HELP HOMESCHOOLING LD I FEEL SO ALONE

You’re in the right place here. There are lots of concerned parents and teachers who will be happy to help you.

A helpful hint — when you type in all capitals, it means that you are yelling. Also hard to read in bulk. We all thank you for switching off the caps lock.

I have posted many answers to questions about teaching reading and some math, and after a while got tired of having them lost and having to retype the same long things over. So I saved them down and send them out to anyone who wants. There are many students who get stalled on a Grade 3 reading level, far too many, and yes there are productive things you can do at moderate cost. Especially as a homeschooler you have the time to really make a difference.
Just email me a request at
[email protected]

As a nurse, you’re familiar with hard work, patience, dealing with people having problems, and scientific approaches — all good things that will stand you in good stead teaching. One of the great secrets is that there really aren’t any big secrets about teaching — you just have to get at the work and do it and keep at it. Of course it is important to be working with a well-planned and appropriate curriculum and materials, but then you just have to get down to the hard work.

Sylvan doesn’t have a good reputation here. I worked in another tutoring center for a while and applied to Sylvan; I am not impressed by their approach with *any* kids, LD or not. Mostly it was repetition of the worksheet after worksheet. People here say they don’t like Sylvan for LDs.

A lot of parents homeschool their children responsibly. Some of the parents here have gone back to school themselves and have earned degrees and become teachers and specialists. So don’t put yourself down for being “just” a parent. Do be responsible and get knowledgeable advice and the best curriculum you can but then have confidence in yourself.

What exactly is your son’s LD? What is the nature of his visual problems? What specific interventions have been tried with him to date? What medications have you tried with him? How does your boy react in social situations? Does he have any specific “quirks” or behaviors?

We homeschool my boy (autistic non-verbal) and have made some progress, although he still has a long way to go.

There are quite a few Yahoo email support groups. If you know which specific LDs you are working with, you can join appropriate groups. Website to search for groups is http://groups.yahoo.com , but it can be difficult to find the right ones with being referred to a particular group name.

Cognitive skills training programs can be very useful for improving processing (both auditory and visual) and processing speed. I would certainly try one of these, especially since your son has been through vision therapy. Cognitive skills training works on developing and optimizing attention, working memory, short-term auditory and visual memory, auditory and visual sequencing, logic and reasoning, etc.

If you can afford it, the best program (in my opinion) would be PACE, http://www.processingskills.com . This is a provider-based program that takes about 12 weeks. Basically, the child meets with a trainer for one hour 3 times a week, and then does homework (practice exercises with an adult) for 3 to 9 hours per week. This is an expensive program because of the provider hours, but is very helpful in terms of taking primary responsibility off of your shoulders. There are no guarantees, but most children will make significant gains in processing skills from this program.

Two excellent home-based programs are BrainSkills (http://www.brainskills.com ) and Audiblox (http://www.audiblox2000.com ). BrainSkills is from the same company that developed PACE. It consists of about one-third of the PACE exercises, chosen on the basis of being easy for a parent to do without training. BrainSkills would be my second choice for your son, in part because it works more intensively on processing speed than Audiblox, and because it includes intensive work on auditory processing skills (which tend to help reading speed). However, Audiblox is a good program too.

Nancy

Donna,

It is very sad, but most public schools just don’t know how to help kids with learning disabilites. Your son is better off at home if you can get some support. Have you checked to see if there is a local homeschooling support group where you live? I am also in NC but several hours west of you. There may be other moms homeschooling special needs children in a nearby group who could help you. As already mentioned, there are definitely many other resources online for homeschooling special needs kids. I am sorry you are not closer to where I live because I actually offer assessment and curriculum guidance to homeschoolers who have children with learning difficulties in my area.

Janis

I found a support group in your area, Donna:

http://www.crestnc.com/

Janis

Can anyone assist me…my son is in college (2nd year) and we are facing similar problems to those he experienced in High School. He went to school in Uk where testing isn’t (or wasn’t done then). My son is now 22 years old. He tries hard be just doesn’t “get it”. He finds it difficult to process the information he is being given. He spells very poorly and is a slow reader. He has some hearing loss and as a small child lost a lot of time from school due to stomach problems (sickness, pain etc).

