Are you considering homeschooling to overcome learning disabilities? Do You find yourself perplexed about how to tap into your child’s learning ABILities?

My name is Sandy, and I love education. However, I was fed up with low educational standards for our struggling learner in public school.  So I took matters into my own hands. We homeschooled to overcome learning disabilities and ended up with great educational outcomes!

Now I help parents figure out how to take control of their child’s education. Learning Abled Kids helps you give your child his best chance for a great life.

YOU can help your struggling learner at home.

Yes, even without any teacher training, you can improve educational outcomes for your child. I did it. You can do it too.

What we did: After five years in public school, my oldest son was still not reading even though he was going to reading resource daily.  Everyone agreed my son was “smart,” and he had a huge fund of knowledge, but they dismissed his learning needs because he had learning disabilities.

Even while in fourth grade, my son had hopes of going to college and dreamed of becoming a scientist. At the end of his fourth grade year, one school administrator snapped at us, “He will probably never read well. He is NOT college material. You just need to lower your expectations!”

My husband and I were livid. We wanted to help our son achieve his dreams, and it was clear the public school was not going to meet our son’s special education needs. So, we took matters into our own hands.

Our Homeschool Outcomes:

After homeschooling for a decade, and sending my boys off to college, my son has graduated from college, where he received an honor’s scholarship for Freshman housing, full-tuition scholarship, was on the Dean’s List most semesters, graduated college in three years’ time, and he graduated Magna Cum Laude! My son was definitely “college material!”

Since I was successful and I had NO teacher training, I thoroughly believe any determined parent can homeschool to overcome learning disabilities. I believe you will experience educational outcomes that are better than a public school provides when you are dedicated to your child’s learning. Some research shows better educational progress is made through one-on-one teaching by a parent than is made in small group, public school special, education classrooms.

Academic progress takes place when a child’s specific learning needs are met and he’s taught one-on-one, not when he’s taught in a group with a program the school ‘always’ uses.

Preliminary Steps to Help Your Struggling Learner

Preliminary Step #1:

You must obtain a comprehensive evaluation of your child’s learning strengths, weaknesses, and academic aptitude (ability).  Learning solutions are only effective when targeted to the child’s specific, individual learning needs.  Thus, to know what specific types of programs your child needs and how to teach him, you need to obtain a comprehensive, neuro-psychological evaluation from a highly qualified independent evaluator.  A highly qualified evaluator will write a multi-page report explaining your child’s specific learning needs. Evaluators also provide some information about how to best teach the child.  Public school evaluations are seldom comprehensive enough to identify all of a child’s specific learning needs. This is because the schools are short on staff, overbooked, and inadequate funding is often cited by schools as a limiting factor.

Preliminary Step #2:

Determine your child’s preferred learning style(s) so you’ll know how he learns best.  Identifying your child’s learning preferences will enable you to establish the most productive learning environment for your child and to use teaching materials that will most easily enable your child to retain the content being taught.  There are three well-known and recommended models for determining a child’s learning style. I recommend using all three models to give yourself the greatest understanding of who your child is, what his learning needs are, and to equip yourself with the knowledge you need to teach your child in a way that he can learn well.

Preliminary Step #3:

Analyze the information you’ve received through the comprehensive evaluation and learning styles assessments.  Determine how your child’s educational program needs to change in order for him to be able to learn better.   Does your child need a hands-on or highly visual program? Will your child learn better through musical jingles?  Does your child need a multi-sensory reading program?  The answers to these questions  will help you find learning solutions to better meet your child’s individual learning needs.

Resources for preliminary evaluation steps:

Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates – Visit this site to get referrals for highly qualified, independent evaluators from attorneys or advocates in your area.

The Special Educator’s Comprehensive Guide to 301 Diagnostic Tests – Buy this book to understand the meanings of each of the tests and subtests used when your child is evaluated.  The book explains each type of test or subtest. It helps you understand what each test is actually measuring and what your child’s scores mean.  Your doctor will cover the meaning of some of the evaluations in his report. However, I always find it helpful to fully understand each test and score reported as I reread the report.

Learning Abled Kids’ Learning Styles – Use the Dunn and Dunn, Multiple Intelligences, and VAKT learning styles models to determine your child’s main learning style. If you have this info, you’ll know how to teach your struggling learner well.  The Learning Abled Kids’ Learning Styles pages include links to assessment resources, and many of the resources are free.  Using one or all of the different assessments will help you understand your child’s complete learning profile.

Look for additional information about helping your child overcome learning disabilities on this website. If you know a parent of a child that’s struggling in school, help them by sharing this page with them.
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