October 15, 2024 • 62 mins
Unlock the world of homeschooling with our special guest, Joanna Maliti, a passionate educator and co-founder of Home and School Tutoring Pods. Joanna shares her inspiring shift from traditional classroom teaching to homeschooling, driven by her desire to overcome the constraints she noticed within conventional education systems. Discover how her dedication to inclusive education and hands-on learning experiences shaped her approach, including a remarkable family adventure through 11 national parks that turned into a vibrant educational journey.
Ever wondered if homeschooling needs to mirror the rigid structure of a conventional school day? Think again. We discuss the flexibility and creativity homeschooling offers, where everyday activities like cooking and playing Legos become powerful learning moments. Joanna provides insights on understanding each child’s unique learning style and challenges the unrealistic expectations of lengthy school days, advocating instead for a personalized and adaptable education model that aligns with the rhythm of family life.
Eye tracking issues and their surprising impact on reading abilities also take the spotlight, as we explore how these challenges can often be misinterpreted as learning disabilities like dyslexia. Joanna shares compelling findings on the reintroduction of phonics in Tennessee schools, her insights into the world of homeschool pods, and the essential role of prenatal health. Join us to uncover practical methods and alternative education models that promise to enrich children’s learning experiences and cater to diverse educational needs.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Rebecca Twomey (00:32):
Hello and welcome to the Radiant Mission
Podcast.
My name is Rebecca Twomey andwe are on a mission to encourage
and inspire you as you'renavigating through this life and
with your relationship withChrist.
As you're navigating throughthis life and with your
relationship with Christ, wehave been in the series on
homeschooling and today wewelcome Joanna Maliti.
Did I pronounce that correctly?
(00:53):
Yes, you did.
Perfect.
She is a homeschool mom and theco-founder of Home and School
Tutoring Pods in StrawberryPlains, tennessee.
She has an MS degree ininclusive education and was a
classroom teacher for 11 years.
During her full-time teachingcareer she was a teacher mentor,
(01:18):
k-3 team leader, school boardteacher representative, language
arts content writer and wasawarded the Dean's Award in
Education.
For the past five years, shehas been focused on tutoring
students and supporting parentsin their homeschooling journey.
In her free time, she enjoyshiking with her husband of 16
years and six-year-old daughterand reading a good book with a
(01:40):
biscotti and a hot cup of tea.
I love that.
Joanna, thank you so much forbeing here today.
Thank you for having me, this isreally, really exciting,
because there are things thatyou and I were chatting before
this that we've talked about alot with homeschooling so far,
but we have not talked about thetopics that you're going to
(02:01):
really bring to the table todayand I can't wait to hear more
about, especially, obviously,from the tutoring pod side of
things and what that looks like,but also from the student
perspective and addressingpotential learning delays or not
learning delays or you knowthat side of things.
So I'm excited for us to diveinto some of this today.
Joanna Meliti (02:23):
Me too.
Thank you for allowing me tocome on and kind of share some
of that information so that wecan help families feel more
confident in their homeschooling, Because I feel like that's
kind of an area that people gethung up on is can I do this?
What is?
Rebecca Twomey (02:37):
Absolutely, absolutely.
So stay tuned.
I'm not going to ask aboutlearning disabilities just yet.
Stay tuned.
I'm not going to ask aboutlearning disabilities just yet.
We're going to start at kind ofthe beginning with your
transition to full-timeclassroom teacher, to
homeschooling and to co-foundingyour home and school tutoring
pod.
So you know, time commitmentfor teachers and students and
(03:02):
time with your own child issuper important, I know.
So tell me a little bit aboutwhat inspired you to transition
from teacher to homeschool.
Joanna Meliti (03:12):
So when I walked into the first day of teaching,
I was this confident teacherthat felt like I could conquer
the world, and I kind of held onto that until the end of my
first year and felt like, hmm, Ithink I need to know more.
I went through my bachelor'sdegree and felt like there was
(03:34):
this desire to learn and knowmore, so I started getting my
master's degree and that waswhen I started the inclusive
education.
Well, as time went on, Inoticed there were students who
weren't doing well in school.
They just weren't grasping.
There were challenges.
And so at the time, you know,met with the administrative team
that was, and I taught inprivate schools.
Rebecca Twomey (03:53):
Okay, I was going to ask that what types of
schools did you teach?
In Were they religious privateschools or just private school?
Joanna Meliti (04:01):
They were religious, so we had, you know,
memory verses every week.
We had chapel.
Rebecca Twomey (04:05):
And so it was a great environment to teach in.
Joanna Meliti (04:08):
I feel very fortunate to have that
background.
But, so I would go to parentsand I would say you know, we
need to explore something, thatwe're seeing and whatnot.
So one of the reasons why Iwent from full time teaching to
homeschooling is I felt like thesystem was failing kids.
The parents, you know, were notable to support their child.
(04:30):
But then, when they reached outto the resources of the county
because private school studentscan get testing for the county,
did your tax dollars pay forthat?
The school system a privateschool system or a public school
system would say well, your kidis not two grade levels below,
so we have no services availableto them.
(04:51):
So I would come in with thisfirst grader and I would say
they are not, you know, showingprogress or whatnot, and let's
do some testing.
Oh, well, as long as they canhold a pencil, that's all we're
expecting from them at thispoint.
And it's like no, no, no, no,no.
