Reading Kingdom, a TOS Crew Review

I am always looking for resources that will strengthen my homeschooler's reading skills. She is quite behind, academically, and as her comprehension of real-life events around her grows, her reading comprehension also grows (although real-life comprehension is ahead of reading comprehension, which, I believe, is typical).

My homeschooler is, by age, older than the targeted age range, yet she falls within the developmental range for the product, and I asked if we could give it a try. I'm glad we did; Reading Kingdom has a lot of the right components that make it very friendly for a child who can shut down with anxiety when a resource is too busy or feels too challenging.

Here's the company description, straight from the Reading Kingdom web site:

The Reading Kingdom is a fun, easy-to-use online program that teaches children 4-10 years old how to read and write to a third grade level.

• It customizes itself to each child



• Most children can do the program on their own after just a few weeks



• It's fun and children enjoy doing it



• It's created by Dr. Marion Blank, one of the world's top experts in literacy



• It works with any other curriculum a child may be using



• And, it's the only system that teaches all 6 skills needed for reading & writing success

Here's a link that takes you to a description of how the program progresses.

Setting up my homeschooler was easy. She completed a screening and the program placed her at the beginning, which surprised me; I thought she would begin at a higher level.

She began the lessons at the beginning, which is Letter Land. My little protester and resister complained about having to the lessons, but once she began, would work through them without too much complaining. (thumbs up!) The lessons are short, which I think is a huge strength to the program for us. I felt she was moving too slowly, though, wondering if we'd ever get out of Letter Land with one short lesson a day (stuff I thought she already knew), and I had her complete two lessons a day.

I've seen very little of the program so far as my girl plugs through one or two daily lessons. Seems like a slow process to me, but she needs that, and I'll be the first one to admit that I've been known to move too quickly for her.

She's always been a strong sight word reader; right now, she is getting experience identifying sight words; filling in blanks to complete the spelling of sight words; using sight words repetitively. She is reading two sentences at a time and playing games (activities) that boost practice with what she's working on.

The program uses words learned in new lessons, always keeping past lessons in the mix.

There is a lot of repetition between tasks and activities, variations on a theme, and that is a positive for a child on the autism spectrum. My girl is able to see those patterns and complete tasks and activities because she's played the same game before using different words or letters or sentences.

I like the multi-sensory approach, reading, listening, typing. She must use several "channels" of attention at the same time to complete the short lessons (10 minutes or so).

My one complaint is the fact that the child must wait until the program is ready for a response. Typing a half-second too soon = an incorrect response. That frustrates me, although my daughter seems to have adjusted to that aspect of the program.

Does it translate into better reading and comprehension for my girl? Is it helping us close foundational gaps for us? Or will it add to her sight word list without building the comprehension she needs? I don't know yet. We haven't gotten into a high enough level yet to get a feel for that. I have to trust the progression of lessons. I do know that the activities require her to pay attention and focus, and she needs that, even when reading and spelling words that she already knows. We will keep working with Reading Kingdom, because it keeps her in a place where she is competent and it moves her gently forward. I look forward to seeing where it takes her.

Reading Kingdom is priced at $19.99 a month or $199.99 for a year-long subscription, after a free 30-day trial. Scholarships are available for families who can't afford the subscription.

Read my Crewmates' reviews of Reading Kingdom HERE.

I was given a 13-month online subscription to Reading Kingdom for review purposes. I was not paid for this review, do not benefit if you purchase the product, and am not obligated to provide a positive review.

Brunch: A "Grilled Cheese" Hit (maybe)

Li'l Bit asked for a grilled cheese. I attempted one without a recipe. I made a roux using arrowroot flour and coconut milk, added some shredded Daiya cheddar flavor and a dab of yellow mustard, wisked & wisked & wisked, and used a spoon to spread it on toasted-in-a-pan slices of Udi's GF bread. She ate half the sandwich.

Non-Verbal Conversations: One Man Band

I have chosen non-verbal communication as my topic of choice in recent weeks. Non-verbal foundations of conversations are so important and are often overlooked and ignored when working with children with developmental delays.

One of our cable-TV channels is running a show of one Pixar short after another. One of my favorites, a bonus feature from the Cars DVD, is One Man Band.

