Recommend a curriculum

[MariaFL]

My 12-year-old daughter is in 6th grade in a special ed program at a Catholic school. She is currently doing work at a 6th grade level in English, spelling and vocabulary. She is doing very well in these. She is also doing history and science at a generic "middle school" level. She is also doing quite well here. She is working at a 3rd grade level in math and not doing as well. They work at a slower pace than the general education classes do. She tested very poorly on standardized tests. She's not getting any one-on-one instruction and I am doing most of the teaching anyway. We have decided to home school her, but I am lost as to how to find a curriculum that works for her. I am reading the book "The Well-Trained Mind" and would like to implement something like that; it makes sense to me to order education chronologically. How do I modify it for a child who is several years behing in math and has trouble expressing herself in written (and sometimes, spoken) form. She can read well and writes a lower level. She was enrolled in Lindamood Bell for eight weeks, and I believe that helped. She has been diagnosed with ADHD and takes no medication. I hope to get her at grade level for high school. If anyone can help I would greatly appreciate it.

[siloam]

My 12-year-old daughter is in 6th grade in a special ed program at a Catholic school. She is currently doing work at a 6th grade level in English, spelling and vocabulary. She is doing very well in these. She is also doing history and science at a generic "middle school" level. She is also doing quite well here. She is working at a 3rd grade level in math and not doing as well. They work at a slower pace than the general education classes do. She tested very poorly on standardized tests. She's not getting any one-on-one instruction and I am doing most of the teaching anyway. We have decided to home school her, but I am lost as to how to find a curriculum that works for her. I am reading the book "The Well-Trained Mind" and would like to implement something like that; it makes sense to me to order education chronologically. How do I modify it for a child who is several years behing in math and has trouble expressing herself in written (and sometimes, spoken) form. She can read well and writes a lower level. She was enrolled in Lindamood Bell for eight weeks, and I believe that helped. She has been diagnosed with ADHD and takes no medication. I hope to get her at grade level for high school. If anyone can help I would greatly appreciate it.

With an LD child you are probably not going to find one curriculum from one place that meets all your needs.

For math I would hands down recommend Right Start (http://www.alabacus.com/pageView.cfm?pageID=285), and while it is a huge step back I would start with level B. If she is able, she can do two lessons a day. The hands on should provide a concrete base to build on, demonstrating the principles of math instead of it being an intangible idea. Though if the games don't appeal you might also look into Shiller math (http://www.shillermath.com/sm/home.php?src=index.htm). My understanding is RS has a lot less worksheets, relying on the games to practice math facts.

She might always be a bit behind in math, but there are also a lot of kids who manage to push through Calculus who have huge gaps and in college start right back with basic math. I personally worry less about getting to xyz level, and more about mastering the basics, so they have a foundation that won't crumble later.

For LA I would look at using a program that uses rewriting. This takes the pressure off the child, eliminating the need to come up with original content tell they are a little older. If she struggles to simply retell a story, then you would want to start with Writing With Ease (http://www.welltrainedmind.com/store/language-arts/writing.html) (WWE), level 2. If she can orally retell a story, but struggles to put it on paper, then you would probably want to start with WWE 3. If she just needs more practice summarizing/retelling stories and writing them out then WWE 4 would work. If she is beyond that and can both retell stories and write it out then you would want to look at something like Writing Tales (http://writing-tales.com/), IEW (http://www.excellenceinwriting.com/) or Classical Writing (http://home.att.net/~classicalwriting/). They all have the child work on content skills while still doing rewrites. If there are any struggles in writing I wouldn't jump ahead to original content, especially with an LD student. They are often developmentally behind, so a little extra time will put them a little "behind" the ideal, but it will also take off the pressure and allow them to learn needed skills without everything being a battle. They will get there, just not with the rest of the crowd.

For grammar I adore Junior Analytical Grammar (http://www.analyticalgrammar.com/) (JAG). I should state here that I am dyslexic, though mildly. The struggles I had in school was that my thinking was very literal. When I was told to find the subject and predicate (main verb) of a sentence, unless it was: Tom sat. I was lost. I am sure most people naturally start filling in the parts they can identify and then figure out the subject and predicate. I was so literal in my thinking that I had to find the subject first, and seeing several nouns in the sentence I really had no way of figuring out which one was THE subject. Most of the time I just picked the first noun and verb and hoped that was correct. JAG and Analytical Grammar work for me because they teach a non-traditional order, finding nouns, then articles, then adjectives, then pronouns (note that any pronouns acting as adjectives should already have been identified with this order), then prepositions and their phrases and finally finding the predicate and subject, once much of the sentence has been eliminated. That said the other program that I have heard good things about is Winston Grammar (http://www.winstongrammar.com/) because it has a hands on element. It does follow a traditional sequence, which is the only reason why I didn't use it. Normally I am huge on anything with a hands on element as it makes the program more concrete, and uses more than one sense (the brain stores each sense in a different place, so that means the information is stored in multiple places in the brain, and it should help with recall issues).

Beyond that if she has specific issues that still need to be remediated, you can buy most LindamoodBell programs here (http://www.ganderpublishing.com/Lindamood-Bell-Programs.html) and use them at home. I currently am using LiPS and Seeing Stars. LiPS works on hearing and feeling the difference between sounds. Seeing Stars works on developing the ability to see words in your mind (visual memory of words that helps with spelling and reading). They have several other programs: On Cloud Nine works on seeing numbers in the mind, Visualizing and Verbalizing works on comprehension by seeing stories in the mind. There are other programs as well, those are the ones I am familiar with.

For science and history there are lots of options. None are right or wrong, it is more of finding what will work for your family. The first question is do you want something with religious content? Do you want hands on? Do you want a text or living books? I generally like resources that have audio version available, as a fall back for me or so that I can have my kids read along with the audio. It also goes back to using more than one sense.

I hope you find what you need.

Heather

[MariaFL]

Heather,

Thank you so much for all your advice. I will look into it right away!

[Momto2Ns]

Don't overlook MUS either. It can be great for remediation. It allows the child to move at their own pace without having any grade levels on the books, so they don't have to feel behind and can hopefully do some catching up. It is concrete and hands on and often works well for kids with LDs.

[MariaFL]

Thanks so much I looked into these as well!