How to Handle Preschoolers

[armymom]

First a quick update: my K dd has had a good year overall. We adjust and adapted a lot, but she is writing, reading (! - it happened in her sleep, best I can tell) and math we can review next year. I still think her hearing is less than perfect, but it seems to be good enough, and I think some of the auditory processing I suspected may just be the fruit of a very literal and visual mind. She stuggles with verbal instructions sometimes, but if I do demonstration problems instead, that seems to fix the problem most of the time.

So, on to worrying about child number 2. He is a very sweet little four year old boy. I have come to suspect that he has some issues with vision however. He complains about not being able to see books and he cannot sequence anything left to right, even with repetition and visual models. So, I took him to the peditrician. They gave him a vision screening starting on the letter chart. He did not get ANY right. So, they told me that he doesn't know his letters as well as I thought, he is only four. (He has know his letters for a long time!) They moved to the symbol chart. The pictures seemed to confuse him, so he was being prompted a lot. His response was mixed. In the end though, I thought he hardly got a thing right, even on fairly large rows. The nurse shrugged, said his vision was probably around 20/40 but that since he wasn't even in K yet, they wouldn't refer him to an optometrist unless his vision was worse than 20/200. We are military overseas, so my options for an outside opinion are limited unless I want to figure out the German system. (I really don't.)

So, the question is how to spend the next year. This would be his Jr. K year. I was already unsure what to do, because unfortunately the MP Jr. K had been a little too classroom oriented for us. Anyway, he knows his letters, writes many of them and counts to ten. Should we skip Jr. K and start K in a year? Should I just wait a year and a half and have him reassessed when he is old enough to be considered ready to read? Honestly, I have things like AAR Prek, but although it has lots of comprehension, letter recognition and phonemic awareness activities there are none for sequencing and tracking visually. So, any advice on what to do with a bright kid now? I don't want to try to "do school" with him if it just leads to frustration that is completely correctable later. On the other hand, he is already my "easy" child that can get overlooked in a busy household (number 4 is on the way in June) so I don't want to leave him to his own devices for a year which would probably translate into being overlooked since he doesn't have sceduled times for Mama's attention. Any thoughts on how to handle the situation? I am not really concerned in the long term. So many vision issues seem to be so correctable these days, I suspect the only issue is to figure out what to do now until I can "document" reading issues that can't be written off as he is too young anyway.

Lena

[CelticaDea]

Is there an optometrist you can take him to on your own? A developmental one would be better but I can see that not being a option there. If you explain your concerns they may be able to do more than just look at a basic vision test. Did they have him look at something he was holding or sitting with instead of only on the wall? That would probably highlight the issue more than a simple distance chart.

Have you looked at the "Building Thinking Skills" workbooks? I haven't personally used them but reading their description and looking at their samples (I've put them in my cart lots of times, haha) they sound great. They are at www.criticalthinking.com . There's a mathematical reasoning book and a Visual Perceptual Skill Building book too in the prek age range.

The stories in the JK are great although some I wouldn't have liked on my own. The questions were hard for my daughter (too hard but that's a different issue). I think if I'd known/realized that I could pick and choose what questions or even make up my own it would've been less frustrating. Some of the crafts are also cute. I really like the AAR pre level though. I'm still a bit torn what I'll do with my upcoming 4 year old. She doesn't seem to be showing any of the concerns or problems that we've been working on with my older daughter but she really liked watching or playing with her sister when she did AAR.

Maybe doing AAR and those thinking skills books and read alouds would give him attention but not overwhelm either of you. The MP letter workbooks are great for letter practice if that doesn't bother him and should be easy enough to work into AAR.

[SaintJude7]

vision

I know that my pediatrician would say don't take him to an optometrist. Take him to a pediatric ophthalmologist. A regular optometrist prescribed glasses, but completely missed the muscle weakness in my son's left eye. The earlier you catch these problems, the more time you have to strengthen the eye muscles. Once they are about 9 years old, patching no longer works. Also, the ophthalmologist does not need to rely on recognitions of symbols or letters. I know that ours does vision testing all the way down to preemies in the NICU.
Blessings,
Jude

dd 17
ds 14 (special needs)
ds 11
ds 9
dd 7
ds 4
dd 2

[armymom]

I don't think we have many outside options. The school can't see him till he is school age. The military doctors need a referal. And everyone else around is German! They might have excellent specialists, but I have no idea how we would go about seeing one, much less paying for it, since they have a completely different system.

Actually, I partly discovered the issue using a thinking skills series called Developing the Early Learner. I like it better than Building Thinking Skills, because it has much broader coverage (auditory skills, memory, as well as the more traditional logic type things). He is almost done with it, however.

