Curriculum in the Homeschool: What We Have Used for Our APD Daughter for Mathematics

So this post is a day later than I had planned, but I finally have time to sit down and write it.

Mathematics is one of those things that I have found people think about in very different ways.  It sometimes amazes me the way that people can solve a mathematics problem in a way that seems so bizarre to me, but it works.  The reason is because our brains don't all solve problems the same way.  Therefore, I find that mathematics must allow for each child to discover what way works best for his/her brain.

Also remember that  children with APD (auditory processing disorder) need to have visuals and/or kinesthetics to help due to the difficulties with auditory processing.

So keeping all this in mind, I have been very eclectic with mathematics.  All of my children think differently about it and solve problems in their own ways.  My sweet girl Hailey (who has APD)  is very visual and so conceptualizes as well as solves the problems really by picturing things in her mind. For this reason, we have done a lot of hands-on, real world learning with mathematics as well as used manipulatives and pictures.

The Early Years:
When Hailey was a little one, we played with math like we would play anything else.  We counted objects and we shared by dividing up our spoils.  We bought enough apples for each family member by counting.  We found out we are the second house on our block.  We subtracted how many cookies we ate from the total we had to find out how many we had left.  We would cook together and get 1 cup of milk or 1/2 cup of milk.  You get the point; we just incorporated mathematical thinking and language into everyday life and made it fun.

I also liked to read aloud mathematics stories like Measuring Penny and 12 Ways to Get to 11. There are a ton of great story books that introduce math concepts and really get kids interested in trying to "do math".  Hailey's twin brother absolutely adored books about money!

Introducing Numerals and Paper Problems:
At some point, we started writing the numbers down on paper and making written math problems. We used the objects we were adding and wrote them down so there was a one-to-one correspondence with the manipulative (what we were adding) with the numeral associated with it.

Sometimes I would write them as a problem like 2+3=5 and sometimes I would write them on a number line.  Othertimes we would draw them as pictures or stick figures.  This way, the kids would have seen a variety of ways to write it.

Having the Child Solve a Written Problem:
After having done the above for many times, then I would ask my sweetie to solve a problem by giving her the written problem.  She would have access to objects, which was her preferred method at first. Then later, I would not have the objects out and she would have to decide what way she could do it without the objects.  This generally led to using her fingers as objects.   Her fingers then didn't become an obstacle until she got to numbers higher than ten and she needed to implement other ideas.  As she would get stuck, I would show her options like the number line, counting up, counting down, drawing pictures, drawing stick figures, etc. I would only show one at a time to see if that made sense to her.  If it did, then great.  If not, then I'd try another one.  However, if I had to do more than two, then she was frustrated and it was time to stop and try again another day.

Introducing New Concepts:
As we were doing mathematics for everyday living all the time, new concepts were usually not completely new.  So when I wanted to add them to her written abilities - mathematics on paper - I would reintroduce it as "remember when we.......(ex. baked the cake and had to measure 1/2 a cup)". Then we would discuss what 1/2 meant or whatever the new concept was.

I would always be sure to have visuals and manipulatives as needed.  So for fractions, for example, we would have measuring cups and spoons; we would have something to cut into equal pieces; we used fraction blocks (a plastic manipulative you can buy); we drew pictures (half the people are wearing hats).

I always taught Hailey the concept and its practical use before how to solve any problems.  This is the way her brain best stores information: she needs the "why is this important and how does it all make sense" first.

Then she could start to solve problems both in real life and on paper.

Don't Make it Hard or Complicated:
Mathematics can be easy and it is best served in small chunks.  I never spent too much time working any mathematics problems or concepts. If it started to become frustrating and we couldn't fix the frustration quickly, then we stopped and did something else.  We could always go back to it another day.

My biggest concern was that Hailey would get frustrated with math and then decide she wasn't good at it and just shut down.  I did not want that to happen, so I made sure to make the steps small enough for her to always feel successful.  I really felt there was no rush to learn anything at any particular time and her perception of her skills was more important than any race to do things quickly.

The Workbooks We Used:
Mostly I made up my own mathematics curriculum and used the state mathematics as a guideline to make sure I covered everything she needed (but not at the time frame set by the state - at her pace).

I did use workbooks as ready made problems to solve as she got a little older.  We also did some Time 4 Learning, but she found she liked the workbooks better.  Here are some I liked:

School Zone Publishing Company Math Basics:  These are organized by grade level and you can see how the skills are repeated but with a little more added to each year.  I tended to use them without regard for the grade level.  So I might do a multiplying fractions unit and use the Grade 4 to introduce them and then do Grade 5 and Grade 6 the next few days.

Educators Publishing Service Attack Math:  These are books all about addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. They are the basic skills only, but worked well for repetitive practice.

Educators Publishing Service It's Elementary! 275 Math Word Problems: This is workbook filled with word problems.

Singapore Math Practice:  These are something that I just found this year and she has been doing well in them.  She is technically a 7th grader and she is currently working in the 7th grade level workbook.  I decided to mix up the flow of this workbook as it makes more sense to me to do the geometry sections all together and since we haven't done as much geometry before, I am saving them for last.

Algebra:
Hailey has not taken algebra yet, but she did do an app on her iPad that really taught her a lot about solving algebraic equations.  The app is called DragonBox and the basis is that whatever you do to one side of the equation, you have to do to the other side as well.  The point is to solve for x.

After completing the app, I gave Hailey some paper algebra equations and she could do the problems easily.  So I guess it worked.

In her Singapore Math workbook this year, there is a small algebra section but it is even simpler in that they give you a value for x.  However, the writing algebraic expressions from word problems was tricky.

