Am I a total slacker?

[Reya]

DS is very bright (99.9th+ %ile) but has several issues--CAPD/ADD/dyslexia. We've worked and work on the dyslexia, and something just clicked a couple of months ago so that he can now read at a 4-5th grade level completely independently at 200 WPM with excellent comprehension. This is totally, amazingly awesome!

 

My problem is actually with our read-alouds. With his ADD and CAPD, he struggles mightily at understanding factual read alouds, though he enjoys and continues to get short books in the evenings. But to get him to follow a SOTW session requires me to stop every paragraph and ask questions--and a good third of the time, to reread it.

 

However, if HE reads it, not only will he understand, but we'll stop and discuss the material, and he'll ask questions about any word he doesn't understand, and he'll retain it for a long time.

 

I'm really inclined to have him do the reading of any book he can handle and just do discussion and activities together. It'd be more work for him but also less time and less frustration.

 

Is it horrible of me to "push" this off on him? Will I be making a mistake not to continue to tackle the CAPD head on with every lesson? I don't want him to be crippled against listening for life, that's for sure, but I also don't want things to be unnecessarily unpleasant for him, either.

 

He struggles to pay attention to oral subjects he finds fascinating, so this isn't something to do with disinterest.

[Laura Corin]

That would give him the continuing practice in understanding what he hears, whilst giving you a break from going through that all the time.

 

Best wishes

 

Laura

[happymainemom]

Especially in our history. After struggling a lot of the year, I realized that she just doesn't seem to comprehend the information well when it is read to her. She can't answer questions, gets details mixed up and generally is frustrated. When she was able to read better (she is 8 and on a 4-5 grade reading level, I think) I began to have her sit with me instead of coloring to read the history book. I read one paragraph, she reads the next. I make sure that she is following the text when I read. When I read a section, then I get to ask her a couple questions about the paragraph and vice versa when it's her turn to read! She seems to be understanding it better now.

 

How old is your son? I don't think it's terrible to have him do the reading. Maybe switch off with him...be right there--be involved with it--then it won't seem like he's pushed off on his own. I've thought the same thing. I just always make she is either reading it on her own or, if I'm reading it, she is following along with me.

 

hth!

[Nan in Mass]

If you weren't you, I would stay quiet, but I've read enough of your posts to know you'll ignore this if it doesn't make sense to you.

 

I have an 18yo who is the other way around: he can absorb material more easily if it is read aloud to him than if he reads it to himself. He struggled a bit with a few more things, also, so I read lots of things aloud to him and let him use tapes. Well, there did indeed come a time, as you are wondering, where we had to even him out a bit and make him learn to absorb written material, and by then, the material was at a higher level and he was struggling with understanding the material as well as absorbing it in written form. In a way, it was an advantage to have waited because he understood that he did indeed need to be able to do this and was more willing to work at it and not passively resisting, and he was older and could learn it faster; but overall, I wish I'd tackled the problem when the material was easier and he only was struggling with the means. I can't imagine that your son is struggling with the SOTW material. If you can manage to do it without damaging his enthusiasm or his willingness to homeschool or his confidence in himself (if, if, if), then I would suggest that you work on learning absorbing through the ears now, when the material is easy. Later, when someone else is teaching him, he probably will get things double - a lecture to listen to and a textbook to read, and he'll get to choose, but not all classes have textbooks.

 

In general, I chose some things to just leave alone. "Well, you just are going to need someone to proofread anything you write. We won't spend massive amounts of time trying to make you a mediocre speller." And some things I've chosen to spend the massive amounts of time to "fix", like the ability to tell a story in order, without lots of ummming. I am happy I did things the way I did, but there have been one or two things that I thought I could leave alone but then had to fix later, like the reading/listening thing. I wish I'd fixed them earlier.

 

Just in case this helps... I like Laura's suggestion. If you are wondering if this is a good idea, it probably isn't. Otherwise, you wouldn't be worrying about it. What does the rest of your family advise?

-Nan

[KristenS]

Can he listen to the SOTW CDs while reading along? Would that count as listening practice?

 

Are there some sort of fact sheets he can fill in while he listens, that might help him focus? (Like those cloze worksheets where you fill in the missing word in the sentence.)

 

I don't think you're a slacker not to tackle it every lesson. It needs to be addressed, but not 24/7. Life would be way too frustrating that way. :)

[Kim in Appalachia]

I found he did much better if he could read along. I had to read with him over my shoulder following. He could only "hear" if he could see.

 

He does a little better now, but that is only if he is really into the story. Even then he mentally blanks out while listening.

 

We spend a lot of time in the car, so I like to have the kids listen to audio books, especially during long trips. He likes the books, and will listen, but he always misses a few chapters, which turns into a good excuse to listen to it again.:)

[lionfamily1999]

Why not let him read the history and then make a mini-class for listening comprehension?

[Rebecca in VA]

I agree with Kristen and Kim. He may need to see the words, but it would be good for him to hear them as well. He could sit with you as you read and alternate paragraphs, or sit with you and do some kind of quiet handiwork, looking on as you read.

