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Recommendations for a newbie homeschooler with a dyslexic 6th grader


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My friend's son is not getting the support he needs at the local public school and she is considering homeschooling him next year for sixth grade.

 

Our state requires us to "provide a sequentially progressive curriculum of fundamental instruction in reading, language arts, mathematics, social studies, science, and health."

 

Do you have any specific curricula suggestions for these categories for a brand new homeschooler with a dyslexic sixth grader? It would be preferable to have programs that are not extremely expensive.

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If his reading level is low, she may want to do dyslexia remediation.

 

Other than that, I think it is pretty individual. She might like to read Overcoming Dyslexia and Dyslexic Advantage.

 

There is a good chance he can work on his grade level or above, even if his reading level is low. Then the big thing is to not let a lower reading level hold him back, and give him information and opportunities in other ways. Whether it is from read-alouds or videos or hands-on, whatever. Then reading can be a separate subject, not a gatekeeper.

 

If he is reading well and just needs a different approach than the one used at school, she might just need to try things. Or, ask with more specifics. It can be a broad category and the same things don't work for every single person.

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Thank you.

 

Yes, he is reading below level, but making improvement. Over the last year he went from a ~first grade reading level to a ~third/fourth grade reading level. I would expect that he's working below grade level in most subjects as this particular public school systematically scores well below average on standardized testing.

 

I would love to be able to help her with recommendations, but realized that they might be totally wrong for a person with dyslexia. (For example, we use Sonlight Science 1-6th grade. I think this might be a little overwhelming because of the amount of reading for him. Maybe not?) I thought I'd check with you guys before recommending anything! Oh, and they are not religious people. They're not anti-religion, but I'm thinking many of the programs I've used might not be comfortable for them (e.g., Rod and Staff spelling & grammar).

 

Do you have examples of dyslexia remediation programs? Do you mean programs recommended on this page? http://www.avko.org/...urces_hsers.htm

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Your friend should look at http://www.myaudioschool.com/ It was developed by a homeschooling mom whose son has dyslexia. It is a reading-based curriculum, but all of the books are audio-books. (Except for Math). In fact, your friend could use any reading based curriculum that uses older texts (think pre-1922) as most of these tend to be available as audio books.

 

As far as dyslexia remediation, your friend should find an Orton-Gillingham based reading program. There are a number of these such as Barton, Wilson, Writing Road to Reading, ABeCeDarian and others. A couple of good internet resources are http://www.learningabledkids.com/learning_disability_LD/dyslexia_resources.html

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LearningAbledKids/

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HeartofReading/

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The Barton website has a lot of information.

 

If he is at a strong 3rd-4th grade level, Rewards has a really good reputation. It teaches multi-syllable words with prefixes and suffixes.

 

If he is still guessing a lot or having trouble sounding out words that are one-syllable, then it might be worth it to go back to a very foundational level, and just know he may move through it quickly. He may have gaps at an early level. That is the reason that Barton is designed for everyone to start at Level 1.

 

If he needs help with fluency then reading at a level that is easy for him is supposed to be good. If there are not books at his interest level that are easy for him, then it is good to look at special age-appropriate books written at a lower level. There are lists of these sometimes, and a company called High Noon sells books like this and has a good reputation.

 

For other things -- there might not be a specific curriculum -- maybe more adapting a curriculum for him so he is not held back.

 

My son is younger and I only after-school for reading...

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