Sarah Mackenzie (00:00:05):

Hey, hey, Sarah Mackenzie here, and this is the Read Aloud Revival, the podcast that helps your kids fall in love with books, and helps you fall in love with homeschooling. Today, I want to share a session from the Great Homeschool Conventions.

(00:00:21):

I love speaking at the Great Homeschool Conventions, or GHC, as we usually call them. I spoke at all five of them in 2023, and I’m going to be speaking at all five again in 2024.

(00:00:35):

So, details to come on which sessions I’m doing in 2024. Those details will come very soon. I would love to meet you there, would love to give you a real life hug. Hold your baby, if you bring one.

(00:00:48):

For this episode of the podcast, and the next episode, I’m going to share a couple of the sessions I did at the Great Homeschool Conventions in 2023. This one today is a session I led with my friend and colleague, Colleen Kessler, from raisinglifelonglearners.com.

(00:01:07):

We talk about helping differently wired kids fall in love with reading, so basically, anyone who learns to read outside of the standard bell curve. At the beginning, I tackle helping kids who are late readers, struggling readers, developing readers, the specific challenges that come up when you have a child who’s learning to read later than you hoped, or maybe seen as “typical,” what to do about that, and how to help those kids fall in love with books.

(00:01:35):

We’re also talking a little bit about dyslexia, and then, Colleen tackles the challenges that arise from having advanced readers, maybe kids who read early, maybe who taught themselves, who you have a hard time keeping in books that fit their emotional or social development, right? There are specific challenges that arise, whether our kids are struggling to learn to read, or learned to read really easily, and therefore you’re struggling to keep them in books that are a good fit for them.

(00:02:03):

Any time our kids learn to read outside of that traditional bell curve, we’ve got some specific challenges to face. We’re tackling them today. So without further ado, here’s that session.

(00:02:19):

I’m Sarah Mackenzie, and this is Colleen Kessler, and we are going to be talking about helping your differently wired kits fall in love with reading. So there is a whole wide range of things that can come up with our young readers, and we all know reading is such a crucial part of their education, that it means a lot to us.

(00:02:38):

So how many of you in here are worried about a struggling reader, a late reader? Okay, I’m going to be talking about that in a few minutes.

(00:02:45):

Then how many of you have, and maybe the same people with multiple kids, right, this is how it works, an advanced reader and you’re having a hard time keeping them in books, and you have those challenges that come with advanced readers? Awesome. Colleen’s got you.

(00:02:58):

We are going to be tackling both sides of that coin today. So I am Sarah the illustrator. No, I’m not an illustrator. I’ve illustrated nothing.

Colleen Kessler (00:03:07):

Wow, I didn’t know that. It’s been a long weekend.

Sarah Mackenzie (00:03:11):

I’ve illustrated seven six-foot stick figures, okay. I am not an illustrator. I’m an author of Read-Aloud Family, Teaching from Rest, and some new picture books, including the brand new one that just released, A Little More Beautiful: Story of a Garden. And I’m the host of the Read Aloud Revival podcast.

(00:03:29):

My husband Andrew and I have been married 21 years. We live in Washington state with our six kids, who’ve been homeschooled all the way since the beginning, and the oldest two are off at college, one here in Ohio at Franciscan University of Steubenville, another at Savannah College of Art and Design, another about to leave for college, also going to Franciscan. So we’re going to have a couple of people living in your state very soon.

Colleen Kessler (00:03:50):

Yay. I love this state. It’s mine, so …

(00:03:55):

I’m Colleen Kessler, the host of Raising Lifelong Learners podcast, the author of, most recently, Raising Resilient Sons: A Boy Mom’s Guide to Building a Strong, Confident and Emotionally Intelligent Family. And you’re the first to know, a new book coming out in July 2024, called Raising Lifelong Learners. We’re still working on the subtitle, but all about helping your kids find their passions, and their strengths, and fan those flames, and get them excited about learning.

(00:04:25):

I live in northeast Ohio by the lake, in the snowiest part of the state, which I’m not super thrilled about, but I love our house and I love our property, with four kids, three of whom are here, for better or for worse, and my husband, who is a reading specialist in northeast Ohio.

(00:04:43):

My oldest, Trevor, is down in the booth, he’s 20. Some of your kids may have seen him do card tricks. I have had to kick multiple groups of children out of my booth, because it’s become the hotbed for card tricks.

Sarah Mackenzie (00:04:56):

I didn’t realize he brought his cards.

Colleen Kessler (00:04:57):

He did, and-

Sarah Mackenzie (00:04:58):

I love his card trick.

Colleen Kessler (00:04:59):

Okay, so Sarah, word got out. I was sitting there with, I think it was, a couple moms. And this group of kids comes, and they’re like, “Where’s the trick guy?” I’m like-

Sarah Mackenzie (00:05:09):

He must mean my kid.

Colleen Kessler (00:05:10):

I’m like, “He is not here right now, but try to find him, and then go somewhere far in the back of the booth.” There were 15 kids there yesterday, blocking everything, doing all sorts of card tricks, and we had to kick him out.

(00:05:23):

So anyway, he’s 20, he can do magic. I have a 15 and a half-year-old, a 13-year-old, and a 10-year-old. And yeah, I’m going to be talking about advanced readers, so it’ll be fun.

Sarah Mackenzie (00:05:36):

So I’m going to chat for a little bit about struggling readers. Then Colleen’s going to take it on advanced readers, and then we’re going to have some time for Q&A.

(00:05:42):

If you have questions that pop up as we go along, be thinking about those. Toward the end, we’re trying to save a big chunk of time for those, so we can make sure you leave today, with some ideas and strategies that will help your specific readers.

(00:05:56):

I think, and we already mentioned this, but I think one of the reasons that we, for me, homeschooling all my six of my kids were later readers, and much to my chagrin, the first few times, because those poor oldest children, they’re run through the gauntlet as we’re trying every different thing we can on them.

(00:06:19):

It caused me so much distress, and I think this is how so many of us feel when we have late readers. Because we know that the key to their academic success is reading, and we really want them to not only be able to read, but to read for pleasure, and to do it easily, and with joy, and to be able to glean new information from reading. So it’s very, very stressful for us when it doesn’t go well.

(00:06:46):

If you are in this room right now with a late reader, just look around you, just knowing that there is more, there’s others in this room, with the same worries and struggles that you’ve got. And that we all kind of feel that same thing, which is, “Oh my goodness, am I failing my kid by homeschooling them, and am I going to be able to give them what they need, as they learn to read?”

(00:07:07):

So what I want to do first is just tackle the three practical things. Because I know that if you have a struggling reader, what you want is, “Tell me what I need to do,” right? And then, we’ll get into some more nuanced stuff like dyslexia.

(00:07:22):

First, we’re going to start with just the core ingredients for struggling readers. There’s really just three things that we can do with our struggling readers. It is not rocket science, and it doesn’t usually cost a fortune, but there are a couple of things that we need to think about when it comes to our struggling readers, that we can do.

(00:07:39):

How do we know if we’re doing enough, when our kids are struggling to learn to read? The first and most important thing, bar none, is frequent read alouds. We know this from study after study after study, that shows that grammatically correct, sophisticated language patterns coming through the ear are way better, way more powerful, in helping our kids become readers later, than any other reading they do.

(00:08:03):

We have a tendency to prioritize reading with our eyes, so we’ll think, we’ll read aloud to our kids when they’re young, and then, as soon as they can read with their eyes, that’s preferred, right? As a society, I think we just kind of think, that’s the goal.

(00:08:16):

But what’s really interesting to remember is that when you’re reading with your eyes, you are skipping a lot of stuff. If I was to pass out the first page of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe to everybody here and said, “Okay, read it silently to yourself,” you could read it a lot faster than I could read it out loud to you.

