# Made our decision



## Lunar Rain (Apr 7, 2013)

I have been contemplating on homeschooling my 5 year old since I was pregnant with her. As she has developed I have noticed that she was not on the same levels as children her age should be. I have brought up this concern to the Early Learning Coalition in my area but they told me to just keep working with her. She is in Pre-k at a church and they just came to me today telling me that I needed to have her evaluated for Special Education. She is very smart on so many levels and a typical little girl. 

My question is how do I start this journey? She would be starting Kindergarten in the fall.


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## FarmChix (Mar 3, 2013)

There are many different scenarios in play that could affect whether she demonstrates the need for special education. Start with your family doctor. Everyone does not learn the same. It could be something as simple as the need for eyeglasses. I would definitely evaluate opinions of a professional in this situation.


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## Lunar Rain (Apr 7, 2013)

Thank you. I have set up an appointment with her doctor. The concern is her speech and communication. It's easy for me to understand what she is saying, but others have a harder to understand her.


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## MJsLady (Aug 16, 2006)

Lunar, something that will help her in all areas, is sing language. Even if she is NOT deaf. It has been shown to improve a child's speech, comprehension as well as motor skills.
Also consider that some children will develop faster in some areas than others. Not all children are a like. 
I really hate it when folks rush (and working in preschool for over 20 years and raising my 2 boys I saw it often) to have childrne labled.

My son's 4th grade teacher insisted he was slow or dyslexic and could not read and pushed for testing.
I finally took him in and had him tested. The guy giving the test came out and asked me why we were there and I told him because his 4th grade teacher says he can't read.
The guy looked at me and then his paper with this funny look and said, "ma'am, he is reading at a 10th grade comprehension level. My guess is he is just bored."


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## bluefish (Jan 27, 2006)

The doctor is a good idea, but sometimes some kids are just slow in one aspect. My oldest didn't talk well enough for other people to understand well til she was almost 8. Nothing was wrong with her, she just was slow talking. She didn't even try talking til she was 2. My second is looking to follow the same track.

That was part of why I started homeschooling. I was NOT going to have my kid stuck in therapy and special ed when she didn't need it. I'd had foster kids that were in speech therapy at school, so I had some idea of what they did. It wasn't much. Gradually as my daughter got older, we'd pick on sound/word at a time and work on it til it got better. Right around 8, it clicked and she started talking well. Although she still has issues with r's in the middle of a word, but she's completely understandable to anyone.


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## bluefish (Jan 27, 2006)

Oh, are you asking about how to start the homeschooling journey? At that age I didn't do formal 'school'. We worked on counting, colors, learning to read, although that took a while for her. I tried to integrate that into everything we did. When she helped me in the kitchen, I'd have her count....whatever..........cups of flour, plates set on the table, etc. What color were they? They learn so much just by doing at the age, it's amazing!

If you're wanting to be a little more formal about things, I'm not much help there, but there many people here who were/are and hopefully they'll chime in shortly.


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## MJsLady (Aug 16, 2006)

For homeschooling you can look over this site: OFE
For kindy though you can look online for pages of things to do, colors, numbers and so on. 
Go as fast or slow as your dd wants. Some children learn quickly (my oldest before he began school could do a lot of things, but would not read. He could he just did not like to. BTW he is a supervisor for a software company now)


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## Mrs. Jo (Jun 5, 2007)

There's nothing wrong with trying to understand your daughter. If she has a problem, your decision to homeschool her will be affected by what ever problem she has. A lot of kids have vision problems, audio processing problems, dylexia and other special needs. These things are real impairments. Knowing about them and how to teach with these problems just gives you more tools to use to help her.
Your goal is to help her be happy and to teach her. If you deny she has problems because "people are so eager to label kids" that is going to make your job harder and it will be harder for her to be happy. She will begin to pick up the fact that she has difficulty with normal age related stuff at some point and wonder what is wrong with her. That can lead to great harm for her. 
You have to learn how she works.
I dearly wish people had told us to get help for our daughter when she was little. I'm quite sure we would have been on a better track with her education had we sought evaluation earlier. We would have been spared so much misery. 
We have early childhood education here. Go to your school district website and see what they offer in terms of evaluation. And call them. Not sure how they would work with such a young child, but this is a good time to explore the issue. 
HSLDA has a whole bunch of info on special needs. That's a good place to begin to research. Good Luck. You can do this!


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## 78Parrothead (Apr 6, 2013)

Is she a special needs student or someone who would simply benefit from speech therapy? 

Getting started homeschooling is going to depend on your homeschooling philosophy. What type of school do you want? The choices run the gamut from extreme unschooling to classical to eclectic to public school at home. 

Once you decide what you want our of your school you can begin to pick books and materials geared to the way you want to teach and especially to the way your dd learns. 

