One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned from homeschooling dyslexia is to teach my child, not a grade level or a curriculum. I’m learning to just do the next thing, regardless of what the level is or what the number on the cover of the book says. I look closely at what my daughter is capable of, what the scope and sequence charts recommend, and what the table of contents show. Yes, I may look at a placement test, but the fact is my daughter doesn’t always test well. So these aren’t 100% accurate either. I have to do my research. But the result is a fifth grade homeschool curriculum that challenges her appropriately while inspiring her and instilling her with confidence that she CAN do it.
Our fifth grade homeschool curriculum for her is a mix of resources ranging from 3rd grade in some areas to 4th/5th grade in others, a customized learning plan for her success. And we are excited about it.
Fifth Grade Homeschool Curriculum for Language Arts
My daughter has been through Logic of English Foundations Levels A–C, which have given her a great foundation in reading. In most cases, she is reading at grade level. Nonfiction can give her some trouble, and she reads closer to a third grade level with informational text. I also have to watch the font size and style for the books I choose for her as she gets older. The smaller font and longer lines of text create some tracking issues with her dyslexia. In those cases, I look for ebook options that allow her to adjust font size. But largely, her dyslexia affects her spelling.
We have had so much success taking a visual, multi-sensory approach with spelling using A Reason For Spelling. But in order to continue to expose her to some Orton-Gillingham instruction, she is also supplementing with Nessy.com. It’s a fun interactive, animation and game-based supplement that she can mostly do on her own.
- Spelling: Nessy.com Reading and Spelling; A Reason for Spelling C (the second half), and A Reason for Handwriting C
- Grammar: Daily Grams 4 and Grammar Town/Practice Town by Michael Clay Thompson (We do this orally together.)
- Writing: Writing and Rhetoric 2 & 3: Narrative I and II (another of our top curriculum picks from last year)
- Vocabulary: WordUP! DVD for Latin/Greek vocabulary (This is our nod to a classical approach dyslexia-style, Latin that is practical and accessible for her through funny video clips.)
- Literature & Comprehension: Drawn into the Heart of Reading booklist (with Teaching the Classics approach)
Fifth Grade Homeschool Curriculum for Math
My daughter has a brilliant mind for math, solving multi-step problems in her head and quickly understanding spacial relationships. But she struggles to write her work or show the steps to a problem. It’s a common irony for kids with dyslexia. She’s a picture thinker, and she can solve a problem so quickly her brain doesn’t register the individual steps. Then, her dyslexia makes it very difficult for her to sequence those steps, to write the numbers in the correct order without reversals, and to solve in the traditional sense.
RightStart has been such a perfect fit for this combination of strength and weakness. It allows her to approach math from her strengths, where most curriculum options force her to approach it via her weaknesses. She plays with manipulatives, solves multiplication and division with an abacus, learns fractions and decimals through game play, draws geometric shapes and puzzles, and as a last step works on translating all of that to a worksheet. The writing is minimal, and I often scribe her answer to help her get started. But she is finally able to demonstrate her brilliant mind for math.
We love the RightStart game apps for review work, and I’m also using an app called Monster Math to review timed computation skills in a cute, monster-themed game.
- RightStart Math, Level E (and possibly Level F, depending on how far we get)
- Monster Math
Fifth Grade Homeschool Curriculum for History, Science, Poetry, Bible, Hymn Study
Especially with my daughter, I follow a Charlotte Mason approach to our other subjects, with just a hint of classical. Last year, we began using Heart of Dakota during our last term. It was a breath of fresh air, particularly for my daughter. The recommended reading, the layout of the guides, the freedom that it gave her to have a measure of independence—there were so many unforeseen blessings.
Because she is older than the recommended age for her particular guide, she is able to do a great deal of it on her own and then meets up with me for the last part of her day to go over her narrations, answer any questions she had, and read the poetry together. I also go over her Drawn into the Heart of Reading assignments and discuss it with her. She loves her guide and her reading books. I did go ahead and get ebook versions of a few of the main history choices this year because she had trouble with the tiny font; and of course, we follow our own language arts and math preferences rather than the recommended resources.
I’ve also added a science option that is not part of Heart of Dakota. Exploration Education is an online curriculum with an accompanying workbook and lots of hands-on projects. Because we typically follow a four-day week with our core subjects, she’ll be using this on our fifth day of the week with her younger brother, exploring physics as they build a car, a magnet boat, a top, and several other projects.
- Heart of Dakota, Bigger Hearts (studying American History, colonial to pioneers)
- Exploration Education Science
It’s going to be a full year, and I can’t wait to see her progress this year. Each year with her is full of surprises, plans I made based on what was working suddenly screech to a halt in some areas, while she surges forward to new heights in areas I wasn’t expecting. But that’s the beauty of homeschooling. We take it a day at a time, making adjustments and doing the next thing.
Check out the rest of this year’s curriculum:
- First Grade Homeschool Curriculum for a Struggling Starter
- Seventh Grade Homeschool Curriculum for a Classical-Charlotte Mason Education
