Bigger with a child with dyslexia/dysgraphia

[Tracee]

We are currently in Beyond and loving it. DS is really doing well with everything, but the copywork. He was really frustrated copying it from the book, so, I would write 4 lines of the poem out on every other line, and he would copy directly below my writing. He was doing fine with that, but we were using the K-1st grade paper from HWT. I decided to go ahead and change the paper to the second grade paper, and he struggled. I may have to go back to actually using the HWT program, because I"m noticing he is still having trouble starting the letters at the right point and going in the correct direction. His actually handwriting isn't that bad, because he's very artistic, but if you watched him write a letter, you would see him starting a letter from the bottom or going from right to left. When he has to write spelling words, he has capitals mixed with lower case letters, and the sizing and spacing is usually off.

I've heard that there is a lot of writing with Bigger, and I'm wondering if he's going to be able to handle it. Because of his dyslexia, we have to use our own LA program that incorporates reading, spelling and basic grammer. He won't be able to use the Emerging Readers, because I have to use a very controlled text. Is this going to be a problem in Bigger or will it affect us down the road in future guides.

DS doesn't have a problem with comprehension. He is doing great narrating. He has a great vocabulary, and is doing very well in math. The language piece of HOD is going to take him some time, and even if we were able to do Bigger with a few slight modifications, what is going to happen when we get to PHFHG.

Thank you,
Tracy

[lmercon]

HI, Tracee,
I think we may have chatted before about our dyslexic dss. My ds was diagnosed with severe dyslexia a year ago September. He does not have the dysgraphia, which does complicate things further for you. We used Preparing last year and are doing CTC this year. We use the Barton program for reading and spelling. I have found that I just need to spend more time with my ds each day than the year before. I have given myself permission this year to take 1 1/2 years to complete each program from here on out. Due to the fact that my dh is a ps teacher, I wanted to wrap up school by mid-June and was always scrambling to get as much done as possible. My ds is not able to do any of the independent reading. We do everything together. For the written narrations that are assigned in CTC, he dictates to me as I write. Then he copies into his notebooking page. I would continue to work on proper letter formation and limit the copywork to just a very little. You may want to consider doing a typing program with him sooner than you might normally, so that he could begin using the computer for much of his written work.
hth,
Laura

[Tracee]

Laura,

Thank you so much! We are using Barton also, and it will take some time before ds is able to read independently. I've been thinking about starting him typing....thanks for the confirmation . We will keep working on forming the letters correctly also. What do you do with DITHOR? Do you just read that to him also?


Thank you,
Tracy

[lmercon]

I haven't used DITHOR yet because I really want that to be independent for him, so I'm waiting until his reading ability is to the level of DITHOR. With story time, I didn't see the need to use DITHOR as a read-aloud. I already have too much to do everyday! It will be nice when he is to that level. His is just now independently reading the Bible storybook that is the first in the emerging reader set. We are one lesson away from finishing level 4 of the the Barton program, so I felt confident enough to "allow" him to read something other than the controlled Barton books. He was dying to read a "real" book. I'm so glad that we hs because I can't imagine what he would be like if he was in school. He's 10 1/2 and in fourth grade, though he could be in fifth, and he said to me the other day, "Mom, I can't wait 'til I'm ready for the Frog and Toad books! Do you think it will be soon?" Bless his heart! At least he's highly motivated. Ps would have killed that long ago.
Laura

[LynnH]

I have a ds with dysgraphia, but not dyslexia. We started HOD when he was 10 and we started with Preparing. What I did then was I made sure he only did copywork 1x a day and if the passage was really long, I would shorten it. He actually does better with cursive than with manuscript, but it still would take him a long time to write. I had him do most everything else by typing or dictating to me. He typed his written narrations, dictated his poetry writing assignments to me and then I had him type them. He did do DITHOR and I had him dictate his answers to me, which he still does about 50% of the time. He also types dictation, but since you are using a different LA, that might not be an issue for you. It actually has been easy to adapt things for his dysgraphia. We have even been able to make it work using the notebook pages with him typing almost everything.