I am not sure what all to write. I'm still confused about some stuff and because we talked on the phone (my mistake, I knew I should have emailed instead), I forgot to ask her about some of the stuff. First she didn't at all think we were dealing with something that vision therapy would cure. She thought that the reason he was skipping over letters and pulling in letters from the next word, was due to ADHD. (He doesn't generally make those type of mistakes if he is reading through a word square.) She sent me a whole bunch of information about ADHD that I have been reading over. It seems like there is so much disinformation out there and she wanted to make sure I was getting the right stuff. So, basically, I need to slow his brain down. I said something about not wanting to medicate to which she replied that there are other options. I have been studying and in reality, there are no "other options" that we have not already tried. At least, not that I have heard of. Except for NoDoze. I had my husband bring some home and we are going to see if that makes a difference. The one thing that we did not talk about was his letter reversals. Just today he wrote his own name with a possessive 's at the end. His name also has an S in it. He wrote the first s facing one way and the second the other. I wrote a string of 20 letters like this p b d d b p d p d b....... Good size with plenty of white space. He read them off. Decent speed with just a few mistakes. But then he asked why I was torturing him so and said that all that trying gave him a headache and made his chest hurt. When reading or writing he is constantly getting these letters mixed up. Along with w, m, u and n. (Not when I ask him to write a certain letter....then he usually gets them right) So I am wondering if he has something like a visual processing disorder. If he did, this is the only area I have noticed it. If I understood Ms. Barton correctly, dyslexia is purely a phonetic issue and if children struggle with reversals, etc. it's because they have something else going on (like visual processing disorder). Is that right? OR did I misunderstand? Anyhow I email her some followup questions. She's out of the office for a couple weeks, though, so I might not hear back for awhile. We do have an appointment with a pediatric ophthalmologist.

So I just got off the phone with Ms. Barton. She gave me a lot to think about. I'll post once I have it all processed.

Not doing much at this point. He doesn't have an official diagnosis. Just my observations, my own research. We give him a lot of grace. Lots of breaks to wear off energy. The headphones to help him concentrate. Lists. More lists. :001_smile:

I've been reading up on vision therapy, retained primitive reflexes. In one way it kinda makes sense. DS was born 9 weeks early. Non-functioning placenta. Emergency C-section. I always thought it was a great blessing and an answer to prayer that he didn't have any complications other than having to spend a ton of time in NICU. Even his vision is perfect. A google search lead me to Minnesota Vision Therapy Center. http://www.minnesotavisiontherapy.com/primitive-reflexes I went down through the symptoms and the only ones that seem to apply are those that would directly relate to dyslexia or ADHD. He has very good posture, he is athletic, great coordination. He loves sports and is very good at them. No problems tracking a ball. He easily learned to ride a bike. Basically just a normal energetic 11 year old boy in every way, except for the learning disability. To be honest the whole retained reflexes sounds a little "woo" to me. Hopefully no one takes that wrong. I'm not trying to knock science. It just seems weird.

He is ADHD. He cannot concentrate when there is any background noise at all. With 3 siblings at home that can be kind of hard so we got him really good noise-cancelling headphones. He uses them a lot.

Ha! Yes, it's one of those. :001_smile:

I am Christian...evangelical...young earth, intelligent design. As someone else pointed out, I don't think the Bible was meant to be a science book, but I do think that where it touches on scientific topics it is 100% accurate and dependable. I like high quality textbooks. I don't mind evolutionary content. I love teachable moments, debate, research. If I can't explain and defend my beliefs to my own children...well, that would be pretty sorry indeed. Apologetics is one of my favorite subjects. Along with logic and critical teaching.

Hi, thanks for taking the time to answer. I didn't respond right away because we had company late last night and then church this morning. So, here goes.....

Okay, I just looked up CAPD and I am almost 100% sure nothing like that going on. I checked online for a FCOVD....the closest is 2 states over. Not as bad as that sounds...only 170 miles away and we are used to driving a long way for anything. I think I will call them on Monday.

Thanks everyone for replying. I have company for supper/the evening so I will have to wait until tomorrow before I can research some of the things you all talked about. Thank you again to everyone. I am rather desperate at this point. Trying to imagine how my DS will navigate the world without being able to read fluently. It seems hopeless.

I might not be the best person to answer this, seeing as we are really struggling right now. (Dyslexic 11 year old son) For him, it was way better to separate things as much as possible. DS is very easily distracted, loves going on rabbit trails so making lessons as straight forward and direct as possible was a huge thing for him. Also very specific goals. He very much likes short, specific tasks. Notebooking would have been the worst approach possible. I'm sure that varies. Just sharing what worked for us.