His Father and I divorced when he was very little and he staying with his Father who was paying for the private school. I realized later that I’d made a terrible mistake but that’s the choice I made back then.

So here I am now, my son 5 years out of High School still struggling with education. He attended college in Uk but couldn’t manage the second yer and just stopped going to class. He was due to graduate from an associates in Carpentry course in May but I just learnt that he has failed a math class. His professor refuses to let him resit the exam which means that he either fails the degree because he’s short 3 credits or he has to return next year to resit the whole class (1 hour 3 days a week!)

Does anyone know how I get an adult tested for learning disabilities? I believe that he is dyslexic but I am also worried about his inability to make a decision, any decision. I used to think it was just that he was young, and unsure, now I think it might be more. He used to be such a gentle, sweet boy, now his only emotion seems to be anger.

He has trouble working alone. He may be able to do a certain task but he needs someone to tell him what to do to get started. He can’t complete a large task unless someone breaks it down for him. He has lost two jobs because the Boss couldn’t leave him to get on with the task at hand.

I realise that this is a homeschooling forum (I am homeschooling my two younger children…I’ve learnt not to trust anyone else to educate my children) but if anyone can shed some light on what I’m dealing with here, or how to get him tested, I would appreciate it.

His Dad is angry and bitter towards his “failing” son and thinks he just needs to “get a job”. His Step-father believes that we need to start a business for him which we will run. I believe that he needs to be able to complete something for himself. How will he cope without us in the future if he isn’t taught how to cope now? He needs help. I’ve know this for years but could never get anyone to believe me. Help someone, please?

It would be very helpful to get him tested. Many colleges in the U.S. offer testing services for disabilities (for their enrolled students). I guess I would start looking for evaluation services by calling a university or college and asking for information. Even if they don’t conduct evaluations themselves, they may be able to direct you to others who do.

What I wanted to suggest, however, is that you look into PACE (http://www.processingskills.com ). Young adults tend to do very well with this program, and it works on developing a wide variety of underlying skills.

Nancy

I have so much to share, I honestly do not know where to begin. So here goes…

For a host of reasons, my husband and I decided it would be best to have our children return to home-schooling (we began educating them through home-schooling, tried both public AND private school, became disillusioned, returned to home-schooling). To be frank, my children practically begged to return to home-school.

Recognizing the extraordinary amount of time it takes to develop curriculum (my professional background includes graduate work in education), particularly for 2 children, I decided to explore what type of independent study offerings were out there (we live in California). Our State Department of Education referred us to a number of programs. I will not elaborate upon, in this message, all the things that led us to the conclusion to enroll in the program that we did. The primary reason however was that the curriculum was generally impressive (some flat spots that with age could be improved upon) and the content was delivered partly through the Internet. I must say, we are about to complete our first year and are generally pleased.

Now, to the point of this post. We have long suspected that our daughter was learning disabled. Although very bright, she consistently struggles with some important aspects of language processing. Recent psycho-educational testing indicated deficits in Coding, Digit Span, and Spatial Span. The assessment also indicated she was “highly gifted.” Thus, she falls within the category of “Dual Exceptionalities.” You will find out in a moment why this is important. Aditionally, she was diagnosed with ADHD, Oppositional Defiance Disorder, and Generalized Anxiety Disorder. We have long suspected, and the body of research is growing, that her premature birth, low birth weight, NICU stay (26 weeks gestation/1 pound 10 ounces/4 months) placed her at an increased risk for these issues.

Early Childhood Intervention was intensive and comprehensive and extremely effective. The State of California is relatively progressive on this front - insuring that children like my daughter are identified and served Birth to Three. Most of the significant fine motor, gross motor, and speech language delays were mitigated with the help of 4 years of speech language, occupational, and physical therapies. However, as she advanced through school, challenges were increasingly more obvious. Unfortuantely, we also found that during the intervening people between the age of 3 and school age, it is next to impossible to get anyone to take diagnosing and treating learning disabilities seriously (unless there is a significant developmental disability). One she began formal schooling, it was obsious that she had developed a wonderful knack for overcompensating for her challenges, so if it was not for the fact that she is homeschooled, her challenges probably would have been overlooked in the schools. Why? Teachers constantlly told us that our daughter had to just be “lazy” because they “knew she was very smart.”

