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Teaching the Profoundly Dyslexic Child

April 21, 2017 By Marianne 2 Comments

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Every child with dyslexia is unique. There is no one profile of strengths and weaknesses that typifies every person with dyslexia. There are signs of dyslexia that can be known, but not every person will have all the signs or struggle with the same things. One of the reasons for this is that there are a variety of underlying weaknesses that affect dyslexia.

Almost every person with dyslexia will have weaknesses from one degree to another in the following areas:

visual processing
auditory processing
working memory
executive function

Intelligence also plays a role. It can be difficult to detect dyslexia in dyslexic people with higher than average intelligence because they often figure out compensation strategies that can mask dyslexic weaknesses. The degree of dyslexia a person has will be affected by their relative strengths in each of these areas and result in either mild, moderate, or profound dyslexia.

Mild Dyslexia

Having seven kids (and one husband) with dyslexia, I’ve just about seen it all. My mildly dyslexic kids learned to read independently, despite my early years of bumbling through programs that didn’t work, at about 9 or 10 years of age. The more they read, the better they spelled, and today as teenagers and adults you cannot tell that they are dyslexic except for the occasional incorrect homonym spelling (too, to, there, their, your, you’re).

Moderate Dyslexia

My moderately dyslexic kids learned to read independently (without intervention with an OG reading program) when they were older – between 11 and 12 years old. They seemed to have more coexisting learning issues, like dysgraphia, dyscalculia, and attention issues (executive function weaknesses).

They can read, but they don’t enjoy it much and prefer to listen to books and podcasts and watch YouTube videos to learn. Their spelling, even as adults, still has errors although they are all becoming masters of assistive technology helps such as speech-to-text apps and phonetic spell checkers.

For a list of the best assistive technology for people with dyslexia, visit our Resources Page.

Profound or Severe Dyslexia

I have two kids who are profoundly dyslexic. They have a lot more confusion about just about everything. One of my kids simply could not remember how old he was even at 9 years old with much prompting!

They definitely had more co-existing learning issues but their weak executive functioning skills were by far the most debilitating of their issues. Executive functions help us to plan, organize and prioritize our thoughts. This disorganized thinking, in addition to dyslexia, makes learning that much harder.

How to Test for Different Degrees of Dyslexia

There is no clear set of criteria for determining an individual’s degree of dyslexia. It can be predicted by how far certain test scores are away from each other, or standard deviations. Every case is relative and will depend on how the diagnostician determines it. We were not told a level with our profoundly dyslexic son. Yes, his test scores had some extreme numbers, but it was the long-term struggle he had learning to read even with the right kind of dyslexia instruction that led to him being labeled as profoundly dyslexic.

Dyslexic kids will grow up to be dyslexic adults, but with help, they can increase cognitive functions and can move out of the mild, moderate, or profound levels which is why many diagnosticians don’t classify.

How to Teach Profoundly Dyslexic Kids

The number one warning sign of a profoundly dyslexic child is their painfully slow progress, even with solid, professional dyslexia tutoring. By the time our first profoundly dyslexic child was school-aged, we knew a lot more about dyslexia.

We knew that he was dyslexic, but when he wasn’t learning well at home, we found a local certified dyslexia tutor. Progress was slow so we upped his sessions to 3 times a week. He even went to the tutor all summer with little improvement.

After three years, he still couldn’t pick up a book and read. He was almost 12 years old.

We switched to a program in our area that incorporated more working memory exercises, visual and auditory memory exercises and crossing the midline activities. His reading took off that year!

That awesome multi-sensory, Orton-Gillingham program is called NILD. Visit the NILD website to learn more or to find a tutor in your area.

Besides finding a qualified educational therapist to teach, these are other support strategies for teaching the profoundly dyslexic student:

Scaffolding: Scaffolding providing additional support for kids while teaching. It could mean breaking up the learning into chunks and then providing individualized instruction with each chunk. When scaffolding reading, for example, you might preview the text with your child, discuss key vocabulary, or chunk the text and read and discuss as you go.

Teach them strategies: One hallmark strategy across all subjects for kids with profound dyslexia is to explicitly teach them strategies for completing their work. Examples of useful strategies are: mind-mapping for organizing their thoughts, lists of procedures and ‘cheat sheets’ for math, acronyms for remembering facts, and so on.

For more information on teaching strategies and providing scaffolding for dyslexic learners, check out my Parent Course: Teaching Organization with tons of tips for teaching organization to kids with executive function weaknesses.

Accommodations: Maybe your child your child is not able to read their assignment at all. In this case an appropriate accommodation would be to give them an entirely different piece of text to read, read it to your child, or allow the use of an audio version, and you may modify the writing assignment that follows. For more on the best accommodations for dyslexia, read this.

Assistive technology: Since kids who are profoundly dyslexic will be reading below their grade level longer, introducing assistive technology as soon as needed is super helpful. Speech-to-text apps record their words so they can express their true thoughts on a subject without worrying about spelling. Text-to-speech apps can read text online or e-books out loud to them. Phonetic spell checkers can actually decipher their attempts to spell and help them find the correct word.

For lists of the best assistive technology for people with dyslexia, see our Resources Page.

Some Encouragement for Parents of Profoundly Dyslexic Kids

Yes, these kids need a lot of support!

It is important to remember that dyslexia and its accompanying learning struggles make school endeavors difficult. That is why it is called a learning disability my many.

In my experience, dyslexia is a learning difference. Our friends and family that have so much trouble in school often take off once they leave school. The reason for this is that their strengths often lie in non-academic areas. That is not to say that they lack intelligence. It is to say that we are all created for unique purpose with a unique set of strengths that equip us to achieve that purpose.

For more information on the strengths unique to people with dyslexia, read this post on Dyslexic Strengths.

Do you have a child with profound dyslexia? How do you help them?

