Just wondering...

[StillJulie]

Are there other families where a fourth grader will still need to be finishing up the emerging readers? Sometimes I get discouraged with how difficult reading is for my now third grader. Makes me wonder if he'll ever be able to do HOD as intended (all the reading required as you move up in the guides)...

HOD's recent facebook tip was to make sure students are doing all the reading that they are supposed to be independently. My oldest son is finally there. (My oldest child, a girl, has never had any trouble.)

I know my second oldest daughter won't have trouble. My two littlest girls are still way too young for me to have any idea.

I LOVE HOD and want to use it with all my children, but I'm just feeling down and like I'm failing my one son who just struggles so terribly with reading. He'll be completing Bigger Hearts in just a couple more weeks, so that would put him in Preparing next year.

[rockridgegal]

I am in your same boat !! I have a 9 year old son who is also a struggling reader. I am doing Bigger as well and trying to encourage the love of reading with him just reading books that he is confident in . They may be as simple as Fly Guy !! I feel like you do sometimes and wonder will be abel to do Prepared .... I am going to trudge along beside him and just simply do the work and encourage reading but will be there to help him along. He does his other work well and since there is a lot of out loud reading from me to him , I feel that the light bulb hopefully will turn on one day .I am here if you need a sounding board . It is so hard with a struggling reader on EVERY level of learning . Don't feel discouraged ... Know that there are a lot of us moms out there who are in that same situation and we just need to talk to each other and encourage one another as well as our children. Prepared scares me as well but ... We will survive!

Kim

[StillJulie]

I've gone through Preparing twice now, and I do really like it. I'm sure it will be a good year again...

Preparing and Creation to Christ both started with me helping DS1 with some of the reading that was supposed to be independent. Often we'd take turns reading a page or a paragraph or whatnot. I'll likely follow a similar approach next year. I was satisfied with him getting to the level he's supposed to be eventually in CtC. I do get nervous when I compare the two boys, though. The older was able to finish the Emerging Readers in second grade (with Beyond). My next son will not finish them until sometime during fourth grade (while doing Preparing). As much as he struggles, I'm not sure if he'll be able to go right into the DITHOR level 2/3 books right after the emerging readers. Someone mentioned there are titles in the appendix for additional emerging readers. We may just spend all of fourth grade working on those.

[StillJulie]

This does remind me...

I think that I am going to try to do a lot of recording of me reading this summer... maybe most, if not all, of A Child's History of the World... maybe some of the extension readings for the older children...

I also think I'll see if I can get some of the Preparing extension readings on audio through the library. My children have loved those titles, and I know my boy would like to listen to them in the evenings. I've typically read most of the extension readings to my kiddos b/c we all enjoy them so much, but there just isn't enough time for that anymore.

[StillJulie]

I am in your same boat !! I have a 9 year old son who is also a struggling reader. I am doing Bigger as well and trying to encourage the love of reading with him just reading books that he is confident in . They may be as simple as Fly Guy !! I feel like you do sometimes and wonder will be abel to do Prepared .... I am going to trudge along beside him and just simply do the work and encourage reading but will be there to help him along. He does his other work well and since there is a lot of out loud reading from me to him , I feel that the light bulb hopefully will turn on one day .I am here if you need a sounding board . It is so hard with a struggling reader on EVERY level of learning . Don't feel discouraged ... Know that there are a lot of us moms out there who are in that same situation and we just need to talk to each other and encourage one another as well as our children. Prepared scares me as well but ... We will survive!

Kim

You are so right about this! Spelling, math, phonics (Explode the Code)... they're all difficult and hard for him to do a lot independently since reading is such a struggle.

