I would love for you to address using the Charlotte Mason method with children who have
special needs.
Special needs can vary widely.
I have a daughter with autism, sensory-processing disorders, and pervasive developmental delays.
She's 18 now, but we are still homeschooling with Charlotte Mason methods because she enjoys
it.
She wants to keep going.
You can use CM methods with special needs children—living books, narration, observation,
guided discovery, habits, giving a wide variety, using short lessons.
The methods still work.
But you may need to tweak them to fit your child best.
"What kind of tweaking do you mean?"
I often get asked.
Each child is unique, and what works for one child might not be the best fit for another.
But let me give you five areas to think about, and I'll include some examples of how I've
tweaked things in those areas for my child.
Hopefully, the examples will help you get your own creative juices flowing and give
you some ideas for possible tweaks for your child.
The first area to think about is Environment.
Consider the area in which you are doing school work.
This area isn't so much about the methods themselves, but it is connected; because the
environment in which you do your school work can greatly affect how well the methods work.
Children with sensory processing issues, especially, can be distracted by levels of light, noise,
smells, touch (like if their clothes feel scratchy or if a sibling is getting too close
for comfort).
And I don't mean mildly distracted; their sensory issues can multiply that light or
that noise or that movement to such a strong intensity that the poor child can't focus
on anything else.
The hum of the dryer might seem distant and relatively quiet to you, but to a child with
a sensory disorder it could be excruciatingly loud, like sitting beside a freight train.
So take a good look around the space where you are expecting her to learn, and try to
see it from her perspective.
In fact, do more than look; use all your senses in that space and make adjustments as needed.
Along those lines too, think about what delivery method you are using to give her a living
book or other material, like math or pictures.
Are you using an electronic screen?
a white paper page?
an audio voice?
Some children with sensitive eyesight may do better if you tweak what they are looking
at, while those with hyper hearing might do better with an adjustment in what they are
hearing.
With my neurologically typical children, we did school work all over the house, and often
in common rooms.
They would sit at the dining room table to do copywork or math, and one could focus on
her work even as I helped another one.
But that didn't work for my autistic child.
For her I need to have a separate room where we can go to do school work alone, and she
can concentrate even better if I close the door.
The goal here is to remove, or at least reduce, physical issues that make it even more difficult
for her to learn.
It's a good place to start, because it can affect everything you try to do in that space.
Now let's get into the methods themselves.
The second area to think about is how much framing the child might need.
Framing has to do with narrowing the focus to remove extra information.
Let me show you what I mean.
It's like the difference between telling the child to find Waldo on this two-page spread
vs. telling the child to find Waldo somewhere in here.
How tightly you need to frame, depends on the child.
I use framing to narrow the focus of nature study and habits.
When we began to do nature study, we walked around our house and I asked my daughter to
tell me what she heard.
I recorded what she told me in our nature journal.
We practiced with hearing on our weekly nature walk for a few weeks, then I widened the frame
to also include what she saw.
Another way to do framing in nature study would be to start with a specific nature object
that you go visit each week.
Then gradually widen the frame to include another object, and then another.
We do framing naturally with habit training.
We start with one, and once we get that one up and running, we add another one.
With special needs children, we may need to look at an even narrower framework, though.
Most children can take one habit and see how it applies to various situations.
For example, orderliness—everything in its place—could be applied to keeping clothes
neat in dresser drawers, hanging up coats in the closet, putting away craft supplies,
picking up toys on the floor, etc.
And most children can focus on those several applications of cleanliness all together and
have no trouble.
But some of our special needs kids will need to have a narrower frame.
You may need to focus on just one application, then once they've got that one, widen the
frame to another, and so on.
A third area to think about is how quickly you move on.
Math is not my daughter's strong suit, so I linger over one number longer than I would
with a typical child.
We use Charlotte Mason methods—with hands-on manipulatives, interesting scenarios, and
oral work with very little writing—I just do more of the little scenarios and realize
that she will need to use the manipulatives longer before she is comfortable enough to
do those sums without them.
So I don't plan out when we will move on to the next number; I wait until she's ready.
When she's confident with this one, we'll move to the next, however long that takes.
It has required a shift in my thinking.
Instead of dwelling on "Where should we be?"
and "When are we going to get there?"
I've learned to focus on "What's next?"
That's all.
Just the next step when she's ready to take it.
Another method in which I've tweaked how quickly I move on is in narration.