Rebecca Twomey (05:05):
We have to do more.
Joanna Meliti (05:06):
So I kind of saw where the system was failing
kids, um, I saw how much wastedtime there was during the day,
um, with a full-time teachingclassroom.
And I taught for 11 yearsbefore having my daughter and in
those 11 years I said I wouldnever send my child to school
(05:30):
School Because of the time thatthey're away from their families
, the pressure, the academicpressures that are put on them.
You know, we had science fairs,history fairs, and then there's
homework in the evening, andthen there's just this we have
to meet certain standards andmeet certain benchmarks by
certain times of the year.
And I just thought this is sooverwhelming to these little six
(05:52):
and seven year olds that Iwould never want to do that to
my daughter or my son.
So I knew from day one that Iwould not be sending my child to
a regular school.
And then I remember teachingthird grade and there was this
lesson about it was it was ageography lesson in different
landmarks and things around thecountry, and I thought how
(06:12):
amazing would it be if we couldactually go to these places and
do things as a family.
You know, but it's all abstract, you know, it's all like
hypothetical, like, you know, ifyou were to go to this place,
you would see that it's not reallife.
There's no desire to learnthose things.
One of the things that we didthis past summer was we took our
(06:34):
camper and for three months wetraveled around the country and
visited 11 national parks and itwas like this is what school
looks like.
You can get those real lifeexperiences and it makes them,
you know, treasure it, and thenthey come back telling others
about it and it just kind oflike internalizes all of it.
So, you know, I thought if Icould be at home with my
(06:58):
daughter and be her teacher,there would be opportunities for
those like teachable moments,like we're in the moment we're
going to teach and learn aboutthese things, and then we can
spiral, we can go back to thingswe've learned before, things
we're learning currently andinto the future.
And so I just saw that, youknow, being a teacher had its
(07:18):
benefits, with my background ineducation, but I also had the
heart of homeschooling and Ithought how can I blend those
together?
And that's how Home and SchoolTutoring Pods was born.
It was being a resource tofamilies with my background but
approaching everything with theheart of homeschooling.
Rebecca Twomey (07:38):
That's awesome.
So many things to unpack withsome of the things that you said
, the first being it's veryinteresting how you, as a
teacher, observes these childrenare with me all day.
These children are at schoolall day long and not with their
mom.
Joanna Meliti (07:57):
You know, they're .
Rebecca Twomey (07:58):
They're not with their families, spending time
growing with their families andI don't remember the exact
statistic, but something liketwo hours a day maybe are spent
with your actual family becausekids are at school.
I know my mom mentioned that shewas actually on the podcast a
couple episodes ago because shehomeschooled us and she
(08:21):
mentioned one of my nephews, hergrandson.
He comes home at like fiveo'clock, you know, because he
has school and thenextracurricular stuff and and
it's very hard for children.
I mean think I think about itthis way it's a work day for a
child and it's hard for me tohave a work day as an adult.
(08:44):
So I can only imagine what itmust be like for these kids to
start their day at 7.30 orearlier.
If they have to get up to getready and then get home so late
and have homework andextracurriculars and all these
other things to do, it's not alot of time to family bond.
So that's beautiful that youwere able to recognize it and
(09:05):
say we're going to do thingsdifferently and I love the story
of traveling and learning inperson together as you're going
around.
Joanna Meliti (09:16):
Those are memories your daughter's going
to have forever and ever yeah,there's things that she saw this
summer that some adults don'teven know about.
We were telling some friendsyesterday over lunch, you know
about Yellowstone, and they werejust like all we know is old
faithful.
There's so much more to it.
Rebecca Twomey (09:32):
Absolutely.
Joanna Meliti (09:33):
Yeah, and you know you mentioning the two hour
kind of window that kids getafter school.
And what are we doing with thattwo hour window?
We're feeding them, we'rebathing them and we're putting
them to bed.
It's almost as if we don't havethat precious time when they're
at their best.
You know they're tired.
Um, they have all these demandsI've been put on them all day
to get in line, quietly, movefrom this space to this space,
(09:55):
and they have, you know, thisrelease of emotion a lot of
times when they come home, andit's when parents feel the most
challenged, um, so yeah,absolutely, yeah, it was one of
those like light bulb momentswhen I was in the classroom.
just you know, I understand whythe families sometimes need to
send their kids to thetraditional classroom, but
(10:16):
homeschooling has so manybenefits for your own child and
for your family.
It's such a bonding experience.
Like I get the pleasure ofwatching my daughter grow in her
education.
Rebecca Twomey (10:29):
Yeah, absolutely .
One of the other things that Iknow was important to you is
values and teaching yourchildren values that align with
your family.
Joanna Meliti (10:40):
And.
Rebecca Twomey (10:41):
I know one of the things with the school
system and you were in a privateschool, but it's and I know one
(11:09):
of the things with the schoolsystem and you were in a private
school, but it's especiallydifferent in the public school
system is your kids are going tobe taught what the here you
know.
To the opinion of a teacher,let's say that they are super
into something or have a certainbelief system.
That may there may be always anunderlying tone of that belief
where, when we homeschool, we dohave that benefit of saying,
like here's the beliefs that areimportant to us.
I think you had an exampleabout Greek mythology that you
could share.
