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Showing posts with label Homeschool. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Homeschool. Show all posts

Thursday, July 23, 2020

When an Otherwise Bright Child Struggles to Learn

By seven years a child should be showing all the signs that they are ready to read with the base knowledge of letters and sounds they have learned in their early ed years; learning that can come through interactive play based strategies. Most children will already have begun reading their first words and blending simple letter sounds, some will already read sentences by age seven. For some children reading comes more naturally than others, some show more interest in reading and with verily little effort will begin to read. If however, your otherwise bright 7-8 year old is struggling to learn the names of letters, having trouble connecting letters to their sounds, confusing or substituting words, having difficulty decoding (sounding out) single words, making consistent errors, reversals of letters or words after the 2nd grade (7-8 years old), is generally frustrated with school work -- especially those assignments that require reading and writing and/or rote memorization -- having problems with attention, and reading is very slow and painful, you likely have a dyslexic child.


It is estimated that 1 in 5 human beings (20%) have dyslexic brains. Dyslexia is the most common “learning disability” affecting both reading, writing, and arithmetic, yet it is the most misunderstood and largely unmet challenge in education today. Teachers colleges in the U.S. devote no significant time to the study of dyslexia and the average teacher receives practically no training in appropriate instruction methods to meet the needs of dyslexic learners. Most perplexing is the fact that most  reading intervention specialist in public schools are not equipped with appropriate training or curriculum to properly instruct dyslexic learners. The curriculum and methods that work best for dyslexic learners are also excellent curriculum for all learners, and yet American schools do not use these curriculum or methods.

Dyslexia is often referred to as a learning disability, but more accurately it is a learning difference resulting from an entirely unique brain structure, and therefore entirely unique brain processing, which can now be seen through fMRI technology. Dyslexia is a lifelong condition. Dyslexic do not grow out of dyslexia, they do not “overcome” dyslexia, instead they learn in a different way and their strengths compensate for their weaknesses. 

Dyslexia is hereditary. A family history of late reading and learning difficulties should be present, however, it is sometimes difficult for families to identify their family trait because of the poor diagnosis of dyslexia in the past and the fact that dyslexia in adults looks very different than it does in children. 

Dyslexic thinkers have both gifts and challenges, in fact, it is their unique brain structure that results in valuable brain strengths which have trade offs in early education. Dyslexia is observed in differing severity and dyslexics are often referred to as having mild, moderate or profound dyslexia. Because of the spectrum within dyslexia many child dyslexics will never have their dyslexia identified. 

The only sure way to diagnose dyslexia is to have a child thoroughly evaluated by a neuropsychologist with special training in diagnosing dyslexia. However, for most homeschooled children it is not necessary to seek a diagnosis for dyslexia since a homeschool can equip itself to meet the challenges of educating a dyslexic thinker without seeking special ed services. In cases where dyslexia is profound (severe) a diagnosis may be needed to receive accommodations in college entrance and college coursework and testing.

Early intervention and correct instruction methods can help reduce the frustration and stress a dyslexic will experience in learning but it will not eliminate it. (Read my post on the dyslexic struggle here) The best prescription beyond choosing the right instructional methods and curriculum is to educate yourself about dyslexia and be patient and persistent in your child's instruction. If you think your child might be dyslexic I would encourage you to read about dyslexia. I highly recommend the book “The Dyslexic Advantage, Unlocking the Hidden Potential of the Dyslexic Brain,” by Brock L. Eide M.D. M.A. (Author), Fernette F. Eide M.D. (Author), as the place to begin.

The curriculum and teaching methods I will recommend below are excellent for children with dyslexic brains or your average brain. The good news there is that if you use these curriculum and you discover that your child is dyslexic at between 8-10 years of age (the most common period for which dyslexia is recognized due to the serious education lag that occurs in this range) you will feel confident that you have been using methods suited to their brain differences. If however, your child is not dyslexic, you will find these curriculum thorough and easy to implement. For this reason I believe these programs to be the best programs for teaching reading and writing that I have seen.

