In most areas, Tim is far ahead of where he should be, I do believe he’s gifted. But one area that has been a struggle has been letters, sounds, and putting it all together. It’s not that he can’t do it, but he has memory problems in this area. He is extremely sensitive, and if he feels like he isn’t doing good he gets extremely frustrated and this can bring on a meltdown, it pushes his sensory issues into overload. He can learn the letter names and sounds, but if we give it a break for even a week, we’re in trouble! And, if he’s struggling to learn something else, the letters and sounds take a back seat every time, he just can’t focus on two things at the same time. What’s strange, is on T4L, he’s doing 1st grade for language arts and is reading! It takes A LOT of effort, he hates sounding out the words. We do this with readers, too. He also has a hard time with middle sounds. He can tell me the beginning and end, and can find them on the T4L lessons,  but the middle is harder for him. On there, they sound out each sound, and he can do that, but if I say ‘cat’ without emphasizing the middle sound, he misses it. Is that age appropriate? I’m not sure, so I don’t know if I should make a big deal out of it or not.

I started realizing that his memory is much better for memorizing whole words than the sounds, but not in terms of remembering them from one day to the next. He can do that, but only if we use the word A LOT. If we’re reading a reader and I help him with a word, he’ll remember that word through the whole thing. Our readers have about 15 words used over and over again in the stories. So, yesterday I tried something with him. I took some three-letter word flash cards. I held on up and we named the letters, said the sounds together, and said the whole word. Then, I removed the flash card and had him try to write them. He did six words, and got them all right, perfectly, without any help. He wasn’t sounding them out, but he was memorizing the names of the letters and writing them. Is this a sign of a photographic memory, or is it that I’m confusing him by mixing the names of the letters with the sounds? It might be that I don’t need to worry about the sounds, just the letter names and work on whole words? That is so foreign to me, though, and I’m not sure how to teach whole word vs. phonics. I taught myself to read phonetically before I was even in kindergarten, so I just can’t comprehend how he can learn to read without understanding phonics. Any ideas??

It could also be that things are finally just clicking for him, the combination of the letter sounds and names (he’s just now able to tell me what sounds the letters make when I ask him, for most of the letters) and if I change what I’m doing, it might confuse him more. I’m just not sure what direction to go. I do know that I’m going to keep using the flash card idea, because he was having so much fun with that! No stress in his face at all. Up until now when he’s writing I’ve been writing the work and having him just copy it. Then, a few weeks ago, I started saying words and having him spell them by sounding them out. He did pretty good with this, but there was still some stress there. He flips out of he gets something wrong, so he only wants to do what he knows. Makes it hard to try to get him to branch out! And, most kids learn to write by spelling words wrong, don’t they? I’ve heard that before. Like, tough would be spelled tuff, cute would be kute, etc. He stresses so much, I’m afraid to not help him spell words because if he makes a mistake he won’t want to try again. Yet, if I focus on teaching him to spell perfectly, isn’t that telling him he has to be perfect?? UGH! So many questions today! I just don’t want to screw up and turn him off of learning. I know that it can be a fine line with kids with autism and kids who are gifted, so for a kid who is both, it makes this journey really unnerving sometimes. I guess I want a manual to tell me exactly how to teach him the way HE needs to learn. Ha!

I was very frustrated when I first started t4l. As you may recall, my plan to do Sonlight for all of my children, plus the neighbor quickly soured.

So I was really seeking (immediate!)support and relief when I signed up for t4l. Thank GOODNESS someone on the forums mentioned that it takes about 2 weeks to feel comfortable.

I wanted to just give up and quit so many times while I was adjusting educational levels, figuring out how to exit the lesson correctly so that the lesson gets marked completed,etc.

I am so glad I stayed. Even though, I am still pretty far from “stress free”, using t4l is a huge improvement. Even if a lesson is hard one day, it does get easier.And because of the excellent explanations, I have learned to be a better teacher when I supplement t4l w/ something else.

As I go along, I realize that every lesson doesn’t have to be completed, that every question doesn’t have to have the “perfect” answer typed out.