How to Successfully Deschool Your Child With Dyslexia

April 14, 2017 By Marianne Leave a Comment

If you are just beginning to homeschool a dyslexic child who has been in a public or private school for some time, you may be interested in knowing how to successfully deschool your child.

What do I mean by ‘deschool’?

Deschooling is stepping away from academics for a period of time in order to decompress from the pressure and stress of your child’s school experience. This time is used to restore an interest in learning and create new habits of how to learn.

Taking a break from formal academics, even for a short time, can fly in the face of reason since many parents pull their kids from traditional school settings because their kids are ‘behind’ academically.

Why Deschooling Helps

The pressure on kids with learning struggles to keep up with their peers can take a significant toll on a child’s confidence and desire to learn.

Here’s why I recommend taking a period of time to deschool your dyslexic child:

Calms anxiety: Kids with dyslexia and other learning differences often battle anxiety whether they’re homeschooled or in a public or private school. Anxiety can significantly impact a child’s ability to learn. Taking the pressure off for a time can help kids feel less anxious and more in control of the direction their education is headed.

Boosts confidence: Being measured against peers that don’t have learning differences day after day can cause kids with dyslexia to lose confidence. Believing that you aren’t intelligence is one of the most devastating myths about dyslexia that are hurting our kids today. Taking a break from formal academics to spend time on interests and relationships takes the focus off of your child’s areas of weakness and onto areas of strength.

Increases interest in learning: Most kids with unremediated learning differences in the public or private school have developed a closed mindset with regards to their ability to learn. Continual failure to meet teachers’ expectations leaves many kids believing that, not only are they not smart, but that they cannot learn. When kids take time away from formal academics to focus on their interests for a time, they experience real life learning and interest increases.

Allows time to focus on the parent-child relationship: Studies of successful dyslexics revealed that the one thing that had the biggest impact on their success was the presence of one caring adult. Taking time to show your child that you are on their side and that you want what is best for them will help them to relax and trust you on your new homeschooling journey!

How to Deschool Your Child With Dyslexia

Talk to your child. Let your child know that you are taking some time away from formal studies to heal and enjoy life together. Encourage them to discuss things that they liked and disliked about school.

Take a break from formal academics. While this may seem counterintuitive for a child who was ‘behind’ in school, trust the process. Taking a break to restore a child’s interest in learning will help them to learn more effectively once you get back to the books.

Go exploring. Begin to nurture your child’s interests by getting out of the house and taking trips to places of interest such as zoos, museums, national parks – anywhere that is of interest. Allow your child to choose where to go. There is a lot of freedom in homeschooling. Take some time to enjoy your freedom to create your own schedule! Notice how much learning actually takes place on outings like these.

Get connected. Find a local homeschool group and more importantly, find a dyslexia support group where you can ask questions and get encouragement when needed.

Read out loud. The benefits to reading out loud to kids are many, but for the dyslexic child, it is even more powerful. Without the pressure to do the reading themselves, their enjoyment of reading and of a good story are increased – not to mention the increase in vocabulary and understanding of more complex grammatical structures.

Do life together. Cook, garden, clean out their rooms, visit family and friends. Kids who are used to being around other people all day can feel lonely or isolated when first leaving school. Spending time with friends and family can help with this. Filling our kids’ days with meaningful interactions can help them feel productive and begin to tap into a new rhythm of life.

Deschooling for Parents

As important as it is for kids to have some time to deschool, parents benefit from some time to deschool as well. Most parents only know school in the traditional setting. Creating a ‘school-at-home’ is a common choice among new homeschoolers. I strongly encourage you to take some time to learn about different homeschool methods, learning styles and curriculum choices before getting started.

Get my Free Ebook

I created a free 50-page ebook, Homeschooling With Dyslexia 101: What You Need to Know About Homeschooling Your Kids With Dyslexia that walks parents through these topics and much more. Download it for free below:

How to Choose the Best Homeschool Curriculum for the Student With Dyslexia

February 16, 2017 By Marianne Leave a Comment

If you’ve landed here on the Choosing Curriculum post without first reading How Dyslexics Learn, take a few minutes to read this post and increase your understanding of the best methods for teaching dyslexic kids.

This is important because there will be a curriculum that appeals to you as the teacher and your learning style and one that will appeal to your student and their learning style. Understanding learning styles and preferences will hep as you choose and implement homeschool curriculum for your child with dyslexia.

Homeschool Methods

The teacher-to-student ratio in the public or private schoolroom makes the traditional text book, workbook, quiz and test format the best fit – mainly for organizational purposes. Everybody has the same assignments. Everyone is required to complete the same work. There is little room for individualized instruction, even if there was a desire to do so.

The beauty of homeschooling, and ironically one of the most difficult to embrace, is the inherent freedom to be found in the homeschool. We tend to go to what we are familiar with or what we experienced as children. There are many methods of homeschooling. Many families choose to use one method for one subject and another method for another subject. The is referred to as an eclectic homeschool approach.

The following is a brief list of major teaching methods available for your homeschool:

I haven’t met many people who exclusively use one homeschool method. Most of us mix and match to meet our needs.

Traditional – Closest to what you find in a traditional classroom. This approach may be good if you have recently brought your kids out of the public school system and they like this method. This method is heavily teacher driven and will require a lot of preparation time for the parent.

Unit Studies – Integrates all subjects into one theme. Good for combining subjects with multiple ages, is hands-on and activity based. Good for teaching multiple ages at once.

Charlotte Mason – A whole child approach that is based around reading ‘living books” but includes focus on short, intense class meetings, nature study, narration, copy work, and the study of fine arts. The goal of the Charlotte Mason method is to instill a love of learning and a curiosity about life in the student.

Classical – Based on the three stages of intellectual development (grammar, logic, rhetoric) and relies heavily on the Classics in literature for the base of study. The goal of the Classical Method is to create critical thinkers.

