Homeschooling the Late Bloomer

 

When I first started homeschooling I used BJUP Kindergarten. When it asked me if I wanted to plan for a 3 hour kindergarten or a 6 hour kindergarten, I chose the 3 hour, because I did have a toddler and a baby on the way. I am not a trained teacher, so I loved the Teacher’s Manual that told me what crafts to prepare for, what songs to sing, and how high to jump. I did EVERY activity it suggested, and with my kinesthetic first born, we were done with everything in about half an hour. My first born soaked it up, and by the end of Kindergarten he was reading proficiently.

When I started with the second one, I started to learn about learning styles, and she was a visual learner. She didn’t want to do all the activities, she just wanted to move on to the next lesson. She was reading the Bible by Christmas, as a 5 year old.

Number 3 was pretty much the same story. A visual learner, who wanted to teach himself. Again, by the end of Kindergarten he was reading proficiently.

I would hear mothers from the public school saying, “My child can’t read, so they are holding them back in Kindergarten.” I would think, smugly, “Well, if only you taught your children phonics, and not sight words, they would learn!”

And, then I had number 4. By the time he was school age, I had a 6^th grader, a 4^th grader, a 2^nd grader, and a toddler. He was my loudest child (I was always reminding him to use his inside voice) and he was my “drama king”. Not only would he cry for himself, but he’d cry for others if he sensed they were hurting. I started the tried and true Kindergarten curriculum at the age of 5 and a half. He didn’t get it at all! He just wasn’t ready. His times outside with his older siblings were his favorite, and he was super observant in all that they did. He formed his letters on a cookie sheet in either salt, sand or shaving cream. He climbed trees, had lots of PE and got to explore his outside world. (Such a blessing we are in California and our kids have opportunities to be outside a LOT!)

We finished the Kindergarten curriculum and he wasn’t reading anything. I wondered if I should start the First grade curriculum, but I didn’t want to repeat the Kindergarten curriculum as he was coming close to 7, so I went ahead and did the first grade curriculum.  I read everything to him. I would have him dictate sentences to me, I’d write them on the white board, and have him copy them. But he had no idea what he was copying.

At the end of first grade, when he still wasn’t reading, I was full of self-doubt. Was he dyslexic? Did he need a specialist? Was I not equipped to handle whatever his “learning disability” was? Should I seek professional help? I spoke to another veteran homeschool mom who told me not to worry about it and to just keep on reading out loud to him.

Second grade was a repeat of what happened in first grade, except that the self-doubt was stronger. Fortunately, reading every single lesson to a second grader still only takes about an hour, so I’d school the others in the morning, and then after lunch my second grader would get my undivided attention.

Now we are at third grade. I’m frankly starting to panic. I take him to get his eyes checked and to have some tests done to make sure he didn’t have some weird vision things going on. And now I’m noticing that when I read out loud to him, he can seem to be distracted with Legos or lining up Match Box cars, but as I notice the tears rolling down his face when Charlotte of Charlotte’s Web dies, I know he has been paying attention the whole time. I also notice that he also likes to be cuddled right next to me while he is doing Math problems.

I’m praying about what other kind of help I can get him to start fourth grade. As the summer is nearing the end, and I’m doing lesson planning, I hear him reading Hop On Pop to his younger brother. Every week through the curriculum, he is making great strides. Now he is reading instructions on his own. Now he is reading picture books with a plot. Next he is reading chapter books. By the end of fourth grade, he is reading the Bible with proficiency and understanding. He had TOTALLY caught up in reading in one school year.

And that was just about the time fractions were introduced in the Math book. And that became a struggle. The others were all ready for Algebra 1 in 7^th or 8^th grade. He wasn’t ready for Algebra 1 until 10^th grade. He and I worked to find a curriculum that worked for him. He attended a CHEA convention with me and he picked Math U See. I figured he needed skin in the game. (I had BJU, Chalkdust, and Teaching Textbooks at home, but those didn’t suit him!)

He decided that he wanted to go to a four year University, so we worked to that goal. I was a little concerned about him only finishing Algebra 2 in high school, but when he took the Math placement test during College Orientation, he placed into Calculus 1.

