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Large families with learning disablities


mom2agang
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How do you spend the "extra" time with them in School? Heres my problem: My oldest works 99% independently except English and Writing. My next 4 do math and spelling independently. We do History,science English and writing as a group. One of those 4 is severly dislexyc and i have to do phonics with her( ETc) then my 6 yr old has severe verbal apraxia and i have to do phonics with him. And then my 4&5 yr old have it also and I really need to work with them more. My 5 yr old isnt mentally ready for preschool. Has a hard time with things cant trace etc.. His language development is at a very beginning 2 yr old level. So my problem im having or need ideas or help with is I feel Im spending a lot of time with my older ones and not enough time with the ones who really need it, my learning disabled kids. How do you handle yours?

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I only have six, but this is the realization I have come to. I can't do it all. I had to decide who needed the help the most and then outsource some or all of the rest. Oldest needs English class? How about an online one? Spelling lessons with elderly grandma? Can he take a class with at the public school? Does anyone have time to help the younger kids? If you wait a year or two to teach the 5 year old, will it hurt him or help him?

 

What about your other younger kids? Can you slow some down to work together with even younger siblings? Hire a nearby homeschooled teenager to come in and help?

 

Also, I decided two years ago that I longer have time to do anything I basic. I want my time to be used to teach the hard things to the kids--algebra and phonics, decoding and essay writing. I don't want to read spelling words or hold flash cards, for example. I can get a computer program to perform those tasks for me.

 

Here's a truism in life: ( imagine a triangle with one word written by each point) Of these three ideas, you can only choose two at a time: speed, quality, cost. If you need it to be of high quality and right now, it will cost you. If you need it to be of low cost and high quality, it will take up your time. If you need it to be of low cost and low personal time involved, it is likely to be of low quality. It is very hard to escape these truths.

Edited by swainsonshawk
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Hi, I don't know if I have any answers for you, I just wanted to say hello and I understand. I don't have a HUGE family - 3 sons. However, my oldest has ADHD and my youngest has Apraxia of speech (well actually he has global Apraxia, including speech) as well. I don't know many others dealing with Apraxia so I just wanted to chime in and say hi.

 

For now, we are trying to tackle the day by using the morning to do one -on-one work with the kids who need it (in my case all of them) and the afternoons for group work. I start the day doing about an hour of LA with my oldest while my other two play. Then I give my older a break for about 30 minutes and ask him to play with my youngest while I work with my middle ds on reading/phonics. After this I set my oldest up on the computer with math (TT) and work at the table on math with my middle child. Once Math is done, my two oldest work independently on handwriting and ETC (these are the only things they do independently) while I work on speech games with my youngest who is Apraxic. Then we all break for lunch.

 

After lunch we work on History/Geo/Science/Art - we do one a day and a half day Wednesday.

 

Good luck - I know balancing Apraxia (or any special need) is a challenge. We shuttle back and forth to Speech and Physio Therapy many times a week so some days are more exhausting that others.

Edited by agarnett
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:grouphug:

This year has been harder for me because now I have five school-aged children to teach, plus a toddler. I certainly don't have this all figured out, but I'm happy to share with others what I do and read how others do it. :)

 

I continually try to figure out how to balance my children's needs. Their needs and skills range all over the place. We rely heavily on Orton-Gillingham methods and special education materials from Barton, Lindamood-Bell and more for our homeschooling. A large part of our homeschool involves Barton Reading and Spelling---and for that I need to work with each child independently. Only the one who struggles the most works with me on that every day--the others rotate days. When I'm working with someone one-on-one, the others either do their assigned work or they "do something educational" during school hours. Our homeschool classroom in full of wonderful books and educational games and toys. It helps me alot that we really good materials.