Eclectic – A mix of many methods – usually gained by experience of what works best in your home. Nice for accommodating multiple learning styles.

Unschooling – Child directed, no text books yet purposeful.

All of these methods can be altered to fit the needs of your student.

Finding Balance in the Homeschool

I am a classic left-brained, just-tell-me-how-many-pages-to-fill-in kind of girl. I like the order and clarity of workbooks. My kids, however, struggle with that type of learning. My right-brained, creative children would rather act out a scene from a certain period of history than write a paper on it. This is completely overwhelming to me. We have had to find compromise in our curriculum so that they are learning and I am not stressing out!

Considering the General Learning Preferences of Dyslexic Learners

Dyslexic kids do better with:

shorter {intense} teaching sessions
auditory learning {audio books, discussion, educational DVDs}
oral work or discussion of material

Dyslexic learners don’t do as well with:

lots of writing {look for narration exercises, arts-based assignments}
learning by reading {look for curriculums with video or audio lectures}
spelling lists
rote memorization

While all people (dyslexic or not) have certain ways that they learn best, using a multi-sensory approach (combining seeing, saying, listening and doing) will help your child learn faster and enhance his or her ability to retain new information. Also, making accommodations for learning styles should not exclude learning by other methods. If your child learns better through the auditory channel, great. Use auditory methods when you can but still be working on improving reading speed and comprehension on a daily basis.

Don’t be Afraid to Cut and Paste

Most homeschool curricula can be adapted to fit alternate learning styles. As you begin teaching and come across some kind of issue with learning, look for ways to adjust the curriculum to meet the needs of your family. For example, one year, I was teaching a rigorous Science curriculum to my high schoolers. I chose a curriculum that was taught on video that appealed to their auditory learning preference. However, their reading assignments were difficult and full of vocabulary that they had never heard before.

We began the year plugging their (online) reading assignments into a text-to-speech app on our iPad. This was helpful, because they could follow along as the iPad read their assignment. However, the content was still confusing to them so, rather than immediately list the curriculum on eBay (which I have done plenty of times!) I decided to sit one or two days per week and read the assignment with them.

We stopped whenever there was something we didn’t understand, looked up vocabulary words or better yet, watched a video or two online. We also had a lot of discussions about what we were learning and finding connections to things that we already knew. By creatively working with our curriculum, we were able to make it work for us. Will I buy this curriculum for Science next year? Maybe not, but we are learning how to learn which is a large part of homeschooling, especially for the dyslexic.

See this post on ideas for modifying your curriculum.

How to Find the Best Homeschool Curriculum for Your Family

With so many excellent curriculums to choose from, how can you find the best materials for your family? Taking into account learning styles and homeschool methods that appeal to you and your students, you can begin to search for curriculums that are the best fit.

General Tips

Search online for curricula that fit your family’s learning styles
Read reviews
Talk to other homeschool moms of dyslexic kids

Further Tips for Dyslexia

Look for curricula with audio options
Look for curricula with hands-on activities

Don’t Hesitate to Use Technology

I used to think that using technology in our homeschool was somehow inferior to classic pen and paper learning. Not any longer! From multi-sensory iPad apps, to text-to-speech programs to help with reading, and speech-to-text apps to help with writing and more, these tools give our dyslexic kids the chance to work well and efficiently at their intellectual ability. Often referred to as accommodations, these tools should be taught to all dyslexic learners so that they can become more independent learners. See our Resources Page for lists of my favorite assistive technology resources.

Truths About Finding the Right Homeschool Curriculum

It may take several tries to get a good fit that works well with your family.
Don’t be too hasty or too slow to replace a curriculum.
Just because it works for everyone else or got great reviews, doesn’t mean it will be a good fit for your family.

For more information for finding curriculum by subject and grade, read this post:

Curriculum Choices by Grade

The following are posts with teaching tips and curriculum choices by grade:

Preschool Homeschool Curriculum Choices

Grades 1-3 Homeschool Curriculum Choices

Grade 4 Homeschool Curriculum Choices

How to Homeschool Your Dyslexic 7th Grader

Middle School Homeschool Curriculum Choices

High School Homeschool Curriculum Choices

How to Make a Quick and Effective Mid-Year Homeschool Assessment

January 2, 2017 By Marianne Leave a Comment

I talk to a lot of homeschool moms. We come from all walks of life but we all have this one thing in common; we all feel like we’re not ‘doing enough’.

‘Doing enough’ is a vague mixture of ideals, comparing ourselves to the homeschool family next door and counting the unfinished lessons in our school books.

The break for the holidays is a perfect opportunity to take a fresh look at what is working and what isn’t in your homeschool. Here’s how I do a quick mid-year homeschool assessment:

Academic Assessment

Academic assessments are pretty straight-forward:

Compare lessons completed to lessons remaining school days: how closely on track are you?
Look at grades or mastery: are they ‘getting it’ or do they seem to be struggling?
How do the kids feel about how things are going: are they excited, content or dreading each subject?

In my earlier homeschool days I was pretty quick to throw out a curriculum that wasn’t working and try another one. I think that that is just part of normal for homeschooling in the early days. We need to get a feel for our kids’ learning styles (and our own as the teacher) and we need to get a feel for different curricula.

These days, after homeschooling for over 20 years, I am more prone to alter a curriculum. Too much writing? Do some work verbally. Too much reading? Read out loud a few times a week. Progress too slow? Back off on some subjects to make time to double up on others. Read this post for more creative ways to modify your homeschool curriculum.

While it is important to assess the academic progress of our homeschooled kids, we also need to give room for our own kids’ individual strengths and weaknesses.

Several years ago, I was teaching two 10th graders and one of them loved, loved, loved history and despised his health class. He just had a natural affinity for history while health and nutrition simply didn’t interest him. The other 10th grader loved, loved, loved studying about health and nutrition, but despised studying history. Same curriculum – two different kids. Did I change either of these curricula? No.