So Hailey and my plan is for her to take algebra next year. (Remember she wants to take community college courses as a high schooler, so she is wanting to get prepared for that.) We probably will use the homeschool classes that she is enjoying this year as they have an algebra class.  However, if they go about it in a way that makes it seem complicated (as sometimes classes and people make math more complicated than it needs to be), then I'll take her out and do it with her at home.

Curriculum in the Homeschool: What We Have Used for Our APD Daughter for Language Arts

Curriculum is one of those hard questions for many homeschoolers.  Some choose not to use a curriculum, some choose to use a boxed set by one company for all the subjects, some choose different ones for each subjects, some pick and choose different resources as needed/desired, and some make up their own.

There are paper products like hardback books and workbooks and teacher's guides.  There are online products such as websites that have all the subjects or just one of the subjects.  There are hands-on materials such math manipulatives and art and science projects.  There are board games and videos and computer games.  There are real world resources like the grocery store, the animal shelter, and the local farm.  There are museums and re-enactment places and events.  So, the resources are there and homeschoolers are free to be as creative with them as we desire.

So when most people ask about curriculum, what they are wanting is usually the paper and pencil type workbooks or computer programs/websites for the skills such as reading, writing, and mathematics.

When people ask me for advice, I can tell them what I have used and why.  However, it might not be the best fit for their child.  So my first and foremost best advice is to get to know your child and what types of activities and presentation styles work best for him or her.  Some kids need to actually touch things like math manipulatives.  Some kids need a visual of the big picture while others want it step-by-step and don't confuse them with too much at once.  All kids with APD are going to need it to not be only auditory.

So here are some of the Language Arts materials/resources I have used with my sweet girl Hailey along the way:

Phonics and Early Readers:
We went to a reading specialist and Hailey was taught using the Lindamood Bell LiPS program* with a combined Orton/Gillingham approach.  There we were introduced to the Educators Publishing Service Primary Phonics readers.  They are interesting for readers (most are horribly boring and some don't even make sense) and they build on the skills very sequentially and with lots of repetition.  I actually used them for all three of my kids.

If you need direct instruction in how to teach phonics, I would look into a book that teaches you the parent how to teach phonics.  Also, there are websites that do a good job with teaching phonics such as Time 4 Learning; we did some Time 4 Learning and it presents phonics in a very easy to understand and fun way for younger kids.  There are also other great websites and programs out there for phonics, but I haven't personally used them.

There are also all sorts of phonemic awareness games you can play with your children.  Look for a book of suggestions geared toward the parent/teacher and you will soon realize how easy it is to incorporate these into everyday life.  An example would be going to the grocery store and looking for produce that start with /b/ sound or cutting out pictures from a magazine of /b/ sounds or rhyming words for the fun of it as a car game, etc.

Oh yes, one last thing I do not want to forget.  With having APD (auditory processing disorder), it really helped Hailey early on to use a lot of tactile, movement, and visuals for learning.  So she had a baking sheet with sand in it to draw letters in and she would tap the letters to sight words on her arms and write in big letters in the air and walk out words by each step being a new letter.  She would write letters and draw them into pictures as ways to remember them like an M can become a mountain. These multi-sensory additions really made the learning stick in her memory much better. I've seen some books online that teach multi-sensory approaches to phonics and reading, so those would probably have a lot of good suggestions.  When I have time in the future, I will try to read some and see if I can make a suggestion of one in particular I like.

(Rhyming was always an impossibility for Hailey with her APD and she still struggles with it to some extent even though she reads very well now.  So don't worry if they can't do some particular skill; they may not need to.)

Just Past Early Readers: 
I gave Hailey a combination of the bookstore early readers like Step Into Reading and DK Readers. She loved being able to pick out her own books and there were a variety of levels and subjects.  As a foresight, the DK Readers are a little harder than the Step Into Reading, so your child may be at a level 4 Step Into Reading and only a level 3 in DK Readers.  Don't worry about the level written on the books and what grade they are supposed to be for; just look for ones that your child can read without too much difficulty.

If comprehension is proving to be difficult, check out my post about comprehension strategies here: http://apdhailey.blogspot.com/2013/06/some-reading-comprehension-strategies-i.html

More Reading and Comprehension:
Then Hailey moved into some comprehension workbooks called Early Reading Comprehension in Varied Subject Matter by Jane Ervin; these have passages to read and then questions about the passage such as main idea, details, vocabulary, and writing about it.  She loved these workbooks and felt a real sense of accomplishment from doing them.

From there, she moved to the Reading Comprehension in Varied Subject Matter by Jane Ervin which are a higher level of the same thing but with more in-depth questions like going beyond the facts, true/false, writer's style and techniques, etc.

Novels:
Novels have not been something Hailey has been able to accomplish on her own yet.  The length is just too long for her as she starts to feel overwhelmed and gets frustrated.  She has read entire series of graphic novels and we have read novels together - her and I - in which we take turns reading a chapter (or if she is feeling too overwhelmed to read, then I just read) and we stop and discuss them along the way.

I have also used a lot of movies as an introduction to great works of literature.  They don't build her reading skills, but they do build her literary base to some extent.  At least she knows the basic storylines and I think that will be helpful in her future.  Besides, she loves watching them.

Vocabulary:
Obviously a child's vocabulary is developing all the time and the influence comes in many, many ways: language used in the house, language on movies and television, language in the reading, language of friends, etc.  So I have always tried to just push the limits of Hailey's vocabulary by using a little more complicated vocabulary at home as fit the circumstances and she was able to understand.  With her APD (auditory processing disorder), I have to be careful to integrate the new vocabulary slowly and appropriately, or she would be overwhelmed.