(00:08:33):

And that’s because, when you’re a good reader, you skip things, little connector words. Your eyes are actually moving in a pattern that’s not taking in each independent word. When I’m reading it aloud to you, all of that language is going into your brain through your ear, in order. So those whole language patterns are being stored in order, and in fact, read alouds are the only place our kids get that.

(00:08:57):

They don’t get it from TV or media, they don’t get it from talking with their friends. They don’t even get it when talking with us, because we don’t speak in grammatically correct, sophisticated language patterns. So the only place they’re getting grammatically correct, sophisticated language patterns, stored as whole parts, is when we’re reading aloud to them. So frequent read alouds matter a ton.

(00:09:19):

So, keeping on reading aloud with our kids, and one thing I want to point out here, is that I don’t know if any of you feel this way, but whenever I hear, I should be doing something every day I break out into a cold sweat.

(00:09:32):

I remember taking my kids to the dentist, and Drew, my now 17-year-old was probably eight. And we had a 12-year-old, a 10-year-old, an eight-year-old, a two-year-old, and two one-year-olds. And the dentist is like, “Is he flossing every day?”

(00:09:47):

I’m like, “I mean, I don’t know if he has underwear on, actually, I don’t even know if he knows what floss is, to be honest.”

(00:09:57):

So I think, when I hear something like, “Okay, read aloud every day,” and this is just a good rule to remember, no matter what you’re thinking about in life, that when someone says Do something every day, we mean, a few times a week.

(00:10:10):

Laura Vanderkam, in her book Tranquility by Tuesday, says, “Three times a week is a habit.” And really, that’s true. Let’s think about this. If you were to read aloud, for 10 minutes every single day, that would be almost 70 hours over the course of a year.

(00:10:27):

But nobody can do something every single day, for the most part. I do not read aloud to my kids every single day, although we try to read aloud more days than we don’t. So if you were to read aloud about half the time, about every other day, or three times a week, for 10 minutes a day, which is not very much time, that would amount to 30 hours over the course of a year.

(00:10:47):

You could read the entire Chronicles of Narnia in that amount of time, about 200 picture books in that amount of time. You could read a lot in 30 hours. So when you hear me say, frequent read alouds, and I’m going to say this with the next thing too, when I say, “If you hear daily or frequent,” hear “ish,” okay? A few times a week.

(00:11:08):

Okay, the other thing you need is short, daily phonics lessons, and we’ve defined what we mean by daily, like “ish.” Okay, so here’s what they need, especially a child who’s learning, is struggling to learn how to read, they do need phonics. Because they need to be able to learn those word attack skills, or those decoding skills, or whatever you want to call them, where they are learning how to sound out and read words they’ve never seen before.

(00:11:34):

Now, the key here is short. Short is very important. Because what happens when we have a long lesson that’s arduous and difficult is, our kids learn to tune us out, and they learn not to pay attention, or to be frustrated, or to come with kind of self-protective. Because, to sit through a 30-minute phonics lesson? Think of something you have no idea what to do that would be hard for you to learn right now.

(00:11:58):

If, so you were to have to do that every single day for 30 or 45 minutes, after awhile, you’d probably come to your lesson not bringing your whole self. It feels too vulnerable, it feels too hard, you just fail at it.

(00:12:10):

I mean, teaching a child how to read is frustrating on our end, too. I took up knitting, because I needed to stop twitching. When you’re sitting with a kid who’s like, [inaudible 00:12:27] … “Dog.” You’re like, “Oh my gosh.”

(00:12:34):

So then you do it. You read the word “of.” “Okay, this is the word ‘of,’ you can’t sound this one out. It’s a sight word, let’s say it. Of, of, of.”

(00:12:39):

We do this for days, and then, the next day they look down, they get to the word “of,” and they’re like, “I’ve never seen this word before in my life.” You’re like, “Yeah.” That’s how it feels like to teach a child who’s struggling to learn how to read, right? We need to keep these things short, because you also have to start doing them.

(00:12:54):

You have to get up the gumption to be able to do a lesson with your kids, most days. You probably won’t get around to that phonics lesson, if you know it’s going to take 45 minutes.

(00:13:04):

So you can use the traditional program. We’ve used things like, we’re going to talk about programs in a minute, but actually, let’s do it now, since we’re talking about phonics lessons.

(00:13:11):

Especially when we’re talking about struggling readers, Orton Gillingham approach is often the key to helping a dyslexic brain read. Whether your kids are dyslexic or not, which we’ll also talk about in a second, Orton Gillingham method breaks down reading in a way that a dyslexic brain can understand, and oftentimes is the key for struggling readers.

(00:13:31):

But a lot of the Orton Gillingham programs that you can find in the homeschool world, like All About Reading, Logic of English, Barton, I think there’s one called Nessie, they all use this same Orton Gillingham approach. Their lessons are long. You can’t get through an All About Reading lesson in 10 minutes.

(00:13:48):

So how I always did this is, I would set a timer for 10 minutes. We’d start the lesson, do 10 minutes, until the timer went off. And then, I just put a Post-it note in, close the book, and the next day that’s where we’d start.

(00:13:59):

So you don’t need to use it this exact way it was laid out. They’re laying out the content in a methodical order, but you are not teaching content, you’re teaching a human, and so you’re going to have to tweak the content to teach your human. So short is very, very key.

(00:14:13):

Okay. And then, the last thing, and this is the hardest one of all, actually, is if you’re reading aloud, and you’re doing short, daily-ish phonics lessons, you just have to give it time. And this is the part that you can’t speed up, that you can’t rush, that’s completely outside of your control.

(00:14:31):

Now my third child, Drew, was my latest reader. And I would be coming to conferences just like this, and we’d be talking about reading aloud, and teaching from rest, and all kinds of things, and I would go talk to Andrew Pudewa, and be like, “My nine-year-old is still not reading.”

(00:14:46):

And he’d be like, “Just keep doing your thing. Just keep reading aloud, keep doing your little tiny phonics.” I’m like, “Dude, you had better know what you’re talking about.”

(00:14:55):

I left for a conference, and we were struggling through Frog and Toad. It was knitting time. We’re twitching.

(00:15:04):

I come home from the conference, and he’s reading a very large fantasy book that shall not be named from the front of a homeschool conference.

(00:15:13):

And I think to myself, “There’s no way that kid is reading that book. He can’t read at all, but he’s just pouring over it.” I’m like, “Why would he fake sitting over there, looking …” So I start chatting with him about it. I’m like, “I think you were reading this book.”

(00:15:28):

And Andrew Pudewa explains what’s happening is, those sophisticated, grammatically correct language patterns that have been coming in through the ear, for all of those years are now, what happens with your late reader is, once the time part clicks over, and you’ve done the other things, they make up for a lot of time.

(00:15:47):

They don’t have to go through all of the stair steps, steps that another child who is learning how to read, when they’re four or five, are going through. So he went from reading almost nothing, to being able to read whatever he wanted, with no hiccups in between.

(00:16:02):

And that is the power of reading aloud over years and years, because they know the cadence, and how language sounds, and a word that is outside of our normal speaking vocabulary doesn’t seem strange to them, because they’re so used to this kind of language. So keeping in mind that this is the piece, the time piece that we cannot rush.

(00:16:22):

And also, it’s very important to know, that there is zero benefit to a child learning how to read at four, versus learning how to read at eight. What I mean by that is, actually, what studies show is, a child that reads learns to read at four, and a child who learns to read at nine or 10, they’re very often almost always reading at the exact same level by the time they’re 16.

(00:16:45):

So if you have an early reader, that’s great, they’re reading a lot. But that’s not, you don’t need to worry about your late reader, like they’re missing stuff. They’re not missing stuff, as long as you’re reading aloud to them, and they’re getting audio books. So keep that in mind. There’s no benefit to learning how to read early, so you don’t need to worry about it being late.

(00:17:03):

Also, we oftentimes think, oftentimes, we think of what is late reading, based on whatever the public schools are saying is late reading, which changes every year. And it changes a lot. When you were in kindergarten, did you read when you were in kindergarten? Did you learn how to read in kindergarten? Probably not.