In the same vein, not all kids are A students across the board. Some will naturally be inclined towards language arts and others towards math and science. Give room for these differences. You as the parent know your kids best and with some careful observation should be able to tell if your kids are working to their potential.

Successful homeschoolers will learn to find a balance between teaching to their kids’ preferred learning style and knowing when to push kids to work out side of their comfort zone.

Home and Schedule Assessment

There is no separating the home from the school in homeschool planning. If the home isn’t running smoothly, the school won’t run smoothly and vise versa.

Some questions to ask:

How is the house running?
What areas of home life need help: Cleaning? Laundry? Cooking? Time Management?
How can these tasks be better delegated or managed?

At the beginning of every school year, I create a schedule for our homeschool. Once we are all on track, we tend to let go of the paper and work off of habit. Then come November, things tend to get off track and we go back to our paper schedule for a time.

If your home is out of order, take the time to list the things that are making you crazy and give yourself permission to take the time to get back in order. Think of life skills as a class and teach your kids to help!

Relationships Assessment

Homeschooling is far more than the pursuit of academic excellence. While homeschooling statistically lends itself to academic success, the character and relationships that are being formed and shaped every single day in our homeschools is right up there with academic skills – even more so in some ways. Consider the straight A-student with poor character compared to the C-student with a heart to serve and bless.

It is not uncommon for relationships to have peaks and valleys. As homeschool parents, it is our job to make sure that we are relating to all of our kids as best we can and to note when one kid or another is becoming distant from the family.

Things that have caused our relationships to suffer have been too much media (on all parts – parents and kids alike), being too busy, constant discipline issues that are unresolved and the tension caused by mom and dad not focusing on their relationship. Read more about how we limit screen time in our home.

Take a Day

Before you get back to school, take a day to ponder, make notes and talk to your kids and get a fresh assessment on your homeschool.

How to Find Free or Inexpensive Dyslexia Tutoring

June 15, 2016 By Marianne 5 Comments

I am often asked by parents what to do when they can’t afford a dyslexia tutor. I totally get this. Dyslexia tutors can be expensive.

While parents certainly can teach their dyslexic kids at home using a quality research-based reading curriculum, there are times when hiring a tutor can be a better solution:

An older child who is not making sufficient progress. Having the help of an experienced Orton-Gillingham trained tutor can help your child get the exact kind of help he or she needs.
There is a lot of tension between the parent tutor and child. It can be hard to be the parent and the tutor at times!

So what is a parent to do if they cannot afford to pay $50-75/hour for a professional tutor?

Sources for Free or Inexpensive Dyslexia Tutoring

The Children’s Dyslexia Centers were created by the Masons and Massachusetts General Hospital to serve dyslexic children who couldn’t afford the help they needed to succeed in school. The Children’s Dyslexia Centers currently have 50 Centers in 13 states. Centers provide tutoring by instructors trained in the Orton-Gillingham approach at no charge to children from early elementary through high school who have been diagnosed as dyslexic.

Reach out to local colleges. This is a common source of low-cost tutoring. College students studying to be teachers may charge less than certified teachers do. One way to find these students is by posting help-wanted ads in college newspapers or online. Local colleges are also a good place to find fre or inexpensive dyslexia testing.

Look for group tutoring sessions. This is another way to keep costs down. Search online for local group tutoring sessions. Parents in our Homeschooling With Dyslexia Facebook Page might know of some in your area. The groups are usually small, consisting of three to five students.

Decoding Dyslexia is a network of parent-led, grassroots movements across the country whose purpose is to raise dyslexia awareness, empower families to support their children and inform policy-makers on best practices to identify, remediate and support students with dyslexia. Visit your state’s Decoding Dyslexia site for information on local services that may be available to you.

International Dyslexia Association (IDA) – visit the IDA website to find a chapter near you and ask for any referrals they may have to free or affordable dyslexia tutoring.

Learning Disabilities Association (LDA) of America for referrals for local providers.

LD OnLine’s Yellow Pages service and LD Resources section have a great deal of helpful information. Search by state for organizations, or find a parent advocacy group near you.

Wrightslaw Special Education Law and Advocacy has a useful nationwide search tool. Use it to locate tutors and other professionals in your area.

Eye to Eye is a national LD/ADHD movement that pairs students with LD with caring, knowledgeable mentors with similar experiences.

Your local homeschool support group. Although I never found free dyslexia tutoring near me, by talking with other parents in my local homeschool support group, I was able to find reputable and reasonably priced tutoring near me as well as some much needed emotional support for my journey!

Don’t have a local homeschool group? Visit Homeschool Legal Defense web site for a listing of organizations by state.

How about you? How have you been able to afford dyslexia tutoring for your family?

Back-to-Homeschool Survival Tips

August 26, 2015 By Marianne 2 Comments

The public schools in our area are heading back to school today. We’re heading to the beach since there is a heat wave here in Southern California where we live. This is definitely one of the perks of choosing to homeschool – sweet freedom!

I encourage moms to take full advantage of the many homeschool freedoms we enjoy, but I will be honest – I am in full back-to-school prep mode over here.

I thought some of you newer homeschool moms would enjoy hearing what that looks like in our home so today I’m sharing my best back-to-homeschool survival tips.

We talked quite a bit last week about homeschool planning. Planning includes:

Setting goals for our kids

Making schedules that work, and

Finding time for what is really important in our homeschool

If you’re still looking for good curricula, here are some of my tips for that:

How we teach the Fine Arts

Back-to-school Survival Tips

Planning and curriculum are important, no doubt, but there are practical things that moms who know will tackle before officially starting school, whether you choose the traditional school schedule or choose to wait like our family.

