Learning Disability? What do I do?

[jessicanashville]

I currently am in my second year of homeschooling DS1. I spend time also working with DS2. It is sooooo frustrating. We go over letter and numbers and to this point he knows NO letters and can sight recognize 1 number!!!

I just spent 15 minutes with him working on 2 numbers and by the end he still couldn't tell me their names. Something seems wrong. He has NO desire to learn anything. I have tried teaching him different ways and nothing seems to be working. What do I do????? He is almost 4 and I am afraid at this rate he won't even be able to start kindergarten at 7.

[mibarra]

You can get an outside evaluation to determine if he is learning disabled and/or dyslexic. There are many programs designed to address this. Some specifics include:

A multi sensory approach: try it new ways, writing in sand, tapping out sounds, using letter tiles, ect

Repetition repetition repetition: they need a lot more repetition to learn and retain the information.

[Suzi]

It helps with my oldest if I tie things to his interests. For awhile everything had to do with Star Wars or Mario or Legos...every.single.lesson. But it really helped him focus and it helped me learn my Star Wars characters

[iris0110]

I would recommend an outside evaluation just to put your mind at ease. If something is going on you can get help figuring out how best to teach him, I homeschool two boys with special needs. However I will say that there is the chance that he just isn't ready to learn it yet or may be learning a lot more than you think he is. At 4 and even 5 my youngest just wasn't ready for formal learning, it took him almost 12months to get through K when we started just after his 5th birthday. He has a lot going on but no learning disabilities. He just was not ready to focus and learn the things I wanted to teach him and frequently he wasn't answering my questions not because he couldn't but because he wouldn't. He breezed through his 1st grade material so quickly it was unbelievable and he scores advanced when I have him evaluated.

[Dmpmercury]

I would get an evaluation to put your mind at ease. My oldest had a hard time with numbers and letters at that age. What finally worked for her was meet the letters and numbers. She knew the concept of letters and once she learned the names she already knew all the sounds. She is doing ok now. Her reading abilities are pretty age appropriate. I still wonder if she might have issues related to visual stuff but she doing fine for her age and gets concepts with no problems. She seems to be an audio learner.

[jen_batten]

Has he ever had an eye exam? I would probably start at the pediatric optometrist.

[CASMama711]

At not quite 4, he might not be developmentally ready to learn those things. How is his speech? Can he trace things and color? Is he daytime potty trained? I second the suggestion to get his eyes checked, just in case there's a problem. As long as he doesn't have any other delays, I wouldn't worry about it or persue any other evaluations at this point.