(00:17:21):

But now, kids are definitely expected to be able to read before they get to kindergarten. So our children didn’t just start popping out smarter or something. That’s not how it works.

(00:17:32):

The goalposts keep changing there. So stop looking at this, the public schools, as your model for what’s late and what’s early, and just start looking at your child, and saying, “How can I get you to the next step?” That can really help.

(00:17:42):

So that’s it. Frequent read alouds, short daily phonics lessons, and time. Now, let’s talk about something else that’s really important to know about, because dyslexia is far more common and mostly misunderstood by a lot of us, and especially if we have heard about dyslexia, maybe growing up, or how it’s traditionally been understood in the past, we might not recognize it in our own kids.

(00:18:04):

So let me give you a few signs of dyslexia. You’ll hear me say “signs,” and not “symptoms,” because the first, most important thing to know is that dyslexia is not a disorder, and there’s nothing wrong with your kid who’s dyslexic. They’re not broken, there’s nothing to fix.

(00:18:20):

A dyslexic brain just means, it’s wired differently to learn language. That is all that it means. And God has made a lot of people dyslexic, we’re going to talk about that in a second, and he didn’t make a mistake with your child who’s learning how to read late, or who is dyslexic.

(00:18:37):

What it does mean is that we want to make sure we’re teaching our kids with dyslexic brains in a way that honors the way God gave them their brain, so that they can learn and succeed. So pay attention to this. Trouble rhyming, trouble memorizing their address, phone number, days of the week, months of the year.

(00:18:56):

I remember when I heard about this sign. My son, that one who’s the most late reader, I thought he would never know. I thought, “He’s never going to know his days of the week.”

(00:19:05):

I mean, I thought, “It’s going to be the night before his wedding and he’s going to be like … (singing). We’re never going to get there.”

(00:19:15):

When I heard that this was a sign of dyslexia, I was, “Oh, wait, that’s a thing, months of the year?” I mean, he’s 17. I still think he probably has to look it up. It’s just, that sequential ordering of information is not something that happens in his brain easily, like it does for other kids.

(00:19:30):

Doesn’t enjoy reading, but likes being read to. Trouble telling time from an analog clock. Slow, inaccurate reading. Letter and number reversals after first grade.

(00:19:46):

And poor spelling. Yes, I’m going to leave that up so you can take a picture.

(00:19:49):

Also, if you text GHC to the number 33777, this slide deck is there. I’ll put that up on the screen at the end, too, so then you can have this slide for yourself later.

(00:20:02):

Now, most dyslexic kids do not show all of these signs, they just show a couple of them. So if, let’s say two or three of these are ringing a bell for you, then it’s interesting to keep listening.

(00:20:14):

Let’s talk about what dyslexia is. First of all, it’s genetic. So if one person in your family has dyslexia, it is very unlikely that they are the only ones with dyslexia.

(00:20:24):

In fact, if one of your kids has a dyslexic brain, very, very likely that either you or your spouse has a dyslexic brain, as well, may be undiagnosed. It has nothing to do with intelligence.

(00:20:37):

It is not a disorder, there is nothing broken. Dyslexic kids are often the smartest in their class, but they are the way they learn language is different than the way we traditionally teach language. So sometimes, we mistake that, or our kids get mistaken at co-op or Sunday school, because they can’t read.

(00:20:55):

If any of you have this experience, where your kid goes to Sunday school, and they’re reading the passages, and this is for, so frustrating to me. Because here I’ve been homeschooling my kids, so they have no idea they’re behind or something, and then they go to church, and they’re not reading, they can’t read like the other kids do in class.

(00:21:12):

And all of a sudden, they’re like, “Am I dumb?” And they’re getting mistaken for being lacking intelligence, when that’s not what’s happening. It simply indicates how a brain assimilates new language-based learning. That is what dyslexia is. You don’t outgrow it.

(00:21:26):

So your child, if they are dyslexic, will never not be dyslexic. They don’t get a new brain. This is the way God wired their brain. We don’t want to fight it, we don’t want to fix it. There’s nothing broken. All we want to do is make sure we’re working with the brain God gave your kid, to help them be good readers.

(00:21:43):

Experts believe that 15 to 20% of the population is dyslexic, but only 5% has been diagnosed. So if you’ve got, a bell’s going off in your head right now, like, “Oh, wait,” chances are very good, that even if you don’t get a dyslexia diagnosis, which, we’re going to talk, Colleen will talk about in a little bit, engaging with your kid as though they have a dyslexic brain will probably improve their learning quite rapidly.

(00:22:16):

5% of kids will learn to read on their own. I always hoped I’d have one of these. My mom says that I don’t actually have any memories as a child not reading. She says, I sort of taught myself to read when I was three.

(00:22:28):

I don’t remember learning how to read, which makes it also very difficult when my kids are struggling to learn how to read, because then you sort of look at it, and you’re like, “I don’t understand what we’re missing here.”

(00:22:38):

So, very small percentage, and again, this has nothing to do with intelligence. These 5% have no advantages over any of the other children when it comes to later reading. 30 to 50% will learn to read relatively easily, once exposed to formal instruction. These are the kids that our entire education system is usually built around, the kids who, once you start teaching them, they just get it.

(00:23:01):

And 30 to 50% will find learning to read to be the most difficult challenge they will ever face academically. And this is important to know, because if you are thinking, that “My kid’s having a hard time learning to read, and if they’re having a hard time learning to read, how are they going to learn, fill in the blank with something else hard, in the future?” No, no.

(00:23:21):

For a huge percentage of kids, this is the hardest academic challenge they will have in their entire life. College will have nothing on learning to read, so it’s okay for it to feel hard for you and your struggling reader to get the hang of this. This is the hardest thing they will ever face, if learning to read is challenging.

(00:23:45):

Okay, let’s scoot along to some recommended resources. So my first thing, if anything here that I’ve said today makes you think, “Ooh, I might need to learn a little more about dyslexia,” my best recommendation is to go to Marianne Sunderland’s website, which is called homeschoolingwithdyslexia.com.

(00:24:02):

She has fabulous resources, she has a podcast. She has this book, that top one there, called Dyslexia 101, and that is a very slim, very fast read, and it will give you a much more comprehensive, there’s a lot more signs of dyslexia, so she’ll give you a more comprehensive list, as well as great next steps. And everything she writes is for homeschoolers.

(00:24:23):

Marianne will make you understand that homeschooling is the best kind of education for a dyslexic child, which is a really relieving thing to hear. Not that you’ve done anything wrong, or that you can’t help your kid, or you wish you had noticed this earlier, so you could have helped them. Marianne’s going to help you feel like, “My kid has the best circumstances possible to succeed.” And then, if you want more, that’s where I would start.

(00:24:46):

But if you want more, and you want some encouragement to remind you that dyslexia is not a disorder, it’s nothing that’s broken, you don’t need to fix it, you can’t fix it, The Dyslexic Advantage is a fabulous book. Because in that book, he talks about how most of the most successful people in our world today, like entrepreneurs and the richest people, the most successful business people, they’re all dyslexic, almost across the board. They’re dyslexic.

(00:25:15):

Why? Well, it makes sense, doesn’t it, that you’re language-based learning might be different over here. You might learn language learning differently over here, but there’s something else going on in a dyslexic brain that makes them highly creative, and very good at thinking outside the box, which is something you have a harder time teaching a kid to do, right? Internally teaching them how to read. So that book is really helpful, if you want a little encouragement, that not only is this not a disorder, it’s actually a gift.

(00:25:41):

And there’s an advantage to being dyslexic, so let’s figure out how to help you learn how to read, which is the hardest thing you’re going to learn how to do. And then, let’s also celebrate the ways that you are amazing.

(00:25:51):

One last thing for you is, from me, is that when it comes to reading with kids who are struggling to learn how to read, I’m going to go back to the read aloud bit for a minute. Because it is really important, if your child is struggling to learn how to read, that either you’re reading aloud, or doing audiobooks or both, of good stories that they want more of.