I like it because One Man Band is such a wonderful reminder of what non-verbal conversations, attention shifting, attention sharing, look like, even though in this case, they're all animated.

Take a peek at it. I found the video here.

A Texting Funny

We had to run an errand at my husband's office one day this week. To keep my homeschooler occupied, I handed my new cell phone to her and suggested she send a text to my sister. (An aside: I wonder if getting her a phone of her own would increase communication in new ways?)

I suggested that she text my sister the fact that we were at her dad's office, and she began typing and saying aloud what (I thought) she was typing: "We're in Dad's office."

Later, I looked at the message she sent to my sister, and it said,

"W I D O"

That cracked me up. I just began texting in the past couple of weeks; I'm a novice; she's a pro. Not only did she come up with a texting lingo that follows a lot of the texting rules that we use (which we did not teach her; she absorbed them on her own, somehow), she had to carefully think through the first sound of each word, translate that into a letter, find the space bar, to create her message before sending. That's pretty big.

Socially ADDept (review)

Socially ADDept, Teaching Social Skills to Children with ADHD, LD, and Asperger's, Revised Edition, is a brand new offering from Jossey-Bass teacher and Janet Z Giler, Ph.D., a marriage and family therapist who is experienced in working with teachers, families, and mental health professonals who work with, live with, individuals with ADHD, LDs, and Asperger's.

In a three-section layout, Dr. Giler guides readers through What Parents and Teachers Need to Know 9 (Chapter 1 is available here.); The Socially ADDept Lessons (ten of them); and Appendices. The table of contents is here.

My child does not have an Aspie label; she does have attention issues and learning disabilities. Our intervention of choice is a developmental one that grows joint-attention by starting with foundations and growing them, instead of using rote rules as compensations. While I am not comfortable using every lesson, there are some solid self-awareness lessons that we can incorporate into our developmental approach. Some of the lessons address skills by using compensations that are too explicit, to artificial, too rule-based for me, and quite frankly, we've been able to bypass some of these lessons altogether by conquering some of the challenges in the book by addressing them naturally from an experience-based developmental, relationship approach.

I'm going to pick and choose the lessons that fit our approach, and there are quite a few of them. Other lessons will guide me as we begin to host more play dates and meet people in our new location after our move. Dr Giler spotlights some concepts I have put on the back burner and may need to bring forward at our house. (I will completely ignore the lessons about eye contact; one of our goals is referencing for meaning, and I don't want to confuse my girl and make her think referencing is about eye contact, because it's not.)

If you like rule-based social skills classes, you may like this book. Priced at $29.95, the book is easy to follow; the lessons are arranged in a way that makes them visually appealing on the page (there is not too much info on a page, for example), and I think that either a professional or a laymom or dad can use them. The paperback is the size of a sheet of copy-paper; it is designed to lie flat on a copy machine for easy duplication for groups.

Dr Giler's web site is http://www.addept.org/.

Jossey-Bass Teacher sent me a copy of Socially ADDept, Teaching Social Skills to Children with ADHD, LD, and Asperger's, Revised Edition, by Dr. Janet Z. Giler, for review purposes. I am not paid for this review and am not obligated to provide a positive review.

Verbal Faux-Interaction or Verbal Interaction? There is a difference.

The Among Friends blog features a post called "19 Ways to increase verbal interaction with your child" that I want to comment on, to add to. If you right click on the link to the Among Friends blog post and open it in another tab, you can see the list without closing this post.

In the blog post, speech-language pathologist Ruth HaberkornHalm gives parents a list of 19 actions to take in interactions with their children aimed at increasing verbal interactions with children who are in some sort of speech therapy. It's a great list, particularly when used for the right reasons (and I'm not convinced she's using them for the right reasons, based upon some of her descriptions), and I see uses for the list way beyond what she suggests.

HaberkornHalm writes, "In the treatment room, the speech pathologist teaches the child the skills needed to attain receptive and expressive language skills appropriate for their age or the highest level the child can reach." (I have a problem with part of this statement. Keep reading.)

