and create math, math, math, a bit of science, and some more math. I don't mind continuing to cater to his interests, but I'd like to try to extend things a bit. DS 10 loves fiction and I think would take naturally to literary analysis. I just want to combine them for time and sanity's sake. We spend a great deal of time traveling to and from doctor and therapy appointments, so most of our literature is audiobooks in the car that they read along with ("immersion reading," I believe it is called). The problem is that I don't think I would naturally come up with the kinds of discussions everyone has described in this thread. I don't even know all the literary terms. I don't feel like I'm prepared to guide my children with my present knowledge. I just need a framework to work within and a series of steps to follow in or out of order. I need something like The Writing Revolution only for literature, you know? Actionable items with the how and why explained to me so I can apply it to what we're already doing to deepen and expand our discussions and thoughts about an otherwise neglected subject.

I'm not sure, as I'm not an English language arts kind of gal. Everything Florlmel and 8FillTheHeart listed sounds great, though. My own liberal arts education is sorely lacking because I was a bit too language-intuitive and consequently tested out of high school and college classes I never took, which didn't really do me any favors in the long run. I never took college-level English or literature classes. I'm not entirely aware of what aspects of literary analysis exist, much less what I should or want to be teaching. I need some hand-holding! That sounds amazing! I'm all for everything you just described. Do you have any suggestions for a book I could read to learn what and how to teach? I'm thinking middle-grade literature, probably? High-interest, possibly high-action, some with relatable characters, some with diverse characters? I'm not too aware of short stories, but I'm open to suggestions. On my list of novels to potentially read with them in in the next couple of years I have the following: Mr. Popper's Penguins The Wild Robot The Girl Who Drank the Moon Wonder One Crazy Summer The Tale of Despereaux Gulliver's Travels The Green Glass Sea Because of Winn-Dixie The Bad Beginning The Mysterious Benedict Society One Crazy Summer The Penderwicks James and the Giant Peach The Dreamer Holes Harriet the Spy Five Children and It El Deafo The Green Ember The Neverending Story The Invention of Hugo Cabret Brown Girl Dreaming The Phantom Tollbooth Out of My Mind Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH| The Mighty Miss Malone I haven't checked the reading levels on any of those, so I might have to adjust if it turns out some are going to be too challenging for DS 10 right now. Yes, I want to do all that! I just don't know how. Help!? I'm aiming for quality, interesting literature. My purpose in mentioning reading levels was just to give respondents an idea of what kind of literature might or might not fit our situation in case they had a curriculum with pre-selected works in mind. My main concerns are 1) will DS 8 find it interesting enough to tolerate reading it even though it's not about math, coding, or Minecraft? and 2) is it written at a level for which DS 10 would be able to read it independently or with just a little help? (I'm okay reading aloud to him, too, but I want him reading comfortably or at just a bit of a stretch most of the time. He has very low frustration tolerance and we're working on building back self esteem and interest in learning after 3.5 years of public school.)

What do you recommend for teaching literary analysis? What I want is a curriculum that uses upper-elementary level interest books to teach middle or high school level analysis. I might be in need of a book or resource that is aimed at the instructor and from which I could learn how to teach these concepts to my students with books of our choosing. I am looking for something to use with my 8yo (12th grade reading level but little interest in fiction unless it is math-related, e.g. The Man Who Counted) and 10yo (typically does well 6th-7th grade level books but is dyslexic with 12th grade level reading comprehension and 1st grade level fluency). My DS 12 did the Online G3 Lightning Lit 7&8 classes last year, and I still have all the materials from them. I liked the LL7&8 curriculum and the G3 classes were excellent, but I worry about 1) DS 10 having difficulty with some of the reading selections and 2) DS 8 probably not being particularly interested in most of the books. The selections for LL5 look good for both of them -- closer to interesting for DS 8, readable for DS 10 -- but the curriculum sample I got from the publisher didn't seem to contain much in the way of actual literary analysis, instead emphasizing recall-level reading comprehension and grammar/mechanics. I appreciate your thoughts on the matter!

Have you considered the self-paced AoPS Prealgebra course? We did the demo at some point and it seemed pretty engaging. It's interactive, at least. You can sign him up and drop for a full refund within two weeks if it isn't a good fit. Prealgebra is probably the one AoPS book I think a very math-intuitive student could learn without ever cracking the book open, especially with an online class (self-paced or live), the AoPS videos, and Alcumus. The other thing I'm considering for DS 10 to do for pre-a after he finishes BA 5 is Thinkwell. I think he could get some degree of independence (as long as I'm nearby, in the same room, and have some degree of attention focused on him, lol) with the videos and online practice. I'd probably follow up with Alcumus, possibly buddy-solving. There's also Elements of Mathematics: Foundations (EMF). That could totally be an independent program, and it approaches math in an extremely interesting way. My DS 10 actually really liked it, except there was too much in the way of large blocks of text, and he needed me to read it all aloud to him.