another history thread :)

[ktgrok]

Thinking through some options. It's hard because if I was teaching ME as the student, we'd do Sonlight. But I'm not. Sigh. DD8 is dyslexic and has limited stamina for read alouds as well. 

 

We also like LOTS of free time to do our own thing, either going to the park or playing astronauts with big boxes or whatever. 

 

Last year we read Pioneers and Patriots, which is a book of short stories that cover American History. We also read some out of the Seton American History text (just a page at a time), and started the Little House books. 

 

I'm using (sort of) The Story of Civilization Year 1 right now. We listen to the audio book in the car and that's about it. Sometimes I ask some questions and we discuss it. She is also doing the draw the world book to learn geography. We are still reading the Little House series, and sometimes we watch videos from Pippas Animated History.

 

Next year I'm considering a few options, including:

 

-just do the next year of Story of Civilization. We all enjoy the audio CD and it saves me from mispronouncing all those historical names. We never really use the activity book ... not sure why. Not sure how much retention we are getting, or if that is important. 

 

-The Good and The Beautiful. We'd just do the history, not the literature/phonics/grammar. I don't know much about this, but it looks sweet and not too overwhelming. 

 

-Catholic Heritage Curriculum Tour a Country. This would be geography instead of history....not sure how I feel about that. 

 

-Story of the World Middle Ages. Maybe we'd be better served with this than Story of Civilization? 

 

- Something else?

 

Goal/Plan is to use either Catholic Textbook Project books or Notgrass for middle school and possibly highschool. Unless kids decide they like books more than they currently will tolerate, in which case something like Build Your Library might be more of a possibility. 

Edited March 11, 2018 by ktgrok

[PeterPan]

Might be good to figure out *why* she's having issues with read alouds, since that's not common for dyslexics. Usually you put them to audiobooks, and boom they're golden. So do you think it's an *attention* issue or an auditory processing issue or...? Are full evals on the table for her? I forget what evals you got so far. And did she have a screening for APD or symptoms? And did the person who did her evals do language testing to see if there's an answer there?

 

In general, if she hasn't done the American Girl books, I would suggest working through those, along with projects. That would be a more visual, narrative approach. Have you read Dyslexic Advantage by the Eides yet? She might have a thinking style/strength you can teach to. 

 

But yeah, definitely figure out what the read alouds aren't working, as I think that would not be the norm.

[ktgrok]

How about keeping on with SOC if you like it (fwiw, I liked SOC 2 far less than 1. Since you're Catholic, it might be the opposite for you!) but use review games like these?

 

I really like Layers of Learning actually.

 

There's A Child's Geography Medieval, too. I have not used it but it looks really nice imo.

 

Can you give more info on why you liked SOC2 less? 

 

I do like Layers of Learning, and have done some units. But we stalled out for a few reasons, a big one being that SOC spends forever on the Greeks, so we have held off on any more units until then. 

 

I'll look at the other one too. 

[ktgrok]

Might be good to figure out *why* she's having issues with read alouds, since that's not common for dyslexics. Usually you put them to audiobooks, and boom they're golden. So do you think it's an *attention* issue or an auditory processing issue or...? Are full evals on the table for her? I forget what evals you got so far. And did she have a screening for APD or symptoms? And did the person who did her evals do language testing to see if there's an answer there?

 

In general, if she hasn't done the American Girl books, I would suggest working through those, along with projects. That would be a more visual, narrative approach. Have you read Dyslexic Advantage by the Eides yet? She might have a thinking style/strength you can teach to. 

 

But yeah, definitely figure out what the read alouds aren't working, as I think that would not be the norm.

 

My guess is ADHD. My oldest has it, I probably have it, and I'm thinking she does too. So she gets bored after a while. I can get through one chapter of Little House books, but that's it. Not more than that without losing her. She WILL listen to SOC in the car and we get through more that way, fewer distractions I think. Remember, I've got the 5 yr old and the baby making noise, being annoying, etc at home so that's probably a factor too. 

