writing

The great debate occurs every year 

“Am I expecting too much of my child or not enough?"  
"Is this groaning and moaning about writing just a discipline problem, a character issue, or is there really a problem here?"

Common comments I hear from homeschool moms are:

"She can tell me the answers well orally, but then it takes her an hour to write it down!"
"When he writes his spelling words to learn them, he leaves letters out of the words."
"If he dictates to me, the story is great, but he can’t write it himself.”
“His dad says that he’s just lazy and unmotivated.  He can do his work if he really tries.”

One of the most common and most misdiagnosed processing problems in children is a blocked writing gate.  This is the number one processing glitch in gifted children.  Many of these children seem to be “allergic” to their pencil.  They break out in whining as soon as they get a pencil or pen in their hand.

Let’s look at what is...

Dear Friends,

August finds some families vacationing and others finishing up those last projects before beginning a new school  year. To help you look forward with enthusiasm to September, we encourage you to take some time now to put those final touches on planning, ordering curriculum, and mapping out your school year. As you go over your plans, let's zero in on English and talk about what constitutes a solid high school English course of study. We offer the following suggestions that can easily be tailored to your individual child and circumstance.

LITERATURE

The first component that comes to mind when thinking of English is literature. Before being able to fully enjoy good books, it's important to teach your child how to analyze them by introducing and discussing the literary devices the author uses such as setting, plot, theme, etc. Providing opportunities to practice picking out these devices through a variety of genres (drama, prose, poetry) will encourage your child to better...