Sorry for dropping out of the conversation. No reason really, just lots of excuses. The past 3 months have been very hard. So if you all could forgive me and I could start over. :sad: Frogger asked about level 3. He can read single syllable words fairly well, but even there he struggles with inserting letters that are not there or transposing letters. For example, if he is trying to read the phrase "the cat sat", he might read it as "the cast sat". And not just a word here or there, but often 3 or 4 words per sentence. He doesn't realized he is doing it. When he reads, I point to the word he is reading. If he makes a mistake, I double tap the word. He will still not get what he is doing wrong until I ask him to tap and say each letter. It's very frustrating, not just to me, but especially to him. He has no problem with remembering rules, unit sounds, etc... He knows his sounds and blends, in isolation. But he really struggles with putting everything together. The problem is made much worse if the text is not the perfect size or there is not enough white space on the page. So is this a vision problem? From what I have read online, dyslexia can cause letter additions and according to those sources, it is not a vision problem. OneStep wondered if there might be something going on other than just dyslexia. I have wondered the same thing. But what? We haven't done much testing. Just with the school who said that he has a learning disability. They suggested that he might be 2E. He is very smart when it comes to numbers. (Going into Algebra next fall at age 12) But even with numbers he still does a lot of reversals. Backwards 3's and 7's and 2's. Confusing his 6's and 9's. I scribe all of his work. His handwriting is sad. He can't write in a straight line and his letters are very irregularly shaped. We have done extensive work with different handwriting programs. This year we did "Handwriting without Tears." His work is beautiful but it takes him forever. I think he sees it more as art. The letters are not automatic and he has to look at the example to make sure he forms the letters right. We don't do spelling. We are both rather discouraged. It seems like more practice, more review, more Barton's isn't going to fix anything.

Thanks everyone, I guess I will be checking out the men's fits. :001_smile: Mostly we have gotten his shirts at Wal-mart and from hand-me-downs. He doesn't care about clothes one whit so I have never spent much for him. I thought the length issue was from buying cheap brands. Not from having to size up. Also, he's my first 14 year old boy and I didn't realize that they went into men's sizes so soon. Thanks for the help.

He's tall, thin, maybe a bit of a longer back? He likes t-shirts and henleys. Mostly he wears a size 18-20 in boys. We do most of our shopping online because we live too far out. Which makes things kind of inconvenient because he can't try on before we buy. Size 18/20 usually fits nicely except for the length is too short. So do you know of any brands that I should check out? I have tried searching for extra tall, but that gets me into men's sizing and results. Thanks.

I am not sure how that would work (a Christian teen chat room), but it would be pretty cool. :001_cool:

Hi all, If you could help me out here I would be grateful. I am looking for science videos for my two sons (age 12 and 14) to watch. They both had a very light school year (just in science, not with their other classes) and are done or almost done with what I had planned for them to do. I would like to find something along the lines of "how stuff works". Electronics, engineering, inventions, technology, etc. We do not have TV, but we do have high speed internet. Free would be good, but I also don't mind paying for something. Netflix, maybe? If there is something on there that is very worthwhile. I am quite ignorant, though, about what is out there. Clean content is very important to me. Any recommendations? or links to a thread? Thanks

No we don't have an attorney. Only our real estate agent and the bank. We have bought and sold quite a few properties (although none commercial) without involving lawyers. Maybe we need to rethink this one though. Thanks, Happi. :001_smile: We started with my husband being really pumped about the opportunity...me not so much. Then I really got on board with the idea and now my husband is starting to get cold feet. If there is one thing he hates, it's feeling like he is being jerked around. :mad: It's a huge decision for us.

Yeah, me neither. :confused1: Thank you all for your help.

I still don't get why they would hold back, though. Either way we get to see the returns....either they show them to us now or else we put in an offer contingent upon the returns. IF they don't look good then we can withdraw the offer, right? So what's the point other than frustrating potential buyers. I feel like I am missing something because this seems like a no-brainer to me. :confused1:

It is a mom and pop business. I wondered if maybe other years don't look good on paper...like maybe a lot of payments received as cash and not reported so as to avoid taxes.

We would not be dependent at all on the income from the storage buildings.

We are wanting to buy the property and the business. It's a mini-storage set-up with a huge vacant shop on the property. We want the shop for our current business. The income from the storage buildings should hopefully cover the mortgage. So, in essence we would be getting a shop for free.... According to the current owners, the rentals are always filled. So, not really a very complicated business.

So we have an opportunity to buy a commercial venture. It seems perfect...it dovetails beautifully with what we are already doing, perfect business location, price is a bit high, maybe, but not unreasonable. And the bank gave us a verbal go-ahead and told us that they are excited for us to be able to get this place if it works out. But the bank also said that in order to pre-approve us for the loan that they would like to see 3 years of previous tax returns from the current owners. Not the whole return, just the schedule C on the business side of things. For some reason, the sellers are hesitant to give us these returns - which seems really backwards of them. If we are wanting to buy their business from them, shouldn't we be able to verify first how much the business makes? And not just take their word for it? They did give us one years returns (2015) but even after several requests they are holding off on handing over anything more. Their 2015 return looks good. They say they won't hand over the returns unless they have an approved offer from us first. Again, isn't that backwards? How do we know how much to offer if we don't know how profitable the business is? So what's going on here? How is this usually done? What are they worried about? It makes me feel like they are trying to hide something and yet they did give us 2015 and if we make the offer contingent upon verifiable income, why wouldn't they just show them to us in the first place? Thoughts?

I like what Tess said. Something else to think about....don't know if it will help, so feel free to ignore. :001_cool: I had one child who was really good at math, but who still complained a lot. I think it was mostly because he thought it was too easy. I cut the problems way down. Maybe 5 out of 30 problems or whatever. We agreed if he had a good attitude and did his work quickly we would skip the rest. That helped a lot. And as long as he wasn't struggling with new material or remembering old stuff, I was fine with that. With other subjects, I tended to be real relaxed - especially in elementary school. Hands on projects and videos, lots of reading together. I hope you can figure things out. :grouphug: