Odyssey Online !

My son and I have been struggling through his ancient history textbook. The language is too advanced for him and I think it goes off on tangents more suited to a high school intellect than a middle school one. He was getting lost in the information and completely missing the main ideas. So . . . . . a web search to the rescue!

Check out Odyssey Online. It provides wonderfully illustrated interactive units on the Near East, Egypt, Greece, Rome, Africa and the Ancient Americas. It teaches using a fusion of art, architecture, myth and social and military history. It’s a highly visual experience. Note – some children with distractibility problems find it easier to concentrate if they listen to instrumental music. This site has just that and the music is beautiful. The site is provided by the Michael C. Carlos Museum of Emory University, Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester and the Dallas Museum of Art so you can be confident of the quality and veracity of its information.

I watched a light bulb go on in my son’s head and he started writing an essay on Greek architecture all on his own! I put the textbook away at the very back of the curriculum and felt a huge weight come off of my shoulders. Whew!

A Great Book

I’ve discovered some great books! The first one is Math Doesn’t Suck  by Danica McKellar. It’s aimed squarely at middle school girls and contains wonderful explanations of pre-algebra math concepts. She uses amusing and cute visual analogies without talking down to girls. I just love her monkeys hanging from factor trees. Each chapter stands on its own and can be read and understood independently from the rest of the book. I love it!

Science is what we love *MOST* of all!

Today we took our first field trip of the year. We went to the MOST aka The Museum of Science and Technology. My son proved to me that he really does understand plate tectonics and our local, interesting, geology. Our area used to be an inland sea and as a result we’ve been left with saline aquifers. The salt industry was big here a few generations ago! You can still smell it in the air in certain areas when atmospheric conditions are just right.

My favorite exhibit was the butterfly film. I learned things about lepidoptera that I did not know before. We watched the gigantic Rube Goldberg machine for awhile. We checked out a film on scuba diving in glacial lakes, the ones actually in living, moving glaciers! There’s also a planetarium and an IMAX theater but we skipped them this trip. I discovered that the museum offers teaching guides to go with the IMAX films. They’re a great resource which I intend to make use of. Check them out!

Trips like this are so much fun. My son spontaneously tells me things I had no idea he knew. We have a change to chat over lunch and it’s a good stress reliever. Get out there and visit your museums!

Fall in Upstate New York

Get Your Kid a Globe

I can’t imagine a home without a globe! I grew up with a big, freestanding, lighted one which fascinated me. My son’s is not that fancy but answers the need remarkably well. It sits on his desk and is referred to almost daily. Best of all it was MADE IN THE USA! You can get yours from Replogle. They have a plant in Chicago and they have all kinds of globes in all price ranges. Mine was promptly delivered and nicely boxed. Go get one!

P.S. The folks at Replogle have no clue who I am, I just like them.

Orthoptics

This is a controversial subject. Orthoptics are eye exercises designed to improve eye muscle coordination and depth perception. My child’s opthalmologist told us it was nonsense and could not hurt but was unneccesary. WRONG!

At age 8 my son was finally able to tell me, by drawing what he saw, that he was seeing double! No wonder he could not read! I felt so terrible for him!

I then noticed something. When he was trying to read he appeared to be having muscle spasms in his eyes. One or both eyes would suddenly lose focus and “jitter” around for a few seconds.

I took him to our well-respected opthalmologist who brushed off my concerns. An aide at the public school he attended suggested that I contact a local optometrist who provides orthoptics. This optometrist immediately told me my son needed +1 reading glasses, which would need to be prescription because child-size drugstore reading glasses do not come in child sizes. He also recommended a program of eye exercises. It would be conducted in his office 3 days a week for a few months after school and the other days by me at home. This program cost $1200 and was not covered by our insurance, *sigh*. We crossed our fingers and signed up. Here is what insurance says about it -

“xxxx company” does not cover vision therapy or orthoptics, because they are considered experimental, investigational or unproven for the management of visual disorders and learning disabilities.

Well, for us it was an “experiment” well worth taking. It worked like a charm! The reading glasses helped my son immediately and I began to see results from the orthoptics within 3 weeks. His depth perception improved dramatically and the eye muscle spasms gradually decreased. He stopped seeing double. It was well worth the total $1400 investment.

Here is more information on orthoptics, or vision therapy.

