My 10th grade son started the Classical Conversations Challenge program last year–in Challenge III. This is a pretty rigorous program for any student, and it was a bit daunting for him to start there, with no previous challenge background (we have a new challenge program on our campus). Also, he has dyslexia, dysgraphia, and slow processing speed. We knew we would need to have some plans in place to make Challenge III work for him.

In making modifications, it was important to us that he would not cut things that would negatively affect the class. In Challenge 3, students have a lot of responsibility for leading some of the classes, as well as presenting and debating in several classes throughout the year. I chose to shorten the length of some of his assignments (papers or recitations) or to make accommodations on classes that don’t affect anyone else (such as chemistry) so that he and his fellow students get the most possible out of their classroom experience. I would rather see him memorize 15 lines of Shakespeare (as opposed to the 30 assigned lines) than to just skip that assignment altogether. In this way, he was able to participate with the class and gain some of the benefit of the assignment while still taking off some of the pressure.

My son plays football for a local Christian school during the fall, so he has less time for lengthy homework assignments during those months. Also, he was a little on the young side for Challenge 3, being in 10th grade (this class is for 10th-12th graders). With that in mind, I made more accommodations in the fall, with the goal of increasing his workload during the spring when he had more time and experience.

Proactive accommodations

I sent his teacher a list of the accommodations I was planning to make at the beginning of each semester, and if  my son was able to do  more work than expected, he did–but I tried to set realistic goals up front. This took some of the pressure off, and it also helped him to know exactly what he was supposed to get done. I did not want to get into a situation where we were routinely shortening or removing assignments because he was behind or couldn’t meet the deadline. It was much better to accommodate PRO-actively rather than RE-actively.

Here is a list of the types of things we did last year:

• I gave shorter assignments at times instead of removing assignments altogether. It affects the class negatively when students do not bring something to the discussion. If I felt he could not complete a writing assignment in time, I would shorten the length of it. Some of these modifications varied from week to week, depending on how many things were due at one time. In the Challenge program there are weekly assignments due every week, as well as many larger assignments due where the student has to budget their time and do a little bit each week toward accomplishing a goal. Some weeks there were so many assignments converging at once that we chose the most important ones to prioritize and shortened the length on some of the others.
• I made more accommodation in subjects that were done at primarily home, rather than in class. For example, since the science portion is primarily labs rather than discussion, if he was going to fall behind in a subject we make sure it was science. Because of his slow processing speed, it was inevitable that he would need to fall behind somewhere, so he caught up on science over the Christmas break and again during the summer break. With that said, we were careful to make sure he did some science every week so that he didn’t fall more than 2 or 3 chapters behind. I didn’t want him to get into a situation where it was impossible to catch up, so this was a balancing act.
• We did some of the reading for first semester during the summer prior to starting Challenge, and some of the reading for 2nd semester during Christmas break. By getting a jump start on the reading, it was one less thing to do during the busy school year.
• Virtually all of the challenge literature for every level is available in audio format, through the public domain (check My Audio School, which is the website our family created for classical and Charlotte Mason educators who want access to audio books in an organized, child-friendly format. Click on the Curriculum tab, then click on the appropriate Challenge level. There are more titles when you subscribe but I have put a few unblocked titles in each category that are accessible to anyone so you can get a sense of how it works). We also use Audible for some titles. We found that several of the needed textbooks for challenge 3 were available on audible. I am finding the same to be true of the other challenge levels as I am currently gathering books for my sons who will be in Challenge 2 and Challenge 4 in the fall. My Audio School only has public domain titles (classic books as well as radio theater) whereas Audible has some of the newer titles (textbooks) that we needed–as well as the classics, if you prefer to spend more to get the professional narration. We use a mix of both in our homeschool.
• My son typically dictates his papers onto his phone and emails them to himself, then copies and pastes them into Word and does his editing on the computer, which is a big help because of his dysgraphia.
• Some assigned tasks were difficult for him, such as creating his own study guides, so we worked through it together side-by-side. He and I worked through Brightest Heaven of Invention together, starting with the review questions at the end of the chapter before reading and discussing the chapter, with a highlighter in hand. The book progresses in a very orderly fashion, answering most of the review and thought questions in order as you progress through the chapter. We would read the first question at the end of the chapter, then page back and read through the chapter to look for the answer.
• Instead of writing out notes by hand he learned how to take notes with a highlighter directly in the textbook. When he found the answer, it would be highlighted and a note was made beside that paragraph such as RQ1 (for Review Question 1), or the page number in the Shakespeare play where the answer could be located, in the case of the Thought Questions. In this way, he found all of the answers fairly easily and highlighted them in the book rather than writing them out on paper.
• For his history notebook and timeline, he used a timeline app, which would allow him to type or voice dictate the relevant dates and information into his phone, then the timeline could be displayed in a variety of ways. The history book for Challenge 3 has a timeline at the beginning of each chapter, and I allowed him to look at that timeline and select the dates he felt were most important after reading the chapter, rather than trying to extrapolate the dates from the chapter paragraphs. I wanted him to do the timeline exercise, but I didn’t want him to spend too much time on it. Selecting dates from the book’s timeline allowed him to do this fairly easily.
• Set a time budget for each strand, or for the work as a whole. CC suggests students spend about 1 hour per day per strand on the work. We decided to spend about 8 hours per day on school work this year (6 just felt like it wasn’t nearly enough to get most of the work done for my slow, methodical student). If he spent a little less time on one class that freed up some time for another class, and by sticking to our time budget he maintained a good work/life balance.
• Students took turns reading Meno aloud in class at the end of the year. My son is able to read aloud, but he can’t understand what he is reading while doing so–he has to either read out loud OR process the content, not both. If he is reading aloud, he is focusing on pronouncing the words and not losing his place, rather than on understanding what is being read. He has been open with his teacher and class about his learning disabilities, and that was (I believe) one key to his success. He has learned to own it and not be ashamed of it, and to advocate for himself. We simply explained the situation to his teacher and asked that he be allowed to follow along in the book in class but not be required to read out loud. Problem solved!