(00:26:15):

Because if they’re struggling to read, “The cat sat on the mat,” and they think the reward for reading is to read, “The cat sat on the mat,” that’s not super motivating. But if you are reading The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and they are falling in love with stories, then they want to get it for themselves, and there’s something at the end of this mountain that they’re climbing, that is worth reaching for.

(00:26:39):

Graphic novels are fabulous for struggling readers and dyslexic readers. We often think of comics and graphic novels, we might think of, “Oh, Calvin and Hobbes, is that real reading?” Yes. Here’s the deal.

(00:26:51):

When you’re talking about a graphic novel or a comic, it’s actually called multimodal thinking. Multiple parts of your brain, they can show this on scans, light up when you’re reading a graphic novel, where usually one part of your brain, mostly, lights up when you’re reading text only.

(00:27:06):

You have to know what’s going on in the pictures and interpret it, and what’s going on in the words and interpret it, to understand the story. So your student, even though it feels easy and very enjoyable, is getting a major brain workout when they’re reading a graphic novel.

(00:27:20):

So graphic novels are hit or miss. I wouldn’t recommend maybe sending your kid free in the graphic novel section of the library, just so you know.

(00:27:27):

But we do have a list of recommended ones at the website, and you’ll get that too by, if you text GHC to the number 33777, you’ll get the book list.

(00:27:37):

What was the other thing? Oh, this slides about dyslexia, and all the resources that I mentioned today.

Colleen Kessler (00:27:43):

Okay, I’m going to piggyback on some of what Sarah just said, too, before I jump into gifted and advanced readers. A lot of time, our differently wired learners, like Sarah was talking about, hit the mark in a bunch of different areas, because they are asynchronous in their learning.

(00:28:06):

They’re learning, not in a linear fashion, which is why these kids can be so challenging, to raise and parent and homeschool, because those books you get off the shelf don’t seem to fit, right? Like, “Oh, maybe this one works, and oh, this strategy, forget it. This book is not being written for me.”

(00:28:24):

A twice exceptional learner is someone who has a high cognitive ability. They are very, very bright, but then, also have other things going around going on with them. And typically, any of our differently wired thinkers hit a couple of those marks because, let’s just look, we’re going to kind of be a little geeky for a second. We’re going to look at a bell curve, right?

(00:28:48):

If we’re talking about cognitive ability, we’re talking about IQ scores, and the majority of us fall in the middle there. And a gifted individual, according to tests, is about two standard deviations above that average where everybody falls. Somebody with developmental or cognitive delays is two standard deviations on the other side, they’re just as discrepant. They’re just as differently wired from that average, which means, they’re just as in need of support.

(00:29:18):

So our differently wired readers, who are struggling with dyslexia, or other processing issues and challenges, have just as much need of support, but then, are also really creative and intelligent in other ways. Another good book, while we’re talking about dyslexia, is a book called The Gift of Dyslexia.

(00:29:37):

There is a book that I’ve recommended a couple times this weekend called The Gift of ADHD, and the Gift of Dyslexia was written by the same psychologist, and it’s all about honing the cool stuff, that comes with a dyslexic brain, and helping them be the best versions of themselves. So that’s another good one to read.

(00:29:55):

And then, it’s important, like Sarah said, to just remember that there’s nothing broken or wrong with any of our kids. Wherever it is they fall along this curve, and this spectrum, they’re wired the way they are, because they’re meant for something that’s unique to them. And God doesn’t make mistakes.

(00:30:20):

He didn’t make mistakes in how they’re wired, he didn’t make mistakes in you being their parent. You’re already equipped to meet them where they are, and move them forward, and help them be the best versions of themselves, because he gave them to you, and he’s not making a mistake there.

(00:30:36):

You are here at a homeschool convention, spending your free time working to be a better parent, and homeschool teacher. You’ve already won this. You’re already incredible. So you’ve got all the tools at your fingertips. You just need to believe in yourself, okay?

(00:30:53):

So remember that. If you don’t remember anything else this weekend, remember that you’ve already got this.

(00:30:58):

Okay, let’s talk about advanced readers first. So sometimes our kids just read like Sarah did, right? I say often, I think that Sarah kind of chuckles every time I say this, that Molly, my daughter, kind of came out of the womb with a book in hand. I don’t remember her not reading. She just read spontaneously, and has never ever stopped.

(00:31:20):

She loves it, she picks up books. She kind of eats them for breakfast, lunch and dinner. In fact, now, she is, for fun, annotating literature, putting little sticky notes in, and highlighting things, and making notes to herself, and giggling at the notes that she makes for herself, and usually doing this on just regular every day teen Ya fiction. Not necessarily classics, or anything where you’d usually annotate literature.

(00:31:52):

But it’s interesting to her, because books and literature are interesting to her. Advanced readers read early, and are often, I say “often,” because once you start tapping into a norm, there’s going to be someone that throws a wrench in that for you. So even some of our more advanced readers, that when they get to independence are, they start off slowly.

(00:32:20):

One of my daughters is dyslexic, and she’s super highly creative, and has all sorts of really great ideas and imaginations, and she’s very sensitive. She’s starting to take off and she’s reading all of the things that Molly read, when Molly was much older than she is now, but she’s flying through everything.

(00:32:39):

Like Sarah says, once it kind of takes off, it takes off. So remember that, but advanced readers who are kind of spontaneous on their own do this early, and they tend to enjoy the process of reading. So an advanced reader, a gifted reader, doesn’t just want to read.

(00:32:57):

They like the way words work together. They like to see how the page is organized. They like to make notes and study and compare things, because that’s interesting. The language is interesting.

(00:33:13):

These are the kids you want to talk to about what they’re reading often. We’re going to talk about this in a second, but actually, yeah, we can talk about this now.

(00:33:22):

You’re not going to be able to keep up with everything they’re reading. If you’ve got a kid … How many of you have an advanced reader, somebody who’s voracious, and never stops? Okay, just give up the idea right now that you’re going to read ahead of them. You’re just not going to be able to.

(00:33:39):

So your job isn’t necessarily to preview and read everything that’s going to come into their path. Your job is to help them evolve into a discerning reader, someone who knows what their values are, and what they love about literature, and someone who’s willing to talk to you about what they’re coming across.

(00:34:01):

Interestingly, advanced and gifted readers are really good at self … I lost the word. This is my brain injury. Self, when they … Shoot.

(00:34:18):

Regulation’s, not the word, but not banning books, or … Anyway, when you come across something, and you know that this isn’t something for you, I don’t know why I can’t … Selection? Censoring, that’s the word. Okay.

(00:34:31):

I had a concussion, just so you know, and every once in awhile, it creeps up on me. I was calling Sarah and Pam last year, Sam and Para all season, so I’m getting better.

(00:34:42):

Self-censoring. Our good, good readers are going to be really good at self-censoring, especially if you talk to them about books early and often, open-ended questions, talking about what they’re reading, even if you’ve never read it, asking them to give you a recommendation, and go from there. Because, when they’re talking to you about what’s great about literature, they’re going to start seeing what’s maybe not great about the literature they’re picking up.

(00:35:12):

They’ll stop reading stuff. They’ll maybe realize that something goes against their morals or their values, or our family values. I remember one time, going into Molly’s room, and finding a book underneath her bed, wrapped in yarn, and tied in a knot. So I asked her about it.

(00:35:32):

And she said that the series that she had been reading took a turn that she wasn’t comfortable with. And she was worried that her younger sister would come across it, and read it for herself, because it was a graphic novel, and her sister was picking up all her graphic novels. Self-cnesoring.

(00:35:50):

Then we had a great discussion. Because what we really want with our advanced readers is to have great discussions, right? So we had a great discussion about what happens next time you come across something that doesn’t feel like it aligns. You don’t have to tie it up in a knot, tou can come talk to me.