My Treasure Trove of Education Resources for Elementary ED instruction

ELA (English Language Arts):
  • All About Reading & All About Spelling: Primary Instruction is from All About Learning press, these programs are mostly direct instruction with short application activities. These programs are strong multisensory reading instruction programs based on Orton-Gillingham reading science.
  • “Writing Skills” by Diana Hanbury King: Writing Skills is a systematic incremental writing program to give your child the foundational skills necessary to become a solid writer. The lessons are easy to teach and the student will not be frustrated because the lesson are so logical in their incremental order that they feel confident in their abilities to complete the assignments. The assignments begin simply and it is not a time consuming program. For extra writing practice use supplements and creativity.
  • Handwriting Without Tears & Writing Without Tears: Handwriting Without Tears has a simple easy to learn format for handwriting, both print and script. Don't worry, the style you use when teaching handwriting does not impact the child's adult writing style. All people settle into their own writing style as adults regardless of the instruction style used in the classroom in their youth. Learning without tears has some great workbooks for extra writing enrichment and practice beyond the Writing Skills instructional program. I bet your handwriting style is verily close to one of your parents handwriting but you were taught in different schools and with different styles, that's because handwriting is more about DNA than instruction style. **If I did it again I might consider teaching cursive from the beginning instead of teaching print. They do it that way in England and it works wonderfully.
  • Explode the Code workbooks: For additional reading skill practice the explode the code workbooks are easy to use, inexpensive, and follow solid phonetic instruction.
  • Dance Mat Typing: A simple free typing program for kids that has 4 levels. Teaching typing early and consistently is extremely helpful in unleashing spelling and writing, especially for dyslexics.
  • Notability App: Is a great resource for kids when doing longer writing assignments. They can use text to type to get their ideas down and then do edit and revision right in the app. They can add pictures to their stories and reports and save their work easily.

Once they establish relatively fluent reading encourage them read quality literature that interests them. Early readers are only instructional but kids grow out of them quickly. For a late reader the early readers become a problem because they are too mature for the stories but their reading level is too low for things that would interest them more. I have found that scripture reading and the scripture readers are enjoyable for them because the stories are meaningful.

Favorite Math Curriculum & Instruction Models:
  • Math Inspirations: Emily Dyke will teach you how to teach math in a way that will build a logical thinker who is able to solve problems not just preform rote memorized algorithms. I find that her method for math is especially powerful in early ed and elementary ed because of how it builds foundations for higher level thinking. I took her teacher training and it has framed how I instruct in math every since. I have not done her program exclusively but it has made me a better teacher.
  • Teaching Textbooks: I moved my son into teaching textbooks his 3rd grade year. He had already established a strong number sense and base for arithmetic in Math Inspiration and more free form manipulative math instruction. Teaching textbooks helped him advance to middle school math and learn common instruction and testing techniques.
Favorite Math Resources:
If your child is struggling to master those basic skills -- reading, writing, and arithmetic -- be diligent and keep going but DON'T WAIT for their skills to catch up in order to expand their education into science, history and all the wonderful learning the world offers. Too often children who struggle to establish these skills loose their love of learning because the daily trod is so discouraging and difficult and without any joyful educational pursuit, education begins to feel like complete drudgery. The most difficult thing to do with a struggling learner is to give them the vision of what education really is and what they are doing all this daily tedious practice for. Show them that they can learn from hands on activities, play, audio books, and documentaries. Help them discover their strengths and develop their talents. Let technology aid your child in helping them learn what they want to learn.
Favorite History Resources:
Art:
Other Science and Technologies:
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Friday, May 22, 2020

The Deficiencies of Homeschool vs. The Deficiencies of Public School

I'm a writer, almost everything I write ends up as an essay. This essay started out as an email to a fellow home-school mom as a follow up to a short conversation we had at our home-school co-op last week. Noticing the wide disparities in reading and writing ability among a class of 5-8 year old's, we engaged in a brief discussion about whether or not, as home-school moms, we are doing an adequate job instructing our children in basic skills. Some home-school children read and write early and others just begin to read and right at 7 or even 8 years old. Others may struggle for several more years. It's the 7 and 8 year old late bloomers that we were discussing that day. As part of that conversation the question arose in my mind, "Is it evidence of educational neglect if an 7 or 8 year old is just beginning to learn to read and write?"

Public School parents often view home-school parents as "out of the mainstream" so-to-speak, but they aren't so different that they don't find themselves comparing their kids basic skills to their kids peers. Unfortunately, we are all guilty of that. As I pondered this question I evaluated it by making just these kinds of comparisons, after all my son is just barely 7, and he is just now learning to read and write. In comparison, there are home-school peers of his who are significantly ahead of him in these skills and some who seem to be behind him. Likely, he would be behind his public school peers in these areas at this time. Does that stress me out? Sometimes, but not for the right reasons. Comparisons are funny that way, they are rarely made for the right reasons.

