My 10 year old ADD/CAPD daughter needs remedial work this summer for math and spelling. I would like to try a homeschooling approach, although she attends a private school. Can anyone suggest materials and advice on how to work this into our daily schedule?
We have used tutoring the past two summers, but this year I want to try it myself. I am trying to find the least stressful way to help this child, while not letting it dominate all my time so that my two other children don’t suffer. My middle child (8 year old daughter) does not have LD, and has become quite resentful about all the time spent with her older sister, as well as the time spent with my 3 year old son, who is quite active and demanding to say the least!
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Is spelling the base of her problem? I”d approach it from a reading angle and do lots of “letterboxes” (see http://www.auburn.edu/~murraba for “letterbox lessons”) where she can build words from their sounds. Rudginski’s (or is it Rudginsky :)) _How To Teach Spelling_ is one of my favorite resources for systematically learning hte phonics patterns for regular and not-so-regular words, though I *always* go slower than the book seems to indicate.
some scheduling ideas
Working on a daily basis is a great way to make progress- just a few minutes each day is far more productive than a big block of time once a week. I’d suggest that you keep each lesson short and to the point so that it doesn’t become a burden for you or your kids. We’ve been homeschooling for 5 years, and I’ve found that the best time to do our work is right after breakfast. You might plan to do a short lesson on math, take a quick break, then a short spelling lesson and you’re done for the day. If you feel she needs more work, then do some oral practice while you’re cooking dinner, or in the car on the way to the swimming pool.
Since the work isn’t taking all day, it isn’t likely to be a big problem for your younger kids- your 8 year old could read or play a computer game while you work with your older daughter, but you may just have to park the 3 year old in front of a video if you actually want 30 minutes with a minimum of interuptions. Alternatively, you could pay your 8 year old to “babysit” her little brother for a half an hour or so after breakfast each morning. The prospect of cold, hard cash might be ample incentive to play nicely with him and not bother you while you work with your older daughter.
There are lots of materials to work with- it depends on exactly what you need to work on. In general, I’d recommend going back to a level at which she works comfortably and go from there, rather than trying to hammer away at “grade level” work that she may not have the foundation for. Math and spelling are both subjects that you really have to take one step at a time.
Hope this helps.
Jean
Landmark School has a good hands-on Math program (www.landmarkschool.org — click on “outreach and publications). It’s the only program I know of so far that’s geared towards LD kiddos.