[email protected]

My 14 year old son has dyslexia - phonically aware and fluency at 4th
grade level. Public school has basically taught him nothing for years.
He feels very stupid and it has become an emotional block. He is
currently enrolled in a therapeutic school and doesn't want to go. He
has only gone for 3 hours:) I am teaching my 11 year old at home for the
first time. My 14 year old wants me to teach him at home. I am afraid I
will do him a disservice. Does anyone have suggestions on curriculum?
Any helpful ideas welcome. Thank you. Michele



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[email protected]

Michelle,
Have you read The Unschooling Handbook by Mary Griffith?
I can't give you any curriculum suggestions for him since I am an unschooler
and don't "teach", sorry.
I can recommend a few things from an unschooling point of view.
Start by bringing him home and allowing the two boys to just hang out, talk,
play video games, toss a ball around together and also go on some FUN
outings, get to a lake and explore, go to museums, ride bikes around the
neighborhood. Give them both some time to decompress and reignite their
natural curiosity. Buy them "The Teenage Liberation Handbook" and take turns
reading to each other. Play games and cards with them. Just spend some time
BEing together. While this is happening, read John Holt, old issues of GWS
(Growing Without Schooling) you've managed to beg or borrow. Read the
message boards at the site ( www.unschooling.com )
and most important, ask questions here. Lots and lots of questions. Print
out the answers and posts that ring a bell within you, especially the
answers to your question that you find irritating or downright *wrong*. read
them a couple times throughout the day and think deeply about how and why it
is affecting you, for those are the answers you may truly need to hear.
Have fun, and keep your eyes open!
~Elissa Cleaveland
An unlesson'd girl, unschool'd, unpractic'd;
Happy in this, she is not so old
But she may learn.
W.S. The Merchant of Venice III, ii, 160

Fetteroll

on 8/27/02 2:03 PM, michele-nappi@... at michele-nappi@...
wrote:

> My 14 year old son has dyslexia - phonically aware and fluency at 4th
> grade level. Public school has basically taught him nothing for years.
> He feels very stupid and it has become an emotional block. He is
> currently enrolled in a therapeutic school and doesn't want to go. He
> has only gone for 3 hours:) I am teaching my 11 year old at home for the
> first time. My 14 year old wants me to teach him at home.

I know there's a great discussion area for unschooling and special abilities
(or some title similar to that) on the message boards at
http://www.unschooling.com

The most helpful thing you can do is take the focus off reading for a while
and help him to see the ways that he is smart. The best way to learn to read
is by finding a reason to read and being in an environment where reading is
useful and enjoyable. That's why it's so hard for kids to learn to read in
school. It's sort of like forcing a not-yet-walking child to walk. They
wouldn't see the point, they would resent being forced to do something they
are neither ready for nor see a point in.

> I am afraid I
> will do him a disservice. Does anyone have suggestions on curriculum?
> Any helpful ideas welcome. Thank you. Michele

The biggest disservice you can do is let the schools further convince him
that he's not good enough. He is. He's just on a different schedule and
learns better another way. You *can* help him.

Have you read The Gift of Dyslexia? I know that and some other books have
been recommended on Unschooling.com

Joyce

Betsy

**
My 14 year old son has dyslexia - phonically aware and fluency at 4th
grade level. Public school has basically taught him nothing for years.
He feels very stupid and it has become an emotional block. He is
currently enrolled in a therapeutic school and doesn't want to go. He
has only gone for 3 hours:) I am teaching my 11 year old at home for the
first time. My 14 year old wants me to teach him at home. I am afraid I
will do him a disservice. Does anyone have suggestions on curriculum?
Any helpful ideas welcome. Thank you. Michele**


Hi, Michele --

I think you can do it. I really think the school system is unlikely to
be able to give your 14 year old what he needs. If reading is a big
difficulty for him, he can learn a lot (at home) from books on tape,
videos, or things you read to him. And, of course, he can learn a lot
from going places and doing things.

I've just been reading a book called The First Year Homeschooling Your
Child, by Linda Dobson. I think it's a very reassuring book.

I also know that Lenore Colacion Hayes has written a book about
homeschooling kids with special needs. I haven't had a reason to read
this book, and I don't know the exact title, but Lenore is very
knowledgeable and experienced and a cool unschooler, so I have to figure
this is a cool book. (I think it's the very first book ever written
about homeschooling kids with special needs. It's certainly the only
one I have ever seen, so it fills a real need.)

If you go to the unschooling.com message boards there's lots of good
advice archived there, and you can search by keyword to focus on the
information you want.

Best wishes,
Betsy

Pam Hartley

----------
>From: [email protected]
>To: [email protected]
>Subject: [Unschooling-dotcom] Digest Number 2296
>Date: Tue, Aug 27, 2002, 12:05 PM
>

> My 14 year old son has dyslexia - phonically aware and fluency at 4th
> grade level. Public school has basically taught him nothing for years.
> He feels very stupid and it has become an emotional block. He is
> currently enrolled in a therapeutic school and doesn't want to go. He
> has only gone for 3 hours:) I am teaching my 11 year old at home for the
> first time. My 14 year old wants me to teach him at home. I am afraid I
> will do him a disservice. Does anyone have suggestions on curriculum?
> Any helpful ideas welcome. Thank you. Michele


Hi Michele,

Well, first, I don't see how you could possibly do worse than the public
schools have with the young man, even if you were TRYING to do worse, so I
think you can relax on that. :)

I'm not very well versed on dyslexia problems and solutions (others here may
be of much more help to you on that) but I'd say you probably know some
about it already and can do more research and get some creative ideas,
opinions on how to approach or not-approach it, etc.