Stock up. We have a fairly large family. Of our 8 kids, 6 still live at home and 5 are still homeschooling. We’re home a lot and that means we go through a lot of food, toilet paper, and school-type supplies like paper, pencils, binders and notebooks. I take some time before our first day of school to take note of what we’re low on and go to Costco to stock up. Some things that I buy: basic food staples like milk, butter, lots of bread, cheese and a few frozen convenience foods for when it is just one of ‘those days’. I also stock up on paper, pencils and printer cartridges. Oh yeah, and check to be sure your preschooler hasn’t wedged a crayon into the electric pencil sharpener!

Clean up the house. Take some time and enlist the help of your kids to do a big house clean. We unclutter book shelves and cabinets, dust and sort through toy bins and even move the couches and just give the house a good scrub. My mind focuses better when the house is tidy and I imagine that our kids’ minds will too. If this is not an strength for you, consider what one of my long time homeschool friends does – she hires a cleaning lady four times a year to clean her house. Great idea!

Clean up the school room or area. We haven’t had an official school room for years. We keep turning our homeschool rooms into bed rooms! We primarily do subjects like memory work, Bible study and read aloud in the living room on the huge comfy sectional that lives there. We sit at our dining room table for seat work like reading instruction, math and handwriting. Our older kids use the computer for some of their subjects. A few years ago, my husband built a long wall-to-wall desk in our home office to house a row of kids computers for our homeschool. Before starting school I like to clear out the dining room cabinet that stores most of the kids daily school work and that office space that tends to gather a TON of unneeded supplies, books and the miscellaneous ‘stuff’.

Organize curriculum. Once the school room, or in our case, the school areas, have been decluttered and cleaned, I move in this years’ curriculum and supplies into place.

Begin talking to the kids about the school year. A lot of the things on this list I do while the kids are playing or having quiet time. Once I’ve finished the bulk of my prep work, I start to talk to the kids about school. What are they excited about? What are they not looking forward to? What plans do we have? These conversations begin to prep their minds for the coming change in schedule and helps me to know where they are in their thinking.

Ease in slowly. This is HUGE! Perhaps I should have put this at the top of the list but my linear, logical brain felt it fit better down here. I know you guys will understand. 🙂 We NEVER start the first day of school with every subject. In fact depending on the year and the ages and stages of our kids, we may only start with one subject and focus on establishing our morning routine. We usually start with Math, add Reading in when the schedule can handle it and so on.

Have some fun! Consider creating a fun family tradition to kick off the new school year. Lots of families take a first day of school photo. Others have a delicious breakfast with family food favorites. This year we are taking a field trip to the Science Museum and watching an IMAX movie on our first day of school.

What are your best back-to-homeschool tips? Please share in the comments below!

Finding Time for What’s Important in Your Homeschool

August 12, 2015 By Marianne 7 Comments

We’re talking about planning for the new homeschool year this week.

So far we’ve talked about:

setting goals for your dyslexic homeschooler – you can’t make a plan if you don’t know where you’re going.
creating a schedule that really works – making time for getting things done.

The discussions in the comments and over on the Homeschooling With Dyslexia Facebook Page have been great. If you want to talk with like-minded homeschool parents, I recommend ‘liking’ the page and getting involved.

Today we’re going to talk about how to make sure that what is really important gets done.

We talked previously about figuring out what is important.

Families homeschooling kids with dyslexia have to prioritize teaching reading and spelling because in many ways these skills are the foundation of learning. This takes time and a lot of work.

That’s great but there is only so much time in the day.

So how do we get it all done? Well, to be honest, we don’t. We get done what is important and let the rest go – or find a tutor or a co-op or some other help. But you, mama, can only do so much and you have to accept that.

Finding Time For What is Important

1. Targeting trouble spots. You’ve got your schedule in place, but there is something (or things) that just aren’t getting done. First, ask yourself how important these things are. It is commonplace to add too much to the schedule, especially at the beginning of a new year.

Remember my example of the Botany class in my previous post? I mention this because I seem to fall prey to this scenario every year. Even though our kids do science at our co-op every week, I’d like to do more. Nothing wrong with that, right? So I find a wonderful Botany program with 35 lessons and add it to my schedule. The problem is that I don’t have time for Botany every day or even every week!

What is on your schedule that isn’t getting done? First ask yourself if it is a priority. If not, save it for another year. If it is, keep reading.

2. Brainstorm work arounds. There is a lot of freedom in homeschooling. Here are some of the best ways I have found to workaround these kinds of scheduling issues:

Modify. If you’re homeschooling kids with dyslexia, modifying your curriculum is something that you will be doing a lot of. For more ideas on how to modify curriculum that isn’t working, read this post. In my Botany example above, we tossed the 35-lesson curriculum. Since we had planted a garden that year, we used that experience and added to it some read alouds and documentaries from the library. We have ongoing nature journals so we added things of interest to those when we had time. Better to do a little than feel rotten or do none at all, right?

Get help. We don’t need to be limited to the idea that moms (or dads) are the only teachers. Got kids? They make great helpers! Another area where I was struggling last year was with reading aloud to my younger kids. This was a non-negotiable, yet it still wasn’t getting done! As I brainstormed ideas for adding more reading time to my little guys’ schedule, I realized that my 10 and 11 year olds could easily read the kinds of books the little ones were interested in. I added this to our schedule and so far it seems to be working well for both sets of kids.

Other ways to get help would be to have husbands, grandparents or friends to teach certain subjects. We have hired reading tutors in the past which was very helpful for that busy season with lots of littles in our lives.

Anchoring. We usually don’t have too much trouble fitting in reading, spelling and math. They are the highest priority around here. It’s smaller things like art, reading aloud, memory work and extra projects that I have trouble fitting in sometimes. When I ‘anchor’ these things to other important activities then I remember to do them and after time they become habit. For example, we read aloud after lunch. Everyone is home and in the same place and so I keep our current read aloud on the table and as often as possible we read after lunch – and sometimes after dinner too!

