Whether your child homeschools, or goes to school outside of the home, your child’s classroom struggles have to be pinpointed in order to make proper accommodations. In public school this is usually done though I.E.P. evaluations, teachers classroom observations, parent input, and therapist evaluations. As a homeschooling mom, it’s not always that simple. I have used several different methods, to help me pinpoint learning difficulties, and I have done it differently with each child.
For Hailey, we have not had the public school evaluate her. However, we did have her evaluated buy a therapist. They did IQ testing and that helped a lot. Before we had her IQ tested, we had already learned several things simply by paying attention. For instance, I knew that for whatever reason, worksheets we her enemy. She could know the answer to every question on the page, yet it would take hours for her to answer them. We tried several different options to help her with that, and after two horrible years of struggling with math worksheets we decided to go with a computer based math. She has done wonderful. We were able to make this observation through teaching her, WE came up with the accommodation at home without the help of outside sources. But, there was another problem, Written Expression, and Math Facts. We tried everything to help with this, we read book, looked up articles purchases special helps etc. but nothing was helping. When we had her IQ tested, she scored above average in everything, but had a significant delay in working memory. That was the missing puzzle piece, and that information has helped us tailor her curriculum to specifically help with that.
So what’s my point? My point is there are many different ways to discover a child’s needs. The awesome thing about homeschooling is that you are free to accommodate however is needed. Here are some ways you can help decide what struggles your child is having.
- Observe the child and take note of struggles- We recently observed Christopher in children’s church, and took note of things we noticed him struggling with. This was very helpful to us.
- Request an education evaluation from your local school district – You are entitled to these services even if you homeschool. However, unless your child has spend time in day care, or a classroom setting the results will be limited, but can still be useful.
- Seek out IQ evaluations from your therapist (if your child has one), if not ask your ped.
- If you see a struggle research it on the internet, ask around, read books.
- Try something, if it works wonderful, if it doesn’t try something else.
- Give yourself and your child a break. With homeschooling you have the advantage of stopping so that you re-evaluate what the issue is, and making a plan. Breaks are good!
- Research, Research, Research.
There are so many suggestions I could give, and I am sure that I have left out many good ones. If you have a good suggestion, please comment and let us know. In my next WTOW post I will discuss some of my children’s specific needs, and what we are doing to accommodate those needs. In the meantime you can read last year accommodation post. http://jacksacademy.blogspot.com/2011/11/i-cant-tell-you-amount-of-times-i-have.html
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