Oh my goodness... I was about to cry 😢 watching this video.... my son (my oldest) is not 8 1/2 and not really reading!! I just had baby #5, 2 weeks ago... and we had put a hold on schooling after Easter as we had a family wedding, a 1st Communicant and a homebirth to get ready for. Now we have a 4th of July tent to organize and manage and visitors coming for a week. Buuut I WANT my boy to read! We are loosing hope! My husband purchased a WHOLE curriculum and support for me this past year in hopes it would help me stay on task and on top of the work. We didn't begin until October and the reading for the 2nd grade, which he tested into was just waayy ahead of where he was/is. I had been doing SWR (Spell to Write and Read) and I feel IF I had been more on top of it, it would have worked... but after 2 years K & 1st, I obviously had some problems teaching and organizing the program. Soo I couldn't change during the year b/c my husband had paid soo much. I really like the Orton-Gillingham method. The Seton program seems similar to Abeka to me... but not having experienced Abeka, of course I don't know. But I love the OG method with how it explains everything and things make sense. I have an inkling that my son my have some dyslexic tendencies (it runs strong in my family) so I've been thinking of AAR/AAS, but like you afraid it's going to move too slow... but with LOE it's going to move too fast! This year pretty much all we did was 100 Easy Lessons, which of course puts us maybe at a first grade reading level... and definitely not ready to read independently. 😩 As for math... we'd been using Math-U-See with pretty good results (except for ADD me trying to get to it everyday) and it switched with the Seton Math which seemed to have too much switching around and a lot of practice, but the practice overwhelmed him and he would sit for an hour and finish 10 minutes of work! Agonizing! I am seriously thinking I just don't have enough discipline, analytical analysis and decisiveness with encouraging confidence to help my children grow in the way that I had hoped keeping them at home would do. 😢 I know you can't tell me what to do, but maybe I should bite the bullet $$ and send them to the local private school? But it would make me sad they would both be put a grade or two behind where they "should be". Maybe you can recommend what you would do for the Summer - where should I put my money, time and effort? My husband wants me to TRY and finish as much of the curriculum he purchased as possible. My son can read some of my daughters 1st grade readers from Seton, maybe I'll just have to try that. I wish I'd just bite the bullet like you do and if a curriculum isn't serving us, make a decision and change! I guess I worry about "wasting" money and time. But what have we accomplished so far? Not much. It's so discouraging for myself, my son, my daughter and my husband. I've failed everyone! Sorry for venting, but sometimes it's easier to spill your heart out to someone you don't know. Thanks for lending a moment. 😌
Hi! First off, you are doing a good job! The love and care you are giving your son is worth more than a curriculum. Some kids just need more time for it to developmentally click in their brains ... it can be 9 or 10 until they start taking off. I would say try to be as consistent and encouraging as possible. That way he feels your assurance and love no matter how fast he learns to read. Obviously, I can't tell you what to do, but pray about it and be patient with him and yourself!
I’ve decided on Bookshark for Science and reading with History for my son’s 2nd grade year. Hearing how much your son loved it has me so excited for next year.
My experience with teaching writing is that it just takes practice. Lakeshore Learning has a number of resources such as the Paragraph of the Week Journal for Gr. 2-3 and the Writing Prompts Journal for Gr. 1-2. The latter one I used while teaching 2nd grade and would pair it with a graphic organizer for brainstorming. Although I haven't used the Paragraph Journal, I like the way it includes a variety of organizers and breaks down the steps. I also like the Correct the Sentence Daily Journals because they are brief but reinforces grammar and writing.
Ever-More also has the Write a Super Sentence workbook that looks promising. Some fun ways to incorporate creative stories is to invent imaginary characters or use toys and after play, have your child write a story about these characters. You can also create a story by saying a sentence and then having children add sentences creating a story as you go. Another method is to have picture cards for who, what, when and where. The child draws cards and creates a story based on these pictures.
As for evaluating writing at this stage, it is tricky! I would create a rubric that includes spacing and indentation, basic punctuation, capitalization, spelling (Sight words and spelling words should be spelled correctly.) and clear focus with beginning, middle, and ending. You can also have the student focus on a specific aspect of writing, building slowly until he is able to meet the requirements of the rubric. Don't feel that you have to grade every paragraph. Give him feedback, but maybe choose a writing and have him edit and refine it, write or type a final copy with an illustration, and present it. Once he has "published" it, you could grade this as a project with a rubric. I hope this gives you some ideas!
I appreciate your willingness to switch curriculum. I feel like I have felt a lot of pressure to stick to something even when I know it's not working. I'm glad to know I'm not the only one continually tweaking.
I can relate to you with buying several curriculums this year. My issue is I watch a lot of curriculum reviews and I end up falling in love with the curriculum and order. Later to find out we don’t have enough time to do so much considering that I work full time, with the spelling have you ever considered “Traditional Spelling” by Memoria Press? I got it recently but I use it more as a supplement to Logic of English. My son already knows how to read so I use Logic of English in order to introduce him to spelling rules in a fun way. My son loves Logic of English because it has so many hands on games. I think the trick of Logic of English is to introduce about two rules and if they’re complicated ones stop and practice before moving on. I keep track in my planner a list if all the rules I’ve taught him with example words for each rule. Every so often I’ll give him a mini spelling test to see which rule he’s struggling with. Have you looked into the curriculum “ Christian Light?” I recently got my son the first grade language arts booklets from them to have him to review spelling along with grammar. This curriculum is pretty cheap compared to Abeka.