 

The key to my homeschooling is that I try to cover the very basics very well. Then, I go back and add more materials in, because covering only the basics doesn't feel like enough. Beyond the basics---and even with some of the basics--I rotate what we cover. When I was sick earlier this year, I cut back to just four things: math, an Orton-Gillingham styled reading and spelling program (Barton), plus a simple special ed handwriting programs (Calirobics) and religion. We recently finished the Calirobics Advanced program and I'm healthy again, so I made some changes to our routine. Now, we do history together M,W, F and science together T, Th. We do math four days a week, taking Wednesdays off. On Wednesday, I cover English compositon with the three older ones together as a group, using materials and teaching methods developed for dyslexia.

 

This year my older children's basic skills are strong enough to focus on composition together--using materials developed for people with dyslexia. Last year, we spent a lot of time on the mechanics of handwriting. We also spent a couple months last year doing a reading comprehension program together, called IdeaChain. I will likely repeat IdeaChain with my younger children as a group in a couple years. The older ones now work on reading comprehension independently, (using the workbooks from another special education comprehension program, Visualizing and Verbalizing.)

 

I had hoped and expected that once my son who struggles with reading had learned to read, this whole "dyslexia thing" would just disappear. It hasn't. Maybe the hardest thing for me this year has been realizing that dyslexia won't just go away once a child with dyslexia learns to read.

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How do you spend the "extra" time with them in School? Heres my problem: My oldest works 99% independently except English and Writing. My next 4 do math and spelling independently. We do History,science English and writing as a group. One of those 4 is severly dislexyc and i have to do phonics with her( ETc) then my 6 yr old has severe verbal apraxia and i have to do phonics with him. And then my 4&5 yr old have it also and I really need to work with them more. My 5 yr old isnt mentally ready for preschool. Has a hard time with things cant trace etc.. His language development is at a very beginning 2 yr old level. So my problem im having or need ideas or help with is I feel Im spending a lot of time with my older ones and not enough time with the ones who really need it, my learning disabled kids. How do you handle yours?

 

Here it is one day at a time, and no one gets the time I would like them to have. Though I have high ideals.

 

My oldest is a natural in language, but struggles with math. She does read aloud like a typical dyslexic with typical substations, but reading on her own she can read and comprehend like the wind...at least the big picture. Details are another thing...we have developed strategies to help her catch the details.

 

My 2nd dd is overall the strongest student. She does well in everything, but isn't astounding in any one topic. She also does typical dyslexic substitutions when reading aloud and struggles with math at times. Just this week in covering multiplication of fractions she went mid page from dividing to picking the lowest prime factor to reduce to. :confused: She did that page again yesterday, but towards the end she quite multiplying the denominator and started adding them. Getting into her brain is hard, once it is in there she is the one most likely to get 100% correct on something.

 

My 3rd and 4th children have similar issues. Both read at or above grade level, both spell years behind that. 3rd is just now hearing and spelling blends correctly. She just couldn't hear it before and she had to go through LiPS and Seeing Stars first. Even then, last year, she spent writing it wrong then reading it and correcting her spelling (she would leave one letter of the blend out, then erase and add it back in). Finally she is writing the whole word start to finish without erasing. :D DS issues are more profound. He still struggles just to hear the difference between short vowel sounds (after doing LiPS and Seeing Stars). He also has speech issues with th, l, ch, r and j that we continue to work on. We just plug away.

 

It isn't easy. But I don't see PS as a solution. Then I would just be re-teaching it to them at night...trying like I do now to get it into terms that make sense to them....but then I would be forced into pace that is faster. It is just easier to keep them at home and work at our own pace.

 

BTW we are required to test here, and all my kids test well. So while we aren't meeting my ideals of what they need at what time they are learning and mastering what is important.

 

Heather

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My 12 yo has a low IQ, memory and processing delays and is severely dyslexic. Over the years I have learned that I can't do it all. I outsource where I can and use materials that can be done independently when possible. I spend my mornings working with him as well as my 8 and 6y olds. In the afternoons I spend time with my older children going over their work.

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