Thank you! Incidentally, we struggle with "wh" questions, too, so much so that he struggles reading the "wh" words as well. Very abstract to him, still. Your second paragraph makes so much sense to me. Thank your for elaborating on that. Sounds as if auditory processing is not our issue, and it is more cognitive/receptive language issue. Our issue was in a sterile environment, but what was removed were any other cues as to what was being communicated, so without those cues (facial expressions, watching the speaker mouth the words, visual clues in the environment, hand gestures, rephrasing, etc.) he was not able to "fill in the blanks" of what was being asked. When I was describing this to his SLP, she asked him a few similar questions, and of course he could easily answer (with his brothers playing a game in the background, so not a sterile environment), so it is pretty amazing how important context is for him with regard to his ability to make sense of verbal communication. When I think about it, we do an awful lot of communication in the way you described in your first paragraph. I say something, he doesn't quite get it, I rephrase, he doesn't quite get it, I rephrase again and add a little sign language, then he gets it. :)

I spoke with the SLP yesterday, and she said she had some things she could do to work on this with him. :) For once I am happy to go through all this testing to see what areas we can still target while we can.

This is all very helpful information... really resonates with me! Thank you. His processing speed is slow, so it makes a lot of sense that adding in other cues besides just auditory helps knock out some of the processing required to make sense of auditory information right off the bat. Very likely that without additional context, his brain just can't complete the process. And I think the thing I was wondering most is also something you said... we know we can support him in more ways with visual cues, visual schedules, etc., but can we also work on auditory processing in a therapy setting. Lucky for us, all the therapists at this charter school we are affiliated with are semi-retired, meaning they all have TONS of experience, so I'm sure one of them will have some information for me.

He is being tested by his Special Education teacher for this particular test. I will ask her what the name of the test is next time. We are always running out the door to the next appointment when we are done, so I haven't had much chance to just chat with her about it. It is so interesting, though. ETA: His most recent hearing test was with school nurse, sometimes it is with pediatrician, and every couple years we go to an audiologist. He was hearing impaired as an infant, so we stay very on top of making sure things are still good. At the moment he has diminished hearing in one ear due to a wax ball, but you better believe he hears the word chocolate whispered across a crowded room, so it's still pretty acute. :)

My son is 11 and has Down syndrome. We happen to be in the middle of a battery of tests for his Triennial Review with our homeschool charter. I have had the opportunity to observe during the testing, and one thing that I thought was really interesting was his inability to respond to questions that are auditory only, without any other cues. For example, some of the testing is on an iPad, and it presents four pictures and then says something to the effect of "touch happy" and then he would need to touch the picture that shows that emotion, be it a happy face, or a person receiving and present, or whatever is appropriate. He is doing okay with all of that--no surprises, I should say. However, when the screen goes blank and gives him an audible only prompt with no visual clue or context, he cannot answer the question. And I mean, he is not even in the ball park. Like he had no idea what it said at all. One thing it said was, "Name a food," and he just went blank until his teacher urged him to "answer the question" and he just said a random number. It was really interesting to me to see just how much he uses other cues in his environment to put together a context of communication. We already know this is an issue at home. He will often ask for the same information again and again, and if we are not looking at him, being very explicit, with hand gestures, etc, the information doesn't get assimilated well at all, if at all, unless it is high-interest topics. His hearing is checked regularly, and he does not have issues with ear fluid or infections, so I know that is not the issue. Anyway, I don't know what my question is other than, is this just his language delay? The test questions were not difficult, but he is very delayed. I was fascinated, you guys. It was eye opening to see that happen in such a "sterile" setting, and made me realize we need to accommodate for this issue more than we do at home.

So, we use BA as a supplement. I LOVE it, but worry that as a stand alone it would not have enough review for my one son who is doing it so far. Our math spine is MUS--a mastery approach. I like doing both because I feel like MUS gives DS a very basic and understandable breakdown of math skills (and only takes a few minutes), and I feel like BA gives him an opportunity to apply and expand those skills in a challenging way that is fun for him. I go through BA with my son, or, honestly, I would not know how to help him with the practice problems (boy am I re-learning a lot of math!). We read it together, and I get him started not he practice problems, and I check in with him frequently, as the problems are difficult and he can get off track without some coaching. One idea is to lay aside Singapore for a bit to see if time and maturity might get you over the hump, and try Beast Academy as a stand alone in the mean-time to see how it goes. I really don't think your kiddos would loose any skills. Like I said earlier, my only concern is there is not enough review for my son who uses it (it probably has plenty for my up-and-coming Beast user, DS3), or I would totally use it as a stand alone curriculum. As it is, we use it four days a week, and we do at least one page of the practice guide, or as many as he wants to do. He has been known to take it to bed with him at night with a flashlight. :)