Kindergarten should be a time of exploration. Formal seat work, IMO, shouldn't take long at all. No more than an hour a day with a few breaks for getting the wiggles out. It shouldn't be when she or you are tired and grumpy. That just sets everyone up for failure.


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## SLFarmMI (Feb 21, 2013)

Lunar Rain said:


> Thank you. I have set up an appointment with her doctor. The concern is her speech and communication. It's easy for me to understand what she is saying, but others have a harder to understand her.


If speech and language is your main concern, I would suggest having her evaluated by a certified speech pathologist. The family doctor just doesn't have the training and expertise to tell you if your daughter has an articulation (production of sounds) or language (the use of words) deficit. This evaluation can be done through your local school district at no cost to you. She does not have to be enrolled in school to have her evaluated. Speech and language falls under the umbrella of special education so all you need to do is contact the special education department of your district and they can advise you from there.


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## Lunar Rain (Apr 7, 2013)

Thank you guys all for all the input. 
I have met with the Speech therapist yesterday. She will be evaluating her and giving me a therapy plan. 
I used to work with "special needs" children in the past and have had experience with basic sign language. She is no where near "special needs" as I had the privileged to work with. My daughters spoke with sign language since they were 6 months of age. 
My concerns were of her being "labeled" when she is just a little slower developing her speech and being left behind while or treated differently. I have had a child "labeled" in the public school system and it was a total nightmare and I never want to relive that through another child. 
I have also found the answers I was looking for of how to start homeschooling in the area where we are moving to. It is very comforting that I have a girl friend that is a home school veteran and has taken me under her wing.  
I appreciate each and everyone's point of views as they were insightful. I want give my little one the best learning experience and I know with home schooling, the options are endless.


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## halfpint (Jan 24, 2005)

You are right to avoid labels. My 2nd son was a late bloomer, but in the private school he attended they had already labeled him in kindergarten. We began home educating him in 1st grade, and while he didn't learn to read until he was 10, he ended up graduating from college with a 3.9 and from grad school with a 4.0. We are friends with his K4 teacher and she was shocked that he could do this. My 3rd went through years of private speech therapy and although he also was a late reader (therapist told me not to teach him to read until he could speak), he has caught up.
Dawn


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## backwoods (Sep 12, 2004)

The best advice I think I've ever heard, is also the simplest...read, read, and read some more to your child, taking care to annunciate clearly.


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## mekasmom (Jan 19, 2010)

Lunar Rain said:


> My question is how do I start this journey? She would be starting Kindergarten in the fall.


HSLDA has a special needs homeschooling coordinator that can help you with these type of questions. The Moores also have a special needs person on staff that has been willing to talk to a lot of people if they are in the Academy or not. Dr. Moore himself use to spend time giving advice, as did his wife, if you called there.
Honestly, it doesn't matter how bright or accelerated your child is.... I would NOT be buying a bunch of stuff for a kindergarten age student. Children learn by playing. Read to her. Play games with her. Read a good book like "Francis" then write a story about what would happen next. Have her dictate while you write it out. Then have her illustrate it.
Play counting games. Skip count things. Work on one-to-one correspondence. Get a bunch of plastic toys like little bear counters or little plastic dinosaurs, buttons, or whatever, and make patterns with them. 
Make art work.... Lots and lots of artwork. Kids work on fine motor skills by coloring in the lines, cutting on a line, and other pre-handwriting skills.
Sing educational songs. One of the best tapes I ever bought was the states tape. My 3yo new the location of every state on the map and its capital with that tape. Now they have CDs too. I also had the Carmen Sandiego US game that we played to practice state location and lots of puzzle maps.
With young children you can take them to meet "helpers" in your neighborhood. Take them to the bank (into it), the fire station, the police station, the dentist, doctor, minister at church, nurse at the health dept, bakery, etc. Take them to meet all sorts of neighborhood helpers, then, again have them make up stories about them. You let them dictate their story to you. Write it, and let them illustrate.

And, just as a final word of advice.
I would not worry about the educational development of a 5 year old. I would not listen to any psycho babble about my child nor would I allow anyone to label my child. The accomplishments of a five year old child have nothing to do with what their lives will be like in 20years. My 1st son walked at 9mo. My second son didn't walk until he was 20mo old. And yet, 30+ years later, they both walk around fine. Timing of skills has nothing to do with how lives will turn out decades later.

Children learn by playing. Play with her. Read to her. Sing to her. Imagine with her. Don't force a bunch of unneeded workbook pages onto her too early.


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## Laura Zone 5 (Jan 13, 2010)

www.hslda.com

It will give you all the laws for your state, how to contact groups in your area, and the dates of the annual home school convention (which I cannot recommend enough, it is amazing).


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