There are times you just need a laugh…

Tim Hawkins will be giving a performance Friday night at the Midwest Homeschooling Convention.

Here is another homeschooling video which is funny.

I hope you enjoy! Smile my friend it makes the day better!

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Do you have a child that needs some more work with a Left to Right awareness, acknowledging separate words, and staying on one line? This exercise is great for those issues!

I started with a plain paper and wrote ‘YOU ARE GREAT!’

Then starting at the left side put the pen on the paper and drag it across LEFT to RIGHT. I chose to look for E’s. So every E I came to I would circle.

Until you are at the end of the line. This exercise reenforces the necessary skills of LEFT to RIGHT reading, Detail to the letters involved, and by dragging the pen you know you are staying on the same line! You can make your own papers to use. Or you can use magazine ads. Here is my little one practising on a magazine ad.

I hope you have fun with this one. While it is therapy this is a great fun way

to make it part of the everyday homeschooling. God bless!

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You heard right I am having a MAJOR giveaway this week. I will be speaking at the Heart of the Matter conference February 22-25th. I have four tickets to giveaway! Not only tickets but when I went to this convention last year I got some SWEET freebies. Had a great time chatting and making new friends. This is a wonderful way to go to a convention when you can’t leave the house. Snowmaggedon or not if the net is up you can come!

I am an easy giveaway blogger.. so here are the rules.

1. Leave a comment with contact info

2. Facebook this to your friends, leave a comment with link to get ANOTHER chance at a ticket.

3. Twitter this and leave a comment with a link to get ANOTHER chance at a ticket.

One ticket per person. This contest ends February 10th. If you win we must talk by February 12th!!

I am going to be talking about sensory issues and learning and living with our wonderful blessings! I hope you enjoy. There will be a 20 minute Q&A section so come with your questions! My lovely kids have sensory issues and we have dealt with them for about 12 years now. I have lots of ideas to help you through your day!

Tell a friend sign up yourself. With 4 tickets available there is a good chance you just might win one!

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Here is the link to The Homeschooling Channel’s new ning.  A ning is a members only community. Remember that I am working right NOW on a show for this summer on The Homeschool Channel!!

If you go over join the Special Needs Homeschooling group. I started it! Another great way we can talk together and support one another!

Visit The Homeschool Channel

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Coming up soon Heart of the Matter is hosting a Homeschool Refresher Conference, FEB 22-24. I will be speaking about sensory kids! I plan to raise awareness of sensory issues and give tons of tips. This will be a how to get some learning and living done with a sensory intense child in the house!

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Sleep apnea is all over the commercials now. Try this product and all your sleep issues will magically disappear! Most are bunk! If you think your child has a sleep apnea problem get a sleep study!!!

One of my girls had significate obstructive sleep apnea. She was sleeping through the night but she snored horribly. Her quality of sleep was low and it showed in her inability to maintain focus, stay awake when snuggled to be read to, or any trip in the van. She needed her tonsils and adenoids taken out. When they did she got tremendously better. Problem solved!

There is another type of apnea though much rarer called Central Sleep Apnea. This more common in preemies and children with a brain abnormality like a Chiari Malformation. This is were the brain forgets to ask for another breath. It is very important this is followed closely!

Other physical issues that can affect the quality of our children’s sleep. Are muscle problems, such as cerebral palsy. Tight muscles causing uncomfortable positions or cramping at night. Low muscle tone where the child can not turn and change to a better position. With low tone your child may not even recognize the problem of position because they don’t fully wake up.

If muscle issues are causing problems ask your peds for positioning pillows. Rub out muscles before bed. Bathing in warm water before bed can also relax muscles.

One more thought before we leave the sleep topic. There is a large difference between a sleep study for an adult and a sleep study for a child. Things like how the lab techs are trained to treat children. The size of equipment used. Finally reading the study is best done by a dr that is experienced in reading a child’s study.  It is in your best interest to get a study done at a Children’s Hospital or a Pediatric sleep lab.

Sleep is vital! If you cannot sleep or cannot sleep well your learning, healing, and energy will be lacking. Getting a good night’s sleep is worth the investment of time and money to attempt to improve it!

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Hello all! This is just a general update to let you know what is going on. Right now I am working on a new updated look for the blog. I am excited about it but it is much harder work than I expected.

Learning to Thrive is starting to really take off! I have wonderful people from all over the homeschooling spectrum lined up for interviews!

As the new year has rushed through January (really it was super fast!) I am polishing workshops for two West Virginia conferences. The Christian Home Educator’s of West Virginia conference will be help here in Fairmont! I will be giving a workshop. The keynote is Todd Wilson and featured speaker is Deb Bell!

You can find me at The Homeschool Channel booth at the MidWest Convention. You may also find me with camera man in tow the first night doing interviews!