Hits: Beast Academy Math-U-See (as usual) Word Roots Beginning (Unexpected hit. DS2 tells me all the time how much he enjoys this workbook.) Prepared Dictation! (DS2 and I grew tired of AAS, and lo and behold, plain old prepared dictation is working better for him.) RLTL is working fantastic for DS3, with a couple fun adaptations because he hates to write on paper. Typing Without Tears! This was my most unexpected win curriculum wise this year. AAR1 for my oldest son, who has Down syndrome, is working well this year. We might get pretty far in it. Exciting! Wayfarers to tie all the rest together (I am so appreciative of this planner, though I change up the schedule to fit our own crazy life.) Misses: HWOT Printing- not because I dislike it, but it turned out to not be necessary for one child, and the other child needed a different approach this year. Artistic Pursuits. I like the program a lot, and my kids enjoy the art history portion a great deal, but the truth is, they just don't really want to do art projects. It's too expensive to purchase for kiddos who could care less about the projects. Probably should have seen that one coming. Oh well.

We do math and language arts daily. We do geography about 3 days a week, and science, history, art, music, and other enrichment activities once a week each. So generally this puts us at about 4 to 5 topics/subjects a day, besides reading aloud, practicing their instruments, and sports.

I think it is important to be very judicious with switching curriculum. And, honestly, I think a lot of curriculum hopping is more of a cultural consumerism issue than it is an issue of really having a bad fit. That said, I have changed curriculum. When we first started homeschooling, we knew so little about how to go about it we purchased a boxed curriculum to get us going. I don't regret that choice at all, however, once got our feet wet in the homeschooling world, I started to develop more of a vision of how I wanted to homeschool, so I adjusted--I switched a lot of things that first year, and it was a good move for myself and my kids. Other times I have considered changing, but decided I was just trying to take the easy way out of something that we just needed to struggle through and give ourselves support in other ways (a few baseball card sweeten the deal on any assignment when it gets tedious in this household). I am really glad I didn't switch in those circumstances where it was a matter of difficulty. So, as I said in the beginning, I think switching is okay, but I think we all need to be very judicious about it. We need to question our motives, and we need to consider that once the shine wears off the "new" product, we might find ourselves in the exact same place.

My son, age 9, forgot all his times tables today. I am so glad you posted, because I have never had a tween (except his older brother who has Down syndrome, and a darn good excuse for having an off day), and I had no idea what was going on with him. He is usually so "on-it". He also couldn't summarize a short story, or remember how to write in cursive. We did have a busy weekend with friends, and he slept until 8am (two hours later than his normal). What a bizarre morning.

I use Wayfarers, and am definitely a CM mom who has considered many of the programs you have shared. Wayfarers is very much a menu, not a strict plan. Not every enrichment book lines up perfectly with the History of Science spines, so you may pick and choose as you have time, and as your children have interest. For us, Wayfarers is the skeleton of our homeschool program that keeps us moving forward, and continually gives me excellent choices to offer to my kiddos. It does not have discussion questions impeded in the program, nor research assignments, although those elements may be in some of the curriculums that are scheduled. We do a lot of discussion, narration--sometimes very creative narrations, such as a character interview are suggested in Wayfarers. Wayfarers is also very cost effective for us as we utilize our library for as many of our reading choices as possible.

We start spelling instruction when reading gets to the point that we don't need to spend time on reading lessons.

Thanks for doing that! :) The vowel sound in "ball" is definitely not a sound I hear pronounced where I live.

I wish I could hear how everyone is saying "hot" and "ball" different. I'm trying my hardest to imagine a distinction! LOL

Born and raised in California. For me, the vowel sounds in pin and pen are very distinctly different, and the vowel sounds in hot and ball are exactly the same. :) And when I pay close attention to my jaw and how I am saying those sounds, well, it's still the exact same. LOL So interesting!

Whatever you choose, I wholeheartedly encourage you to do ASL alongside. We actually find ASL helps us learn Spanish as we add ASL words to Spanish words we learn... just engages the brain at a deeper level. :) And ASL is a delight to learn using Signing Time videos (often available at the library), as well as ASL apps. It's been a lot of fun. :)

You might check out other companies, like Bookshark or Timberdoodle for some fun "all-laid-out" plans for school that are more up your alley. :) When we switched from public school to homeschool, we used Sonlight, which was a great way to get our feet wet in a way where I didn't worry I was not going to plan well. :) Then, the longer you are at it, you start to hear of different things from friends, or learn more from being involved in the homeschool community, and it gets easier and easier to make up your own "custom" school plans. :) (Actually I still use a completely laid out plan, but I customize it with things we really like or that work better for us.) And this got be thinking, for my youngest who has always been homeschooled, I use more of a classical approach and curriculum, and my middle son who was public schooled at first thrives much better on things that are actually a little bit more public-schoolish, like workbooks. So it could be that something closer to her experience will help in making the transition. Anyway, I hope you find a good fit and really enjoy homeschooling your daughter! I always tell people my main goal for my kids with homeschool is they will learn to be life-long learners and love it, and that they won't regret being homeschooled, so finding a good fit and the right activities is definitely worth the research. :)

That's okay! I totally feel the same about BA. It is an amazing program, and so fun to watch my son work really hard on math, and love it. ;)

Ah, yes, good point!

