Being "behind" and LDs

[ReadingMama]

I always worry at the beginning of a new grade because we are pretty behind in a few subjects. My 10yo son has dyslexia--math makes him cry and we haven't even attempted spelling yet. Memorizing math facts are next to impossible for him, though he gets math concepts. We haven't begun multiplication or division yet. He also has dysgraphia, so handwriting and even typing are difficult for him. Acording to testing, his struggles are due to visual processing and fine motor issues.

He loves reading and science and history and drama and music. That's what we've focused on in an unschooly way. And he's happy. But he has no interest in math or spelling or writing. I know I'm "supposed" to wait for readiness or interest--but do the guidelines change when there's a learning glitch? Is it really ok that he can't really write a sentence at 10? He can use a calculator for math, even at the SATs or ACTs, but he needs to be able to write. That's a really important skill. And because, like every hsing mom, I'm making this up as I go along, I don't know when to relax and when to intervene.

[zebra15]

Just a hug and to let you know my DS hates the actual act of writing but loves to type. So maybe typing will work better for your ds as well?

I dont know how long you've been homeschooling/unschooling. Have you tried to get a mentor or tutor for your ds to help with the math?

Have you done math in everyday situations like cooking, measuring, etc. (gas is 2.79/gal we got 17 gal... how much was it? type of thing? We prepaid $50, whats our change?)

[elizawill]

that's a tough one. it's hard to give advice based on a paragraph of information. i'm just wondering since he has learning disabilities, will the readiness come naturally? by not teaching the subjects, is it helping or hurting him in the long run? for math and language arts, *i* would probably seek out a LD tutor to assist him, if doing it myself wasn't working well (but i don't unschool, so of course my opinion is based on my own thoughts, ykwim?). honestly, if he just gets basic math down, that will probably serve him well enough in life & he will simply choose a path that is not math intensive (or he will rely on a calculator). writing, however, is a necessary skill (as you stated). it doesn't mean he needs to be excellent in it, but he should be able to communicate clearly with it. i guess the real question though is the one you've already asked. Do you do this at 10, or is waiting a little longer more beneficial? i would also pose this question in the unschooling forum. i bet someone there will have very good advice and lots of testimonies to ease your mind. hugs.

[Linda on the move]

Originally Posted by elizawill

i'm just wondering since he has learning disabilities, will the readiness come naturally? by not teaching the subjects, is it helping or hurting him in the long run? for math and language arts, *i* would probably seek out a LD tutor to assist him, if doing it myself wasn't working well

agreed.

I have a child with sn who I homeschooled for a long time. She currently attends school.

Waiting works for some kids, but not for others. You have to know your own child and trust your gut. Is your child suddenly going to wake up one day and just *get it*? If the answer is "most likely no," then hiring a tutor who understands how his brain works and can help him make sense of concepts like math and writing seems the better option.

My dd worked with a math tutor before entering and school and she did far better with the tutor than with me. It was one of the best things I've done for her.

<<I know I'm "supposed" to wait for readiness or interest--but do the guidelines change when there's a learning glitch?>>

There are no "supposed to's" or guidelines. You can find an *expert* to back up anything. Listen to your heart.

[ikesmom]

We have LD's with my 10 yr old ds too.

I wrote down a list of goals for ds at the beginning of 3rd grade when we started to hs. I tried to get him to write , but it was very difficult for him so I backed off. I waited a few months and started with a simple workbook for writing. You can write sentences on sentence strips and have him organize them into a paragraph. A important part of writing is the ability to sequence our ideas. Idea webs or flow charts are good too. You can write while he dictates and then just have him practice handwriting a few minutes a day. We use the Spongebob Typing program and both of my ds's love it.

This past year for fourth grade I was able to get ds to write more than ever. We read many of the classic stories condensed/illistrated like King Arthur, Gulliver's Travels ect. We watched the movie afterwards and would compare and contrast the movie and the book. We wrote down character names and traits, the setting, plot, climax ect. They really enjoyed Robinson Crusoe and ds surprised me by writing his own version (in his own short simple way) and changing things around a bit.


What does your ds like? Does he like comic books? If so you could have him start out writing with just a few little sentences. Does he like Star Wars or any fantasy type things? The boys made different Lego Star Wars type creations and I snapped pics of them and we made short little narrative sheets for them.

