It can help to know what your child’s strengths and weaknesses are. Here’s a great assessment tool for this. Another excellent one is the SLS, which I can administer if you like.
If you have a baby in the house, here are some ways to help language develop.
If your child is school-aged and in a hybrid or virtual learning environment, these are some good ideas that can help.
Here is some information for you so that you can learn all you can about these disorders, of which Dyslexia is one.
This page explains the differences among LLDs and Speech problems.
Be aware that many kids with dyslexia will present with other issues as well.
For as difficult as it to teach a dyslexic child to read, there are some really special traits about these great kids. Read about them here and here. Above all, don’t ever say anything to your child that he or she may interpret as there being something wrong with them or being ruined! Don’t ever give up on your well doing!
When to consider that something might not be right.
Instead of me writing a whole bunch of stuff, I’m going to send you to Susan Barton’s website. She has TONS of info and it’s even got a “start here” button!
Here are some more warning signs. Be sure to check out what I have on my FB page, too.
Very often a web search will recommend starting with your child’s teacher. That works well when your kids go to school, but what about when you ARE the teacher? In my experience, homeschoolers tend to fall into two camps on dyslexia: those who suspect that there’s a problem and look for different curriculum vs. those who keep going with whatever they bought in hopes that more time will fix the problem.
Let’s get these two things out of the way right now: You did not CAUSE your child to have dyslexia and you cannot CURE dyslexia. Dyslexia is part of how the child was born, a difference in how the brain learns. That said, there ARE Things you CAN do to HELP your child MANAGE his or her dyslexia. We’re going to talk about those things all month both here and on my FB page, so be sure to check in often.
What I want you to do today, if you are new to the Dyslexia discussion, is download the handbook this page from the International Dyslexia Association and read it. Read it twice if you have time! Take notes. You are sure to have questions. We’ll be back on the IDA page several times this month, but feel free to explore the white papers and fact sheets they have archived for you. They really do believe everyone should be able to read–and so do I!
Here’s a link to the IDA’s page that lands where their fundraising efforts are housed. I do this not because I want you to give, although you might elect to do so, but because the idea that we need to REIMAGINE EDUCATION for DYSLEXICS is something that we really ought to be doing for all learners. We are poised at a unique point in time where all the things going on in this world should mean real change to how we envision education–not just for dyslexic people, but for all students. Let’s do this!
If you are the parent of a student with dyslexia, you need to learn about Emily Gibbons, who is such a wonderful advocate for dyslexic learners. In addition to creating a veritable library full of excellent resources for tutors and teachers to help these special kids, she also has lots of great links to timely research. Here she provides a list of things she wishes people knew about dyslexia. Enjoy!
These folks had such a wonderful calendar of great web links last year that I hoped they would do another one for this year — and I wasn’t disappointed! Enjoy!
I have tons of resources inside all of the pages right here that can help you. In addition, as you can see from last week’s blog post below, I also have a FB page where I’ve put lots of neat ideas that ranged from figuring out what could work for you to navigating your state’s homeschool law. Folded into all of that, there were posts with freebies, posts discussing different kinds of homeschooling, and more. For example, this past week has been all about high school things. For the next two weeks or so, we’ll delve into virtual learning and how education may or may not change in the future. A few of the upcoming posts contain links to articles that are geared to those in the workforce, but could be considered in the world of education as well. Once tutoring begins in earnest again (on the 15th), those FB postings will only happen once a day. I can’t wait to share more goodies with you!
This summer, I’ve been getting the hang of posting timely articles on my business Facebook page. I’ve discussed all sorts of things there. What’s more is that I made it a goal to post each day–not only that, I did it! That is big! Usually I have been far too busy to post a variety of things over there–or here for that matter. Head over to see what you may have missed this summer: https://www.facebook.com/Reasonable-Homeschooling-1884659424920218