Yeah, we had trouble with show and tell and such that work better in groups, as well as the crafts. None of us like making stuff out of paper that we are just going to throw away later. I don't like prepping them, and they won't try hard. I have a different source for crafts, but I am not sure about the more pre-academic skills. Letters would be review, although I suppose we could just use them that way, as review. He needs work on counting above ten too. I am not sure if a lot of this would frustrate him, though, trying to follow workbook pages and I don't want to make learning hard, especially if he has a very fixable problem. The AAR has the advantage that it at least works in really big letters! You are right though, I suppose if nothing else I could do the read alouds with him and not gear too much towards his older sister.

[armymom]

Thank you Jude, that is good to know I suppose. They Army doesn't have a prediatric specialist at all, and definitely no opthamology. I am not sure how I would go see someone outside the system though without a referal from the system. And they don't work with the under five crowd. I suppose it would be important to know, though, if we go back when he is five to see if they would refer me to the German hospital for extra testing.

[CelticaDea]

Is it an option for you to do Tricare Standard instead of Prime? I'm not sure at all if that would change the referral system since you'd still be at the MTF. I'm not even sure you have a choice in the matter overseas. I always have stayed standard (haven't been overseas, though) just so I could go where I wanted without referrals. I personally see too many specialists to want to be at the mercy of the "system" haha

When we did AAR, she already knew her letters so I honestly skipped a lot of that. I may use it more this time. The phonemic awareness games were nice, though.
I don't think I'd worry too much about numbers (certainly keep working on them if he likes to count). If you do the Kindergarten R&S math, they'll spend plenty of time working on the numbers. Have you looked at Counting w numbers? If you need something to keep him occupied with "school" work while you work with his sister, it could be a good option. But if he hates workbooks then not so much.

I don't think it's critical to do school at 4 especially if it's frustrating him. I didn't do any preschool as a kid and did very well in school. I mostly did it with my older daughter because _I_ was so into wanting to start. I'll probably do it with my younger one just because she wants to do school work with her sister but I let her wander off whenever she wants. My only "rule" is that she has to follow directions while she's working on school books. If she's done following directions she has coloring books or toys to do whatever she wants with.

[cherylswope]

Lena wrote:
First a quick update: my K dd has had a good year overall. We adjust and adapted a lot, but she is writing, reading (! - it happened in her sleep, best I can tell) and math we can review next year. I still think her hearing is less than perfect, but it seems to be good enough, and I think some of the auditory processing I suspected may just be the fruit of a very literal and visual mind. She struggles with verbal instructions sometimes, but if I do demonstration problems instead, that seems to fix the problem most of the time.

Good to hear, Lena! Congratulations on this.


So, on to worrying about child number 2. He is a very sweet little four year old boy. I have come to suspect that he has some issues with vision however. He complains about not being able to see books and he cannot sequence anything left to right, even with repetition and visual models. So, the question is how to spend the next year. This would be his Jr. K year. I was already unsure what to do, because unfortunately the MP Jr. K had been a little too classroom oriented for us. Anyway, he knows his letters, writes many of them and counts to ten. Should we skip Jr. K and start K in a year? ... [H]e is already my "easy" child that can get overlooked in a busy household (number 4 is on the way in June) so I don't want to leave him to his own devices for a year which would probably translate into being overlooked since he doesn't have scheduled times for Mama's attention.


You might consider Level C of the Simply Classical Core Curriculum readiness packages. Even though your son does not have a formal diagnosis of visual difficulties, you might find the program beneficial, until you're both ready to start MPK. Less classroom-oriented than JrK, Level C would give him your attention, instruction, structure, and review of the letters and numbers he already knows. We include some R&S preschool exercises that might help with visual tracking. You could omit any fine-motor crafts or other activities that he does not need, although these activities might even strengthen his ability to attend to visual details, while you wait for an evaluation. The lessons link to read-alouds, so the experience might be enjoyable for him.

We're getting closer to releasing Simply Classical readiness Levels A, B, and C! When we do, you can take a look at online samples to see what you think.

Thanks-
Cheryl


Simply Classical: A Beautiful Education for Any Child
Cheryl Swope, M.Ed., with Foreword by Dr. Gene Edward Veith

[armymom]

I will look forward to looking over the readiness C when it is available. It might be a much better fit!

Lena

[armymom]

Any idea when to expect the samples on the website? June? Earlier? Later?

Lena

[tanya]

Soon. Very soon! We are in the final editing stages of Level A, so you can look for that to be up within the next couple of weeks. Level B is in the hands of the copy editor, and then will go directly to Cheryl for her final approval. I'm anticipating that Level C will go to the copy editor next week. My goal is for all 3 sets to be up and for sale by the end of June.

Tanya