Homeschool and the Struggling Reader

 

Between Bee and Bug, I thought I had a seen a lot, and I thought I was a pretty experienced homeschool mom.  I also thought that reading was fairly straightforward.  The kids learn the basic sounds, and then they start to read simple books, and you just tell them about additional phonograms, silent e, and words with unusual spellings, right?  Well that's how it went for Bee and Bug.  Bee could read pretty well at 6 and Bug at 5.  They became obsessed with Garfield comics at around the age of 8.  We did some spelling instruction but almost no reading instruction.  (They both learned most of their basic sounds at Montessori school).  They always tested very high at reading.  

Dot, on the other hand, was completely different.  She did not go to Montessori school.  When she was 4, I got All About Reading pre-reading.  We did all of the lessons.  While going through them, I noticed that she struggled with the sound games and became extremely frustrated at times.  We went very slowly, and I did not force her to play games that she found upsetting. 

After that, I thought we would go right into Explode the Code Book 1.  That proved to be far too difficult. So, we did Explode the Code's pre-reading program, which was immensely helpful.  It also took a while, and I think we finished when she was 6. At the same time, she tried a handwriting class, which she found extremely frustrating.  She also worked on phonics and sounds as part of a weekly kindergarten homeschool class. 

At the time we moved house, she had turned 7, and the concept of using sounds to make 3-letter words was just starting to click.  She had difficulties that her brothers never had: adding sounds that weren't there, lack of sound awareness, doing lots of guessing, struggling with very simple word blends.  Letters D and B constantly mixed up.  When writing, letter reversals were constant.  (Her focus and concentration, however, are excellent.)

Still, her reading skills improved.  We continued with Explode the Code, and it gradually got easier.  We bought every BOB book in existence, and she read them repeatedly.  She seemed to need a lot of reinforcement on the basics.  

I didn't push her, and we didn't spend an inordinate amount of time on reading and phonics, just a little bit a day.   Explode the Code, BOB books, The Good and the Beautiful handwriting.  

I have tried very hard not to let my stress and my ideas about timelines for reading interfere with her process of developing the skills of reading, writing, and spelling.  Her brain is ready when it's ready!  

Gradually, we finished Explode the Code Book 1 and tried Book 2, but it was too hard, so I got book 1.5.  One day Book 2 was very easy, and we skipped a lot of it and moved into Book 3 and worked through it pretty quickly.  

Gradually, she started reading words in the wild more frequently.  She graduated the BOB books and reads things like George and Martha.  We are currently working in Explode the Code books 4 and 3.5 and continuing with handwriting.  Her dad reads to her at night, and she reads to him, and she listens to hours a day of audiobooks.  

She loves to write and illustrate stories for fun and loves calendars and her planner that she got for Christmas.  Her spelling is unusual but shows consistent improvement. 

Meanwhile, I found out that at least two of her cousins have a dyslexia diagnosis.  I also talked to many homeshool moms with children who had that diagnosis, and it seemed like Dot and I were already doing what was recommended for reading difficulties (phonics, individual attention).  I suspect she could qualify for a dyslexia diagnosis, and we might want to have testing at some point, especially if it can be done in a convenient and inexpensive way.   

I also have homeschooling friends whose children have far greater struggles than Dot.  Some have chosen to use a professional reading tutor, and that is something I would absolutely want to utilize if I felt we were stuck.  But as I am seeing steady progress, I have not explored that route.  

I have NO ISSUE at all with her having a "label."  But it isn't worth the time and effort of acquiring the label will not change how we are educating her.  There have been times when I have been worried that people might judge us and think that we are not educating her properly.  But her Sunday school teachers and other teachers have all been kind, understanding, and supportive.  When I told one of them about her being behind in reading she just said, "Oh, I hope you're giving her lots of phonics, since they don't do that in the schools." 

At the age of 8, Dot keeps making steady progress, and I think she is doing great.  She has a very solid foundation in phonics and continues building on it. 

Most importantly, she loves reading and says that it is her favorite subject! 

All About Reading: Pre Reading: An Initial Review

Like many parents who have homeschooled for many years, I have become increasingly wary of early academics, but I do believe in following a child's interests.  I would have been content to hold off on letter learning until age 6 or 7, but Dot has already picked up a lot on letter names and sounds, asks about the names of letters, and seems highly motivated to learn about them. 

What we tried already:  Sandpaper letter cards, learning the sound names for the lowercase letters, playing sound games.  I did this in my Montessori-trained way, but she really didn't take to it, especially the sandpaper letter cards.  I think it's more exciting to learn this way in a classroom with a teacher.  We have always read to her; she gets at least 3 books every night at bedtime. 

We are about 9 lessons into All About Reading so far, and Dot has really taken to it.  She asks to do it every day.  She likes both the activities and the special time with mommy. 

