| Author | |
Anneof 5
Forum Pro
Joined: June 10 2006
Location: N/A
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 217
|
| Posted: Oct 13 2009 at 8:07pm | IP Logged
|
 |
|
My ds10 has really struggled a lot with school from the beginning (ADHD, sensory integration disorder, major fine motor difficulties, visual processing deficits, and so on.. and have a younger dd who struggles a lot as well) Along with therapies for both, we have concentrated most of our efforts on reading and math and that has left very little time or energy on my part for the other areas such as science and history, much less writing anything more than a sentence. I am feeling like I have cheated him out of a more well rounded education and now that his reading has improved, I want to have him "catch up" somehow.
Does anyone have any suggestions for how to do this somewhat simply? I am still having to commit to spending a lot of our school time on the reading and math but realize he is needing more. Any specific book recommendations, paths to follow, etc? He does enjoy listening to cd's and his comprehension is pretty good. He has listened to all of the Narnia tapes, The Hobbit, lots of Jim Weiss tapes as well as others. I do have the Story of the World 1 on cd and the book but we never seem to get very far with it. We have done some backyard bird studies and took a science class at a nature center last year but I think he is at the age where he needs more. (but I am still tired out from all of the effort we still need to put into the basics)Sorry this is so long! Thank you!
Anne
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
ALmom
Forum All-Star
Joined: May 18 2005
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 3299
|
| Posted: Oct 13 2009 at 10:50pm | IP Logged
|
|
|
Anne:
First, a word of encouragement: It really can be done! It is hard to trust and very stressful for the mom teacher who just wants to be able to enjoy the children apart from all the school/therapy demands.
Take some time to enjoy and provide materials and see what they pick up. If you want to entice more writing, more subject area reading, etc. , it is more pleasant and more efficient to start with some sort of spark that they've discovered. I think some of my children enjoyed a bit of time just to enjoy having a bit of free time after all the therapy, learning how to read and do math stress. This allowed them a chance to discover what they really liked.
Think about your children, their personalities and what they gravitate towards in free time (and there is far too little of this when you are doing therapy).
I know this sounds odd, but when my children could read well enough to do so independently, I had a lot of easy reading in subject areas - so the reading level was what a lot of folks are doing in 1st - 3rd grade - look at Emmanuel books in the history section and pick some interesting books that are more like picture books than something you'd give them to read. This gives them interesting, quick overview of history. Then make timelines. That is great for history and you'd be surprised at how much they retain. It doesn't seem so intimidating and they then have the basic events and people foundation from which to build and begin to do real history as their confidence builds. I also then gradually noticed areas of interest and added in more and more books with more reading and more detail - all this just available but we might pick something to read aloud or do together. Same with the science - very easy, simple introductions on a very elementary level coupled with kits that worked for grades 3 - 12. The Arnosky books come to mind here as do a bunch of stuff from homescience. It felt more like playing to them - and none of the books were challenging to read but had really good information.
Eventually different children developed passions and pursued something further - one found history enticing and then had everyone building things. Another found science (chemistry in particular) to be the draw and everyone was being entertained and educated by his experiments.
These then became the jumping off points to expand in areas of less interest. So science fan who avoided literature and history started with the Holling C Holling books and then moved on to Swiss Family Robinson. All of these things were things they could do with a certain degree of ease and pleasure so they got to enjoy the fruits of all that hard work they put into therapy - and had a chance to see the results before we piled it own  .
As far as writing - we went very, very gently as this took a bit longer to come together. There didn't seem to be any chance until after 10. Then I tried to draw them into writing about things they liked - or if that wasn't much of a success at all and I was worried about ruining their desire to even read about it, then I got a workbook in some area we had to work anyways - ie a grammar workbook or a spelling workbook and started with writing in complete sentences with a capital at the beginning of the sentence and a punctuation mark at the end. I had some dictation where they told me the story, and I wrote it down. We couldn't copy it right away as that just was waaay too time consuming - it might take 1 hour per sentence to copy for some of mine at that point.
While we were enjoying the reading and doing timelines and experiments, I researched ways to increase the fluidity and speed of writing. We did a lot of those Montessorish things for a year along with requiring the answering of questions in complete sentences in one subject we were doing anyway.
The next year, we pulled out some brainstorming books, some workbooks from Kolbe that teach writing, we did a co-op Pudewa writing program at one point (not all these things at once, of course) and made some significant progress. We tried writing something a bit more extensive and started to achieve more coherance. I also printed off some of those visual organizing charts for my more visual learners and that helped some of them. For my science minded guy, we signed up for a reading course with Seton - to step through how to read between the lines and to have something that had to be answered in complete sentences  and so someone else would do the correction on papers and I could be the cheerleader for a change. (We did not put ourselves on any particular timeline so we plan to take our time and I picked something that had the concepts I wanted to work on in it more than a particular grade level). It clicked with him finally - but he is now almost 13. Another child, reads like a whip but still we are trying to be persevering with the writing that is not coming all that easy. We signed up with Kolbe for him with the EES and he has someone who is working with him a little at a time. The key seems to be having someone other than mom to be accountable to and someone who really knows what they are doing and only picking on 1 or 2 things at a time. I just kept not knowing where to start - spelling, basic grammar, organization and sequencing, .... This child also just seems to work better with a "teacher" and mom is the one who gets to celebrate the victories he achieves with him. This is a nice change from being the one who is always picking on making sure the therapy exercises are done just so and ..... We both needed this.
You will discover a way with your child. Do not panic or compare to the folks around you. Our children just take a path all their own - we get where we need to get, we just do it in a little bit different style. Spend some time praying and talking to your dh and brainstorming on one or two things each year for each child that you think will benefit them the most.
OH, and don't forget to teach them how to use a textbook when you do decide to add some of that in, if you do. I know  , I'd forgotten ours never used a textbook and then I just kind of had to do a week intro to textbook 101.
Janet
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
Anneof 5
Forum Pro
Joined: June 10 2006
Location: N/A
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 217
|
| Posted: Oct 14 2009 at 9:37am | IP Logged
|
|
|
Thank you Janet! I appreciate all of your ideas. Your children are truly blessed to have you for a mom!
Anne
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
LLMom
Forum All-Star
Joined: Feb 19 2005
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 995
|
| Posted: Oct 19 2009 at 4:37pm | IP Logged
|
|
|
Anne,
My 16 year old son was/is like this and possibly my 8 year old. We did a lot of books on tapes and videos of classics he can't read and probably will never be able to read. Also, I always kept up a lot of reading out loud and would read science and history things during this time so he could at least have exposure. It sounds like your ds is getting a lot from the tapes. It was important for my son to know what his friends were talking about when they discussed star wars, Redwall, Narnia, LOTR, etc.
__________________
Lisa
For veteran & former homeschool moms
homeschooling ideas
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
|
|
4Real Forums : Special Blessings
Topic: How do I fill in the gaps?
