Sunshine, writing and being us :)

It's been a while . . . So much is going on here that it's hard to find a quiet moment to marshal my thoughts, and I'm exhausted, which makes it even more likely that I'll end up writing nonsense ;)

A week or so ago we had to fill in the paperwork for L's exam entry.  Somehow that made us realise how little time he has left to get his head around the syllabus, even though we all knew the dates and he's doing fine.  That has mean that he and I are spending more and more time ploughing through his books - and that really is a time sink!  For the most part it's going well, even though it's a long way from the maths I know and understand.  As much as anything I am learning with him, and I find that gives L more confidence if he gets stumped. A phrase that keeps cropping up is that "it's not a test", so if he needs to work things through with me it's not a big deal. 

For a long time L was a perfectionist.  If he did a page of maths and got 19/20 he'd be upset about the one that was wrong.  Finally we're overcoming that - because so much of the syllabus is new to us, or takes things we know further, L is at long last accepting that he can do well without a perfect score.  That said he's usually hitting well above 90%, so all is good :)

We have begun working through Write from the start - a sort of hand-writing program.  All four children are doing it, mostly happily.  The exercises are designed to improve hand eye co-ordination, pen control, to work with the proprioceptive system, to develop visual discrimination and generally to come at things from a neuro-developmental slant rather than just a repetitive one.  All four children had difficulties with the first exercise  - though different difficulties (as ever!) 

The task was to put a single dot inside a small circle.  The aim was to improve precision, develop and awareness of how hard to press the pen(cil) down, to work on hand movements and pen-grip. The circles were in columns, and got progressively closer together. L was fine to begin with, when there was a lot of space around the circles, but as they got closer together he found it increasingly hard to see clearly what he was doing.  I'm guessing this is a dyslexia thing, and hoping that by working on it we can help other reading issues.  M found it hard to get the dots to be dots rather than lines.  He struggled from the start, but improved as the exercise went on.  J was very disorganised in his filling things in - he found it hard to start at the top left and "read" across, and kept missing our circles.  A found her hand got sore half way through, but otherwise was fine.

I'm hoping that since each of them had quite specific issues, working through the program will help them improve - if they'd all whizzed through it without a pause it might feel like a waste of time / money. And since the issues were so clear, it should be easy to keep track of how things are going.  We're on the eighth exercise now, all of them are still fairly happy to keep going - I think it helps that the sheets only take about 5-10 mins to complete, and aren't particularly hard. So far we've had an improvement in the tasks themselves, but not in their writing.  I'm hopeful though :)

I like the program, it seems very gentle in its increasing difficulty and short tasks are easier to fit in.  I hope that it will work - I've read lots of positive things about it - I'll let you all know how things go :)

In other news . . . the weather!  Wow! It's been so lovely here we've been out enjoying it :)  We went to a local rec' and L flew his quadcopter - he's actually really good - the rest of us just hit each other with foam weapons.  Then L joined in the melee.  We have a large number of weapons - all of them are designed to look like fantasy weapons, for use as costume in Live Action Role Play (LARP), and they are all safe for LARP fighting.  Made from foam, with a solid core, then coated in either rubber or latex they do sting, but rarely hurt (every now and then a freak shot catches someone badly, but really that's unavoidable in this sort of playing)

We all really enjoy this sort of "fighting" :) It's a great way to burn off energy, and it is a big adrenalin rush.  The kids enjoy ganging up on my husband and I, and it is just a very "us" thing to do.  There are probably all sorts of "soft" skills being learnt too though - hand eye co-ordination, consideration for others, not to charge from too far away or you'll be exhausted by the time you get there . . .

So, here are a few pics . . .





A didn't get hurt BTW, J is very good at not *actually* making contact :)




Someone's gonna catch her biggest brother . . . .



General Melee

Just to prove M was there too :)

The National Space Centre, Leicester

Well, we managed it :) As an almost last minute decision we decided to go to the National Space Centre in Leicester, a few weeks ago we went to a Live Action Role Playing (LARP) event in Leicester and saw some signs.  We've often wondered about going, but it seemed a long way to go and an expensive place to get into.

