A Look Into The Day With A Twice Exceptional Child

What is a Twice Exceptional Child? If you caught my post here, you will quickly discover the definition, to put it in laymen terms, this is a child who is Gifted, but has a learning disability. In our home this means a Gifted child with Autism. The Autism brings a lot more then just anxieties, behavioral issues, but also deficits in her learning. I am sure Selena is dyslexic, which is the greatest struggle for her with her handwriting and lack of desire to color and do art.

I love asking Colleen from Raising Lifelong Learners questions, and chatting with her over the answers. She has a way of being informative, yet helping me to think outside the box as to how our school days can be just right for Selena. One of the latest questions I asked her was, "Does she struggle with a child who excels in a subject, yet struggles with the simple concepts?" She directed me to her post on Asynchronous Abilities. I read this post once before, but had forgot it's content. It was great to refresh my memory.

I thought I would share just what a day looks like in our home, homeschooling a Twice Exceptional Child.

 It is not unusual to find Selena in the mornings before school begins cuddled in blankets reading all my resource books. I keep science, and history reference or text books out and available for her to read anytime she desires. These are not children books, but most are my college text books, or reference books I have picked up at used curriculum sales. This is the best way I know to get her learning juices flowing, and spark questions for extra curriculum studies.

 By 9:00 is independent study. I am still working with her on Math and Penmanship, remember, I feel strongly that Selena is Dyslexic, so I kind of hover over these two areas, to try to train her to make her circles in the right direction, and to slow down and think about how she is forming her letters and numbers. Another reason I hover over math, is that while Selena can figure out a lot of hard math problems, and story problems, she has yet been able to memorize her math facts.

We have two sets of phonics, one that covers the basic phonics, because here again while she is a very advanced reader don't dare ask her to give you a rhyming word for CAT. Then we have our more grade leveled phonics where she is right at home in working with more complex phonics concepts. I loved the fact that she did not like the fact that the book called a raccoon just a coon, and had to write raccoon instead of coon. I know she missed a "c" in the word, but hey this was independent work, and she spelled it the way it sounded to her.

After all her independent work is finished, and we have done our together reading it is break time for lunch and for Selena a little nap. Yes, she still takes a nap, in part due to her medication, and also because she doesn't sleep well at night. At this point she is usually ready for an hour or hour and half nap, or a time to just shut off.

 I usually ask her to draw and dictate a story all on her own. I will write the dictation for her. She prefers to do this on the white board rather then on paper, which is perfectly fine with me. She puts a lot of imagination into this and it is fun. In the picture above she drew an alien with an alien duck that came to Earth from Saturn.

Remember this picture? 

Now it is time to research what she read from my reference books. On this day she chose to research the Monarch Butterfly. We do a journal page for her Science scrap book, among other fun coloring or what coloring I can get, and diagrams. We also use a lot of YouTube to reinforce the information she is learning. 

Sometimes we play games or do a lot of hands on learning. One of Selena's favorite games is Scrabble, we also like to use the letters just to practice making words, phonics, practice spelling besides always finishing up with a good game of Scrabble. 

Homeschool wouldn't be complete without life skills. Selena is a great helper when it comes to shopping. She will make the grocery list, help me find the items in the store, check prices, and also thinks it is fun when the clerk allows her to help scan the items at check out. She loves to help me in the kitchen, rather it be stirring, chopping, or cleaning. Some days she vacuums or dusts for me. We definitely have a full day, but of course we always make time for play. 

As you can see, I am challenged to meet two ends of her learning curve, the one that she has deficits in, as well as the one that she excels in. Is homeschooling tough at times, oh yes, you bet it is, but she definitely would not get this attention in a public school.