Language Arts Archives - Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers

4 Sure-Fire Strategies to Help Struggling Readers

June 20, 2017 By Kris Bales

Do you have a child who struggles with reading? It is such a maddening, helpless feeling to watch your child struggle and not know how to help. Suspecting that your child may have a learning disability magnifies that helpless feeling.

If you suspect that your child may have dyslexia, learn the warning signs, and develop a plan of action. Kids with dyslexia are not unintelligent; they just process information differently. While you can’t “cure” dyslexia, you and your child can learn how to deal with the processing differences it causes.

4 Sure-Fire Strategies to Help Struggling Readers

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1. Get a diagnosis

The first step to helping your struggling reader is to determine if he does have dyslexia. Brianna has mom-diagnosed dyslexia. There is not a doubt in my mind that she is dyslexic. However, hers is mild enough that by educating myself and providing her with one-on-one attention, she learned to read and developed effective coping strategies.

Josh’s dyslexia is much more pronounced. The programs and techniques that worked with Brianna didn’t work with him. The turning point for us was getting a diagnosis. We used the free dyslexia screening offered by Lexercise. The screening indicated that Josh would benefit from a full evaluation.

(Because I know you’re wondering, no, it doesn’t flag every kid as needing the full assessment. Out of 10 bloggers and their children who tried the free screener as part of the review process, only two of us had children identified as potentially dyslexic.)

You may choose to seek an evaluator in your area. The earlier you seek treatment, the less your child has to struggle. I wish we had discovered Lexercise sooner. If you suspect your child may have dyslexia, I urge you to try the free screener. If nothing else, it may rule out the possibility and put your mind at ease.

2. Consider treatment options

We chose to complete the Lexercise dyslexia therapy, which was an answer to prayer for us. Because the cost of professional therapy proved prohibitive for many families, Lexercise now offers the option of basic therapy at a much lower rate. They also offer discounts for HSLDA members.

Although the initial cost of professional therapy may cause a bit of sticker shock, the investment was completely worth it. Josh completed the program in about five months, and some kids finish it in as little as three.

image used with permission from Lexercise, creator of a free online dyslexia test

There are, of course, other dyslexia treatment options, but Lexercise worked wonders for Josh, and I wholeheartedly recommend them. You may want to do some research on the Orton-Gillingham approach and the Barton method.

3. Educate yourself

Take the time to educate yourself. The more you learn about dyslexia, the more effectively you can help your child. I recommend:

Overcoming Dyslexia by Sally Shaywitz, M.D.
The Dyslexic Advantage by Brock L. Eide M.D. M.A. and Fernette F. Eide M.D.
The Dyslexia Empowerment Plan by Ben Foss

I also highly recommend the site, Homeschooling with Dyslexia. Its author, Marianne Sunderland, is a 20+ year homeschooling veteran and mom of 8 kids, 7 of whom have dyslexia. Over the years, she has spent countless hours self-educating about dyslexia and is a certified Orton-Gillingham tutor.

Marianne has many resources, including Parent Dyslexia Classes, online courses to help you quickly and easily educate yourself about dyslexia and the most effective ways to help your dyslexic student.

These courses are for any parent of a dyslexic student regardless of whether your child is homeschooled or is attending public or private school.

4. Find the best resources

Finally, it’s important to find the best resources for your student. Dyslexia affects much more than just reading and spelling. You may need to think outside the box for other subjects, such as math and foreign language.

Both of my dyslexic students benefited from Teaching Textbooks, a video-based math curriculum. We also love All About Spelling, which works well for all types of learners, but was developed with dyslexic kids in mind.

I only wish All About Reading had been around when my kids were younger. We’d have used it in a heartbeat. The reading instruction meshes seamlessly with the spelling program.

Another fantastic resource is Learning Ally, a national non-profit organization that supplies audiobooks, read by volunteers, to people with visual and reading impairments. The books available include literature and textbooks (mostly titles used in public and private schools, but there are titles available from some of the more well-known homeschool publishers).

Many of their titles now include VOICEtext books, which highlights the words as they are read. That’s a fantastic help for kids with dyslexia who benefit from seeing and hearing the words.

Learning Ally does require a nominal yearly fee and a print disability diagnosis. (We used Josh’s diagnosis from Lexercise.)

We began using Learning Ally in 2014 and found it very helpful. Another option is checking out both the print book and the audiobook from the library, so your child can follow along visually as he listens.

These strategies proved extremely effective for my family of (formerly) struggling readers.