(00:36:03):

And we can put it on a shelf for later, or we can just give it away, or get rid of it in a different way. You don’t have to hide it, because you’re going to come across things that you don’t understand, especially when you’re reading widely and often. So our kids become very discerning.They have excellent language and vocabulary skills.

(00:36:20):

But here’s something interesting. For our advanced readers, who start out reading things early, and go into more complicated work, they might have really, really great vocabulary skills and really great language skills, and they might be testing out their own language skills with you, having got good conversations and dropping those big words. But they may be mispronouncing them a little bit, because what their vocabulary has been built on is the stuff that they read, and they make connections based on other things they learn.

(00:36:54):

Molly was reading me a passage one time, and she read the person’s name as Penelope, because it was spelled like antelope, and I wish that I had nurtured her into … that was so sweet. But this is actually how we present, how we pronounce that word.

(00:37:10):

I laughed and then said, “No, no, that’s not Penelope. That’s Penelope, and this is why.” And she’s hiding her face right now, because she came into this room and didn’t realize that this is part of the talk.

(00:37:25):

But our readers will do that often. They’ll read something, and they’ll read it wrong, but they’ve got the meaning, because a lot of their vocabulary building has come from reading advanced work early and often. They also demonstrate accelerated processing skills. They can process, and make connections within the literature and in their greater world, and the community, much more easily and earlier than others.

(00:37:54):

When Trevor was very young, I told a story earlier, so if you were in that talk, I’m sorry. I went to observe a preschool class for him, and at the request of his teacher, because she wanted to show me how he was doing, and she was reading aloud a book to the seven or eight students in this preschool class, and all but Trevor were rapt with attention, right, sitting in the semicircle, listening to the teacher.

(00:38:22):

Then she started asking questions about the book. “What color shirt was the boy wearing? What did the boy choose to do? What else did you notice on the page?” All of the different things you would ask in normal preschool class. As she started wrapping up her questions, Trevor started inching closer and closer.

(00:38:36):

And then, he raised his hand and she said, “Did you have something to add?” And he said, “Mrs. Mallory, had that kid just done what his mom was telling him to do in the first place, he would have had such an easier life. He would have never gotten into trouble there. What he wanted would have happened at the end of the story, and he would’ve gotten the things he wanted, without all of the stuff that came before that. It’s like when I did …” And he kept going.

(00:39:06):

Higher level thinking, connections, making and drawing conclusions, our advanced learners are drawing conclusions that we’re not even aware they’re drawing. So what we want is to talk and ask lots of questions with them.

(00:39:21):

So what do we do? We want to be aware of what our kids are reading. If we have advanced or gifted readers, whether they’re identified or not, and we’ll talk about testing when we move to our Q&A portion, we want to be aware of what they’re reading, but we don’t need to feel the need to pre-read everything.

(00:39:40):

What we want to do, instead of worrying about pre-reading, is we want to ask those inquiry-based questions. We want to ask them open-ended questions to get them talking about what they’re reading, and help them draw conclusions.

(00:39:53):

On my last slide, I’m going to give you something that you can text for a packet for advanced readers. There’s some book lists, and there are, I don’t know, some bookmarks, and some other tracking sheet, and some other things. But one of the pages in that packet are open-ended discussion questions that you can use with any book.

(00:40:11):

Sarah’s book, The Read-Aloud Family, has some great questions in it, so you can use that too. There are other resources online. I think Sarah’s is the best. You should get that. You should also download my packet.

(00:40:23):

But that’s your job, as a parent of an advanced reader, is to ask lots of questions, and get your kids talking about books, so that’s natural about literature. We want them to be thinking about what is going on in the work.

(00:40:39):

And then, maybe most importantly is, we want to be non-judgmental about the whole thing. We want to be able to talk to them about what they are and maybe aren’t censoring in their reading. We want to talk to them about the things that they’re coming up against.

(00:40:56):

Our kids are going to be exposed to stuff, that we don’t know that they’re being exposed to. No matter how much we shelter them, they’re going to come across stuff at some point. This is the perfect opportunity to teach our kids that they can come to us for anything, and we’ll talk them through it.

(00:41:15):

We’ll talk them through it. We might give some of our opinions, but we’re not going to judge them for having the questions, asking them, and needing the information. It’s really important to keep those conversations open, because if we can do this now when they’re young, and as they’re growing, they will be the ones to come to us when they’re older, and the bigger problems start to happen, as they’re getting out on their own, and building relationships, and meeting new people and being exposed to new idea ideas and ideals, they’re going to feel comfortable coming to us. So we want to make sure that we keep open and we keep the conversation going with them as often as possible.

(00:42:00):

Okay, so one of the challenges we face when we have advanced readers, is keeping them in books. I’m going to say something that’s not always popular at the Homeschool Convention, but twaddle is okay.

(00:42:15):

Fluffy books are okay. If your kids read a lot, let them read things that are heavy, let them read things that are light. I like a good romance novel. I’m 49 years old, and I will go out on the hammock, and I will read a fluffy romance novel, because I’m reading all sorts of other things.

(00:42:35):

It doesn’t make my brain atrophy, it’s not going to ruin me, and it’s not going to ruin our kids to read fluffy, fun stuff because reading is better than not reading. Isaac Loves Diary of a Wimpy Kid. I loathe the Diary of a Wimpy Kid. I just do. And he’s reading.

(00:42:54):

He read the way, from Cleveland to Cincinnati, the New Diary of a Wimpy Kid book. Guess what? He wasn’t on his screen, he was reading.

(00:43:02):

So sometimes, fluff is okay. But we also want to expose our advanced readers to a lot of different genres and a lot of different options, especially because they can often get themselves into a rut of the stuff they like, and they don’t want to break out of it.

(00:43:18):

There are a couple resources. One, it’s a little dated, but it’s still one of the better books out there to help you be discerning for your advanced readers. It’s a book called Some of My Best Friends Are Books. The first part of it talks about what a gifted reader looks like, and what it feels like for them as their reading text. And there are book lists in it, that can at least jump-start you.

(00:43:43):

The newest edition is still about eight years old, so they don’t have a newer updated version of this book. But it’s still a good start, to get you to maybe see some books that are recommended, based off some of the recommendations in that book.

(00:44:02):

There’s a post on my site, Raising Lifelong Learners/Gifted Readers, that has a bunch of different book lists. There are picture books that contain advanced kids as the character. There are chapter books that are just like that. So that can get you started too.

(00:44:20):

I love the MENSA Excellence in Reading Lists. You don’t have to be a MENSA membe, your kids don’t have to qualify for MENSA. MEBSA Excellence in Reading, they have a program that shares book lists for all the different grade levels, and your kids can read a certain number of books on that list, sign, fill out their form, and mail it to MESA.

(00:44:47):

And your first year participating, or your first list completed, MENSA will send your kids a certificate and a T-shirt. Every subsequent list that you send in, they’ll send you an additional certificate. It’s totally free, and you don’t have to qualify. You don’t have to have an IQ score, or any test scores.

(00:45:04):

They just want to get kids reading good books, and a variety of good books. So I like their list, because their goal is to challenge your kids. So that’s a good place to start too.

(00:45:15):

And then, if you want that advanced reader’s packet, with some of my discussion questions, as well as some book lists, and some tracking sheets, you can text gifted to 333, I’m sorry, 33777.

(00:45:28):

I guess it’s been a long weekend, because my brain is not wanting to cooperate anymore. And then you’ll get that in your e-mail inbox. All right?

(00:45:37):

Okay, ready? We’re going to take some questions. Do you want me to … Go ahead.

Speaker 3 (00:45:40):

Yeah. One of the questions we hear a lot is testing. So should I get my kid, especially when it relates to dyslexia, and you’re wondering, “Ooh, I wonder if my child is dyslexic, or is just a late reader,” because both of those could be true. So what do you think about that?

