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I'm not sure why I was so intimidated at the thought of homeschooling Josh. Sure, the public school had him under an IEP. Yes, the psychologist said he had severe disabilities. But I have seen Josh in action. Yes, he has some problems speaking clearly...but lot's of kids have this problem. He does NOT have a severe disability...I think I would have seen this by now. What he has is some developmental delays and a lot of B. O. Y in him, lol. His learning difficulties may indeed pan out to be some sort of learning disability but I'm not ready to declare that just yet. He's had a rough start in life his life has stabalized. Why is it that I am so intimidated at the prospect of homeschooling my son, even though I've been homeschooling my older children for 11 years? Well, in part because the "experts" told me he has a problem. You see, I adopted Joshua from the foster care system in April 2009. I could not homeschool him as foster child so he attended a public school. He was in kindergarten last year and at the beginning of the year his teacher bragged on how well behaved he was and how smart he was. But by the end of the year, I was hearing how he wasn't keeping up with the rest of the class, and how he wasn't ready for first grade reading. In the same meeting that I was told he wasn't "meeting standards" in his academics, the teacher told me that this curriculum pushes kids far too hard, and that what she's teaching now used to be taught in 1st grade. She pointed out that many students were just not ready for this yet. But my child's "developmental delay" is showing because he wasn't keeping up with the curriculum that she just told me was too advanced for kindergarteners? Yet, they wanted to push him on to the next level rather than keeping him back. Of course, if we had kept him back he would have been far older than most kids his age. He turned 6 in November of last year (while in K), so most of the school year he was older than the other kids. That would mean he'd be 7 and in kindergarten this year. I knew that I would homeschool him once the adoption was final but that last IEP meeting just confirmed what I knew all along. They said he was ready for 1st grade math but not 1st grade reading. They wanted my husband and I to decide whether we should send him to 1st grade or not...they recommended we send him to 1st grade. I felt like they were asking me to choose between learning to read and learning to add and subtract, taking the "he'll catch up" approach. I asked if the could do Kindergarten reading with him in 1st grade while still doing on-level math. After all, he is supposed to have an INDIVIDUALIZED EDUCATION PLAN, right? That is what IEP stands for. Nope. They said they can't do that. I asked about the option and putting him back down into kindergarten if he seemed to be struggling with first. Nope. Can't do that either. However, once I sat down this summer and started researching and learning about curriculums, I began to build some confidence. I found curriculums that I think will help him not only learn to read but also excel at reading. I finally looked at a math curriculum that I think will help all of my children. My world has been opened up to new-to-me curriculums that I probably should have looked at long ago for some of my birth children. This year for my "special needs" son (and incidentally ALL of my kids have special needs...some learn better one way than another, and some have very short attention spans...some are kinsthetic learners while others are audiotory) I have found curriculums that have occassionally been used in public school special needs classrooms, all with great success. So for my son, who was struggling in reading and math (despite what his inept public school thought) we will be using the following curriculum: Spell to Write and Read - for reading, phonics, and spelling. This has been used very successfully in public school special ed. classrooms. I'm hoping it will help me with my older children who have a hard time with Spelling also. First Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind - for English grammar Math-U-See - for math (of course). This has also been used very successfully in public school special ed. classrooms. This curriculum focuses on making sure that the student understands WHY math operates as it does. It's the difference between memorizing a formula or understanding what you are doing and why so you can create your own formula. Of course at his age, we'll be focusing on understanding place value, counting, and adding. Science - this will be my own making. I will do a Charlotte Mason style study of science for him with lots of living books. History - I make my own history curriculum using a variety of sources for all of my kids 8th grade and under, so he will be sitting in with us on our lessons this year. We will be studying American History again. I have LOTS of books that we will be reading, we will study a short history on all 50 states while spending extra time on Georgia our home state, and we will be learning more about our nations forefather's and their beliefs, and how it shaped our history. Every year, I'm amazed at how much *I* learn by homeschooling my children. Already, I've learned a lot. I love homeschooling:) And I have Josh to thank for all of this new found knowledge and excitement. Thank you Josh. I love you my dear son! We're going to have a great year together. |
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