Here are some more specific ways we accommodated within each strand:

Latin: My son had already taken two years of high school Latin with another online program before he started CC. He did not get any accommodation for Latin, and got an A in it all 4 semesters. I remember worrying about how he could possibly tackle Latin when he began studying it in 8th grade, but he did just fine. I have since heard several other parents say that their dyslexic students did well with Latin!

If you choose to make accommodations in Latin, however, you could allow open book quizzes, not count off for spelling, or reduce the workload to only what could reasonably be accomplished in one hour per day, allowing your student to fall behind the class if more time is needed. The year my son took Latin 2 he was also taking an English grammar class, and that ended up being a LOT of homework for him. He didn’t get any accommodations in Latin but I ended up pulling him out of the grammar class 2nd semester, deciding to prioritize Latin and reduce his workload in that way. He had already had several years of English grammar and while it would have been great for him to finish the course, I decided he would do better to just focus on the Latin grammar and vocabulary. If Latin is a priority, you could cut the workload elsewhere to make more time for Latin, or you could set a time budget for Latin (CC suggests one hour per day, per strand) and adjust the workload until it fits within that time budget. 

Shakespeare and Poetry: Shakespeare actually took MORE time than required, not less, especially at the beginning of the year. This was mainly because we had to do a bit more to understand it well. First we read a children’s version of the play (CC sells the Charles and Mary Lamb children’s compilation and I also really like the Edith Nesbit book Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare for Children).

Then we watched a DVD version, and then he listened to the original version on audio. Audible had the exact same Folger edition audios that his class was reading. After reading the play, students read Brightest Heaven of Invention and have many questions to “consider” each week. I read BHI aloud with him and we discussed the questions orally. Each question is answered directly and specifically, either in BHI or in the play itself. He highlighted the answer and marked it “RQ1” or “TQ3”, etc. for Review question 1 or Thought Question 3, as I explained above. In class he could go back to the text and find the highlighted answer if he needed to during the classroom discussion.

After the first couple of plays he no longer needed to listen to the children’s version, and we started saving the videos until the end, as he preferred to listen to the unabridged play first. It became much easier to understand once he got used to Shakespeare’s language and writing style, and the ability to get all the exact versions he needed through Audible was wonderful! We still had physical copies of the books, as well, so he could follow along, highlight them, and refer to them as needed in class and for the oral recitations.

Oral recitations: In the Shakespeare strand, students are asked to memorize 30 lines from each of the 5 plays they read. For the fall I shortened that assignment and he memorized 10 to 15 lines per play for the first two plays. This enabled him to participate in the assignment without the huge investment of time to memorize 30 lines. Our goal was for him to memorize longer portions as the year progressed. He thought this would be IMPOSSIBLE for him, but he surprised himself and did very well with it! We tried to find passages that were also available as You Tube videos (excerpts from movies) so he could watch those repeatedly as he worked to memorize the lines.

He also had to memorize a speech during spring semester (he chose Churchill’s “We Shall Fight on the Beaches” speech) and he did it! We did a google search of “Great speeches from history in audio” and found many audio and video links to choose from. I especially liked this list of great speeches for men from The Art of Manliness. I am so glad I encouraged (required) him to try to do the assignments, even when we had to shorten them from time to time. There were many assignments (like the memorizations) that he wanted me to remove altogether, as he didn’t think he could do it. He was stretched and he grew in confidence as he realized that he actually could do it, and although he occasionally stumbled over some of the words he recited his lines with a lot of drama and expression.

There was another student in his class who substituted some of the Shakespeare recitations with historical speeches or documents (I think one of them was the Declaration of Independence, for example). A friend of mine in another state said she would prefer her child to memorize a lengthy passage of scripture rather than a Shakespeare play. I thought there was value in memorizing the Shakespeare, but any kind of memory work has value so this would be another possible way to accommodate (by memorizing something different and presenting that instead). My son has rattled off many of the lines he memorized on various occasions in conversation where they were unexpected yet appropriate, so for him it provided a kind of cultural literacy that I am really glad he acquired.

Students are also asked to write a literary analysis paper about each play. I had my son keep the length of his first Lit paper about 5 paragraphs to keep this assignment from taking an inordinate amount of time. In the spring he was striving to write 1,000 words for each of his papers, but the 5 paragraphs seemed like a good place to start for a young 10th grader who works very slowly. Once again, I would rather have him write a short paper than no paper at all, and we worked to increase the length of the papers and their complexity as the year progressed.

There was also a poetry journal component in Challenge 3, where students wrote original poetry (sometimes following strict rhyming or metrical regulations). My son did not think he would be good at this and was resistant to trying it, but I made him do it anyway and he found out that he is pretty good at it! That was a pleasant surprise, and he was no longer resistant to writing the poems. I purchased a nice bound journal for him to write his poems in, so it would be a keepsake.