 

My daughter has some of the same issues as your son, and she knits as I read aloud. This enables her to see the words and hear them at the same time, while keeping her hands busy. She gets very restless if she doesn't have something to occupy her eyes, her ears, and her hands at the same time.

[Reya]

Yeah, I was still going to read all materials too hard for him!

[Mom22ns]

I too have an extremely bright son with issues. He is very visual and learning just by listening is very difficult. He reads SOTW to himself, he gets so much more from it that way. We do have read aloud time every day and he really enjoys that. Right now we are reading Mara, Daughter of the Nile. I do have to check in more to make sure he is comprehending everything and picking out some of the finer points of the story than if he were reading it himself. We enjoy and learn during read aloud times, but I don't use it for base curriculum information. Spines are always read silently or at least where he can read with me. It just helps him understand and remember much more!

 

I don't consider it lazy, I consider it teaching to his learning style. Thats the whole advantage of homeschooling! :D

 

Debbie

[Reya]

What does the rest of your family advise?

-Nan

 

Haven't had a chance to ask Mom! I'm a bit more militant than she is about hitting things head-on. :-) I'm not sure what research she's read on the subject....

 

I knew about the problems caused by not reading with ease--and I knew how to remediate that pretty well, if not *easily*. (That's why we've spent so much time getting him to "click"!) I just haven't read anything about problems the other way around.

 

Now you're wondering why the heck I might be unsure of whether it will be a problem! *g* It's mainly because of studies like the one cited below. Half his problems might be because he's a 6-y-o boy, and he might grow out of a lot of the by age 9.

 

http://eideneurolearningblog.blogspot.com/2005/04/more-visual-learning-or-how-to-avoid.html

 

So I don't want to put tons of work into something that will go away on its own!

 

Also, we do practice listening all the time whenever he's given instructions in any class or by anyone. He's also read aloud to--fiction--every single night. And I'm already planning on using Teaching Co. lectures when he's older.

 

That's why I'm divided. If it will cause problems in the future, I don't want to stop. But if we're expending all this energy for nothing because either it'll improve as he matures or because he's practicing the skills all the time, anyway, it seems a waste. I can add more other things that are a bit easier for him but that still stretch him--like factual movies, more auditory Spanish, that sort of thing. But then again, if there IS some kind of window that might close forever without tackling this now....or if we've got to hit it just like this at some point, it'd be easier before DS starts needing instruction....

 

Make sense? :-)

[Reya]

How old is your son? I don't think it's terrible to have him do the reading. Maybe switch off with him...be right there--be involved with it--then it won't seem like he's pushed off on his own. I've thought the same thing. I just always make she is either reading it on her own or, if I'm reading it, she is following along with me.

 

 

He's 6. Last night, he read in my lap, and whenever he wanted to talk about anything, I was right there! I've tried dragging a finger under what I'm reading--that only works for short bursts until the Russian spy satellites and the air molecules conspire to distract him. ;-)

[Reya]

Can he listen to the SOTW CDs while reading along? Would that count as listening practice?

 

 

Couldn't do it. :-/ He reads in bursts and then lingers over novel/interesting information. That's another reason the reading silently works so much better for him--he can control the rate of flow of information.

 

Are there some sort of fact sheets he can fill in while he listens, that might help him focus? (Like those cloze worksheets where you fill in the missing word in the sentence.)

 

 

*shakes head* He couldn't do listening and worksheet at the same time!

[Reya]

I think books-on-tape might be an idea. He gets half an hour of read alouds at bedtime, but they're often familiar books--they're his choice. Books-on-tape might "stretch" him more.

 

Alternating paragraphs would probably be more successful than me just reading aloud, too!

[Reya]

Oh, and if it makes a difference, right now, our focus is the dysgraphia end of dyslexia. I now consider the dyslexia itself a non-issue. :-) His accuracy, comprehension, speed, and reading level are all high enough that I think they'll continue to improve just through practice, but writing is a whole 'nother can o' worms at this point. Going after that makes me want to hold off on anything else unless it's really important!

[Sasharowan]

I learned to read at an early age and have problems with people reading to me. Like the one poster's son, I tend to blank out. I don't have as much problem with lectures where the teacher is talking and not reading. Taking notes helps a lot too. I had a lot of issues in school where I would read ahead since I wasn't listening to the other kids read out loud and when it was my turn, I didn't know where they were.

[Mommy22alyns]

I have Rebecca do most of her own history and science reading. So maybe I'm a slacker too! No, I just realized that she focuses and retains a LOT better when she reads the material herself instead of hearing it read aloud. I sit with her as she reads to help with proper names. She gets plenty of practice listening to stories in the evenings for fun or supplemental materials, and she does retain some of that. It's just not as important as her SOTW or history encyclopedia readings - we don't do narrations for our evening read-alouds.

 

So I'd say, if you have found something that works and helps your DS retain information better, use it!

[Reya]

I learned to read at an early age and have problems with people reading to me. Like the one poster's son, I tend to blank out. I don't have as much problem with lectures where the teacher is talking and not reading. Taking notes helps a lot too. I had a lot of issues in school where I would read ahead since I wasn't listening to the other kids read out loud and when it was my turn, I didn't know where they were.