What I like so far: 

• It is scripted with no prep from the parent (other than punching out the notecards.)  
• I am already comfortable with the method, since I did several years of All About Spelling with my boys.  
• The materials are attractive.  I like the letter posters that we have put on the wall.  
• It is systematic and logical and based in research on how children learn.  It is a good phonetic foundation.  
• It's gentle and encouraging and short, just a few minutes a day.  
• We have been having fun with the rhyme games and letter coloring.  
• I'm enjoying reading Dot the included poems.  

Possible Disadvantages:

• Not sure the coloring sheets would have ever held my boys' attention.  But there are supplemental activity suggestions (like making the letters out of clay or pipe cleaners) that could be even be a substitute.  

It seems a perfect program for children ages 4-7 (or even older) to introduce pre reading skills.  Again, I would not rush it and would not use this or any program with a 4 or 5 year old who wasn't showing interest.  I would just stick to reading them picture books, maybe playing some fun sound games, and wait a bit on letters.  If your child is interested and developmentally ready for pre-reading skills, I think All About Reading Pre Reading is an ideal program!  

Literature for 2nd and 6th Grade

Most of our reading has been informal.  We read to both boys when they were younger, and now they read to themselves.  This year, however, I'd like to do a little more with them. 

For Bee, I will be assigning him one book a month.  I thought of having him choose from a list of books, but he tends to get overwhelmed by too many choices, so I thought it better just to pick for him.  I have tried to choose books that I think he will really enjoy and that are also a little different from his usual choices. 

I will have him read about a chapter a day until he finishes the book each month, depending on the length of the chapters.  After he finishes, I plan to take him to a coffee shop to get him a treat on a weekend, and bring a list of book discussion questions, like having our own little book club.  I am drawing the discussion questions from the web in advance.  He will also have a writing assignment each month based on the book he has read.  

Here is his list:

• August: The Giver
• September: Harriet the Spy
• October: Hatchet
• November: Cheaper by the Dozen
• December: The Best Christmas Pageant Ever

These are all books that I read as a child, with the exception of The Giver, which will be new to me.  I hope this will be a fun experience for both of us.

For Bug, I went to the Five in a Row site and chose most of the books from their unit on longer picture books.  I'm not using the curriculum, but it was a good start for getting ideas on good books to read out loud.  I'll be choosing some others in addition. I'll try and make an update at the end of the semester about how it all went. 

Finally, I'd like to read them a poem a week, maybe on Fridays. 

January Homeschool

Maybe I'll try updating this blog monthly with items of interest. We'll see how that goes.

We have 2 days a week where we have no activities scheduled, and 2 days a week with afternoon activities. And Friday is our free day, as long as we've been working well all week. We either play games or go somewhere special. This serves as a great motivator for Bee to do his work.

Anyway, I decided to try making one of our long homeschool days a "language day," where nearly everything we do is reading/writing related and the other day a "math day," where everything is math except for Bee's 15 minutes (or chapter) of silent reading a day. This seems to be working out beautifully. I was feeling that our days were too crammed, and I'd rather spend a long time on each assignment and let Bee get as much out of it as he wants than chop things up and have to finish the next day.

On the math front, the program TOPScience: Get a Grip, for grades K-6 program is still really enjoyable. We use it once a week. If we do anything too much, Bee tends to get bored. I need to add some different containers for Bug to play with. I've also had to buy more lentils, since Bug makes such a mess with them. In fact, the floor in the computer room has a lot of lentils on it right now.

Bee hadn't worked much with the concept of rounding/estimating before, but it's something that kids his age are expected to learn. For some reason, we struggled with it a bit (probably because it's boring). This online game has helped a lot:
Round Off.

I bought the book Games for Writing by Peggy Kaye, and I've started using some of the ideas. The main difference is that I'm encouraging Bee to dictate writing to me, rather than trying to make him write so much. This way, he puts his very creative ideas into words, and I get them on paper for him. His thinking is so much more advanced than his ability to write. He's been writing more too. He likes to write me emails on the iPad, mostly about products he wants to buy. The important thing is that he's writing! We do one collaborative creative writing a week, at least one writing a week where he writes pretty much whatever he wants (he can choose a prompt or make up his own), and we do spelling and/or dictation sentences once a week, where we focus on spelling, handwriting, and basic punctuation. It seems to be working.

Materials we are using for wrting:

1) I'm a Writer! (And I Didn't Even Know It), Grade 2 by Teresa Domnauer
2) Rory's Story Cubes

I also signed Bee up for Explode the Code Online, to help him with phonics. It's a bit repetitive for him, but I'm seeing some good results in his spelling. It's good for 15 minutes once a week.

Also once a week, I give him a word ladder to do from the book Daily Word Ladders: Grades 2-3 by Timothy V. Rasinski. I think these are good for problem solving and cementing in Bee's brain how each letter functions.

We started our "History of the Universe" unit (history and science in one). We read Born with a Bang by Jennifer Morgan and have been watching How the Universe Works on Netflix Instant. I've certainly learned a lot!