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mariB
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| Posted: May 07 2011 at 6:34am | IP Logged
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All these fine ladies have given such good advice.
One thing I would like to point out. The point of homeschooling is not to be ahead of the kids in school or even on their level! I fell into this trap in the our early years of homeschooling.
Our 17 year old in his younger years was behind in reading, dreamy , and loved nature. He is still dreamy, writing songs, still loves nature, a bee keeper. I let him develop according to his rhythm. He was behind in his early years and then we ended up letting him use his 8th grade year as his first year of high school because somehow he jumped ahead!
I remember our little girl when she was in a play when she was 8 could not read the script while all the other kids her age could. And now she is 11 and read 40+ books this year.
Praying hard for you. I cannot tell you how much the ladies at this forum have helped me over the years!
Note: We have used Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons with all 5 of our kids and really love it. I would encourage anyone using it to go at a pace that is comfortable for you and your child. If that means slowly doing half a lesson a day, then so be it.
Blessings to you and your family!
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marib-Mother to 22ds,21ds,18ds,15dd,11dd and wife to an amazing man for 23 years
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Pilgrim
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| Posted: May 07 2011 at 7:38am | IP Logged
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Wanted to add in encouragement. It was a HUGE struggle teaching our oldest to read. I would feel pressure sometimes, external and internal. I wish I had been even more patient with her than I was. She learned to read at 8, and she has not stopped since. Very soon after she really "got it" she turned into a voracious reader, almost as much as my brother who learned to read at 5. I think at times she may even read at a higher level than her age. I can't tell you how much it means to me after all the times of difficulty and worry over it to have to tell her to put a book down to do this or that! My natural feeling was tolet her take her time as you are with your dd,I wish I hadn't ever let pressures lead me to push, but alas even us parents are still learning! 
As a side note, my Mom told me about a discovery years back where children who never crawled had trouble learning to read(boys even more than girls), I guess they would do some physical therapy with them with activities they would have done in that learning to crawl stage, and it really helped them in learning to read. I always thought that was interesting how there is an internal order in the brain to development!
Praying for you and husband and dd! You are doing such a wonderful job, don't get discouraged! 
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Dove
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| Posted: May 07 2011 at 5:22pm | IP Logged
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It never hurts to hire a specialist to test for learning problems. Home school with all its flexibility is actually a blessing for the child with learning difficulties as the subject material can keep moving according to readiness while remedial is done regarding the LD if there is one.
Some kids are just slower than others as several people have said. So if the testing shows no LD's then it is likely perfectly OK.
I recall being pressured to read as well as another child in my age group (she entered K reading) and resenting it. However, I turned on to books sometime around my 9th birthday and read my way through the children's half of our public library and was given special permissions to check books out of the non-fiction portion of the adult side years before most of my peers.
Kids turn on to reading at different ages.
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Maureen
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| Posted: May 09 2011 at 10:18am | IP Logged
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I have had three children that were "slow" to read. It is such a relief when it finally "clicks" and they take off. One thing that helped my oldest son tremendously was to read the same passage, page or chapter three times over the course of the day. If it is a shorter piece, it can be read three times in succession. This was great for his fluency and sped up the learning process.
Don't give up; she'll be reading soon! 
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Maureen, mom to 8 treasures
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nissag
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| Posted: May 09 2011 at 3:17pm | IP Logged
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I've had early readers and late readers. Our 10 year old son didn't start reading until he was about 8 years old. His older sister was 7 or 8 also. Our oldest two children were about 3.5 years old when they learned to read. Our daughter Sophie reads easily at almost 6 and our 4 year old son reads fluently already. Louis was actually reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory yesterday.
With our two late readers, nothing worked but time. And once they were really ready to give it a go, they excelled. They are both voracious readers now.
I think it's fine to have an assessment done if you feel it would be useful to you. It may serve to settle your husband's anxiety. It may be a lack of interest, or an eyesight issue.
Just keep on reading aloud in the meantime.
Blessings,
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Nissa
Deacon's wife, mother of eleven, farmer, teacher, creator, cook.
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UK Mum
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| Posted: May 13 2011 at 2:28pm | IP Logged
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thank you again ladies for your encouragement & prayers.
I am pleased to say my daughter is coming on well. I have focused purely on her reading the last couple of weeks. Here is what we have been doing:
Phonics work.
Dictation (single words related to her phonics)
Sight words
Reading from her reader
Word puzzles & games
she has improved a lot. With hindsight I think she is just a child who was never going to be an early reader. Her 5 yo sister is so much faster at picking up new sounds etc. I had nothing to compare her to before, IYSWIM.
I really cannot say thank you enough. It has been an enormous support to be able to come here & read & re-read the messages
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Lynn
“I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.”