 

Um. I sort of didn't even try to stay with the class. After a while, the teacher learned better and left me alone to read by myself! :-) I didn't blank out so much is get crushingly BORED with the monotony, and yep, I had fewer problems with lectures, though I had to be doing an assignment from another class to be able to concentrate. (Math was best--math didn't interfere with listening. A foreign language was worst!)

[Reya]

Okay, here's my decision!

 

I talked to Mom, and she said, "Well it isn't like you're giving up on it, right? You have other priorities right now, and it may solve itself. So once those are out of the way, you can concentrate on something else for a while and focus on that when it's the most important thing."

 

Everyone else's stories help, too, I think. I've got a lot of listening in our day already, and I'll keep up with that. But we'll kill ourselves over writing production next. :-) We'll give listening a couple of years before really explicitly concentrating on that to the exclusion of other things. I like to have just ONE thing I'm really working on at a time, and we let the others kind of drift. First it was reading, and when that got to be to much, I let him do lots of math (his favorite) and then went back to reading with more ammo in our belts. Now we really need to work on writing production--neatness, ease, grammatical correctness, and expression of thoughts. Once that's at a level where only minimal steering is needed, we'll go after auditory skills.

 

I've had an assessment done. It wasn't complete enough to officially diagnose CAPD, but he had specific drops of 3 to 5 standard deviations on very specific language areas compared to his general abilities, so that's some pretty darned convincing stuff. :-) He's already had one giant leap forward--I'm hoping that others will come with time and practice but without knocking ourselves out over it yet!!!!!

[Nan in Mass]

I read textbooks in circles, so it is hard for me to absorb the material if someone is reading the textbook aloud to me. I don't have trouble with normal books, or when someone is speaking to me and I can ask questions. I didn't have trouble with lectures. Maybe it doesn't matter if he can't absorb textbooks? But he should be able to listen to a story, or someone speaking to him, or someone explaining something to him? How many of us really could absorb a textbook if it were read aloud to us? I bet not many. I bet most of us would want to hold the textbook for ourselves. So - maybe if you got some absorbing children's classics (something higher than If You Give a Moose a Muffin, anyway) on tape and let him listen, he would develop those story listening skills. They work especially well in the car, when the child is strapped down, or other places where the child is "stuck". The rest you probably are working on automatically every time you speak to him, at least as much as you want to for now, given the other issues. A major hitch I foresee in letting him do the reading to himself is that you haven't done it, too. Maybe having him read it aloud to you would solve that problem. That has worked for us. I'm just not self-disciplined enough to make myself read the material if I'm not doing it with the kids. And that way he can control his speed.

Moms are great, aren't they? I have a wise one, too.

-Nan

[Reya]

A major hitch I foresee in letting him do the reading to himself is that you haven't done it, too. Maybe having him read it aloud to you would solve that problem. That has worked for us. I'm just not self-disciplined enough to make myself read the material if I'm not doing it with the kids. And that way he can control his speed.

Moms are great, aren't they? I have a wise one, too.

-Nan

 

Nah. I read 95% of what he reads! I've read SOTW 1 and 2 twice already, and I'll read again to keep up. Can't discuss if I haven't read!

 

He reads faster silently, and I HATE to be read aloud to, so I'll just review it earlier that day. :-)

 

I'm going to use a lecture-style music program for now, too. We'll see how that goes! True lectures are very rare for this age group.

[Nestof3]

I have not read the other responses, but I have a horrible time following when someone else is reading. I'd much rather read it myself. Perhaps he is the same way. If he's okay with reading it on his own, great (IMO).

[Reya]

I have not read the other responses, but I have a horrible time following when someone else is reading. I'd much rather read it myself. Perhaps he is the same way. If he's okay with reading it on his own, great (IMO).

 

You know, I did a trial today with him listening to a lecture that was probably aimed for maybe 3rd-5th grade, and he had no problems whatsoever understanding it. I think it may just be the density of material in a book that's still stumping him. He's grown a LOT in the past year. I know he couldn't have done this anywhere close even last summer.

[Melabella]

Do you allow your son to color, doodle, build with legos, mold clay, or something similar while you read aloud? I just read another thread (not sure if it was here or on the SL forums) that had a link to a study that proved doodling helps people retain information they hear aloud. I know this is true for my daughter who has similar issues as your son. She usually colors or plays with beads while I read-aloud and she has excellent retention.

 

Just a suggestion.

[Reya]

It works GREAT for about 3 minutes--until he begins weaving a fantasy world around whatever he's doing! (This is the kid who can't to a math worksheet without it becoming a story...)

[Donna in OH]

My son was like that, too. He's almost 12 now, but when he was little he HATED listening to books on CD. Once he was reading fluently, he seemed not so agitated by them, since he could take a look at the accompanying book on his own. Very bright boy, also very visual. So, if I had depended on the auditory approach for him, it would have been torturous.

 

I agree with Momto2Ns. Adapt to what works well for him.

 

Donna