I think that you can benefit from a tutor . I have heard some mom's say they only used a tutor for a short time to help them cover certain things and it still made a huge difference.

[AAK]

Have you been using resources like the dyslexic yahoo group and the LDonline community for ideas also? Just checking because I have heard wonderful things about neuronet--I am starting it with my dyslexic dd this month. I will be posting an update if it seems to help. But, there are lots of programs for cognitive skills that are said to help dyslexics overall with skills that make learning easier. PACE, Learning Rx, are very expensive centers. But the people behind them came up with a program called Brain Skills. It looks promising and is done online. They also have a trimmed down version (Brain Safari, I think) that is usually available on the Homeschool buyers place for about $70.

If I were you, I would look into the cognitive training side of things and see if you can't help "rewire" the brain to make learning easier. Rewire probably isn't the best word, but I hope you know what I mean.

Amy

[sbgrace]

I decided to hit the learning disability areas hard and as soon as recognized here to try to remediate the best that we could. I can't worry about his grade level compared to peers but I do worry about the deficits in terms of trying to address them. If we're making progress and/or doing what we can to try to make progress that's what I expect from myself.

Kids don't outgrow or mature out of learning disabilities though so for those wait and see makes no sense to me and hasn't been my approach for my son with, like yours, multiple learning disability issues. We also do a lot of what he loves and excels in but we're working hard with the LD areas with specific interventions and choices.

[PGTlatte]

Originally Posted by ReadingMama

I know I'm "supposed" to wait for readiness or interest--but do the guidelines change when there's a learning glitch? Is it really ok that he can't really write a sentence at 10? He can use a calculator for math, even at the SATs or ACTs, but he needs to be able to write. That's a really important skill.

I'm not sure where the idea of "supposed to" comes from...I guess it depends which books you read. I've read a variety of viewpoints and ultimately decided to just do what works for each kid and follow my own instincts about that. If you feel that he needs help with writing or math, then there's nothing wrong with being proactive and deciding to give him/get him that help. Especially in an area of LD, he may never reach a point of readiness or interest in an area that is really difficult for him no matter how long you wait or how it's approached.

Originally Posted by sbgrace

I decided to hit the learning disability areas hard and as soon as recognized here to try to remediate the best that we could. I can't worry about his grade level compared to peers but I do worry about the deficits in terms of trying to address them. If we're making progress and/or doing what we can to try to make progress that's what I expect from myself.

Kids don't outgrow or mature out of learning disabilities though so for those wait and see makes no sense to me and hasn't been my approach for my son with, like yours, multiple learning disability issues. We also do a lot of what he loves and excels in but we're working hard with the LD areas with specific interventions and choices.

All of this, exactly, is how I feel. Our DS1 is only seven and not too far "behind" at this point, but his progress has been slow and a ton of hard work. He has recently been diagnosed with some visual processing problems. I don't know yet if he will end up with a dyslexia dx or not, but I'm proceeding as if that's the case (because he strongly fits most of the symptom lists I've read and I just have a feeling about it). He meets with a vision therapist and a reading tutor each once a week.

I cross-reference issues between the two of them and incorporate it all into what I do with him at home so he is getting very focused help with the things he struggles with. At some point I may get him into OT for handwriting as well, if it continues to be really difficult for him.

I don't want to wait for any of these things to just get easier for him one day, because now that I know the difficulty is originating from a LD-type problem, I don't believe these areas will ever get easier for him without a lot of hard work. I do my best to give him concrete goals that are reachable for him from where he is, tons of encouragement, and all the help he needs. I don't know if he will be able to keep up with grade level, but I absolutely want him to keep making progress.

[ReadingMama]

Thank you for sharing your experiences and advice.

We went the treatment route when he was initially diagnosed with LDs. He had 2 years of OT for handwriting, a few months of PT, prism therapy to strengthen his eye teaming, and I used Handwriting without Tears for a printing curric and Explode the Code for phonics as recommended by his OT and the Scottish Rite language center. The phonics work helped some, but sight words really rocketed up his reading. At around 8 he started reading really well. His dyslexia affects spelling and handwriting and math fact memorization more than reading. (OR I found an intervention that worked for reading, but haven't yet found one for the other areas he struggles in.)

We've also tried Jumpstart Typing and Dance Mat Typing. Touch typing makes him really frustrated because of his visual-motor difficulties.

