Not ready for 1st grade... Anyone else had to hold their Aspie child back?

[Misty]

My 6yo daughter is *supposed* to begin 1st grade this fall... She has Asperger's, OCD, ADHD, NVLD, & SPD. She just is NOT ready for FLL, SOTW, etc. Her psychologist told me she would not be able to function in a normal classroom setting and I'm beginning to wonder if she will be able to function in a homeschool setting too! She cannot listen to read-alouds and she can barely pay attention to any type of lesson. She is extremely hyperactive and she acts more like a 4yo most of the time.

 

At this time, she is doing All About Spelling, Bob books, HWOT, and Right Start Math level A. She is just now starting to read after starting AAS a couple of months ago (and taking it slowly). She is still at the beginning of all of the books I just listed.

 

So I guess I will just continue with K and work on social skills, self-help skills, behavior, and things like that for next year. She will be starting ABA therapy in a week or so. She just isn't like my other girls were at this age. They were AHEAD at this age. Thank God for homeschooling!

 

Anyone else in this situation?

[Year Round Mom]

Misty, I was wondering the same thing, myself. We just had our first appt with the child psychologist, without ds5 (and without me, only dh went, since our girls were sick). The doc will meet with ds mid-July...but we suspect Asperger's.

 

Ds is doing K right now, simply because he practically taught himself to read. We're using almost the same stuff you are: BOB books, HWOT, Right Start...but we're using Phonics Pathways (no AAS).

 

Ds is doing great with the phonics/reading and math and is making progress in handwriting, though he almost refuses to write in the lines!

 

But he has little to no reading/listening comprehension. I'm wondering what history will be like...science is okay, since he can memorize facts. But what about future science skills???

 

I bought this random listening skills book, used, called "Listen, My Children, and You Shall Hear". I have seen a little bit of improvement in ds's listening comp as we consistently use this book...I hope it helps.

 

We live in TN, so we have to register him by Aug 1 for K. Does your state have regs on ages, special needs and such? I don't even know what TN laws are about that, if there are any. I am waiting until we get a dx.

 

All that to say, I wonder what 1st grade and beyond will hold, too. I'm not sure what we're going to do when we get to 1st. In K, it's expected we'll take it easy and go his pace...but what about when he gets older? I don't know...

 

I hope someone here has some encouragement for us :)

[hsmamainva]

My youngest is in public school, but we "afterschool" in math & language arts.

 

It was mutually agreed upon, at our last IEP meeting, that we're going to have her repeat 1st grade.

 

She's doing "okay" academically, but she's definitely not ready for 2nd grade! By having her repeat 1st grade (which she only attended for 3 months, since we were homeschooling for the past year), she can spend 75% of her day in a mainstream classroom. If we were to send her on to 2nd grade, she'd spend very little time in a regular class (less than 15 minutes!).

 

My daughter is very social and she really, really needs to be with verbal children (she has a language delay, but all the other students in her autism class are non-verbal or have extremely limited vocabularies).

 

For afterschooling, she'll be using Math-U-See Alpha, Handwriting Without Tears My Printing Book, First Language Lessons 1-2, Explode the Code 1-2-3, and Alpha Phonics.

[EKS]

Could you avoid calling her any grade for now? The reason I say this is that children can change so much over the years. My son, who at the time had major symptoms of ADHD, dyslexia, SPD, APD, visual problems, and PDD-NOS (though all were undiagnosed at that time), was working on a beginning K level in all subjects at the end of his 1st grade year. He was unable to read or do basic math. He couldn't listen to a book read aloud for more than a few minutes and had lots of social difficulties. I decided to call him a 2nd grader that next year anyway. Fast forward to today--after an incredible amount of work on everyone's part, he will be entering 8th grade next year but as a full time high school student (at home).

 

Anyway, a lot can change.

[Stacy in NJ]

I don't have an Aspie, but I wouldn't worry about grade level. 1st grade for all kiddos is about learning how to read and the basics of handwriting, spelling and math. Just continue to work on those skills at her level whether you call her a Kindergartener or a 1st grader.

[Stacy in NJ]

Anyway, a lot can change.

 

 

:iagree:

[Misty]

Thanks for everyone's input.. After thinking about it more, I guess she is ready for some first grade material, but I think a workbook format would be the way to go for her.

 

I will continue with picture books, Aesop's Fables, and things of that nature to help train her ear and get her ready for meaty read-alouds and SOTW, etc.