Joanna Meliti (11:27):
Yeah, so you know I was fortunate with teaching
in private school that we didn'thave a lot of like agendas and
things that we had to, you know,kind of tailor to in the
classroom.
We could stay within ourreligious realm and beliefs and
things.
But I was talking with ateacher she was my neighbor and
good friend and she taught inthe public school system and she
(11:49):
said I am becoming sofrustrated.
She said for an hour and a halfin the afternoon she would have
to teach Greek mythology tofirst graders and she said
because of that she cannot goand do a pumpkin craft in the
fall or, you know, do thingsthat the kids would actually
enjoy and make learning a littlemore enjoyable.
(12:11):
And so instead the kids wouldbecome, they would, she'd have
behavior problems.
She said the toilet paper inthe bathroom was, you know,
thrown all about.
She's like, cause they're bored, they're not interested in it,
it means nothing to them.
Not to mention, what are wedoing with Greek mythology in
first grade?
You know, like why is thatthere?
So you know I value we have ourcore beliefs as a family and
(12:37):
you know we start our homeschoolday with a devotional and
memory verse that my daughtermemorizes every week and we have
prayer together as a family.
And I feel like you know youcan get that in public schools
and, um, it's just as beneficial, but when you're doing it as a
family, it bonds you and it'screating that um, just that
(12:57):
wholesome environment, becausewe have like a thank you board
and prayer board.
Like, can we move somethingfrom our prayer board to our
thankful board?
You know, so are there thingsthat we can instill in our child
at home that hopefully theywill continue to use as they
grow and become adults?
So, yeah, the um, yeah, thecurriculum is also a very big
thing too.
Rebecca Twomey (13:19):
That's a very interesting about the Greek
mythology.
We have addressed a little bitof Greek mythology on the
podcast.
As far as from a biblicalperspective, You're encouraging
me because I now want to lookmore into why they would want to
be teaching this to children.
We know that this is prettypervasive in the medical system.
(13:43):
The Greek mythology, anyway,that's where it all started and
so you've got.
You've piqued my interest withthat.
I've got to do some moreresearch and maybe in the next
series we'll talk about why thegovernment wants children to
know and understand more aboutGreek mythology.
What are the pagan ties thatthey are promoting Light bulb
(14:08):
moment here.
Now I want to talk a little bitmore about your tutoring and
that side of things, but firstlet's get a little bit into your
experience as a teacher,because it is a transition I had
(14:39):
.
If you listen back, yournatural learner, leah well, is
you have to unschool yourselffirst when it comes to going
from being a classroom teacherto homeschooling.
So I would love to hear moreabout kind of your experience as
a teacher mentor, how thatinfluenced homeschooling and
tutoring and do you feel thatyou had to do any mental
(15:00):
unschooling of yourself?
Joanna Meliti (15:02):
Yeah, you kind of really do, cause you're just
set in a system.
I mean, I was.
I was only homeschooled oneyear, and that was third grade,
and so I come from public school.
I went to a private college,however, so I was used to
getting up, going to school allday, coming home doing my
homework and just repeating thatprocess.
So when it became time tohomeschool, it was a mind shift
(15:27):
of it doesn't have to start ateight, and we try I mean,
there's research to say thatchildren's brains kind of wake
up at 10 AM.
So to start school any soonerwe're kind of doing them a
disservice, you know, allowingthem to kind of wake up and get
going.
So when I mentored teachers, alot of the things that I had to
do in the school system wasyou're seeing these things or
(15:49):
these challenges with a student?
What things can we do to helpand support them?
And so when it shifts tohomeschooling and working more
along with parents, it's moreabout helping them shift from
the traditional schoolingthey're used to to what does
homeschooling look like for youat home?
And then what are, you know,good curriculums that you can
(16:11):
use to help support your child,or different approaches.
And then, as they get deeperinto things, what specific
challenges they're facing andwhat we can do to kind of
remediate those.
And so there's been.
I had a mom, she was part of ourpod, and she said we are just
having a really hard timekeeping up.
(16:32):
And I said well, what are someof the challenges that you're
having?
She had her son enrolled in anonline homeschool program but it
was hours in a day that had tobe done online and then he would
have worked complete after, inaddition to the pod said I feel
like you're doubling up.
(16:53):
You know you're doing twice asmuch.
And she just kind of had themindset that it had to be from,
you know, nine to two or eightto three.
It had to be this longer day.
And so, you know, we sat downand we looked at where he was
academically and what we coulddo to support him and get him
where he needs to be.
And then I feel like the biggestthing that parents need to hear
(17:14):
is you don't have to startschool at five, you don't have
to be sitting down and doingthings paper and pencil at five
and even at six years old.
So so it's helping them knowwhat homeschooling looks like
what are going to be some goodpractices to put in place for
their child and kind of just howto organize, organize it all,
navigate it.
(17:34):
Um, I take for granted that Ihave the background of a teacher
and kind of know how to likeapproach things and so, as I
worked with more parents andkind of seeing the need for how
do I do this, I don't know if Ican do this Kind of working them
through what it looks like.
I had a phone conversationrecently with a mom that was
interested in the pod and shewas pulling her kid out of
(17:56):
school this year and she saidkind of don't really tell me
what are my first steps.
And I said well, if your desireis to pull your kids out of
school, you know you need to gothrough the process of that.
I said but you don't have tostart homeschooling next week.