American History: I was able to get the (incredibly thick) Patriot’s History book on audio through Audible, so that was an important factor in even knowing that we could participate in CC. This book is 50 hours long in audio format, so it is a lot of reading each week. My son was capable of reading it, but the time required to do so may have become overwhelming pretty quick. A Challenge 3 director told me that some kids who aren’t ready for a book like this choose to substitute with another book covering similar topics, but I felt my son could handle it since it is available in audio, and that ended up being one of his favorite strands.

Students are to keep up a timeline and history facts notebook, choosing important dates and events from their text. It is virtually impossible for him to scan a text and pick out important names and dates while still grasping the sense of what he is reading, so he took the dates from the timeline that is conveniently placed near the beginning of each chapter, as I described above. He read the chapter first and then looked at the dates on the provided timeline and decided which ones were important enough to add to his timeline.

He made his timeline in the Beedocs app on his phone.  This app allowed him to add a lengthy note to any of the dates if he choose to, so he consolidated his timeline and history facts notebook on the app. After he decided what the significant dates were I helped him look through the text to find a few important sentences about the date and he dictated those into his phone right in the app. This was a very straightforward way for him to complete this assignment. The timeline and history facts notes are meant to help the student prepare for the end of semester Blue Book exams.

This app also allows you to put a photo with each date for a more visually pleasing timeline. He did that the first week but gave that part up as it takes a lot of time to find good images, and doesn’t add much to his understanding or memory of the actual events. It just looks nice.

He was assigned several research papers and some debates for this strand. The papers were meant to be 1,000 words and he had to abbreviate some of them, especially during the fall. For his first paper he aimed for 5 paragraphs to 2 pages, though by the end of the year (when football was over and he was a better writer) he was able to hit the 1,000 word target. For the debates he often had the accommodation of using note cards rather than memorizing his material. Once again, it just takes him so long to get his work done that I decided I wanted him to participate in the debates but not dedicate a lot of time to memorizing that part. Some of the other students in his class used notes for the debates,  so he was not alone in that.

Math:My son continued taking his math through a different local co op that I have used for many years with all my older kids. He does not receive accommodations for that. At CC the students can bring problems they are struggling with and discuss math and mathematical concepts together. Some students are at a lower (or higher) level than others but it works. Everyone can review or preview material, depending on what they are discussing. My son is great at math, but slow. His teacher does allow the class to solve problems using a graphing calculator. Without this accommodation I cannot imagine how long it would take him to do the work.

Logic: My son watched the  Logic (Memoria Press) material on DVD before looking at it in the book and answering the daily homework. One thing I am loving about CC Challenge is that a lot of the required resources are available on DVD or in audio book format. He was able to answer the logic questions in the book, using pencil.

He could, however, have used an app like One Note or Snap Type to take a photograph of the questions and then edit it on the computer to input his answers. He didn’t need to use this type of accommodation much last year, but I would like him to learn how to use some of the technology tools that are out there before he heads to college, so he has more options should the need arise. I love the Whiteboard feature on One Note and I use it a lot myself. It allows you to take a photo of a whiteboard, and it converts the photo so look just like a whiteboard, plus you can search within One Note and it will pull up words that are on the photos (whether they are white board photos or business cards!), as well as any notes you have typed in.

Philosophy: For Philosophy, the students read and discussed The Consequence of Ideas by R. C. Sproul. This book is also available in audio format from Audible, so my son was able to listen to it. We started the year by watching a video of R. C. Sproul by the same title, which covered some of the same material. The video was not identical to the book (they are designed to go together, as companions). The video is “extra” so it is not required. When we were able to get to it, I think it gave my son more thoughts to contribute to the discussions and a greater understanding of a very difficult subject, but eventually we let that go rather than add more work/time.

Sproul has a free study guide to accompany the Consequences of Ideas videos, so we discussed Sproul’s study guide as we worked together on creating a study guide he could take to class, including some questions he could contribute to keep the discussion going and help elucidate the material. I had originally thought he could USE Sproul’s study guide instead of creating his own, but the material on the videos is too different from the book for that to be useful. He could pull about 1/3 of the material from Sproul’s outline but had to add the rest directly from the reading.

LEARNING HOW TO STUDY:

The Challenge program is helping him learn HOW to study and prepare for a class, and the Philosophy study guide is one example. I wanted him to learn the Philosophy–but I also wanted him to learn HOW to make a study guide, how to prepare for a class discussion, how to outline a chapter, etc. This is a challenging skill area for him which took a lot of work. It was a balancing act, as I didn’t want him putting too much time into any one strand but this particular skill will serve him well in college if he can learn how to do it. So for most of the first semester, we worked through it together (preserving his time) with the goal of him learning how to eventually do it on his own (spending some extra time in order to gain a new skill). Also, the Philosophy material was some of the most challenging for him, so he listened to each chapter twice before working on the study guide with me.

Chemistry: Completing experiments together was the main focus on Community day, and kids could ask any questions they have about the text or assignments. For the daily work, my son used an audio book version of the Apologia Chemistry text (also from Audible) as well as the CD Rom version of the text (it is easier for my son to work on the computer than from a physical book, when possible). In some ways he wished he would have had the physical book, however, as he couldn’t take the CD Rom book to class since he didn’t have a laptop.

Another chemistry accommodation I made relates to the lab reports. Students are asked to turn in one formal lab report per module (16 modules altogether). I had my son write one formal lab report per semester (2 total). In addition, he wrote some informal lab reports, and for some labs he did not write a report at all. My son is not planning to go into a science field, and this was another area where we could accommodate to buy him some extra time without affecting the class.

