Language Arts question for my dd(8)...

[~Summer~]

My dd(8) has high functioning autism and is very behind in her academics. We have been homeschooling since July and things are going well. When we started homeschooling she couldn't read...and we are now working our way through OPGTR and Bob Books. We were using FLL and WWE...but I quit both of these recently because she has a lack of comprehension. She did fine memorizing with FLL...so maybe I will consider re-starting that. But she was completely unable to narrate in WWE. She did fine with all the copywork....but she was never able to answer any of the question after reading the stories. She does still struggle some with receptive/expressive language....but she is making great progress. I think if it was a picture book that we were reading and looking at she would be able to answer a lot more questions about the story.

I ordered Five in a Row to use with her because Tapestry of Grace was going way over her head. The Five in a Row books are right at her level since they use picture books....and I am hoping using this program will increase her receptive/expressive language skills.

She has made a lot of progress so far this year. I guess my question is what should I be doing for Language Arts this year for her? Should we just focus on OPGTR and ETC to getting her reading well? She is really good at copywork...and I hate to not do any handwriting this year. Is A Reason for Handwriting good enough? Her handwriting is really good and she doesn't need anymore practice forming letters.

What do you think I should do with her this year besides OPGTR & ETC for LA?

[AliR]

My dd6.5 also (probably) has HFA and struggles with some aspects of language arts. She has receptive language skills which are poorer than her expressive language skills.

One of the problems that has been identified is that she does not understand the question words very well and this is an area we are working on both at home and in speech therapy. I wondered if this could also be true for your daughter as this certainly impacts on my dd's ability to do comprehension work.

I ask questions about the books we are reading using some visual cues for the words 'what', 'where', 'when' etc. At the moment our comprehension work is just around picture books, as it is the skill that I want her to learn rather than to use comprehension questions to check, say, that she has understood her history text. So your plan to use FIAR would be good for this.

Also, now my dd can read I am finding that really helps as she can process information better when she reads it as she is more of a visual learner than an auditory one.

Hope this helps. If you have any other questions I'll try to answer them!

[Stacy in NJ]

Just a suggestion regarding narration with WWE and FLL. I found, with my normally developing ds, that he had a much easier time narrating when I read the story paragraph by paragraph, stopping after each paragraph to ask the narration questions. If I read the complete story straight through he'd forget the answers relating to the first paragraph. Also the reading selections used for both WWE and FLL use pretty advanced vocabulary. Try using selections with less sophisticated vocabulary.

HTH, Stacy

[~Summer~]

Thank you both for your replies. Today we did FLL and WWE and it went really well. I think I will ask her the narration questions throughout the story and that will really help...rather than waiting till the end of the story to ask them all.

[Cadam]

It sounds like what you are doing is perfect. I would keep up copywork and poetry memorization. Play to her strengths. It sounds like you are doing great! In case you are worried about being "where she should be" remember that there is no law that she must graduate at 18 yo and she is right where she needs to be.

[~Summer~]

It sounds like what you are doing is perfect. I would keep up copywork and poetry memorization. Play to her strengths. It sounds like you are doing great! In case you are worried about being "where she should be" remember that there is no law that she must graduate at 18 yo and she is right where she needs to be.


Thanks Cadam:)