Please help with placement

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Janette Hankland
Posts: 3
Joined: Thu Jan 05, 2023 12:29 am

Please help with placement

Post by Janette Hankland » Tue Jan 10, 2023 12:36 pm

I am switching 2 of my kids from Sonlight to HOD and I’m puzzled about where to place them.

Timothy will be 11 February 4th. He’s in the fifth grade, but mostly doing fourth grade work.
Ethan is 9 (10 in August) and is in the fourth grade.

Both boys have been homeschooling or attending private school off and on. Their education has been rather disjointed.
Twice we have had to pull them out of school a little under halfway through the year.

Ethan (4th) can read at an 8th grade level, but has very little experience in writing. When he writes, it’s pretty bare minimum. He really doesn’t like it.

Timothy is dyslexic and has dysgraphia. He tests at a fourth grade level on computerized standard tests, but when he reads out loud to me he’s guessing what words are by the first few letters. His reading comprehension seems pretty good even considering he guesses words wrong 1/3 of the time. He’s able to orally narrate quite accurately.
His writing is painful. It’s barely legible and is spelled entirely phonetically, he still uses p or b when he means to write d, or the other way around, and is always reversing numbers in math, writing or saying 43 when he means 34.
Writing 2-3 sentences can take him 20 minutes or more.
He begin to be able to read in around 3rd grade. When he has a writing assignment, he’s very quick and clever to come up with a story. However, all his ideas and thoughts leave him as he struggles to get it on paper. This kid is so bright though! He’s full of clever ideas and quick to see connections. His understanding is quite advanced but his abilities to read and write are not equal to his understanding and he is often so frustrated by this.

We are using The Good and The Beautiful level 4 for both boys for Math and Language Arts. We are happy with them and will not be switching right now. They are just now learning diagramming. Ethan is a whiz in spelling and has completed all the spelling words in this level. Timothy just keeps repeating the same lists so I drop a few and add new ones because he gets so frustrated at doing the same words again.

I am trying to decide between Creation to Christ and Preparing Hearts…

They are both reading books past the independent history level in Preparing, but I was considering it due to their lack of experience in writing.

I can only afford one level and I don’t think I can afford the Drawn into the heart of reading until next year.

Rice
Posts: 526
Joined: Tue Aug 06, 2013 10:00 am

Re: Please help with placement

Post by Rice » Tue Jan 10, 2023 12:59 pm

When you combine an HOD, you want to place the youngest where they belong and then add the oldest if it works, but sometimes it works the other way around, when dealing with challenges. :wink: (I had a younger son a guide ahead of 2 older siblings for all of high school.) So that means my recommendation would be to not go higher than Preparing. It sounds like Timothy would be challenged enough with that, and would be overwhelmed with the requirements of CTC. I also think Ethan would do fine there - it is the guide most commonly used for 4th for neurotypical kids with no other issues. It will give both of them more practice either oral narrations and take them step by step into creating written narrations.

In addition, it sounds like he needs some more work on reading/writing before continuing - vision therapy and/or a reading program specifically for Dyslexia would likely be a good idea (meaning that i recommend dropping the LA box for him, including TGTB, to give him time and mental energy for working on vision/reading). The work is only going to be harder and continuing forward in comprehension without having his own reading skills in place will make not only for potential frustration for him (like in the spelling lists), but also a lot more work for you in the coming years, reading aloud and making accommodations.

I made rime in our day for focused reading work with my DD (she used Bigger and an alternate LA to help with reading) in grade 5), and I don't regret it. She was finally diagnosed with Irlen Syndrome at 14, graduated after WH, and then after her first year of university was diagnosed with several vision issues. I wish I had known about vision therapy at 10 (when we had her assessed by a psychologist who diagnosed no LDs), so we could have dealt with her root issues much sooner. (What we did was good, the best I knew at the time, but could have done so much more for her, had we known.)

Of course, this is my recommendation, if switching now. If you're not planning to switch till fall, then taking the rest of this year to work on vision/reading for Timothy and beginning narrations for both boys (check out Unit 1 of Preparing for the first step - free download on the HOD website) would be my recommendation, with the possibility of being able to start CTC next fall (in 5th and 6th). You would have to look at the placement chart with fresh eyes in the spring to see if they both have the skills needed to succeed in that guide.

Blessings,
Rice

DS 21 - GRAD '20: after WG
DD 19 - GRAD '21: after WH
DS 17 - GRAD '22; did CTC-WH + 2yrs non-HOD (🇨🇦)
DS 15 not using a guide this year (DONE: LHFHG-MTMM)
DS 13 MTMM (DONE: Prep-Rev2Rev)
DS 11 +
DD 9 CTC (DONE: Prep)
6yo DS phonics

StephanieU
Posts: 1652
Joined: Tue May 21, 2013 7:10 pm

Re: Please help with placement

Post by StephanieU » Tue Jan 10, 2023 2:03 pm

I agree that Preparing might be the best place to start, especially if you plan on starting soon.

Another thing I will mention is that typing might be useful for the older one with dyslexia and dysgraphia. First, most keyboards have capital letters, which are harder to mix up. Also, it is often easier and fast for most with those struggles. My kids type their narrations and then cut and paste them into their notebook.
Mom to
DD15 US1 (completed LHFHG-WH)
DS13 MtMM (completed LHFHG-Rev2Rev plus some of LHTH)
DD12 Rev2Rev (completed LHTH-RtR)
DS7 Beyond (completed LHTH-LHFHG)

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