Since community day was primarily for doing labs together, it did not affect anyone else if my son fell behind in his chemistry work. Therefore, this was the strand where I gave him the most leeway to fall behind if he had a busy week with a lot of deadlines. In return he had to sacrifice some of his Christmas/summer break to catch up again, but he took care not to fall too far behind so it wasn’t too burdensome for him.

Now we are starting to get ready for Challenge IV. I am planning to do many of the same kinds of things to enable him to succeed. He will be in 11th grade next year and we are beginning to look toward college. Therefore, as we plan accommodations we will be trying to prioritize two things: learning to use tech tools and learning to work in the way he is most likely to be able to work at college. We will be looking for a college that offers good accommodations to students with diagnosed learning disabilities, but we also recognize that some kinds of help may be hard to come by.

Do you have suggestions that have helped your child succeed in CC Challenge or another high school program? Can you suggest any tech tools we should investigate? If you have a child with learning disabilities in college I would love to hear what accommodations have been available and how your child has been able to survive and thrive in college!

After a year of Classical Conversations with my younger set we decided to take the plunge and enroll two of our older boys in the Challenge Program, which was new on our campus last fall. Our 10th grader was in Challenge III and our 8th grader was in Challenge A. Challenge A and B are for 7th-9th graders and there are 4 senior high levels (Challenge I-IV).

Why I was drawn to Classical Conversations for my older kids

I was drawn to Classical Conversations Challenge program because of the academic rigor and the opportunity for my children to interact with other teens and another adult (besides myself and my husband) on a weekly basis. In our busy home school (with 5 kids still at home) I haven’t had the time to discuss history and literature and worldview and philosophy with my teens as much as I did with their oldest brother (now in college).

Surviving–or thriving–in High School with learning disabilities?

I wasn’t sure how my older son would handle the Challenge Program in light of his learning disabilities. He has dyslexia, dysgraphia, and a slow processing speed, which means that completing all his schoolwork takes quite a bit of time. We have used some accommodations over the years, primarily audio books and various technical helps…but we struggled with other co-op style classes because I didn’t have any control over his workload and many times he felt completely under water trying to get everything done.

Last year (9th grade)  we were definitely in survival mode. He took two local co op classes and 3 online co op classes, plus two classes with me (6 credits). I ended up putting my two classes on hold and doing the majority of the work with him over the summer, after all his local and online co op classes ended. Even so, he was often the first one up during the school year, in order to hit the ground running, and frequently he was the last one in bed at night, just trying to get everything done. We didn’t have much in the way of Christmas, fall, spring, or summer break as he had to spend his breaks trying to catch up where he had fallen behind or doing the work for my two classes (Government and American Literature), which had been put on hold.

The Classical Conversations model keeps the parent as the primary teacher. On community day the kids go to class and their tutor leads them through their six strands (subjects), facilitating discussions and checking on their assigned work, helping with math and chemistry questions, listening to their speeches and debates and critiquing their recitations and papers. But the standards by which the student will be graded and the scope of the workload–as well as the final grade–rest with the parent. This gave me a lot of freedom to tweak my child’s workload and assignments to fit his needs. It was a huge relief to know that I am in control, yet he still has the benefit of the classroom environment and the great discussions and opportunity to learn from others. Even with the modifications we made this past year he benefitted from a rigorous, college-preparatory, stimulating course of study, and  even with some modifications it was no walk in the park–believe me. The Challenge courses are just that–extremely challenging, especially at the higher levels.

After 4 weeks in the program, I had not yet had to change any of the standards and he had done everything his classmates had done, yet the sense of panic was gone. He knew that I was in control and he was able to rest in that. We already had a sense of peace that things were not going to get crazy like last year. We put a plan in place and we committed to work the plan as needed.

As the year progressed, we did have to make some modifications, as we knew we would. I will write more about that in the next post. Although we modified some of the CC work, he ended up accomplishing an incredible amount of rigorous, college preparatory work, and he felt more in control of his schedule and his life. And that was so freeing.

Work/Life Balance

Classical Conversations suggests that kids in the Challenge program spend 1 hour per day on each of the 6 strands. My son had spent about 10 to 12 hours per day the previous year (in 9th grade) on homework (or about 2 hours per subject), because he works so slowly and his workload was quite heavy with a college preparatory classical curriculum. This past year in CC the curriculum was even more rigorous–yet we had some freedom to treat it like a buffet and glean from it as much as we could without feeling like we had to stuff ourselves with every dish.

We generally tried to use the “1 hour per strand per day” as a guideline and go from there. He still had to work more than 6 hours on some days–and sometimes he had to do some work on Saturdays–but he definitely did not work 12 hour days. Once the workload started creeping beyond the guideline, we had a plan in place to start making some accommodations. Our goal was not–and will never be–working just 6 hours per day. That is not realistic for him, sadly, if he wants to pursue this type of an academic load. And he does! But even an 8 hour day was so much better than what my son did the previous year, and he seemed to have more “work/life balance”.

*NOTE: I have seen it recommended (from CC) to offer as much accommodation as necessary to try and keep that “1 hour of work per day, per strand” model, so that is definitely a valid choice. We have chosen to use that as a guideline, while stretching it some to enable my son to get more of the assigned work done. This is a personal choice that he and I made together, and we felt it gave us the best of both worlds–he got the majority of the work completed but without the intense stress he felt his freshman year.