Just recently, at Hailey's request, she started in a series called Wordly Wise 3000 by Educators Publishing Service to build her vocabulary and it also has reading comprehension passages as well as word study with the vocabulary and things like synonyms, antonyms, prefixes, suffixes, Latin roots, etc.  This work is to help prepare her for college and specifically the college placement exam, as she wants to attend community college as a high schooler.

Punctuation and Grammar:
With punctuation, I opted to teach it along with the reading and writing.  So when we came to a period in reading, I explained the use of it. Then when we came to an exclamation point or quotation marks, etc. we read the piece appropriately using those punctuation marks as our cues.  In her writing, when I edit it, I point out the need for or appropriate use of punctuation.

I've done grammar pretty much the same way for the basics: nouns, verbs, pronouns, adverbs, adjectives.  I have not taught her beyond those yet.  However, with her desire to attend college so soon, we have started to review the basics and learn the more advanced like prepositional phrases, etc.  I actually bought her Schoolhouse Rock  to watch and she is enjoying those.  I also have a workbook called Premium Education Series Language Arts which focuses on grammar and punctuation.

Writing:
For writing, I've always let Hailey write what she wants to write.  She also writes at the end of those reading comprehension books she likes to do.

When she was little, she mostly drew pictures as her way of "writing".  She made stories out of a series of pictures.  Then sometimes she would add words or sentences here and there and I would help her as needed.

Now when she writes, she asks me for help in spelling as needed and then to look it over and edit it for her; so we do that together and I am careful to not be too picky. I just basically  look for spelling, grammar, and punctuation mistakes. If she has none, then I might suggest ways to enhance it such as adding more descriptive words, etc. Just recently, she has started asking me to write things for her to correct; so I write things with incorrect spelling, punctuation, capitalization, etc and she finds my mistakes.  She loves doing this! It has become like a game for her.

*

With all that said, I do not make Hailey do work in her workbooks every day.  She is very self-motivated and wants to do them, but if she is having a tough day or we are having a lot to do that day, then I tell her that we should take a break.  She will get overwhelmed easily and she pushes herself way too hard sometimes. I am the one who keeps reminding her that there is no hurry and she needs to monitor her energy and stress levels, etc., because she will overdue it and wear herself out.  So you know your child with APD (auditory processing disorder) and you will have to figure out what he/she needs as far as motivation/limit setting.  Please do remember, though, that people with APD can get mentally fatigued very easily due to the auditory processing demands and so if your child needs a break, give it to her/him.  Keep the work down to a timeframe that is manageable for your child to not get stressed out and if you see her/him getting stressed out, then move to something comforting and destressing; there really is no hurry to learn any particular thing at any particular time.

As this is so long already, I will write what materials we have used for mathematics in another post. My plan is to accomplish the mathematics post tomorrow.


*  The Lindamood Bell LiPS program is a program that incorporates the look and feel of the lips, tongue, and mouth when producing sounds.  This was the only way Hailey was able to differentiate between sounds such as /b/ and /p/ that sounds alike to her.  Here is a link to the post I wrote about her difficulties in phonemic awareness and how we found the LiPS program to be the only thing that helped her: http://apdhailey.blogspot.com/2013/01/phonemic-awareness-for-my-child-with.html

My APD Homeschooler's First Day of Classes Went Well

So Hailey (almost 13) had her first day of classes at the new homeschooling site we signed up for. She is taking tennis, theater, and 3-D art.  To her advantage, she already knows many of the students in her classes as they are friends we have known through homeschooling for years.

She wanted to have the experience of taking classes to see how she could handle it and for the social aspect.  I am curious to see if she needs any accommodations for the classes and if she notices any difficulties that we will need to be aware of for her future college career - which she insists will start in two years when she can take college classes as a high school student.

Concerned she might be overwhelmed with it being a new experience, I requested that she start with only the three classes and to make them "fun" classes.  Well, she is already talking me into letting her take a fourth class - creative writing.  So we are checking to see if there is still a way she can add on one more.  Hailey is definitely a reach-for-the-stars kind of person and sees no limits to doing what she wants in life. (This is definitely an asset in her life.)

So as you have guessed by now, she loved the classes!  She also adored the experience of eating a rushed lunch with all the other kids and even the idea of having a packed lunch!   Seriously, she was excited about the packed lunch; I guess if you aren't a kid who has spent so many years going to school, the novelty of it is pretty exciting.

I'll definitely keep everyone who follows this blog updated on her progress.  So look for the amazing adventures of my perseverant, optimistic APD teenager to come.  (I'll take time to go back and write past experiences and helpful advice as I can too - especially about the younger years when her future seemed more questionable.)


* UPDATE * :  Hailey woke up this morning and decided to do her homework for her theater class. She had to read two articles on public speaking and pick a poem to memorize that she will perform in seven weeks.  My sweet, go-get-em girl not only read the articles, but wanted to write them down in entirety; so I told her about this wonderful thing called taking notes and she paraphrased the main ideas and wrote them down instead.  Then she picked her poem and started to memorize the first stanza.  I couldn't be prouder.

Homeschooling a Child with Special Needs/Learning Disabilities Avoids A Lot of the Anxiety

I want to start by saying that I know many people cannot homeschool for various reasons (in some countries it is actually illegal) and others choose not to homeschool because they feel that school is best for their child.  I feel very fortunate that homeschooling was an option for us.