Colleen Kessler (00:46:00):

Yeah, so the question I always ask back when it comes to any kind of testing question is, “What is your reason for testing?” I’m going to talk kind of globally about testing dyslexia, giftedness, because that’s going to come up too, since I talked about giftedness, and then, any other challenge, anxiety, I talked about this weekend, and things like that.

(00:46:20):

You need to examine first your reason for a testing. If it’s just because you want to know, I wouldn’t waste the money, okay? Because a gifted test, any kind of testing is going to be expensive. So you want to make sure that you’re doing it for the right reasons.

(00:46:36):

Now, that’s really the most important thing you need to think about when it comes to gifted testing. So let me just get that one out of the way. What is your reason for it? Do you just want to know, or is there something you feel like you’re missing?

(00:46:48):

There are no college applications. I mean, Sarah can attest to this. She sent a couple kids already that ask for your kids’ IQ. That’s essentially what gifted testing is. It’s going to give you an IQ score, it’s going to give you subdomains, and our subs tests, and abilities and stuff, but it’s not going to do much, except give you that number.

(00:47:05):

That could help you potentially get your kids into some summer programs, or some other things like that, if you think you’re not doing enough. But overall, as a homeschool parent, you’re meeting your kids where they are, you’re moving them forward.

(00:47:17):

You’re fanning the fuels of their passions and interests, and giving them opportunities to test those things out. So if you’re doing those things, then I wouldn’t waste the several thousand dollars on gifted testing, if you’re going to homeschool them anyway. If there are other things you’re worried about, we can talk about that.

(00:47:32):

But then, let’s talk about dyslexia, and then, any other kind of thing like anxiety, or sensory processing disorder, or ADHD. Here’s what I say to that. There are a lot of resources out there.

(00:47:43):

Start with homeschooling, with dyslexia.com. Start with a couple of those books that Sarah mentioned. Start with The Gift of Dyslexia, and then try some of those strategies. Read aloud, do short daily phonics lessons. Give it some time.

(00:48:00):

If you start to see that you’re trying the things, and it’s still affecting your kids globally, they’re still not making progress, they’re still super frustrated, or they’re retreating further in, and what you are doing isn’t enough, then yes, we want to do some testing, and we want to seek help. Because seeking help and getting testing is super brave, super important, and not an admission of failure.

(00:48:29):

It’s just admitting, “I tried it all now. I need more resources and tools to help my kid grow and move forward.” This is my biggest recommendation when it comes to any kind of testing, dyslexic, ADHD, sensory processing, anything. Start with your medical providers near you.

(00:48:48):

Start with a speech language pathologist, start with maybe an occupational therapist, your pediatrician, a child psychologist, someone whose job is to help you figure out your kid, make some recommendations, or give you a diagnosis or an identification, not with a center that has the program to fix your kid. So start with the medical professional that’s going to look at your kid and give you the diagnosis.

(00:49:11):

And then, when you have the diagnosis, you can move forward, with either stuff that is through your school district, or the hospital system or the therapy offices, or one of those centers that has the resources to meet your kids where they are, when you have that diagnosis in hand.

(00:49:27):

Because the motivation is going to get to know your kid and help your kid first, if that makes sense. And if you have any questions, specifically, about a specific kind of test or whatever, I’ll be in the booth the rest of the time today so you can ask me more questions. Okay?

(00:49:43):

Okay, good. We’re going to take questions from the floor. Molly is going to go around with the mic, so you can ask questions. If you have a question, raise your hand and Molly will find you.

(00:49:51):

The one thing that I’m going to say, so Molly, you can go ahead and get started finding someone. And then, I’m going to say this.

(00:49:56):

Please keep your questions concise and as general as we can, to apply to everybody. So if it’s a question that’s specific to your kid in a circumstance, come see us at the booth, so we can help your individual question.

(00:50:11):

If it’s something that you know can ask quickly, we can answer and get as many questions in as we can, keep it that way, if that works. Okay?

Speaker 4 (00:50:21):

Hi. I have a reluctant reader who is reading, but just loves audiobooks. We do all the read alouds, and I’m getting to the point, will he eventually switch to reading on his own, or will he always do audiobooks? Is that okay?

Sarah Mackenzie (00:50:36):

How old?

Speaker 4 (00:50:37):

He’s almost nine.

Sarah Mackenzie (00:50:39):

Oh, yeah, okay. So two things to keep in mind. One is that reading with your ears and reading with your eyes are just two modes of reading, but there’s not, like, it isn’t that if you read with your eyes, you’re actually getting it better than with your ears.

(00:50:51):

I am a good reader with my eyes and still prefer an audiobook, if I get to pick between the two. So he may always have a preference for audiobooks, but also, until reading is easy for him, he’s not going to choose to read with his eyes. Because none of us like to do things that are hard, right?

(00:51:08):

I wouldn’t worry about it, though, because I think what you can do is you can just wait until it becomes easier. My son, Drew, he’s the one that was reading, didn’t start reading until he was about nine and a half.

(00:51:18):

And during quiet reading time during our day, I would do audiobooks. He would listen to the whole Red Wall series, and Green Ember, and all kinds of stuff, as audiobooks. Preferred to listen to everything, or have me read aloud his lessons, until he was 16.

(00:51:34):

And at 17 now, it’s definitely, we still do listen to audiobooks together, he and I, but he prefers to read with his eyes. At some point, it will probably get faster to read with his eyes.

(00:51:46):

So when he wants the information for himself, my son loves Malcolm Gladwell’s books now, so he just wants to read with his eyes, but you don’t need to be the facilitator of that. That will happen on its own, yeah.

Speaker 5 (00:51:59):

This may go along with the last question, but my son is an advanced reader. He’s five, and he’s reading several years above his age. However, he does not want to read, he does not desire to read. He also does not listen to audiobooks, does not enjoy audiobooks.

(00:52:13):

So I’m just curious if you have any tips on how to encourage that desire at this point. I am encouraging him to read out loud to me about five minutes a day of anything he wants. But it’s a struggle to get him to do that.

Sarah Mackenzie (00:52:26):

Yeah, so I think that’s really common, actually. Does he like nonfiction better than fiction, by any chance?

Speaker 5 (00:52:32):

He likes both, really, yeah.

Sarah Mackenzie (00:52:33):

We see a lot of boys, especially, preferring nonfiction to fiction. Sometimes it’s just finding the right kind of book.

(00:52:43):

That doesn’t always align with what we think of. We’re like, “But I wanted you to love Charlotte’s Web,” and that might not actually be the thing for him.

(00:52:52):

So a couple of things come to mind for me, and then I’ll let you add anything. One is that I would keep doing that, where he reads a aloud, too. Five minutes a day is perfect. That’s such a good amount of time.

(00:53:03):

You can also incentivize him a little bit differently. So with my son, he’s not nine anymore, he’s 17, but when he was younger, I would say, “When you finish a book, come tell me you finished it, and then we’ll go out for a hamburger.” And hamburgers are his love language to this day.

(00:53:21):

Basically, what we would do, then, is we’d go out for a hamburger, and I would ask him some open-ended questions, like the kind that are at the back of my book, or in the handout that you’ll get. What happens, then, there’s a couple of things, especially if I hadn’t read the book.

(00:53:35):

Maybe it was just a comic book, or a graphic novel or something I’ve not read? He’s not thinking that I’m looking for the right answer. I’m quizzing him, because I’ve never read the book. So when I say, “Who is the most brave character in that story,” he’s not like, “What does my mom want me to say?” Because I don’t know who’s in the story.

(00:53:50):

So then they start kind of getting the feel of, “Oh, my mom’s just interested in me, and what I’m reading,” but it’s also at an incentive that’s more time with you. So you can incentivize their reading. I would be careful about incentivizing with screens, number one.

(00:54:05):

Because then it does this thing in our brains, where it’s like, you eat the carrots to get to the ice cream, you read the books to get to the screens. We don’t want to do that.

(00:54:12):

But if you’re incentivizing with more time with you, then it’s a completely different thing. Sometimes, some kids are just become less ravenous readers than others, and that’s okay too. Do you have anything to add?

