Heart of Wisdom Academy

We took out our Exploring Creation with Botony book and explored leaves and flowers.

It's been so busy here!!! The weather has been beautiful, so we are playing outside everyday. We are going on daily walks and bike rides. We've been spending a lot of time at the nearby museum because there is a traveling exhibit that all the children like a lot. We've been serving a lot. The needs of the body(church) and familial duties are filling our days and nights.

Activities:
The children continue to learn at our homeschool co-op on Tuesday's. Kyle is taking a Gross Science class that has him enamored. He has made snot and blood. This week they are mummifying a fish and he is looking forward to making and eating skin! He is also taking a class called it's Greek to be Me in which the children are learning greek roots. It must be in a fun way because they are all excited about it. The twins continue their class on American History, PE, and I don't remember the other class. Kason has 3 classes too; PE, nursery rhymes, and nutrition. The children start soccer this week. Hopefully the twins will get a coach, if not their season will be cancelled. Somebody has to do it so I may volunteer although I know NOTHING about soccer or coaching. I want my kids to play...so I might just learn how to be a soccer coach in 48 hours! Peyton started speech(not for articulation but for language) an hour a week, which seems hopeful.

So I've been pretty forthright on my blog about the fact that my twins are slow learners which tends to make me mildly neurotic at times. I've been struggling these 2 school years to figure out whether they are genuinely slow or genuinely learning disabled. Peyton has much more trouble than Kaden. I haven't had Kaden tested, but I can reasonably assume that his abilities are at the low-end of normal, but still within the normal range. He displays many of the symptoms that Peyton has, but to a much lesser degree. I can also reasonably assume that my daughter is not within "normal" capabilities for a 6.5 year old.

So I've been battling. Do I worry and get help, or do I let her continue until her maturity catches up? I've erred more on the side of letting her catch up in her own time, but as another year slips by and progress has again been very minimal I have come to accept that there is a problem. I actually have thought this whole time that the problem was me. That if she just went to "real" school with a "real" teacher she would learn. Now everyone tells me that's not true, but I didn't believe... them until this week. I sat in on her testing the last 2 weeks. One week, I had Kason with me, and I physically had to hold him down so he didn't answer the questions for Peyton. Questions such as touch all the circles except the black one. Touch the black cat on the white house. She gave that lady the same blank stares she gives me. She said "I don't know" on about 1/3 of the test and another third can be attributed to non-sensical answers like she typically gives me. The lady read her a story about kids going on a field trip to the zoo and then asked comprehension questions afterwards. Simple questions like what did they see at the zoo, and what did they talk about on the way home. Her answer: clothes.(I'm not going to lie, it's slightly maddening!)When asked to describe the relationship between a hammer and a nail her response was "they were made for each other" (the correct answer is they are both tools) This was her standard answer for all relational questions. Also by watching her through the testing process (I'll get the results this week), I realized that the problem is bigger than just not learning to read, write, and do math. She can't do the basic processes that lead up learning these content subjects. I learned that I really have to teach her very very basic skills in order for her to be ready for academics. These skills come naturally to most children.

Signs and Symptoms of Dyslexia:
from: Teaching Tips for Kids with Dyslexia An Excellent Resource that I am currently reading to help the twins master the basic skills that they need to learn.

My observations on Dyslexia:
This is mostly for me as a written record. But also for others. For 2 school years I have felt a lot of shame and embarrassment about where the twins are academically. I thought that their progress reflected my teaching. I never wanted to be completely open about what they know and don't know because of fear of condemnation. I feel like their progress just confirms my suspicion that the problem is really me-not them and everyone must be judging me and thinking the same. I also didn't want to accept that they needed a "diagnosis". I've felt like putting a label on them was accepting defeat and washing my hands of the situation.

Signs and Symptoms of Dyslexia:

Poor Communication Skills: She is perfectly understandable and can get her point across. But talks in phrases and fragments, rarely complete sentences. She can use almost no prepositions. I noticed this during testing. When asked the relationship between a house and a street. She tried desperately to say that the house was on the street, but failed miserably. She has great difficulty using prepositions properly, and can't do it at all without prompting.

Misheard Phonemes: Often leaves off beginning or ending sounds. Sounds don't make much sense in her brain. She often leaves sounds out or adds sounds where they don't belong. Hadded instead of had.

Substitution of Phonemes: I See a lot in reading. She'll see the word "little" but consistently say "small".

Mixing up Sounds in Multisyllabic Words: Lastday instead of Yesterday, Busuem instead of Musuem, Polar Exercise or Polar Excress instead of Polar Express, Berbember instead of Remember, lell instead of yell. All of these are done consistently.

Difficulty in Sequencing Story Events: Comprehension is sorely lacking in both twins. We've been working on it everyday and there has been improvement this school year. At the beginning of the year I would read a passage and it was like pulling teach to try to get them to remember just 1 thing that I read, ANYTHING. Now at all family devotions Daddy has them say at least 1 thing that they remember. Now we often re-read the passage 3 times and go sentence by sentence asking what they remember until they can remember anything. They still can't order anything they read. Such as this happened first, second, third, etc...

Confusion of Positional, Directional, and Basic Concepts: This may be the BIGGEST challenge I face with both of the twins. They have NO concept of right/left. Kaden wears shoes, shirts, pants, and underwear backwards; consistently, every-single-day without fail! Everyday he has to redo it. Everyday he sees it as right, when it is so wrong. They both have virtually NO concept of before and after. For example neither of them can tell me what comes before 4 or any number. They still can't count to 100 without assistance. They really struggle to tell me what comes after any number I give them. They can't recognize any of the teen numbers. Sometimes they can recognize numbers past that, but on any given day they really can't recognize most numbers 13 and beyond. They can't tell me what comes before or after, whether it's abc's or baking a cake. They have no concept of before or after. Which I'm finding out how this little skill affects so much. They can't even begin to tell you what day was yesterday (they can't even say yesterday, they say lastday), or what day is tomorrow. Forget about months of the year and time. Time requires sequencing of which they have none. The good news is the Writing Road to Reading has been widely successful with dyslexics because it focuses on directionality.

Failure to Understand that Words Come Apart: Peyton was completely unable to break compound words into 2 words. When given words like popcorn, football, beanbag, etc. She couldn't break apart the words. She is starting to understand beginning sounds, but has no understanding of ending sounds; I think that is mostly because she doesn't understand beginning, middle, and end.

Difficulty in Learning the Names and Sounds of Alphabet Letters:
Those twins watched The Letter Factory for 4 years and still didn't know what a letter was. At 6 and a half I still wouldn't bet any kind of money that they know all their letters. They know most, they confuse (b,d,p,q,c and s)

Lack of Awareness of Sounds and Sequence:They have great difficulty isolating sounds and don't understand beginning sound, middle sound, end sound.

Difficulty with Recognizing Small Sight Words: They both have difficulty, they were keeping a pace of about 4 sight words a week, but they have since digressed.

Discrepancy between Performance and Ability: This is a big one. Even people who know Peyton wouldn't guess that she struggles with learning. She is very outgoing, helpful, pleasant, and obedient. She is extremely social and confidant. I could see the visible shock on the psychologist's face and the language therapist's face as they began to access her. Her performance and ability don't seem to match. Although the psychologist did say that an IQ test ends the discrepancy between performance and ability. She said that even though Peyton scores very low on these tests, her ability could also be very low, leveling the playing field. I guess the greater concern is if her ability is high, but performance is still low.

Currently reading: Dyslexia a Practical Guide for Teachers and Parents