What have you done to make homeschooled high school doable for your dyslexic teen?

[TravelingChris]

I am new to dyslexia world. Yes, I guess my youngest has had it for ever but I am only realizing it now. She is what is probably stealth dyslexia- she managed to learn to read, though later, and can read but she is slower than normal. The real clues are her atrocious spelling, letter reversals, global way of reading, problems with memorizing math facts while actually being very good in math concepts, and on and on.

 

Okay now here is my issue- we have some things she is doing that are going fine. HIstory- she likes SWB's ANcient History and is doing well with that. Physics- we are using COnceptual physics and she finds it extremely easy but interesting if I reduce the wordiness (she doesn't need concepts repeated). Biology - thinkwell is going well too. She does Spanish in an outside class along with Art. She finds the Spanish harder but likes the art. She liked Rosetta Stone better and I am thinking of having her do that too. The big issue is amount of work to do in English to consider it high school level. She reads slowly and if she listens to books, that takes a long time too. The curriculum I was using is good but probably too much for her.

 

How have you accommodated your teen for high school?

[TravelingChris]

Oh I forgot to mention she is doing Life of Fred math- starting on geometry tomorrow.

[memphispeg]

Does she like illustrated novels? There are some "comics(?)" of the classics, the "Beowulf" one was cool. Then you could just read a short selection that contains some important language and literary issues. You could analyze the selection and get quite a bit of a feeling about how the whole work works.

Short stories might be the best way to go...easier than plowing through hundreds of pages. There's a lit. book by Perrine that does English lit very well. All the selections are short and manageable and there are some good exercises for analyses. There's some really good poetry stuff in there too.

[Hilary in MI]

My son uses the Ginger spellchecker program (we were able to get it through the Homeschool Buyers Coop at a discount). It is fantastic.

 

http://www.gingersoftware.com/

 

Ginger also has a text-to-speech reader.

 

Many textbooks come with a program, either online or on disc, which reads the text aloud to the student. And, recorded books are great as well (free from the library or internet, or purchased). The student can just listen or listen and follow along in the book.

 

For composition/writing, you can modify assignments to help your dd grow as a writer. I'd suggest not comparing her to where she "should" be, but starting at where she is now. So, for example, if she needs to dictate her thoughts now, and work up to writing independently, that is just fine. If she needs to write five sentences now and build up to an essay, that's great, too.

 

Here's my bottom line: if she is working every day on English and making good progress . . . that is her course. That is enough. Decide what your goals are--love of books? more fluency as a writer? able to construct a logical argument?--and go from there, rather than from a checklist of "must read" books or "must do" essays.

[EKS]

I share the reading load with him, meaning that I read aloud a lot, including his textbooks. He *can* read everything, and actually has a very high reading level, but it takes much more energy than it would for an unaffected person.

 

I make the assignments the same from week to week. So for history he has to write a 500 word paper each week about a topic in the chapter. Not changing the assignments makes it so he doesn't spend time figuring out what he is supposed to be doing.

 

I looked at multiple syllabuses for high school English classes to see if I was in the ballpark work wise in English. You can also look at teachers' webpages for homework. The only difficult thing is to figure out how much output type stuff they do in class.

 

As for foreign language, we chose Latin because it doesn't have to be spoken. We're using the Oak Meadow courses, which use Cambridge. It is the easiest course I could find and my son is doing well (he's now in the second year). I am using the first Cambridge book with my 9yo and am requiring more of him than the OM course did. But he's getting credit for it, and that is what we need.

 

I've also tried to focus on concepts rather than minutiae. So we're using a text for history called Ways of the World. It is college level and focuses on trends in history. We are almost halfway through and I'm really impressed. It is perfect for a kid who has had history twice before. I just assign the papers, no tests.

 

When he took geometry, I allowed him to use a copy of the theorems in the back of the book for tests.

 

He does all written work on the computer. I give a lot of help with writing. I even give points for not requiring help on essays.

 

Sorry this rambles. Please feel free to ask about anything I haven't covered here.

[Lori D.]

Younger DS with mild "stealth" dyslexia here. The big areas of struggle for him are spelling, writing, and abstract math concepts (algebra). Handwriting has always been labored, but has gotten much better over the years. Reading is not so much of a struggle for him (hence "stealth" dyslexia), although he was slower to grasp reading, and still, even after years of aloud reading, has a bit of a tendency to "guess" at bigger/longer words than to break them down.

