Not all children learn alike. This is an established fact. However when one child seems to grasp things much more easily and faster than the other, the homeschooling parent may be forgiven for wondering if the “slow” learner has a problem. Do you have a special needs child in your homeschool classroom? Here are some checks that you can do before you involve an expert and create upheaval in the life of your homeschool student.
Visual Processing
Is your homeschool student skipping small words while reading aloud? Does he still need to use the finger as a tracker while reading even after the age of seven? Are word reversals such as on-no, saw-was, big-dig, a common issue? These may be triggers that help you identify that your child may not be doing visual processing of the data as expected.
Motor Responses
The hand to eye coordination is shaky in most children but as they grow older it should improve. An awkward writing posture, poor space between letters, and reversals written in the note book may again be clues to the fact that the child is having an issue with motor responses. Do remember that there is no “one size fits all“ theory about how quickly your child should master these tasks. However if younger siblings are doing much better it may be time to intervene.
Auditory Processing
Converting sounds they hear into written letter and words is a problem. Verbal expression is not spontaneous and needs a fair amount of effort. Phonetic rules do not get understood as sounds are not being processed as they should. The same word is spelt differently time and again. Certain words are guessed at since whole sounds are not understood. These are definite signs of a problem.
Attention Processing
While the focus of a young child is never constant, there should be some tangible attention span. If the child needs to spend a large chunk of time and attention to accomplish a relatively simple task, there may be an issue. Easily distracted children with no persistence may not always have a disability, so you need to be careful how you proceed.
