julbug
05-12-2005, 12:00 PM
OK, I'm not a homeschooling mom but I will be "homeschooling" DS over the summer and I'm here hoping to glean some wisdom from the experts. :)
Background:
My son is adopted. He was born in Russia and lived his early life in an orphanage there. He came to live with me when he was three. By that time he was pretty severely delayed in several areas, most noticably in physical growth and development and his language skills. I had him start classes with a speech therapist right away which continued through Kindergarten and then tapered off at the end of that school year. He now speaks normally for his age and the only evidence of his early history is that he is slightly smaller than his classmates (Russians are smaller in stature than Americans though so this may be part of the reason as well).
His ps Kindergarten teacher never looked at the files on any of her students, ever. She excelled at working with all of her students and they all blossomed beyond all expectations. I can say these things with certainty because I volunteered in the classroom on a regular basis and observed throughout the school year. It was only at the end of the academic year that I told her of my son's history and that he had experienced profound developmental and cognitive delays and that he had been almost completely unable to communicate as little as two years earlier. That was when she told me that she never viewed students' files for the very reason that she did not want to form preconceived ideas regarding what each student was capable of. She said that all year long she had no idea that he was even adopted, much less that he had experienced anything but a normal upbringing. She said that he was right where he needed to be on all learning and development areas for his age, even excelling in reading comprehension, with a nearly perfect score on his Kindergarten diagnostic test.
Now, this year my son is in first grade. The first parent-teacher conference was scheduled for a few weeks after school had begun so that teachers would have students' work to show parents' and parents could ask questions about the classroom routines they had heard about from their children so far. I brought up my son's early history only to share with his teacher that he was starting to feel a little sensitive about his size, being the smallest one in his class, and could she keep an eye out regarding any teasing. She interrupted me before I could get these words out and said don't worry, that she had read all about him in his file, his behavior and classroom performance was "completely normal". Indeed his performance has been "normal" this year, mediocre even, not the above average performance he was displaying last year. I am convinced that my son is doing only what is expected of him in class and nothing more.
I suppose it was fortunate that he got the teacher he did in Kindergarten and not the other way around, otherwise I may have settled for believing that my son was only capable of whatever little was required of him in class without striving to see if he can accomplish or comprehend more. Since I know he is capable of so much, I have been supplementing his education with more challenging materials at home. We have really enjoyed this arrangement and are looking forward to expanding our "program" during summer. So I guess in a way he is homeschooled and attends public school too.
We have put in an application at a private Christian school here in town, where we wanted him to go when it was time to start Kindergarten and then again when it was time for first grade but were unable to afford it. We have an evaluation appointment and parent interview scheduled for next week.
I have started designing a program that DH & I can implement with him over the summer to bring him up to speed in preparation for 2nd grade at Christian school. He still does well in reading comprehension but math skills are an area of frustration for him. He's still using his fingers to figure out addition and subtraction which is getting more and more difficult with bigger numbers. Are there any tricks I should know to teach him these skills or is it just a matter of memorizing, like with multiplication tables? How do you teach your DC math?
Background:
My son is adopted. He was born in Russia and lived his early life in an orphanage there. He came to live with me when he was three. By that time he was pretty severely delayed in several areas, most noticably in physical growth and development and his language skills. I had him start classes with a speech therapist right away which continued through Kindergarten and then tapered off at the end of that school year. He now speaks normally for his age and the only evidence of his early history is that he is slightly smaller than his classmates (Russians are smaller in stature than Americans though so this may be part of the reason as well).
His ps Kindergarten teacher never looked at the files on any of her students, ever. She excelled at working with all of her students and they all blossomed beyond all expectations. I can say these things with certainty because I volunteered in the classroom on a regular basis and observed throughout the school year. It was only at the end of the academic year that I told her of my son's history and that he had experienced profound developmental and cognitive delays and that he had been almost completely unable to communicate as little as two years earlier. That was when she told me that she never viewed students' files for the very reason that she did not want to form preconceived ideas regarding what each student was capable of. She said that all year long she had no idea that he was even adopted, much less that he had experienced anything but a normal upbringing. She said that he was right where he needed to be on all learning and development areas for his age, even excelling in reading comprehension, with a nearly perfect score on his Kindergarten diagnostic test.
Now, this year my son is in first grade. The first parent-teacher conference was scheduled for a few weeks after school had begun so that teachers would have students' work to show parents' and parents could ask questions about the classroom routines they had heard about from their children so far. I brought up my son's early history only to share with his teacher that he was starting to feel a little sensitive about his size, being the smallest one in his class, and could she keep an eye out regarding any teasing. She interrupted me before I could get these words out and said don't worry, that she had read all about him in his file, his behavior and classroom performance was "completely normal". Indeed his performance has been "normal" this year, mediocre even, not the above average performance he was displaying last year. I am convinced that my son is doing only what is expected of him in class and nothing more.
I suppose it was fortunate that he got the teacher he did in Kindergarten and not the other way around, otherwise I may have settled for believing that my son was only capable of whatever little was required of him in class without striving to see if he can accomplish or comprehend more. Since I know he is capable of so much, I have been supplementing his education with more challenging materials at home. We have really enjoyed this arrangement and are looking forward to expanding our "program" during summer. So I guess in a way he is homeschooled and attends public school too.
We have put in an application at a private Christian school here in town, where we wanted him to go when it was time to start Kindergarten and then again when it was time for first grade but were unable to afford it. We have an evaluation appointment and parent interview scheduled for next week.
I have started designing a program that DH & I can implement with him over the summer to bring him up to speed in preparation for 2nd grade at Christian school. He still does well in reading comprehension but math skills are an area of frustration for him. He's still using his fingers to figure out addition and subtraction which is getting more and more difficult with bigger numbers. Are there any tricks I should know to teach him these skills or is it just a matter of memorizing, like with multiplication tables? How do you teach your DC math?