leaps and bounds!

We are already in our third month of homeschooling for this school year. It has flown by! In a few previous posts on my blog like this post, I mentioned how Camden's homeschooling is looking quite different this school year. There is more information about it on this post too. But for a quick recap, last year it became very clear to us that Camden had some sort of learning block when it came to reading and writing. Despite his hard work and much effort, his progress was very little. After much prayer and petition to God, our answers came in the form of an amazing educator in Colorado who works with struggling learners and who's ministry is helping these bright kids become successful. Her name is Dianne Craft and she determines what learning glitch/block a child may have and then equips the parent to follow through with some specific programs that help learning become easier for the child. A few weeks back Camden and I flew to Colorado to meet with her, you can read about her on this website. During our consultation my suspicion that Camden has dyslexia was confirmed. He also has dysgraphia which is the deficiency in the ability to write. This was no surprise to us as we knew something was going on that was making it so hard for Camden to read and write. 

Before meeting with Dianne Craft, I had already been using her tools and teaching methods at home for about 8 weeks. In that short amount of time, the progress I saw in Camden was AMAZING! In this amount of time his reading level had improved half a grade level and his writing was becoming legible. And the best part is that Camden's confidence began to soar and reading/writing was becoming so much easier for him. After meeting with Dianne, I now feel even more equipped to help Camden continue to succeed. 

The best part in all this has been having a front row seat in watching Camden succeed. It has brought me to tears to hear him say "MOM, I can read!" And then watch him read and write even when he is not in school just because he wants to. How cool is that! 

In case your wondering exactly what this all looks like in our homeschool day, let me try and give a brief description. Each day, 4 days a week, I am implementing a very specific reading program, writing program, and math program with Camden using tools and resources created by Dianne Craft that are geared for a child who learns best through Right brain teaching methods. The resources are also helpful for children who have dyslexia and dysgraphia. Camden and I spend about 45 minutes working on the reading program per day and this not only involves reading but also something called brain integration therapy. Believe me it sounds strange but it's not. It consists of exercises that cross the midline which simply means that Camden is crossing over the center of his body through specific movements. ((On a side note, when Camden was a baby he missed the very important milestone of crawling. This is such an important step in the development of a baby because the motion of crawling is crossing the midline of the baby's brain which means the baby is using both the right and left brain as they crawl. Camden didn't walk until he was 17 months and from the time he was about 8 months until then, he would walk around on his knees. He just skipped crawling all together.)) So during the daily exercises he is doing right now he is doing something called the "cross crawl" and as he stands up he is bringing his right knee up to his left hand and vice versa. This is just one exercise out of the six that he does each day. During the 45 minutes Camden is learning new sight words through colorful cards where the word tells a story, he is reading through specific word lists, and reading a story each day out of a book called a Merrill reader. He also does some dictating and then reads back to me what he wrote. He works hard during these 45 minutes and so do I!

Camden is also doing a specific writing program and this takes us about 25 minutes 4 days a week. It involves a writing exercise called "writing 8" which will help Camden not reverse his letters or numbers anymore. During this time we also work on spelling, vocabulary, and paragraph writing.

This is just a brief overview of what we have been working on and that doesn't even include math, science, and Bible. So as you can see Camden has been a very busy boy the past three months! With the above teaching methods along with nutritional supplements, and of course the power of prayer we are seeing tremendous strides with Camden. His reading and writing is growing leaps and bounds and we couldn't be happier with the progress he is making. I can't even imagine what he will be like after carrying this out all school year! The very cool thing is that this has not broken our budget and someone else is not having to "fix my kid" but I get the honor of doing that. And I get to learn from an amazing woman who has years of experience working with the struggling learner. 

Even though this may be one of our busiest and toughest years of homeschooling we will ever have, and there are days when I feel so drained, and days when Camden gets frustrated, I have to remind myself how lucky I am to have the freedom and priviledge to homeschool our children. I am so thankful that God made Camden just the way he is, and that he and I are getting to spend some special time together every day to overcome his learning challenges. I am filled with hope! God is so good. God is so good. God is so good!!!!!!