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[prairiewindmomma]

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[scrapbookbuzz]

Oh, how I understand having 2e children and/or those with perfectionist traits! Can make Mama's hair turn grey faster than anything! LOL

As for what he has challenges with, set aside a specific time of day to work on just those things and then work on them for 10-15 minutes at a time with 5 minutes in between.

So, if you set aside an hour, you would have three 15 minute blocks of time to work on things, and three 5 minute breaks. Then LET IT BE for the day, and go on and do the fun

and easy stuff. One thing I think we forget too often is that homeschooling is not just about the BOOKS it's about LIFE, too, and there are some things that just cannot be taught

in or learned from a textbook or a regular book. And, he's only 7 and he's a BOY. He'll get there. May be more slowly than his peers, esp the girls, but he will get there! Love him

for who he IS not who you think he should be. HTH!

[Lecka]

I think he is young for Sequential Spelling, I have lookd at it for my 7-year-old (almost 8-year-old) 2nd grader, and I think it could be left for an older child, by a year or two maybe. (edit: I really like the look of Sequential Spelling, but if a child is at a point of working on more basic phonics instead of orthographic patterns, I think -- that is okay. If your son is making some progress/some mistakes.... if it is zero progress that is different... but if he is making slow progress with basic phonics patterns then I personally think it is fine to spend more time on them.... but if your son would be motivated by Sequential Spelling ---- that is a great reason to do it!!!!)

 

If it works for him, that is great! But I would not pull out my hair or frustrate him with it, b/c it really doesn't seem like he would need to be on that level. He could be fine to still be doing basic phonics patterns for his spelling words imo.

 

For the rest I don't really know or it seems good!

 

My son does not often read 20 minutes at once, I do better with having 10 minutes of reading and most of the time he does 2 10-minute sessions. (For the second 10 minutes he has a choice of spelling or reading right now....)

 

It sounds like he has made really good progress!!!!!!!!!!

 

Maybe you could let him have requests? Maybe he could tell you what would be fun for him and also satisfy you? I am very satisfied by any time my son spends building things, b/c he wants to be a builder when he grows up. So that is fine with me. My son is not 2E though.... he is quite good at Legos though, and maybe not really good at other things. So it makes sense. But it sounds like he has got a lot of good interests and maybe he can have some choice about what direction to take.

[PeterPan]

It doesn't jive to me where you're saying he can't count because of vision problems but he's reading on-level. Look for another explanation.

 

On the math facts, read Dyslexic Advantage and also Jeffrey Freed's book "Right-Brained Children in a Left-Brained World." If you're coming from a very textbooky child, I can see why you're struggling. It's something that might not come for a long time. Needs context, use, and lots of time to make those connections. Their brains sort of take the scenic route and make a lot of other connections along the way.

 

Ditto the questionableness of Sequential Spelling in this situation. SS is a workbook, and you've got a dc who sounds very non-workbooky and who doesn't have basic phonemic awareness. I would go back and do Earobics. *At least* go back and do the phonemic awareness tests like in AAS/SWR/Barton. You need to know what he's hearing, what he's not, and about his ability to connect sound to written.

 

I didn't realize you have a premie. That's a lot to have on your mind! You ought to fill in your sig, at least with some ages, so people know. :)

 

I suggest on the vision that you bring it to the front burner. ALL his academics rest on that. Math is visual, spelling is visual, reading is visual. I think you're probably blowing off as visual some things that aren't, and you're working hard at stuff that needs the vision foundation. I know $$ is tight. Option one, call around and beg. (Beg is what I would do, more like see what's available.) Some places have a no child leaves untreated policy. Option two, see if your state's child health insurance can be compelled to help. (People have gotten VT this way.) Option three, get the Developmental Vision book on amazon (Kenneth Lane? I forget) and start USING it. The MOST IMPORTANT THING you can do right now is work on that vision if you know he has that problem. Doing that book is better than doing nothing, so go do it. Start now and do it consistently till fall, 15 min. a day, and you'll have a new child by fall. Then in the fall you chart your course with curriculum.

 

So with a 7 yo I would read 15 min or do a dab of phonemic awareness activities together, do 15 minutes of math games, do working memory activities with a metronome for 15 minutes, and then do 15 minutes of the vision therapy activities from that book. After that he gets kits for science, projects, etc. Put on audios for anything else you feel compelled to do or take him to the library for non-fiction books.

 

By phonemic awareness, I mean the things you're already thinking about: how he hears sounds, can he split words into their parts, etc. It all leads right into spelling. What I can't tell from your comments is whether there's actually a problem. If he can't distinguish sh from s or point to the written for ow when you say it, then Houston you have a problem.

 

On content, facilitate. On skills, remediate and teach. Don't get that confused. You don't have time to do both for him.