She lists 19 ways, idea-starters that parents can use to create opportunities and situations for the kids to ask for something. She says, "They are designed to help the child use/increase requesting, verbal interaction and naming as well as improve speech intelligibility, expand utterances and build associations." I want to add the idea that the list of 19 is also designed to create opportunities for the child to wonder what is in Mom's mind, to wonder why she paused, why she left something out; to perspective take; to discover a problem or breakdown together and to repair it together.

If you look at that list, you can look at it two ways. In one way, it is a list designed to help parents to create opportunities for manding (requesting, or what I sometimes refer to as DEmanding), which is a term from behavioral psychology. If you look at it from another angle, it is a list of ways to build or grow interdependence, to create a situation where your child needs YOU for something, which may or may NOT involve "words" and "talk" and more importantly, is developmental and relational. I want, using Mom as a means to an end is drastically different from I need YOU to help me WITH something; let's do it together.

Interdependence is an important concept that is sometimes (often) missed in kids w/ developmental delays. A lot of kids with developmental delays and/or special needs don't know they NEED others; don't experience the benefits and importance of relationships with others.

HaberkornHalm sort of hints at this in the text, but does not go into detail: "They may have a hard time knowing what their child wants because he/she may not request, may not engage, their language is limited or intelligibility is compromised."

If your child fits the description of the first part of her list, they probably have no developmental business being made or expected in increase verbal interaction. If your child fits this descrption "They may have a hard time knowing what their child wants because he/she may not request, may not engage" then you may want to skip opportunities for your child to mand or request and instead use this list with a different goal in mind. (Hint: it's not "verbal interaction". Take some developmental steps back, please.)

Here's what I didn't understand, what no one explained to me when my child was two.

Giving children situations where they need to mand does not = relationship building.

There is a difference between creating opportunities for a child to mand as a means to an end VS creating opportunities to need you, to experience an "us", a "we", a "between you and me"that add up to relationships. If you seek engagement, relationship, "we", "us", "between you and me" experiences, please know this: Creating opportunities to mand won't get you where you want to go. Developmentally, you can't get there from here. Creating opportunities to practice and experience competent interdependence, opportunities to interact with reciprocity at non-verbal levels will get you there, and if you understand that developmental concept, you can use this sweet list on your trip.

Engagement at non-verbal levels comes first in development. Dr Gutstein taught me that words and talk are the last enhancement to an already complex system of engagement and interaction that add up to communication. If you are parenting a child who does not engage, give him experience in engagement at non-verbal levels and save pushing for verbal exchanges for the time when the non-verbal engagement, interaction, interdependence are in place.

The list is a great list, and can and SHOULD be used for other opportunities, particularly pre-speech, non-verbal foundations of relationships, for creating situations that you can do with your child.

I wish HaberkornHalm had established some sort of developmental criteria, some sort of developmental checklist for parents to help them know when using a list like hers for "verbal interaction" is developmentally appropriate.

Why is that so important to me? Because we were given lists like these to use for "verbal interaction" when my child did not have the non-verbal foundations of interaction and joint attention in place, first. The professionals guiding us understood behavior, but did not understand development. With hearts of gold and good intentions, we created more weirdness using a list like this one outside of a developmental framework.

"Verbal interaction" is not a developmentally appropriate goal for children who don't yet engage at non-verbal levels. If your child doesn't naturally need you, is not interdependent, if you have to create situations for your child to need your assistance, you may need to back up and give her some experience and practice at pre-verbal levels. If your child does not naturally need you, watch you, monitor you visually, and I'm talking referencing for meaning, not meaningless eye contact here; if you're not having rich non-verbal back-and-forth exchanges with your child, using this list to increase verbal interaction is probably developmentally inappropriate, no matter the age of the child. However, you can use this list to help your child experience pre-verbal foundations that lead to the verbal stuff.

So, first of all, in my laymom opinion, throw out the idea that goal is for the child to be "appropriate for their age". Throw out, "Modify the activity according to your child’s age and interests.", too. Let's try "developmentally appropriate" instead, and go from there.