While you're doing that, pull your 14 year old and let him sit home and
unwind and de-stress. Let him watch TV, go for walks, and look out the
window. Let him plant a garden or cook something or walk the neighbor's
dogs.

As this is an unschooling list, the advice you're likely to get on
curriculum is "none". :) Let him (and your 11 year old, for that matter)
decide what to do with their days. Offer interesting ideas of places to go
and videos to watch and be willing to take no for an answer.

What they will come up with, with your willingness to support them in what
they choose to do and your willingness to bring choices to them, will be the
best for them. Nobody knows your child as well as your child.

Pam

Karin

michele-nappi@... wrote:

> My 14 year old son has dyslexia - phonically aware and fluency at 4th
> grade level. Public school has basically taught him nothing for years.
> He feels very stupid and it has become an emotional block. He is
> currently enrolled in a therapeutic school and doesn't want to go. He
> has only gone for 3 hours:)

Michele - bring him home! It sounds like he has endured a lot of hardship
and pain in his school experience. Poor guy. Let him know over and over how
proud you are of him for anything he's good at or likes to do, or just for
being who he is right now. Don't focus on any negativity that he has come to
feel from school or what has been said to him there. Pretend it is a weekend
or summer vacation every day and let go of the acadamics and expectations.


>I am teaching my 11 year old at home for the
> first time. My 14 year old wants me to teach him at home. I am afraid I
> will do him a disservice. Does anyone have suggestions on curriculum?
> Any helpful ideas welcome. Thank you. Michele

My suggestion would be to say YES to his request to teach him at home. You
will only do him a disservice if you leave him in school. A loving,
understanding mother/father is what he needs most right now. Ask him what he
wants to learn about or what he's interested in and go from there. Watch
movies together from the library or video store. Visit any museums or cool
places to go in your area. Go out to eat in a new or different restaurant -
or experiment with some different meals at home Pretend you are a tourist!
See all the touristy sights that you may not have seen yet. Never mind
getting any curriculum - you should stay far away from that right now.

Best of luck to you and your son.

Karin

zenmomma *

>>My 14 year old son has dyslexia - phonically aware and fluency at 4th
>>grade level.>>

My son also got all sorts of reading disablity labels while he was still in
school. What helped him most was for me to take him out of school and all
those special programs and to stop focusing on his learning to read for
awhile. I took off all the pressure when he came home from school and just
let him be. I did still continue reading to him, though, because he enjoyed
that.

Once he realized we weren't going to force anymore reading lessons or check
is fluency or grade level anymore, he was able to relax. Eventually he
started casually looking through stuff to read around the house, magazines,
old children's books, game cards, newspapers and LOTS of comics. He is 13
now and reads just fine for purpose or pleasure. I couldn't tell you what
grade level he's at because I no longer check such things. But I can tell
you that he likes to read and no longer has a fear of it.

>>Public school has basically taught him nothing for years. He feels very
>>stupid and it has become an emotional block.>>

Sounds like he needs to come home and deschool for awhile. There are so many
things a 14 year old can be doing and learning that don't require him to
read. He has plenty of time to get the rest of those reading skills in
place. What he needs now is time to heal from the damage all those labels
have done to his sense of Who He Is and what he's capable of doing and
learning.

>>I am afraid I will do him a disservice.>>

You've said he already feels stupid and hasn't been learning anything in
public school. How could you possibly do worse than that? He wants to come
home to learn. He wants you, who understands how smart he really is, to help
him. That's not a disservice. It's throwing him a lifeline.

>>Does anyone have suggestions on curriculum?>>

Well, we're unschoolers here so we don't use curriculums. :o) But we do use
life and that's the biggest curriculum there is.

My best advice is to bring him home and let him decompress and deschool. You
can keep reading here and at unschooling.com for ideas on how to help him
ease out of school and back into real life.
The book Right Brained Children in a Left Brained World by Jeffrey Freed
might also shed some different light on his learning style and reading
abilities.

You can do this. You can help him regain his sense of self and his natural
love of learning. Many of us have been right where you are now and have seen
what a difference unschooling can make. :o)

Life is good.
~Mary



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[email protected]

In a message dated 8/29/02 7:51:28 AM Central Daylight Time,
[email protected] writes:

<<
>>Public school has basically taught him nothing for years. He feels very
>>stupid and it has become an emotional block.>> >>

That is one of the problems with public school. The focus can so easily go
towards what a person is not good at, rather than their strengths.
The school system decides what and how a person should learn, and when it
doesn't match up with that persons interests, learning ability or style they
slap a "disabled" label on them.
All of the energy and focus is on the failing grades, the inability to
complete homework and such.
The poor child has been brainwashed to believe that he is not intelligent and
wonderful.
You can change that, but it's going to take a long time to recover his love
for learning.
Focus on the things he's good at. Focus on what a wonderful person he is and
how much you love him.
Show him that what other people want him to learn isn't important, but that
his own interests are.
Play together and find opportunities to learn about things that fascinate him
so you can share some of his interests. If it seems that he doesn't have
interests, give it time. That spark for life, that passion for learning has
been damaged....but it will come back, I'm sure of it.

Ren

Betsy

**Eventually he started casually looking through stuff to read around
the house, magazines, old children's books, game cards, newspapers and
LOTS of comics.**

One thing that was popular at my house was a graphic novel, that is a
book in comic book format, that was a retelling of one of the Star Wars
movies. For a kid who loves Star Wars and has the movie essentially
memorized, this is a fairly comfortable way to move into reading.
(However the words are written in all capitals which may not be
completely helpful in developing word recognition skills for regular text.)

Betsy