My daughter has a hard time putting her thoughts into words and speaking them, so narrations
are difficult for her.
But one day I discovered a tweak that worked well.
We were reading through Black Beauty and I was having her draw a picture of "what happened
today" in the story.
Then I usually asked her to tell me about her picture.
I could usually get one sentence.
But on this particular day I decided to write down what she told me.
So she gave me a sentence.
I smiled and nodded and turned away to write it on the page opposite her picture.
Then I looked back and paused and she gave me another sentence!
See, if I sat there and looked and nodded, she felt pressure and shut down.
But somehow that little break in my gaze, as I looked away, removed the pressure, and
she was able to form another sentence.
So I learned not to move too quickly through a narration.
To allow her plenty of time to form her thoughts into words and get them out.
The fourth area to consider is how much material you present at a time.
For example, if we're reading a literature book just for fun, I may go ahead and read
a whole chapter.
But if it is a history book or a science book, and especially if I'm requiring a narration
from my daughter, I will read only a short passage.
I do the same for copywork or transcription or dictation.
My daughter has very weak muscle tone, which makes handwriting very difficult.
So I usually give her only a five- or six-word phrase to write in a lesson.
Then the next time we do transcription, we'll review the phrase she already wrote and look
at the next one.
Small, constant touches add up.
But if I dump too much material on her at one time, I know that she will feel overloaded
and shut down.
I try to give her enough to offer a new idea, and then give her time to process that idea.
So our lessons are quite short, but she gets a wide variety of ideas in those short touches.
The last area that I'll mention today is substitutions.
You can tweak by substituting a different living book that covers the same topic.
For example, though my daughter is 18 now, I'm using books on a first through third grade
level for most subjects, and some of those are quite challenging for her.
And even within that same reading level, sometimes I've substituted a different book because
the one we started just wasn't working well.
Another place you can substitute is in math scenarios.
I like to change the names to be people in my daughter's life.
If you have a child with autism, you know that they often have "enthusiasms" that become
a concentrated focus for a season.
For example, my daughter loves certain dogs and loves to recite what color their collars
are; so her face lights up when I work those details into her math lessons.
So there are five areas to consider tweaking as you use Charlotte Mason methods with your
special needs child.
You can still use living books; you can tweak by substituting a different reading level
and adjusting how much you read at a time.
You can still use narration; tweak it by not moving too quickly and giving your child plenty
of time to communicate her thoughts.
You can still use observation, like in nature study or picture study; you just may need
to frame how much to observe at a time.
You can still use guided discovery, as in math; be ready to linger longer over some
concepts until the child is comfortable and ready to move ahead.
You can still do habit training; just be ready to frame specific applications of each habit
and spend as much time as needed to get each one firmly in place.
Short lessons will be a key to reduce frustration, and wide variety will be a key to keep things
enjoyable.
I fell into the trap once of focusing only on the weak academic areas that needed the
most work.
We spent a term just doing the 3 R's.
Every day: reading, writing, and arithmetic.
We both began to dread school work.
It was tedious; it was boring; it was dry.
And most importantly, it wasn't expanding my daughter's horizons.
It is so important to give our children, especially our special needs children, a wide variety
of subjects.
It doesn't take much to read a poem once a week, or listen to music, or draw, or look
together at a beautiful picture.
Those subjects are what feed our children's minds and hearts in ways that we can't see.
They are some of the ways we demonstrate our respect for that child as a whole person.
So please don't neglect them.
I know, some special needs children crave routine.
But you can still give your child a wide variety of subjects and cater to her desire to know
what to expect.
I just keep a simple chart on the door of the room where we do our school work.
It lists which subjects we are going to do each day of the week.
We have variety as you look across the week, but my daughter has the comfort of knowing
what to expect each day.
We could talk about so much on this topic, but for now let me wrap things up by encouraging
you in one more thing, and that is to keep in mind the goal of education.
Charlotte Mason said that we learn—just to know?
No.
We learn, to grow.
The goal of education is growth as a person.
So rather than focusing on What grade level is my child?
How far behind is she?
Try to focus on Is she growing as a person?
Look for growth in all areas of life, not just academics.
And when you see growth, whether it is in her reading level or her ability to brush
her teeth or her being able to communicate what she needs, celebrate that!
With Charlotte Mason's wonderful methods and your loving observation and tweaks, I think
you'll see plenty of opportunities to celebrate growth!