Thanks Vallee! It depends entirely on the child of course but for all the kids
I begin with finger spelling. That way when ever we
are waiting at the doctors office, the bank, the store, where ever, we can
practice our phonics. I teach the to read FS phonetically. The draw back
is it takes a little while to understand that in your head you have to compensate for the blends and know that e's on the end are silent, because unlike writing you can't see the whole word at once. It also always starts
conversations with people about ASL and such. And Phonics first and always.
With Chris, because he was such an auditory learner and because I only had
time to read to him at night, I got books on tape for him to listen to. ( He's the one who could sign at 5 and 1/2 months and I cringe to think of the
academic struggles we could be having if I hadn''t taught him sign. Yet he could memorize dialogs on the books he was listening to. The most effective method for him was phonics first and then books that had tapes. That way he could follow along with the words as it was being read out loud.
And especially finding reading material that are in the subject areas of intrest to the child. (for Chris it was dinosaurs, radio polonium halos, astronomy, etc) Also I make them take turns writing my shopping lists. Alot of my homeschooling is on the go and requires much patience. Like resisting the urge to make my shopping lists myself. Instead I phonetically sound out each word for them. I don't make them correct mistakes on this type of thing usually. Only on formal classroom work. Also business projects that the kids run themselves where they make money. I have always said that learning requires a vested interest. My favorite game when my older kids were little was called gummy bear math. I would give two of them one dollar. The assignment was, divide the money equally. (some times I gave them .75) heehee Then they had to divide their parts in half. Half they had to save
and half they could spend on gummy bears. (we did this once a week walking into town, I sat at the coffee shop while they shopped next door at the candy store) When they got back, we played gummy bear fractions. Each child had to BITE the gummy bear exactly in half, and an explanation would
follow on what half meant, or one third etc. It was much fun with my emphasis on being EXACT with their teeth!
But oh did they have a complete understanding of fractions! I'll have to try and remember some of the other things I did, I'm on my second crop of kids as I call them but I'vebeen home schooling for about 18 years. Find out what your kids strengths are and get him to assist you teaching that to your other kids. Use that later as a reward for getting other work done. Break stuff down into small increments and reward successful completion. (But the MOST important is finding the areas of strength and using that as a foundation to teach the dyslexic child every thing else. Compare alot, like mollecules are like tinker toys, (or play dough) and build molecules. Above all do not be afraid to learn things as your kids are learning and let them KNOW you are learning it as well!
They LOVE that! Nothing promotes learning like being on an equal footing with the teacher! Oh lordy, I better stop now so I don't bore anyone. Things are coming back into my brain and I can't stop.... help!
Thanks Cloggy for separating the stats for me!
More later.
