Writing Stategy #1

I've told you a bit about where we are coming from in this world "differences" where language learning is concerned in the earlier post. Today I want you to know what I believe is the MOST important thing any parent can do when teaching or beginning home education with their child where the academics are concerned!  It's so simple, but profound. 

START where your child is ~ or on the level where your child functions. 

There are several ways to find out "what" that level is for your child, but academic testing for an older child is useful, but if you prefer, you can do your own testing.  Do a pretest of basic skills.  Can your child count 1-100 or write all his letters or add and subtract, count by 2,3,4,5,6,...and so on? What is the age of your child? Are you bound by "what is taught when" kinds of thinking? Remember that grades are for the masses and you are not dealing in numbers any larger than your own home!  Grades meaning grade levels, like first, second, fifth, ninth and so on...I in no way am against giving 'grades' for work with objective and subjective criteria for assigning the grades~whoa, this is a whole NUTHER post!

FREE language arts/writing accessments for K-12... Placement Test~Language Arts/Writing
Note there is a link on the upper right for a math placement also...through pre-algebra!

After you have given the test, and be sure to praise your child for his efforts! Don't place undue stress on him for his inabilities! Let him and encourage him to do his best...this is just a tool to measure where he is so you can progress forward.

Testing is only a measurement and not an indictment!
Remember that you want to know your child's level, so you can plan a strategy for teaching and improving the difficulties.  Always remain positive, and I've never shared the test scores and CERTAINLY never compared my children in this way! Each child is God given in their strengths and weaknesses~which are really just needs.  Needs are areas we parents can work on with our children! Remember no matter where your child is or where you think he should be, you now know where to begin TEACHING incramentally what he needs to learn. 

Needing to learn information is one thing, and giving it is a different matter!  I remember feeling quite ill equipped over my son's difficulties.  You may also be feeling the same with your child.  Take heart! God has instilled in each creature of His design a learning meachanism whereby learning occurs! It's our job to figure out how to reach our child with a METHOD that will work for him.

This took trial and error for me.  I don't believe that even if I had been a professional teacher that the effort I expended for him could have been any greater! Mothers want the best and we make a way! I dug and dug looking...I used THREE phonics programs and a fourth was used in professional speech/language pathology classes to remediate disarticulation issues.  But the phonics extended beyond just seeing, recognizing and saying, but also to the connection of all three.  We had to instill the sense of the sound through kinesthetic (movement) means!  Our last recourse was to use an air tracing method from Linda Mood-Bell learning systems. THIS WORKED! We had gotten really far with the others, but somehow this worked!

Don't give up! Keep seeking so that you and your child will find!
Remeber that finding out where he is and then begining to devise and implement strategy for rememdy is the only way!
blessings

 

The 3 R's are some of the most important academic work we will do as homeschoolers with our children.  Reading, wRiting and aRithmetic are essential foundations to all the other disciplines.

It's my personal challenge to bring a child with learning issues to a place of competency in the area of language.  Raising a child with language learning deficits where speaking wasn't the only challenge, reading and writing have been huge as well.  I read and used all sorts of materials to make progress; there's been professional testing and interventions too! We turned every stone possible to understand our child and the challenges.  It's not been easy, and often the desire to throw up my hands in defeat have consumed me.  The challenge is not mine alone, as he must recognize it and battle to become all he can become!  He must become successful to compete in this world.  My child has made tremendous strides in the past year plus! He is writing essays, while not where I would like to see him, he is putting down ideas on paper and learning the fine points of grammar and organization.  Because of the difficulties, he is easily frustrated and becomes resistant.  I want to share some of the strategy I have developed for him with the help of a dear teacher friend of mine who is in special education.  She has been a wonderful sideline supporter of me and my children, an ear and friend~a sister/coolest aunt ever in our hearts! Thanks, my friend for loving us!

What are you doing to help your child? Do you have challenges that are puzzling? I'd love to hear.
blessings,

Learning Styles~Strengths and Weaknesses

"I don't learn that way," my daughter told me when we were discussing a method of learning just the other day...actually over this same method, she has said this before, but this time I had an answer for her. An answer that I want to share with you about learning styles, whether it's your child's strength or weakness.

We all have learning styles. And actually we all learn at varied rates within each of the styles: auditory, visual, tactile or kinesthetic. Just a brief definition of each is that auditory is listening, visual is seeing, tactile is touching and kinesthetic is doing so that we are all on the same page here...and what my child was telling me is what is true for everyone. There are ways we learn better than others, but of course if you are deaf or blind then you wouldn't learn by hearing or seeing...but the other learning styles would be increased by heightened sensory receptors. Ever realize that many piano tuners have vision impairments? I've known two wonderful such people, and their weakness in one sensory area led to strengths in another! So with our typically developing children, there are bound to be strengths and weaknesses in their learning styles.

Strengths and weaknesses need not be a boundry for learning in the lesser learning area. This is an opportunity to build skills. With my daughter my answer was this, "yes, I know it's a weakened area, but we are going to build upon it and exercise it so you will have strength in that area." This was specifically the auditory learning style and the actual skill was note taking. I further explained that she would need this skill in college and would not be able to tell the professor that because she didn't learn this way, to please just give her the notes from which the lecture was drawn...I could imagine just how well this might go over~not! So with this said, we are skill building...the idea of learning styles sis not to focus on the strength necessarily in all of a child's learning, but to built upon them to strengthen the weakened areas to bring those up to speed.

If you have an active hands on child, of course let them hop and skip and sing to learn...but also expect some and build gradually the practice of listening with auditory and visual learning~these areas must be exercised. A child must learn to use all styles to be highly successful educationally. Information is taught in so many different ways, and to be able to fully engage that information is very beneficial.

