Posted in Contests
Here is something else that I saw in The Homeschool Minute today. I have 2 special needs children (ADHD/Aspergers son and a daughter with hearing loss).
A Note from the TOS Publishers
TOS has created three ebooks and is in the midst of putting together its newest project, an ebook about special needs homeschooling.
Can a child with special educational or physical needs be successfully home educated? The answer is a resounding YES. We are turning first to our own readers to assist us in the development of this new e-Book. If you are willing to share your story, please contact Gena right away with your answers to the questions below. Those who are chosen to appear in the book will receive a $50 gift certificate in the Schoolhouse Store and will receive up to ten free copies of the ebook to distribute to friends.
- How many special needs children are you homeschooling?
- What are your children's special needs?
- Have you been successful?
- Do you plan to home educate your children through high school?
Please send the answers to these questions to publisher@thehomeschoolmagazine.com. If selected for inclusion in the book, you will be notified shortly.
Paul & Gena Suarez
Publishers
The Old Schoolhouse Magazine
Feb. 21, 2008 - Home schooling a special child
I am teaching one 13 year old girl. She was in my special needs class last year and the parents asked me to home school her, so I resigned to do just that. Amy has progressed more these past 6 weeks than in 6 months last year, because of this one to one attention. She was a very sickly baby with very low muscle tone and general slow development. Speech development and gross motor development have been especially poor. She as received therapy from infancy. She typed on the computer for the first time when her brother helped her to type her Christmas list in December 2007. I started homeschooling her on 8 January 2008: she now uses the computer (Office Word and Excell) for learning and homework, she shops for ingredients she uses in the family meals she cooks on Thursdays, she has started to sew beautifully on a sewing machine, her muscle tone has improved through regular exercises, she understands measurements e.g. kilometres, she reads Grade 3 readers (last year she struggled with Grade 1 readers) and she has started with multiplication and division (last year, she could not add + 1). She understands the calendar and weather forecast - last year she could not name the months in sequence! Thanks to Google earth, she now has a good concept of geography and addresses. Homeschooling is definitely the answer. At the rate that she is developing now, reaching high school level no longer seems impossible, but life skills still seem the most important outcomes to focus on. Academical progress is incidental to tasks of daily living e.g. weighing yourself, reading a thermometer, understanding a recipe, knowing road signs, understanding the news etc.
Posted by Rika Marais
