It was obvious when I made the announcement at the last IEP meeting, that no one thought I could do this. No one thinks that my son is as intelligent as he is. They all believe that his weaknesses are a sign of his intelligence.
My son is just learning to write. I would say that he is at the beginning of Kindergarten with his writing skills. With the TapToTalk, he is now communicating independently. I believe that this will be a great asset for school work. I can set up a screen for multiple choices, A, B, C, D and E. Independently, he will be able to answer questions that are presented as multiple choice.
Math will be a little more difficult. We have to work really hard on improving the writing skills and, of course, his attention span needs to be increased. I know I am in for a lot of work and so is my son. The good thing is that my son and I are both willing to put in the hard work.
I do have a problem that I could use help with. I am trying to come up with his curriculum. I looked through the guidelines for 6th grade in NC. My son is fully capable of doing this curriculum, but he has so much that he was not taught in previous years. I would like to test him at the end of the year at the 6th grade level, but I am not sure I am being practical.
He needs to learn NC History and US History. I did cover 5th grade science with him the last time I homeschooled him, but that is all he has had. He is at the Pre-Algebra level for math, but I believe he has some things missing from basic math that he needs to learn (like shapes, measurements of them).
So, what should I do? I want to make sure he learns everything he needs to, but I need to be practical. I need to make sure he has the foundation that he is missing and still build on what he knows. I need to challenge him, while still working on improving his weaknesses. He is going to hate working on his writing skills everyday, but I need to take advantage of the fact that he is finally showing an interest in learning this important skill. On the other hand, I don't want to push him too hard and have him shut down on his writing.
Any advice?
Comments (8)
Does he have good or at least decent computer skills? My kids have the Jumpstart programs for the computer. They have an entire year's worth of curriculum available for every grade for K-5 at least. I think they cost about $20 each when I bought them. My kids STILL play with the second and third grade programs I bought and they are in second, fourth, and fifth now. (My second grader was in preschool when I bought them... she's been playing with them and is ahead of her second grade class.)
This might be a way he could brush up on skills that he missed without taking too much of a serious approach to it. They don't require a whole lot of reading. The computer does a lot of it for them. (Except on the reading comprehension parts where the kids have to click on specific words to have them read for them.)
These kinds of situations are so frustrating from an educators standpoint because many teachers and others on your IEP team don't realize that YOU more than anyone knows what is best for your children!
In a perfect world, parents like you who take the initiative to provide the best education possible for your children would be supported 110% and given the tools to face situations like this.
I'm wondering if there is a home school agency (some cities have them, others don't) that might be able to help you create a custom curriculum. That way you can just pull from whatever grade level he is at in each subject instead of being restricted to straight 5th grade curriculum for example.
I'm sorry I'm not much help.
Good luck with this adventure!
In Asheville, NC, I've helped several families who are homeschooling their children with autism. I think there are several options for maintaining an interesting and applicable, depending on the funding available. The thing that I've seen work the best: a combo of online curriculum in certain subjects, and separate people overseeing the other subjects. One person coordinates the other folks (usually the parent), and helps invent over-arching themes, provide consistency etc. the other folks design curriculum and assignments in their subject area, sometimes for independent work, and sometimes for the parent to do with the student. Shoot me an email if you want to chat! I actually wrote a little homeschooling manual for these families.
perhaps you could do some pretesting and see where he has holes that way. then you can do post testing and have your data showing progress. hope this helps!
I took my kid out of school and home-schooled him, but there were two other kids and we hired a teacher for three hours a day. The way that worked for them best was a small amount of 'proper' academic work, then working on a project for which there had been a field trip (repeated in the afternoon every other day) which incorporated all the academic disciplines. My son had to have extra writing every day until he 13.
If you set up a schedule which your son could adjust to (I hear that autistic kids love schedules but I could be wrong), and there is encouragement and incentive I'm sure you can find a way. Hope it works out for you.
@dr52383@xanga - I think that's a really good idea.
I think it's great you're homeschooling your son. I was home schooled (for health reasons) and it's good to be able to take breaks when your son needs them and then get back at it a little bit later. Also, when I was home schooled, it was nice if I didn't understand something to be able to just focus on that for awhile instead of getting pushed along with the rest of the class because a teacher can't stop just for one person in public school.
It'll be a lot of work on your part. I know my mom would stay up super late some nights just looking complicated things up online to find better ways to explain things to me, but I really think he'll learn so much more this way. Good luck!
Me and all my brothers (including the autistic one) were home schooled in NC. When it comes to home schooling the laws are not stringent and you are allowed to mix and match curriculums, grade levels, approaches, etc. For instance, maybe for History you would use a program like Konos that utilizes unit studies, something that my autistic brother really enjoyed. But for math perhaps you will need to use Saxon Math books mixed with your own use of hands on activities. For Science you may do hands on science experiments rather than even use any set book, just be sure you are learning the things that he should be learning. A great book is "Things Your 6th Grader Should Know." This will tell you some of the things that perhaps you know he is lacking in and will give you a guideline to the things you should focus on. Do what works for your kid. My brother loves movies, so for writing (which he hates) we would watch a movie and then have him write down his favorite part of the movie in a cohesive way. Once that was done we would then ask him to write his own fictional story like the movie we watched. Home schooling doesn't have to be one set way, that's the beauty of it. Good luck.