Accommodating for age as well as disability:

My son was a young student for Challenge 3. He was a sophomore, not a junior or senior as some of his classmates were. Some of the curriculum requirements would have been a jump for him even without a learning disability. So we modified some of the standards for the fall (shortened the required length of research papers and memorized recitations, for example) with the goal of being able to increase the length during the spring when he would have more experience.

In my next post I talk about the specific modifications we made last year for Classical Conversations Challenge III.

I have written many posts about homeschooling my dyslexic child through elementary school, but very little about high school. We adopted a child with special needs two years ago and I stopped blogging, due to time constraints. I have fielded several questions recently about homeschooling my dyslexic child in high school, so I am going to post a series on that topic. This first one is an update.

Our son was diagnosed with dyslexia and slow processing speed in 2nd grade. He is in 10th grade now.

Over the years we have tried to do everything possible with audio or video so that he can keep up with his workload in subjects like history, literature, and science.

For example, we use Apologia science since all of their high school books and most of their elementary books are available in audio format. They also have CD Rom versions of their texts, so he can access his book on the computer, which is easier for him than holding and reading a physical text book.

For spelling this year I am doing Touch Type Read and Spell which is an online program that teaches typing and spelling skills using an Orton Gillingham model (which is designed for dyslexics). I wish we could be done with spelling but we are still trying to get him to a better spelling level. Sometimes it feels like beating a dead horse but I am not ready to give up. He does type all his papers so that he has spell check on the computer, but I still have to edit for spelling because of homophones. Last year we focused on the 1,000 most frequently used words in the English language for our spelling, as those words represent 95% of the words people typically write. That was a helpful exercise, but time consuming for me. This year we are trying something he can do all by himself. TTRS (Touch Type Read and Spell) is extremely expensive if you buy it retail. I purchased the subscription through the Homeschool Buyers Co-op, which is a free online co op that allows homeschoolers to band together to get volume discounts. It was WAY cheaper than their retail price.

My son uses a lot of tech, such as Dragon dictation (he dictates all his papers), and types almost everything on the computer so he has spell check. He is using One Note this year which allows him to take a photo of a whiteboard or power point presentation and it converts it to a searchable or even editable PDF on his phone, tablet or computer. One Note also allows you to photograph a document and then write or type on it, so it can be used to fill out worksheets. Someone just told me about Snap Type, which looks like a great app! It is on my to do list to check that out and see if it would be helpful for him. I believe it has some of the same capabilities as One Note, but may be more useful in certain applications. My favorite thing about One Note is that it makes outlining very easy, as it has a built in outlining application. Also, it is free! One Note is robust, so it takes some time to learn how to use it. Thankfully, there are many video tutorials on the internet to help you get the most out of One Note.

My son is able to keep up fine in math, but it just takes an inordinately long time for him to get all the work done. His teacher allows the students to use a graphing calculator and I can’t imagine how long it would take him without that accommodation! Because of the calculator, the upper level math has actually been easier for him in many ways than when he was younger and tried to do everything on paper.

He is doing great, he got all A’s last year in 9th grade, and most of his teachers were other people through online and local co ops.

My biggest surprise has been that he excelled in Latin I and II, which he took online through Latin in the Christian Trivium. I have since heard that others have reported their dyslexic kids did well in Latin. These were high school level Latin classes that he took in 8th and 9th grade, and he got an A in both. That is just amazing to me. He did not seem to struggle with writing or reading Latin the way he has with English! The human brain is pretty incredible, isn’t it?! He took these classes live online, but they also offer an AYOP option.

This year we are doing the Classical Conversations Challenge program. I expect he will do very well in Classical Conversations this year, also, but he will have to work very hard and I will be making some accommodations for him, which I will cover in my next post in this series. Although it will be a CC specific post, I think there is plenty of application there for anyone homeschooling a dyslexic in high school.

The accommodations I am making for him are mainly because of time…he plays football for a local Christian school and that takes up a considerable chunk of time each day, and last year he didn’t get enough sleep because he was staying up too late trying to get his work done. That is what prompted us to switch to Classical Conversations as I had very little control over his workload last year since he had 5 different teachers besides myself.  With CC I have control over his workload, yet he still benefits from that co op setting which he loves–so I believe it will be the best of both worlds for him.

CC is a Christian classical program with chapters nationwide. Over the years our watchwords have been “remediation and accommodation”–remediating things like spelling, handwriting, and reading speed and fluency/comprehension while using tech and audio books to help him work up to his potential in other areas. He excels when the eye/hand pathway is removed and he uses the ear/mouth pathway. This has been a great combination for him, as he is passable in his weak areas now yet can really soar when utilizing his strengths.

He gets his audio books from our own website, My Audio School, which we established when he was first diagnosed and from Audible. We have tried Learning Ally in the past but the quality wasn’t that good and it got too expensive for the quality, we felt. To be eligible for Learning Ally you have to have an official diagnosis. Last time I checked the price was over $100 per year. I pay $15 per month for Audible which gives us one book per month, and access to member sales. The books on our website are all in the public domain, and since we follow a Classical Model, many of the books we need are available there. A friend of mine recommended that we look into BookShare, which is an online audio library program. That is on my to do list. So many apps and programs for these amazing kids–so little time! I would love it if you left me a comment about what programs and apps you find useful for your struggling learners!

