HSmom1125 wrote:
My son is 12 years old and has dyslexia and ADD. Ive been homeschooling for the past five years. We took him out of public school because of terrible treatment of him by his teachers for not being able to complete his work. I can answer any questions about that, however my problem is what's going on currently. I did a lot of research about homeschooling when we pulled him out of school, and at the time, we felt like the best thing for him would be to Unschool him, which is what we did until this past year. However, last year we realized that we may have made a mistake and gone too far in that direction because while he's been happy and we've had a wonderful, amazing time together, he cannot write, spell, or do basic math. I have been struggling last year and the first half of this year to try and get him up to speed but it's been a real struggle. He's an amazimg young man, however he just is not used to sitting down and doing just plain school work. My biggest struggle is trying to discern when a learning hurdle in a given subject is due to his ADD, dyslexia, or just laziness. I'm also very bad about not wanting to overwhelm him so I sometimes don't expect enough of him. I guesss what I want are some solid guidelines about how much time every day is reasonable for working on his lessons. As it stands I'd say we spend maybe an hour and a half per day and I know that's not near enough. The final hurdle we struggle with is that the only medication that he's able to tolerate for the ADD is in a patch which irritates his skin. So if we spend too much time on school, he gets very angry red welts from them. I don't know if anyone here has gone from unschooling to real homeschooling but I would sure love to hear that it's possible.
>>> he's been happy and we've had a wonderful, amazing time together, he cannot write, spell, or do basic math.
<<< What a wonderful childhood he's had! It is probably time to begin teaching him learning skills.
>>> he's just is not used to sitting down and doing just plain school work. My biggest struggle is trying to discern when a learning hurdle in a given subject is due to his ADD, dyslexia, or just laziness.
<<< Laziness is as big a problem as the rest. Learning to do tasks that are distasteful to us is a big part of life. Does he clean his room and do other chores?
>>> solid guidelines about how much time every day is reasonable for working on his lessons. As it stands I'd say we spend maybe an hour and a half per day and I know that's not near enough.
>>> There was once a mother that sat in on the public school's classes and tracked just how much time was spent in lecture and seatwork. She also tracked discipline time and repeating instructions, etc. With snack time, recesses, lunch, etc, as I recall, about 1 1/2 hours was spent in actual learning time.
I would suggest introducing a class on "study skills". Perhaps show him how to break down a week's work into daily tasks and practice sitting at a task longer each week, each day, until the prescribed work is done on time. Work towards allowing him to set the goals for a week and turning in the work at the end of the week.
Maybe he could practice times tables while shooting hoops and spelling words while dribbling, or clapping, or whatever.
I would also like to point out that field trips, PE, recess, choir practice/music, practice for plays, classroom parties and classroom movies are also counted towards public school "education" hours.