homeschooling fall 2003? lots of ???????s

Mary,

Wow, you have a lot of questions! I am not currently homeschooling but am considering it for the future, so I can only answer a few of your questions.

Curriculum: Yes, some curriculums would be better than others for a particular child. First of all, you need to know exactly where he is in terms of reading and math levels. If he needs remediation on those areas, that comes first. If you are fearful of things like high school algebra, you can get some great video series:

http://www.videotext.com/index.htm

Many LD children do better with a unit study approach to subjects like science and social studies. You might look at Core Knowledge for a very good base for your social studies:

http://www.coreknowledge.org/CKproto2/bkstr/index.htm

Art, music, PE: Yes, get the child in private lessons and sports. That will cover you for those subjects so that you can focus on English, math, science, and social studies.

State Testing: Different states have different requirements for homeschoolers. My state does not require the state tests but requires one achievement test of your choice be turned in each year. To be honest, the reason I WILL homeschool will be to avoid the state tests. My child can “graduate” from my homeschool whether or not she could master the state’s insane testing requirements. I’m waiting to see how she does on the first test in third grade before I decide.

Foreign Language: They say Spanish is the easiest, and I daresay most useful foreign language at the moment in this country. You can also get taped programs for teaching this. When it is time, you can always try it but drop it if he can’t do it. Not everyone has to go to four year college. There are many good jobs out there for two-year college graduates in fields that might tap into their good hands-on skills.

Working and homeschooling: I’ve heard of people who do this successfully. But in the case of a child with ADD, I will say that my experience is that they get little done independently. they require a lot of encouragement along the way. If you expect hom to complete work while your husband is at hoem with him, then your husband will haev to be involved. Or, he can wait and do all his work when you are home.

Support groups: By all means connect with a support group. The only thing I would caution you about is this. There are some VERY strong opinions out there within homeschooling. And within special needs there are even more. I ahve read some scary advice for children with reading difficulties. There are some who say that children should have no formal reading instruction until age 9 or so, for example. I would strongly caution you to come here for advice on teaching reading and math to your special needs child and not rely solely on other parents who may have limited knowledge. Parents can be wonderful sources of information, but they may not have the expertise to suggest the best things for YOUR child. There are some parents on this board who have educated themselves on LD, however, and I see good suggestions here. But there is great, free professional advice on this board, too.

Janis

I’ve gathered a few articles and links that should help you feel less like you’re the only one out there :-)
http://www.resourceroom.net/homeschooling/index.asp

My most favorite starting point for objective information is the “A to Z Home’s Cool” site at http://www.gomilpitas.com/homeschooling/index.html
There are links to lots and lots of support orgs. and state-by-state legal info. What state are you in?

Curriculum is a tough question though I would “outsource” some subjects too for most kids — it’s nice to have different teachers. I could help some with figuring out the skills areas and am a big fan of the “unit study” idea for our kids because done right it can be less fragmented and less dependent on rote memory. IMHO, you do have to be sure to do some nitty-gritty drill type stuff especially with kiddos with memory issues, so they can hang onto the labels for the stuff they are learning.

The resource room link has been awesome-several phrases caught my attention as in “this is my kid!” I havent even muddled through a fraction of the info but am excited, and yes, feeling less alone(my only experience w/homeschoolers has been those who started early and often went public in middle school, not the other way around)

‘words are a second language’-now THATS one to hang on my frig

although I will humbly admit this approach bugged me when it was used with my older, easy learning boys-I was very critical of it back then

I now see how advantageous it is with kids with varied learning stryles and also realize those were the years my older boys LOVED school. Although the older 2 continue to do well, they mention how they miss the days when they actually got to DO things and were able to see WHY they were learning certain things. Its a shame that style of teaching got caught up and flushed with whole language(at least in our district)

I think my LD son would be more cooperative if he could see the connections between learning and everyday life that this method highlights.

Are you in touch with Asperger’s groups? If you do a websearch, you’d likely find some group to connect with in your area. They might give you a longer term picture on your son that you currently have and at the least offer some insight into how possible Asperger’s children do with foreign languages.

Also connect with your local homeschooling community. A good websearch should connect you. They would know if your state is one that allows homeschooling students to come to school just for music and art - as my state does.

I’d say don’t feel as if you have to hit all the things that school tries to cover. Know that school divides the day into many different classes and periods because students do not have the attention span to remain in one class for very long. Schools don’t really much attention to art or music these days and whatever your son would get from you in that regard would likely be as much as he’d get in school.

Consider the basics. Never get far away from the old ‘Three Rs - Reading, ‘Writin’ and ‘Rithmetic’. As long as you’re moving him forward in his ability to read, write and do math, you and he will be fine. Anything else is icing on the cake.

The short term goal is that your son has a safe place to be each day where he is also improving himself, growing and developing. Making connections with other homeschooling families could help with that. The long term goal is likely that your son would lead an independent life as do we as adults and that along the way he acquires the skills that help him to do that.

The crossroads question - do you want him to attend college? Know that community college is very welcoming of students including homeschooled students whether they’ve taken a foreign language or not -and there are some four year colleges that would be options for him too. Know that if you’d ever want to put him back in school that you could also do that. I gave long consideration to homeschooling one of my own sons (and I wish I had) Homeschooling opens doors, it doesn’t need to shut them.