Here's one good thing about the list for me: We parents can fall into a lifestyle of creating a lot of learned helplessness by doing too much for our kids, and a lot of HaberkornHalm's suggestions, in my opinion, are good reminders that we as parents should not do too much for our kids. Here's an example: HaberkornHalm suggests reminding your child to brush her teeth while hiding the toothpaste. When we give the child a toothbrush loaded with toothpaste, they get the message that they don't have to be engaged and active in self-care, that mom or dad will do most of the work for them. (See the labels section in my blog left-hand side bar for more thoughts on learned helplessness.)

Here's what I see differently from HaberkornHalm: The list of "19 ways", for me, though, isn't as much about verbal interaction as it is about stages of relationship development and joint attention. Her goal is "verbal interaction" and it differs from mine. My goal is relationship building. You can get "verbal interaction" and completely miss J/A and relationship building, or you can focus on relationship building and get J/A and interaction naturally along with it.

Parents of kids with developmental delays, or "special needs" or on the autism spectrum are often taught to miss the mark of joint attention by misguided professionals, as though joint attention automatically comes with the verbal interaction. But it's not the kind of interaction that parents crave, at least it wasn't for us. I'd call it verbal faux-interaction instead of something real.

I can tell you from experience that you can create a very verbal child who has little-to-no experience with interaction. Using HaberkornHalm's list almost as a 'recipe book' of sorts, you can 'get' your child to 'talk', 'request', 'mand', 'demand'. But all of those things can occur outside of real reciprocity, outside of the non-verbal dance of turn-taking, outside of true interaction. How do I know that, you wonder? I know that because it happened at my house.

Be careful with lists of "19 ways".

Before I learned about developmental foundations through folks like the ones from Relationship Development Intervention or Communicating Partners, I would have used that list for more one-sided manding, not for reciprocity and interaction.

"But Penny," you may be wondering, the author mentions specific non-verbal actions, why are you picking on this? After all, HaberkornHalm writes, "Make sure the child wants or needs the item (looks at, reaches for, points to, tries to get it) or the action."

Looking at, reaching for, pointing to, trying to get it can ALL be one-sided mands and not functions of interaction and reciprocity. Using the ABLLS, we taught all of those actions as mands and checked them off the list. Many years later, as I studied the development of joint attention, I realized that looking at, reaching for, pointing to, trying to get are much, much more than mere mands, they're early non-verbal pre-cursers (Dr Gutstein calls them "prototypes") of joint attention. We severely limited our child by giving her the experience that they are only mands. I am still upset over the way we merrily checked them off the ABLLS checklist as though we'd captured the full developmental meaning behind them when we'd taught them only as a mand.

Looking back at our journey, I see red flags all over these recommendations for increasing verbal interactions for families who are in the same shoes that I was in a few years ago. My kid could request, verbally and non-verbally, but she could not interact. For us, "talk" and lists of ways to increase verbal interaction had REPLACED the underdeveloped joint attention and underdeveloped non-verbal foundations of speech. That list would not have helped me give my girl the things I really wanted her to have without an understanding of how joint attention develops via interaction with a parent, something both RDI(r) and CP have taught me.

Our experience, like many others, is that focusing on non-verbal foundations of communication/joint attention/theory of mind has increased verbal interaction as a by-product. I never imagined that giving up a focus on "talk" and "increasing verbal interaction" and instead focusing on pre-speech foundations would actually INCREASE speech and receptive language. But it did!!! Another by-product that we saw happen without directly targeting it as a behavior to change was the eloping and bolting behavior decreased the more she was non-verbally "with" us in terms of joint attention. (I called our then-consultant from a department store one afternoon and asked, "What is happening? She is staying with me without my hanging on to her wrist with all my might." He chuckled and told me that he was hearing that a lot from his families.)

So, if you have a child who is verbal and mostly (all) one-sided, like I did, here's a suggestion for you. Use the list to give your child practice and experience in non-verbal referencing, in non-verbal turn-taking and interaction with you, and let go of the need to "get" more words and talk and instead give them experience in the benefits of a relationship with mom or dad.

