by Siobhán O'Neill White

Home schooling is not easy! It’s difficult trying to stay on top of all the work the children are given and it can be tough when you have more than one child. Our 12 year old also has Dyslexia, which puts adds pressure. She has trouble with reading and spelling, which makes schoolwork difficult for her. Home schooling her can be challenging, as she often gets frustrated with reading and spelling. This makes her feel upset and frustrated and is hard on all of us. We wanted to make home schooling easier for her, to reduce her stress and also, honestly, to reduce our stress too.The first thing we did was speak with her teacher to explain she was feeling overwhelmed with the amount of work and the difficulty of it. He advised that she aim to do around 70%, to ease the workload for her and to make it more manageable. Straight away, that helped.Next thing we did was introduce a scanning pen into schoolwork. Scanning pens are so brilliant, especially for children with Dyslexia. Now, when she is reading and comes across a word she does not understand, she rolls the pen over the word on the page of the book, and the pen reads the word aloud to her. It also has a dictionary function, so she can get the meaning of the word too. You can check out the pens at www.scanningpens.co.uk for a 14 day free parent trial. For sales advise and user support in Ireland, contact Brian Vickers at www.compupacit.ie He can answer your questions and help you decide if a scanning pen would be good for your child. The Dyslexia Association of Ireland are very helpful too. If you or your child is feeling over-whelmed, please don’t be afraid to speak with their teacher about it. The most important thing is that your child is healthy and well. They need exercise, play time, activities, good food and plenty of sleep. If they don’t get all the work done that’s ok. Their mental and physical health is the main priority. For more tips and support for families during this worrying time, log onto free parenting website, www.mams.ie