The Lord is good and all these things are wonderful. If you would please pray that my health stays strong.  Also for this ministry to protect it and strengthen it. I appreciate your prayers my friends!

God bless

Heather

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We are a gluten free casein free family. Three of the family, myself and two of my girls have Celiac disease. The others (except daddy) are all highly sensitive to wheat, dairy and some are sensitive to soy. As you can guess trying to get food on the table that everyone can eat is a difficult.

I have another blog that is a more earthy, my house, cooking, and homeschooling blog.  On that blog have started a blog hop on Friday’s. This is for anyone who is gluten free or gluten free/casein free diet. I am hoping to share recipes, site, support and encouragement. We are a family of seven and we have been on a strict gluten free, casien free diet with a dash (two kids) that are allergic to soy oh and the behavioural meltdown when they get red 40. If we can do it you can too! And I don’t go broke every month in grocery bills!

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How to Help Your Struggling Reader

• Reading the words from left to right can be a difficult task for struggling readers. Often the words appear to move around or the space between words us unclear. It helps to use a finger or a card underneath the words to help your eyes “track” and focus on each word and letter you are sounding out. This will train your eyes to focus on the word you are reading instead of skipping around looking for other clues to simply guess at the word.
• Those who struggle with reading often have many amazing strengths such as building things, putting puzzles together, abilities in art, drama, music, and they are very creative. Make sure to focus on those strengths and allow them experiences and success in those areas.
• In order for someone to improve fluency, reading must become automatic. This happens when they are able to see the word and quickly identify the patterns and sounds. This can be accomplished by teaching the person the patterns of English (Five Phonetic Skills) and how these patterns affect the vowels; the more they work with these patterns they will develop this automatic orthographic reading ability and their fluency will increase.
• When you approach a word you do not know it helps to look through it, identify the vowels and decide what they are saying before you sound out the word (this helps if you know the phonetic skills to prove the vowels). Once you know the vowel sounds you have the hardest part done! Then sound out the word from the beginning all the way to the end without stopping or guessing a couple of times and you will get it! (Taken from the Dennis Davis Reading Method © 2006)
• One of the best comprehension strategies is to make a connection with what you are reading. Can you relate to any of the characters or the story? If you make a connection to yourself it is called text-to-self connection; if you make a connection from the story you are reading to another story you have read it is called text-to-text connection; and if you make a connection to something you have seen on the news or an experience someone you know has had it is called text-to-world connection. The more connections you make the better you will remember and comprehend the story.
• Asking questions is another great reading comprehension strategy. If you ask questions about what is happening in the story, a character’s feelings, or wonder what will happen next, you will be engaged in your reading and that will help you understand on a deeper level.
• When you’re sounding out a word and you are having a hard time, check to see if there are any “C’s” or “G’s” followed by an “i” or an “e”. Remember that those vowels change the sound of “c” and “g” to their soft sound as in the words city, cent, gentle, and giraffe. (Taken from the Dennis Davis Reading Method © 2006)
• If your child recognizes a word on one line and not on another, this could be an indication of a phonological weakness known as dyslexia. The best thing to do is observe your child and see if this is a pattern that happens often when he reads. Be patient. It is just as frustrating for them that they don’t recognize the word as it is for you. Help them sound it out and look for the vowel sound(s) and patterns in the word. Remember, someone who has dyslexia must see a correct representation of the word almost 30 times more than the average reader in order for it to be stored into long-term memory!
• Remember, when you or your child encounters a new word to look up the meaning of that word. If you attach meaning then you are more likely to remember it and be able to decode it. After you decode the word practice writing it and using it in a sentence.
• Many people who struggle with reading have low self-esteem and feel stupid. They may have been called “stupid” or “lazy”. All research has been conclusive in proving that difficulty with reading has nothing to do with intelligence. If you know someone who feels this way, them know that their reading struggles have nothing to do with their intelligence and they simply need to be taught in the way their brain learns. This can be one of the most empowering pieces of information they ever receive.
• … “That’s the real problem with kids who struggle with learning … Some kids feel like they’re stupid. I want them to know that they’re not. They just learn differently. Once they understand that and have the tools to learn in their individual way, then they can feel good about themselves.” — Charles Schwab
• “Automatic word recognition, which is dependent on phonics knowledge, allows readers to attend to meaning, likewise, slow belabored decoding overloads short-term memory and impedes comprehension.” –Louisa C. Moats of the American Federation of Teachers
• When writing or taking spelling tests if you will say the word you are writing out-loud two times, you are better able to feel the sounds you are making in your mouth and voice box and catch all the phonemes that you might miss by simply hearing the word spoken.
• Those who struggle with reading and processing language also have a difficult time processing spoken directions and have a difficult time with organization. One of the best strategies is to encourage the person to make-up checklists outlining each step of a particular task. This is why a phonics program must be systematic and simple — it must progress logically for the learner in order to have it make sense and have them retain the information.
• If you are working with someone who has a processing disorder such as dyslexia, remember that they often need more time to complete tasks. It takes a great amount of effort for them to concentrate so intensely when reading and processing language — allow them the time they need and be patient.
• There is a buzz-word in education called “invented spelling,” which basically means that the child is not required to spell correctly but allowed to express themselves freely and creatively unencumbered by spelling rules. It comes with the best intentions: “When a first grader picks up a pencil and musters the courage to write his very first sentence, you’re not going to harp about the misspellings.” But allowing this free-form spelling method for right-brained children beyond the beginning stages of reading and writing can have disastrous consequences. Because right-brained children have such a good visual memory, they may have difficulty relearning the correct spelling. There must be a balance, and giving them a strong phonetic and spelling foundation will help ensure future reading success.
• Those who struggle with reading are often also easily distracted. They are highly sensitive to stimuli and change their attention with each new sound or movement. It is best if they sit away from high traffic areas such as doors leading out of the classroom or near the teacher’s desk where students are constantly coming and going. The front of the room is optimal so that they are as close to the teacher as possible in order to help eliminate interference when trying to listen to instruction.
• Reading is an intense activity for some and requires them to create their own stimuli to help increase brain waves to match up with the task at hand. Students often do this by wiggling around, bouncing their foot, or tapping their fingers. Let them. It actually helps their concentration for the task instead of hindering it.
• “Children with high ability typically are independent, self-directed, willful, dominant nonconformists. These children are not passive — they are often difficult to be around because they want to “run the show.” Yet this same quality also makes them most interesting and stimulating to be around.”  — Ellen Winner, Gifted Children