Here are some of the benefits of homeschooling my child with auditory processing disorder:

• She is not forced to sit for 7+ hours each day at school trying to process auditory input.
• She is not feeling judged or compared constantly by teachers giving grades or her peers making comments.  
• She is not having to try to socialize with groups of her peers who do not understand her. (Yes she does run into social problems because of her APD, but it is not on a daily basis.)  
• She has time to pursue her interests like art and baking or even watch a movie 3 times or more until she finally feels she has processed all of it and gained any wisdom from it she could. 
• She learns at her own pace and her own style. (She is visual and auditory input must be kept limited.)
• She reads what interests her and takes as much time as she needs to read it. (Just the other day, she read some poems by Langston Hughes and wrote a poem as a response to her readings, all of her own choosing.)
• She writes because she enjoys it and takes as much time as she needs to write.
• She does math problems because she actually likes solving them.  Yes, she likes math because she takes her time and does what interests her at that moment. (She is currently above "grade level" in math.)
• She has me, her mom, available to her for help and guidance and support as needed.  
• We can hand-pick friendships to pursue that are more conducive to success as well as I can be here to help her process what is happening as I too know her friends as well as their parents. (Hopefully these skills will transfer to her abilities to stop and question her reactions, to give people the benefit of the doubt, and to stand up for herself when it is needed.)
• She can take breaks and just relax, be alone, go jump on the trampoline, eat something, etc. as she feels the need for them. (This I believe helps her learn to be aware of herself and her needs and how to deal with them.)
• She can start taking community college courses at 15 years old (which she wants to do) and take them one at a time to start, then build from there.  Colleges seem to be more accommodating to special needs and learning disabilities than the public school system, so that is a big plus.

So I imagine this list can go on and on, but the real point is that she does not suffer from a lot of the anxiety and depression that I see so many others on our Facebook support groups going through. Sure, she does have anxiety from time to time, but it isn't a constant.  She also went through a period of depression when she was bullied by some homeschoolers at a co-op we belonged to and promptly quit. It took us a few years to rebuild her self-esteem after that bullying episode, but now she is happy with herself again and I believe/hope she is now stronger and more able to fend off any such attacks in the future should they occur.

So although homeschooling isn't an option for everyone, it is certainly worth considering if you have a child with special needs/learning disabilities.

Tips for Homeschooling a Child with Auditory Processing Disorder

YOU HAVE TIME:

No matter what style of homeschooling you choose, the best tip I have to offer is to remember that you have time!  Do not compare your child’s current skills to where he or she “should” be according to the standards of traditional schooling, because you are not doing traditional schooling. (The only exception to this is if you are planning on putting your child into traditional school at some point.)  If you plan on continuing to homeschool, you have as long as it takes for your child to learn what he or she needs to learn to function as an adult, go to college, get a job, or anything else that is to come in the future.

To ease your parent mind on making sure your child eventually learns everything you think he or she needs to know (or to meet the requirements of your government), you can do research on curriculum by using the internet, buying a curriculum planner, getting information from your local school district, or if you work with an umbrella school by asking them.  This curriculum can be used as your internal guide of what overall is to be learned, but I would recommend not worrying about the timelines they have established; your child might learn some things slower and some things faster and all of that works just fine in homeschooling.  Also, use their suggestions of activities or methods as you desire, but remember that there are multiple ways to accomplish the same goals and multi-sensory is the best approach for your child with Auditory Processing Disorder.

DEALING WITH SHORT TERM MEMORY PROBLEMS AND AUDITORY FATIGUE REQUIRES A MULTI-SENSORY APPROACH, SHORTER TIME SPENT ON EACH INDIVIDUAL “LESSON”, REPETITION, AND MORE DOWNTIME:

Children with Auditory Processing Disorder often have problems with short term memory, also called working memory.  Due to this, they often need repetition to learn things.  Just because they understood how to add on Monday, does not mean they will understand it on Wednesday.  However, once that skill/information is transferred to long term memory, the child will have it permanently.  The best way to deal with this is to teach in smaller increments, but with repetition. 

Another great way to help deal with short term memory issues is to use a multi-sensory approach.  The more senses that are involved in learning a task, the more likely the information will be retained.  So do not just sit at a desk and use a pencil and paper to add.  Plan activities that involve visuals, gross motor skills, fine motor skills, taste, touch, music, and basically anything and everything you can think of.

Children with Auditory Processing Disorder often get fatigued easily from having to concentrate on auditory input and output.  Therefore, your child will not do well with long lectures, boring textbooks that drone on in a language based imparting of information, or being forced to memorize passages. These are strong auditory skill based methods that are not for children with weak auditory skills.  Find alternatives to learning things such as hands on methods (re-enactment places, hands on science museums, making things, planting a garden, taking care of bugs, etc), watching movies or documentaries with lots of visuals, and acting out information (like pretending to be a settler on a prairie rather than just reading about one). When you do read things for information, take it in smaller chunks, and stop along the way to make sure the information is being understood.  Most importantly, do not overwhelm your child with too much new information at once; your child with Auditory Processing Disorder processes information differently and needs to digest things slowly in manageable chunks.

As children with APD get fatigued from auditory input and have problems with short term memory, another strategy we have used that works very well is to do a little learning of new information in as multi-sensory a way as possible, and then take a break.  During that break, just relax and have fun doing something that does not require concentration or auditory input, does not impart a skill or knowledge that “must be learned”, and is something your child feels safe, comfortable, and confident doing.  Your child needs that downtime so much more than you can imagine.