Colleen Kessler (00:54:24):

Not much, except that when he’s a captive audience, you’re in the car, throw an audiobook in. And then the other thing that you can do, that worked with my oldest, is read stuff that he’s going to like, and want to get to the next part of, and stop in the middle of the action. And then put it away.

(00:54:47):

You can put it on the table, if you know he can read it and say, “I’ve got to go do the laundry, I can’t do anymore. If you want to know what’s happening, go ahead and read it, that’s on you. Otherwise, I’ll be back tomorrow, and I’ll read you some more.”

(00:55:01):

So make it, “I’m sorry, I can’t read anymore. Gosh, yeah, that is cliffhanger. Whoops.”

Speaker 6 (00:55:10):

The best tip I’ve ever heard yet.

Speaker 7 (00:55:14):

I have a eight-year-old dyslexic learner that’s on CVCC words, and then, a six-year-old that’s reading like Anne of Green Gables, and there’s some pretty ruthless sibling rivalry over that. How do you address that?

Colleen Kessler (00:55:29):

Yeah, so this is a challenge, and this is all about building an atmosphere in your home of the differences, the strengths, the weaknesses of each, and the fact that you’re a team as a family. So when you already have the rivalry going, you’re going to be doing some rebuilding.

(00:55:48):

But for anybody that doesn’t have that, but might have somebody who is advanced, and might do something, and take off at a younger age than others, this is something you want to start now, yesterday, and just keep going with it.

(00:56:00):

The goal is to help your kids understand that God doesn’t make mistakes, that every one of us has strengths and weaknesses, and all of those strengths and weaknesses are a greater part of the whole, and we’d be a really boring family if we all did things in the same kind of consecutive linear order.

(00:56:16):

That happened in our home. I have a 13-year-old dyslexic who took forever to read, and her younger brother was reading before her. And she didn’t feel, at that point, that she was wrong or bad, or broken or dumb, because he was reading more.

(00:56:33):

She’d ask him to read something to her when she got stuck, because he’d ask her for ideas on what to play, or go to her for games, because she’s creative. She’s the fun one that can always come up with something, like a scavenger hunt, or whatever.

(00:56:47):

So helping your kids see what’s good about each of them, and where the weaknesses are, so we can all help each other shore up the weaknesses, and we can all support each other, and then we can all go to each other when there’s a strength that we know that they have, is a good foundational thing just to build your family climate off of. That said, we learn to live with difficult people by living with difficult people.

(00:57:14):

Our siblings are there to help us be better, and refine our spirit, and our personality. So some of that’s going to happen. Your job as a mom, in that situation, is to help your kids see the good in everybody.

(00:57:27):

An easy way to start that right now is, whatever meal you’re together, or morning time or whatever, start playing a word game of, “What’s the greatest thing that happened today? What’s the worst thing that happened today? What is the thing you’re most grateful for? What is something you can say good about everybody else at this table?” And then go from there.

(00:57:45):

They can say what their best thing is, they can say what their worst thing was. They can say what they’re most grateful for, and then the rest of it is, “What’s great about her, him, me and everybody else,” and let them go around, and start identifying what’s good about each other, because that starts to build the habit of finding the good in each other.

(00:58:04):

It’s a slow process, like water on rock. You’re slowly smoothing those river stones, so they polish to a beautiful gleam, but they’re really rough for a while.

Sarah Mackenzie (00:58:15):

Do you have anything? No. Okay. Five, four.

(00:58:17):

Run, run, run.

Speaker 8 (00:58:20):

Okay. You said knitting, when you were twitching. So for the moms, it takes the time it takes. What do you do for yourself?

(00:58:29):

Because I can be as sweet, or whatever, but when the thoughts are running through my head, what can you do for yourself, so you’re not twitching while you’re waiting for your nine-year-old to read fluently, or whatever? It’s taking the time it takes.

Sarah Mackenzie (00:58:44):

Do you mean, what do you do for yourself in that moment, or are you talking more mindset? Like, how do you remind yourself that it takes the time that it takes mindset?

Speaker 8 (00:58:52):

Mindset, yeah.

Sarah Mackenzie (00:58:53):

Yeah. I mean, I think, managing our own anxiety about how fast or slow, or … Let me say that differently. Managing our own anxiety about how slow it takes, to get the progress we want from our children, is 90% of the battle in homeschooling. And really, we can talk a big game about faith, and about knowing that we’re doing this really important work, but we also really want that guarantee that this homeschooling thing is going to work out.

(00:59:20):

So we’re constantly looking for that affirmation. We’re scanning for it. So we want our kids to recite that poem. Oh my goodness, we took this family trip.

(00:59:28):

We’re in this bookstore, my now 11-year-old, I think she was nine at the time. She sees these bookmarks that all have sketches of different famous authors.

(00:59:36):

There’s Rudyard Kipling, and Shakespeare, and all these authors, and she pulls one down and says, “Who is this one?” I said, “That is Emily Dickinson.”

(00:59:46):

We’re standing right by the checkout. And she goes, “Hope is the thing with feathers,” and she recites the whole thing, and I’m looking around, like, “I did that.” For the record, that was me.

(00:59:58):

But we are kind of scanning for that I want proof that what I’m doing is working. I mentioned the other day, that a lot of times, in homeschooling what we’re doing, is actually planting seeds. And then we kind of dig them up to see, if they’re taking root.

(01:00:12):

I don’t know if you guys know about bamboo, but there is a certain species of bamboo that you plant, and you see nothing for five years, nothing. There is nothing that comes up out of the ground.

(01:00:26):

You have to water it, protect it, weeded the area, make sure the dog doesn’t pee on it. You have to protect this area for five years, with no indication that anything is taking place. And when those five years are up, that bamboo shoot spikes up, and I can’t remember, it’s three feet in 90 days, or something.

(01:00:45):

This is a lot like homeschooling, because especially in those early years, when you’re laying the foundation of those things that feel like they take forever, like reading, or long division, or whatever it is in your house, that takes 100,000 years to teach, and you feel like you have to do it again and again and again? We do the work, and this is actually what it means to be faithful.

(01:01:05):

It is to be, have faith, I mean, is to do the work. Even though we don’t see anything happening above the surface, that bamboo is shooting its roots way down into the ground.

(01:01:16):

So I think remembering, we can’t scan for evidence, validation that we’re doing a good job homeschooling, from our kids. It’s not fair to ask them to do that.

(01:01:23):

We have to figure out a way, whatever that is, whether that’s journaling, whether it’s telling your husband, “I need you to come home and tell me I’m doing a really good job every single day, even if you’re lying to me. Just do it.”

(01:01:34):

These are the things we need to do, to set ourselves up to be able to do this, year after year after year, without looking to our kids to validate what we’re doing, yeah.

(01:01:45):

Yeah, Last one, yeah.

Speaker 9 (01:01:46):

I’ll try to make this quick. I have two kids, they’re second and third grade, pulling them out of public school, and one of them is dyslexic.

(01:01:54):

I’m wondering, what is your favorite reading curriculum for dyslexic kids? And then, could I also have my other kid do the same reading program? I mean, at their grade level?

(01:02:07):

Is it important to have different kinds of ways to read? I don’t know if I’m making much sense.

Sarah Mackenzie (01:02:13):

You are. You’re making sense, yeah. I think, two things. One thing is, we do use different curriculum for kids if there’s a competition thing going on.

(01:02:19):

We have identical twins who are nine, and it’s not great for them to be in the same handwriting book, or the same math book because then we get some of that competition stuff that was mentioned earlier. It’s easier if we’re just in completely separate books, and then it’s like, who knows where you are? So that can help.

(01:02:36):

However, my default is always, the best curriculum is the one that you’re actually going to use. So if it means that you are going to get to it, I would choose whatever is simplest for you. For me, that would be picking one kind of, one reading program, and then, this is what we’re using.

