A Fabulous Reading Find!

Take a Look, It's in a Book, A reading Rainbow Book!   I have been feeling so guilty.  I don't read to my kids enough. I read to them but not enough. I suspect it will never be enough. With so many having a difficult time with reading I am always reading everything to them.  This has really taken the pleasure out of cuddle reading baby books with the little ones.  I know that reading to them will drastically help them all with their reading. 

The last few weeks have been fantastic with reading improvement.  I have been searching for something to build on that.  Looking for something to help keep reading fun, so that the desire stays with them.   I found that there are a few Reading Rainbow episodes on Amazon the other day.  It is only one episode per season.  I thought they were just trying to get you to buy the entire seasons.  We watched a few but they did not keep the kids attention.  I think the graphics are just too old. 

 

At Mom's Night Out this week two of us were talking about how much I have loved the Immersion Reading available on some books on the Kindle.  As you know we got each child their own kindle this school year.  At times I am a little sad because there are not as many of the learning apps out there.  This can be a very expensive option.  You first buy the book from Kindle, then you also purchase the audio version from Audible.  I have found that the Books + Audio can get pretty pricy.  Spending a money of books isn't a bad thing to spend money on.  I just can't afford getting it for each child over and over again. 

 

That is when another mom mentioned how much she has loved the Reading Rainbow app.  I almost let it go without asking more about it.  What a huge mistake that would have been.  Thank you so much Mrs. Julie C.  As it turns out RR has a beautiful app for the Kindle and one for the Ipad.  Either version is wonderful.  The app is free but that will leave you limited.  The paid content has been a God Send.   For a nominal fee you can become a member and then have access to so many books and videos.  I like the set up as well. Readers and Nonreaders alike will enjoy this set up.  It brings books to life and can read to the children if they just click an icon.  My two year olds are hooked.  My only issue is that memberships are limited to 5 family identities.  This is probably only an issue for a family as big as mine.  Engaging, fun yet functional.  I can't describe it well.  Just download the app and it will show up.  Click here for the website. (although you must purchase membership through the app.)  The site describes what is available much better than I did, but as LeVar says, "Don't take my word for it!" but go check it out for yourself. 

 

My sincere thanks to LeVar Burton and the Reading Rainbow Team.  You have helped me insure that my children will love reading.  The T-Family Kindle Method just keeps getting better and better. 

New Way to Homeschool With Kindes

This is a project really.  I have never really been thrilled with my reporting ability.  I work with kids all the time with little to show for it at the end of the day.  All those coloring sheets just get thrown away.  I have such dyslexic kids that they end up feeling very unaccomplished.  We needed something new.  After 18 years of homeschooling, I am bored, I am tired and I am feeling like I have failed. 


So as I have stated I was reading about Ron Paul's curriculum.  I know nothing about the content but I was loving the concepts for highschool.  How can adapt his ideas into what we do?  I also don't have the money to buy each young child a computer or an ipad.  In trying to figure all this out, dad came across a great deal for Kindle Fire.  We went ahead and invested only $60 each for 4 units for Pickle, Princess, Bagel, and Jumba.  In our minds the twins are too young and Possible as a nicer Kindle Fire HDX from Christmas.  These units have internet ability but so we can visits all the math sites from practices but they don't have the cool apps like the ipads do.  That might someday be worth the investment.  For now we are trying to get this ball rolling. 

We have started the 2014-2015 school year very early this year.  For the first month is will be just trying to figure out how and getting into the practice of our new methods of being accountable.  It is lots of work right now but I know that eventually it will relieve so much of the stress on me.  My goal has always been to get the kids to be self sufficient. They need basic educational skills, they need to be able to apply them and they need to have motivation to keep at it.  I have seen so many families push and push the school work only to have the children shy away from school all together later. 

I want to encourage the independence while still keeping track.  I will always hold out hope that we will move north.  Texas is very homeschool friendly, and I love that about being here.  I need to get back in the habit of better record keeping in case we get to move into a state with much stricter guidelines. I must admit that it took a lot of time (several hours over the course of everyday for three weeks or do.)  I established a homeschool blog for each child.  They will use this to report into each day instead of handing me a stack papers that I am supposed to grade and record somewhere.  I used blogger because that is what I am familiar with.  (I plan to keep them private for a few months until we work out the kinks. I also am not sure how out there I really want to be with the kids.  It would be really bad if their friends got at look at their work and started teasing them.  To be honest I am not sure they will be public until much later. I guess time will tell.)



We started by getting the kindles hooked up and going.  Set them up and downloaded and note taking app.  Setting each child up with the right font and colors etc.  They will be using this for their writing each day and each week.  It was very time consuming setting this up on all five devices.  We are still waiting on the arrival of the cases and I will also be getting each child head phones.  I had each child write an opening post for their blogs.  This was just three or five sentences.  It was a lot for some and nothing for others.  For the first month I will not be pushing too much with the writing but there will be several things due each week.  I am trying to find a routine and get the kiddos in the habit of using the "note" app. 

Homeschool Connections

 

 

Online Classes
for Homeschoolers

Complete live online classes
for middle and high school students --
Educating the heart, mind, and soul
in the Catholic tradition.

My last post was about the Ron Paul Curriculum and I still have to say that I love the model and set up.  That particular program is not for this Catholic Homeschooling Family.  I love the model though.  I can't just use textbooks anymore.  My older kids were bored and lost interest. The model of a video class to keep them connected and engaged is so intriguing.  Due to the amount of learning issues we have worked with in the past and that we still have with rest of the bunch, I know that offering a book and expecting a report and test is not the way to gauge how much they learned. I saw this even with the on-line with audio version of Introduction to Catholicism that we did this year through My Catholic Faith Delivered (I should offer a review for them but in a later post).  We were hearing the material but not necessarily comprehending it.  So even offering the audio version is not completely engaging.  The truth is I do not have time to sit with each child and present each class with the enthusiasm they each deserve.