I first came across T4L one year ago, when Tim was 4. We were only a year into knowing that he had autism, and still had some serious problems at that time. I found out about T4L from other parents on a special needs homeschooling group,and decided to try it. He liked the site, but I just couldn’t afford it, to be honest. Not that it’s expensive, but when you don’t have money, even $5 is too much. It really wasn’t helping him at that time, either. He was really struggling with letter recognition at that time, and I was trying to find anything to help, but nothing was. So, I quit, reluctantly. I LOVED the graphics, and how well everything was explained. But, it’s not exactly ‘preschool’ level, and that’s where he was then.

We started kindergarten on August 6th, but I still didn’t have the money to add another monthly bill, so I still didn’t sign up. About two months ago I tried another free trial, and he was finally ready to handle it. He’s all over the place in terms of what grade he’s working on, but it’s so helpful in explaining things to him. So, it looks like we’re staying with it now. I like knowing that I have something else to add to our every day curriculum that helps cement things I’m trying to teach him. He’s breezing through the phonics, not even needing my help, and I just love seeing that.

I never bothered to research them. The way I think and act is that I put more emphasis on what parents are actually using and liking rather than what reports say, so as long as something has been referred to me by people I trust, that’s good enough for me. I trusted my own instincts to know if this was going to be right for MY kids, and it is! The only problem I do have, is that from 3rd grade on, it’s not as animated and isn’t as interesting. For a lot of kids on the autism spectrum, this can cause them to lose interest, I’ve seen this happen with my neighbor’s son. At the very least, I wish there was some way of having the text read to him without having to download the parrot that’ll do it. It would be nice if there was a simple button that parents could click on that would read what is there. My son’s reading level is nowhere near as high as his comprehension, so this leaves me doing A LOT of reading to him, not just on T4L but with anything else we’re using. But, that’s only a minor problem compared to the many benefits they receive. There is nothing more exciting than to have your kids begging to ‘play their school games’!

I believe I first came across t4l a few years ago on the internet. At some point, we tried the demos, but my learning disabled(LD) son was so easily frustrated then, he didn’t like them.When I first saw it, I was deterred by the cost. T4l is reasonably priced, but it seemed like too much since I have 4 children.

As the kids get older(one is finishing 7th grade), and as we have discovered some special needs, we figured a raise in the school budget was warranted. It is worth it for our family( and everyone’s situation is different :) )to invest in whatever we need to school our children. At this point in my life, I do not have the time, energy and everything else that is necessary to seek out freebies on the internet, make frequent trips to the library,etc. And in the end, it is cheaper than private school.

It was very hard getting started w/ t4l. Thank goodness, I visited the forums frequently and already knew it would take about 2 weeks to feel comfortable. I would get discouraged and want to give up, but I kept going.

And now, I could do commercials for t4l!

We took our spring break this week instead of next, so we could focus on Easter crafts and learning about Easter. Taking breaks with an autistic child is usually harder than if we just don’t take them, because change is something that usually isn’t tolerated well. I proved myself right again, by Tuesday Tim was making life REALLY hard. He just wasn’t coping with the change in routine, and was getting into so much trouble. So I had to revise my ‘break’ by having him use Time4Learning and we watched some educational videos online, just so he felt like he was on some kind of a schedule. This is why I love T4L, because he’s learning but doesn’t realize it! It’s just fun to him.

Before we joined T4L he wasn’t getting as much of the visual learning that he needed, it was mostly my reading from sites or books that we found on our topics. I do use brainpop and that is visual, but there’s not a big selection on movies for his grade, so it was still lacking. Using a site that is so visual and interactive REALLY helps him connect with what he’s learning, and that is crucial with a visual learner. I never would have expected him to be so far ahead in grade levels as he is since we started using T4L. I’m seeing that it’s helping make connections in other areas, too, as if the visual stimulation is getting him thinking about other things, too. The other day he asked me if Z-O-O spelled zoo, and I said it did, but asked him how he knew that. He had seen it on something two days before, it was on a sign above a zoo on some show, and he put the pieces together that it spelled zoo. But the amazing thing is, he retained it. That’s been his toughest area, is retaining what he’s learned, and he’s making so much progress now in that area.