I said you can give yourselftwo weeks, because this was more
of an emergency situation, youknow she wanted them out
(18:17):
immediately.
I said give yourself two weeksto organize yourself.
You know they're going to learnand they're going to do things
in those two weeks.
I said cook with them, you know.
Give them things to play withthat they can do engineering
with Legos.
Legos will count.
And so she said I said the state.
You know every requirementwithin the state you have to
(18:39):
look at.
But I said it doesn't have tobe six hours of paper and pencil
.
No, homeschooling can lookdifferent for every family.
And so we kind of workedthrough what that would look
like for that family and she bythe end, was like are you
serious?
That's what it looks like,cause they just mindset of like
well, my kid has been used togoing to school from eight to
(19:00):
three and I need to replicatethat.
You know in some way.
And it's not, it's totallydifferent.
So you know giving familiesideas on best resources if they
are facing some challenges youknow, sitting down with families
and giving them support if theyneed to talk to another expert
(19:24):
about something more specific.
Rebecca Twomey (19:25):
And you know.
Joanna Meliti (19:26):
I know we're going to kind of dive into that
a little bit later, but kind ofusing the science of learning to
help families.
So yeah, I really enjoyed beinga teacher mentor, but I think I
enjoy working with parents evenbetter, I bet.
Rebecca Twomey (19:41):
I bet Because there's a lot of things that
you've learned that you canimpart and pass along, and I
remember learning this in.
So I went to graduate schoolfor English.
(20:11):
I started out in Englisheducation and I changed my mind
on that A couple episodes.
I talked about how it is ironicI was homeschooled and then for
a period of time I thought thatI would be a teacher in the
public school system, was in itbriefly and then was like no way
.
But one of the things that Iremember talking about is that
(20:35):
attention spans in college agestudents not even elementary
school was around 30 to 45minutes, and then after that
they're checked out, right, andthat's, I think, a lot of the
reasons why they rotate kids'classes so frequently.
Right, cause they're thinkingall right, we'll teach on this,
then we'll rotate to the nextthing, and then to the next
(20:56):
thing and to the next thing.
But how?
How crazy is it If we thinkabout an eight-hour day for a
child?
I mean, how much of that arethey really absorbing?
And then to think about thehistory of school, right, you
know, people weren't alwaysgoing to school here in America.
In the pioneer days they werecertainly not going to school
(21:20):
and attending school andlearning.
You know the same things thatwe're learning now school and
attending school and learning.
You know the same things thatwe're learning now.
They were working with thefamily, working on the farm,
building things, cooking allthat.
And as those single room schoolhouses started to come, what was
that?
A couple hours a day that theywere going.
And now here we are, 200 yearslater, and kids are going to
(21:42):
school from seven to three ortwo, 30, whatever it might be.
I would love to kind of hearyour just even just opinion
after being in this atmosphereand just to encourage, like you
just did, just encourage parentsthat school does not have to be
an eight hour day or even a sixhour day.
(22:05):
When I was homeschooled, my momdid not wake us up.
We woke up when we woke up,which was usually around nine,
sometimes nine, 30.
And we would start, just likeyou did, with devotional Bible
study and then we would, youknow, go get into our work.
And however long it took us washow long it took us.
Right, we had the lesson planfor the day, and I was very much
(22:26):
the type that I want to justget it done as fast as possible
so I could go work on whateverproject I was in the middle of.
I love to sew, I love to docrafts and, you know, make
little pot holders and differentthings, and so it was get it
done in an hour, hour and a halfeven, and that was enough
(22:47):
because I was able to getthrough what I needed to get
through.
So I'd love to just kind ofhear your thoughts on that.
Joanna Meliti (22:55):
Yeah, they.
The thing that I think mostfamilies are surprised by is how
much you can get done in such ashort amount of time.
I mean, we're talking about 11,12, 15 minutes max for math.
We're talking about 10 minutesfor writing.
We're talking, you know, we'redoing what we need to to support
and build our kids to wherethey need to be.
(23:18):
And you know, a progression fromkindergarten up.
But when we talk about the time, I would say you know, we say
with kindergarten, 45 minutestops to get through what they
need to do.
But outside of that 45 minutes,you know it's funny we say
what's the best curriculum forkindergarten?
It's dress up clothes and facepaint.
(23:39):
You know, because there is somuch value to play there.
Their minds are still in thisstage of wanting to be so
imaginative.
They're curious, they want toexplore, they want to see what
happens if I, you know, take abucket of dirt and I mix leaves
(24:00):
and sticks.
And you know, and that's why Iappreciate some of the other
resources to parents.
You know, like the outdoorschools and things like that,
because it gives kids otheroptions.
But outside of you know, thepaper and pencil work,
homeschooling can be the zoo, itcan be your backyard, it can be
(24:21):
a play date, it can be themriding their bike, and so, yes,
we have our state requirementswhen we're talking about those
hours.
Sure, sure, yeah, you know weare 180 days.
We have to mark off that we did.
But don't think that 180 daysof six hour book work.
(24:44):
I think there's value topicking up a pencil and writing
a sentence, like we need tolearn good finger spacing and
letter formation.
But outside of the little bitthat they need to do each day,
there are so many fun things.
Play-doh, you know, you'reworking on this same hand,
strengthening doing Play-Doh asyou would holding a're working
on this same hand strengtheningdoing Play-Doh as you would
holding a pencil and doinghandwriting, and I would argue
that Play-Doh is even better.