Using these tools and suggestions you can ensure success for your struggling reader. Success leads to greater self-esteem, which provides hope that creates joy and opens doors for these students to ensure their future happiness and success.

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Shantell Berrett has a B.A. in English specializing in reading and dyslexia.  She has three wonderful kids ages 13, 11, and 7.  Her 11 year old son has dyslexia and is the reason she works in this field in writing, research and educating in schools and at home. Visit her website at ReadingHorizonsAtHome.com.

Source: http://www.homeschool-articles.com/how-to-help-your-struggling-reader/

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It’s that time again. The time for Texas textbook review committee to consider the  textbook trends for the most of the industry. What? You haven’t heard about this. I hadn’t either until my husband had to return to college. The text books were outrageously priced. Once he had the older version of a text and didn’t realise it until well into the semester because the material was the same. We like many others began wondering what was going on when the texts where “revised” every semester stopping us from buying used books for most classes. It turns out the textbook industry is a huge! It moves where the money comes from large states like Texas and California have almost all the say in the direction the public school texts are going.

Fox news and Texas textbook debate

A few months ago Tucker Carlson did a report on Fox news about the textbook industry and how it works, Fox News Reporting, Do you know what textbooks your children are really reading? . One it makes over 10 Billion dollars a year. There are massive amounts of money involved. With the passing of IDEA and schools needing to pass tests every year. Schools began working toward the test. The test makers, also the textbook industry, revise their tests often. In order for the schools to hope to keep up they have to upgrade their texts to match the tests. This is a circular trap and controlled by the textbook industry.

The other huge issue with textbooks is who is deciding what is going into them. The large textbook companies (according to Tucker’s report) have an internal highly secretive group that dictates the trends in the material. Silly me I thought that fact ruled what would be put into a textbook. From what the report said many of these people are strongly liberal in their thinking. So the material trends they choose are of less patriotic history because is leads to discussion of a God founded nation and more information about alternative lifestyles of today. If you read many of the newest texts without other knowledge you would think that homosexuality was a perfectly normal, large portion of American society. The truth is Centers for Disease Control’s National Center for Health Statistics reveals that only 2.3% of the population considers themselves homosexual 2002 study. That leads me to believe that textbooks are peddling an agenda rather than  scholarly knowledge.

Lets be clear there are still well founded solid textbooks out there. Many of the smaller homeschooling companies have put out great books that you can rely on. Christian Liberty Press, Apologia, Alpha Omega and many more. Read the front cover find out WHO the book is from.

I have never been a big fan of  cookie cutter textbooks. This Fox report and what I have seen in texts myself has encouraged me to throw out the couple of textbooks I had been given over the years. I would rather pay some extra and get a text I trust to use and pass down through the family than teach them something I have to correct constantly.

If you think that is a bit much read this Forbes article about a public school teacher’s awakening to how horrible textbooks can get information wrong.

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