:? Hello, Hope everyone is have a good summer and keeping cool. I used this chat room (is that what you call it) last year for advice with my 2nd grader. I pulled her from public school because she was far behind and the school wasn't supportive. You all reassured me and gave support. GOOD NEWS she is doing wonderfully. She has made such improvements and gains. It' such a blessing to see her blossom. Now I need some advice for my current 6th grader, I planned on home schooling her, too. Our problem in short is, she has made the honor roll in public school every semester however her paper work wasn't supporting that. I dealt with the school on multiple occasions on that issue. Her spelling and English is horrific. I just had her test, talk about a punch to the stomach, she tested at 2nd grade math and 3/4 grade Language arts. Remember she was to go to Junior High. First of all I feel horrible as a parent that I failed her secondly I am very overwhelmed. Has anyone been in this boat? What grade level should I start her at? I was thinking of doing the same level as her younger sister, 3rd gr. but at the same time I do not want to hurt her self esteem. A friend of mine is loaning me the text books for third grade, I just have to buy the work books. We are on a tight budget, so does anyone know where I could obtain curriculum that doesn't cost an arm and leg? We currently use ABeka for the younger child. I'm a big believer in homeschooling, since my younger one has done so well. I'm just amazed. Our youngest will be home-schooled too. Sorry this is so long, Kellie :?
Is it possible to give her some type of assessment test to see where she is in each subject? Then as you homeschool her you can start where she is in each subject instead of starting at one specific grade level. Patty
Thanks for replying, by the way thanks for your advice last year and support. I know you probably don't remember but I do. That was an assessment test. I knew we would run into something like this but never imagined on this level. I know after homeschooling the 2nd grader last year, it's likely she will gain alot. I'm just unsure how far do I really want to take her back, not to mention she has been given a false sense with the honor roll certificates. Thanks Kellie
With an assessment/achievement test, it will break each subject down. So in Language Arts, you will find out where she is in spelling, grammar, reading, vocabulary...etc. Then you can place her accordingly. The same for all subjects. This way you do not put her in second grade for all of language arts or any other subject. Many homeschoolers do not like to give a grade because their children are working at different grade levels. I am positive with homeschooling, your daughter will catch up quickly. She already knows tha basics. She might just need to review and relearn methods. As for which test is best, I do not know. Sorry! I wish I did. Ems has taken the Stanford and it does an awesome job of breaking everything down. I think what grade you place your daughter in or which grades, will depend on your state. Does it require a grade when you file your paperwork? Patty
I think what I am going to do is get workbooks for each subject, as she progresses and the material comes easy, move her ahead until we reach a stopping point. That's what I did with my other one last year, it seem to work. I'm just frustrated and wish I would of done this a long time ago. The school districts have declined so much. I as a parent knew something wasn't right but was dealing with the younger child. Thankfully in the state of Kansas, we just fill out a private school form and that's it.
The workbooks should work out fine. Some people use their regular curriculum and continue to test their children until they can no longer move foward. This is where they pick up in their studies. All will work out. Good luck! Patty
Kellie, I went through the same thing with my son but didn't know hsing was an option for him. He could NOT write a paper for the life of him (4th grade time frame) and it would take him dictating to me and then him copying it in his own writing. He would bring home almost straight a's and I couldn't comprehend it! I often wondered if part of it was that he was a child that was quiet and well behaved and in this, he didn't draw attention to himself. About a year later we found out that he had vision problems (eye exams he always aced) where the eye muscles and the messages from the brain weren't working together. He did vision therapy and the writing improved. He is now getting ready to take his second year at our local Tech school and I was very impressed that he even to a Physcology (sp) class this last sememster! I don't have any advice right now, but wanted to tell you not to beat yourself up over this. Just be glad you caught it now! The eye dr told me that the kids that are going into 3rd grade and into middle school are at the age when problems are ususally found because there is such a drastic change in how the school work is done. Btw, I hs'd my dd who is now 12 last year and we loved it. It was our first year (6th grade) and we flew by the seat of our pants but we survived. This year she may be going back to ps but that is partly her decision. The gals here are a wonderful bunch and I'm sure you will get more feedback. Several of the "old-timers" are on vacation so hang around!
wow, Kellie, sounds like they all gave you good advice already... I wish you luck... get on ebay and look for some books you can find some good deals...
My dd is in her last uear of primary but working at a 4/5 level in math. As we cover each aspect of the syllabus she just does the tests until she starts scoring below 9o%; that's when I know teaching needs to take place. It sounds like you are doing this already. One idea re the self esteem: whereever you start just tell her it is for revision purposes & also to help jog your memory. Get her to help teach you. My dd loves teaching me math because it is a well known fact in my house that I can't actually do most of the math I've taught over the years! lol.
I found this site not so long ago that offers remedial education materials in language arts. Each item is listed with Interest Level (child's actual grade level) and Skill/Reading level (child's actual ability level). So if the material was listed Interest level (5-8) and Reading level (3-4), it would be material for a 5th-8th grader who reads at the 3rd-4th grade level. The materials are not free, but they aren't overly expensive either. Hopefully, you can find some supplements that won't make her feel babish, but will go back some on the skills for her to learn them. www.rempub.com
Kellie, I would check with other curriculuim type of assesment tests the kind that tells you what level of the said curriculuim you would start your dd on. I think you will find her further ahead than you thought. I was in shock after my oldest tested poorly, then he has turned around and done a really great job in Algerbra1 and Geometry both! He scored really high on the state assessment tests the first year ( We sent him out to highschool after homeschooling, and I thought we had it all covered!) which supported what I knew he knew. Check out SOS, and AOP.com they have lots of fairly low cost curric. the people here sent me to Rainbow Resourses too! WOW! Talk about a pile of good prices! discount homeschool is good too, I forget the actual site , if its .com, or net but discount homeschool will get you some. If you want to assess your dd try using some of the Macmillan books, Staples carrys them for less than ten dollars a book and you can work through at the level she is at then move to the next level knowing your younger child can use what she does not need for future years.