Michelangelo
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Mary Fifer
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| Posted: July 03 2011 at 11:26pm | IP Logged
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Oh, Lynn. I feel your pain. At least I have the luxury of a husband who had had troubles in school himself, so that he is not anxious about our children's speed in progress; he became a pilot! I can offer some encouragement to you and your husband. First, how is your husband's job situation now? It's good to hear of your dd's improvement! We know the joy!
We have what amounts to two sets of children, education-wise. My oldest four went to school, two for 8 years; another for 3 and another for 2. One of the first two did very well and could read most anything by the time she was 7. The other had problems clear through 7th grade when Grandpa came home from learning Spalding Phonics in Phoenix Arizona. He taught our 5 oldest the phonic sounds and, voila! Two results: First, she could spell better; her average for years was at a 40% and it rose 10 points each month till she made an 85% that hasn't dropped yet – she's 21 and building websites now. Second, she realized that if she had to sound out a word in a sentence that she should then reread the passage for understanding. This result rippled into all of her classes! She improved her grades in all her classes by at least a letter grade that year, and has had continuing success throughout the years. We prayed and worked, and we had prayed and worked; but at this point our prayers were answered with more efficient work. Long story short, we had several who were "in school" yet could not "read" ONE WAS RECEIVING As!!! I have a 15 year old, that we had removed from that school, who has classmates who are still in 6th and 7th grade trying to work the ladder….. Suffice it to say that we have known many children "in school" who are not reading by 9-11 years old.
For future encouragement, let me say that I have at least 3 pairs of children who basically went through school at the same level even though they were two years apart in age. Two were boys and two were girls, so I don't see a boy/girl thing there. Combining classes is a big short cut in a large family.
I agree with ABAng's good encouragement. Having the children read easy words or selections from what I am reading really does boost interest and it engages them in the story better. Barbara is so right about the labeling! I am certain that I have 2 or three that would have been "labeled" who are just fine now and she's right about the mix of issues being hard to discern. As a matter of fact, Grandpa rescued my third child, too. His teacher had threatened to hold him back and the principal had suggested psychological testing! Scary. At the next quarter the teacher wrote on the report card, "Whatever Grandpa's doing is GREAT!" and the principal said let's just keep this our little secret. I'm really glad, because I see some families jumping giant hoops once they agree to the psycho stuff.
I agree with Jodie, too, that most of the children seem to catch up with each other by 9-11 years old, even my slowest have "caught up" and I've seen this in other families. What might be encouraging to you is that those who had had to work hard are the ones who do not mind working hard now, and by this they sometimes excel beyond their brighter siblings :-)
I've explained a great deal of the best of what we've done through the last 24 years at this thread:
http://4real.thenetsmith.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=32065&KW=st %2E+bridget
The link above covers the subject of us teaching with several ideas that I'd never seen anywhere else, or at least found a "method" for. Some of the best help we've had over the years is in that thread and includes: teaching from a higher level "hard" text as an older person wrote that old-timers used to do, teach from the words that they do not know for any spelling words (from an old book by a superintendant of schools that did not like the new "methods" of the early 1900s), and last but not least, continuing to do copywork as Dr. Art Robinson mentioned in his video on his Robinson Curriculum site.
Currently, I have my child who has had the VERY hardest time of all the others (10 years old) excited that he read the whole Kindergarten book in less than 24 hours, the First Grade book in less than a week and is working on 10 "fun" books of his choice before he reads the Second Grade book (Living My Religion Series). He's going to zoom through that book since these fun books have very big words in them, especially the animals book…. Tea is right, sometimes we overlook the need to review, review, review!
As you can see, I'm keeping notes as I read this thread. I have a son that was very similar to your daughter's "special" start, not this 10 year old. As a matter of fact, as slow and careful as he is I'm often very worried about him, but he receives the same grades on tests as his quicker sister. He even shakes when he's very happy (at 15 its usually in private). I really agree with Jodie not to agonize over anything – simply come back to it several times with more practice.
THANK you Maureen for the idea of reading the same page three times in a day! I think that would help one of mine right now. When my 10 year old has a slower sentence with many sound-outs I have him read it a time or two, or if he is tired, I reread it with him for understanding. The confidence he gains helps him be smoother on the rest of the page. I think I'll start your idea this fall as a scheduled event, maybe catechism questions….
I was going to that thread when I saw your note. I thought that I'd encourage you before I took the "rest of the story" to the thread above :-) You and your husband have my heartfelt prayers. It's making it through the hard-times that can draw us closer through the years. I'll be saying an extra Rosary in a short while and I'll include your job intentions.
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Mary
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4Real Forums : Language Arts Come Alive
Topic: oh, help, help, help!!!!! - reading
