Life & End of Term 2 Homeschool Updates

Whew! We made it to the end of Term 2 and through our term exams the week before last, and now we’re on our two-week term break. Our term breaks always give me a chance to regroup, refresh, and plan for our upcoming term. While I’m in the thick of it and it’s all fresh on my mind, I thought I’d share our life and Term 2 homeschool updates with you!

LIFE UPDATES

I GOT A JOB!

So my biggest life update is that I recently got a new job! Many of you know that I’m a HUGE fan of All About Reading and All About Spelling. I’ve been an affiliate with the company for the past few years, and it’s the ONLY homeschool curriculum that we’ve never changed because it has worked so well for our family. I was so excited when I saw that All About Learning Press was hiring at the first of the year, and immediately applied. Just a few weeks ago, I accepted the job as their newest customer happiness representative! I’m training right now (aka drinking from a fire hose), and soon will begin helping fellow homeschoolers implement AAR and AAS and adapt it to best fit their kids’ needs.

I’m not exaggerating when I say that this job is an EXACT answer to prayers I began praying back in October. Blaise has never once pressured me to work, but the truth is, I enjoy it. I’ve written before about how I was going to be a “career woman” before God completely changed my heart (and my perspective). But even though I fully embrace my role as a homemaker and see the eternal significance it has in our home, I still fully believe that God wired me to enjoy working, too. Those two things are not mutually exclusive. And honestly, I really like taking a bit of the financial burden off of Blaise’s shoulders. He faithfully provides for our family and he never complains about that responsibility, but I KNOW it’s a lot for one person to carry.

So last fall I began praying in earnest for a part-time, remote position that would allow me to keep homeschooling, but provide the occupation (and income) that I wanted. I said out loud more than once, “It would be so great if I could get a job working for one of the curriculum companies that we already use.”

And God faithfully provided exactly that.

EVALUATING OUR OLDEST FOR DYSLEXIA

The other big life update (although it directly correlates to homeschooling, too) is that we are in the process of having our oldest son, Mr. Eight, evaluated for dyslexia.

I’ve hesitated to write about this on here, because I want to protect his privacy and uphold his dignity. But as we’ve gone through this process, I’ve literally read everything I can get my hands on, and truthfully, I wish there was more out there specifically for homeschooling parents. So I will be prayerfully sharing more about our journey, carefully and in a way that respects my son’s personhood. But also in a way that helps other parents who might be walking this same road.

Where are we in the process? Sort of at the beginning. I’ve suspected that something was going on with him for about a year, but until he turned 8, most of the signs I was seeing in his schoolwork were still considered “normal.” (I’ll write about this more, but I cannot tell you how frustrated and disappointed I am in most of the literature that discusses dyslexia and the signs to look for.) My intuition (and years of experience as a special education teacher) was telling me that the signs I was seeing weren’t normal, but I felt like we were in a wait-and-see holding pattern.

I began some interventions with him last spring, and really intensified them at the start of this school year. By mid-November, I knew for sure that what I was seeing was a sign of something more. I finally got us on a waitlist for a professional psychoeducational evaluation (4-6 months out) and gave him a few different dyslexia screeners and phonemic awareness evaluations. All of which came back as “high risk for dyslexia.”

So I’ve added a phonemic awareness intervention program to our daily work to address his deficits in phonemic awareness. And I’m finishing up THE BOOK on dyslexia, Overcoming Dyslexia by Sally Shaywitz. We’re coming up with a game plan to best address his needs, and waiting on the formal eval.

I’m going to talk about this more. But that’s where we are now.

And now onto our Term 2 homeschool updates!

TERM 2 HOMESCHOOL UPDATES

This has been our best school year yet! I think part of that is because with each year, I become more confident in implementing Charlotte Mason’s methods. I also think it’s partly because Miss Three is finally to an age where she’s happier joining us at the table than she is getting into everything and generally wreaking havoc (#homeschoolingwithatoddler). That helps a lot!

So first, what’s gone really well in our homeschool this year?