FOR VISUAL LEARNERS, FIRST TEACH THE CONCEPT/WHOLE PICTURE, THEN ADD THE DETAILS:

As most children with Auditory Processing Disorder are visual/spatial learners, they do well learning larger concepts and overall knowledge that they can then apply the details to.  For this reason, unit studies work well because they can continue on one topic at a time, gathering a broader view of the topic while there is no competing new, unrelated information having to be processed at the same time.

Here is a link to a homeschooling blog that describes how unit studies can work: What is a Unit Study?

For skill such as reading, writing, and mathematics, you can teach the concepts of the skill (why we do it) before you teach how to do it.  A child has no reason to learn how to add if he or she does not understand the purpose for it.  There will be no place to put that information without a place holder for it.  The place holder in the brain is the “why”.  Children live in life just like adults and they can grasp the concept of adding when they say they want one more cookie.  They have this experience of wanting another cookie that is already in their long term memory, so it acts as a foundation for adding the new information called addition.  Using real life skills and experiences works the best for teaching children the concepts of reading, writing, and mathematics.

CO-EXISTING CONDITIONS AND WHY YOU NEED TO BE FLEXIBLE:

Many children with Auditory Processing Disorder have other co-existing conditions such as Visual Processing Disorder, Dyslexia, Sensory Processing Disorder, Dyscalculia, Dysgraphia, Dyspraxia, Attention Deficit Disorder, and many other possibilities.  Therefore, you might have to address these issues in relation to teaching your child as well.  The best advice I have is to become familiar with your child’s strengths and areas of weakness; know the details to the conditions your child has (and remember that even within a label, every child is not exactly the same), and be flexible.  If something doesn’t work, try to figure out why and change it.  Be willing to try new things and see what works well for your child.  Along those lines, remember that each child’s personality and personal interests are also a big part of their learning.

THE ENVIRONMENT FOR LEARNING IS VERY IMPORTANT FOR THE CHILD WITH AUDITORY PROCESSING DISORDER:

One of the primary symptoms of Auditory Processing Disorders is the inability to filter out background noises.  Therefore, it only makes sense that a child with APD would do best concentrating in a quiet environment.  This is especially important when focusing on skills such as reading.  When my daughter with APD reads or works independently on something like a math worksheet, she wears noise reducing headphones to block out noise.  When her and I are working together to learn something, we try to keep the background noise to a minimum as much as possible (when we are at a location such as an aquarium, we try to stay away from the crowds).

If my daughter with APD is starting to get stressed, she chews gum and/or we light a scented candle.  These help to relax her.  (Other kids might need to get up and move around or use a wiggle seat.)

My daughter tends to get annoyed with visual distractions as well; she also has mild Visual Processing Disorder where she actually tends to focus better on things in her peripheral vision rather than her central vision.  Therefore, we also try to keep her visual environment calm – not too much movement going on around her.  Just like APD, her VPD seems to bother her most under stressful situations like working on something that is very difficult for her.

DO NOT BE AFRAID TO CONTACT OTHERS OR USE EXPERTS AS NEEDED:

When my daughter was learning to read, I thought for sure I could teach her.  I am a credentialed teacher who taught first grade for years.  I taught many, many children how to read.  I studied all the methods and thought I knew all I needed to know about teaching her to read.  Despite all my education and experience, I was not successful.  She needed something that I simply did not know.

It turns out that along with her APD, she also has Dyslexia.  Her particular combination of APD and Dyslexia made it impossible for her to distinguish the different sounds in phonemes.  She cannot hear the difference between sounds like /sh/ and /ch/ or /wh/ and /h/ and so many more.   She needed to learn a very different way of identifying those sounds.  This way for her was a program called the Lindamood Phoneme Sequencing Program (LiPS).  We hired a reading specialist who knew this program and used it, along with a strong Orton Gillingham approach, to teach our daughter how to read.  I sat in on all the lessons and learned how to work with her at home.

This was also the time we found out she also had a Visual Processing Disorder and we utilized a specialist to do some vision therapy with her as well.

BUILD SUCCESS:

Your child needs to feel successful.  Above all else, make sure you find ways for your child to feel success.  Like Rick Lavoie, educator, author, motivational speaker, says in his presentation When the Chips are Down, if your child is great at screwing things in, make sure you loosen all the screws in your house so he can do something he feels successful at.

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I hope some of this information is helpful to you in some way.  If you have more specific questions, I will do my best to answer them.   I am not an authority on teaching children with Auditory Processing Disorder, but I am a mother who has been doing just that for many years now.

Here are a few links to other posts I have written specifically about reading and mathematics and one to our overview of homeschooling in general.

Why Auditory Processing Disorder Makes Reading Difficult  (A guest post written by Bonnie Landau)

It Shouldn't Be This Hard: How One Girl with APD Learned to Read

Graphic Novels Have Made My Pre-Teen a Book Lover

A Love of Reading Spurs Reading, Writing, and Spelling Skills

How Mathematics are More Difficult for My Child with Dyslexia, APD, and VPD

My Attempt at an Introduction to Homeschooling

Processing Differences and Learning Disabilities Can Run In Families

When you have one child with a processing disorder or learning disability, you might see similar things in another of your children.  For example, our daughter was diagnosed with Sensory Processing Disorder at two years old.  We learned how to give her a sensory diet and to predict her needs based on her sensory difficulties.  So when her twin brother had issues with clothing not feeling right or food not having the right texture, we just accommodated as we would with her.  We knew it was sensory related, but we did not feel the need to rush out and get him diagnosed with anything; his issues seemed so incredibly minor compared to hers and we knew what to do to help.