Delegate non-teaching things. In our house with 8 kids, cooking and cleaning take up a lot of time. Recently, during a brainstorm session about how to fit more time in for blogging, I realized that our 4 older kids actually are pretty decent cooks. I sat down with them and discussed the idea of each of them cooking dinner once a week. They were actually excited about it. It took some planning and trial and error but now I have four afternoons free from kitchen duty and a little extra time to write. Other areas to delegate are house cleaning and laundry.

3. Add work arounds to the schedule. Once you’ve got your work around, add it to the schedule. Schedules need to be posted and referred to often for about a month before they seem to become more of a habit.

Some Truth

The truth about schedules is that no day ever really goes entirely to plan. Schedules are more for a guide to help us stay on course. I often say that having realistic expectations is half the battle as a homeschooler. I imagine that after reading the last few posts, you have a clearer idea of what kinds of expectations we should have.

In my next post, we’ll talk more about expectations and the big picture of homeschooling. Sometimes it’s hard to imagine how all of the current craziness will work together but so far and in my experiences, it always does.

What creative work arounds have you discovered? Share in the comments below!

Linking up with the iHomeschool Network Hopscotch. For more great posts from top homeschool bloggers, click the image below:

Setting Goals for Your Dyslexic Homeschooler

August 9, 2015 By Marianne 7 Comments

The first step in planning your homeschool year is to set some goals. Setting goals for kids with dyslexia is a little different than setting goals for traditional learners. What I’m going to teach you today will free you up from a lot of stress and dramatically simplify your homeschool planning.

A Word About Grade Levels and Being ‘Behind’

Before we get started, I’d like to discuss grade levels for a minute. You know those ‘What Your 3rd Grader Needs to Know’ books? Grade levels and predetermined lists of what to teach in each grade were designed with the public school in mind. Standardizing what kids will be taught each year is helpful so that kids aren’t studying early American History year after year. They give a structure and order to institutionalized school settings.

Grade levels can also be assigned to what kind of math and what level of reading a typical child is able to do at each grade. In the classroom (and at home), there are wild variations in these capabilities.

Grade Levels in the Homeschool

If you talk to a burned out homeschool parent of a dyslexic child (I talk to lots of them!) it is pretty common that their educational goals for their kids – goals to be at or above ‘grade level’ – are making them crazy.

It isn’t until they begin to move from an achievement mentality to a progress/mastery mentality they begin to find the freedom and enjoyment of homeschooling.

What do I mean by a progress/mastery mentality?

Most homeschoolers need to shed the ‘school-at-home’ mentality in order to create a home learning environment in which their kids can thrive. This is never more true than for the homeschool family teaching kids with dyslexia.

It wasn’t until my dyslexic husband observed this chasing of the wind in our own homeschool that I became aware of how ridiculous it actually was. Keep it simple he would say. If the only kind of book the 4th grader can read independently is Frog and Toad, let them read Frog and Toad! Huh? You mean let them learn at their own level? How revolutionary!

It doesn’t really matter how much you, or any well-meaning family member, wants your child to be reading at his or her ‘grade level’. If they aren’t able to do it – you have to teach them, faithfully, at their current level until they get there.

This translates to 5th graders doing 4th grade math (ahem) or 1st grade reading or where ever they are able, and working towards mastery until they catch up. Most kids with dyslexia will catch up with a combination of consistent teaching and appropriate methods.

Studies have shown that it is much harder to learn in a stressful environment. Many dyslexic kids and adults already struggle with anxiety. Creating a safe and relevant atmosphere for learning is the primary reason most of us homeschool anyway, right?

Setting Goals for Your Dyslexic Homeschooler

Now that we’ve cleared that up, here are my best tips for setting goals for your kids homeschool year.

1. Grab a spiral notebook. I just stocked up on these at the grocery store of all places. Yay for back-to-school sales! For our kids I have 3 primary areas for setting goals: physical goals, academic goals and spiritual goals. Fold one page of the notebook into thirds (or how ever many areas you’re setting goals for) and label each column.

2. Write down all of the goals that you have for your child. This is your brainstorming sheet. Never mind that your 3rd grader is reading at a first grade level for now. We know we are going to cover reading. Write that down under Academic Goals. We’ll talk about how to find time for reading instruction in my next post on Creating Homeschool Schedules That Really Work.

Don’t be intimidated by the list. This is for my 7th grader and much more intense than my plans for our younger kids.

For now, we’re trying to flesh out all of those ideas that are swirling around in your head (and mine), capture them on paper and begin to organize them. Disclaimer: Just because you wrote something down here does not mean that it will be done every day or even at all. Don’t stress just get your thoughts on paper!

3. Make a list of daily tasks for each child. Get out a clean sheet of paper in the same spiral binder. This can include morning routine items like getting dressed, brushing teeth and feeding the chickens if you want. I like to create set morning, afternoon and evening routines for all of my kids because I rely on them doing their chores to keep the house running.

This list should also include academic subjects such as Bible, History, Science, Handwriting, Art – or whatever subjects you are covering this year. Make a note, either with an asterisk or with a highlighter pen, next to everything academic that your child can do independently. This is important for scheduling. We want our kids to keep working as much as possible when mom is working with another child, making lunch or taking a bathroom break!

Lastly, add any classes, tutoring sessions, sports commitments, etc. to the list.

Take Some Time to Prioritize

Once you’re finished making lists for all of your kids, hopefully your head is no longer swimming and you can begin to take each goal and activity and begin to prioritize them.

Take some time to look over your lists. Think carefully about each item and ask yourself:

How much value will this book/curriculum/assignment add?

Is it going to add enough value to be worth the time it will take to engage with?

The Truth About Homeschooling With Dyslexia

I’m going to be very honest with you about something. Homeschooling kids with dyslexia is unique in its challenges. For a season, your main priority is going to be teaching your kids to read, write and spell. The length of this season varies from family to family and depends on how many kids you have, but during this time there may not be time to do much else on your list – and that is okay!