Short answer is no, there are not discussion questions written down in the Wayfarer's schedule. However, some of the curriculums scheduled in Wayfarer's do have discussion questions. Wayfarers is more of a daily/weekly schedule that weaves together curriculums and enrichment activities and books in a way that will allow a family with multiple ages of children to study many topics simultaneously, yet at an appropriate age level. It is very enjoyable for our family, but I see it as a menu and not a plan, and make substitutions as I please. I have chosen to use the SOTW Activity Book along with SOTW as scheduled in Wayfarers to provide me with some discussion questions for History, but we also do daily narrations as scheduled in Wayfarers. Hope that helps!

Thank you. We both (son and I) love Beast too much to not do it, so I suppose chapters like Perfect Square will just be lost skills until he picks it back up in a later curriculum, which is too bad. I recently became aware of the Online Beast Academy in the works, and am so excited about it (maybe as excited as my son). I do hope it solves the issue of review for kiddos who need it. :)

I have my 4th grader going through Beast Academy level 3 as a way to enrich and expand the skills we learn in our main math program. Right now we are in the Perfect Squares chapter, and will be moving on to Distributive Property. So I'm really pleased with his puzzling these math problems out and wrapping his mind around them, and boy does he enjoy the books, but there seems to be no review of prior learning, unless it is a more basic concept like skip counting, which builds to multiplication. I get the concepts build on each other a bit, but I don't know if he will remember how to calculate the square number of larger numbers that end in 5 the easy way, for example, if he does not have opportunities to review that concept ever so often. I'm curious how other parents handle this for their children using BA.

So, I am still trying to figure that out. We are switching over to this for my 9yo from AAS (finished up level 2 and part of 3 last year), which worked fine, but was just very complex to implement. He reads at a very high level, but spells right about on target for his grade level (I think). Right now all I have is RLTL 1, which my 6yo is going through as a reading program, and my 9yo is re-familiarizing himself with all the phonograms at the same time (we do all the phonogram review together... makes my life simple), and learning how to analyze words the RLTL way. All the spelling words from all the levels are listed in the appendix in RLTL 1, but the thing is, RLTL has kiddos analyzing and learning much more complex words than other programs I've seen right from the start (definitely words on the level of AAS 2 & 3), so my current plan is to start at the beginning of RLTL 1 since I have it anyway, and just skip past any words that he knows, and work on the ones he doesn't. I plan on getting RLTL 2 when we get to the end of 1, however fast or slow that happens, and to keep going in that fashion. I think the neat thing about learning to analyze words, and also learning spelling through prepared dictation in ELTL, is it is less dependent on word families and keeping things in a specific order for the sake of a program. Also, because the children learn all the phonics and spelling words right away, any word you encounter can be used as a spelling word, analyzed, and even put into a spelling journal. Barefoot Ragamuffin has a free (or very cheap?) spelling journal pdf which we use when we do the prepared dictation, and also for misspelled words that we correct his writing. ELTL has an appendix about spelling. If you decide to go with RLTL and ELTL, I would recommend joining the yahoo group through the BRC website. The author of the curriculum is wonderfully responsive to questions from us parents, and how to implement her programs in different situations. I think ELTL A or B (or levels 1 or 2 as they were formerly called) would both be fine to start out with. They both start from the beginning grammar wise. ELTL B will have lengthier copywork and overall a bit more complexity in the lessons.

Not familiar with your other choices, sorry, but I am familiar with RLTL and ELTL, and they are strong programs that are incredibly simple to implement. I am a bit of a minimalist, so ELTL and RLTL are just a really good fit in that sense as well. I did not use ELTL until level 3, last year being our first year for my 9yo. That level has grammar, narration, picture study, dictation, copywork, and prepared dictation. In upper levels it includes writing instruction. I have not seen the lower levels yet, and my 6yo will be starting that next year. We are using RLTL for 6yo for reading, and for 9yo for spelling and learning to analyze words.

It sounds like narration would be very beneficial for them to learn. You can scale the activity and slowly build their ability. Try doing one paragraph instead of 4. Stop after each one and just say, "What the heck happened right there?" Or have them act out the passage. Or have them draw a picture of what you read, then describe the picture to you. Be creative, and make is super simple, silly, and fun to begin with. Use stories they are more familiar with and motivating--even cartoons. Do picture descriptions where they describe a painting. Make it a goal that they can participate in a more traditional narration practice by next year, and just slowly, slowly get them into the practice as sneakily and as lightly and enjoyably as you can. When things are at a stale mate, it's important to shift gears to "errorless learning" practices, with the goal of eventual mastery.