I also build a lot of his classes around what is available in audio, or choose programs (like Classical Conversations and Apologia science) which use resources we can get in audio. I will have to read a few things aloud to him this year, to save time–he could do it, but it takes so long. Another example of accommodation and remediation working together is that he has to read 5 Shakespeare plays this year for CC, so first he listens to an audio version for kids, then we watch a video version of each play, then he listens to the original version in Audio, and then he and I discuss the play using the book Brightest Heaven of Invention and a physical copy of the play, referencing the scene and line numbers. It takes more time than just reading the play one time, but he is really understanding it, and he is able to participate in the discussions of the play with his class at Classical Conversations, which is the goal. Since he gains so much through discussion I can already see after just one month that CC is going to be a great thing for him. Students meet once a week for a full day and discuss 6 different subject areas. It is a lot of work during the week, but the classroom format is ideally suited to someone who thrives in an auditory/discussion oriented environment.

We are ready to apply for accommodations for the SAT/ACT so he was just tested again so that we would have a fresh diagnosis. I hope to start applying for those accommodations within the next month, and I will certainly post about what we did and the results.

Homeschooling my oldest son has always been a breeze.  He learned to read when he was 3, and my greatest educational challenge with him was poor penmanship.

I was not prepared for the struggles I faced with our second son.  He wasn’t ready to read at age 3.

Or at age 4.

Or at 5.

Or even at 6.

Some days I felt like I was a failure, and other days I thought he wasn’t trying hard enough.

School wasn’t fun for either of us.  It was disappointing, frustrating, and exhausting.

We had him tested at age 7 and found out that he is dyslexic.  At first I felt like I had been punched in the gut.  I worried we would continue to struggle together for years.

But we didn’t!  In fact, his diagnosis was the key to unlocking his tremendous potential, and the turning point in his education.

Here are some ways we turned things around:

• I knew that working one on one with my son would be his best chance at success, so I stopped entertaining ideas about putting him in school and going back to my easy life.  I committed myself to home schooling for the long haul and started figuring out how to do it better.  I read and researched and tried different methods and curriculum in each subject until I found some things that worked for him.
• We began thinking outside the box.  Some of our new methods were unconventional (such as learning through games), but it didn’t matter.  I was tailoring his education to suit his needs, and we started seeing success for the first time.
• I stopped doubting myself as a teacher and him as a student.  I am grateful that my son never suffered the embarrassment of struggling in a classroom setting, but I confess there were days when my attitude discouraged him. I became more patient and more positive, viewing each challenge as a solve-able puzzle instead of an insurmountable obstacle.  We both gained confidence and began to enjoy school more, approaching difficulties as a team.  This had a positive impact on our relationship as well as on our school day.
• I began to employ a two-pronged approach of remediation and accommodation, which allowed him to move forward in areas of strength while continuing to work on areas of weakness.  Before his diagnosis we spent all our time working on the things he couldn’t do well and never found time or energy for other things.  Our new strategy meant that at least part of every school day was enjoyable and felt productive.  His self confidence grew, and he had more energy to tackle things that were difficult.
• We began using audio books for history and literature.  He began to truly enjoy learning for the first time.  Audio books changed his life so much that we built a website (and a home business) dedicated to helping kids get inexpensive access to the best educational books.

That little boy is a teenager now.  We are still successfully–and happily–home schooling.  Through the use of audio books and other technology, he is an independent, thriving student. He doesn’t have quite the same love for school that his older brother has, but he likes it just fine.  Some things are still hard, but it is no longer a daily battle.  Even the challenges have turned out to be blessings in disguise, shaping our son’s character in wonderful, God-glorifying ways.

I’m so thankful that we stuck with home schooling!!!  The fruit of it is sweet and vastly outweighs the challenges and frustrations.

Ipod: I could write a whole post on the iPod and great apps for dyslexics (and I will try to do so soon!), but for the sake of brevity I will just say that my dyslexic son uses his iPod daily for school.  He can write emails using voice commands (eliminating the need for typing). We have a variety of educational apps installed (including the Bible app mentioned below).

Also, he downloads all his audio books to it.  This is the one tool he could scarcely live without, and school has become SO much easier and more enjoyable with the iPod.

Word for Windows/spell check: My son types most of his assignments now, rather than writing them, as it enables him to make use of the Word spell check feature.  Sometimes he gets an occasional homonym wrong, but for the most part it has had a dramatic effect on his ability to write fluidly and well. This is his preferred software for creative writing.

Dragon:  Dragon is a voice command software that learns the sound of a single user’s voice, thus becoming more accurate as time goes on.  It can be installed on a computer, and there is also a Dragon app for the iPod.  You can use it for writing emails, composing Word documents, or any application where you would normally be writing but prefer to speak.

Ginger:  Ginger is a software you can install on the computer to spell check.  It is similar to the spell check on Word but with a few added features.  You can highlight a sentence and click on it to hear what you have actually typed, enabling the user to recognize mistakes more easily.  It will also suggest substitutions for misspelled words.

Bible: My son uses the You Version Bible for his daily Bible study.  This Bible is an app that he has installed on his iPod, and it allows him to easily select what version he wants to use and what passage.  With the touch of a button, the passage is read aloud for him by a narrator, not a computerized voice.  This app is great, and has been a fantastic aid to his devotions.

How are you using technology in your home school?

UPDATE: This resource list has become so long over the years that I have decided to break it up by subject as a series of posts.  The posts in this resource series are linked below.

Homeschooling the Dyslexic Child: Phonics and Early Readers

Homeschooling the Dyslexic Child: Spelling

Homeschooling the Dyslexic Child: Handwriting and Copywork

Homeschooling the Dyslexic Child: Grammar and Latin

Homeschooling the Dyslexic Child: History, Literature and Science

Homeschooling the Dyslexic Child: Math

Homeschooling the Dyslexic Child: Resources for Mom and Dad

Homeschooling the Dyslexic Child: Technology

HAND WRITING: Dyslexic children often reverse letters, writing b instead of d and so forth.  Our son did just that.  We switched him to Cursive First and the problem was immediately eliminated.  Cursive First is a handwriting program that teaches children how to write cursive.  It is intended to be used before they learn to print.