(25:04):
So you know, and there's a lotof, there's research that says
if you are trying to teachsomething and you are doing it
with, you know, paper and andpencil kind of a traditional way
, it could take 400 exposuresfor that connection in the brain
to happen.
But if you do it with play, itcould take as little as 10 to 20
(25:28):
.
So when you're integrating playand real-life experiences, that
is all counting ashomeschooling.
That is the benefit of takingwhat a traditional eight-hour
school day would look like downto 45 minutes or an hour and a
half and addressing which iswhat needs to be done.
When I homeschool my daughtershe's six we address the reading
(25:50):
and the writing, the math andall of that, and then outside of
that, she gets to choose whatdoes the rest of her day look
like?
And she found an Amazon box theother day and she drew out how
it was going to turn into a carand she took her manipulator,
magnet tiles or her toys andbuilt this car with this box and
(26:11):
a steering wheel.
And I thought you know, myhusband and I joke.
We say homeschooling is donefor today.
You know, like that's such,that's such a degree, that's
math, like you know.
So in our family it's a jokecheck homeschooling done.
Rebecca Twomey (26:27):
I love that.
I love that.
My daughter is almost five andshe is very much the same way
that she loves to create.
You know she'll come to me.
Hey, I have this little dolly,I want to make her a house, but
it keeps falling down, and so wego over to her Duplo blocks and
say, okay, well, what can we doto make this stronger?
Let's talk about the base andhow to make this base stronger,
(26:50):
and it's all play to her, butfor me it's also a learning
opportunity to teach her acouple of things about
architecture, I guess, rightBuilding structures and how
things work.
Yeah, love that.
Joanna Meliti (27:05):
Yeah, we call those teachable moments, that's
right.
Going off of what theirinterests are and turning them
into teachable moments, and,like you said, without them even
knowing.
Yeah, so you know.
The best part is subscriptionstoo, like the excitement that
can still stay with learningbecause they don't even know
that they're doing it.
(27:26):
You know like oh, totally, andyou're like so exciting.
Rebecca Twomey (27:30):
You know you're going to learn about these
different things.
Joanna Meliti (27:32):
Or you're going to get the subscription box in
the mail and it's going to, youknow, inspire you to want to
know more about something in themail, and it's going to, you
know, inspire you to want toknow more about something.
And it's just those, yeah,interest driven teachable
moments, and it doesn't have tobe paper and pencil for six
hours.
Rebecca Twomey (27:48):
Yeah, absolutely Absolutely.
My, my little girl lovesPlay-Doh too.
She could sit there for an hourand just make and create and do
things.
And it's so cool and just makeand create and do things and
it's so cool to watch her figurestuff out right and like figure
out how to make, how to usethis new piece or how to use
this stencil to do something, orhow to use the little cutter or
(28:10):
whatever the case might be.
She's into scissors.
Right now she has kid scissorsand it's great for her.
Dexterity right, she's learninghow to do things and she will
spend an hour dexterity right,she's learning how to do things
and she will spend an hour justcutting things, just practicing.
But it's cool to see how farshe's come in just even I would
say, the last month, with usingscissors.
(28:30):
You know it's like you don'tthink about that as a skill when
you're an adult because you'vebeen using them for your whole
life, right, but to watch alittle child learning how to use
them for the first time and gofrom just making cuts to now she
can cut things out or now shecan knows how to cut off a tag
on something or whatever thecase may be, that's cool.
(28:51):
I mean it's small, but maybethat might not be the thing that
I would appreciate as much if Iwasn't a homeschooling mom.
Yeah, Scissors.
Joanna Meliti (29:00):
cutting uses both sides of the brain at once, so
you want to talk about two birdswith one stone.
If you give your kids scissorsand have them cut, you're
actually developing both sidesof the brain at the same time.
And so when I hear parents, oh,the scissors are kept up on the
shelf, you know it's like amomentary use's like, please, no
(29:20):
do it all the time.
Rebecca Twomey (29:20):
You know, scissors are great to have um
for kids, as long as they're notcutting the curtains or their
hair, which usually there'salways one kid in a family,
right, that's the haircut.
The hair cutter, yep I gottaexplore that too funny.
well, I want to ask you aboutyour background in inclusive
education, because I know thatthat was something that was very
(29:43):
significant in your career.
I'm sure people are wonderingwhat does inclusive education
mean?
So first you know, please kindof define that a little bit for
us.
But then can you share moreabout how you help support
families that are homeschoolingand perhaps have mild learning
disabilities?
Or just you know whateverknowledge you want to share
about learning disabilities andschool and homeschooling?
Joanna Meliti (30:07):
Yeah, so when I I was after my first year of
teaching kind of felt like I wasa teacher, you know, standing
on one leg, I didn't feel solidand I had these kids in my class
that I felt like I wanted toprovide more support for but
just didn't know how.
And so when I started exploringdifferent avenues I could take
for my master's, inclusiveeducation was one of the things
(30:28):
I stumbled upon and it's whereyou know, students could stay in
my classroom and I couldprovide support.
I was not a special ed teacher.
Those are more pullout services, but it kind of just gives you
as an inclusive ed teacher moreresources and strategies and
things so that you can supportyour students and maybe be
(30:51):
proactive in them needingpullout services or kind of be
another opportunity for them toget resources they need in
addition to a pull-out service.
