Suggestions for child with ADD

[Janphillips]

My oldest daughter was diagnosed with ADD last year and after many years of struggling with how long her school day goes we decided to try medication. We have been using HOD since she was 5 years old. The medication seemed to help with focus, but her days are still long. She is thorough and processes slower than average, which drags her school day out. We often have work carryover to the 5th day. The suggestions I have received outside of HOD on how to modify her schoolwork are time consuming and burdensome to me as I have three younger children whom I also homeschool. I would like to hear if anyone has suggestions that are simple, easy, and/or broad. She will be starting the World Geography guide for 9th grade and turning 15 in August. She has met Missions to Modern Marvels guide expectations this past year. I don’t think placement is an issue. She is not a morning person, so her school day usually goes from 9am-6pm, which includes an hour and a half break for lunch and a short walk. On top of this she usually has work to finish on the fifth day that she didn’t finish on days 1-4. This feels like too much to me, but I don’t know how to lighten the load for her. Any suggestions from parents who have experience with this issue or understand this issue? Are there any suggestions specifically for modifying the World Geography guide considering her ADD?

[christianmom]

The catalogue states that World Geography takes about 6 1/2 hours a day for 4 days a week. If I’m remembering correctly, my son who reads the slowest of my kids took about 7 hours a day of actual work time for each day in the guide when he did World Geography.

It doesn’t sound like her days are slowed down very much. The 9 hours minus 1 1/2 hours for lunch and a short walk of say 1 /2 hour until sitting down and working again would be 7 hour days. That sounds about right to me for World Geography. My kids started at 8 and took one hour for lunch so they finished earlier, but they also started earlier.

The extra time would be the fifth day of work. I have read of a lot of moms over the years say that HOD High School can stretch into the fifth day.

One High School credit is equal to one hour per day 5 days a week. Technically, the 6 1/2 credits would be 6 1/2 hours 5 days a week, but Carrie has scheduled it to be done in 4 days. One thing you could do is stretch it to 5 days so that each day is the same length, and it would shorten your days some.

She sounds in the ballpark for High School times to me. Maybe a little bit of extra time on the 5th day, but I wouldn’t say by very much. High school easily takes 7 hours of actual work a day.

[Janphillips]

Thanks for your response. I want to clarify my daughter hasn’t started the World Geography guide yet. She took 7.5 hours on average plus a shorter day on day 5 for Missions to Modern Marvels, which the catalogue says will take 4.5-5 hours 4 days per week. She does read slowly. To help that I tried to keep an eye on her while schooling my younger children and if the reading dragged on, I stopped her and had her move on to the accompanying activity. I did that all last year, but her days still went very long. If someone has a suggestion to help a teenage slow reader I would like to hear that as well.

[christianmom]

I apologize for reading too quickly. I missed the statement that she was starting World Geography rather than just having finished it.

Yes, 7 hours would be long days for MTMM.

Perhaps you could stretch the guide out to 180 days and 5 days a week? There is a lot more reading in HOD than most schools do. Perhaps you could cut the reading down some? Skip the Living Library for WG which is optional?