We love the clock face stamp (click link and page down), which helped our dyslexic son learn to form letters properly.  It is hard to write cursive backwards, and so it is a good choice for teaching dyslexics to write.  We laminated the letter cards that came with the program and our son traced over them with a dry erase marker before he started writing letters free-hand.  My younger kids have much better handwriting than our oldest son, who learned to print before he learned cursive.  I think teaching cursive first is a must, and from now on all my children will be learning that long before they learn to print.  In fact, our dyslexic son has the neatest handwriting of them all!

Cursive First can be used with other phonics and reading programs, but it goes hand in hand with Spell to Write and Read (SWR).  SWR is not my favorite program, but it unlocked the door to reading for my dyslexic son, as I explain in this post.  We are not using it anymore, as I personally prefer All About Spelling.  SWR is not, in my opinion, the ideal spelling program for the dyslexic, though many dyslexics have successfully used it and it is better than some of the other programs out there. I found it difficult to teach, and the pace moved too quickly for my son to be successful with it as a long-term spelling program.

The approach was successful in helping him learn to read, however, and for that I am very grateful.  I think SWR has a lot of great things going for it, but AAS was written with the dyslexic in mind, and we have had much better success with it.

DICTATION/COPY WORK: We use All About Spelling to practice taking dictation.  It kills two birds with one stone, allowing our kids to practice their handwriting and their spelling words at the same time.

When my dyslexic son was in 4th and 5th grades we also used Writing with Ease (WWE) for copywork and narration.  WWE is written by Susan Wise Bauer (author of the popular Your Story of the World and The Well Trained Mind books).

There are dictation sentences in the WWE book but many are too difficult, so we only did the other parts of the book.  I love this series, as it incorporates grammar lessons into the copywork, and the stories for narration practice are well-chosen.  My children absolutely loved listening to the narration passages, and always begged to hear them in their entirety.

Many of these classic stories have been recorded as audio books, so we found as many as are available for WWE 1 and WWE 2 and put them on our educational audio website My Audio School.  I have not found the teacher’s manual necessary, so we used the workbooks only.  Photocopying is allowed for personal use, so I copied the necessary pages or had my sons use notebook paper so that the book would be non-consumable.

TOOLS: 

Pencil grips help our children learn where to place their fingers.  Stetro grips are the most recommended, and they are often used with older children who hold their pencils awkwardly. Heads up Now! sells Stetro grips for 50 cents apiece.

We keep lots of mechanical pencils on hand, as well as refill leads.  Mechanical pencils reinforce gentle pressure.  If the child presses too hard, the lead breaks.  It was hard to get used to these, but my childrens’ writing has greatly improved.  My favorites are the Papermate Sharpwriter disposable mechanical pencils with the twist up lead, and the refillable Paper Mate Mega Lead with its twist up eraser.  Both of these pencils encourage gentle pressure without breaking SO often that the children (and mom!) become overly frustrated

Our son gets most of his history and literature content for both school and pleasure through audio books.  As I explained in an earlier post, the discrepancy between what a dyslexic person can understand when listening verses reading is often huge.  When our son was tested he could process 8 grade levels higher if he was able to listen rather than read.  His reading level has greatly improved over the years, but of course the difficulty in what he needs to do in school has also gone way up.  While we always want to be remediating weaknesses, we should also use accommodation so that the dyslexic child is not held back in important subject areas.

I developed the website My Audio School specifically to meet his needs as a dyslexic student.  About 20 % of our content is unblocked for the public, or a subscription fee of  only $15 per year unlocks over 600 distinct audio resources.  Although I developed it for our dyslexic son, all of our children are using it every week.  Everyone loves a good audio book!

You can follow My Audio School as a fan on Facebook or sign up for our newsletter at our website.

Another source of audio material for children who have proper documentation proving they are dyslexic is Learning Ally.    This website has TONS of textbooks and other recorded books for educational purposes, but you must be able to prove with a doctor’s or psychologist’s documentation that your child is either visually impaired or has dyslexia.  The fee for Learning Ally is now $119 annually, I believe.

GRAMMAR: We use the grammar series from Peace Hill Press, written by Susan Wise Bauer and her mother Jessie Wise.  When my dyslexic son was in 4th grade we did the book First Language Lessons for the Well Trained Mind (aimed at 1st and 2nd graders).  This book is meant to take two years but we were easily able to do it in one year since he was older.

Most of the lessons are oral, making it an ideal first grammar book for the dyslexic child.  We skipped most of the narration, copywork and dictation sections since we were already doing that work in Writing with Ease.  We could have done the copywork and dictation from this grammar book and skipped WWE, but I much prefer the copywork and narration selections in WWE.  They aren’t as juvenile as the ones in First Language Lessons.

I am a firm believer that you shouldn’t start grammar lessons with a child until he is capable of reading, writing, and some spelling.  Otherwise, it is a waste of time and energy.  Waiting until my son was in 4th grade really helped him to have a firm foundation in those other more basic skills, and at that point he was capable of adding grammar.

GRAMMAR SUPPLEMENT: My son memorizes audio material easily.  Although this is not a necessity, he has really enjoyed the classic grammar songs on Schoolhouse Rock.  This has been a worthwhile supplement for grammar.  The 30th anniversary edition is available for sale.  You can also watch some of the videos on You Tube for free.  The lyrics for all songs can be found here. 

