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 Post subject: Celebrating!
PostPosted: Sun May 03, 2015 6:56 pm 
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Joined: Sat Jun 30, 2012 3:05 pm
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Location: Central TX
I have been wanting to join Learning Ally for Christian to use the audiobooks, but they require documentation of dyslexia, which I don't have. Then I found out that if you are a user of the Barton system, which we are, you can contact them and they can qualify you for the program. I'm so excited! This is the largest database of audiobooks and they have textbooks and everything on audio, read by real people so it's natural sounding. We use Sonlight books and they have all of those books. They even have the Apologia science books in audio. This is one of the main things that will help Christian to be more independent next year and help me to keep some of my sanity while I'm busy with a newborn. I've always enjoyed reading to the kids, but when your child reaches middle school and still can't read any of their textbooks by themselves and you have other younger children to read to, that's SO many books, it's overwhelming! I don't want him to miss out on all the rich and wonderful books and the vocabulary and everything because of me getting too busy. And I would love to be able to have the kids go to their rooms and have quiet time where they read to themselves, but that's kind of impossible when one of them is not able to read at a level where they can comprehend and enjoy it.

And Xavier will be 3 already, and while he will be too young for "school", he is going to need extra help because of his speech difficulties. When the owner of Barton found out about him being in speech therapy (the earliest sign of dyslexia), she emailed me the names of some books full of activities to use during his preschool years to build phonemic awareness and all that stuff. I can't believe we're nearing pre-school already! I feel like he has at least another couple years of speech therapy ahead of him. He has improved, though. When we started in Nov, he was barely even attempting to talk. Now he "talks" a lot, but most of it is still incomprehensible. His main problem is knowing what to do with his mouth to form the words/sounds, so therapy is focusing on that. His attention span has improved dramatically in the past few months, though, which was another therapy goal. So yeah, I'm going to be busy and anything that can help the two oldest to be as independent as possible, gets me so excited.

On a side note, what is the age most kids are able to start reading textbooks on their own. Saphira is just finishing 2nd grade and is reading really well. I have had her read some of her textbook herself, but it just seems like a lot, and she still prefers me to do it. She does like to read books for pleasure, though, just not the textbooks. But I just want to know what is the normal age for them to start doing that. I thought it was third grade, but I'm not sure. Maybe I could do it where I read one paragraph and she reads the next? She just seems to be one of those learners where she learns better when she reads it herself. There are many times where I have been reading out loud to the kids from a book and I will look over and see her sitting there reading a book to herself while I'm reading! So, I don't think she likes to listen to me read in general.

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Mom to Christian (13), Saphira (10), Xavier (5), and Adrian (2).


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 Post subject: Re: Celebrating!
PostPosted: Sun May 03, 2015 7:13 pm 
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Joined: Sat Jun 30, 2012 6:58 pm
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Just to encourage you: My dd didn't even say "mama" until she was 4.
She was a late talking child and I worried about her sooooo much.
Xavier is still young yet (compared to my dd) so don't get too discouraged at his lack of words.
He'll get there. :)

(take this post as a hug from one mom to another. I DO understand the struggles when your baby just doesn't talk or cant' be understood by anyone but you.)


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 Post subject: Re: Celebrating!
PostPosted: Sun May 03, 2015 7:14 pm 
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Great news, Lisa! : )

On your "side note," I don't know if there IS a "normal age" for kids to read texts by themselves. In my elementary school, from first grade, we always took turns reading around the room - each of us reading a sentence or paragraph.

But, that mean that we were actually doing a small percentage of our own reading - most of it was being read to it by other kids. In retrospect, I think it was a horrible method. It is nearly impossible to learn something (about science or history, for example) by listening to a beginning reader struggling thru a passage. Even now I cannot focus on the content while someone else reads poorly.

I think your idea of taking turns reading should work great - and gradually give her more and more to read till she's doing it all by herself.

With DD, I usually read one or two of her subjects to her, then expect her to do the rest - with me listening in. That works well for us.

One caveat with a "good reader" - don't just turn them loose to read silently all the time - if they're "normal" - they'll either 1) say they read some assignments when they didn't and/or 2) avoid sounding out and learning the words that aren't already in their vocabulary. (Ask me how I know ; ) But, you CAN assign them to read to an older sibling (even one with reading trouble) who can listen and say "are you sure that's what it really says" or "ask Mom about that word - it doesn't sound right"

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 Post subject: Re: Celebrating!
PostPosted: Sun May 03, 2015 7:39 pm 
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Joined: Sat Jun 30, 2012 3:05 pm
Posts: 3524
Location: Central TX
Tory wrote:
Just to encourage you: My dd didn't even say "mama" until she was 4.
She was a late talking child and I worried about her sooooo much.
Xavier is still young yet (compared to my dd) so don't get too discouraged at his lack of words.
He'll get there. :)

(take this post as a hug from one mom to another. I DO understand the struggles when your baby just doesn't talk or cant' be understood by anyone but you.)