@@sciencemama just heads up I think it moved kind of fast but then again I notice that with almost every curriculum. So I use it but stop every so often to review because if I go as fast as the Christian light curriculum my son would be confused with so many rules in so little time. They introduce sentence writing and build up. So I like that because Logic of English takes long to introduce sentence writing
Writing is so hard to teach. I taught first grade public school and we all struggled with teaching writing. I thought it’s because I had 22 kids to teach but when I started homeschooling I still struggled with teaching writing. So glad I’m not alone & wanted to let you know you aren’t alone.
I completely get the focus and drilling one concept at a time with language arts. My oldest has been like that. He is 13 and it has always felt like we needed to drill down in one area at a time. Language arts just doesn’t come naturally to him. I will say, that this unintentional method we have developed seems to have worked well. He is now at the point where he is reading above grade level and completely caught up with grammar. We are doing a heavier focus on writing next year. That is definitely the beautiful thing about homeschooling. It gives the opportunity to evaluate them individually to see where they need a heavier focus each year.
I put a big halt on AAR & AAS Level 3. I found myself having to supplement in phonics and spelling. Which defeats the purpose of the curriculum. Our daughter wasn’t getting the spelling. Enter…LOE! Where have you been all my life! This is a perfect multi sensory program that integrates reading, phonics, spelling and handwriting all in one. I use this program to it fullest potential. No longer having to supplement. It’s a pretty solid program. We’re currently on Level C (online) my daughter is loving it. Her phonics,spelling and handwriting have improved dramatically since we started the program. She feels soo much more confident with her reading. I am definitely sticking with this one😊. We only use Sonlight for their book list.
Yay!!! for celebrating the wins for the year. I’m so glad you found some curriculum that fits well. I know all too well the roller coaster of finding the right fit! 🤪
@@sciencemama I have to say my kids and I love almost all of them! The kids didn’t like Turtle of Oman though. They found it boring. Favorites would be Fortunately the Milk, Odd and the Frost Giants, The Vanderbeekers, Charlie & Frog, Unusual Chickens for the Exceptional Poultry Farmer, Bob, The Girl Who Helped Thunder, Sputnik’s Guide to life on Earth. My favorites were Crenshaw and Birchbark House. They do deal with heavier topics, as I know you have mentioned having sensitive learners. My oldest daughters favorite was The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. Again a more sensitive book, but definitely opens the conversation for deep discussion and exploring feelings. My youngest daughters favorite was Snow & Rose, again a darker story, but in my opinion handled wonderfully and really validated the perspective and feelings of what the characters are experiencing.
Oh this is so fun! My oldest has taken off reading as well and it’s such a joy to watch! Congratulations!! I know how overwhelmed I’ve felt trying to find a good LA curriculum. If youre up for checking out just one more curriculum we’ve really enjoyed Christian Light Education this year. It has everything; reading comprehension, spelling, phonics, writing, cursive, etc. My son really enjoyed it. It’s a great price and they use what they call “light units” so they complete ten small booklets through out the year which really helped my son feel like he was accomplishing something. Each light unit is less than 5 bucks so even if you bought the first one just to flip through it might be worth a glance.
I'm so happy your son learned to read. My grandson is in 2nd grade and that was his goal for the year! He really wanted to learn to read and I feel I spent so much time making that happen, that I kind of laxed in other subjects. It sounds like you did a great job and your son achieved his goal, even with the switching 😉 Sometimes we just have to go with our instincts. Without the switching you wouldn't have found all of the things that worked!! Congratulations 🎉 on a great year with your 2nd grader 🥳
I felt the same way about All About Spelling. Like it wasn’t working for me at the 2nd grade level either. I’m trying again in 3rd grade but trying an Evan Moore Daily workbook. But AAR works great for my K and my 1st grader.
It’s awesome that you switched in time for your son to read!!! It’s awesome that you are trying sonlight language arts again!!! There is no need for perfect handwriting in my opinion and that’s why my older kids don’t do handwriting!!! My youngest is doing it till she can write!!!
I absolutely identify! I am a reading specialist (M.Ed.), taught 3rd grade, and hated teaching writing- even though I enjoy writing myself. And it makes me so relieved to hear that even a scientist mom didn’t always get to the experiments! My kids loooove doing science experiments, and I struggle to make them happen. 😢 I really want to figure out ways to make it easier for me to make the experiments happen. So please let us know if you figure out some strategies! 🤪
Memoria press traditional spelling is working well for us along with LOE. I have a rising 3rd graded and started I this year. It is phonetic based and it has the child study the words in different ways for 3 days then a quiz. The supplemental book is great and I add it on the fifth day. In case that helps!
Did you finish all of Abeka LA Grade 1? We switched my first grade daughter mid-year to Abeka (we are only on about lesson 60) and I can't believe how much she has learned in such a short time! We will be continuing with it into Grade 2, but I don't know what we will be doing after.
We practically finished it, this is our last week and we are finishing up with lesson 156 (out of 170). It was the same for us, I was amazed at how fast he started to pick things up after switching to Abeka!
Sonlight hbl do you think finding the books from the list at your local library is an affordable way to enjoy that curriculum? It’s so expensive and I wonder how important the other materials are. We are an only child home. Thank you!!!!
Can't wait for the upcoming videos. My son is still thriving with Saxon. We use mymathassistant for him, and I can definitely recommend it for the upper grades. He just finished 8/7. :)
