I'm also approaching the end of DS9.

[conuly]

This is annoying, because the next to last episode is my favorite, and I've just passed that. I could watch select episodes again, but it's best to take a breather, right?

But, I have a plan! This year, I'm introducing the nieces to TNG, which is the Star Trek I started with! Yup, we will do extra math, spelling help for Eva*, extra geography, and extra Star Trek! And swimming.

But I'm not sure. We all know the second season was worlds better than the first. Should I just start with the second season entirely, or soldier through the first anyway?

* By carefully perusing dyslexia and homeschool fora, I've finally found the right approach for her. Her spelling has improved by leaps and bounds, and she's much better at coming up with plausible spellings for words she doesn't know how to spell and at catching her mistakes. Plus, her ability to read aloud is improving, and that's always been her weak spot, despite how well she otherwise reads.

And the best part is that the curriculum I picked only takes about 15 minutes a day. It's called Apples and Pears, and I have no idea how it works, but I don't think she made this much improvement on her own in such a short time frame. No comments from the peanut gallery, because I honestly just don't.

(Okay, well, we also do some Spalding-style work, but I think that just reinforces. I don't have the diligence to really be on top of that.)

Comments

[siderea]

By carefully perusing dyslexia and homeschool fora, I've finally found the right approach for her. Her spelling has improved by leaps and bounds, and she's much better at coming up with plausible spellings for words she doesn't know how to spell and at catching her mistakes.

That's great! Is she diagnosed with dyslexia? What indicated to you Apples and Pears would be a good match for her?

[conuly]

She is not, mostly because NYC public schools apparently provide little if any support for dyslexics, especially if they are bright enough to mostly compensate on their own. However, unofficially that seems to be the reason for the huge gap between her reading and spelling abilities.

As for what indicated that this was the program, I googled a LOT and found a lot of people saying, basically, that if for whatever reason a rules-based spelling program (like the ever popular Spalding and variations, which is based on an Orton-Gillingham methodology, the most common approach for dyslexics) wasn't working, a pattern-based, morphemic program like Apples and Pears might do the trick.

I'd been doing a roughly Spalding program for a while, and it wasn't hurting but you need more time to dedicate to it than we really had (well, assuming you believe playtime is important as well....), and one workbook of any program is never that pricy, so I decided to trust the nice people over at every (and I mean every) homeschool and dyslexic forum I found.

Even with skipping some of the repetition (I'm all for repetition, but she doesn't need quite as much as is provided, it seems) the progress is remarkable.

You can actually check out the entire workbook online if you like, they provide the complete text as a sample in PDF. I have no idea how it works, but it's amazing. (Of course, it's a British program, which means that to reinforce the or phonogram and also the rule about capitalizing both names and titles we get many, many sentences about Lord North. This provides a low level of hilarity to get us through the repetition. That might be the trick there!)

[conuly]

Captain google might not, I realize, be the most interesting answer, but it's always my first approach. My god, I have no idea how we lived without it!

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Soldier through the first season; there's important points of reference they'll miss if you begin with the second. Also there is some good material for conversations in the first season, heavy-handed though it is in places.

[conuly]

"In places", that's polite : )

Ah, but you have to love ST, in all its preachy goodness.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

I will always love Star Trek, and TNG is probably my favorite, but they did hit the 'Preach' button rather a lot, and most of the women are somewhat unbearable, especially in the first season. Sheesh, Tasha Yar; what a piece of work.