Okay, please design my entire curriculum for my 7 year old

[momsuz123]

I need help. Please. I need to figure out for once and for all how to really homeschool my dd the way that is best for her and I. She was tested for a APD - it came back negative, but yet, here she is now doing Fast Forword 90 minutes/day 5/week because she just wasn't "getting it". She works with a SLP that is OG trained and she is the teacher overseeing her FF.

A good example of her hearing issues..."mom, I had a great 'brak' at Kayla's house. Can you make 'braks'?" What she meant was brats. When we played the game "clue", she called the "study" the "sivy" (even after what I told her it was). So, even though her hearing is perfect, and her auditory processing scores were good enough, she still has issues.

 

Now, she does FF every day for 90 minutes. She is back to having vision issues again. She is seeing a new covd in a few weeks. We are starting with a new OT this week who specializes in vestibular issues. She said if VT doesn't stick with kids it is normally because they have a vestibular issue going on.

 

Reading...stinks. She is back to saying how it is stupid and all. She is just beyond frustrated, again. I think the vision thing is really hampering her reading, again.

 

Math...okay. We are doing MOTL with the 5 a day. This she likes. We do lots of math games.

 

Lately, science, and history are being left by the wayside. With 90 minutes a day of FF, that really wipes her out.

 

Writing...well, not good. Again, back to the vision issues. Plus, with her poor phonics, etc, her spelling is very tough.

 

Okay, so can anyone help me out? What can I do better? I just feel like we are not getting "enough" done. I am feeling like a failure lately with her and school. Any thoughts? Thanks.

 

Oh, and the school district is going to evaluate her next month (we moved). They do full services, and allow you to homeschool. So we will see.

[MerryAtHope]

My son's vision therapist said something similar (and I've often read this online)--they need to work on integrating primitive reflexes. If primitive reflexes are still an issue, vision therapy won't last. I don't know if that's *exactly* the same thing that your COVD doc has in mind, but it makes sense to me that it would relate to vestibular issues.

 

It sounds like math is going well, and you can continue with that.

 

Reading, writing, spelling--all these are going to relate to the vision issues, so I do think it's right to try to get that straightened out first. Personally I'd drop any formal writing program for now and just work on reading, handwriting, and maybe spelling if she's reading basic CVC words. Until she's spelling about 1000 words fluently, writing is going to be really tough. All About Spelling really helped my kids, and is also OG based, so it would complement what your SLP is doing. You could check into that.

 

Does 90 minutes per day on Fast ForWord seem to be working? I ask because it sounded like a LOT of time--and when I googled, I saw that most students are doing 30 minutes. My thought is that if she's tired out by the lessons, she probably isn't retaining and learning much after the point where she gets tired. You might accomplish more if you did shorter lesson times where she has good focus and attitude. Just a thought.

 

History and Science--these are "gravy" for now, especially since she's doing so much therapy. Does she enjoy these topics? You could read to her (maybe alternate days--science one day, history the next) or use videos. If she likes audios, maybe she could have a play time in her room for 30 minutes where she also listens to Story of the World or something else on audio. A more laid back approach that still will give her some exposure. But honestly...if these get dropped for awhile, it will be ok. These are not your top priority subjects.

 

Do you read good lit. aloud to her daily? If not, you might want to see if there's a time of day you could do that--bedtime, or during a meal, while she plays quietly at some point...That can benefit kids in so many ways, and it's worth it to continue this habit for developing vocabulary and all kinds of language skills. It's especially important for kids who aren't reading yet, but is also beneficial for kids of all ages.

 

Just some thoughts! Hang in there, and I hope you see some good progress this year. Merry :-)

[AliR]

Having gone through the FF program with DD10, I can really identify with being wiped out. It takes a phenomenal amount of concentration. But it was worth it for us in the long run.

 

I don't know what part of the program you are on, but my view is that it counts for reading as you are working on phonemic awareness. Later on it covers a good bit of spelling and grammar too. So you have 90 minutes working on language arts! She is also working on computer skills as well

 

Math you are okay with.

 

What we did for science and history was to read together and talk about some highly illustrated books. At this point she was not able to listen to me read aloud or audio books (ears too tired) but was good with pictures. The sort of thing that we looked at are the books that Usborne produces - some I have found on the shelf are Mysteries and Marvels of Nature, First Encylopedia of the Human Body, Time Traveller, Book of World History. Looking back, she retained a lot during this time, and is was good cuddling up on the couch after the FF session as we both needed a hug. We also did science experiments on bad weather days, and took field trips on good days.

 

I did read aloud some good books at bedtime as that gave us a big gap in time from FF.

 

Hope some of that helps. If there is anything more I can add just let me know.

[Tiramisu]

Just checking, who tested her for APD?

 

I know we've visited this topic before, but my dd was told she did not have APD by a local audiologist who did a screening, not a full eval, and no auditory weaknesses showed up in her neuropsych report either. It took an audiologist who did thorough testing in a sound booth to find the specific area of difficulty. It is something that can really affect her life so we absolutely needed to know what we were dealing with. It just took the right testing to identify it.

[momsuz123]

She actually had an audiologist who specializes in APD do the test. However, the results came back negative. But now that my dd has been working with her SLP who is trained in OG, she insists that there must be some level of an APD. Now that dd is doing Fast forword, even the progress report that we get every week clearly shows her problems. Hmmmm...I am tempted to send her audiologist her progress report to see what she thinks.

[SadieMarie]

I have 7yo with vision and reading issues also. OPG was not great for us but progressive phonics is going well. It is free, just print it yourself, so maybe worth a try. The little stories are very silly and dd likes that. And we keep it short, fifteen to twenty minutes a day. If you have a color printer it would be better because then the part your child reads would be in larger font and in red, but we have been managing with black and white.

[prairiewindmomma]

We've had to revisit vt with my 7yo....and his covd also mentioned the primitive reflex issue.

 

We are doing science and history very hands on this year. Although it is not the focus of our schoolwork, it is so important to ds that not everything is "hard". He really has to "work" in the therapy activities and with math. His reading ability is coming along, and he performs on level now, but it is a lot of brain and eye work for him.