But we've been at home for a long time - lots of tired people, ill people, bad weather and other things have meant we just haven't "gone out" for ages.  Besides all that J is doing a project about our solar system, so it even works as an educationally appropriate event :)

As I said, it looks like an expensive day out for six people, but it didn't work out that way :) L counts as a child, even though he is 15 and taller than me, and my husband and I were allowed to go in as "personal assistants" for M and J, meaning we got in free. 

From the outside it doesn't look particularly awesome.  Tucked away on a housing estate, looking a bit more like an industrial unit than a museum, our initial impression was that maybe we had wasted the journey.

We needn't have worried though - the inside bares no resemblance to the exterior, and the trip was well worth it :)

The ground floor is divided into various galleries, there are a lot of interactive exhibits, and lots that you don't need to read extensively to understand.  That last part was crucial as M and J scattered and A was able to be pretty self sufficient.  There is enough detail in the info panels that L was intrigued and interested, but not so much he had trouble with word density. 

M and J disappearing was a bit of an issue - there were lots of school parties around, and the number of bodies milling about made it hard to keep track of the more random members of the family.  Thankfully everything is open plan enough that there were only two or three times we properly lost track of the boys, and even those were mercifully short.

The galleries were well planned, and themed so that everything made sense, the first was about space travel, the second about observing the skies, the third about the effect of various things on Earth (though that might have been a subsection of the last gallery) and the final one was about the planets individually. 

A separate area followed the space race, with rockets and video clips, lost of time lines and ephemera to anchor the events in their time periods.  Once the school parties had left there was a lot of time spent exploring what happened when, and L was surprised to trace the history of rockets back through WWII to Germany.

We also watched a planetarium show - We are Aliens - which was very well produced and I was hoping would deal with a few long running "debates" we have . . . Sadly, all it did was make M join the debate! 

L has often complained that we are looking "out there" for life that resembles our own.  The fact that the search focuses on looking for water and oxygen, and assumes a carbon based life form, seems ridiculous to him.  He feels that different evolutionary pressures, a different atmosphere, a different beginning point could all lead to life that looks like nothing we've ever seen before.  To a great extent I agree, but I also see that if we are going to "look" then the scientists need to start somewhere.  So, the debate rumbles on.  And on.  I almost wish "we" would find carboniferous life out there just to stop the wittering!

So, in conclusion, we had fun :) with the exception of loosing a couple of children for brief spells, and a couple of meltdowns, the day worked very well.  Much better than it looks from the outside and worth the money :)

I wasn't sure this day would come

Wins come in all shapes and sizes.

Last night we had a huge victory - might not seem like much to the outside world, but to me it was enormous!

L is very dyslexic - the lady who assessed him last year said his was the worst case she has seen in 25 years of assessing kids.

It took him a long time to learn to read, longer to become confident, and even longer to actually read spontaneously.

Now he's 15, he reads a couple of science magazines - both aimed at an adult market - he reads bits of role playing rules books, but never ever fiction.

Both my husband and I devour books.  Our house is full of novels, factual books, role playing books and any other sort of book you can think of.  To have a child who hated reading just felt odd.  Wrong.

Over Christmas L, his father and I listened to an audio-play, a new version of Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman. L likes science fiction, in terms of films / TV programs / games, but Neverwhere isn't *quite* Sci-fi.  I wasn't sure how he would take to it.  But Gaiman is one of my favourite authors, so *I* wanted to listen to it, even if he didn't.  It took a while for L to get into it, but by the end he was thoroughly enjoying it.

We decided a few more audio plays might be a good way to introduce high quality story telling, so we've been looking for some more to listen to.

A few days ago I read "Fortunately the milk" to the younger three - it's a truly fantastic book.  It's a children's book, but well written and full of good humour.  Suffice to say it's also by Mr Gaiman, and L was in his room, sneakily listening.  After all he's far too old to be read to any more.