Here's an example:

When you take a different action that you usually do, for example, handing the child an empty toothbrush instead of one loaded with toothpaste, you give the child an opportunity to reference you both physically, with a glance or look (not "eye contact", but referencing for meaning, and those two things are very different!) and to reference you mentally, wondering what is in your mind. For a child on the autism spectrum, who has little experience with the idea that there could be something different in YOUR mind than their is in HIS mind, this is a preliminary step in giving him experience with that kind of joint attention. Allow him processing time to take his own glance at you to see what you're up to, be quiet and wait, and when he notices, don't try to "get" something else (a verbal request) from him; you don't have wait for him to mand for the toothpaste. Be silly and answer, "I forgot the toothpaste!" Use it as an opportunity to squirt the toothpaste together.

Honestly, my kid who could mand for toothpaste could not reference and interact. Her expressive communication far outweighed her interactive world. If your kid sounds like that, you need to approach a list like this one aimed at "verbal interaction" with caution.

HaberkornHalm's list is a good one, but I'd like to qualify that it is for children who have non-verbal foundations of speech firmly in place, and for many kids with developmental delays, "special needs", autism, etc., the list needs another title. I'd rename it, "19 Ways to Create Opportunities for Your Child to Practice and Experience Referencing You For Meaning And Joining You in Interactions As Part Experience With You in Early Stages of Joint Attention".

iPad Apps for People w/ Disabilities

I don't own an iPad.

Or an iPod Touch.

Or an iPhone.

Maybe someone will come up with a grant or scholarship for iPads for verbal kids with autism who would still struggle with communication and would benefit from having one. (HollyRod provides them for non-verbal kids.)

I got an e-mail the other day that is worth sharing; the e-mail contains a link to a Google spreadsheet of Apps available for iProducts.

Go HERE to view the spreadsheet.

House Hunting, Moving, and Autism

As we prepare to move, we're talking more about it. The children have many questions.

I have tried to provide information so that we all get a feel for our new state and town before we get there. I bought travel guides, one to the entire state, and a second to the big city closest to where we'll be living. I need to buy a Kids Love Travel guide to the state, as well, but none of the book stores here have them for me to purchase.

I bought each member of the family a map of the state that we are moving to. They were 99 cents at an outlet book store. The maps were a Christmas stocking stuffer. (Don't you hate to fold up those things?) Not one of us remembered to bring a map to our house hunting trip, though, and we could have used it that week as we traveled the area and began to learn where one area is in relationship to another.

Part of moving is the whole house-hunting experience, and as I looked at houses online in prepration for a house-hunting trip, I often invited my children to peek at a property with me as a preview.

I purchased books for children about moving. The Berenstain Bears book is one of them.

As we prepared to house hunt, the real estate agent asked how to prepare for my child who is on the autism spectrum. I asked her if she'd make a packet of information about the homes we'd see for my girl. The real estate agent had a better idea; she'd make a packet about the homes AND give my girl some smiley face and frown face stickers to put on them. When we arrived, the real estate agent had a cute tote bag, some colored pencils, some stickers, and information about each house (that included photos of each house) we'd see that day.

I also explained that the more we could make the children active participants in the process, the more engaged and interested they would be, and that a child with autism needs to be an active participant, needs a role, so she's not passively being dragged around from house to house.

Our agent was amazing. After opening the first couple of front doors, knocking loudly, sticking her head inside the door and calling out, "KNOCK KNOCK!", she began to let my daughter unlock and open all the front doors we approached. My girl never missed a beat, opening each door, knocking loudly, and calling out "KNOCK KNOCK!" exactly as the agent had done. Adorable.

We were able to have meetings with our real estate agent in our hotel room, which helped. Meeting outside of her office required a bit more work for her, as she had to drive to her office to make copies and send faxes and such, but the sacrifice made waiting easier in my girl.

We did make two trips to the house we chose, so the children have seen it and explored it.

So, we've explored a new career: real estate agent, (thanks, Beverly for reminding me of that).

Now, to make the actual move.

I would love to hear from folks who have moved with a child who is on the autism spectrum.

Blog Cruise: Homeschooling + Special Needs

I am an "accidental homeschooler". If you're one of the parents who thinks you can't do this, please know, I was one of them, too.

I could write a book. Maybe I should write a book? I enjoy connecting families with resources and resources with families - this is one big blog post that will do just that, and maybe save you some money with my ideas, too.

For what it's worth, here's part of my journey as I learn my way through homeschooling a child on the autism spectrum with a list of co-occurring conditions that we see slowly growing shorter.

