I am considering homeschooling my 13 year old who has processing problems. My concern is that I will do more harm than good. The last 2 years have been a terrible struggle for him and he is miserable at school.
If I knew what kinds of things needed to be done to help him improve, that would help in my decision. I will post some of the scores he has from his last testing:
His overall score for the test of auditory reasoning and processing was 63
with a standard deviation of -2.5, percentile rank of 1 and an age equivalent of 7-6.
The celf-3 test showed his largest area of need is in auditory memory and recall with a -2.3SD
His receptive language score was -1.2SD
His expressive language score was -1.3SD
I have to admit I don’t really understand what these scores are telling me, so if anyone can explain them to me I would appreciate it. Also, would I be able to help him in these areas at home? What kinds of things would he need? He has been in special ed since the end of 2nd grade and has stayed consistantly 2 years behind his grade level.
Re: How can I help my son?
Were there other scores? What are his strengths?
Students who have trouble processing what they hear really struggle in school and getting down to 1:1 can really help.
http://www.resourceroom.net/homeschooling/hsstarting_March02.asp is an article I put together for parents in your situation — see if it’s got anything helpful there :-)
Now back to fixing the pages so I can remodel that site so it makes a little more sense…
Homeschooling
Hello, I am so sorry to hear of your problems, but I was there once and had to make the same choice. My son was reading at the grade level of 4th when I pulled him out in the 7th grade. His test scores were pathetic, and still are. I have homeschooled him for 2 and 1/2 years and pulled his reading to a short year behind where he should be.
He came to me and asked me to homeschool him because school was so miserable. We made the decision together, tried it and he won’t go back to school until college. I found many programs out there that are made for children just like him, and the schools refuse to use the. If interested I will tell you the resources I use, and hopefully that can help you.
Since pulling my older son, my younger son has decided to join us and been home for one year, this is his second. It is wonderful. His scores are still bad but now I know that he does not know how to take tests, and I can help with that. It is nice because when we find something that is a real struggle for us, then we stop and go over it with a fine tooth comb until he is comfortable with it.
You have to do what is right for you. One thing I did was teach Latin to teach the english language skills. He is now able to tell you what a direct object is and can use latin roots to understand difficult words. Then when he moves onto spanish, it will be easier. Basically I have taught something that seems difficult to make many other things easier for him. It sounds so crazy but it is true. You will make the right decisions for both and God Bless You.
Pam,
The scores you need to post are standard scores. But I suspect from what you posted that he would have a difficult time at school. Homeschooling is a good option and I am sure you can get help in choosing programs for him.
You would also need to post his achievement test standard score as well. Also, if you have the IQ subtest scores, those would be useful, too.
Janis