 

Thanks for reminding me to not pay attention to grades... Why *am* I doing that anyway?

 

Thanks again!

[Dobela]

I know I am coming into this late. My son is not Aspie but has been delayed. I have held him back on paper (intent forms and the like) but I have not told him that. At church and other activities he is with same age peers. He is working at least 2 yrs behind academically but doen't know that he is working below grade level. I held him back on paper in order to delay the standardized tests required in this state.

[chiguirre]

I'm holding back my ds8 as a 2nd grader again this year mainly for social reasons. He does much better when he's with younger kids, they share the same interests and have similar behavioral capabilities. He's all over the place academically and is actually doing best in history and science. I wish I'd held him back sooner, but that wasn't as easy to do at 5yo than it is at 8 because more activities were age based not grade based. Academically, we're just plugging along doing the next thing, backing up when he gets frustrated or just isn't getting something.

 

For a K/1st grader, I'd really recommend Five in a Row. It's a picture book based curriculum with science, social studies, literature, math and art activities. Ds loved this when he was 6/7 and his listening comprehension and general knowledge took off. I think this is the reason he enjoys and succeeds in learning about science and history. He's come a long way from 3 years ago. He even managed to score in the average range for receptive language at his 3 year reevaluation and a large part of that is the time we spent reading aloud the FIAR books over and over (five times!)

 

Good luck!

[Misty]

For a K/1st grader, I'd really recommend Five in a Row. It's a picture book based curriculum with science, social studies, literature, math and art activities.

 

I've heard about FIAR so many times over the years and I've peaked at it a few times too. We have never used it though. Thanks for reminding me about it. It may be a good fit for her. I'll look at it again.

[8filltheheart]

When my 17 yos, an Aspie, was the age for K, he was so hyper that sitting still for him was the equivalent of torture. I didn't do any K with him at all.

 

When it came time for first grade, he was still really hyper but I decided we needed to start doing something b/c he still couldn't even identify any letters or numbers.

 

What worked.......lots of motion and "his interest" types of school. He made letters and numbers out of playdough, construction paper/glue, means, string licorice. He learned them very quickly.

 

We did phonics with Sing, Spell, Read, Write and he would march, dance, stand on his head......whatever he wanted while he sang the songs. I wrote things on a dry erase board so that he could be moving around and still see them.

 

Math was done leap frog still. I would write number lines with dry erase board marker on our tile. He would leap according to whatever the math sentence was. We also did it with hop-scotch formation. We also played with counting bears and small cheap plastic balance.

 

By the end of first grade he was reading above grade level (Charlotte's Web.) He discovered he loved reading and he would actually sit quietly and read for hours.

 

He hated writing and even through middle school his penmanship looked liked that of a young child. I did make him write, but not that much until he started to get older. We did almost everything orally until about 3rd grade.

 

HTH

[hsmamainva]

He hated writing and even through middle school his penmanship looked liked that of a young child. I did make him write, but not that much until he started to get older. We did almost everything orally until about 3rd grade.

 

 

 

This is great advice!

 

My oldest son (also an Aspie) also did his work orally until around 3rd or 4th grade.

 

He had some fine motor delays, as well as a language delay, and all the oral work actually improved his verbal and conversational skills.

 

He didn't being writing papers (multiple paragraphs) until middle school.

[Guest]

My 6yo daughter is *supposed* to begin 1st grade this fall... She has Asperger's, OCD, ADHD, NVLD, & SPD. She just is NOT ready for FLL, SOTW, etc. Her psychologist told me she would not be able to function in a normal classroom setting and I'm beginning to wonder if she will be able to function in a homeschool setting too! She cannot listen to read-alouds and she can barely pay attention to any type of lesson. She is extremely hyperactive and she acts more like a 4yo most of the time.

 

At this time, she is doing All About Spelling, Bob books, HWOT, and Right Start Math level A. She is just now starting to read after starting AAS a couple of months ago (and taking it slowly). She is still at the beginning of all of the books I just listed.

 

So I guess I will just continue with K and work on social skills, self-help skills, behavior, and things like that for next year. She will be starting ABA therapy in a week or so. She just isn't like my other girls were at this age. They were AHEAD at this age. Thank God for homeschooling!

 

Anyone else in this situation?