Thank you. It is frustrating because it's not something you really think about until you have a kid going through it and you don't think about how important that verbal communication is with your kids. I feel like it has impacted our bonding and caused frustration on both our parts. He will come and ramble a whole speech to me, complete with hand/arm gestures and everything and I will know he just said something important to him, but I have no clue what it was. Not being able to tell if they're hungry or thirsty or what's bothering them, where their boo boo is and what happened to cause it, etc. It stinks. Finally, I have learned that "you" means "juice" or "shoes", depending on the context, that "yuh" means "cereal", and that "da doe" means "thank you" or "that one", depending on context. There's still only very few things that even I can understand. I know he will get there eventually, but that's just hard to even fathom at this point.

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Mom to Christian (13), Saphira (10), Xavier (5), and Adrian (2).


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 Post subject: Re: Celebrating!
PostPosted: Sun May 03, 2015 7:54 pm 
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Joined: Sat Jun 30, 2012 3:05 pm
Posts: 3524
Location: Central TX
Anna1111 wrote:
Great news, Lisa! : )

On your "side note," I don't know if there IS a "normal age" for kids to read texts by themselves. In my elementary school, from first grade, we always took turns reading around the room - each of us reading a sentence or paragraph.

But, that mean that we were actually doing a small percentage of our own reading - most of it was being read to it by other kids. In retrospect, I think it was a horrible method. It is nearly impossible to learn something (about science or history, for example) by listening to a beginning reader struggling thru a passage. Even now I cannot focus on the content while someone else reads poorly.

I think your idea of taking turns reading should work great - and gradually give her more and more to read till she's doing it all by herself.

With DD, I usually read one or two of her subjects to her, then expect her to do the rest - with me listening in. That works well for us.

One caveat with a "good reader" - don't just turn them loose to read silently all the time - if they're "normal" - they'll either 1) say they read some assignments when they didn't and/or 2) avoid sounding out and learning the words that aren't already in their vocabulary. (Ask me how I know ; ) But, you CAN assign them to read to an older sibling (even one with reading trouble) who can listen and say "are you sure that's what it really says" or "ask Mom about that word - it doesn't sound right"


Thank you. The few times I have had her read to herself, I have asked her some comprehension questions afterwords and it's hard to tell how much she's retaining because she sometimes has trouble putting things into words (I've always had that problem, too. I could read and understand aplenty, but don't ask me to talk about it afterwards). I've found that she responds better if I give multichoice questions, like "Did the ancient greeks worship one god or many gods?" I know some people learn better reading out loud and some do better reading silently. I haven't really decided which is best for her. But I'm going to try it with us taking turns reading out loud and see how that goes. And that's a good idea about her reading to her older brother. I'll have to remember that.

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Mom to Christian (13), Saphira (10), Xavier (5), and Adrian (2).


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 Post subject: Re: Celebrating!
PostPosted: Sun May 03, 2015 8:04 pm 
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Joined: Sat Jun 30, 2012 7:14 pm
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It seems to me that nearly ALL little kids cannot summarize what they read - at least not well. The multiple choice questions sound like a great idea : )

Last year, I had DD read a book and at one point the plot got a little tricky and she said, "I don't understand this!" So, I went back and read the chapter to myself, while she waited and asked questions like, "Okay, where are they when the chapter starts?" And "What trouble did they encounter" and "How did they deal with that?" etc - it turned out that she had gotten nearly every little detail - she just found the wording & structure a little complex.

I am always amazed how much dd DOES get & retain - she'll mention something weeks later, and I'll say, "How did you know that" "Oh, I read it in my science book" or whatever. I think most little kids are like that - even if you don't test them - they just absorb stuff : )

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 Post subject: Re: Celebrating!
PostPosted: Sun May 03, 2015 8:33 pm 
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Joined: Sat Jun 30, 2012 3:05 pm
Posts: 3524
Location: Central TX
Anna1111 wrote:
It seems to me that nearly ALL little kids cannot summarize what they read - at least not well. The multiple choice questions sound like a great idea : )

Last year, I had DD read a book and at one point the plot got a little tricky and she said, "I don't understand this!" So, I went back and read the chapter to myself, while she waited and asked questions like, "Okay, where are they when the chapter starts?" And "What trouble did they encounter" and "How did they deal with that?" etc - it turned out that she had gotten nearly every little detail - she just found the wording & structure a little complex.

I am always amazed how much dd DOES get & retain - she'll mention something weeks later, and I'll say, "How did you know that" "Oh, I read it in my science book" or whatever. I think most little kids are like that - even if you don't test them - they just absorb stuff : )


Yes, I have to do that with the short stories she reads for Barton. If I say "Tell me what happened", she might just start with what happened in the middle of the story and she has trouble with sequence, so I can't usually say "What happened first, last, etc." But I get a better response when I ask questions like your examples. One thing that makes it difficult is that she thinks differently and sometimes it's hard to understand the things going on in her head. Sometimes we're not on the same page and she misunderstands what I'm asking. I'm working on getting better with how I word questions, to avoid misunderstandings and frustration.

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Mom to Christian (13), Saphira (10), Xavier (5), and Adrian (2).


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