Need yet another reason to homeschool? Apparently it's ok to discriminate if the child is 5

Sorry, I am crossposting this on all of my sites. I simply feel the issue is too important to ignore. Thanks!

You might remember earlier this year about the teacher from Port St. Lucie, FL who had her class vote on whether Alex Barton, a child with autism, could remain in her Kindergarten class. He was voted out, traumatized and refused to return to school. There was a great uproar and teacher Wendy Portillo was suspended without pay for a year with her tenure revoked.

The school board quietly reversed its decision this week ...read the rest here, and you do need to read it if you care about special needs kids and/or education.

Thanks!

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Radio show on homeschooling special needs kids

Today I was on BlogTalk radio, talking about homeschooling special needs kids. We discuss resources, how you homeschool a child with autism and the S Word...socialization. What is it like to homeschool three children with high-functioning autism? How does one maintain sanity in the face of it? Find out!

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Social Skills for Autism CAN Be Taught At Home

For parents of kids with special needs, especially Pervasive Developmental Disorders like Autism or Asperger's Syndrome, part of homeschooling is finding a good way to teach a child social skills.

Many neurotypical children learn social skills as they go along, but children with autism do not have this ability. Most of the time, the hidden social curriculum of life must be spelled out to them.

Homeschooling is a 24/7 activity here at Sweet Schoolin'... as such we use every opportunity to teach. Never assume a child "gets it." Wait for evidence. Many will say you cannot teach a child social skills without the help of a professional, or a school district program. We here at Sweet Schoolin' kindly disagree.

Some good social skills resources:

Social Stories by Carol Gray
Social Skills by Jed Baker
The RDI Book
My Turn, Your Turn
Social Thinking (Michelle Garcia Winners)
Gaining Face, face recognition software (free demo)
photo of children, oh that rachel, used under cc

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The Write Stuff: Help For Kids Who Struggle With Writing

My son hates writing. I am not just talking about the creative kind, I mean the "put the pencil to the paper old-fashioned penmanship" kind. I wish I could say I have some tried and true solutions for this, but the truth is, along with his autism, and his dyslexia, he also seems to have some dysgraphia as well. I personally don't like to look for a demon under every rock, but we need to call it what it is. This makes things harder than they could be.

Dysgraphia is difficulty writing. It doesn't occur due to cognitive deficit, it just is. It is often characterized by other lack of motor skills. Some kids might have trouble tying shoes or controlling scissors. There are actually three kinds of dysgraphia: dyslexic, motor and spatial. All cause difficult to read handwriting.

With my son, it isn't that his writing is that messy...he works at it very hard, even though he hates it. That is probably one of the biggest frustrations for him. He did well when he was younger, but as he is trying to learn penmanship, he has struggled. I chose not to teach him standard cursive, and instead went with Italics. This has eased his frustrations a bit, but he still "draws" his letters more often than not. His writing is labored, and slow.

I have worked on introduction of typing instead, because, face it, how often do we write? I am concerned about the hand-written portion of the SAT, not because I am that worried about him taking it (he is, after all, only 10) but because I want him to have the option open to him.

For now, though, I am trying a few things:

have him work on writing less, and drawing more.

giving him opportunity to write for real life reasons: lists, messages and such

allowing him to use the writing implements of his choice

making sure that graph paper is available for math...this was a huge step for progress in neatness!

It is my hope that his writing will be like his reading...he will show the want and need for it, and when he does, you can bet I will be there to provide materials for him.

Some resources that have worked well for us and those we know:

Handwriting Without Tears
Callirobics
Getty & Dubay Italics
Draw Write Now
Ed Emberly drawing books