Mike Smith:
This week, I’m talking to Faith Berens, HSLDA’s newest special needs coordinator. Faith, you explained on our last program how parents can identify if their child is struggling with reading. Why might a child be struggling? And is homeschooling a good option for that struggling reader?

Faith Berens:
There are many reasons for reading difficulties. A couple of the top ones are, perhaps the child is having a visual processing difficulty, such as problems with eye tracking, or eye muscle, eye convergence. Or there could be an auditory processing problem, such as an underlying phonological processing issue. Or they could have problems with receptive language understanding.

Homeschooling is a great option for parents because they’re able to individualize instruction, go at a slower pace if need be, and it often alleviates peer pressure and students comparing themselves to others in a more traditional graded classroom.

Mike:
Faith that’s very helpful—and that could be very encouraging to our parents who are considering homeschooling their struggling learner. And until next time, I’m Mike Smith.