 

 

Your plan to continue with K and work on social skills, self help, and behavior is great. I started homeschooling my dd(9) who has high functioning autism last July and she was functioing on a Kindergarten level at eight years old. She had repeated Kindergarten and First grade in public school several times. This past year she was finally "ready" for real K level work...and she is only now ready for First grade level work at nine years old. Having repeated K and 1st several times has really helped her. Our special needs kids follow a different time table than most kids. Just teach her where she is right now and try not get discouraged by where she should be.

[TraceyS/FL]

This is great advice!

 

My oldest son (also an Aspie) also did his work orally until around 3rd or 4th grade.

 

He had some fine motor delays, as well as a language delay, and all the oral work actually improved his verbal and conversational skills.

 

He didn't being writing papers (multiple paragraphs) until middle school.

I think i'm hijacking this thread! LOL!!

 

So did you just have him dictate to you any writing? DD is in the middle of her first real writing assignment, and she did the web, wrote topics to use from the web, then i had to write the rough draft. It was U.G.L.Y. trying to get her to copy it yesterday. She's been pushed to the limit on the doctor front the last week, so i just didn't push it.

 

So do i just keep doing it this way - have her make the revisions and I write it out for her?

[Year Round Mom]

Hmmm, I'll check out FIAR again, too! Thanks for the advice!

 

And that is comforting that writing is not that big of a deal until 3rd grade (is this what I'm reading?). Ds5 does write, in caps, on a huge white board, without spacing. And he only writes words he's interested in, like all the character names in Finding Nemo! I can't get him to write his name. When he does, it's written messily, even though his writing on things he's interested in is p.e.r.f.e.c.t!

[hsmamainva]

I think i'm hijacking this thread! LOL!!

 

So did you just have him dictate to you any writing? DD is in the middle of her first real writing assignment, and she did the web, wrote topics to use from the web, then i had to write the rough draft. It was U.G.L.Y. trying to get her to copy it yesterday. She's been pushed to the limit on the doctor front the last week, so i just didn't push it.

 

So do i just keep doing it this way - have her make the revisions and I write it out for her?

 

I'm trying to remember what we used for curriculum for the first few grades! I remember we used Alpha Phonics for reading, which was all oral -- no writing involved. We used Explode the Code also and I think it was basically "circle the sound", etc. He may have had to write single letters for that one. We rounded it out with Handwriting Without Tears, which he did write himself.

 

For math, we used Math-U-See and I would fill in the numbers for the first level or so, and then he was able to write the numbers himself as time went by.

 

We used Sonlight for everything else, which was a lot of reading aloud and he would read the readers to me.

 

Around 3rd or 4th grade, he would dictate stories and the like to me and I would type them on the computer and print them out and he'd put them into a notebook. By 5th or 6th grade, he was typing his own stories. I didn't have him write papers by hand until 7th or 8th grade.

 

We're planning on working on cursive this year because he wants to take the SAT exam next year and I know he'll need to improve his handwriting by then to make it legible!

 

IEW is a great writing program and I highly recommend it!! I wish I'd started it earlier with my son! They utilize checklists and revisions for writing, working up to full papers.

 

http://www.excellenceinwriting.com/index.php?q=catalog/writing

[Misty]

When my 17 yos, an Aspie, was the age for K, he was so hyper that sitting still for him was the equivalent of torture. I didn't do any K with him at all.

 

When it came time for first grade, he was still really hyper but I decided we needed to start doing something b/c he still couldn't even identify any letters or numbers.

 

What worked.......lots of motion and "his interest" types of school. He made letters and numbers out of playdough, construction paper/glue, means, string licorice. He learned them very quickly.

 

We did phonics with Sing, Spell, Read, Write and he would march, dance, stand on his head......whatever he wanted while he sang the songs. I wrote things on a dry erase board so that he could be moving around and still see them.

 

Math was done leap frog still. I would write number lines with dry erase board marker on our tile. He would leap according to whatever the math sentence was. We also did it with hop-scotch formation. We also played with counting bears and small cheap plastic balance.

 

By the end of first grade he was reading above grade level (Charlotte's Web.) He discovered he loved reading and he would actually sit quietly and read for hours.

 

He hated writing and even through middle school his penmanship looked liked that of a young child. I did make him write, but not that much until he started to get older. We did almost everything orally until about 3rd grade.

 

HTH

 

Thanks so much for the wonderful advice! I love the idea of writing on the tile and playing leap frog. Frogs and toads are one of her obsessions (along with dinosaurs) so she would love that.