 

 

Math

We've stuck with Math-U-See since we found it was was "clicked" for him in 5th grade. Up through the MUS Pre-Algebra, we supplemented with Singapore, and a few Keys To... workbooks. In 9th, we tried a detour with Jacobs Algebra; my thinking was that it was gentle, mastery, and every single lesson had a real-life application which might help him see the relevance or "big picture" of the concept, and also help make it concrete. He did... ~okay~; he really could NOT get the coordinate graphing and line equations, and often he seemed to just be going through the motions, trying memorize what to do. So... we repeated Algebra in the first semester of 10th, and then he did MUS Geometry in one semester. He took all of 11th and all summer to get through MUS Algebra 2 -- BUT, by going very slowly and repeating many lessons, I do think he "got" it. This year, it was more important to me that he have real-life math (his plan is to either work full time after high school, or go to the community college), so he's doing a Consumer Math program, and we talk about the concepts of budgeting, comparing, taxes, etc.

 

 

History

I mostly read aloud the text and we'd discuss together. Sometimes I'd have him read a section (on his own) and write the answers to the in-the-textbook questions. Sometimes I'd assign a historical fiction book set in the time period for him to read solo, and just ask the occasional question. For writing, we'd sweat through a several-page research paper or two together each year, and I'd have him do "time line entries" once a month -- jot down 10 or 20 key events in 1-sentence format.

 

 

English: Literature

We read aloud together, discuss together. Sometimes just I read; sometimes we "popcorn read" ("you read a page, I read a page"), sometimes (with a play) we take parts and read the different characters. Yes that is longer and slower and means you go over fewer works -- but it allows for DEEP analysis and discussion. (Suggestion: go ahead and do the English program you've selected, but at your student's pace -- so, either drop some of the works, or take 1.5 years to work through the entire program. Quality, NOT quantity, is what they really learn from!). In addition, out loud reading together has helped reduce the "guessing" from the stealth dyslexia, and improved his reading abilities.

 

 

English: Writing

Best thing here for us has been a weekly timed essay; we all do it together and then gently critique. DS's essays are still not long, but they hold together, use specific examples, have a solid beginning/middle/end, and are well thought out. We use the actually SAT past essay prompts, found here (scroll down the page a bit). For other writing, he types everything and uses the spell-checker. We try to start with the IEW "key word outline" and then flesh it out. We take each paragraph as a separate "unit" and complete it, then do the next paragraph as a separate "unit" and complete it, with editing/revising as a separate step on a different day from fleshing out/writing the paragraph. It takes weeks to complete a multi-page paper, managing about 2 solid paragraphs a week, but, again, that is his speed.

 

 

English: Grammar

We went through the Winston Grammar levels and lots of grammar supplements in elementary/middle school years, and now in high school review grammar concepts, but especially practice grammar mechanics (as that is what will most help his writing), using "The Chortling Bard". We do a paragraph a day 3-4 times a week. At this point, the grammar is really a tool for writing, so we sometimes use Writer's Inc. to look up a concept needed for the writing.

 

 

English: Spelling

Still going through Megawords, and also doing individualized spelling (based off of "The ABCs and All Their Tricks"), to try and improve spelling, but also used somewhat as vocabulary exposure.

 

 

Handwriting

First went with the Callirobics for a year or two, which helped make the writing not so labored -- discovered it for his 8th and 9th grade years. Now doing the "writing 8s" exercises in Dianne Craft's materials for helping students with learning issues. It, too, seems to be helping; we do about 5 or 6 letters of the alphabet per day.

 

 

Foreign Language

We opted for American Sign Language (accepted by many colleges), and are doing it through the local community college as dual enrollment. It's working very well -- giving him a chance to "dip a toe in the water of college", and he really feels he is excelling in the class. Very little writing and spelling required, which was going to be the big issue of trying to do ANY foreign language.

 

 

DS is 12th grade this year, and we had a long heart-to-heart about going in for testing this year at the public school to start a "paper trail" that would at least help for college with possible free tutors, or special testing situations, but he rejected it, even understanding he was rejecting possible future helps. At this age, there is no "forcing" the issue; some students have to do it the hard way... But I mention that as something you may wish to pursue, as getting a formal diagnosis from free testing through the public school, or private testing and submitting the results to the public education system, can start a "paper trail" that will provide free helps through out high school and for college -- but the paper trail has to START no later than 12th grade.

 

I know your student is different than ours, so sharing what has worked for us will be of only limited help -- but hopefully, seeing how others adapted, can spark ideas for what will work with your student. BEST of luck! Warmest regards, Lori D.

Edited October 21, 2011 by Lori D.