So it's kind of maximizing mytime with them.
And so when I meet withfamilies or talk with what
challenges they might be having,my background in inclusive
(31:14):
education first identifiespossible learning disabilities
that can be there, kind of likethe markers, and then kind of
help them navigate how they'regoing to go about finding out if
their child has a disability,what resources are available and
then kind of best approachesfor them who are at home, like
what curriculums are the best?
(31:35):
So a lot of times I'll seeparents asking for tutors and
the biggest thing you know isyou want when I tell my families
, you want an Orton Gillinghamtrained tutor when it comes to
reading or you want a systematicapproach when it comes to
phonics.
I don't know if you're aware,but I know here in the state of
(31:59):
Tennessee we've, for the past 10years, have had declining
reading scores, and so theinitiative now is to bring
phonics back into the classroom.
So did they ever?
They took it out of theclassroom, we did and for 10
years had declining scores andreading.
In fact, kindergarteners werecoming in as better readers than
they were leaving.
So where the benchmarks grewthroughout kindergarten, the
(32:21):
kindergartners weren't able toreach those benchmarks and so
technically, leavingkindergarten, they were worse
off than when they entered as areader.
Wow yeah.
And if you think about 10 years, you think about a
kindergartner going in.
10 years later they're now ahigh schooler, and so for 10
years the system has failed themand giving them the instruction
(32:42):
that they need.
And and this is, you know, I, Iwas a teacher, and I admire
teachers because they are giventhe resources and told to use
them.
It's not, you know, likethey're given up to date
knowledge or curriculum orstrategies and things.
Once you're in the system,you're kind of doing the
knowledge or curriculum orstrategies and things.
Once you're in the system,you're kind of doing the best
you can of what you have.
(33:02):
And so now phonics is beingbrought back into the classroom.
There's a lot of training,because I just had to restart my
state certification and it wasall on phonics, all on phonics.
Rebecca Twomey (33:15):
That's so interesting.
I wonder why they took it outin the first place.
It was working, wasn't it?
Joanna Meliti (33:21):
it was, um, I was , I was, went through school,
whole language.
So we're at, it's a, we're awhole language generation of
here's the word, learn the word,kind of like a memorization
type approach.
Okay, okay, now it's more.
Kids don't have word attackskills.
They don't know kind of thestructure of language.
And so, with teaching in theprivate school and having my
(33:45):
background in inclusiveeducation, the importance of
phonics, I mean.
If there's one thing I couldwish and desire for every family
is that they would use phonicsas part of their first kind of
years of instruction for reading.
Because there's a there's these, these growths and levels that
kids move through, and whatwe're finding is that most kids
(34:09):
that are struggling readers lackphonemic awareness, and so a
lot of that is addressed throughphonics, and so there's this,
and so a lot of that isaddressed through phonics.
And so there's this kind ofthis desire to make sure that
families that are homeschoolingcan see that there's a value to
what we pick for curriculum.
And then there's multiple waysthat we can teach our own child.
(34:33):
Even if they have learningdisabilities, it doesn't mean
that they have to have a labeland there's only that label
that's going to stay with them.
And what's interesting too iswe're very quick to put a label
on kids, and I think it's, youknow, part of the system trying
to get funding and, you know,offer the pull-out services and
(34:54):
things like that.
But I'll have a family come andwe'll'll be tutoring a student
and we'll say you know, we kindof see these symptoms, these
things.
What does it mean?
Is my kid dyslexic?
I had a boy he was in firstgrade and I would do my reading
with him and I had him and I wasone of those that I like to
(35:18):
observe the student for a goodbit and then I'll go to the
family and say, hey, I'm kind ofnoticing this because I'm not
quick to jump to it has alearning disability.
We all learn different.
Kids are not linear.
We got to give it time, we gotto get to know the kid and I was
noticing there were certainthings that did not show as
markers for dyslexia.
But there was just somethingnot right with his reading, like
(35:44):
it was just off.
And so I went to the mom and Isaid hey, you know, I'm kind of
noticing a few things.
She's like so glad you saidsomething.
She's like I think he'sdyslexic, like it was her
immediate response I think he'sdyslexic and I'm like well, I'm
not sure that he is.
And she's like what do you mean?
Like automatically assumechallenges with reading, equal
(36:07):
dyslexia, and that's not thecase.
That's not always the case.
There's so much moredevelopmentally that's going on
with kids, not just with thebrain that symptoms, so to speak
, or markers, don't always matchthe label that we're used to
giving kids.
And so, with my background ininclusive education, I like to
(36:29):
work families through thatprocess of like what are you
seeing and what could that mean,and what are the steps we can
take to kind of support and get?
Rebecca Twomey (36:37):
answers.
Joanna Meliti (36:38):
A lot of families do want answers.
They want to know what's goingon and how they can then support
.
But definitely, you know, helpwith curriculum choices, making
sure that kids are gettingmultiple exposures.
Some kids can learn with seeingsomething seven times and it
goes into long-term memory.
Seeing something seven timesand it goes into long-term
(37:02):
memory.
For some kids it needs to be500 or a thousand.
It's not always the same forevery kid.
So we have to look at, you know,are we exposing, are we giving
them multiple opportunities tolearn things in different ways?