My child regressed into autism after her first birthday (and, coincidentally, after a chicken pox vaccine). By the time she was 20 months old, the school system had labeled her with a "sensory motor problem" and I'd become an expert in sensory integration issues. Every mention of SI issues also included a mention of autism, which took me (a former psych major at graduate school level) to the DSM-IV. When I realized that she fit the diagnostic criteria for autism, I moved in that direction. (Yes, she has an official diagnosis.)

I am one of the moms who tries to keep up with the latest and greatest in autism research. There are many of us out there. The problem is, we quickly pass our child's teachers, speech therapists, OTs, etc, in terms of knowledge and research. At this point, I am probably 10 years ahead in terms of knowledge and application from a developmental perspective, ahead of colleges and universities who are teaching new staff, ahead of current staff working in schools and clinics today.

I gave up on the public special education system when my daughter was eight years old. She'd been in the system since she was 19 months old.

If you are trying to make the decision to withdraw a child with special needs (mild to severe, I don't care), I can tell you that I wish I'd given up on public school sooner. My girl has made more progress at home than she did at school. Is it easy? No. Some days are wonderful. Some are hell on earth. Most are somewhere in between. Is it worth it? YES!

Here's my essay about what sent me over the edge to finally make the decision to withdraw my girl from public school in the middle of a school year:

Why I Decided To Homeschool

I decided six years ago to abandon the behavioral approach that held so many empty promises for us; decided six years ago that a developmental, relationship based approach to the whole (gestalt) combination of parenting/teaching/discliplining/autism-interventioning is a priority. I found the intervention to help me do just that (it is called Relationship Development Intervention), and a consultant whom I trusted to guide me. The developmental, relationship based approach has been a wonderful journey filled with discoveries and milestones and progress!

We've been homeschooling for three years. I've learned as much about myself as I have about my girl.

I knew that she does not learn like I learn or like I would teach. I had to figure out how she learns.

Autism is not a deficit of discreet skills; that's one of the reasons I abandoned the behavioral approach.

I learned that there's not one correct way to homeschool. There are hundreds, maybe thousands. Obviously, you must follow the legal standards for where you live.

I wanted to keep relationship goals and objectives in the forefront with academics a background piece, because young adults with autism don't struggle in the real world workforce because of a lack of academics; they struggle due to the relationship piece. Employers value collaboration, teamwork, flexibility, creative problem solving - employers don't care too much about your good test scores, because good test scores don't translate into employability.

Could we work on relationship skills and functions without abandoning academics? I had some questions and concerns. Three years into homeschooling, my experience has been that you can force academics and completely miss the relationship pieces (the parts employers value) OR you can put relationship pieces in the forefront and get both the relationship pieces AND academics. However, getting both means that we don't sit around doing a lot of worksheets and memorization. Unit studies, games, cooking, laundry, other chores, field trips, anything hands-on, anything that chases an interest is a good background academic for a relationship goal or objective.

Diet

Dietary changes can make huge differences in the behavior, functioning, and self-regulation of children with developmental delays. If you've never experimented with diet, homeschooling gives you a wonderful opportunity to do so.

Biomedical

Some children don't absorb nutrients from their food, which, in turn affects development. This idea and the idea that diet can affect the brain were two of the crazier things I'd ever heard, until we tried them, expecting to see nothing, and instead saw huge changes. Finding a doctor who will order certain labwork to look at deficiencies can be an important piece in calming a child so he/she can learn. DAN! offers online conference presentations if you would like to learn more about a particular topic. A DAN! doctor or functional medicine specialist may be an asset on your team.

Vision and Hearing

Rule out vision and hearing issues that could affect learning and interaction. Find a developmental optometrist, perhaps an Irlen specialist, and an audiologist who is known for testing the difficult-to-test population. And yes, a *developmental* optometrist makes a difference.

Movement

Movement is important to neurological development and learning. Smart Moves by Carla Hannaford, PhD is a wonderful resource. So are HANDLE, Brain Gym, and Dianne Craft's resources. "30 Minute Motor" from Bob Sornson is a solid resource that I like, too.