[prairiewindmomma]

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[prairiewindmomma]

It is this one: http://www.amazon.com/Developing-Ocular-Visual-Perceptual-Skills/dp/1556425953/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_S_nC?ie=UTF8&colid=38K5HNLVBKBOA&coliid=I39M2SFJI3WV4N

 

or

 

http://www.amazon.co...=pd_sim_b_1��

[Lecka]

I am sorry to say this but Gift of Dyslexia is not a top resource if you suspect your son struggles with sounds in words.

 

That is not the angle of that book. If modeling in clay works ---- awesome!

 

But to address the sounds in words ------ which is an underlying foundational issue for many children with dyslexia ------ the book to read is Overcoming Dyslexia. Dyslexic Advantage is great, but it is not a book about remediatng dyslexia and what reading program to use. That is just not what book it is. It is a great book for learning apart from specifically doing reading remediation.

 

On the Internet the Barton reading website is good.

 

To find about phonemic awareness, if you google phonemic awareness on Amazon, it brings up resources for kids ages 4 to 6 as the top results. They all have a little introdution that will be on "view now" and that is a good way to just get a big overview of "what is phonemic awareness and why it is important." But those actual books are questionable in their use for a 7-year-old who has dyslexia. They might be enough, but very likely not.

 

My son had so much trouble with this, I used a ton of things, and my son also went to speech therapy. But to get an idea, I do like the free Blending and Segmenting supplement from Abecedarian. Whether or not it is the best thing to use, I don't know. But you can see how he does, and get an idea if this kind of thing is a weak area for him. http://www.abcdrp.co...BCD_WABS_03.pdf If this is no problem for your son, that is great. If it is too hard -- that is good information, and there are options. I just think it is an easy way to get an idea.

 

If it is hard ---- there are a lot of possibilities to look into. But if you can start to pinpoint the problem that is good.

 

My son had trouble actually telling apart similar sounds. Then there is not being able to hear each sound in order to segment (spell) a word. Those are the first two things I would want to pinpoint, and feel like -- this is the problem, or this is not.

 

Also you can try the pre-test for Barton. It is meant to identify children who are not ready to start Barton Level 1. You don't have to intend to use Barton ----- it is just a free thing that can let you know if you need to look at more foundational skills prior to really doing phonemic awareness, or if it is not necessary.

 

The book Overcoming Dyslexia is very negative on vision therapy, and I do not agree with that, while thinking she has a point. But I would say to just ignore that, and take what is useful.

 

edit: My son has now got identified problems with his eye tracking, but he is reading well. It is really two separate issues for him. Taking care of one is not taking care of the other, in his case.

[prairiewindmomma]

Thanks!

[PeterPan]

The first of those two Kenneth Lane books is the one I was referring to. If you own that book your doc likes, you don't need KL.

 

So you did the 12 weeks of therapy or are saving up for it? If you haven't done it yet, I'd suggest you do one session a month or every other week and have her give you more homework. $150 a session is really rich for our area. Is that 1/2 hour or 1 hour? $150 an hour is the NORMAL price here. Most sessions around here are 1/2 hour and you buy in blocks of 8 (one month, 8 sessions) for $560-ish which brings it out to around $70-ish for a 1/2 hour session. You do two sessions a week. We did them back to back because of the drive. So anywise, the price you're saying seems pretty normal to me, not at all a deal. VT *can* be done with once a month appts and lots of homework.

 

If you already did 12 sessions, something should have budged by now.

 

Yes, you need to back up and work on phonemic awareness and how he hears the sounds. You may need Earobics. As far as OG-style programs, the cheapest thing you can do is go to the library and get WRTR. That way you can read it for free, start to understand the basics. Then you'll be able to decide your plan. Yes, do the Barton pre-test. Sounds though like you need to back up. Earobics is pricy but will resell well.

[prairiewindmomma]

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[Kanin]

He sounds great, and just like mine.  Memorizing math facts is not his thing at all.  So boring, so repetitious... he hates it.  The best thing I've found so far is to play games.  Go Fish with math facts, math War, design your own board game, have him design his own game (and it might be something totally crazy that you don't even understand, but just go with it!).  

 

You could also have a building challenge where he gets building materials for answering each question.  5+5, gets one LEGO brick, building block, k'nex piece, etc.  You can be answering math questions too, and building your own structure.  When you're done, have a battle if he likes doing that.

 

You could also get some foam blocks and write numbers on them.  He could pick two (or three, or more) from a bucket.  If he gets the answer right, he gets to use them in his castle.  If he gets them wrong, YOU get to add the blocks to YOUR castle!  He'll probably try pretty hard to beat you.  It works in reverse too, so if you make a mistake, HE gets YOUR blocks.  At the end, you could have an epic battle and try and knock down each other's castles.  (You should probably lose on purpose :)

 

Can you tell I've been hanging out with a 9 year old?

 

Also, I find that the way I "frame" the lesson really makes a difference.  Saying, "Okay, time for some math!" is going to go down worse than, "I have a great idea! Let's have an epic battle!  We're going to build castles and knock them down!"

 

Your reading progress is amazing.  I hope for the same thing for mine!!