Earthami Knits: I'm back, or what the heck have I been doing?

Where I've been is digesting the wonderful information you all shared with me. Thank you. This has been crazy and scary and we aren't even that far into it.

We are going to have him tested, with a qualifier thrown in. We are meeting with the tester first and if what we tell her and show her with his work doesn't make her feel 85% certain that he is dyslexic then she won't test. That is fine with me. I have no desire to put him through testing if it isn't going to give us good info. Plus then really the money can be spent on more expensive testing. That will give us info on what else it could be.

We are looking at some different programs to use with him. I purchased one today through the Homeschool Buyers Co-op called Reading Assistant. (The link will take you to the page describing it.) I'm hoping it will help him increase his fluency. I will continue to use the Phonics Pathways for now. It seems to help a bit and he is getting better at reading. I'm feeling better that we are doing something positive.

Of course now that I've admitted that it might be dyslexia I'm seeing everything as that. Isn't that the way it always is? He has this habit of repeating the first part of his sentences before getting to the main idea. An example from today he was talking to his Aunty and said "He wanted to... he wanted to.... he wanted to try something more positive." Then continued the conversation. This is something he always does. Come to find out this behavior is called Cluttering as opposed to stuttering. When reading the list of symptoms I never bothered to look and see what that meant since he doesn't stutter, or do what I think of as stuttering so I figured he didn't do whatever was associated with it. Heh.

So DH & I have a meeting with the tester in a couple of weeks, she will go over all the test results we have, look at some of his writing samples, and talk to us about our history.

On another front my brother-in-law and sister-in-law are putting on a charity event with the proceeds going to Save the Children specifically for children in Japan effected by the earthquake and tsunami from March 11, 2011. If you live in the Denver metro area please consider coming out and listen to bands, buy some books for your kids or maybe some of my stuffed animals. I'm working on some chicks and maybe some bunnies to sell. They will look like these,