Through our home-school program, which is part of a national Internet-supported/facilitated public-charter initiative, we requested that our daughter be assessed. Frankly, we were optimistic because we figured the process could not be worse than the nightmare accounts we had heard from friends/colleagues about their personal battles with their child’s school as they attempted to advocate for their child. Boy, were we wrong. As it turns out, our daughter is being under-served, and thus, penalized because while she is learning disabled, her testing indicated very high cognition. Apparently children who have LDs who are also Highly Gifted are a growing group of victims of poor educational and public policy. You see, as the special education coordinator told my husband and I, “we should count our blessings because there are kids far worse off than our daughter - who would probably get over her issues anyhow.”

I hate to tell you this, but the ongoing battle to protect the rights of your child is a LONELY BUSINESS, truth be told. My husband and I have been doing it since our children were born (having had 2 preemie babies due to Eclampsia). The only group, as-a-whole, more difficult to deal with than school administrators and teachers (addressing the needs of your child on the issue of learning disabilities) are pediatricians and insurance companies! However, YOU MUST DO IT because if you don’t WHO WILL! Resign yourself to being labelled as the “obnoxious,” “demanding,” “unreasonable” parent. Prepare to be disliked. Throw off the bondage of “people-pleasing.” Your child needs you! Arm yourself with knowledge and never let them tell you “NO!” when you know in your heart and soul, your child’s needs deserve to be, and in most cases federal and state law require that they be, addressed.

My best advice is to arm yourself to the teeth with knowledge. I spend many a LONELY night on the Internet researching and the next day calling. Demand not only that your local school district do the right thing (you did not surrender your child’s rights to a “Free and Appropriate Public Education” when you decided to homeschool) but that they follow the law as children with disabilities are a protected class (make sure the IDEA-2004 and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act make it on your preferred reading list).

Our most effective ally has been our local research institutions and childrens’ hospitals (USC and UCLA ). Make “best friends” with at least a developmental psychologist, a neuro-psychologist, and for gosh-sakes get a pediatrician skilled and experienced with working with children with learning disabilities (most pediatricians have not a clue about the “realities” and complexities involved in addressing the needs of LD children. The next best thing you can do is make inquiries about research studies done in your area. Oftentimes, the greatest challenge to addressing your LD child’s needs is just getting them assessed. Many research studies provide opportunities for your child to be assessed and diagnosed, and in some cases, to receive treatment and/or medication - all at no cost. But as with anything, do your homework and never have your child participate in anything that you or they feel uncomfortable with. My children have participated in 2 major research studies - and I can ot tell you how much we have gained in information from this experience. By the way, these experiences also led to introductions to specialists and (programs) that were highly qualified to assist our children.

In the end, we are still fighting with the home-school program. The same stone-walling, withholding information, bureaucratic snafus, unskilled/uncaring/ administrative bureaucrats are no different than in the “brick-and-mortar setting - in spite of the fact that this home-school program markets itself as a program that recognizes that “no one is better-suited to educate a child than it’s parents.” We received the message loud and clear, educating your children is fine…advocating for them is not fine. So, the moral of the story is…roll up your sleeves, fasten your seatbelt, and hang on because it is going to be a bumpy ride! But, in the end, those who stay the course and survive the journey - YOU WILL PREVAIL, because right (and the law) is on your side. P.S. I hate to say this…but, as a last resort, having the ear of a good attorney (skilled in this area) is probably not a bad idea. The educational bureaucracy will always have more resources at their disposal than you - however, they are not skilled at using their resources efficiently. This is where you have an advantage. So you will have to become skilled at using what resources you do have with maximum efficiency. REMEMBER David and Goliath? Good Luck and Godspeed!

I’d try local home schoolers groups (there may be more than one) as well as yahoo groups. You aren’t at all alone. A lot of people homeschool their children with learning disabilities.

—des

Testing and all the rest of it won’t change him having to take that math course again unless you’ve got major political clout. Re-sitting exams is a pretty well-protected privilege and next to impossible to arrange in hindsight here; I woudl imagine that’s fairly true anywhere.

If he’s all of three credits away, then he’s been doing a lot of good things — you don’t get that far without some work and some skills :-)

Sometimes a math course from another instutution can transfer — are there summer school options?

I’m with you — I think it would do him a world of good to FINISH this. :)