Placement Help for 10 year old

[Samuel'sMommy]

Hi everyone! I am a long time HOD user, but haven't been on the board recently. I thought I had next year figured out, but now I am second guessing myself. My 10 year old really struggles with school. He has ADHD, a phonological processing disorder that makes reading & spelling extremely difficult and delayed fine motor skills which make writing a struggle. He is currently getting educational therapy, occupational therapy, and speech therapy to help in all these areas. Just to give a little bit of history, he went to K and part of 1st grade at our public school. When we pulled him out, we basically started over and just focused on reading, writing, & math for the rest of 1st & 2nd grade. He did history & science with our local co-op. In 3rd grade, we started Beyond, but he was still really struggling with reading and writing so mid-year, we dropped Beyond to try to focus on the 3 R's. This year, he has been doing Bible, History, Science, & Literature from LHFHG with my 5 year old. He finished TT3 for Math and we are using the Just the Facts book that HOD sells over the summer because he is struggling with multiplication and that seems to be working well right now. He is halfway through All About Reading 3 and we are also reading through the Emerging Readers in the evenings. We have been doing Spelling You See B at the recommendation of his educational therapist and are about halfway through it because we started mid year. We are still trying to get his handwriting to be legible so we haven't done cursive yet.

So my plan for this coming year for 5th grade was to Preparing with me helping him through the reading for the independent boxes. But then I remembered that Preparing has them copying from the Draw & Write through history books which are in cursive and since he hasn't done cursive yet, I'm not sure if that will work. I'm also wondering if the writing in general is going to be too much and if I should maybe try to do Bigger instead.

I just ordered Preparing when HOD had their spring sale, but I also have an older Bigger set from when my oldest did it so I would only have to update the guide, new science, and visual history.

My oldest placed did not have any kind of learning issues and placed in all the guides perfectly according to the "normal" age/grade level so figuring this all out is new to me.

[LovingJesus]

How did he do with LHFHG Bible, History, Literature, and Science this year? What made you drop Beyond as being too much mid-year this year? Preparing would be a huge jump from either guide.

I remember cursive being taught in Bigger. There is also copywork in Bigger.

Are you looking for Bible, History, Science, and literature only in the guide? I guess the challenge that I would think about is where would he place for writing with the history. For example, Preparing has copywork for Draw & Write, the Vocabulary pages they make, and it introduces written narrations at a simpler level if I remember correctly. Then another question would be the writing in CTC a year from now that is quite a big jump from Preparing with written narrations for the history. Preparing and CTC both have independent reading that is more advanced than the emerging readers.

You used Beyond with him this year. Would that level or Bigger be a good fit?

My youngest has Down syndrome so I’m very familiar with slowed down school for special needs. Her situation though is not comparable to his challenges as a 10 year old doing school since they are much slower than his experience.

You said he will be in 5th grade. Are you planning on graduating him at age 18 regardless of what level he reaches, or do you have level goals that you want him to reach even if it means graduating later than age 18? It is something to think about with different learning speeds.

One thing I will say about slower learning speeds is that I’ve always taught my daughter with DS where she is at. She did LHTH three times. I’m currently using another program with her and getting her closer and closer to where she will be able to be successful in LHFHG. Age wise, she is a teenager. I had to learn to focus on her when she was very young and not her age.

My best encouragement would be to teach him where he is at. He will learn, develop, and achieve milestones. It might just take longer than you are used to.

[Jaimejac]

Hello!

LovingJesus asked some great questions that will probably be helpful for placement. Have you checked the placement chart to see where he fits skills-wise righ.t now? That may give you a fresh perspective.

My first though was also Bigger if he places there skill-wise. Or maybe even picking up Beyond where you left off and then moving into Bigger.

Like LovingJesus said, Bigger teaches cursive and you have the ER 2's. If you are currently doing the ER 1 set then that might make a nice transition.

Even though Bigger is for 7-9 it has extensions for older children (it's definitely doable for 5th grade.

I'm even thinking Bigger at half-speed might be a good fit to start to accommodate the therapies he has and not overload him (or you).

Let us know your thoughts!