 

So daily we get in a chapter of Little House or something similar, a picture book or two, and then either I read for a few minutes from a science text like Behold and See or we listen in the car to SOC or Story of the Bible. 

[Alice]

This year my 8 year old and I have been reading the American Girl books for history. We are concentrating on twentieth century so are doing Rebecca through Melody. It’s been great. She hates history so my goal was just to convince her that it could be fun and interesting. We read the novels and then also read the “Kit’s World†or equivalent book for each era. You could do a lot more with it...crafts, cooking, etc. I haven’t done that much just because of time but even just reading the books has been a good broad overview of American history for her. 

[PeterPan]

My guess is ADHD. My oldest has it, I probably have it, and I'm thinking she does too. So she gets bored after a while. I can get through one chapter of Little House books, but that's it. Not more than that without losing her. She WILL listen to SOC in the car and we get through more that way, fewer distractions I think. Remember, I've got the 5 yr old and the baby making noise, being annoying, etc at home so that's probably a factor too. 

 

So daily we get in a chapter of Little House or something similar, a picture book or two, and then either I read for a few minutes from a science text like Behold and See or we listen in the car to SOC or Story of the Bible. 

 

I would do some digging there. Little House is a 1st grade read aloud for typical kids. Like in the school I worked in during college, they used it as the read aloud for 1st graders, typically developing class, no problem. It seems like you have more going on. An SLP could do language testing on her. Does she have issues with background noise? She's old enough to do the screening portion of the SCAN for auditory processing disorder. 

 

I would definitely be digging in on that. You want to know if it's a vocabulary issue or the background noise or what. If it's attention, simply putting her in motion should solve it. Like with my dd, I would have her run around the yard while I read aloud to her. I never had to drop the reading level for that. She was listening to Lang's Fairy Tales at 5/6, and her IQ is probably lower than yours by a mile. 

 

If the language testing shows her vocabulary is low, you can preload (preteach) vocabulary and increase her use of audiobooks. Reading comprehension is 80% previous knowledge, so preteaching vocabulary and introducing them to content in the book is a common strategy. If she's having trouble with background noise, you can put headphones on her. In fact, that would be something I would try pronto. Get the same book as an audiobook and have her do it in the same setting (car, whatever), but put noise canceling earbuds or headphones on her. I have Sennheisers that are superb ($70-ish), but also just the $5 cheapie things from amazon can work. Or put the $5 earbuds under headphones. 

Edited March 11, 2018 by PeterPan

[ktgrok]

It is definitely not a vocabulary issue. When she was tested in first grade by a speech language pathologist her vocabulary was about fourth grade. Actually might’ve been higher. It very much well could be the background noise. We will try the headphone thing and see if that helps.

Edited March 11, 2018 by ktgrok

[ktgrok]

Also, in all honesty, I don’t even like audiobooks. Or being read aloud to. My attention wanders almost immediately.

[ktgrok]

And all the motion would help if it was a hyper activity attention issue it’s not. Neither my oldest nor I have any hyper activity issues. It’s the inattentive type of ADHD. Her stamina has improved a lot though.

 

But really it IS chaotic when I try to read to them. Which is probably why I don’t listen to audio books either, lol.

Edited March 11, 2018 by ktgrok

[PeterPan]

Stamina for what? For listening to read alouds? I would try the limited distraction environment and give her something to do with her hands/body and see what happens. She's young enough to like playdough, but also the stuff Timberdoodle sells in cans is nice. Or mushroom knitting. Something to do with her body. A book of doodling, anything.

 

Does she *visualize* what she reads or what she is hearing? Some people have trouble with comprehension because they are not visualizing the story. There's a curriculum, Verbalizing and Visualizing, by Lindamood Bell/Gander Publishing. Super, super common thing to need to do. And I think it's something you can just kind of informally check to determine if she needs it or not. Take her to a quiet place and have her close her eyes and listen to something brief you read her. Then ask her questions that she would only be able to answer with her mental picture. Like if you're reading her Chronicles of Narnia, what color is the coat, how many talking trees were there, blah blah. 