GRAMMAR (UPDATE–February 2014): For 8th grade my dyslexic son began a grammar and writing class at a local co-op. The teacher is using Analytical Grammar for their grammar text and he is sailing through with no problems. In fact, he is getting an A in the class and finds the grammar “easy”. There was a time when I didn’t think we could ever get to where we are now, but those years of hard work are truly paying off and many of the classes that used to be so laborious are now very straightforward for him, thanks to a solid foundation.

LATIN:  (UPDATE–February 2014):  When our dyslexic son began 7th grade I finally felt he was ready to start Latin, using the series Latin for Children.  Until then, I didn’t think his command of the English language was strong enough to justify adding Latin, but he really surprised me and has done fantastic with it.  This curriculum has a DVD with chants, and he loves those as his memory of auditory material is fantastic.  The Latin grammar is helping him grow deeper in his understanding of English grammar, and I think it is foundational preparation for being able to take a modern language when he starts high school.  His younger brother was in 5th grade that same year, and he also took this same Latin course.  It was very appropriate for them both.

This school year (2013/2014) the boys are in 8th and 6th grade, respectively.  I switched them to the online classes for Latin in the Christian Trivium.  My oldest son took 5 years of Latin through them (Latin 1 through AP Latin) and their program is fantastic. They have both done wonderful with the program, and after the first semester they are both getting an A–even our dyslexic student! And it is his favorite class!! I am amazed!

The people behind All About Spelling (AAS) have released a new program called All About Reading (AAR).  This program is geared specifically toward teaching reading to the dyslexic student.

Oh, how I wish it had been available a few years ago when we were struggling!  I am using AAR with one of my younger children, who also struggled with letters and reading.  It has been a great fit for him, and after using AAR for almost one full school year, he is now starting to read along with me in his children’s Bible.  He has really grown in both ability and confidence, and I know we owe it to AAR.

There is also a pre-reading curriculum in this series just for preschoolers, to prepare them for reading and spelling.  I have not used the preschool books yet as they weren’t available when my children were learning to read, but I will definitely use them with my baby daughters when they are ready.

EARLY READERS: My dyslexic son’s reading level has always been considerably higher than his spelling ability, but I started him out with readers which were commensurate with his spelling level in the early years.  I think it was good reinforcement for him to read stories which used his spelling words, both as a visual reminder of how the words are spelled, and as a vocabulary builder (seeing his spelling words used in context).  It was also a confidence builder to read some things that were fairly simple for him and build up to harder books.  After struggling for so long to read, his confidence in himself was very low.  Once we started seeing phonics breakthroughs, I thought it was important to begin with books that would build confidence, allowing him to experience some reading pleasure for a change.

We didn’t have the benefit of a reading program tailor made to fit with our spelling program, so when our son was younger I used  the Pathway Readers by Rod and Staff.   We love this series, and I’ve been using them for over 10 years in my homeschool with all my children!  My middle children love the books and I think they are a great fit for both our dyslexic son and our other children, too.

These graded readers worked great for my dyslexic son because they progress very gradually.  His reading ability grew naturally and easily as he moved from one reader to the next.  Each reader introduces slightly more words per page, slightly smaller type, and new vocabulary.  We have never used the workbooks that accompany this series.  I was able to look at them recently and there are several activities for each chapter which check comprehension, reinforce grammar topics and teach vocabulary.  That is not something I have felt was necessary for us, but the workbooks are very inexpensive and they could be a good supplement for grammar if you use this series.  After finishing the grade 3 Pathway reader, many children are ready to read a simple chapter book, such as something from the Childhood of Famous Americans series.  

Once my son was ready for some simple chapter books, I employed a technique where he would read one page and I would read one page.  That enabled him to get through the books much faster, and helped him feel a greater sense of accomplishment.  He enjoys when I read aloud, so whenever it was my turn it was a welcome break.  We always sat side by side so he could follow along as I read.

Practical Help

We purchase transparent reading overlays very inexpensively from Heads Up Now!  These overlays help my dyslexic son with his reading, making the black letters stand out more clearly from the white page.They offer overlays which show just one line of text, such as those in the picture above, as well as overlays showing two lines of text, a large rectangle of text or an entire page of text.  We have found that his reading speed and comfort improve with the use of these overlays.  Heads Up Now sells them quite cheaply, so I purchased several and let him experiment to find out what color works best for him.  We use the bookmark sized overlays which are perfect for keeping his place!

UPDATE: Our dyslexic son is now in 7th grade and he is able to read just about any book he wants to….but VERY slowly.  Two years ago he decided to read the first book in the Lord of the Rings series.  And he did it!  But it was laboriously slow.  He still reads physical books, because it is an important skill to master, but most of his schoolwork is done using audio books, since his slow reading speed holds him back from accomplishing all that he is capable of.  As he has matured and grown in his reading ability, we have seen that he is capable of reading most things, and the primary struggle he has now is speed.  Reading physical books is a skill to practice, for the sake of practice, but he uses audio books for history, literature, and science since his slow reading speed would hinder him from all that he needs to learn in these subject areas.  Our family created the website My Audio School for the purpose of  providing him and other struggling readers with easy access to educational audio.

Disclosure:  I am an All About Spelling affiliate and will receive a commission on any purchases that result from following the links to their site that I provided in this post or elsewhere on this blog.  I am the owner of My Audio School.