And if some of those challengesstill keep arising, then you
know, I kind of can coachfamilies through what our first
(37:22):
steps.
Are we going to look atoccupational therapy, physical
therapy, vision therapy?
Are we going to eventually getto the point of some further
evaluation?
But let's, you know, look atsome other options.
First, are we doing what we canto support at home?
First, with hands-on learningand things like that.
There's a gentleman, his nameis Gardner.
(37:46):
It's multiple intelligences.
You may have heard about itthrough some training, but you
know like I'm a visual learner,so if you try to tell me
something and then walk away, Iwill probably only catch 50% of
what you were trying to tell me.
But if you show me and I evenhave the opportunity to do it
(38:08):
myself, then I'm going to graspthat so much better.
So it's also about finding whatkind of learners we have.
Is our kid more musical?
Are they more tactile?
Rebecca Twomey (38:19):
Do they like to?
Joanna Meliti (38:19):
manipulate things with their hands, you know.
So those are some of the thingsthat you know I'll have
families try out first, likelet's look at how we're
approaching things.
Rebecca Twomey (38:28):
Absolutely.
Learning style is superimportant because, like you said
, some people are visuallearners, some are auditory.
I know my husband he could justhear something and he learns,
but that's not how I am.
Then there's also reading andwriting, or the kinesthetic
having to do, and I'm very muchmore like you where it's visual
(38:50):
and kinesthetic in some senses.
For me, I learn by doing andwhen I'm doing things.
And kids are growing right andthey, they're changing.
They may not have figured itout themselves yet.
It's not like they could say tous oh well, I need you to tell
me, or I need you to show me, orI need you to play me a song
and I'll learn.
(39:10):
They, they, don't know, and soit is up to us to help figure
out what's the best way for themto learn right.
Joanna Meliti (39:19):
Yeah, so that's the fun part is we get to you
know, get to know each kid, bothyou know, in this setting, as
the teacher and parent of ourown child.
And then what I like about thepod is that parents have a
resource to say.
This is what I'm noticing.
This isn't working.
Can you help me?
Rebecca Twomey (39:41):
Can you define for listeners what the pod is?
What does that mean?
Joanna Meliti (39:46):
Yeah, so we I know the term co-op is used a
lot yeah, so we're not a co-op,a lot of co-ops kind of operate
parents, moms, kind of runco-ops.
This pod is another teacher andI kind of came together and we
had this vision where we wantedto help families with their
(40:08):
homeschool journey and have anopportunity to meet with kids on
a greater scale.
So, from the kind of it spurredfrom the pandemic, I had a
family, I left the classroom, Iwas done teaching.
Family reached out and said hey, my kids are in private school,
I need to pull them out.
Can you come and help tutorthem every day, Kind of be their
private tutor?
(40:28):
And um sure, so I went in, Itutored several hours a day both
their children and I was inthat process talking to the mom
about some of the things I wasseeing with her daughter, wanted
to recommend some vision thingsand I thought, wow, I think I
could do this on a greater scale.
(40:48):
I could probably help morefamilies at one time.
So the pods were created, inthat each of our I guess
classrooms you could say ourpods there is a tutor.
We're state-certified teachersbut we're tutors because parents
are their own child's teacher.
But we help.
(41:09):
We meet Monday and Wednesdaysfor four hours and we go through
reading and we go throughwriting and we go through math
and we have a lot of thematictype things we do.
But we are tutoring.
So I have 12 in my pod.
I teach kindergarten first andso we start our morning with
circle time and things like thatand then I teach phonics and
(41:33):
then I teach math and then I dowriting and we do our themes and
we have a garden.
We're growing a garden at ourlocation and so we go through
that with them and then we docommunity service together.
So we're making blankets thisyear for a local humane society.
So the kids are in charge ofmeasuring out the fabric,
cutting it, sewing it, makingthem and then we'll donate them
(41:55):
to the humane society.
So these pods are basicallytutors where the families can
share the expense of having atutor.
So when we meet Mondays andWednesdays, families know that
on those two days we'vesupported them in reading and
writing and math and their kidsare getting the learning through
(42:15):
someone with an experience.
You know, we have theexperience as teachers and so
when we're working with thesekids we can kind of navigate
what kinds of things they need.
How can we better support them?
And then we go to the familiesand we say you know, on Tuesday
and Thursday you can continuethis by doing X, y and Z,
because we have kind of like atiered system so our families
(42:37):
are not tied down to onecurriculum.
We believe that it looksdifferent for every family but
we're there to support and kindof work within these pods so
that you know it's not liketraditional school but they are
working with someone that has abackground in education you know
we can help in that way.
Rebecca Twomey (43:00):
Yeah, yeah.
And now is this something thatyou imagine, Because right now
you're in the same kind of gradespace that your daughter is in.
So do you imagine that you'llkind of continue that pod so
that you're you know she's apart of what you're doing?
Or do you imagine that maybesometimes she'll be with another
tutor for her pod, or what doesthat look like for you?
Joanna Meliti (43:24):
Yeah, so we, um, I do see her with another tutor.
I think there's benefit tosomeone else having my daughter
being with someone else that canwork with her and maybe use
different approaches to learning, um, and so, yeah she'll.
We have another tutor that doessecond through fourth grade,
and then we have another tutorthat works with fifth through
(43:44):
seventh, and so, yeah, so theyjust kind of we kind of give
grades just as a guideline.
