Amelia was at school for 18 months before we started home schooling her.
At the end of that 18 months she still didn't recognise a lot of the alphabet. That was one of our main motivations to bring her home and educate her one on one.
Now she has been home for 18 months and still she seems to struggle with reading and spelling especially.
She is way ahead with maths skills and working her way through a year 3 curriculum but her literacy skills are way behind.
For her reading and spelling program we have Fitzroy readers. I get all her spelling words from the reader that she is reading and we totally immerse her in the list words for 2 weeks.
By the end of the two weeks, she is getting good results both in reading and spelling but if we go back and review the books and spelling list at a latter date, she cannot read them or write them.
I know that using a bigger list over two weeks rather than a small list for one week has been better and she is more confident with the reading and spelling test at the end of the two weeks and gets better results but long term memory doesn't seem to be there.
We do some form of writing every day as well as the spelling and reading and she spends most of the time that she is writing asking me how do you spell xxx? I tell her have a go and I will correct it after. I tell her to sound the word out in her head and think about what sound each letter makes but she cannot seem to do this.
I realize that she probably has some learning difficulty but I think there must be a way to teach her in spite of this. I think if we find the right way to deal with this, she will be able to retain some information long term.
I also think that maybe it is a matter of finding the right program for her. Maybe I should be trying a different program or changing our lessons around to suit her and help her.
Thanks in advance for any help that you can give.
Therese.
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16 comments:
Hi :)
WE had problems with James. And had him assessed. I'll email you :)
Plus I have LEM here and you are very welcome to have it. I can drop it off to Linda next time I'm over there.
I don;t like Lem but others do so you may like it too.
I'm thinking you should change what you are using. I used Spelling Power with my dd10. Before that it was hopeless. Now she can spell!
Hi Therese. Maria has had similiar problems with her daughter who is now in Year 6, struggling with the memory side of things, perhaps more short-term as well as long-term .Not sure what strategies they've used but I'll ask and try and get back to you. They are in QLD at the moment so it may be a while! Cheers, Mary-Anne
How old is Amelia?
She is 8.
Dear Therese, we have had 2 very late readers who just needed the right thing for them to stimulate interest.
Also E is still not a great speller but she eads so much now. I was concerned for a while but now........
R is 9 and still dosen't love to read yet, He can but no love affair yet. I just have given him a deadlinr for assigned reading and he read a whole book today
hope yhis hwlps
God Bless
HI Therese
Did you ever think she may have dyslexia. If you think this it would be worth your while having her tested and then thinking about the best way to help her after getting some professional advice.
An other place to seek good advice is the 4real forums under special blessings where you can hook up with many homeschooling mums who have kids with special needs or simply learning problems and ask their advice. My son has autism and I have got some good advice there
http://4real.thenetsmith.com/forum_topics.asp?FID=27
Many recommend the Seton curriculum as they tailor it to kids with problems if needs be. It is from US and I suspect expensive
Karnak
Hi Thereses,
We are using a combination of diannecraft.com stuff and things I've read in Ruth Beechick's books.
If she does have a delay, the Dianne Craft materials will help with getting right-brain/left-brain working correctly. There are physical exercises, sight words, phonics, etc. I saw an improvement in her skills in the first week.
Also, you might want to make sure she's getting plenty of Omega 3's in her diet. That takes awhile longer to see the difference, but it does work.
I hope things get better. It's always fun having a monkey wrench thrown into our homeschooling plans, isn't it?
You are in our prayers! God bless you!
Regan
It probably is some form of LD, maybe an auditory processing disorder. Kids with APD usually have a very hard time spelling and reading. Ian has an APD but is very unusual that he reads beautifully, always has but don't ask the boy to spell.
I can't help you with how to address this at home. We have accepted that Ian's spelling will always be abyssmal and thank heavens for spell-check. My friend with a son who has APD and dyslexia just waited it out, read to him constantly and he eventually started reading around 11.
If you don't want to get her assessed google 'reading difficulty' and other terms that describe her problems and see if you can find Amelia in any of the descriptions then you can possibly find hints and maybe programs you can buy is Oz to help her out.
Therese ~ my middle son (9) has struggled with spelling for the past 2 years (doing Catholic Heritage on grade level.) He could read, but even there will sometimes be found guessing words if I have him read alound. What I kept seeing in spelling was that he struggled with phonogram sounds and what letter(s) made the sound, especially the vowels. Occasionally, he'd test okay as the pattern to the words helped. But, he'd forget the spellings within a week or two.