Last night we watched Coraline after dinner.  Another Gaiman story . . . L declared it "awesome."  I pointed out we'd seen another Gaiman film (Stardust) a while ago.

This morning L told me that Neil Gaiman was his favourite author, and that maybe he (L) might like to read some of his shorter stories . . .

And so, there we have it. A victory :) L not only has a favourite author, but also has some books he might like to read. 

You might think it a small win, insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but I'll take the smiles where I can find them thanks.

As a happy addendum, L today hit the books with renewed enthusiasm.  He feels he's getting somewhere with IGCSE biology, and has hit a patch of his IGCSE Maths that is deceptively simple.  For Mr L, right now, life is good :)

Reasons and random thoughts on diagnosing

I often get asked why we have sought a diagnosis for each of the boys, so in this post I'll explore our reasons.  But first . . .

A lot of people bridle at the thought of "labelling" a child, and their reactions to seeking a diagnosis are tied up in their idea of labelling.  I have an issue with this.  A BIG issue.

The idea seems to be that labelling a child (or person) is inherently bad, and part of that is the idea of a label.  We label things, and then look no further than the label.  To suggest doing that to a real live human being is wrong - BUT (and it's a big but, which is why it's in capitals) that is really not what is going on.  If a person looks at a diagnosis for a child and assumes they know all they need to then the person is in the wrong - not the diagnosis. 

With or without a diagnosis the difficulties, differences, uniqueness's that my children have will still be an inherent part of them.  If those things are unnamed, undefined, unacknowledged it will not make life any easier for the boys, but it may make it harder - for both the boys and those who help them.

A diagnosis is a starting point for leaders of clubs the children go to - it should make the leaders take extra care, extra time, have extra patience.  It doesn't always work like that, but having a diagnosis will let us pull the leaders up short, get them to look at their policies for SEN, and make allowances.

A diagnosis is also a direction to look in for me - it gives me a starting point for information, strategies, support.  It lets me network with other parents, to hear what worked for them, to feel less alone.

A diagnosis is also an explanation for the boys - it has helped L and M to have an idea of what is going on, to understand why they find certain things difficult, to get to grips with differences and challenges.

Eventually a diagnosis should allow us to access help for the boys.  Already L has had "special arrangements" for his exam - extra time and the use of a PC to record answers.

I also hope - perhaps in vain - that a diagnosis might help soothe extended-family tensions, and help them to be a bit more forgiving of my children's difficulties.

I often read that home educating families don't see a need to pursue a diagnosis, that they just bend around the child's differences and go with the flow.  For a long time that was how we did things, but eventually we needed to step beyond that.

With L the need for a diagnosis didn't come until he wanted to do an IGCSE.  We knew there were various accommodations that could be made for his difficulties but we needed an "official" diagnosis of dyslexia in order to access them.  It was pretty straight forward to arrange, we asked the school that he was sitting the exam at (as an external candidate), and they did the rest.  It was no surprise to any of us when the dyslexia was confirmed, but I think it was rather a relief!  Whilst we had "known" for a very long time, there was always a sneaking fear that we were wrong, now it was there in black and white. 

For M we felt the need to ask for help.  Purely and simply we felt out of our depth and that we had done as much as we could and now needed a more expert opinion.  A big driver of that was the fact that we could see lots of indicators for many different conditions, some of which required routine, others spontaneity. There were conflicts in how to deal with things and we just didn't know which way to jump.  At the moment we are still working our way through this process, but we are looking at a whole host of different disorders, so it's no wonder we were confused!

Lastly we come to J.  We had tried to get J assessed previously, but we didn't end up with a diagnosis, just a "not Autism".  The more I read, the more he grew, the more I disagreed with that.  J - as far as I can see - is classically Autistic, potentially trending towards savant syndrome.  I wanted "them" to look again.  So they are.

And that's why - for us - a diagnosis would be helpful, not to limit or pigeon hole the boys, but to help us, them, and the rest of the world understand their difficulties, and maybe even find a few ways to help.