Growing up, we have also noticed that our son is not very coordinated.  He is the child who somehow manages to run into walls, trip going upstairs, has had stitches three times due to running or falling into something, and needs a lot of physical movement like swinging, pacing, jumping, etc.  We weren’t concerned by these things and just gave him access to lots and lots of physical opportunities.  We even put him in various gym classes, swimming, and martial arts. 

He is also the child with fine motor issues.  He hated coloring and drawing and rarely did it.   He had the hardest time learning to hold a pencil and write.  So we played games and did activities to boost his fine motor skills.  However, despite what we did, he never has gotten very good at fine motor skills.  He holds his pencil correctly, he forms his letters correctly, but he finds it so extremely difficult and tiresome and frustrating no matter how much he practices.

Because we homeschool, our son’s motor skills difficulties have not interfered with his learning nor has he been teased by his peers.  We have simply accommodated his needs; he dictates stories to me or he uses a keyboard to write anything more than a couple sentences.  When he draws, he draws stick figures to get his idea across and if he wants them more elaborate, his twin sister, who absolutely loves to draw and does extremely well, offers to draw them for him from his stick drawings.  He has also used some computer programs to do some basic drawings that he finds satisfying. Shoelaces still give him some frustration, but he can tie them – it just takes him longer.

As for gross motor skills, he still does all the physical activities that he wants.  It took him a rather longish time to learn to ride a bike, but he did.  He has walked all over the railings on the back deck and fallen a few times with no major damage, but he has enjoyed it and improved his balance to some extent (the railings are not far off the ground).  He jumps on the trampoline, shoots arrows at targets fairly well, plays laser tag well (his hand/eye coordination does not seem to be affected), swims well, and loves to do things like pull-ups, sit-ups, and the like.  

When I look up his issues online, I realize that he might have Dyspraxia and/or Dysgraphia; in fact, we have realized that for years and have simply done the things he would have done at occupational therapy and made accommodations for him as needed.  Therefore, we decided that we do not need to spend the money to get an official diagnosis of anything at this point in time.  When he goes to college, if he needs some sort of special accommodations, we will have to get him tested and diagnosed at that time.  He is aware that he most likely has Dysgraphia and that is why he has so much difficulty with writing, drawing, tying his shoes, and playing console games like Xbox (it requires quite a bit of fine motor skills); we have spoken to him about this because he felt so horrible about himself for his difficulties and we needed to help him learn to deal with this.

We have learned that these processing difficulties and learning disabilities like Dyslexia, Dysgraphia, Dyspraxia, Auditory Processing Disorder, Visual Processing Disorder, Sensory Processing Disorder, and others probably have some sort of genetic link; they often run in families to some extent.  When I look back over my own biological family, I know of Dyslexia for sure, speech issues for sure, and others of the older generations who were never officially diagnosed with anything, but probably had a learning disability or processing disorder of some sort.  It is also suggested that premature birth may have some contribution to these issues and the twins were born prematurely. 

Whatever the reason our twins have some processing difficulty/difference, they are amazing kids!  They are incredibly intelligent, wonderfully kind, introspective, creative people.  They have perseverance, courage, and a unique perspective, not to mention our son has a great memory which might not be that great if it were easier for him to just write things down.  These traits, perhaps, are also enhanced by their processing differences.  I like to think so.

My Attempt at an Introduction to Homeschooling

(((WARNING:  THIS IS VERY LONG!  I'm sorry, I just didn't know how else to get it out there.)))

As I sit and start to write about homeschooling, I feel overwhelmed with all the information I would like to impart and the daunting task of trying to make it understandable.  You see, there are so many, many different options when it comes to homeschooling your child.

Schools are designed with a particular curriculum that forces what exactly should be learned, how long it should take to learn it, when it should be introduced, when it should be mastered, how it should be presented, how it should be tested, etc.  When you homeschool, you get to make these decisions for your child. 

If you start reading about the philosophy of education, the history of education, child psychology and child development, you will find that there are really so many different opinions and attitudes on educating children.  Therefore, there are also a multitude of methods.  As a parent, you have so many options, you have to try to figure out what you think fits your philosophy, your style, and of course, the needs and style of learning for your child.

That being said, I have listed some links to various common homeschooling approaches at the bottom of this article for you to peruse at your leisure.  But remember, you can choose to do one in entirety, to pick and choose what you like from each, or to do something completely different altogether.  Governments do have requirements and they differ depending on where you live, but most homeschoolers have found it possible to do what they believe is best while still meeting the requirements of their particular government.

SOCIAL STUDIES, SCIENCE, AND BASICALLY LEARNING ABOUT THINGS:

For my family, we have taken an eclectic approach (that relies heavily on unschooling) with me encouraging learning different topics by showing an interest in them myself and providing the materials for study.  For example, when I wanted to explore the solar system, I started with a video on the solar system.  I invited my children to watch it with me and they did.  As we watched it, I expressed my enthusiasm, asked questions, and listened to them.  Then we went to the library and checked out some books on the solar system.  We looked through the pictures and read some of the books.   We acted out scenarios of what it would be like if someday people moved to a new planet in space. We made lego spaceships, my daughter painted a mural of a spaceship, my youngest son used his allowance to buy some little astronauts to play with.  We talked about what people used to believe when they believed the Earth was the center of the Universe and even when they thought it was flat!  A few days later, we went to our local science museum and watched a movie about some kids exploring the solar system in a cardboard box.  Then we went to the planetarium and saw the stars.  Eventually, I came home with Styrofoam balls, wire, and paints.  I had bought specific size balls to match the various sizes of the planets and so we had to look up in our books which ball should be which planets.  Then we looked at pictures of the planets and painted them appropriately.  Then we labeled them and even put some of the moons around them on toothpicks.  Finally, we created a giant solar system in the order from our sun and hung it from the ceiling in my sons’ room.  None of this was coerced or forced on the children in any way.  They could either participate or not, and like most children, they all eventually participated in every activity.  In fact, they loved it!  As a family, we were all essentially playing and learning together.  Now my children look back through our scrapbook of that time period and recall with pleasure the time we studied the solar system.

