[email protected]

I would appreciate any info on teaching a child with learning disabilities
and would love to hear from anyone out there who is doing doing it.
Links are welcome.

my son is 11 and I have taken him back to the first grade level.
math is hard, and I need some simple reading ideas.

Linda

Carrie DeFrancisco

Dear Linda,
In my opinion, math is the easiest subject to unschool. Try not to
rely on the drill and kill methods especially if they are in the form of
worksheets (or Saxon math lessons). Any child, LD or not, learn more
and retain more when math is presented in the context of real living.
There is so much you can do to make math fun and meaningful.
If he likes to cook, encourage him to help you half, double, triple,
etc. recipes for dinner or dessert. Let him help you figure out the
different measurements needed. Let him do the measuring. Let him
create the grocery list, cut the coupons, and help you compare prices in
the grocery. Have him estimate as you shop the amount of money being
spent. By all means, let him play with his food. Make 3D shapes with
marshmallows and toothpicks. Turn a pizza dinner into a fraction
"lesson." Let him help you balance your checkbook and keep track of
savings account balances. Does he like to garden? Wow! Tons of math
application in planning and caring for a garden. Does he have a
particular hobby or talent he can turn into a business? Letting him
create his business plan, borrow money from you to get started, keeping
track of sales and inventory, advertising. I could go on and on. It
could be as simple as walking the neighborhood dogs to selling
vegetables grown in his garden. Do you have any adult friends who use
math daily in their career? Set up an apprenticeship or at least some
regular time for your son to work along side someone who uses math in a
meaningful way in his/her job. Does he like to construct? Legos are a
great math "activity." There is even a website devoted just to "Lego
gurus." Is he an artist? Tons of math in art and art projects.
Make everything a game. If he doesn't know his addition or
multiplication facts, first decide if he really has to memorize them.
If you feel he does, practice them through card and dice games. Marilyn
Burns has some great math literature books geared to kids such as Math
for Smarty Pants or I Hate Mathematics. A small company called Box Cars
and One Eyed Jacks http://www.planet.eon.net/~boxcars/home.htm has
some really great (and cheap) game books to help reinforce computational
skills. And there are tons of board games our there that teach and
reinforce computational skills, problem solving and logical thinking.
Check out Turn the TV Off company
http://www.turnoffthetv.com/profiles/index.htm and Mindware for great
math and strategy games.
And don't be afraid to let him use the calculator. In the age of
the printing press, many scholars thought books would hinder imagination
and in the 1800's, teachers thought the use of pencils would make
students lazy. Some "experts" have the same opinion of calculators but
let's be honest. How many adults do not use a calculator to perform
tedious or time consuming computations. LD kids, in particular, gain
more confidence in mathematics and take more risks in problem solving
when given an opportunity to use a calculator.
I think I am finished now. If you would like to email me for more
games you can play and make for free in your own home, feel free to
email me at cdefrancisco@....
I hope this was helpful,
Carrie

mywheel

Linda,

My 10 year old is mildly autistic and borderline MR.  He would be in 4th grade if he attended ps.  Math has been hard here too.  He didn’t really get a grip on basic math concepts until my husband sat down on the floor with him one day and told him to grab every shoe he could find.  They sat down and my husband started making pairs with the shoes, then making different numbered sets of numbers and then started playing number games with the shoes.  It worked great, as it was hands on and there was no paper work to be distracted with.  (He has trouble concentrating on just one part of an assignment, he stresses over the whole thing.)  With reading I was not lucky enough to try an unschooling method first.  J  We tried phonics and everything.  I finally would just sit with their favorite books and sound out the words in the book with them, focusing just on memorizing the story and picking out letter sounds as they were interested.  When Tim figured out that those sounds and the letters went together, he took flight!  J  He reads at about a 6th grade level.  Comprehension is a totally different area, but he reads like a maniac.  We just have to keep tabs to catch any confusion before he makes up something to fit the gap  J  His fill-ins are interesting at times.  J 

Anyway, this was what we did.  I have 5 boys, 10, 9, 6, 4, 1.  I have tried a lot of things!  J  Thanks for listening! 