When I say that it is okay, here is what I mean. You can only do so much and you have to give priority to what is the most important. Letting go of things that are going to make you and your family crazy is necessary. You will have time to fit in more of the extras in time.

One Activity You Can’t Live Without

We’ll talk more about integrating subjects like science, history and art in my next post on scheduling but I want to share with you one activity that should be a priority every day in your home.

The read aloud.

Reading aloud to your children has so many benefits – it is hard to count. Let me list a few here:

creates a strong family bond
fosters a love of the written word, reading and books
encourages deep thought about a wide variety of issues
can teach character (with the right books, of course)
teaches vocabulary and complex sentence structure
gives children ideas to ponder throughout the day
teaches history, science and art in context

Some resources for finding the best books for reading aloud:

Some other great places online to find good free book lists:

Simply Charlotte Mason’s literature suggestions –great for all families, regardless of where your kids do school or what methods you use to to teach them

Ambleside Online –high quality recommendations, though you have to wade through the site to find them, as they are somewhat buried

1000 Good Books List

Storyformed Booklists

Okay, that is enough for one day! Work on your lists and check back here tomorrow for my post on Creating a Homeschool Schedule That Really Works. As always, if you have any questions or comments, drop us a note below!

5 Things to Ask Yourself When Your Homeschool Curriculum Isn’t Working

October 16, 2014 By Marianne 1 Comment

I recently consulted with a sweet mom who was looking for guidance in homeschooling her 13-year old dyslexic daughter. Both mom and daughter were overwhelmed and heading towards burnout mode by the amount of work in their chosen homeschool curriculum. She contacted me to help her find the place where her daughter was learning and engaged, even challenged, but not overwhelmed. As I pondered her situation and considered all of my years of homeschooling kids with dyslexia, I came up with the following guidelines for when you get stuck with a curriculum that doesn’t seem to be ‘working’.

Truths About Homeschool Curricula

First, lets establish a healthy understanding of homeschool curricula in general.

Curriculum is great but it is not in control – you are! What I mean by this is that many of us place too much value on curriculum. We put it on a pedestal and our lives revolve around lesson plans and schedules and quizzes and tests. This is especially true for those of us, like myself, who fit so comfortably into the traditional school scene during our own school years. How this translates into your day-to-day is that you have the freedom to customize your curricula to fit your unique family’s needs.

Not all curriculum is created equally. Dyslexic kids learn differently. It is the main reason why many of us began, and continue, to homeschool our dyslexic kids. The traditional teaching methods of our public and private schools is not the best fit for kids with dyslexia. However, if we are homeschooling and we subscribe to Homeschool Curriculum Truth Number One (above), we can alter or replace our curricula to meet our kids needs.

No curriculum will be a perfect fit. They will all need some tweaking and modifying. Some lessons will be too long and need to be divided up. Some lessons will not be clear so you will need to find a way to teach it differently. Don’t fret about this. Relax and try to be creative when you teach your dyslexic kids.

Curriculum should be a reasonable fit for both mom and student’s learning styles. My poor kids! I am such a left-brained, linear thinker. Although they could spend the entire day illustrating their flash cards or acting out history stories, that would probably drive me crazy. We have had to find a happy medium where our kids can do hands-on learning without overtaking the house. A sane mom is a better mom, no?

Most families learn by trial and error which curricula are a good fit for their kids. Don’t feel bad if you need to switch your curriculum. It is part of the learning curve. A quick visit to eBay and you’ll be on your way! Visit our Resources Page for some of our top picks for homeschool curricula.

We have the freedom to modify or replace our curricula, but before we do that here are some questions to ask to help you:

Questions to Ask When Tailoring and Choosing Homeschool Curricula for Your Dyslexic Student

1. What are my educational goals for my child at this point in time? Younger kids who are still working on mastering the basics of reading, spelling and writing have a lot on their plates just getting the 3 Rs done each day, however this is a critically important step and cannot be compromised. Older kids who are gaining some mastery have different goals. My middle school goals have traditionally been to help my kids become more independent learners. Older kids, high school level say, have different goals still. During these years our focus should be more on their future – after school. What are their interests and abilities? What are their future educational and vocational goals? These differing goals need to be taken into consideration as we seek to create a homeschool routine that serves our kids to the best of our ability and to the full extent that our homeschooling freedom allows.

2. What are my educational priorities for my child at this point in time? These priorities will be based off of the goals that you listed from question one above. If you are still in the remediation phase of teaching your dyslexic kids, then this is absolutely a priority. And here is a news flash – you probably won’t be able to get every subject done in depth during this phase – and, wait for it, that is absolutely okay. The more you focus on remediation, the faster it will take place and you will be able to transition into more independent and in depth learning in time. During this phase of focusing on remediation, we have used our daily read aloud time to read historical fiction and interest-based science books to our kids. Educational DVDs are also an excellent option during the time intensive years of remediation. I assure you, you do not need to complete a full science and history curriculum every year in the elementary years. I’m not saying to ignore those subjects just that you can create an excellent, gentle, interest-based curriculum from read alouds and documentaries. Always filter your decisions about curriculum through the lens of your current goals and priorities. There is only so much time – you have to make it count!

3. How would accommodations help? A few years ago, my 9th graders were working through a science curriculum that wasn’t working for us. It was somewhat video based which I thought would be a good fit for my visual learners. When I say that it wasn’t working, I mean that one of my goals was for the kids to become more independent learners and with this curriculum, they were definitely not able to work independently. The material was complicated and so the reading was bogging them down. Because the curriculum was Internet-based and the reading assignments were online, we utilized a simple, free text-to-speech app and they were able to have their reading assignments read to them. Unfortunately, they were still struggling to understand the material. We divided up the curriculum so that I was able to spend one day a week reading the assignments out loud or listening to the text-to-speech app read aloud, which was not ideal. When we got to a topic that we didn’t understand, we Googled, YouTubed and checked Kahn Academy for videos with better explanations. By using accommodations, we made it through the curriculum, but I definitely did not choose it for 10th grade.