 

My oldest daughter, also an Aspie, is in junior high and her handwriting is still atrocious. I did oral work with her until around 3rd or 4th as well. So maybe workbooks aren't such a great idea for my little one. I may end up doing everything orally with her as well. But she is doing well with HWOT so far. She also just completed six months of OT, which really helped her. My older daughter never got services and I didn't use HWOT with her.

 

Thanks again for all the advice! I've heard of people using big balls for chairs during school for their ADHD/Aspie kids so I think I may do that for her too.

Edited June 25, 2009 by Misty

[Misty]

Ds is doing K right now, simply because he practically taught himself to read.

 

My oldest daughter, an Aspie, also taught herself to read at a very young age. She shows good comprehension, but mostly because her memory is nearly flawless. She can pull anything up from her memory to answer a question. However, she cannot comprehend things like directions, math word problems, and the motives or feelings of characters.. things like that. She just memorizes, but doesn't really think much. She has to read every day or else she has huge meltdowns. She cannot survive without books.. they are truly an obsession for her. I bet your son takes a similar path.

 

I bought this random listening skills book, used, called "Listen, My Children, and You Shall Hear". I have seen a little bit of improvement in ds's listening comp as we consistently use this book...I hope it helps.

 

Thanks for the recommendation! I will look for this.

 

We live in TN, so we have to register him by Aug 1 for K. Does your state have regs on ages, special needs and such?

 

No, our state has absolutely no regs. We are very lucky. We don't even have to tell anyone we homeschool.

 

All that to say, I wonder what 1st grade and beyond will hold, too. I'm not sure what we're going to do when we get to 1st. In K, it's expected we'll take it easy and go his pace...but what about when he gets older? I don't know...

 

I hope someone here has some encouragement for us :)

 

I think your son will do fine! If he's anything like my oldest daughter, which he does sound like, then he will do fine. My daughter's 3 main academic issues are math, comprehension, and penmanship. She is *just under* grade level for those. However, every other subject is high school level or post high school. Simply because she reads so much and her vocabulary, spelling, etc. is so advanced. She's a typical highly verbal Aspie.

[Year Round Mom]

Thanks for the encouragement, Misty! :)

[Orthodox6]

Misty, please, please don't "kick me" (figuratively or literally !) for this -- but if your dd is not going to fare well with FLL, SOTW, and similar texts -- is there really a need to force-fit her to those kinds of curricula ? Isn't a primary reason that we all homeschool is so that we can tailor-make an educational path for each individual child ?

 

My dd (discussed in other threads on this sub-board) does not resemble any of her elder brothers. I had to jettison all of my expectations (those based on previous teaching experience) and start from scratch with her. Things finally are starting to pay off ! I still shall have to do everything according to what works for her, continuing on from here.

 

I started homeschooling with all manner of dreams for my children. (including a rigorous education very similar to the WTM type) Most of my homeschooling dreams remained dreams; very little ever matched subsequent reality for my dc. It has been a never-ending lesson in setting aside my desires and accepting "what is."

 

May you and your daughter be blessed !

 

Antonia

 

 

My 6yo daughter is *supposed* to begin 1st grade this fall... She has Asperger's, OCD, ADHD, NVLD, & SPD. She just is NOT ready for FLL, SOTW, etc. Her psychologist told me she would not be able to function in a normal classroom setting and I'm beginning to wonder if she will be able to function in a homeschool setting too! She cannot listen to read-alouds and she can barely pay attention to any type of lesson. She is extremely hyperactive and she acts more like a 4yo most of the time.

 

At this time, she is doing All About Spelling, Bob books, HWOT, and Right Start Math level A. She is just now starting to read after starting AAS a couple of months ago (and taking it slowly). She is still at the beginning of all of the books I just listed.

 

So I guess I will just continue with K and work on social skills, self-help skills, behavior, and things like that for next year. She will be starting ABA therapy in a week or so. She just isn't like my other girls were at this age. They were AHEAD at this age. Thank God for homeschooling!

 

Anyone else in this situation?

[Misty]

Misty, please, please don't "kick me" (figuratively or literally !) for this -- but if your dd is not going to fare well with FLL, SOTW, and similar texts -- is there really a need to force-fit her to those kinds of curricula ? Isn't a primary reason that we all homeschool is so that we can tailor-make an educational path for each individual child ?