[TrueGRIT]

My ds8 is ending the "3rd" grade doing Bigger and he is still in the emerging reader set. I don't think he will be finished by August when he will be considered "4th".
We are only in Unit 28 now, and I finally made the hard decision not to continue Bigger Hearts through the summer (we do a light summer schedule). Instead we will focus on the readers, Cursive, ETC, English, and Math. This gives us just a little more than 2 months to work on that. In August we will pick up where we left off in the Bigger guide, probably around unit 30. We'll do it full-speed 4 days a week, continuing with what we need of the ER's. By Oct 1 I plan to start Preparing at half-speed. Because of the way we needed our schedule set up from Oct -Dec we have 9 weeks of school, so I plan to have 3-4 units done by then. My ultimate goal is to have him done with the ER's by Dec., and starting Preparing full-speed when we start back up in January.
I know this isn't exactly what you asked, but I was really concerned until I finally had a plan with short-term goals along the way. My ds may always struggle with reading, I don't know. But I will be prepared, and work with him, and train him to be as independent as I can. After finally getting a chance to look at the guide I think that is part of what Preparing has planned. As a step up.
You are not alone in this! You have not failed! It may take a bit longer, but I believe our dc will be just fine.

[my3sons]

TrueGRIT has some great thoughts! I think that you shouldn't feel like you've let your ds down in any way, StillJulie. You are such a caring, attentive, loving mom. Your ds is blessed. It sounds like he is making progress, like he will complete the ERS in good time, and like all else is going well. I think your idea of audio books is a good one. This is one of the best ways to improve reading ability, provided dc follow along in the book as they are listening. If you don't have time to record books, you could have your older dc to this, or you could utilize your library for audio books. Church libraries often have audio books as well. Otherwise "Blackstone" audio has some great selections. I don't know if this thread would be helpful in any way - just discard it if it is not...
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=7429&p=54276#p54276

I also think that having ds read out loud to you through breaks, even just 10 minutes a day, will help keep him on that momentum forward. I think he will keep progressing! I can understand your thoughts here, but you know it will eventually become easier as it has for your other dc. You can always slow PHFHG down to half-speed, and take turns reading the deluxe readers in PHFHG too. You are doing a super job with him, and he will continue to improve!! Hope something here helps - but I really do think I'd just keep steadily moving forward, even if it's half-speed for awhile. You know PHFHG is a great guide full of amazing books - it's bound to encourage that love for reading.

In Christ,
Julie

[laughablemoments]

Hi there,
Having had a daughter who struggled with vision problems, I'm wondering if your son has had a thorough eye exam. Not a cursory 20/20 eye check, but an involved exam with a eye doctor's office that offers vision therapy. For children with visual difficulties, reading is much harder than it should be. Our daughter started getting horrific migraine headaches around age 9 or 10, and they occurred most frequently after reading. I'm so thankful to the eye dr. at our local Wal Mart vision center who suggested we take her to an office that offered vision therapy.

Although she was able to read, she was having to work SO hard to do so. The eye doctor couldn't believe she could read as well as she could. He said most kids would have given up that had the challenges she experienced. You see, any reading material that was held about 14" away from her eyes or closer was seen as double vision to her. (Normally or vision doesn't go double until something is held about 3" from our face.) It's amazing she could read anything at all. Her field of vision was also very narrow. As they tested this they charted it out on a piece of paper. The circle that they drew out on the paper while testing her should have looked about the size of a large dinner plate, but instead it was the size of an egg. She was really suffering and we didn't know it until the headaches surfaced.

Another friend of ours has had children who have struggled immensely with reading difficulties. She took her youngest in at age nine to the same doctor that we used. Her son also had an extremely narrow field of vision, and was reading at a low 1st grade level around ages 9-10. He's been in vision therapy for a few months now and he is reading so. much. better!

Both of them were treated with light therapy, infinity walks (walking in a figure 8, which helps somehow to better organize the body's systems, including the visual system), and looking down a string with several beads on it at different points (can't recall the name of this therapy...) that is latched to a door knob, pulled taut to the child's nose and held there with one finger, and then the child uses his eyes to focus on each bead in turn, down to the knob, then back up the beads on the string. This was hard visual work! The doctor thought my daughter would be done in a few months. It ended up taking a year or so. But it was worth it. : ) My daughter also needed glasses with a prism in the lenses to help her eyes work together more easily. She seldom gets the headaches any more, which is a wonderful thing because she adores reading.

Hope this will be helpful to you, and that your son will enjoy reading soon. If you google "Vision Therapy" you'll find much better explanations than I can offer you. : )