Have you had experience with a struggling reader? What tools or resources have you found particularly effective?

updated from an article originally published June 4, 2015

Don’t Make These Mistakes When Teaching Writing

February 21, 2017 By Kris Bales

Teaching writing can be a stressful endeavor for many homeschooling parents. It’s a skill our kids will use throughout their lives, and many parents don’t consider themselves good writers. You can teach your child to write (a solid writing curriculum doesn’t hurt). Just make sure you aren’t making these mistakes when teaching writing.

This post contains affiliate links. See full disclosure policy for more details.

1. Failing to utilize the “sloppy copy.”

When I first began to teach my kids to write, I didn’t teach them that the first draft is always their sloppy copy. That was a big mistake because they thought I was punishing them by making them rewrite a final copy or marking their errors in ink that they couldn’t erase.

Teach your kids that the purpose of the first run-through of any writing assignments is to get their thoughts on paper. They should write only on every other line so that there is room to make notes and corrections. They shouldn’t worry too much about spelling or punctuation because they’ll come back to edit the paper later. They may even want to write in pen so that they’re not tempted to erase and edit as they go.

2. Being overly critical.

We’re all familiar with the dreaded red pen. It shouldn’t look as though your pen met with a horrific end on your student’s paper. Choose one or two areas to correct and let the rest go until you’re ready to focus on those skills. If you’re teaching a young student, your primary concern may be starting sentences with a capital and ending with a period. Make those corrections and ignore the misspelled words or proper nouns that haven’t been capitalized.

I’ll let you in on another secret – some kids really hate that red pen. It’s okay to mark their mistakes in pencil (as long as they know they’ll still have to write a final draft).

3. Refusing to help.

It’s easy to worry that you’re giving your student too much help, but over the years I’ve learned that it’s important to work alongside them. They need a competent writer (that’s you!) to model good writing, give them examples, and provide a writing sample. I finally learned that lesson with my younger two. (Poor guinea pig first child.) Whenever we’d work on a new type of writing, I’d write my own paper as an example.

Also, don’t worry about writing your child’s words as he dictates them, especially with younger students. They often have plenty of ideas, but the physical act of getting the words on paper hinders their creativity. Help your student get his thoughts down; then he can work on editing and writing the final draft.

4. Stressing over the topic sentence.

The biggest mistake I used to make with my kids was giving them a good idea for a topic sentence and telling them they couldn’t use it. Yeah, I was nice, wasn’t I? It goes back to worrying that you’re offering too much help, but sometimes coming up with a topic sentence is the hardest part. Don’t be afraid to get your kids started with a strong topic sentence.

Also, don’t feel that you have to make them start with a topic sentence. Even as a blogger, I often have lots of ideas, but I’m not sure how to start off my post. I’ve found that I’m much more productive when I just start writing and come back to add the introduction later. If your kids have ideas but are struggling to start, tell them to leave some blank lines at the top of their paper and come back to the introduction after they get their thoughts down.

5. Withholding praise.

This probably goes along with not being overly critical, but be sure you’re not withholding praise for your child’s writing. If you’re a lover of words like me, it can be easy to see all the mistakes, so train yourself to look for the positive and lavish praise for that.

Did she remember to capitalize the first word in each sentence? Is the paper creative? Did he include strong verbs? Tell your student what he did well!

It’s easy to inadvertently create a reluctant writer if you aren’t careful. Make sure that you’re not making these critical mistakes.

What mistakes when teaching writing would you add to this list?

This post is linked to the Hip Homeschool Hop.

5 Easy Ways to Bring Books to Life

October 27, 2016 By Susan Williams

Books offer children a unique way to learn about the world around them. They can share details of events from the past, offer a glimpse into the future, and introduce fictional worlds that seem very real. Families can use books as a springboard for learning about history, geography, art, science, and more.

Discussions and hands-on activities help kids understand and process the information they read. We have discovered many ways to make books, and the information they contain, more interesting and relatable for our students.

Here are some of our favorite ways to bring books to life for children of all ages.

Make a Map

It is important to identify the setting of a story. The setting is where the story takes place. This may be a real place in the past or present, or an imaginary land. By creating a map, students can track activity throughout the story and understand the environment in which the action takes place. Basic maps can be drawn or made from simple materials like food or salt dough.

When we read Island of the Blue Dolphin our students used clay and cardboard to make a map of the island. During a reading of Around the World in 80 Days my children printed an outline world map and then marked the cities Fogg visited, noting the type of transportation used and the number of days it took to travel between each city.

