I’ve been meaning to tell you all about the meeting I went to last month in San Jose.  It’s a monthly meeting for parents who are homeschooling kids who have been diagnosed with special education needs.  The director of the group is Sharon Hensley who wrote “Home Schooling Children With Special Needs”. 

Last month our meeting was about writing.  We spent most of the evening talking about handwriting and a bit about composition.

First she challenged us to consider why we teach handwriting.  In fact, she asked “Why are homeschoolers so worried about handwriting?”  There was much discussion…and it boiled down for many of us that we recognize that our children (and thus us) are judged by their handwriting.  But in this technological age – is it dying?  What is more important?  Getting ideas out in a reasonable manner or have it be nice looking?

For many students this isn’t an either/or matter.  But for children with special needs, it can be.  Many moms shared that they are only teaching cursive in order for their children to (1) be able to read it themselves and (2) to be able to sign their names.  Other moms shared that they had success moving to typing.

After an exercise meant to show us how many of our children felt when we ask them to write and then hover over them, we came up with the following actions to help us:

1)       Provide time (without nagging, but not to waste of course)

2)      Find something to praise (every day/assignment)

3)      Balance (to be honest – I can’t remember what this meant lol)

4)      Move towards typing as he gets older

5)      Flexible – fit your student, not the curriculum

6)      Coloring is good practice for manual strengthening

Then we moved to composition – my biggest concern.  Sharon explained that our students learn what a sentence is by copying, then dictation before they can compose a sentence of their own.  And she suggested we ask them to compose less than a sentence to start.  **Remember if you are not dealing with a child with special needs, your child might do this in a matter of minutes as opposed to days/months/etc**

After they can write a good sentence, then you can go to paragraphs then more complex paragraphs and then essays.

A few products she recommended to help us:

Apple Tree – I’ve started to use this with J2.  His disabilities are all in the language arena.  He loves it and I do too!  It’s taking the steps of creating a sentence and breaking them into smaller steps.  First he’s adding the correct word, then phrase and finally he’s doing the sentence.  Here is a link:  http://www.proedinc.com/Scripts/prodView.asp?idProduct=1559

When it’s time to move onto paragaphs, she recommends a product called FourSquare.(I think this link is it: http://www.teachinglearning.com/foursquare/writing_method.php)  As my student isn’t that far along – I didn’t take many notes on it.

Hope this helps someone!