Homeschooling a Child with Learning Challenges
General Resources
• *Kathy!Kuhl,!Homeschooling,Your,Struggling,Learner.!My!website!or!Amazon.!
• Learn Differently e-Newsletter: book reviews and tips. www.LearnDifferently.com
• *Carol Barnier: How to Get Your Child Off the Refrigerator and onto Learning. 2000.
Sign up for Carol Barnier’s newsletter: http://sizzlebop.com/
• *Melinda Boring. Heads Up Helping: Teaching Tips and Techniques for Working
with ADD, ADHD, and Other Children with Challenges. ISBN 978-1553693321.
• Chris Dendy. Teaching Teens with ADD and ADHD.
• Christine M. Field, Homeschooling the Challenging Child. ISBN 0805430784.
• Sharon Hensley, Home Schooling Children with Special Needs addresses all kinds of
special needs. Get the new 2009 edition. www.AlmadenValleyChristianSchool.com
• Joyce Herzog, Choosing and Using Curriculum ISBN 1887225226 Learning in Spite
of Labels ISBN 1882514130. http://joyceherzog.info/Joyce_Herzog/Welcome.html
• Maggie Hogan, Kathleen Julicher, and Janice Baker. Gifted Children at Home.
• Judith Munday. Teaching Your Special Needs Student: Strategies & Tools that Really
Work, 2007. The Student Education Plan: A Preparation Guide. www.heav.org.
• Joe and Connie Sutton. Strategies for Struggling Learners: A Guide for the Teaching
Parent. ISBN: 0964568411. Out of print, but still on Amazon.
• www.hslda.org/hs/specialneeds/ Home School Legal Defense Association offers
special needs advice, newsletter, & rents tests to members.
• NATional cHallenged Homeschoolers Associated Network. www.nathhan.com
• Consider talking to a special education consultant: Judi Munday,
http://www.hishelpinschool.com/, learn@helpinschool.net, Sharon Hensley
http://www.almadenvalleychristianschool.com/ , sharon@avcsbooks.com (see their
books above) and I consult long distance, among others.
Not Your Ordinary Textbooks
• DeAnna Horstmeier. Teaching Math to People with Down Syndrome and Other
Hands-On Learners (Topics in Down Syndrome) 2 volumes, Woodbine House.
• Harold Jacobs’ textbooks: Elementary Algebra; Geometry: Seeing, Doing
Understanding, and Mathematics: A Human Endeavor: A Book For Those Who Think
They Don’t Like the Subject. Incorporates creative thinking, regular review, cartoons.
• Winston Grammar, very tactile and clear.
• Critical Thinking Books and software (www.criticalthinking.com) has many brainbuilding products. Their Editor in Chief series gives practice in proofreading.
• High school texts that are easy to read: High Noon, AVCS, Remedia, Attainment
Books, Globe Fearon books from Pearson.
A Few Examples of Assistive Technology
• Text-to-speech readers, like www.naturalreaders.com/ , which has a free version.
• Digital voice recorders help students who cannot take notes. Kathy Kuhl Homeschooling a Child with Learning Challenges
More at www.LearnDifferently.com
Kathy!Kuhl!©2012!! !Write!kathy@learndifferently.com
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• Software to run on your computer that turns your child’s spoken words into text.
1) Dragon Naturally Speaking, speakingnaturally.com/ 2) SpeakQ Free 30 day trial
of WordQ at www.wordq.com 3) MacSpeech Dictate:, www.macspeech.com
• Recorded books: 1) Bookshare.org. 2) www.LearningAlly.org (formerly Recordings
for the Blind and Dyslexic) 3) Audio books.
• SmartPen records audio & links it to notes, drawings on special paper.
www.livescribe.com
• Key to Access: fits on your key ring, USB port, carries text to speech software,
talking word processor, talking dictionary, digital voice recorder, and more. One of
several tools from www.readingmadeez.com/products/
• Tools to help with focus, sensory integration, & organization: www.headsupnow.com
• Best set of resources: Joan Green’s site, www.innovativespeech.com & in her book.
Help With Reading
• School Specialty Intervention gives useful workshops and publishes books &
workbooks including: Alphabetic Phonics & other Orton-Gillingham based materials
& training, Reasoning & Reading, Explode the Code series, Beyond the Code series
(comprehension), and various readers. intervention.schoolspecialty.com
• PhonoGraphix reading program explained in Reading Reflex.
• Barton reading program teaches you w/ videos to teach reading bartonreading.com/
Online Curriculum
• Verticy Learning is a joint project of Calvert Curriculum and the Jemicy School (for
kids with learning disabilities). http://www.verticylearning.org/
• www.time4learning.com
• www.spellingcity.com/
• Free trial of ALEKS, an online math program K-12 http://www.aleks.com/webform/
Other Resources
• *Joyce Cooper-Kahn & Laurie Dietzel. Late, Lost and Unprepared: A Parents’ Guide
to Helping Children with Executive Functioning. 2008.
• Tammy Glaser blogs about teaching her 22-year-old autistic daughter at home since
1995. http://aut2bhomeincarolina.blogspot.com/
• Melinda Boring’s website http://www.headsupnow.com/ also has a useful blog.
• *Timetimer.com makes a visual 60-minute timer, great for those who have trouble
judging time as it passes. Various sizes, some with optional beep sound.