Educating ME

Several people and books have been helpful in my journey:

Ruth Beechick's The Three R's and You CAN Teach Your Child Successfully. Beechick gave me one of the most important pieces of knowledge that I want to make sure you understand, too. Every concept and skill must begin in manipulative mode. I wrote about it here. Most kids arrive at school-age with a lot of manipulative mode experience under their little belts and are able to work at higher levels. Kids with autism and other developmental delays often do not have this experience, which means we have to try to convert everything to "visual" mode. While "visual" mode is a good compensation, it doesn't remediate the delay. Understanding manipulative mode and the progression toward abstract is important for all teachers working w/ kids w/ developmental delays.

Another must-read is Education Nation. Author Milton Chen puts into perspective what is important for learning and teaching.

Here are more:

Carol Barnier and The Big WHAT NOW Book of Learning Styles

Melinda Boring, Heads Up, and her book - find them all here

The Ultimate Guide to Homeschooling is excellent.

Be sure to go to Rhino Technologies web site and search for Carol Barnier, Melinda Boring, Tammy Glaser, Heather Laurie and others for special needs topics based on your situation, because Rhino Technologies may have an audio presentation for you for under $10 - much cheaper than traveling to a convention.

The RDI Book by Steve Gutstein

Learning As We Grow by Nicole Beurkens, Erin Roon, Courtney Kowalczyk

Paula Kluth - Kluth's books are aimed at school-building school classrooms and I think homeschoolers overlook her wisdom because of that. Kluth's experience is great for homeschoolers, too. Don't miss this one or this one.

Ross Greene, PhD - is another author whose "Lost at School" may be missed by homeschoolers; please don't miss this one because of the title.

Learning about learning styles is helpful; I have been privileged to review two books that I refer to often, again aimed more at school-building schoolers, but very valuable for homeshoolers. One is here, the other is here.

For all things sensory, I highly recommend, The Fabric of Autism, by Judith Bluestone. Ignore the "a" word in the title.

Therapy

Therapies are easier for me to fit into the week with homeschooling. No more chaotic nights running to occupational therapy. A bonus of homeschooling is that I'm finding more appropriate activities for child that accomplish a lot of the same things that therapies do. I've begun to think outside the box. Figure skating lessons. We found a private coach to do one-on-one for starters, and we learned that younger coaches charge less than older, more experienced coaches. If you found my blog because of the Crew, check out the labels section in my left-hand side bar. I have posted a lot about figure skating. Homeschool co-ops gave us new opportunities. Competitive jump rope. Martial arts. When we make our big move in a few weeks, we're going to try volunteering at a non-profit for some social and life skills, too. I'm considering a children's theater camp as well. And I'm already connecting with homeschool groups and co-ops in our new town.

Curricula, Products, Resources

Let go of the need to do hours and hours of worksheets in order to accomplish "academics" if your learner does not learn that way. There are so many other options available to you. I am still amazed at the products that are marketed to homeschoolers that have built-in visual, tactile, and kinesthetic components, as if they are tailor made for students with unique learning needs and challenges.

My favorite resource is any web site of a homeschool convention. Find a homeschool convention web site and spend some time on the exibitor page, clicking through to vendor web sites, looking at products. Then spend some time on the speaker/presenter info pages, clicking through to their web sites, and also looking for google or youtube video of these speakers.

Another favorite resource - parent reviews. Even when I don't get a product to review, I can find someone who did, and I can read about their experience with that product for a better idea about it.

We don't use a set curriculum; we pull from an eclectic mix of resources to piece together what we need at the time. We are flexible and we sometimes change often what we're doing.

Check out the side bars of my blog, left-hand and right-hand. Look at the products I've gotten to review the past almost-three-years. Let me spotlight a few for you. All About Spelling is based on Orton-Gillingham - it's amazing. Who knew that Trigger Memory Systems makes visual charts for laundry, zone cleaning, bedroom cleaning? Until I got to review them, I had no idea. The charts remind me of PECS. Write Shop's Story Builders are super for a child who struggles to put words together into phrases and sentences, who struggles with imagination, who struggles to put pen to paper. Tapestry of Grace works for a student whose skills are scattered across several grade levels (we weren't ready for it two years ago, but I think we are ready for ToG now). Timberdoodle offers a products for a variety of needs; Sue Patrick's workbox system was developed for kids with autism in mind. Bonnie Terry has great resources. I use a lot of bits and pieces from unit studies from The Old Schoolhouse Store and Amanda Bennett. I could put a blurb here about many of the items I have reviewed; that would be impractical in this already long blog post. Check out my side bars, please. *smile*

Be sure to try any and all free samples that you can get your hands on before you buy. See what works with your child. Get a feel for how he/she learns, for what he/she enjoys. TOS's freebie directory is here, for starters.