So I don't mean to sound as if no intervention has been attempted. We are unschooly, but not "true" unschoolers. I like to identify as relaxed homeschoolers. I really pushed basic skills (a la Ruth Beechick) early on, but realized that we spent most of our hsing time focusing on areas of weakness and not enough on the areas he loves and shines in. So I moved on from a Ruth Beechicky style to where we are now. He's much happier, but I worry that we're not making progress with the basics.

I wish I knew what program people talk about that involves making figure 8s over and over and then writing letters. It's one of those rewiring the brain approaches. My son reverses letters and numbers still. He seems to be a right brain learner like in the book, "Right Brained Children in a Left Brained World." I think learning spelling visually will work for him.

It seems that although he has visual processing delays, his preferred method of learning fact-based information is visual. He has a strong visual memory, but visual images sometimes get mixed up when his brain processes them. I guess that's why it's a learning disability. When there's a glitch in the preferred mode of learning, kids have to use the non-preferred mode and that might not be as strong as the preferred mode.

So where can I find a tutor that's not crazily expensive? What kinds of things do LD tutors do?

[PGTlatte]

Originally Posted by ReadingMama

So where can I find a tutor that's not crazily expensive? What kinds of things do LD tutors do?

I lucked into our reading tutor. I am paying about $35 for an hour session. Before I had this much understanding of why he was struggling so much, and before any tests had been done, I asked on a local homeschool list for a recommendation for a private reading tutor. A lady on the list contacted me about her phonics tutoring business (and several list members emailed me to recommend her). When I talked to her about his problems, all she really told me was that she uses a multisensory approach. I went with it because I just needed help.

A couple of months into her working with him, we started with a new developmental optometrist who did visual processing tests and found two areas that were extrememely low and miles away from all of his other results. The wheels started turning; the test results made sense of other things he was struggling with; I started researching dyslexia. I took her an article with his symptoms highlighted to see what she thought, or if she knew anything about it....and find out she's trained in Orton-Gillingham methods and that is what she is using (which explains all the puff painted rocks, tissue paper word collages, wiki sticks, pipe cleaner, and play doh words that we bring home); that his test results made sense of things she had noticed in working with him as well. So now that we have more clarity, she has intensified her focus to fit his very specific challenges, is very familiar with the types of things that can be difficult for dyslexic students, and has the OG training to help him.

If I hadn't found her already, I would probably try this:

http://www.dys-add.com/teach.html#tutor

If you scroll down, there is a section on "how to find a tutor".

Originally Posted by ReadingMama

I wish I knew what program people talk about that involves making figure 8s over and over and then writing letters. It's one of those rewiring the brain approaches. My son reverses letters and numbers still.

I don't know what that program is...but the vision therapy he is doing has some exercises for "rewiring". Especially for reversals, they are doing things with him to help him get a better visual sense of right/left/up/down, and they do work on reversals that uses his entire body - either hopping onto four colored mats (p, q, d, b are interpreted as up/down and right/left and he hops onto the correct mat) or using other body motions to connect with the direction of the letters). I don't know if they are going to get into any writing though.

(I came back to add...he is in vision therapy because of amblyopia and pretty severe convergence and eye teaming problems; if he didn't have these specific vision issues, I probably wouldn't expect vision therapy to be an answer for dyslexia symptoms, and frankly I am not expecting it to clear everything up - I suspect he has some issues that VT will help, and some that it won't - for whatever is left after VT is over I will go on for other types of therapy. That said, I find it helpful that they have ways to do so much work on reversals in VT, and that field might be a source of help specifically for reversals. )

[AAK]

Originally Posted by ReadingMama

I wish I knew what program people talk about that involves making figure 8s over and over and then writing letters. It's one of those rewiring the brain approaches. My son reverses letters and numbers still. He seems to be a right brain learner like in the book, "Right Brained Children in a Left Brained World." I think learning spelling visually will work for him.

Midline training is the general term. Brain Gym is one program that does this. Brain Gym has also published books that include descriptions of their exercises. I haven't tried to find them though.

Amy

[deditus]

Yes< I was going to mention Brain Gym. I requested the book through inter-loan.
Here it is on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Brain-Gym-Simp...=3BX3KM5F89CSC

This book is awesome, too:

http://www.amazon.com/Smart-Moves-Le...1809177&sr=8-1