Blessings,
Jaime

[Samuel'sMommy]

Thanks for the input ladies! I will try to answer your questions.

We stopped Beyond, not because he couldn't handle it, there was a lot of other stuff going on. He had all his appointments, I had some medical stuff going on, and I probably wasn't doing the best at managing our time well. We were spending all day between school, therapy, my medical stuff, and just normal life stuff so I dropped Beyond to just focus on the 3 R's and free up some time in our day. I kept doing LHFHG with my youngest because we were only doing it at half speed so it didn't take much time and I just made him sit with us for the history reading, storytime reading, science, etc so he was getting some exposure to stuff besides the 3R's. He was also taking a history class & science class at our co-op once a week so he wasn't really doing the work in LHFHG. But, I am fully convinced he could have made it all the way through Beyond and done fine.

He's very smart and capable when he is actually willing to try. I think that he could handle the subject matter of Preparing with no problem. He just wouldn't be able to read the independent stuff on his own. I think he could do all the writing if he actually tried, but it might take longer than the suggested times. He just tends to not try at all if he thinks something is going to be hard, which is why I was considering Bigger.

I would like to get back to using HOD for everything and not add a ton of extras. We will keep using AAR until we finish it for phonics. We will use Spelling You See B until we finish and then I think we could switch to dictation. The style of Spelling You See is very similar to how dictation should be and I think it would work well. I will see what his therapist thinks once we get to that point.

I'm not sure how to answer your question about graduating at 18. My hope is that he would eventually catch up and graduate at grade level. His birthday is late so he will be 18 most of his senior year if he follows a traditional schedule. He is also very athletic and is really good at pretty much any sport he tries. He hopes to continue playing basketball & maybe football at our local private school in middle school and high school which would require him to meet their academic standards to be eligible.

[LovingJesus]

My 10 year old really struggles with school. He has ADHD, a phonological processing disorder that makes reading & spelling extremely difficult and delayed fine motor skills which make writing a struggle.

With your original challenges listed here; I would use the placement chart and use what you think he places in best. It is under Helps on the main HOD board. From what you have described, he sounds like he would place well in Bigger with extensions according to the chart.

HOD is writing and reading heavy. Moms have used the middle guides for High School. The focus of HOD is to use those skills of reading and writing.

I’ve read many times Carrie say that you want 1/3 easy, 1/3 where they are at, and 1/3 challenging. If all of the reading and writing in a guide are a challenge it can make for long days.

I hope you can find a good placement for him.

From your second post, I would still lean towards Bigger with extensions. Perhaps call HOD and talk to Julie?

I hope this copied from the HOD web-site will be helpful:

Bigger Hearts for His Glory
American History Curriculum
For Ages 7-9, Extending to Ages 10-11

He is the lower age for the extended age range.
If you did Bigger for 5th, you could still get through World History for High School and many moms have used MTMM and Rev2Rev for High school with extensions.

I hope that helps!

[Jaimejac]

I think that he could handle the subject matter of Preparing with no problem.

You might consider that there's a difference between being able to handle the content of the guide and being successful with the skills the guide is teaching. He may very well be ready for the subject matter in Preparing, but you will want the content to be easy for him so he can focus on the skills he needs to build up to be successful in later guides. Similar to in DITHR, how you would choose an easier level reading pack so the child can focus on the skills being taught in the literature guide. It sounds like Bigger would give him the foundation to be successful in Preparing and then I bet he would just soar once he got to Preparing.

But definitely call Julie and talk to her and see what she thinks! And then come back and let us know!

If you definitely think he places skill-wise in Preparing, you could start it half-speed to allow him the time he needs to complete the assignments. Then if you found it wasn't working drop down to Bigger.

Personally, I'm excited for the new science and visual history set in Bigger! I have one more child left to do that guide and will be a year before we get to it, but it looks really fun!

Here's a couple of blog posts that may be helpful for you as well:

https://www.heartofdakota.com/2022/05/2 ... ng-hearts/

https://www.heartofdakota.com/2019/02/2 ... y-for-ctc/

https://www.heartofdakota.com/2018/04/2 ... er-hearts/

Looking forward to hearing what you decide!

-Jaime