For a more in-depth look at accommodations, read this post, Understanding Accommodations and Remediations and this one, Best Accommodations for the Dyslexic Student. From these posts you will have a better understanding of effective ways to accommodate your dyslexic student.

4. Is the curriculum too difficult or can I make modifications? Depending on your goals and priorities for your kids, you can modify a curriculum to better fit your needs.

Examples of modifications that we have used are:

Skimming over chapters of relative disinterest and spending more time on topics of interest. Interest-based learning makes everyone’s life easier.
Discussing, instead of writing, end of chapter comprehension questions.
Memorizing vocabulary terms in a science curriculum with the multi sensory app Quizlet instead of completing the tests and quizzes.
Mom uses the text book as a guide for the scope and sequence to be followed and uses library books and DVDs to cover the material.

5. Would we be better off replacing the curricula with something better suited to our kids needs? While many, if not most, curricula can be modified to accommodate the dyslexic learner, sometimes it is just too much work for mom. You will know if it is too much work if you as the parent have made modifications and allowed accommodations and still the program is a major source of frustration. Please note, however, that all kids will complain from time to time about certain subjects. My 11th grade son regularly complains about his science curriculum while raving about his history curriculum. They are both from the same curriculum company; however, he loves History and has little interest in Science. Only you, as the parent and teacher know your child well enough to make this distinction.

Every year you will likely have different goals and different priorities within your homeschool. Figuring out what those are are part of the freedom and responsibility of homeschooling and the thought process gets much easier over time.

How about you? How have you learned to work with your homeschool curricula to make it work?

How to Modify Homeschool Curriculum for the Dyslexic Student

September 21, 2014 By Marianne 4 Comments

I love all the emails and messages that I get through the blog. However, sometimes the questions are more detailed than an email can handle so I’ll do my best to bring those questions over here to the blog. I recently corresponded with a wonderful mom who is homeschooling her dyslexic children overseas where buying (and sometimes returning) curricula for her homeschool can be time-consuming and expensive. On the Resource Pages of this site, I list many of my favorite curricula for using with the student with dyslexia. These curricula utilize methods that fit the general way that dyslexics learn. But what if circumstances, such as finances or location, are such that buying more curricula is not an option?

How to Modify Curriculum for Students With Dyslexia

Remember when we talked about How Dyslexics Learn? You will want to read that post so that you can better understand how to teach in ways that your child will learn. In that post, we learned a little about brain structure and how dyslexics tend to favor the right-brain and therefore learn with visual, creative and auditory methods.

Prepare them to learn

Start by giving them the big-picture. Because people with dyslexia are big picture-oriented rather than detail-oriented, begin by previewing the subject that you are about to teach. Give them a hook on which to hang all of those pesky details. For example, before you begin a study of Ancient Egypt, hit the library and check out some of the fantastic illustrated DK books. Flip through the pages and talk about the location, look through artifacts from the era and get a bit of the big-picture about Egypt. Take time to review what you are learning as you go and put the new information into context of the big picture.

It isn’t cheating to read texts aloud.

Read out loud if no audio version is available: If a curriculum that you are using is heavily reading based, read it aloud or have one of your kids who is able, read the selection. Remember that remediation of weak reading ability should not be consuming every moment of your kids day. It will only make all of you frustrated and resistant to doing schoolwork. Do remediate reading with research-based methods but allow your kids the freedom to learn and enjoy their other subjects without the pressure of having every lesson be a reading comprehension and spelling test.

Discuss rather than write. For many dyslexics, writing is painstaking experience. Difficulty spelling and forming letters results in answers that are far below a student’s intellectual ability. Take those review questions at the end of a chapter and discuss them out loud with your students. If time is an issue, pick only a few of the questions. You will be amazed at how much learning and connecting is going on in your student’s mind. Another alternative, especially for middle and high school-aged students is to use a speech-to-text app that can convert their spoken responses into text on a computer or tablet. See our Resources Page for links to some of this type of technology.

Testing comprehension. Another fantastic way to gauge comprehension is to use the gentle art of narration. After reading a passage, have kids tell back what they learned. Ask a few questions here and there to lord their memory if necessary. Narration is and excellent precursor to wiring as it requires the narrator to organize their thoughts and put them into words much like they would do in a written composition. If your kids struggle with recalling specifics, ask questions to guide their thoughts.

If attention is an issue, consider shortening lesson times and stretch a chapter out to fit your child’s attention and interest level. To learn more about the connection between dyslexia and ADD/ADHD, read this post. Checking out related DVDs from the library or finding free videos on subjects that you are studying on line with sources like Kahn Academy, YouTube or BrainPop are great ways to supplement learning in the visual method that dyslexics love. Check out this great, free site for high school biology, Interactive Biology.

Be creative: Because the dyslexic mind prefers feelings and imagination rather over logic and facts, you will need to be creative. If you have been teaching kids with dyslexia for any amount of time, you already know that they don’t do well with rote memorization. Math facts anyone? Creating stories to help memorize math facts or illustrating spelling or vocabulary words will help these ideas to stick. Utilize anything visual that you can to help fact to stick.

Another excellent way to memorize anything from math facts to Bible verses is to put it to song. With a decent Internet connection, you can access You Tube which has lots of FREE educational songs such as this math facts channel.

Think multi-sensory: Using more than one sense while learning helps information to stick. Consider actually doing a science experiment as opposed to reading about it. Which one would provide a more memorable learning experience? Examples of multi sensory techniques are using math manipulatives for building math problems, letter tiles for building and touching words, electronic flashcard apps such as Quizlet for multi-sensory review of terms. Many hands on teaching aids can be made at home very inexpensively.