Online conventions are becoming more popular, and the price is right. The Schoolhouse Expo is one example, and if you are unable to attend the live conference, you can buy "to go" versions of past conferences to hear on your timetable.

Ask families in your co-op if you may look at their resources and even borrow some for a "test drive". Look for used curriculum sales. Trying new-to-you resources is a risk and you could spend a lot of money trying to find the right fit.

Bottom line: There's no one correct way to homeschool, and that 'rule' applies double and triple when homeschooling a student with special learning needs. Relax, experiment with different tools, resources, approaches; figure out how your student learns best. Most of all, ENJOY. Enjoy your time together, enjoy learning.

More special needs blog posts on the cruise are here.

PS: I don't benefit if you purchase any item that I mentioned. I wasn't asked to include any of these items - these are resources that use a lot.

Disclaimer: I'm not an expert. I am just a mom. I use professionals to guide me; I recommend you do the same.

Would You Rather

Would you rather learn the layout and streets of a new city by

a) rote memorizing facts from a map through drills, worksheets, quizzes, exams with no reason to memorize, no destination in mind?

or

b) with one or two destination points in mind at a time, map your way to those destinations and drive them, experience them in context, as you need to get to church, or the grocery store, or the bank, for example?

We're moving to a new-to-us-city in another state. Learning my way around is a job. My husband and I have moved four times to new-to-us-cities; I know that learning the layout of the city is something that will happen over time and with experience, in context. This will be the first move where I have access to a new-fangled GPS plus the old-fashioned map, and still, my getting out and experiencing the layout for myself is necessary.

Being able to pass an exam based on map memorization or street name memorization would be the hard way to learn the layout of a town. That method would be out of context, outside of experiential learning. Yes, I might be able to quote a long list of street names in order, but is that even practical?

I thought about rote memorization vs experience in terms of learning a new city and compared it in my mind to the way we tried to teach my daughter between the ages of two and five using a behavioral approach that relied heavily on rote memorization out of context, which didn't work the way we thought it would and created some new challenges for her and us. Memorizing letters, colors, numbers, shapes, actions, occupations, out of context, out of developmental order, gave her little outside the ability to label in a one-sided way. Basically, she could answer questions on an oral exam, and that was it.

Interestingly, yesterday I talked to a woman whose nephew graduated from high school in another state. The nephew has Asperger's. Because he passed all of his schoolwork with flying colors, because he could answer questions on exams, he graduated with his class, and because he graduated, he receives no more supports or services from his city or state. She says this boy is not capable of navigating anything about college except the academics, the coursework. College is about much, much more than academics, and this child is unprepared for the much, much more. His parents will have to provide an aide at their own expense to accompany the child to college to assist in navigating what amounts to anything that can't be memorized and tested.

I used to answer phones for our local ASA chapter, and I frequently got calls from family members of adults with Asperger's who wanted help in the job world, because these young men could not keep a job, because it required more than good grades and rote memorization. Jobs require teamwork and collaboration, flexibility, navigating change, learning from past mistakes and applying that to now and to future plans, using what you've learned.

Homeschooling has given us the opportunity to make the academics the background piece, with the relationship piece up front. I see over time that a de-emphasis on academics does not mean we skip academics or we de-value them. In fact, my girl is learning more this way. She's getting a two-fer. Seems like we, as parents and teachers, can provide an atmosphere where our kids with autism and Asperger's can get only the academics and skip the relationship stuff, or make the relationship stuff important with academics as a background piece, and give our kids both.

So, which would you rather do? Learn a new city by memorizing facts from the map or experientially and relationally by getting out and relating streets in context to an errand?