I have never liked just offering the books, even if they come with audio.  That has been a great option considering the kids long for some independence for high school.  I was so drawn to the Ron Paul set up because it really does offer the video and the independence.  I just need it to be a little more cost effective and a little more Catholic.  I attended the homeschool conference and once again got into a nice discussion with Walter Crawford.  He is one of the individuals behind Homeschool Connections. I really want to see if I can take the archived classes offered through Homeschool Connections.  I want to offer a Catholic alternative but loosely following the Ron Paul model.  I am not sure how this will all work but we will try to get started by June 1st and that will allow us to tweak it until we get it going.

I can't wait to see if we can make this work. 

Update: Summer Reading - think outside the box

What a weird school year we had last year.  My Sugar is quick to point out that as odd as it was for us loosing so many friends in a few weeks of each other, just imagine how "weird" it would be to be one of those families!  She is watching her best friend Kat become a perfect daughter in her mother's memory without her guidence but still confidant of her love.  We planned to take a break this summer.  We plan to get back to book work soon.  I was going for July 1st but decided to push most of it off until August.  The month of July is not going unmarritted though. I wanted to push independant reading from the high school crowd.  Those three all struggle with verying degrees of reading issues.  After all the work we accomplished this spring I knew that they were all reading.  The only way to work on getting them to grade level is practice, practice, practice. 

I wanted to push them but not school them.  My goal was for them to realize that reading can be fun and take you places.  I don't love reading but I love learning.  I read a lot in that endeavor.  How can I encourage that in my children?

Goobers is an almost 16 year old girl that enjoys her time with her family.  She is now life guarding and spending time Pooker, Bear and Sugar.  They play so much together.  She was the one I was most worried about because she is out of the house so much for work.  How can I push her over the summer?  Well apparently I don't have to.  Pooker has a stack of books that she is pushing on her.  I drove by the pool a few days back when it was raining and found that she had one of those books and was reading away.  She also was able to download audio versions of a few of the books and put them on her ipod.  This giver her the ability to read and yet not get stumped by words that she is unfamiliar with.  

Bear is 14 (soon to be 15) year old high school sophomore.  He is very close to his sisters.  He loves to be the clown and get the laughs.  He also likes to fiddle with picture taking and electronic film editing.  So this young man that appears to struggle with reading a simple book can spend hours pouring over "how to" manuals to figure things out.  I know he is reading but he needs to practice to get to age level.  I keep buying all kinds of stories that I think might intrigue him.  Often I would stick with a more simple reading level because I just thought that he needed that.  This was embarrassing him, because he knew he needed to be reading better. 

We finally broke down and got dad his Kindle for his birthday.  This was something that surprised Jason and I.  Bear picked up his Kindle and continued to play with it.  New technology has always been fun for Bear so he was enjoying playing with this new gadget.  Then Bear asked his dad if there might be any books out there for him available on the Kindle.  Bear and his dad spent a few hours looking.  They agreed on one and dad downloaded his book, then dad made an offer.  "If you finish this book within a week, I will consider getting you your own Kindle."  Talk about motivation. 

This is what is working for Bear.
  #1  No one can tell what age lever he is reading.  He feels cool because he is using a knew device which takes away that barrier he was creating in himself. 
#2   The version we have includes an audio chip.  If you are struggling with a work it will read it too you.  (I don't mind this because it is still very computer sounding so it isn't like you want it to read the entire story for you.) 
#3  Bear is one that loved holding things over his sisters.  I guess he is a typical boy in that respect.  He is so motivated because he has permission to use dad's cool new toy and no one else does. 
Goobers pointed out that she was able to use a Kindle Ap for her ipod touch.

Sugar.  She is my precious 13 year old.  She will be starting high school this year.  She is smart but sometimes slow or lazy in doing her work.  Other times she is s speed demon and doesn't spend time getting the details.  Her reading issues were solved by a friend's birthday party.  Two of the girls at this party were talking about a set of books.  The mom spend some of the party time talking with me about how cool this serious of books are for her daughter.  This friend of Sugars is a great reader so I was worried that she would not be able to read them no matter how great they appeared to be.  She got one of the books and showed me.  It didn't look too hard plus it has other aspects that draw the child in.  Sugar loves on line games and this serious of books were connected to an online game.  Perfect.

I went straight home, signed into our Amazon account and ordered all of the 39 Clues books.  This needs its own post.  Here I can say that I am very happy at how Sugar is reading.  This series is doing the trick at inspiring interest.  Yeah!  3 highschool aged kiddos struggling with reading now showing signs of success.  I pray that each of you with learning issue children find what works.  No matter what it is do what works.  Don't beat yourself up over the latest "program" no working.

 I got these three started in reading by giving them phones for texting.  I know it sounds silly and we set many rules.  (No texting at the table and complete words must be used.)  It got them started and now we are moving forward.  It might seem like small steps to those with children without reading issues but to those with children with reading issues you will share in my joy of this post and hopefully you will be inspired to not lose hope.   Keep the strength and encouragement to try anything that you child is interested in to inspire a reader.  Don't be afraid to resort to the latest technology to inspire your little ones to succeed.  I don't encourage using everything out there just what works.  Always keep them safe by using rules and constant supervision.