Introducing Mr L

We’re an interesting family.  Well, by interesting I mean odd, confusing, complex.  And by family I guess I mean tribe – at least by some people’s standards! 

A while ago I heard the term “rainbow family” and that descries us pretty well.

We have four children, but for now I’ll just tell you about one . . .

 L - the eldest - is now 14, he went to a pre-school nursery for about 8 months, but it just didn’t work.  He learns by discussing, by picking apart an idea to see how and why it works.  We have conversations that start off about aliens and end up about microbiology.  At nursery they just couldn’t deal with that.  They didn’t understand L, and had no intention of trying to.

 
When we took L out of nursery he hated the idea of reading.  He’d been told he was “too young” to do some worksheets and that thought stuck with him.  We went gently, but after a while it was clear that he just didn’t get phonics – we could spend a morning playing games and looking at things that started with “a”, and then the next day he wouldn’t remember the sound of the letter at all. 
 
“Oh well” we thought, he was four.  We had plenty of time.  By six he still didn’t get reading.  We’d tried “look and say” – which is a whole word approach, he managed to learn the words “my name is L” but that took us about six months.  Phonics was no good at all, we had 15 sounds matched to letters, but as soon as he mastered a new one he forgot an old one.  I tried songs, TV programs, computer games, just backing off for months on end.  The pressure from the outside world was growing.  I felt like I was failing.
 
For years I had been reading how if you show a child you value reading they will want to learn to read.  How all you had to do was read to a child and they’d pick it up.  How all you had to do was have books available.  D and I are both avid readers.  Our home is, and always has been, full of books.  We read to the children every night, and most days too.  Those things just weren’t helping
 
Somewhere around six and a half I realised that L was reversing letters.  He’d copy stuff but switch the order of letters, or write them backwards.  My sister is dyslexic, as is one niece (other sisters daughter).  I wondered if L was.  In any case two things were clear – he just wasn’t getting reading, and he learned best by talking.  So that’s what we did – talk.  A lot.  About everything.
 
At some point around 9 L learned to read.  I am still not really sure how – or what made him suddenly be able to learn.  We didn’t do anything differently – mostly because we’d already tried everything I could think of!  He got a DS, and wanted to read the story part of a Pokemon game.  He had motivation, but there had been times when he was very motivated before this.  Something clicked, and We were so relieved that it had.

And now here we are – he is 14.5, taller than his dad (and me!), and he reads.  Somehow I had begun to doubt I would ever be able to say that.  He still doesn’t like to read fiction – unless it is background or rules for role-playing or war games – but he gets Focus magazine (the BBC topical science magazine, aimed at adults), and reads each issue.  He can read quickly enough for day-to-day tasks, he reads quite accurately too.

 
Earlier this year L decided he would like to take an IGCSE.  As part of that he was formally assessed for dyslexia.  He is dyslexic – profoundly so – and was allowed to use a word processor to answer the questions.  The spell check had to be disabled, much to his dismay!  He also got 25% extra time.  I have no idea of his results yet, but he managed a 2 ½ hour exam, then a 1 ¼ hour one.  That on its own is a huge achievement.  As part of the dyslexia assessment the assessor did a verbal and nonverbal reasoning test, which L excelled on.   I say this not to brag, but to show you that all that talking has helped J We separated learning and reading, believing (hoping) that the reading would eventually catch up.  It certainly seems to have.
 
The assessment was through the private school that L was sitting his exam at – and according to them most private schools offer the same service.  It cost us £100, and was recognised by the exam board as proof of extra needs.
 
We also hunted around and found an optician that could do an Irlens test – this is a test to see if different coloured transparent sheets can help the individual.  L found that grey sheets helped, and it improved his accuracy by 20 % and his speed by 45%.  The testing was done as part of an NHS sight test and so was free, and the sheets were £6 each.
 
More importantly though, L now understands why reading is so difficult for him, and that he can still achieve in spite of that.  Knowing why has freed him from feeling stupid.  That would have been worth the money on its own.