Homeschool World Forum

My 3yr old daughter had sevier ear infections from about 10mo. to 18mo. until the doctors finally decided to put tubes in. All their lolly gagging caused her to regress and be greatly delayed. She has gone through physical theropy, educational theropy, and speach theropy. We are not done with speach but she is out for the summer because when she turned 3 our First Steps program stepped down and the school system will step in when school starts back. She has caught up in every aspect acept her speach. Yes she can talk but some one that is not with her on a regular basis has to really listen and sometimes I even have to make her repeat herself. I started home schooling my 12yr old daughter in the 5th grade. This will make year 3 for her. BUT!!! I don't even know where to begin with my 3yr old. Can anyone help me ? I'm desperate!!! I want to start her on something this school year.

I don't usually like 'curriculums' for such a young age, because most tend to focus too much on reading/math skills and not enough on the whole child. A great starting book, though, is Teach Me To Do It Myself. It's a group of activities that use household objects and focus mainly on practical life skills for the preschooler. There are some reading and math skills presented, but everything is done hands on. The best part is, after introducing the activities, you can put a few on trays or mats around the room and let your child work at their own pace.

There are a lot off great resources out there, that you are eligible for. Talk to your old speech therapists about activities to do. Model good speech, no baby talk, and use touch cues, (touch your throat for K and hard G, touch your lips for P and B, stick out your tongue for L) Practice the sounds that she has a hard time with. Memory games with a sound theme are great. Let her suck on freeze pops to improve motor skills. YOu would be surprised what you can do with out a specialist. My sons all have speech problems. Depending on what state you are in you can homeschool and still get services at the school for free. Montessori Type curriculum are great for you, but don't worry about it, if it is only because of her hearing loss she will grow out of it with proper modeling.

we started at age 2. We use Kumon, and we really love it. It's not a traditional curriculum. It's based on an enrichmnet program that has been exceptionally popular and effective in Japan for decades. It is self teaching (once the child learns to work from the dot to the star, the parent doesn't have to do very much).
Start with the first steps series.
http://www.kumonbooks.com/home/index.aspx