 

How is she in *noisy* environments? A convention or Chipotle, those would be really classic examples where she's having to filter background noise. At the most severe, a dc with APD issues will actually seem deaf in a noisy environment, because they can't distinguish figure/ground. They might get headaches with noise or struggle to hear you when the kitchen fan is on.

 

There's a lot of overlap. I'm just saying there are layers, and that's stuff I would informally look at and go ok, no problem there, not contributing. 

Edited March 11, 2018 by PeterPan

[ktgrok]

She follows along fine, and comprehends very well. She just doesn't LIKE to listen for very long. She wants to go do something else. And meanwhile a baby is crying, a little brother is interrupting to answer questions, etc. 

 

And like I said, even I don't like to listen to audiobooks because of the distractions. If you get distracted while actually reading, because say your brother came over and asked a question, you just pick up where you left off. If you get distracted listening to an audiobook you either miss something or have to rewind or whatever. Total PIA. 

 

So that's why say, Sonlight and such are not good options. 

[ktgrok]

So, she actually asked for a second chapter tonight, of Trixie Belden!!! But I could tell her interest was waning by the end of that second chapter. She was eager to be off and doing something else. 

 

Back to the history thing, I already have SOTW Ancients, and for fun I listened to the Jim Weiss audio for a minute, as I'm honestly bored with the Greeks and thought maybe we'd throw in a bit of Ancient China or Africa, which SOC doesn't cover. Got to say, the audio for SOC is SO much more interesting....it's true audio drama, with sound effects and such. Not sure how well SOTW with Jim Weiss will go over in comparison. We'll see!

[ktgrok]

So we read one section of ancient china today from SOTW - rather, Jim Weiss read it while they ate breakfast and I got dressed, lol. Kids liked it! And when I came out I asked the questions, then we did the map. Later I read from the Usborne Encyclopedia. I'd forgotten how easy/open and go it is. 

 

I went with SOC partly because I wanted the Catholic content but mostly because I thought I would prefer going by civilization rather than strictly chronological. But golly I'm sick of the Greeks!!!! I think breaking it up more is more enjoyable after all. 

[meganrussell]

Also, in all honesty, I don’t even like audiobooks. Or being read aloud to. My attention wanders almost immediately.

I am the same way. I am a bookworm and love to read, but I cannot stand being read to or listening to audio books. I don't have the attention for it, I guess?

[Earthmerlin]

This year my 8 year old and I have been reading the American Girl books for history. We are concentrating on twentieth century so are doing Rebecca through Melody. It’s been great. She hates history so my goal was just to convince her that it could be fun and interesting. We read the novels and then also read the “Kit’s World†or equivalent book for each era. You could do a lot more with it...crafts, cooking, etc. I haven’t done that much just because of time but even just reading the books has been a good broad overview of American history for her.

This is a neat idea! I don't know much about AG books so do they only cover American history? I'd think so given the name of the line--but who knows. Are 'Kit's World' books aligned with the AG books? Kind of like factual books about the AG book topics? Neat! Perhaps we'll try them as well.

Edited March 13, 2018 by Earthmerlin

[Alice]

This is a neat idea! I don't know much about AG books so do they only cover American history? I'd think so given the name of the line--but who knows. Are 'Kit's World' books aligned with the AG books? Kind of like factual books about the AG book topics? Neat! Perhaps we'll try them as well.

 

 

Yes, only American history. 

 

I’m not sure if they have one for each historical doll, but the “Welcome to Kit’s World†books do line up with the character’s time period. So the one on Kit went a fair amount of detail (for an 8 year old) about the 1930s and the Depression. Each one we’ve read also has a section on the fashion of the time, pop culture things, food they might have eaten, kid’s games, etc. So very accessible for a kid that age.  I believe there are also cookbooks for many of the girls but we only used that for one.