language arts | Butterfly Homeschool ™ Rebooted

This article discusses how we are now learning to love writing in the #ButterflyHomeschool and ask for your help.

Before we moved this blog over to wordpress.com, I shared a ‘victory dance’ video post about learning challenges our young reader had overcome. She is a fluent reader now. Yeah!… but, that’s not the end of our story. Here is…

Learning Challenges Part 2

‪#‎ButterflyHomeschool‬ is tackling creative writing nowadays. For our young one, we’ve started using a story starter tool on the Chateau MeddyBemps website to help Mommy help the baby really learn to love writing.

http://meddybemps.com

This site is great because she has had anxiety about all things language learning, and their illustrations are fun and inviting and fun for her.

SO HERE IS WHERE I AM AT…

It’s weird (to me) that she’s still anxious about it even though she overcame her reading challenges (serious dyslexia symptoms but no formal diagnosis), and now is a fluent reader. I don’t really fully get why she has been anxious, but I am working over time to learn what I have to do to help her get past it.

WOULD YOU HELP ME OUT HERE? HOW DO YOU HELP YOUR KIDS LOVE WRITING?

If you have had similar challenges, please comment and help me out by answering the following questions:

What writing resources have you found for your reading challenged child?
How do you help to soothe their anxiety when it is time to work on language learning assignments?
Where have you found articles or books on this topic that have helped?
Any other comments?

Even though I did successfully teach her how to read, and publicly celebrated her victory in a past video post, now this new hurdle with her writing has kind of thrown me for an unexpected loop. I thought we had conquered it all, but I guess the reading was just our first stepping stone to help her learn to love learning language skills.

Thanks in advance for reading and for sharing your answers and feedback!

~Donna Marie Johnson, The Mommy at #ButterflyHomeschool

P.S. I’ll repost that victory video again, soon, once we’ve made more progress on building up this new blog site.

Amazon Prime Referral

P.P.S.

One of the most valuable tools that we’ve come to love for our homeschool is Amazon Prime… they even have a complimentary book lending library, thousands of free educational tv shows and movies, free 2-day shipping on amazon fulfilled products and many more perks.

DISCLAIMER: This is my affiliate link: If you decide to click and sign up, Thank you in advance for supporting #ButterflyHomeschool because Amazon may compensate us for referring you to them. My opinions expressed here are my own true opinions about the Amazon Prime program which we truly enjoy using.
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Our family has been so blessed to see our young reader’s progress. She was a true reading hater that would do all she could to get out of it, and now she loves to read. And we are happy to say that Reading Eggs and other great online learning resources have been a great part of it. We were able to get a membership in Reading Eggs via our homeschool co-op, and it was worth this very affordable investment (was less than twenty for the whole year).

Our Little One Is Reading Much Better and Keeping A Great Attitude

She was rewarded with her own mini-Kindle (6 inch) for her great attitude.

In past posts, we have shared about her reading challenges. When we initially realized that she was turning letters and numbers around and tried to get help through the public school system in Georgia, we were shocked (and upset) to find out that there was no help. No testing for dyslexia = no help for dyslexia. Despite it all, her teacher at that time was a huge help. And our co-op group and other homeschool families who share online have also been very helpful.

So, fast forward a year and a half, and she is now reading relatively fluently. She self-corrects most of the time, if she has a backwards letter episode. And she has tools and tricks that she’s learned to help her keep her learning momentum going. Yes, she still needs some encouragement on the bad days, but she always turns things around. Who doesn’t have a bad day? We all do. We all need encouragement. Hers is just a different kind of encouragement.

To all of the families out there who are dealing with reading challenges, fear of reading and hatred of reading:

NEVER

GIVE

And don’t allow them to give up or to give in to the temptation for having pity parties. Let them take a break to rest, then get right back to it the next day.

Our little one has memorized:

I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me. ~Philippians 4:13 (KJV)

And this one scripture has been a great way for her to encourage herself and for us to keep her reminded about encouraging herself. She is so much more confident now. Here is a recent video of her reading.

VIDEO

link: http://youtu.be/VB846J65aLA