 

So true.. I feel like I'm a new homeschooler all over again with this one. I have no idea what to do! I guess it will be trial and error for a couple of years till I figure it out. She doesn't listen well and she doesn't write well.. Hmmm... what's left? I guess I just need to give her more time and maybe things will change...

 

Thanks for the input (no kick this time! :lol:)

[Soyrizo]

What a timely thread! We took our autistic daughter out of first grade this past winter, and I've come to the conclusion that she needs to re-do first grade math and language arts because she didn't retain anything she should've learned in school.

 

We've been very loosey-goosey the last 6 months of homeschooling between me trying to find my bearings as a homeschooler, finding her best learning style, and where she is at. It's hard not to feel like I am failing her. :(

 

I would love a suggestion for a math program. She knows her numbers 1-100, addition facts to 5 (i.e. she can add with her fingers, after that...) shapes, etc. Basically kindergarten math skills. I'd like a spiral approach with some manipulatives. Thanks.

[EKS]

The classic spiral is Saxon. Actually, it is technically considered incremental, meaning that a bit of a concept is introduced one day and then a bit of another the next day and so on and then every day all the previous concepts are reviewed in the problem sets. It is good for children who need lots of review as well as children who need their confidence bolstered about math. The Saxon K-3 program uses lots of manipulatives.

 

Singapore is also a spiral program except the spiral is *much* wider and it takes a full year to cycle back to the same material (with bigger numbers). There is also some cycling within each level. For example, they do a unit on how to add and subtract, then they do a unit on length but many of the problems in the unit are with adding and subtracting lengths, then there's a unit on volume... and so on. You can consiously add in more review by adding some of the supplemental workbooks at strategic times.

 

Then there is Math U See. MUS is a completely different approach. They use manipulatives throughout the program, particularly their own set of base 10 blocks. It is different because of the sequence: Addition and subtraction of 1 digit numbers in 1st grade, addition and subtraction of multidigit numbers in 2nd grade, multiplication in 3rd grade, division in 4th grade, fractions in 5th grade, and decimals in 6th grade. This can make it difficult to coordinate with other programs if you want to supplement and also can be a problem with standardized testing *but* in the end you get a kid who can really do arithmetic.

 

You'll want to have your daughter take a placement test to see what level to start her in no matter what program you go with.

 

Hope this helps!

[Soyrizo]

Thank you!

 

I spent all afternoon agonizing over all the choices, and then came to the realization I just need to pick something solid and stick with it. It will probably be Singapore, and maybe some Kumon workbooks because she wants colorful "fun" stuff, too.

[Misty]

I would love a suggestion for a math program. She knows her numbers 1-100, addition facts to 5 (i.e. she can add with her fingers, after that...) shapes, etc. Basically kindergarten math skills. I'd like a spiral approach with some manipulatives. Thanks.

 

Definitely look at RightStart Math.. It's a lot of fun and it really helped my struggling math student. It was also a good fit for my gifted math student. Incredibly clever card games are used to help memorize math facts (instead of pages of drill and kill). I highly recommend it, for many more reasons than the games... It's just a very superior program...

 

Website.....

http://www.alabacus.com

 

Yahoo group for RS users.. http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/RightStart/

 

Good luck!

[Guest SC_Mom]

We held our Aspie son back for a second year of Kindergarten in California and have never regretted the decision. We are in a homeschool program that requires STAR testing in 2nd grade and knew that this would be a major issue for him down the road. He was just not ready. A friend's son told him to repeat kindergarten as many times as we would let him...it just gets harder and harder every year after that...

 

He is now 11 and just completing 4th grade according to the state but this doesn't stop us from working all over the board according to his interests and abilities.

 

He uses Saxon 4/5 and it works well for him but we didn't use any workbooks for math or do handwriting/writing until he was 9. We jumped around and did mental math all over the house and listened to stories and talked about our favorite parts before then. He read at 8 and by 3rd grade he seemed ready to sit relatively still and had stopped squeaking like a mouse when we were trying to read to him.

 

Now he is catching up with his peers quickly and his teacher said that we might consider moving him ahead. I think we will keep him right where he is for the state. It can't hurt to graduate high school at 19...just no rush.

 

Not worrying about curriculum and workbooks also helped us stay sane with OT and speech therapy appointments during the week.

 

Sarah

 

mother to a wonderful Aspie Boy Age 11 and his 9 year old brother the future politician.