So this way of learning about things can be used for almost anything.  We’ve studied so many, many different things this way like Ancient Rome – which was tons of fun – and bugs, one that I as Momma did not enjoy as much because I personally do not care for holding and caring for bugs, but my children found immensely enjoyable.

As the children have gotten older, they have also discovered their own particular interests to study such as my boys’ love of weaponry and war strategy throughout the ages and my daughter’s desire to study origami and life drawing.  As Mom, I help them by helping them find resources such as books, documentaries, museums, classes, specialists, etc. I also listen to them which is a greatly overlooked tool for encouraging learning!  I listen to them tell me about all they have learned and all they are interested in.  I ask them questions and show interest in their interests.  You would be amazed at how much this simple task of truly listening to them helps them to express their interest, knowledge, questions, excitement, etc. about any topic. And of course I still play with them, make art with them, and let them teach me things they have learned how to do.

READING, WRITING, MATHEMATICS AND OTHER SKILLS:

So if you are unfamiliar with the concept labeled unschooling, you are probably wondering by now about the “hard academics” like reading, writing, and mathematics.  Well, these for us have strayed between unschooling, eclectic schooling, Waldorf and Montessori thinking, and traditional methods.  Being a public school teacher in my past, I was completely familiar with the “how tos” of teaching reading, writing, and mathematics.  So I have used those methods, but incorporated the non-coercion of unschooling, the wait for readiness of Waldorf and Montessori, and the be creative and flexible of eclectic.

(I fully plan on going into detail on teaching reading, writing, and mathematics to my child with auditory processing disorder in another post, but I wanted to introduce these basic concepts of  our homeschooling first.)

READING:

My children have all learned to read, write, and do mathematics at their own pace and schedule.  For instance, my oldest son learned how to read basic three letter words and easy reader type reading about age 7.  He didn’t care to learn more than that at that time and really relied a lot on sight reading as he had a fantastic memory.  However, by age 9 he realized that he needed help, because he couldn’t memorize every word and he wanted to read harder materials.  So, he spent one summer learning phonics in intensity.  I used phonetic based readers that built upon one another and phonics workbooks to teach him all those little rules to letter combinations such as vowel digraphs and syllabication.  He learned it easily and quickly, becoming an expert reader (i.e. what would be considered “grade level”) by the end of the year.

Meanwhile, during the time period he was not a strong reader himself, I read to him.  We would cuddle together and I would read whatever books he wanted me to read to him.  Sometimes, he would memorize a book just from listening to it and be able to read it back to me, even though he wasn’t truly reading – just repeating a familiar story.  This is okay, though, because it builds pre-reading skills such as book knowledge, story structure familiarity, grammar and language usage, and most importantly, develops a love of books and reading. (I still read to them sometimes and they read to me sometimes.  It is a nice way to connect with each other and have some one-on-one time.)

WRITING:

This same approach to teaching reading can also be used for writing.  My children write when they are interested in writing and I help them learn spelling, grammar, punctuation, etc. as they have a need for it.  I also encourage writing by modeling it and sharing my writing with them or asking them if they would like to write a story with me.  I have also scribed for them many, many times before they could write well themselves.  By scribing for them (writing what they dictate to me), they get to concentrate on the creativity or message of their writing while I worry about those details like spelling and punctuation.  I do not correct their grammar as I encourage them to do that when we read back through what they have written and decide together if something sounds right or not.  As their spelling and writing skills have developed more, they start writing their own things without the need for me to scribe.  (Longer pieces I still scribe if they desire me to.)

Of course, I know a lot about writing.  So I utilize all that I know to help them as they are interested and as they are ready for the new information or skill.  For example, they may scribe/write a story.  Then we may read over it together and decide if it sounds good or not: does it make sense, is their some conflict to be resolved, does it get resolved, is the setting clearly present, do the characters seem real, do they change in the story, etc.  This is all done age appropriately and according to that child’s level of understanding making sure to not be overwhelming.  It should express my interest in their story and be something they want to discuss and develop, not a chore or me being critical in any way.  Sometimes the child will want to “make better” parts of the story and sometimes not.  I am always flexible and regard the story as their creative work and therefore they get to make all decisions on it.

MATHEMATICS:

We have played with numbers and mathematical concepts always.  We play games that encourage mathematical skills such as “Shut the Box”, “Yahtzee”, “Chess”, “Spectrangle”, “Dominoes”, and “Sorry”.  We played with tangrams, unifix cubes, geoboards, geo-solids, fraction bars, pattern blocks, scales, tape measurers, and every other kind of math manipulative we could get our hands on or create.  We read books about mathematical concepts like “Measuring Penny”, “Math Curse”, “The Doorbell Rang”, Sir Cumference and the Isle of Immeter”.  We watched television shows that incorporate mathematics like “Cyberchase”.  There are even some documentaries on mathematics and the history of numbers such as “The Story of 1".

We also use math workbooks.  Each of my children has asked to “do math” like their school friends do from time to time. (My daughter actually really loves to work in math workbooks and does it all the time.)  During these times, I teach them the specifics of doing mathematical computations on paper.  Because they already have the concepts due to our games and playtimes and movies and talks and real life experiences with mathematics, the paper and pencil computations are about the specifics of how to do it on paper.  This makes it much easier to do them as the concepts are already understood.

