New and panicking

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  • mama3many
    Participant

    Hi everyone,

    I’m Miaa, a home educating mum of four kids (b9, b7, g5, g2) in the UK.

    I’ve always home educated, using various methods at various times.

    My own skills lie in making things be it sewing, knitting, woodwork, cooking etc.

     

    I’ve always welcomed my children to join in when I’m making something and they do learn a lot of skills through that but what concerns me is my ds9 and ds7’s very low reading level.

    Despite trying numerous methods, usually for a few months or even longer and numerous theories (phonics, sight words, blended phonics, “just reading”) their level is very low.

    I never ever thought my kids would be 9 and unable to read.

     

    I confess I feel very sad and very much like all our hard work was for nothing. I’m panicking now as ds will be 10 in August and he still can’t read!

    He doesn’t shows any of the signs of dyslexia.

    I haven’t tried CM methods mainly bc I’m confused…I know this sounds stupid but I don’t quite understand what a living book is compared to non-living books.

    I was hoping someone could give me some hope and basically help me sort out my panic!

    thank you

     

     

    MissusLeata
    Participant

    Living books are books that are written in story style to the reader…not like a textbook.

     

    For reading, my oldest is a slow reader (IMO). It’s not unusual for boys to read later, but I would be concerned if a 10 year old wasn’t reading, too. One thing that I feel like I did wrong was changing teaching methods too often. I think it’s easy to panic when it doesn’t seem to be working quickly and to get a new curriculum. But I think we confuse them more when we do that.

    Also, have you looked into Dianne Craft’s stuff? She has some on-line diagnostic tools available and her material has great reviews.  http://www.diannecraft.org/

    retrofam
    Participant

    “The Right Side of Normal” by Cindy Gaddis helped me relax about learning to read for my daughter.  We are still using reading programs , but hoping to keep it low key.  She loves games, so I bought Ring Around the Phonics game, all 3 levels.  I am not going to push her to read the readers aloud to me,  because that is when she feels dumb and whines. I am going to concentrate on teaching her the phonics code at her pace,  and when she is ready she will discover that she can actually read quite a bit.

    I also bought Spelling You See level B.

    My backup plan is All About Reading.

    suzukimom
    Participant

    He doesn’t shows any of the signs of dyslexia.

    An almost 10yo who can not read after years of instruction (including phonics) is showing signs of dyslexia by definition.

    What signs are you expecting?

    Have a look at this list….

    http://www.allaboutlearningpress.com/symptoms-of-dyslexia

     

    Bookworm4
    Participant

    I don’t know if this will be of any help, but have you ever looked into the Dancing Bears program for reading?  It was designed for struggling readers and dyslexics.  It is from the UK as well.  I have been looking into it for my child whose reading is still very laborious after 3 years of reading instruction and a year of vision therapy.  I have been looking at their spelling program as well (Apples and Pears Spelling) as I know she has visual issues we are still dealing with and this program is supposed to help with visual memory of spelling words for those that have a harder time.  Anyway, Dancing Bears isn’t technically CM, but some kids (like my DD) need a different approach for reading.  I am just throwing that out as something to consider.  If you go to their website, you can view the entire program in a pdf file before deciding to order.

    anniepeter
    Participant

    For what it’s worth… My oldest son didn’t read until he was 10.  So, you’re not alone.  He is 19 now and reads well in my opinion.  He doesn’t feel he is particularly fast, but he did fine with Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Grapes of Wrath, and The Jungle a couple of years ago. I have no experience with dyslexia, so I can’t speaker to that, but for us I believe it was a confidence issue. He had just convinced himself somehow that he couldn’t read and didn’t like it. The thing that got us moving ahead was the day I went to the library with one mission.  I got about 20 easy reader books with no more than 2 lines of big print on a page.  If the book was funny, so much the better! I came home and told him when he was done with those I’d go get him some more.  I had no idea it would be the cure… But it was only a day or two till I had to go back!  I really think it gave him the boost he needed just to read all those easy books and see that he could do it and it wasn’t even hard.  Just sharing in case that helps/works for you

    Wings2fly
    Participant

    Explode the Code workbooks and free online starfall.com really helped my kids.  It may help to have your children look at the easy readers at the library to find ones that interest them.

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