I’d like to add my observation that there is enormous pressure on schools to perform well, and to get students with learning disabilities up to “grade level”. ORTHOPTICS CAN HELP AND SHOULD BE COVERED BY INSURANCE OR PAID FOR BY A GOVERNMENT PROGRAM FUNDED BY OUR TAXES. This is the kind of thing for which I do not mind paying taxes. Not one little bit. It hurts me to think that many families cannot come up with an extra $1400 to help their child with this one critical thing. How much does it cost for an insurance company to cover a few years of Viagra for a middle-aged man vs one round of vision therapy for a child in need? It’s a disgrace that we cannot help children by providing orthoptics.

Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic

I promised a post about this wonderful organization, RFBD. RFBD provides books on tape or CD. They are very different from the CDs at the bookstore. I tried books on CD and did not find success with them. Many are read by English actors, I presume because Americans like to listen to a nice English accent. Many of the books are read in a very dramatic style. This is great for capturing my attention when I’m driving on the highway, but it’s a very bad thing for my son. My child has an auditory discrimination problems and needs nice, clear, American English to listen to.

With RFBD you either get a special player, or download special software, which transforms the reading experience. The books are not read by actors, but by volunteers. Most are nice and clear and free of difficult accents. They are not read in a overly dramatic style. You can use the player, or software, to slow down the reading speed too!

Many textbooks are available and the “readers” include all captions and sidebars and describe the illustrations. It’s easy to replay material and since chapters are clearly labeled it’s easy to find things for review.

If there is book which is not offered you can request it. It may be available shortly, it may take a long time, but at least you can make the request.

In order to join you must have a visual or reading disability certified by a professional. In my case my son’s school psychologist signed his application a few years ago. It does not need to be someone from a school , it can be an independent physician or educational psychologist. Individual annual memberships are $35.00 and there is a one time $65.00 registration fee. All postage is free both ways since it is classified as “matter for the blind”. EasyReader software is $45.00 and is much more affordable than the specialized playback machines. We love it and I have 90% of my son’s curriculum on CD.

When we first started using RFBD, with grade-school novels, I could see the light bulb come on in my son’s head. You could see the relief on his face, a child who was convinced he could not read suddenly found that he could.

Things I Never Thought I’d Do

I’ve learned to never say never when you are a parent. I never thought I’d homeschool. Homeschoolers were nuts! Me, homeschool? I’d have to lose my mind first. Besides, I had a job and a business to run.

Then I adopted a son with learning differences and a very bright mind. Public school helped me get a proper diagnosis and start speech and occupational therapy and resource services. It also frustrated him tremendously. His auditory discrimination difficulties made listening in a noisy environment impossible. His anxiety issues made bullies into terrorists. His speech made him the target of taunts. As much as teachers tried to prevent the bullying kids will manage to get their digs in. It happens on the playground, in the lunch line, in the restroom. The higher-ups in the district coddled the bullies, placed them back in school after expulsion, refused to suspend them, etc. etc. One bully kicked my son in his recently healed broken leg and threatened to break it again. He further threatened my son that if he “told” the bully would go home and kill himself and his suicide would be MY son’s fault. This child was allowed to remain in my son’s class.

One teacher had my son read out loud to the class at the end of the day when he was already tired. My son’s response was to get himself sent the principal’s office every day in order to avoid reading. The teacher failed to put 2 and 2 together and realize what was going on. He violated the IEP by testing my son in the classroom instead of separately with his accomodations. He said he did it because he wanted to see for himself if my son could do it. That was NOT his call to make. How arrogant of him!

Eventually my son simply disengaged and stopped trying. Who could blame him?!  In our area there are no specialized schools, either public or private, which could help him.  At first, homeschooling terrified me. Could I do it? Would he learn more? Would he cooperate?

The answer to all of that was YES! He is learning more because he is not distracted, he is not stressed out. I can concentrate on what he need help with most, which is ELA. I take him into school 3 times a week for speech therapy and the rest of the time he comes to my office. He has a desk next to mine with all the assistive technologies he needs. He stays in touch with his friends through the Boy Scouts, where we are lucky to have found a liberal, inclusive troop. He may remain homeschooled for the rest of his school career. He is happy, healthy, and most of all LEARNING! I never thought I’d put my daughter in a private school either, but that’s a subject for another day.

Never say never.

Electoral College

I am loving this site right now. We check in on the election daily. This site tells you which polls are happening and exactly what it’s reporting on. You can look up historical comparisons to watch how things change. It’s great for visual learners and it’s the best tools I’ve found for teaching about the electoral process.