How exactly do you measure reading level anyway?

I played around with some reading today and he reads great at a 2-3 grade level, depending...and for short periods of time does really really good. He tires easily. He loves poetry so I found a couple poems we will use this week. And his math is Beasr Academy and the words are often complex, so I sort of think it’s not fair. He read 4th grade science—I provided all words that were way beyond and he’s actually doing better than he lets on. Obviously it’s still very tiring and difficult but this spurred in me a desire to know exactly what I was comparing. I’m not nearly as frustrated. I do think we may hold off on level 6 until next fall—but need to find something to fill the in-between. We have not taken a Barton break in 3 years. I hope it’s not a bad decision.

Okay I am in there but don’t see more stories. I see fluency drills but I don’t want to drill.

I just started using WOL two weeks ago. It’s a hit with my second grader. My 4th grader was apprehensive (he has learning and mood disorders) but he’s warming up to the ease of it, and even the songs (which I admit are hokey but do stick in your head). It looks thorough and has plenty of practice, or I think you could skip some of the practice if your child is a quick learner. I always start off doing more and then cut back, if I feel we are progressing. I have W/R too, and I think for this semester we are going to alternate them—do a lesson on one then a lesson in the other, so as not to overwhelm my older student. My younger student can handle more but is young enough she doesn’t need to. The quality is very good. I love all these classical programs—they just fit our philosophy.

I am going to do this this week. And work hard on fluency. I’m not even sure I know where to look to find “normal†but I am guessing I can google. This is helpful, and the details on HN are as well.

Oh, he has slow processing speed as well! However, neurofeedback improved that significantly and we will be going for booster sessions this summer.

Do you know where to find them?

I actually love all of those. Some of them I already do but I think the mountain site words is an excellent idea. I thought of one today. We are going to write a story. He can dictate. I will then convert it to Barton. Then he has to read it. The next day he rereads it and we add to it. I think we can continue this for several weeks and at the end he will have a story he essentially wrote himself AND he will be able to read it too.

No, it was stated rhetorically. It has nothing to do with meanness. Rhetorically, it got my point across. Rhetorically, I stated maybe your experience was so vastly different from mine that I can’t possibly know what your experience was, and that you weren’t understanfing mine. It felt like, and has for a while here, people aren’t listening. I wasn’t passing a judgement toward your children specifically. It’s not like I didn’t say right off the bat my kid is TEN. I’m sorry if I offended you. I am very frustrated.

Not only that but there is a lot of reading instruction experience that likely occurred before Barton was even begun. So it’s not even comparing apples to apples.

I wholeheartedly agree—but until this point I don’t think anyone was listening to what I had been saying and just kept saying he ought to be reading and inferring already. Then I find out her daughter was 4 grades ahead of my son! Well 4 years of life experience would probably make some inferring a lot easier, right? No one thought it critical to provide that kind of information, but somehow found it critical to point out my son ought to be inferring MORE in his reading? By the way it was, and has been, the same about adhd, until I got a little snippy about it. I don’t want to talk medication because it isn’t happening here. So frankly, being blunt needed to happen to steer the course of the conversation.

I love what you said about math. I have a dyslexic/dysgraphic child who I initially hoped would finally find a love for reading. However, at this point I have resigned myself to being okay with him simply becoming functionally literate. He loves to listen to books, and somehow now I am okay with that. I want him to find something about which he is immensely passionate—and I want him to contribute. I wish there were more opportunities like you describe, but we are so rural. Sigh.

Perfectly stated. My full potential? Who knows! My IQ is 150+, I had a full ride academic scholarship to a decent university and intended on medical school. I lost my life long best friend in a car accident and spent 10 years picking up the pieces and now I see it in my own kids. But I pulled my kids or of the same school system I attended because they don’t even offer algebra until 9th grade and don’t have services for my dyslexic kiddo. And now I’m “just a housewife and teacher.†Who knows where any of our kids will end up anyway—but shouldn’t we give them time to decide that for themselves?

Ahhh, hugs. This must be a difficult thread to read in some regards. I can totally relate and have felt similar frustrations and let my kiddo stay in school for 2.5 YEARS while asking for testing and while the school actually told me he was FINE. Then I pulled all my kids out and actually taught ankindergartner to read and I will tell you SHAME ON THOSE TEACHERS for not seeing it and getting him help earlier! So educational neglect is not exclusive to homeschooling and at least your kiddo had a head start on learning to love learning! We are still catching up 3 years later.

Have any of you used the fluency workbooks from high noon? As we have already purchased level 5 we are going to persevere and finish this level, before we move on. I don’t know the ages other students were but he is still quite young, only 10. It’s always been a struggle to find content he enjoys. I think that’s typical for young boys but especially true for him. I am thinking some fluency drills might be helpful to get us reading passages every day and working steadily at that without it being whole books that are considered boring by him.

He reads better silently for sure. And no, silent E words aren’t used, and neither are the advanced vowel teams. Nothing that isn't explicitly taught is used prior to being taught. That is also part of my frustration. For instance, he knows the word car. He learned that in public school. But as we haven’t had him reading anything except Barton, for the most part, as per the rules, he doesn’t infer that word when seen alone. In context, of course he can. But afar? Nope.

Yes of course speed is a part of fluency. Some people are faster readers than others though. I don’t think slow reading is a warning sign or is it?

I’ve actually said it several times. He reads fluently the words he knows and has been taught from Barton. It’s on the slow side but I wouldn’t say he’s not fluent. I had an expectation based on mom’s here and the original woman who tested him, that after level 4 he would be reading well enough to read real books. That is not the case. Guessing and inferring is no different than where he was 2 years ago and guessing isn’t really a solution. And it’s not O-G. I don’t care for how Barton waits to teach complex vowel teams until level 8, but teaches suffixes and prefixes sooner than those. It seems very backwards to me. So cool if your kids caught on—maybe they aren’t severely dyslexic or maybe they aren’t brilliant enough to know they aren’t reading the right words. I don’t know.

This is almost exactly how I feel and what our situation is. He can’t and doesn’t want to read much of anything (he wants to but doesn’t want it to be as difficult as it is), and he is tired of Barton. We are tired of it. Susan Barton herself doesn’t encourage reading outside of Barton so I’m not sure why someone here says her kid was reading Divergent in level 4–Great, but clearly that’s not the situation here, and to be honest, is only pushing me further toward throwing in the towel. This is the most helpful thing I’ve heard! I don’t love the High Noon books and feel like the Barton books are almost ridiculous. I tried to like them and so did ds. But we were both like—these are just weird.

Thank you. I didn’t realize that was the full program. Appreciate you reposting!

When you say high noon program, what do you mean, exactly?

Our local public school does not provide services. However, he could take a bus 70 Miles one direction . That is the public school solution for us, and the entire reason we are homeschooling. He has excellent comprehension. He scores above average in testing for comprehension even when he can barely read the subject matter. I will have to look at the High Noon books series’ he has read. I can’t remembwr. Yes he reads them fluently, albeit slower than an adult. He doesn’t miss words. He reads his Barton stories fluently as well.

The following all have Literature guides that are well done and educational: Memoria Press, Progeny Press, Veritas Press, etc. I know there are more. :)

There is a lot of helpful information here, and I am going to reread later and try to internalize most of it, find some solutions, and tackle our situation over the weekend.

He’s already read the high noon books we have. And that’s the thing—you said all but 10 words per page should be easily readable but he hasn’t learned so many vowel teams that isn’t even possible in a book that would be of high interest to him.