(01:02:50):

I have really liked and used with my dyslexic kids All About Reading, and Logic of English. Don’t use both. I just mean, I’ve used both programs, you can pick one or the other. I think they’re equally good, but they’re laid out differently. So my hunch would be to look at both of them.

(01:03:04):

I don’t think they’re in the exhibit hall, but you could look at their samples online, and whichever one you look like, “Okay, I could do that.” Especially if you ever look at a curriculum and you think, “Oh.”

(01:03:16):

Don’t buy that. You’re not going to do it, right? Even if you’re thinking, “Oh, but I heard this is the best such and such curriculum.” It doesn’t matter if it sits on your shelf, it’s not going to do anything.

(01:03:27):

Most homeschool curriculum is pretty good, as long as you do a little bit consistently. So I would look at, those are two that I would recommend, that I’ve used. Is there anything else that you can think of that …

Colleen Kessler (01:03:36):

I don’t know if you’ve looked. There’s another one that’s also based on the Orton Gillingham method, called Happy Cheetah, that’s pretty good, and it’s easy to use and implement.

(01:03:47):

I think that she just sold her curriculum to … I don’t remember if it’s one of the classical places downstairs, but I don’t remember which one it was. I want to say Memorial Press, but I’m not sure.

(01:04:01):

I’m not sure. That may be wrong. I’ll tell you who knows, who they sold it to?

Sarah Mackenzie (01:04:07):

It’s Rainbow.

Colleen Kessler (01:04:08):

It’s Rainbow? They sold it to Rainbow?

Sarah Mackenzie (01:04:10):

Oh, they have them downstairs, or wherever, yeah.

Colleen Kessler (01:04:12):

They have All About Reading too, or …

Sarah Mackenzie (01:04:14):

Yeah.

Colleen Kessler (01:04:14):

Okay, so Rainbow Resources downstairs has samples of All About Reading, and Happy Cheetah? Okay.

(01:04:19):

So that’s another good one. We used it most recently. We’ve also used All About Reading, and I liked it.

(01:04:27):

And then, if you want something online to motivate your kids, nessie.com was one that’s based off of the Orton Gillingham method.

(01:04:34):

My kids also used Reading Eggs, but that’s a little bit more fun. It’s not as heavily steeped in the research. But again, it’s what you’re going to use.

(01:04:44):

Because all of us here … How many veterans are here, homeschooled moms who have been doing this a while? How many of you have curriculums you’ve bought, and never used?

Sarah Mackenzie (01:04:53):

That are still in the shrink wrap?

Colleen Kessler (01:04:54):

Yeah.

Sarah Mackenzie (01:04:55):

Yeah, yeah.

Colleen Kessler (01:04:57):

If it looks to you intimidating and overwhelming, do not buy it. Because you can piece together something that’s just as good, if it’s something you’ll use.

Sarah Mackenzie (01:05:05):

And you could also modify, so All About Reading …

Colleen Kessler (01:05:07):

Yeah.

Sarah Mackenzie (01:05:07):

Anybody who’s used it, anyone love those tiles so much, those letter tiles?

(01:05:11):

I refuse. I will not use the tiles anymore.

Colleen Kessler (01:05:14):

Mine set on my whiteboard, the magnets, in the configuration for five years.

Sarah Mackenzie (01:05:20):

Oh.

Colleen Kessler (01:05:20):

They never moved from the configuration.

Sarah Mackenzie (01:05:21):

I think half of them went into my toddler’s twins. They ate them, I’m pretty sure, actually.

Colleen Kessler (01:05:27):

Yeah.

Sarah Mackenzie (01:05:27):

And then I was like, “We’re done.” I think we aren’t learning with tiles anymore. So whatever you use, also remember to modify it to fit your kid.

(01:05:33):

This is really, I think, the thing that I wish I could have learned earlier on in homeschooling, is that we’re not teaching books, we’re not teaching reading, we’re not teaching curriculum, we’re teaching children.

(01:05:44):

And everything that we use is just a tool to help us do that, and help them take the next step. So you’re going to have to modify absolutely anything you use, and that is the sign of a good teacher, not the sign of someone who doesn’t know how to homeschool their kids, so …

Colleen Kessler (01:05:57):

Yeah. Perfect, exactly.

(01:05:59):

If you have more questions, we will both be down in the booth. It’s 15-something. We’ll just look for the card tricks. I guess there’ll be a group of kids.

Sarah Mackenzie (01:06:07):

Yes.

Colleen Kessler (01:06:08):

But we’ll be there for the next couple hours, so come ask us questions, and we will see you there. Thanks for coming.

Sarah Mackenzie (01:06:12):

Thank you. That was fun. I love speaking at the Great Homeschool Conventions, and like I said, I’ll be back at all five of them in 2024, I would love to meet you there. Details on that forthcoming.

(01:06:31):

If you loved Colleen as much as I do, you should check out her podcast. Her podcast is called Raising Lifelong Learners. You can find it in your podcast app, wherever you listen to the Read Aloud Revival, and her website is raisinglifelonglearners.com.

(01:06:49):

All right. For now, let’s hear from the kids about the books that they’ve been loving lately.

Lucy (01:06:58):

My name’s Lucy. I live in Ithaca, Michigan, and a book I would recommend is The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street. It’s a great book about five kids and their adventures. I read the whole series, and I love them.

Millie (01:07:11):

I’m [Millie 01:07:12], and I live in Nebraska. I like the book Stuck, by Oliver Jeffers, because it’s about this boy named Floyd who gets his kite stuck in a tree, and then throws silly stuff in the tree to get his kite unstuck.

William (01:07:25):

Hi, I’m William Wright, from Nebraska. I am recommending my book, Captain Absolutely. It’s written by [inaudible 01:07:35], from Odyssey, and it’s about somebody that defends justice and truth from the Bible.

Abby (01:07:42):

My name is Abby Whites, from Nebraska, Bloomfield. I like the book This Moose Belongs to Me, by Oliver Jeffers. Has this little boy playing string along to find his way back home.

Ellie (01:08:07):

Hello, my name is Ellie. I’m nine years old, and I live in Reading, Ontario, and the book I recommend is The Fox and the Star, and my favorite part is when the fox sees all the different stars, and he’s happy.

Lachlan (01:08:28):

Hi, I am Lachlan, and I am from Reading, Ontario, and my favorite book is Pizza Party, about the Ninja Turtles, and I like that they see the guy on the scooter, and he drops the box.

Speaker 16 (01:08:51):

What’s your name?

Speaker 17 (01:08:51):

[inaudible 01:08:53].

Speaker 16 (01:08:52):

You’re from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. What’s your favorite book?

Speaker 17 (01:08:57):

Favorite book? 10 Deserts.

Speaker 16 (01:08:59):

10 Little Tractors. Why do you like it?

Speaker 17 (01:09:02):

10.

Speaker 16 (01:09:05):

It has 10. And what’s in here?

Speaker 17 (01:09:06):

Six.

Speaker 16 (01:09:09):

Six?

Speaker 17 (01:09:09):

Seven, eight, nine, eight.

Speaker 16 (01:09:09):

So many …

Speaker 17 (01:09:09):

Tractors.

Speaker 16 (01:09:17):

So many tractors. How old are you?

Speaker 17 (01:09:21):

Two.

Speaker 16 (01:09:21):

You’re two. Good job.

Sarah Mackenzie (01:09:28):

Awesome. Thank you, kids.

(01:09:30):

If your kids would like to tell us about a book they love, head to readaloudrevival.com/message to leave a voicemail, and then we’ll air it on an upcoming episode of the show. I hope you enjoyed this episode.

(01:09:44):

I’ll be back in two weeks with another GHC session. That one is called Homeschooling with Babies and Toddlers. If you are homeschooling with babies or toddlers underfoot, it is for you. I cannot wait to share it with you.

(01:09:57):

Of course, in the meantime, you know what to do. Go make meaningful and lasting connections with your kids, through books.