My 11 year old son has sensory integration issues ( particularly overreactes to vestibular), memory difficulties, some visual and auditory issues. I want to find textbooks and approaches to help him with his LD. He likes more involved math story problems, but needs extra practice with complicated, sequencial math. Likes science experiments with related simple text. Needs a step by step writing program. Needs a spelling and decoding program for kids who typically don’t understand how this works and needs alot of practice. Know of any good sources? He was doing quite well, but as school gets more complicated, the harder he struggles and the less interested he becomes. I home school him. We will be starting Audio Blox. I really appreciate your help.
Multisensory Spelling and decoding
Check out Looking Glass Spelling at www.gwhizresources.com. It is designed for LD kids, teaches sequencing, sound-symbol relationships, allows for visual processing issues and provides tons more practice than other methods. Also, it is really easy to use at home. It teaches strategies for spelling, not lists of words, and the vocabulary is appropriate for middle school-age kids and older. It’s based on Glass Analysis, a decoding instruction method and uses many principles espoused by Orton Gillingham.
Fern
Re: Looking for books and approaches for LD son
Check out the SPIRE program for comprensive reading and spelling. It is intended for kids with reading disabilities and is an OG type program. It is now sold by EPS. I used SPIRE to homeschool my son for 5 months, and still use it to afterschool him. A great benefit for us is that many of the reading passages are high interest science and social studies topics. So we could spend a lot of time on “reading” and still get some good science and social studies content coverage.
There is a tutor who posts on here named Victoria who offers her handouts (reading and math) for free. Check the Reading Board—I think that’s where I saw it last.
Good luck.
spelling
My son is in 6th grade and we have been using AVKO Spelling this yr. He has really done well with it. The guy that wrote it is dyslexic but it can be used for anyone with spelling difficulties. Jan
Our boys sound a lot alike-mine just turned 12 and is in 6th. He has been in ps up to this fall
We used sound reading for adolescents and made tremendous progress with his decoding. When the decoding fell into place, comprehension seemed to follow. I feel very confident with literature books right now
Textbooks are still hard. We took on Apologia Science-its a 7th gr text but I figured I would read it TO him. The sample pages showed lots of tiny experiments. It was a mistake. WE will continue simply because I paid a lot of money and I see it as the “challenge” part of the day any time I worry I am going too easy on him. The wording is just too difficult and the experiments are few.
I had originally considered one of the “365 experiments” books. There are several out there with minor variations in the title. They do a simple, household item experiment and then reaD a brief, simple explanation tion of what they just saw. Never more than a page or two but some are a little more educational-look them over-regular bookstores have these books
For Social Studies, I am reading Story of the World to him. I do think at this point he could read it himself(as opposed to August)but its a routine now and his favorite part of the day. He is learning a ton and remembers everything in this book(amazing, as his memory sucks) Might be worth a try with your ds as I think all the wars appeal to their ‘boyness’ and it aids memory ;)
Math-we started with Singapore and he enjoys it. If your son likes word problems, he will definitely find this a challenge. You can order the Topical Sums series which is ALL word problems-just go down AT least a grade level for the TPS-they are quite challenging.
I found he wasnt getting enough review with Singapore and have recently added Horizons6 to his Singapore 5B. He doesnt like it but I appreciate the review-most the NEW stuff is coming from Singapore and I want to stick with it-I like their approach and their word problems. Horizons is not big on word problems from what we have done so far.
My son had trouble sequencing and remembering where he was in math also. It has resolved itself and I credit Singapore becasue so much IS multistep I think it became a habit, not a rare need. But Im just guessing-perhaps just the change to one on one and homeschooling cemented it!
Spelling and writing continue to be a challenge. I am considering Sequential Spelling in January. We are doing the Megawords workbooks and he does well with the workbook but doesnt transfer to his everyday work. This uses prefixes and suffixes and gives rules for doubling consonants,etc. It might be worth a look for your guy but mine needs basic spelling with a capital B!!!!
I love Winston grammar if you have a need for grammar. Sue suggested a book on this forum when I was looking for grammar that also addresses writing(check older posts). I am looking at that for the future to address the writing weakness. Ive also heard good things about Writing Strands and personally I like the looks of “the Paragraph Book Series” from epsbooks.com. No experience yet-just looking!
Are you doing anything about the vestibular? I found “Physical Activities for Improving Children’s Learning and Behavior” by B Cheatum especially good. I like the explanations and the activities sound great. Unfortunately, I ve not actually DONE any of them-but perhaps you are more ambitious than me!!!