Sorry it took me so long to reply back to you all, I'm having one of those mommy days (I was last night too). One was sick, other had to be chauffeur to activities and of course the 2 year old decided to see how much water he could remove from the toilet bowl without being caught. Thanks for the input and direction. I checked on A Beka for homeschooling, OUCH. That's okay though, I have been praying and believe God will provide. When one door closes another will open. I'm going to check into the websites and try to find workbooks she can work though and figure out where we need to go from there. ) Thanks again.
Check out CBD.com and look up whatever curric you think of you will be able to look in side and everything
I would aviod using graded materials at first if possible. Perhaps you can get a What Your CHild Should know When type of book and just go over the check lists with the student and perhaps knock out some of the items for a while. In this way you could identify what exact learning objectives were missed. It would be my guess that your child did not go three years without learning anything, but rather that there are key learning objectives that need remediation. THese missing key items are likely ther same things that the test was looking for. It would seem to me that by identifying and targeting your teaching to what is missing and breezing over what is not, you can remediate to the proper grade level more eazily. I seems to me that a student would be demoralized and frustrated a great deal by actually using materials intended for several grades back, especially at first when a huge transition from PS to HS is taking place at the same time. To go from being "honors" to being tossed half way back to kindergarten seems like a thing to be avioded. I use such a check list often to keep me on tract, and I seek out free stuff online and at the library to help fix anything that I find is a gap in learning, or a variance between my chosen curr. and what my chosen reference point suggests as the current grade level's objectives.
Oh I have been there with my second daughter who was in 5th grade last year. She kept making the honor roll from k-4th grade, but her assignments were poor. I decided mid-term to pull her out to stem the hemorrhaging. We just started reviewing the foundational stuff, so that we could rebuild her skills. It didn't take as long as I thought about 4 months going over basic and then moving to intermediate level material. She began to understand and build confidence and now this term she will start 6th grade doing 7-8th grade work. Just set aside time, however long it takes to rebuild the foundation, review what she should know before moving onto more. It wasn't easy because they other two that I am homeschooling were more advanced in their learning set, so she felt a little disheartened. But once we worked through her issues she understood and it made all the difference. I didn't dumb down her learning, in fact I used material that was rated at higher level. However, my approach to teaching her the lesson was done so that she could relate and understand the lesson. I set my expectations of where I wanted her to be higher than what she knew at the time and when she was done she met it. That's the thing, children will always meet your expectation, it may not be right away but they will. So if you set it low, they will meet it and if they set it high they will too. Every once in a while they will exceed it. Educate4Kids thehomeschoolexchange.com
No worries! In public school, kids in the same class are on all different levels in every subject. Grade levels are just there for the school to be able to move kids along together in a semi-orderly fashion LOL For reading, have her read a short chapter book with you. That should give you some idea about her reading abilities, then you can go from there. For math, have her do some progressively more difficult problems: 1) Simple addition 4 + 3 = 7, etc. 2) Addition with regrouping 3) Simple subtraction 4) Subtraction with regrouping 5) Simple multiplication 6) Multiplication of larger numbers 7) Simple Division 8) Division of larger numbers From there, see how much she knows about telling time and counting money/making change, etc. From there, see what she can do with measurements, etc. That should tell you a lot, and once all these are mastered, you can pretty well start her out in a 6th grade book and provide support and help. Most things are repeated each year, just a little more in depth... For Language, find out how much she knows about parts of speech and just start from there. You don't have to worry about a grade level, really. She'll learn and advance according to her own ability. You might even start with books on her *grade level* and then stop and "review" when she has trouble...I would NOT suggest putting her on a third grade level across the board for any reason. How humiliating that would be! Even if you do have to review some areas, don't make a big deal out of it...this is a touchy time in a kids' life, anyways, these tween years!
You know that regrouping is so funny, I use borrowing and carrying because that is more relational to life in general and kids can relate. We even say we are goign over to neighbors to borrow from them, lol
If you are looking for inexpensive ways to homeschool, check around to see if your local area has a homeschooler's library. We have one here and it is an amazing resource, especially if you are going to have to jump back a little from time to time. There's no sense in buying a 3rd grade text if you're only going to use two or three chapters when you can just borrow it.
how about unschooling ? then you help learning what she is interested in, and no need to check what she knows and what she doesn't :angel: Anyway - goodluck ! Amir
Hi and thanks for the guidance and direction regarding homeschooling. We have had a lot of things going on, VBS, taking grandma to appointments and then we have the summer cold going around in the house. I have been shopping around and finding used curriculum through church friends and used websites. You know it can be addicting to find good deals on books, I'm having loads of fun shopping around and our 6th grader gets excited every time something new comes in the mail. I'm starting to think she is coming around on the homeschooling thing. To let you all know I started introducing worksheets today. She was struggling with long division, she was just missing some organization where to place the digits (hope that makes sense). Funny thing is I have been a mother for 16 years to 4 children, duh, the 8 year old, who's been home schooled needed a lot more attention than usual. Why did I not see that coming??? I love being a mother. P.S. I'm going to look through the threads for the answer but would like advice on how to keep a 2 1/2 busy? Thanks gals.