Take a Field Trip

Another way to relate to the setting of a story is to take a field trip. Although you may not be able to travel to the exact location where the story takes place, your family may be able to find a place that represents the setting of the book. A field trip can also help you better understand a specific aspect of the story.

While reading the Secret Garden we visited a large botanical garden and also a small community garden to learn more about plants. The one time we were able to visit the location of a book was when our book club read the Kingdom Keeper series, and we visited Walt Disney World to go on our own quests.

Create a Costume

A fun way to “get to know” the main characters of a book is to learn about the type of clothes they wear. Children can think about how the clothes worn by the characters in the story are the same or different that what they might wear. Some of these differences could be based on where the character lived, the type of job they had, the era in which they lived, etc. It’s easy to use clothes, fabrics, and other materials around the house to make costumes and dress-up like a character in a book.

For a while, my kids were interested in medieval history, so they read many stories about kings and knights. We made plenty of swords and shields to reenact the battles they read about. Your kids can even get creative and make costumes based on descriptions of fictional characters like our friends did when reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Prepare a Meal or Special Dish

Food is one of our favorite ways to learn about any subject! If your book is about a particular region of the world, you can search for recipes unique to that area and make them at home. This is an excellent way to learn about spices, foods, or cooking techniques that are popular in a specific location. Food can also be a useful learning tool when studying history. Recipes and ingredients often change over time so preparing foods from a different time period can be a lot of fun.

Like many middle school students, our children read the The Red Badge of Courage. We spent an afternoon making hard tack, Johnny cakes, and bean soup based on Civil War era recipes. When we read The Indian in the Cupboard our book club found recipes for dishes such as baked pudding and Three Sisters Stew.

Host an Event or Celebration

After you make a few dishes and costumes based on your book, why not host an event for your family and friends to really bring the book to life?

Two of our favorite book related events have included a proper English tea party when our book club read Mary Poppins and a wacky birthday celebration with friends based on the adventures of Alice in Wonderland.

We hope your family will enjoy diving into a new book and exploring it in more detail with these fun activities!

What are some of your family’s favorite ways to bring books to life?

10 Ways to Celebrate Teen Read Week

October 4, 2016 By Kris Bales

Next week is Teen Read Week. Started in 1998 by the Young Adult Library Services Association and typically observed the week of Columbus Day, Teen Read Week’s purpose is simple – to encourage teens to read.

If you have avid readers, they may not need encouragement. For the rest of us, I’ve brainstormed 10 ways to celebrate Teen Read Week.

1. Visit your local library. Because Teen Read Week was started by the Young Adult Library Services Association, chances are most mid-sized and larger libraries will have some activities planned for the week. If not, you can still pick up some new books to read while you’re there.

2. Play reading bingo. I created a reading bingo card for my kids when they were younger, but it’s easily adaptable to teens. When you make the modifications for Teen Read Week, keep in mind that most teens will be reading books that won’t necessarily be completed in a week (not 5 different types, at least) so you may want to give them options for chapters completed or time/number of days spent reading.

3. Read aloud. Just because teens are capable of reading on their own doesn’t mean that family read-aloud time should end. Choose a book that you can all enjoy and snuggle up for some family time each evening.

4. Read a book and watch its movie adaptation. There are so many options for book/movie adaptation combos. You’ve got dozens of choices in the young adult genre alone such as Percy Jackson, Harry Potter, The Giver, The Hunger Games, The Maze Runner, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, Twilight, and Divergent.

5. Read a related classic. If your teen has recently read a modern book that references a classic, encourage her to read the classic so that she can fully understand the reference. The Twilight series sparked an interest in Shakespeare for my oldest and she read each of the Shakespeare titles referenced in the four Twilight books, ultimately reading nearly all of Shakespeare’s works.

6. Find fun ways to tie reading into your regular schoolwork. Okay, okay. We’re homeschoolers, so I know most of us already do this, but I love incorporating engaging books with what we’re already studying. It makes a simple method for planning a high school reading list, but even if you don’t use it to plan an entire list, for Teen Read Week why not find a captivating historical fiction, biography or related literature title to tie in to what you’re studying?

7. Take a reading day – or a reading week! I love Sara’s idea for taking regular reading days and Teen Read Week is the perfect time to give it a try if you’ve never done it. You might even turn it into a reading week. We might be pleasantly surprised at what our kids learn simply by immersing themselves in some great books.