Maybe it would help to check out your most local colleges now and see if all of them have a foreign language requirement. Likely they don’t and you could put those concern behind you for now.

Good luck.

Have you checked out vegsource.com’s homeschooling forums? (Scroll down all the way on the homepage.) They cover a number of aspects: reading and math, special needs, classical etc.

Private schools for kids like yours can be very expensive. I think I’d put my money and time into addressing the CAPD first. Get an evaluation from a qualified audiologist. Earobics and Fastforward can help enormously, depending on the nature of your ds’s problems. You could also look into PACE for help with memory (or Brainskills, the cheaper home version). Other people swear by Audiblox, which is quite cheap. I don’t homeschool, but many of the posts I’ve read on this recommend holding back on the academics initially and putting efforts into remediation first.

For foreign language you might consider Latin—the study of roots could help with English language difficulties and since it’s to be read rather spoken you don’t have to worry too much about the speaking part. Vegsource’s classical forum has a lot of posts on teaching Latin—Minimus is a very cute introduction to Latin (see minimus.com) and Memoria Press has just issued a new introduction to Latin that has been praised on the forum. Other introductory material for Latin would be English from the Roots Up (I think there’s website for this by the author) and Rummy Roots, a card game based on matching Latin and Greek roots with the English meaning.

For music, why couldn’t you, for example, both learn to play the recorder together? I am also sure I’ve seen music appreciation courses in homeschooling catalogues that come with taped selections. As for art, I recently came across a reference that the Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain people have a course available on videotape with materials supplied. (I think it runs about $100 and the website, as I recall, is drawrightnow.com.) No reason you couldn’t do it along with your ds.

Actually, that is a good idea, I guess.

I bought a Teaching Children to Draw book years ago just for fun with my eldest and I had forgotten how much fun it was doing it together- I enjoyed it more than he did!

Ive thought of the balance board program for PE(Ballmetrics?)simply because my balance has never been strong, and I read how badly that can affect us babyboomers as we age. I figured even if it didnt pave new brain pathways in my son, I might save myself a fall down the road. ;)

I did PG over the summer but hit multisyllables right when school began-it is so hard to do that sort of thing after a full day of school we never continued. I like the idea of taking time to remediate at first and worrying about curriculum later

Thanks

I think that is a good attitude-really the 3 rs are what it is all about and if I work in the other stuff it could be one at a time-3 mos of music, 3 mos of science-whatever. That would leave plenty of time for filling in what I perceive as gaps

I’d agree — though whatever you do, give the kiddo a lot of ownership in it (or at least perceived ownership, which my folks were always extraordinarily good at — gosh, I thought switching schools was *my* idea :-))
At the very least, separate out the remediation from the content area. Don’t try to make content area learning the place to “practice” skills at that instructional level — it’s a simple but too often ignored fact that if you’re working hard at one thing you really can’t *also* work hard at another at the same time. (Try driving in a snowstorm and carrying on a conversation.) Of course, you can’t get totally away from it.
Another angle of that premise is realizing that if you work intensely at the remediation, then so many more options will be open because those skills will not be as big a handicap and you *will* be able to include independent reading and writing as part of the learning process.

I am nearly finished with homeschooling my dyslexic (for one) 17 yr old daughter. This is what has worked for us…Art? You do not have to be an artist to teach art history. Have him memorize or reconize famous pieces of art. There are several art history courses/programs available on tape. Sister Wendy comes to mind. Check out your local public tv stations and national pbs. They have programs that they beam into the public schools that you can tape and use at your convenience. Take trips to local museums…call them field trips. You can usually get a docent to give you a tour or fall in behind another, larger tour and listen! There are some wonderful books entitled “What makes a ____ a_____” fill in with artist of your choice. These are simple little books published by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC. that way your homeschooler can pick out a Raphael from a Rembrandt! (It impresses the grandparents!) There are music tapes out there, too. And just put on some classical tapes while you study or read. Just tell him, this is Mozart or whatever. My daughter went online and read things about the different composers. I have been where you are and I can tell you that the light in the tunnel is NOT a train. Teach what he can learn. You have plenty of time to figure out what to do with the foreign language. It is a struggle to try and do everything and yet be realistic. To be honest….I think the best language to learn is Latin for the following reasons: for one thing, Not everyone that takes Spanish is public school can speak it when they graduate. they just took that hours required to get into college. When your child’s transcipt says that they took Latin in high school, there is no one that is going to be able to say…hey, give me the fifth declension. Have him take a couple of years of Latin, have him do his best and leave it at that. He will increase his vocabulary, it will help him discover meanings as he recognizes root words and it sounds very good for him to say he is taking Latin. Latin is a dead language so he will never have to order in a restaurant in Latin! It will satisify the college requirements for a foreign language. In my mind, it is the perfect language for the ld kid. You can do this. Do not look at anyone else’s timeline. Throw the timelines away. You are not in a race to get the information in his head. It helps me to remember that I am not trying to fill a bucket, I am trying to light a fire. Discover how he learns and then teach him to learn. Once he knows how to learn….the rest gets easier. sorry this is so long but I am almost out of the tunnel and wanted to give some encouragement.

carrying on a conversation? Hey, perfectly normal everyday behaviour — of course I’m a Montrealer who likes to ski … (in other words, everything depends on circumstances, doesn’t it?)