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We won't finish until late fall, but I'm already seeing my older 4 year old fall behind. She listens great to the read alouds and can narrate back. She seems to be able to understand the Bible verses and memorize. She loves the Fine Motor skills and Rhymes in motion. It's when we get to math and phonics that she can't seem to grasp concepts, yet. She writes better than all of her brothers, including the 9th grader ; but her reasoning skills haven't seemed to progress yet.

Should I just plan on her repeating LHFHG, or have her tag along with big brother into Beyond. Her doing her own math and phonics at her level????

Thanks for any advice you can share.

Many kids that age (including one of mine) are TOO young to do LHFHG. I am doing LHFHG at half speed with my (almost) 5 year old. I plan to do the entire guide at half pace with her, taking 2 years. She just is NOT ready. We do one side of the guide per day.

Is going back and doing it half speed a possibility?

You may need something new for fine motor if she has completed that book already, but those are easy to come by. If she is not ready for the 1st grade "Thinking Skills" book (and she may not be), you could do another Rod & Staff workbook.

Also, you need to think about Storytime. If she could not narrate, she may do well going through the Burgess series again.

Do you have the music cd for the Bible verses? These make a WORLD of difference in the ease of memorization, especially for the youngers.

Does she know her letters yet? Their sounds?

Yes, we have the CD for the Bible memorization, which is probably why she is not struggling with that. No, she doesn't know her letter sounds yet, but does seem to know her letters. She absolutely loves the Burgess books and I think, would be absolutely blessed by hearing them again. Would you suggest I start over with her and do half speed, while continuing on full speed with almost 7 year old brother. Or just let her continue on listening with brother, without asking her to do any of the math, thinking skills or phonics. She'd still do all of those of course, but on her own level. I'm so confused!!!

My dh is pretty sure he just wants to start over with her, when big brother moves onto Beyond, I guess he's probably right. He has that view that I can't seem to get from the trenches, kwim?

I do believe that God gives our husbands great wisdom when it comes to homeschooling. So many of our dear husbands are reluctant to express any views about what we should do.

I would defer to his opinion on this.

It does no harm for her to listen in, so I would not discourage it. However, I would not require it either. Does that make sense?

***
I was a reading specialist in a former life

If your daughter knows the letter names in random order, both upper and lower case...I would work with her daily on sounds. This "work" could even be her "school". I did this with my daughter who is half pacing it now through LHFHG.

Say you are working on the sound for letter "B".

1. along with her, write the letter B in sand or corn meal or shaving cream while (with each stroke) saying the sound for B.
2. if you have alphabet stamps (can order from Rainbow Resource Center), have her stamp B, and with each stamp, say the sound for B.
3. you draw a dotted line B on a white board and let her trace it. as she traces she should say the sound for B with each stroke.
4. you write the letter B on a white board and have her ERASE it with her finger stroke by stroke making the B sound with each stroke.

The next day do a different sound, but review B. Add a new sound while always reviewing previously taught sounds. If she gets stuck...STOP THERE. Stay with that sound for a while until it sticks.

With the vowels, as well as will hard and soft "C" and "G", i teach that these are "special letters". Teach that God gave them 2 sounds. When you teach that letters sound, teach BOTH SOUNDS. I firmly believe it is actually less confusing that way. Explain that it is just like God gave some animals more than one sound to make...a cat says "meow" and "hssss"

I would let her keep listening in for the rest of LHFHG, and have her do something different for math, phonics, fine motor skills. You coud use the Rod & Staff books that come before Do it carefully, one of them is all numbers & math. My ds loved them at 4. When you start Beyond you can reassess if it would be a good time to restart LHFHG. I'm going to *try* to wait until my 2nd is 5-5.5 before starting it with her (a matter of me not wanting to go too fast ) My ds was 4.5 when we started, and while he did enjoy it, he enjoyed the latter half more, as he had matured a great deal. This was particularly noticeable with the storytime books and the devotional.

Ladies, thank you all so much for the replies. Yes, I too believe that my husband has a valid point and intend to follow his lead. Just want to make sure I bring relevant thoughts to the table as well. That's why I came to y'all, for relevant thoughts.

I love the idea of working on individual letters with her separately and even ordering the earlier Rod and Staff books. She has great handwriting, but it doesn't really seem to matter if she doesn't understand what she's writing or why. It cracks me up because she's left handed and I worried a lot about her writing and she picked up a pencil and started writing beautifully. Just goes to show how useless worry is, it just wastes time and energy.

She sounds like she places perfectly in LHTH! In fact, the activities mrsrandolph described are pretty much the same activities as those in LHTH. LHTH would be fresh for her (and for you ). It would teach her a sound for each letter, and you could decide whether to start the fine motor skills books from LHFHG or wait on those. You could still have her listen on on the Beyond RA's if you wanted, but I'd get the LHTH Ages 4-5 choices for her and enjoy starting her at the place that best fits her. Repeating a guide after a child has just finished it is somewhat discouraging - for the child and for the parent. Even if it's the best guide in the world, it seems redundant to do it over right away again. If you just did LHTH now, you could do LHFHG the following year. You'd have had a year off in between, and it would feel more fresh to come back to, plus your dd would really be ready for it this time. You'd be honoring your dh's wishes by truly just starting over with her, and you'd be set up for a very nice rotation of teaching guides, with a year off in between teaching them.

In Christ,
Julie

I really like Julie's idea in her last post.
So many ways to go ... decisions... decisions

If it were my daughter I would want her to get the most out of a guide and not always falling behind. Because you have already come this far, it would be good to have some time off in between "doing the guide over".

You could do LHTH and just add some wkbks, i think that is what Julie said.

My son, who's b-day is October, started K (LHFHG half-speed) when he was about to turn 5 in 2008. we did the right side of LHFHG . He was not ready for everything, but he really needed something and this was just enough. This past year (which would have been his true K-year according to public school 2009-2010) we added the history side and added our own storytime and continued higher math and phonics.
My son, who is also left-handed, has beautiful handwriting, too.

It is great to be able to listen to our husband's wisdom.

Jenn d.

Thank you all so much. I had ordered LHTH for her and then decided to combine and sold it. I'll just have to get it again and get going, I don't want her to feel left behind all the time. She'll probably really flourish with her own program and I'll be following my DH's wishes, which is really important to me. He so infrequently gives me advice or even shares his concerns, I really want to follow his lead.

Thanks again ladies, I feel truly blessed to know that there is a place where I can get such great guidance.