 

 

Faith

 

-----Original Message-----
From: staclarspr@... [mailto:staclarspr@...]
Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2001 10:22 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [Unschooling-dotcom] LD info

 

I would appreciate any info on teaching a child with learning disabilities
and would love to hear from anyone out there who is doing doing it.
Links are welcome.

my son is 11 and I have taken him back to the first grade level.
math is hard, and I need some simple reading ideas.

Linda


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mywheel

Just wanted to add to my last post, remember, I just started unschooling about a month ago.  J 

Anybody unschooling in PA??  I could use some suggestions on how to work my logs to go along with the unschooling.

Thanks,

Faith

kathy lorentz

Although my daughter has never been tested and labeled I'd say she has LD.
She struggles with reading, spelling, and math. She didn't learn to read
until age 12. I just tried to read with her every day and then maybe she
would want to read with me. We used the Bob Books and Dr. Suess and other
easy readers from the library for her reading. Then finally something
clicked and she was reading. She still turns letters around and reads words
wrong but she can usually get the meaning of something. We also played some
of the games from "Games for Reading" for Peggy Kaye. One favorite for all
of my kids has been letting them copy words onto index cards from some of
their favorite books. Then they rearrange the cards on the floor to make up
their own sentences. They love making up nonsense sentences. When they
moved on from early readers all of my kids have loved the "Magic Treehouse
Books".
Math is still a huge struggle. Even though she is of 9th grade age she is
doing 6th grade level math. That's when she does math. She has a hard time
remembering something from one day to the next. It took her over two years
to get the concepts of fractions and sometimes I still have to explain how
to convert fractions to whole numbers. I have really backed off this year
to a true unschooling approach. I was so worried about her future and how
would she ever get into college if she couldn't do all these things. Then I
remembered that the reason I started homeschooling 15 years ago was so that
my children could learn what they wanted at their own pace. I trusted my
older children to learn and they did in their own time. I have 6 kids and
three of them have to work very hard to learn something that comes easy to
most people. My oldest daughter is in her second year of college and doing
very well. She studies very hard to make good grades but it is something
she is doing because she wants it.
I've spent way too much money on programs and gimmicks that were supposed to
help my LD child learn some concept. I don't think any of them worked.
From my own experience I'd say that if a child needs or wants to know
something they will figure out a way to learn it. I'm sure you've heard
that before but it's always good to hear it again. Also, it just takes
time. With your love and patience your son will learn the skills that he
needs for now and the future.
_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com

Elizabeth Hill

>> I would appreciate any info on teaching a child with learning
disabilities
>> and would love to hear from anyone out there who is doing doing it.
>> Links are welcome.
>>
>> my son is 11 and I have taken him back to the first grade level.
>> math is hard, and I need some simple reading ideas.
>>
>> Linda
>>
>
>Linda,
> Can you elobrate on his learning differences? It's really not unusual
>for an 11 year old who learns very differently to come out of ps woefully
>*behind* and depending on his issues, catch right up in most ways. And
with
>5-6 years of schooling behind him, you may have to deal with all the fear
>and frustration first, before doing much of anything academically.
>
>Lisa

Let me also put in a plug for the unschooling.com message boards. There
are some terrifically experienced and wise moms posting in the special
needs folder.

Betsy

unschooling.com

Faith, Did you find someone to help with your logs?

Lisa
----- Original Message -----
From: "mywheel" <mywheel@...>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, March 23, 2001 6:46 AM
Subject: RE: [Unschooling-dotcom] LD info


> Just wanted to add to my last post, remember, I just started unschooling
> about a month ago. :-)
> Anybody unschooling in PA?? I could use some suggestions on how to work
my
> logs to go along with the unschooling.
> Thanks,
> Faith
>

unschooling.com

> I would appreciate any info on teaching a child with learning disabilities
> and would love to hear from anyone out there who is doing doing it.
> Links are welcome.
>
> my son is 11 and I have taken him back to the first grade level.
> math is hard, and I need some simple reading ideas.
>
> Linda
>

Linda,
Can you elobrate on his learning differences? It's really not unusual
for an 11 year old who learns very differently to come out of ps woefully
*behind* and depending on his issues, catch right up in most ways. And with
5-6 years of schooling behind him, you may have to deal with all the fear
and frustration first, before doing much of anything academically.

Lisa