Special Needs
Children with special needs, including ADD/ADHD, autism, dyslexia, and other situations, can thrive in a homeschool environment. Parents find that support and encouragment from other parents and organizations goes a long way towards a success home education experience. We've compiled the best resources for parents as they educate their special needs child.
Resources
Choosing & Using Curriculum: For Your Special Child
Homeschooling a child with special needs can be challenging. This book lays out a discussion of different reading and math programs, how to adapt materials for special situations, resources for blind, deaf and speech/language, and curriculum types and styles. It will help you find the resource you need to make your homeschooling successful.
In Their Own Way: Discovering and Encouraging Your Child's Multiple Intelligences
Children learn in differing ways. Thomas Armstrong specializes in helping parents identify the unique areas in each of our children that enhance their special way of learning and expressing creativity. This work on multiple intelligences talks about the eight different kinds of multiple intelligences, showing you how to discover your child's particular areas of strength.
Homeschooling a Special Needs Child
I Am What I Am
A mother of an exceptional child discusses why homeschooling is the right choice for their family. A personal look at the joys of learning and growing together through an unschooling philosophy of life.
Advantages of Homeschooling a Special Needs Child
When you have a special needs child, no public school will ever be able to fully cater to their needs. Private schools do exist for many types of special needs, but they can be expensive and often still not fully adapted to your child’s specific situation. Therefore, you might find yourself wondering how to get your child the education that they deserve in a format that works for them. Homeschooling a special needs child is a very advantageous choice for many parents who can afford the time and resources to do so. A homeschool program will allow children with special needs to have their specific needs addressed and also avoid many obstacles that they would face in a traditional classroom. When it comes to children with learning disabilities or other severe impairments, sometimes a parent who understands their special needs is the only one who can teach the child.
Allowing Your Highly Sensitive/Out of Sync Child to Shine with Unschooling
A look at using an unschooling approach with children who are highly sensitive and out of sync.
Statewide Assessment: Policy Issues & Questions
This policy paper provides a list of questions that parents and parent organizations can address in an effort to ensure that statewide assessment systems fully and fairly include students with disabilities. In the past, students with disabilities have too often been excluded from large-scale assessments. However, students with disabilities now must be included in state assessment programs with appropriate accommodations, as required by the recent amendments to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), as well as the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.
Resources for Families with a Special Needs Child
LD OnLine
LD OnLine.org is the leading information service in the field of learning disabilities, serving more than 200,000 parents, teachers, and other professionals each month. Launched in 1996, it was the first and is by far the most visited learning disabilities site on the web. LD OnLine features thousands of helpful articles on learning disabilities and ADHD, monthly columns by noted experts in the field, a free and confidential question and answer service, active bulletin boards, and a Yellow Pages referral directory of professionals, schools, and products. LD OnLine is often the first destination for parents and educators seeking information on how to help children and adults with learning disabilities.
Kulp Homeschool
List of resources for those homeschooling children with special needs.
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act
Here you'll find the text of the law, along with amendments, articles, general information, and more.
Homeschool Curriculum Choices for High School
Choosing a high school curriculum for a homeschooler can feel daunting. It presents a greater challenge when your child has special needs. This guide will help you choose a homeschool high school curriculum for a student with dyslexia.
Homeschooling Kids With Disabilities
Homeschooling Kids With Disabilities offers information and support to people who are homeschooling children with special educational needs.
Curriculum Associates
Offers BRIGANCE Screening and Inventories products. Designed for use in elementary and middle schools, the CIBS-R is a valuable resource for programs serving students with special needs, and continues to be indispensable in IEP development and program planning.
Homeschooling and Libraries: New Solutions and Opportunities
Homeschools are alwsy looking for alternative ways of schooling that do not necessarily reflect what a typical classroom looks like. Since homeschooling is so diverse across families, information institutions, including public, academic, school, and special libraries may find it challenging to meet all their needs and desires. This collection of essays offers approaches and strategies from library professionals and veteran homeschoolers on how to best serve the needs and experiences of homeschooled youth. This book includes information on special needs homeschooling, gifted students, and African American students as well.
Support for Special Needs Homeschoolers in Indiana
Shining Children with Radical Unschooling
This list is a forum for those either radically unschooling or learning how to radically unschool to discuss our "shining" children (Highly Sensitive, Out of Sync, Asperger’s traits, Explosive) and all the issues that accompany life with them--how we grow and learn ourselves thanks to our non-typical children and how unschooling frees their spirits and allows them to truly "shine."
Special Needs Homeschooling Forum at vegsource.com
A message board for parents who are homeschooling special needs children.
National Challenged Homeschoolers Associated Network (NATHHAN)
NATHHAN (NATional cHallenged Homeschoolers Associated Network) is a Christian, non-profit organization dedicated to providing encouragement to families with children with special needs that are homeschooling. They publish an online or hard copy quarterly newsletter. They also publish a family directory, updated each year. They have a large lending library by operated by mail.
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Featured Resources
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Spell to Write & Read
This teacher's manual, written by a homeschool educator with experience as a professional school teacher and private tutor, shows how to teach reading the "write" way. By phonetically teaching spelling from the start as the backbone for reading, all children can be taught, regardless of learning styles, to read and spell. If your student knows how to read already, this program can improve his or her spelling. Find out more about this product here.
Greenleaf Press
Greenleaf Press is a small family-owned and operated publisher and supplier of quality books for children. They are committed to "twaddle-free", living books, and approach teaching history to children using biography and chronology. You will find sections in the catalog covering each major historical period in order, with a variety of biographies, reference books, and historical fiction. For Israel, Egypt, Greece, Rome, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance and Reformation there are Greenleaf Stu...
Noah Webster's Reading Handbook
This is the historic text (originally called the Blue-Backed Speller) that has been updated to teach phonics/beginning reading. The blends and words in this reader are arranged to correlate with the sequence in which the special phonics sounds are taught. This reader is an invaluable teaching tool for children who need extra practice in the application of phonics rules. Find out more here.
Idea Book For Cuisenaire Rods At The Intermediate Level
Grades 2-5. Idea Book designed for use with Cuisenaire Rods.
Bob Books
Bob Books are organized into sets that progress in level as your child learns. They have cute stories and darling illustrations. These books are perfect for children ages 4 to 8.
Bob Books First! Level A, Set 1
Bob Books First! Level A, Set 2
Bob Books First! Level B, Set 2
Bob Books First! Level C, Set 1