8. Start a series. Encourage your teens to read the first book in a series that sounds intriguing to them. Sometimes, getting hooked on a series is all it takes to turn a reluctant reader into a voracious one.

9. Try an audio book. If you’ve never tried audio books – or it’s been awhile – give them a try this week. Encourage your teens to listen while doing other quiet activities such as drawing, painting, crafting, or walking on the treadmill or around the neighborhood.

10. Host a family book club. Try a family book club for a week. Secure a few copies of the same book (or give everyone their own bookmark, but that gets tricky), allow everyone to read it individually and discuss it at the end of the week.

Do you have ideas for ways to celebrate Teen Read Week? We’ve got almost a week to plan, so leave them in the comments!

This post is linked to Top Ten Tuesday and the Hip Homeschool Hop.

10 Resources for Teaching a Child to Read

September 27, 2016 By Kris Bales

Teaching a child to read will probably be the single most important thing you’ll ever do in your homeschool because once a child can read he can learn anything. It’s been awhile since we were in that stage, but I pulled some resources from the archives, dusted them off, and added some new favorites to present to you my 10 favorite resources for teaching a child to read.

10 Resources for Teaching a Child to Read

1. Penny Gardner’s ABC’s of Reading. This, to me, is one of the most practical, sensible approaches to teaching reading that I’ve ever read. My younger two kids made great progress in their reading, when they were first learning, using a slightly modified version the echo reading described in this article.

2. Scaredy Cat Reading System. This reading system was developed by Joyce Herzog following her 25+ years of work in the public school system with readers of all ages and abilities, including those with learning disabilities.

Scaredy Cat Reading System, a reasonably-priced, mastery-style program for teaching reading, is a bit old-school (as am I), and it doesn’t have all the bells and whistles one might find in a newer reading program. However, Level 2 was an excellent fit for my kids. (I didn’t care for Level 3, and my kids were beyond the need for Level 1 by the time I discovered the program, so we started with Level 2.)

3. Mrs. Perkin’s Dolch Sight Words List. I found these lists to be an excellent resource when my kids were younger. I taught a combination of sight words and phonics because having a good base of sight words increased my children’s confidence when they were learning to read.

I would print off these sight word lists on cardstock to use as flash cards and game cards. We played games like:

Fishing by attaching a paper clip to the word cards and fishing for them with a magnet tied to a dowel rod
Reading bingo – I’d print the words randomly on a blank bingo card, then use the printed sight word cards as call cards
Go Fish or concentration (using two printed sets of the same list)

4. Games to Make. This was another favorite. the site offers printable games to learn both sight words and CVC words in varying degrees of difficulty. Make sure you’ve got plenty of ink in the printer before you visit!

5. PPS Leveled List. I frequently used this list of books, that can be sorted by author or reading level, to determine my kids’ general reading levels and look for new books on that level. Users are instructed to find a book that your child can read easily and look it up on the list to get a general idea of the level at which they’re reading.

6. Starfall. Starfall was launched in September of 2002, just a month after we began homeschooling. It’s a fantastic resource for beginning and early readers even if you only use it to supplement occasionally as we did. It even features early math activities and lessons now. And, of course, there’s an app so you can use it on your phone or tablet.

7. Explode the Code books. Explode the Code was one of the first learning activities my kids would do independently since the workbooks (one of the few homeschool workbooks I’ve always loved – Easy Grammar and Daily Grams were the others) follow a predictable pattern. We used them as a supplement to other reading instruction that we were doing, rather than as a stand-alone program.

8. All About Reading. Oh, how I wish All About Reading had been around when my kids were younger. I firmly believe that using it alongside All About Spelling would have saved us many tears. If I were teaching reading again (or if I ever get to teach my grandkids), this will be my go-to program.

9. Rocket Phonics. Rocket Phonics teaches phonics through a step-by-step approach using guided reading techniques and games. While it didn’t completely eliminate the struggles my dyslexic boy was having, it did help him progress. Read my review of Rocket Phonics to learn more.

10. Lexercise. Finally, after my severely dyslexic son’s struggles with reading, no blog post about resources for teaching this priceless, lifelong skill would be complete without mentioning Lexercise. I honestly don’t know where were would be without their online dyslexia tutoring. Check out my reviews page to find my three reviews of Lexercise and their services.

If you suspect your struggling reader may have dyslexia, I urge you to have him or her take Lexercise’s free online dyslexia screener.

What are some of your favorite resources for teaching reading?

updated from an article originally published May 14, 2009

This post is linked to Top Ten Tuesday and the Hip Homeschool Hop.