Our timetable really works well this year! I’ve used the ADE schedule cards for a few years now, but this year it feels like we’re in a good groove and actually able to stick to the schedule. This year has been the fullest feast we’ve had. We’ve even added clay modeling and consistently done Swedish Drill!

We’ve also been LOVING history this year! We’re currently studying the 1700s in our history cycle, and we’ve made it to the Revolutionary War. Just before our exams, we’d read about the “shot heard round the world.” Mr. Eight has done such a great job discussing our history lessons all year. When we read about the French and Indian War, I asked him who he thought won the war. He said, “Well, I guess the English probably won since we speak English now.”

It’s also been so much fun watching Mr. Eight continue to make steady progress in reading and begin to read for pleasure in his free time. He’s on Level 3 of All About Reading, and doing really great! In fact, the reason it took me as long as it did to connect the dots and realize that he has dyslexia is because he reads so well. He does have some hallmark signs of dyslexia as he’s reading aloud, but he’s generally made really steady progress and I attribute that to using All About Reading (an Orton-Gillingham program) from the beginning.

And math, even with its frustrations and occasional meltdowns, has been so encouraging this year. Mr. Eight has moved easily from adding and subtracting to multiplying this year. He’s multiplying 2-digit by 2-digit problems, and doing really well! He has struggled to memorize his multiplication tables and he needs reminders about following the steps in the multi-step problems, but thankfully, the Charlotte Mason approach encourages us to keep moving forward as long as he can demonstrate understanding of the underlying principles of the math, which he can.

Finally, adding Mr. Six’s lessons has been such a joy! He’s still in Kindergarten, so not in Form 1B formal lessons yet; however, he joins in on a lot of our lessons, can narrate well, and is progressing through his own math and reading lessons very well!

WHAT HAVE WE STRUGGLED WITH IN OUR HOMESCHOOL THIS YEAR?

We haven’t struggled too much this year, but most of our struggles have turned out to be a direct result of dyslexia.

Mr. Eight has been a struggling speller from the very beginning. We use All About Spelling, and have from the start, but this is where the dyslexia really impacts his academics. It took us a full year and a half to complete AAS Level 1, and when we started AAS Level 2 after Christmas break, it was clear that we hadn’t made the progress I’d hoped. After giving him a few different screeners and assessments (and doing a TON of research), I’ve realized that he has pretty weak orthographic awareness, so as we begin Term 3, we’ll add some activities to our spelling lessons that help reinforce the orthographic mapping process.

The other thing that continues to frustrate me, in particular, is foreign language. We’ve tried different curricula to no avail. We’ve made very little progress in the last few years, and while Mr. Eight says he enjoys learning Spanish, he can rarely recall what he’s learned in order to actually converse. When we were using Simple Spanish, he was able to recite an entire poem in Spanish, which was awesome, but he really didn’t have any meaning attached to it, and he’s since forgotten it. We added The ULAT back in this year after both boys requested it, and again, which we enjoy the lessons, we’re not really able to apply them in conversation.

After a lot of reading and research on dyslexia, it’s become clear to me that we need to set foreign language aside for now. Dyslexia is a weakness in phonological awareness, and before we proceed in learning the phonemes of a foreign language, we need to first master our own. From what I’ve read, it’s not impossible for a child with dyslexia to learn a foreign language (in fact, I don’t believe in “impossible” when it comes to education), but it can be very difficult. So that’s one subject area we’re going to put on hold for now and reevaluate in the future.

LOOKING AHEAD TO TERM 3

I am excited to begin Term 3 next week! We’ll be starting a couple of new handicrafts, trading out clay modeling for weaving. We’ve also begun embroidery, which we’re all really enjoying and will continue into the next term.

I’m also very optimistic about our approach to literacy instruction. I’ll write about it more, but the realization that Mr. Eight has dyslexia has come with a mixed bag of emotions, but among the front-runner of them is relief. It’s a relief to know what we’re dealing with now and to have a solid plan in place to address it. Instead of feeling discouraged, I actually feel empowered to equip him with the skills he needs to successfully read and write!

And that’s it! Our life and Term 2 homeschool updates!

How’s your school year going? I’d love to hear from you about what’s working and what’s not!