One example of how this works is the fact that my son wants to be a doctor, or at least he thinks he does at this point in his life.  He learned that doctors need to be good at math and science so he decided he needed to “do more math”.  So he and I spent time working in math workbooks.  He found the work easy to do and mastered multiple digit multiplication, adding and subtracting fractions, and comparing decimals in two weeks.  (He already knew the concepts and could multiply and divide in his head, as well as had done addition, subtraction, basic multiplication, identifying fractions, and comparing numerals, among other things, previously in workbooks.)  Then he decided to take a break and didn’t do any mathematical computations on paper for a few months, although he continued to do them in his head to play games and figure things out he needed.

EVERYDAY LIVING BUILDS ACADEMIC SKILLS AND MORE:

Reading, writing, and mathematics skills are learned and practiced through everyday living on top of being explicitly taught in our household.

My children spend time every day reading books, magazines, computer games, emails, etc.  They also build reading skills by watching movies; movies have similar concepts to written stories like characters, settings, plot development, conflict and resolution, protagonists, antagonists, etc.  We can watch movies and practice skills such as making predictions, analyzing characters, making connections to our own lives and other stories whether they be written in books or portrayed on a screen.  We have discussions and conversations to practice our use of language, build our vocabulary, develop skills in persuasion, compare and contrast, analogies, etc.  These everyday things all assist in developing their reading and writing skills. They also write e-mails and to chat in their on-line games as well.  (As they have gotten older, they have also become quite adept at researching on the internet.)

Mathematics is used in cooking, baking, planning, shopping, reading a calendar, reading a clock, predicting time, playing strategy games, reading maps, building things with wood or legos or anything else, making art, keeping a bank account ledger (yes they have their own notebooks to keep track of their allowance and expenditures), calculating tips, comparing prices, understanding interest on their personal loans from Mom, etc. (When we need paper and pencil to help figure out problems or to visualize them, I teach that skill at the time it is needed as well.)

BUT THERE IS SO MUCH MORE:

Wow, I have written so very little and yet I am over 2000 words!  I haven’t even spoken about social skills, life skills, physical education, character development as in my children’s character, dealing with life, keeping a positive self-esteem and outlook on life, using co-operatives and homeschooling social groups, and more.  I believe that homeschooling is something that one can always learn more about, develop into one’s own path and art form, change and alter, and continually build upon.  It is something simple and complex all at the same time.  I hope I have not scared anyone away and in fact have inspired you to think it is a wonderful new world you are excited to learn more about.

(Those details on specifically teaching to my daughter with auditory processing disorder will come soon, I promise.  Being that she does have some special needs for learning, there are things we have done and do that are extremely helpful.)

Here are some links on some different homeschooling styles:

• Unschooling: http://www.holtgws.com/unschooling.html

• Waldorf Homeschooling: http://www.christopherushomeschool.org/learning-more/articles-on-aspects-of-waldorf-education/articles-by-donna-simmons/introduction.html

• Montessori Homeschooling: http://www.montessori.edu/homeschooling.html 

• Traditional Homeschooling: http://www.hsunlimited.com/resources/homeschool-methods/traditional.php

• Classical Homeschooling: http://classicalhomeschooling.com/classical-homeschooling-first-issue/the-great-books-movement-a-return-to-the-classics/

• Online Homeschooling: http://www.k12.com/

• Eclectic Homeschooling: http://homeschooling.about.com/od/metheclectic/Methods_Eclectic_Homeschooling_Method.htm

• Charlotte Mason Homeschooling: http://simplycharlottemason.com/basics/what-is-the-charlotte-mason-method/

Homeschooling Our Child with Auditory Processing Disorder

Homeschooling has been the best decision we made for our daughter with Auditory Processing Disorder, Dyslexia, mild Sensory Processing Disorder, and mild Visual Processing Disorder. 

When she was the age to start kindergarten, the special education program at the school district she was in decided they wanted to drop her from their program; she would no longer qualify for an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) and would be mainstreamed with absolutely no support or additional services such as speech therapy, which she still desperately needed.   Having been a first grade teacher myself for years and having taught kindergarten for student teaching as well as some substitute teaching, I knew the environment my child would be going into.  I also knew that she would not be likely to even tolerate it well.

She already came home from the special education preschool having meltdowns from her stressful half-day.  She already was not able to do the pre-academic work of the preschool, so how would she be able to do the kindergarten work.  She was still having problems with social interactions; her speech was not clear; and whenever I went to spy on her through the window in the door of her preschool classroom, she would be staring into space, completely tuned out to her surroundings.

There was no way I was going to subject my little girl to five days a week, seven hours a day of a classroom full of 20 children and one teacher with no support.  That was when we decided to homeschool our children. (When you teach one at home, we figured, you might as well teach the others.)

At home, I am fortunate enough to be able to work with each of my children one-on-one.  My daughter gets a completely individualized education plan; she works at her own pace, learns in the style that best fits her needs, takes breaks when she needs them, and when she needs the help of a specialist, we find her one.  (We paid for private speech therapy, listening therapy, a social skills group, vision therapy, and reading intervention.  My spouse is very fortunate to work for IBM, a company that has a program for children with special needs and reimburses its employees for 80% of the cost of services.)

In another post, I will tell of some of the strategies we have used for teaching her.  Suffice it to say that she is doing well academically at 11 years of age, has a relatively healthy self-esteem and awareness of her strengths and needs, has friends, and is growing into a young woman with good coping skills.