My son began writing his letters and numbers at 6, and not at 3 and 4 like so many other American kids in pre-k programs, and his progress in language is slow. His handwriting is neat but slow, and he can't write in small print. Despite these challenges he practices daily now without stressing over the copy work and I am happy with his progress. His reading is slow, and he must sound out many simple words still, but he is progressing and that is what matters to me. I feel confident that he is at the perfect developmental stage for both reading and writing and I have added more direct instructional methods as he has been able to handle them without stress. I feel content in his abilities and progress.

There would be some, maybe even a great many people, who would not feel the same about a 7 year old being at a beginning level in reading. Some may observe this and jump to the conclusion that there is some degree of educational neglect in my home, but as a home-school mom I made a choice not to push reading and writing as young as the public schools do. I made a choice not to use the same methodologies, curriculum, and lesson plans as the public schools do. I made that choice based on my own experience, research, and desires for my sons development. I made these choices based on my belief that there are other more valuable types of learning that can and should be done with kids between the ages of 4 and 7 then using direct instructional curriculum to teach them to read and write. Clearly that choice would naturally result in my son being behind his public school peers (in some areas, ahead in others) at 7, but I don't believe that means he will be behind them in 2 years.

It is logical that there is great diversity within home-school families, much more than the public school classroom, and that the reasons that families home-school vary widely, their personal beliefs about education and how it should progress differ, their instructional models differ, their curriculum differ, but the overall statistical evidence is that in the end as a group home-schooled kids perform as well or better then their public school peers. Are their failures in home-school? Certainly, but they are not more serious than those failures that take place in public school. Overall it comes down to choices. I'm sure that there is some level of educational neglect among home-school families, but I don't think it's higher than the national averages of public school kids who struggle and/or fail in the public education system because of poor home environments and/or the deficiencies and failures of their public education methodologies.

I think a person might judge the effectiveness of one home-school environment over another depending largely on their own unique experience within their local public school. A person in an under performing public school is more acquainted with the examples of education failure and neglect that happen in public schools across the country, however, a person whose children attend school in an affluent area in an affluent state, where their kids are surrounded by peers who largely grow up in stable intact families, experience the best of the best public school has to offer nationally. Thus judgments made about the effectiveness of home-school, which are largely comparative in nature, will differ as widely as do the educational outcomes in public schools. I had my older son in such a school district with the kind of excellent teachers those districts attract, for all of his foundational years, and he has a solid foundation, and for the most part I was satisfied, but not fully.

What I've learned from my exposure to education as a parent, teacher, then a political policy advocate in education, and through my research and study of the issues facing our education systems in America is that there are deficiencies in public school institutions that are no less serious in the way they affect the development of thought, and morals, as well as the development of problem solving skills and independent learning. I believe much of what we see wrong with society today either stems from or is compounded by these deficiencies in public education. As Abraham Lincoln said, "The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.” -- Not only does this principle truth extend to the civil government, but the government of the family and most importantly the government of self.

In respect to the government of self, the transmission of morals, the development of character, and the development of independent thought, that I believe home-school is superior to public school. I love this quote from Thomas Jefferson that contains what people of his time believed the purpose for education was:

"The objects of this primary education are to give to every citizen the information he needs for the transaction of his own business; To enable him to calculate for himself, and to express and preserve his ideas, his contracts and accounts, in writing; To improve by reading, his morals and faculties; To understand his duties to his neighbors and country, and to discharge with competence the functions confided to him by either; To know his rights; to exercise with order and justice those he retains; to choose with discretion the fiduciary of those he delegates; and to notice their conduct with diligence, with candor and judgment; And, in general, to observe with intelligence and faithfulness all the social relations under which he shall be placed. To instruct the mass of our citizens in these, their rights, interests and duties, as men and citizens, being then the objects of education in the primary schools, whether private or public, in them should be taught reading, writing and numerical arithmetic, the elements of mensuration...and the outlines of geography and history.” ~ Thomas Jefferson (August 4, 1818)

As you can see much of what makes up a quality education deals with character traits that are not based in skills alone. I've highlighted some of these such as, problem solving, independent thought, articulate expression of independent ideas, the improvement of ones morals and the subsequent behaviors, the faithfulness to ones "social relations," i.e. duty to God, family, community, and nation, and finally the ability to instruct (to teach others, first of which is their own families) others their rights and duties.

It is these fundamentals you find that the purpose of education is not revealed by mere skill. Education is about the development of a human being. What that human being is able to accomplish academically is reliant upon the character that is forged, character is not forged through academic pursuit alone. As a society we are often dismayed by the level of general ignorance that seems a glaring evidence of the failure of American education, but we will not succeed at growing well educated youth in a society where the mass of its citizens are lacking in sound moral character, mature thought, self-restraint and selfless duty to a greater good.
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