But these are things we learned about him along the way. He is a kinesthetic learner, with auditory learning as his second learning style. His love language is physical touch. When he went to college he knew he needed to not miss any classes so he could listen to each lecture. And that he needed to play hard. So, he took a PE class every semester and he played Ultimate Frisbee every Sunday night.

And that late bloomer now? He is a 20 something year old, sought-after, software engineer, who is leading worship at his church, and  loving his little family.

With time, patience, and lots of learning activities, your child can be "caught up".  If your child is read to, and you have a math book, you can likely catch your student up when they are ready and they can exceed their grade level. Mine just wasn't ready at the ages of 5, 6, 7, or 8!

Teaching Math Facts

Teaching math facts to 2^nd and 3^rd graders is kind of like wanting to lose weight.  It would just be easier to take a pill.  But, alas, just like there is no weight loss pill, there is no math fact pill!  You just need to do the work.

But first, why memorize math facts?  I made my eldest memorize math facts because that was what he was “supposed” to do.  As my children got older, we saw kids that had never memorized math facts, and consequently could NOT do simple division and multiplication problems without the use of their calculators, I became convinced that it was imperative that my younger sons memorize their math facts.  More on this later, but I don’t let my students use calculators for math until Algebra 2.  We do use a Calculator Math curriculum so that they know HOW to use their calculator, but for their math lessons, I make sure that they understand the way they need to compute everything.

I taught math facts using two tools.  We used Calculadder  http://www.schoolmadesimple.com/calculadder.html  for speed, as a drill every day.  Each page allows you to do a 2 minute to 5 minute timed test.  After my children got a perfect score on a page, I would allow them to move on to the next level.  After they were finished with all 6 books, they were done. 

Priscilla detested the math drills.  She didn’t mind doing the computation, but she did mind being timed.  She would protest that she would never be timed in real life.  One day, I had the opportunity, as we sat in a drive-thru line at Taco Bell, to teach her that sometimes we live in a timed math test.  I said to the five passenger children sitting in my 12 passenger van, “I have $10.  Figure out what you want, and how much it costs, and let’s see if we have enough for drinks!  I have until the two cars in front of me drive away from the speaker.  Oh, no!  It’s a timed math test!”  With David and Priscilla taking orders, and starting the math on the $0.69 tacos and burritos, I heard whooping and hollering, and stomping of feet as they were adding up out loud.  I’m sure Stephen was only screaming because he was trying to keep up, even though he was only 6, and Philip was just stomping his toddler feet to add to the excitement.  David proudly announced the total of what the younger set wanted.  And Priscilla proudly added that we could get 3 drinks.  She never fussed about the timed math tests after that.

The second tool I used was simple flash cards.  I had one set each of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.  I would introduce a game called Penny Math.  I read about it years ago.  I’m sorry I can’t reference the original author.  As soon as they had been introduced to the 9’s in addition, I’d start them in addition. 

I’d keep a timer, a bowl of change, and the flash cards.  Each day I’d give them ONE round.  I’d set the timer to two minutes.  I’d let them answer the flash cards for the full 2 minutes.  I would give them a penny for each card they answered correctly within the two minutes.  After they answered 30 correctly, I’d move them to 1 minute for the next day.  After a couple days of trying that, when they would get to 30 answered correctly in 1 minute, I’d move to 30 seconds.  It might take a couple of weeks to get to 30 in 30 seconds, but that was the goal.  After they could do that, I would consider that their math facts were memorized.  I’d do this with the four different sets of cards (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division).  I remember at one time, David said it was his goal to answer 29 in 30 seconds so that he could just keep collecting 29 cents a day.  He may have tried, but pretty much after having his math facts memorized he’d go over the 30 in the 30 seconds.

A side benefit to Penny Math.  I’d have them keep their cups of pennies within easy reach.  Sometimes, after our Penny Math drills, which typically took under 2 minutes, we’d spend more time changing pennies for nickels, nickels for quarters, and even quarters for dollars.  They learned their money values at the same time!