This year we started using All About Spelling which tries to engage all learning styles and begins with the child learning phonogram sounds. So far it is going well and I'm using it with my younger son (almost 6.) I feel a little bad that I have my 4th grader on level 1 as the words are simpler and ones he can usually spell without difficulty. But, I can say that the daily review of phonogram sounds he struggles with are starting to show fruit as he's having them stick a little better. Sevearl members of the TOS Crew reviewed this product last year, which is how I heard about it and decided to try it for our family. Spelling Power is what I was going to originally use with my struggling speller, but decided AAS was a better first step for him. Both do make use of different activities to engage them in multiple ways to get those brain connections going.
I will close by saying that a homeschool friend shared with me that she's struggled with spelling forever. Some of us just do not have the wiring to be successful at it. As for reading, maybe just do lots of flashcard review of words so that it is constantly being seen. Some kids just aren't ready to learn reading and spelling until around 8 and your daughter might be in that group. But if it persists, you might need to seek consultation from a specialist.
Hmmm... In my (limited) experience in the classroom I have often seen kids who have a tough time with reading early on, eventually something clicks and they begin to catch up and do just fine. Sometimes they struggle because they don't feel confident; like when they want to know how to spell a word and can't seem to sound it out, sometimes they feel afraid of not spelling it correctly. I assume you probably already read to her and with her a lot, just for fun, and this is very important. I was just talking to my friend about reading and spelling the other day; she was baffled that her daughter seemed to be reading well but really struggled with spelling. Some people just have a harder time than others with spelling for some reason. Does she seem to be making progress in her reading skills, and seem to comprehend what she is reading? If not then maybe having her assessed might be a good idea. I wish I had a specific program to recommend.
Thanks everyone for your advise. Steve and I both struggle with spelling and make a lot of mistakes. Thank goodness for spell check here. I also didn't like reading until I was 12 either and then when I started reading Trixie Belden I started loving it. Amelia loves being read to so I continue to do it every day.
I am going to look into having an assessment for her and see if we can get some resources to help her.
One of the main problems with her is she is such a perfectionist. I know she gets that from me. If she makes a mistake, she gets really upset when corrected. When I was first home schooling and showing her how to spell correctly, I wrote in red pen and she hated it. She Started crying at every correction. I would say to her, I am not doing this to tell you off, but to show you the correct way but it made no difference. Now I just write in pencil under the bit she has written and this doesn't seem to upset her as much.
Well, I'll blame her problem on being called Amelia... my Amelia is not the fastest learner either ;) ok, no more joking here... for the perfectionist part, I do have it with Luca, and what seems to work best with him is to go back and forth...make him do something challenging enough, and when he starts panicking, I go back to something easier, so he realizes how much he actually DOES know, so he comes back more confident.
As for spelling, reading is the best way to learn. But although Luca is a great reader, he can't spell anything at all ;)
As for spelling lists, just use the words she struggles with, to keep it to a minimum. Praise her when she overcomes something she struggled with for a while.
Love her!
One of mine was a delayed reader. (always homeschooled) She blasted through Math and other subjects (if I read the content to her) so it wasn't as though she couldn't learn. I gave her a little more time than I was completely comfortable with but at around 8 or 9 (maybe 10?) she was *suddenly* an excellent reader. She is still "ahead" in Math, but now also in reading.
I guess I'd add (without having read all of the other comments, btw) that while you must be concerned and on the look out, it might be that she just needs more time than the average child. A different program is definitely worth considering. I use Sound Beginnings (found at Our Father's House) with success for all of our kids.... just one slower than the others.
Hiya, Therese! We're having great success with 'The Phonetic Zoo'. Although, having said that, I ususally leave formal spelling until they are a little older - usually around age 10 and up. Up until then, we simply concentrate on phonics and reading. Lots of copywork also seems to help. Tracy has dropped off the LEM books, so you're welcome pick them up any time - we also used this in the past, but prefer a more relaxed approach. Intensive phonics / spelling for a time can certainly be of help, though.
God bless,
Linda.
Sounds like me! I was a late reader and a perfectionist. I got the hang of it in fourth grade...it just took longer for my brain to mature. I think most of my teachers were convinced I was LD. Both my children are late bloomers as well. By fifth and sixth grade I was an excellent reader, but I did need structured learning, and thankfully I got it in an old fashioned American school overseas.
Just like you, I had to try different curriculum with my son. Once I hit on one that worked it was very apparent! My son's learning took off.
I do the same thing with the pencil corrections! Otherwise he gets too upset. He's eleven now and more able to take correction, but he stills prefers I just circle the items that need correcting. Then I have to let him do it by himself. He comes to me if he needs help. We are working(gently) on this character issue in terms of excessive pride. I remind him that we are all sinners and no one is perfect except God. This has been helping him not be so hard on himself.
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