Just remember to build on the strengths by working some of the weakened areas so that skills are increased.

blessings,

Where Are You?

Dumb question huh?

You are right there at your computer reading my bloggie, right?

But I'm talking about on the journey of home educating your child. Is this your first, third, like me~ninth year or more? Where is your child educationally? What are the skills and strengths and then gaps and weaknesses? Just exactly where are you in acesssing where they are? I think this is probably the most crucial question a parent must ask as we get settled into whichever year be it first or last year of homeschooling. A wise friend years ago when I followed a boxed format, which isn't all bad either, told me, "you have to progress as they do, not as the material does." I have taken this advice right deep in my heart and really truly hung on tight as some skills have been harder and others easier for my children. One child gets math and science easier while writing and reading have been harder. It's exactly the opposite with the other child. Ha~I am doomed to be "balanced" in my methods and approaches, right? I have to teach to both's needs! AND we don't just keep going...if some element isn't "gotten" we hang onto it while we inch forward and they learn. I particularly remember this with long division. REMEMBER how hard this was? OR were you one of those who got it easy? See, I confess that I have struggled myself...so when it came to these skills, I found at the time our curriculum DID NOT provide enough practice. Now I have heard mom-teachers say that they have had too much practice for their child in the curriculum~this was not the case for us when my child struggled. WE NEEDED MORE~so I found more until we GOT IT! So knowing the strengths and weaknesses really is important in planning our year~and we progress from a starting point. Just because I put it in the plan will not mean that my children will ZOOM through, but rather thoroughly accomplish the work. I except them to know the material, not just DO the material. So as we are all getting going, gearing up and shifting into overdrive~do we KNOW where were are? Let's find out and plod our well trodden paths into more knowledge and insight as we go along!

Ways to figure out WHERE:

1. Ask some questions of yourself. How did the work progress? Is there a "battle?" Sometimes a battle in our children is an indication they are resistant which can mean it is hard for them and they need HELP. Reflect and observe~think on it...listen to your child.

2. Look at the work. A Pre-test is very helpful. What does my child KNOW before I begin teaching. Sometimes we are boring them to death with information they already know! AND then again, we are boring them with processes that are not in their learning styles. I know that learning styles are important, but one word of caution from me: Don't just focus on the strong ones for your teaching methods~stretch your child to USE all modalities so he can function in the real world of learning. My daughter said, "I need to see it; I am not auditory." OK, daughter! But ARE YOU GOING to challenge your university professor who lectures in that monotone because it's "not your style?" Yeah, right as he looks over your head and marks that big ole paper...now learning styles can be things like "disabilities" too, so I'm not minimizing these either, but work to train the kiddos to be as strong and DEVELOP coping mechanisms for their weaknesses/differences instead of EXPECTING accomadations. They are necessary for some, but often we can learn our way around things! Look at some folks without parts of their senses how they manage and even thrive~a wonderful piano tuner is blind that I know; I've seen Joni Erikson-Tada paint with her teeth~absolutely gorgeous works! So why can't we work out kid's weakened areas to strengthen then like any trainer would to strengthen the body's muscles?

3. Gain cooperation~can you convince your child to work with you to move forward? If you are new~I have read MORE out here on little itty-bitty people being homeschooled from toddlerhood than I have the child who has been in school who either WANTS more education or who for some reason has struggled and is pulled out. If you are the parent who got mad at the school and pulled your child out thinking homeschooling is better, congratulations! You are correct, but it's not easier! Promise!! But it's do-able for the parent who will look and evaluate and get cooperation to move forward. Once your child is willing to "try" to work or wants to learn, or WILL learn, then move forward.

4. Listening, ask your child questions. I wanted to know, since we are ready to study foreign language for high school credit (we've done it all along already!) WHICH ONE DO YOU WANT to study? What is their interests? Desires, goals, dreams? Offer and expose loads of possibilities, but also LISTEN...then plan.

5. AND then plan. Plan by creating goals and steps to accomplish these goals. If your child is old enough, enlist them in this plan. Teach planning and scheduling along the way~but plan. In our state, we have to submit to the BOA (board of education) a list of intended educational resources for the year to obtain a truancy excuse. Finding WHAT to teach in terms of subject matter is really simple if you wish to follow what subjects in order of learning them that are state requirements. I looked over our state requirements for a high school diploma (hours and subjects) and since our forms that we are required to submit spell out subject matter, it was easier than in the last two states I lived in...but I knew then in elementary school that at first, early on I had to teach reading and writing skills, along with other stuff. . .I followed in many ways what the Christian schools would teach, but put it in a format for homeschooling. I have had a schoolroom. I have used the kitchen table. I have held them in my arms and read when they were young and worked at a small short table too in the livingroom~actually it was our piano bench and they had little children's chairs that sat on each end with me in the middle. Today, they both have computer work stations with internet, and we are all wirelessly connected. Some of their work is done there, some on the couch, other on the kitchen table and even some of it outside and in their rooms. I have a library of resources, but no formal schoolroom. I don't knock it, but it's not necessary as children LEARN all over the house, so don't sweat it if you don't have it...a good book case and work surface will do ya! Oh, I forgot to say we've also had individual desks just LIKE public or private school too! They learned different things from each environment, but while environent may seem utterly important, the most important is the content.

6. Content: God first, Family, church and world. We attempt a Biblical worldview. NOT easy, but all our subjects are viewed through the lense of God's Word, His character and love.

I think I will follow up with more on the idea of content. Just HOW did I find it. . .and then HOW did I do it? Remember that knowing WHERE you are in your homeschooling journey is the first step to each year~no matter which one!

NOW, where is that...map?
Oh yeah, I've got it right here!
See you again, and blessings as you consider WHERE!
SisterTipster<3