We just say, you know, kind oflike, if you're trying to figure
out where to place your childwithin our pods.
It's kind of the general, butwe move kids through pods too,
so we'll, with reading, they'llcome out of one pod and go into
another and get what, get what'sbest for them within that pod
(44:06):
for that subject, and so we'revery fluid, um, and then we, a
lot of parents, appreciate thecommunity that comes from being
together.
Some parents just want thesocial interaction that comes
with it, yeah.
Some parents are like.
Please help us know exactlywhat to do on Tuesdays and
Thursdays.
(44:26):
Like they just don't have theconfidence you know to to do it
themselves, so they rely on usto guide and help them.
Biggest question I get is whatmath curriculum should I use?
And it's well, it's based onyour child.
So let's look at what theirinterests are and then we'll
navigate those kinds of thingswith our families.
But yeah, one of the familiessaid they kind of don't follow
(44:52):
what we're doing in terms ofcurriculum type things in the
classroom and she said I justloved it, we would get to it
within our own curriculum.
And my son would be telling meoh, mom, we did that already at
the pod and she's like great.
Well, you know like it's eithera review at that point for him
or an opportunity to see itagain and, you know, solidify
some of those subtraction skillsor whatever.
(45:13):
So we have a wide scope, orrange, I guess I should say, as
to what our families desire fromour pod.
But we are all prior teachers,we all worked in classrooms,
left to be home with our kidsand have a desire to homeschool.
So yeah, we just blend it allinto one.
Rebecca Twomey (45:36):
Y'all are like a super co-op because you're, you
know, it's like the mom, youknow I'm not trying to put
anybody down here, but you know,moms that create co-ops I love
and this is like the, you know,teachers, teacher moms that have
a very similar.
It's similar but different,right, because there's a
(45:56):
tutoring aspect to it.
It's similar but different,right, because there's a
tutoring aspect to it.
There is a.
You know you have a very strongeducational background in
schooling, so anyway, that'sawesome.
I love it.
Now I want to go back tolearning disabilities for a
second.
First of all, I have to knowit's been eating me up to know
what happened with the littleboy who the mom thought was
dyslexic.
(46:17):
Did he actually have a learningdisability?
Joanna Meliti (46:19):
Yeah, so no, he didn't One of the.
So I'll just dive into kind ofthe thing that is most amazing
when it comes to helping kind ofnavigate.
Does my child have a learningdisability?
Because, like I said earlier, Ifeel like there's a lot of
(46:42):
labels that are thrown aroundand we're not addressing some
other things first.
Somebody kind of give ahypothetical situation to say
student A Right, and you canjust imagine this maybe as your
child or someone you know andthey are constantly losing their
(47:03):
place when they're reading.
This is a big one reversingletters.
We always hear that, as mychild is lexic, they're
reversing B and D or P and Q.
Their reading comprehension isnot where it should be.
They're substituting orconfusing words when reading or
(47:29):
they might see the same wordtwice and scramble the letters
and things like that, or dropoff an ending to a word or the
beginning letter, or they have ashort attention span,
difficulty copying from a listthat they see when does our mind
go to?
First we would say, oh, thatkid is probably dyslexic, right
like, especially with the letterreversals.
(47:49):
So what I like to mention to myfamilies that have some of these
concerns is something called aneye tracking test, and this is
what I did with one of the withthe family that I tutored for
when I first started gettingback into teaching.
I said, um, I want to recommendthat you go get your child's um
(48:10):
eye tracking test done.
And they said, oh, they hadtheir vision tested and it came
back normal.
And so a vision test will testto see like our depth perception
and things like that to seelike our depth perception and
things like that Whereas atracking test will actually
check how our eyes are trackingacross space, because one of the
(48:32):
most common vision challengeswith kids is tracking and 80% of
a child's learning is visual.
So if we're not addressingtheir tracking, then we're
missing out on a big part ofwhat we would think would be a
(48:53):
learning disability, when reallyit's just a tracking thing.
So there is a study it's out ofthe Journal of Child Neurology,
it's 2017.
And it says in there that 156kids out of 327 first and second
graders scored below the 50thpercentile in eye tracking
skills 50 percentile which thencorrelates to poor performance
(49:17):
in reading and comprehension andum.
So I'll, you know, advisefamilies if you're seeing some
markers of like I think.
Think my kid might be dyslexic.
They're reversing letters,they're not able to copy things.
I encourage.
I almost feel like it needs tobe standard that they have a
(49:42):
tracking test done at the sametime, because it can answer so
many questions as to why readingfluency and comprehension and
things like that are challengingfor some kids, and the
remediation for that is visiontherapy, and sometimes it's six
weeks and that's it.
That's.
All it takes is six weeks ofvision therapy and a lot of it
(50:03):
can be done at home.
Rebecca Twomey (50:12):
Oh, interesting, so you can have this done at
the ophthalmologist but you justhave to ask for it.
Joanna Meliti (50:15):
Is that what you're saying?
Yeah, you have to ask for itand the a lot of the you can
also do it at home.
There's tests that you can doat home.
So, if your child holds theirhand out straight, their arm out
straight, and hold up theirthumb, put their thumb up and
you have them look at the tip oftheir thumb and have them turn
(50:37):
their head to the left and tothe right, you're watching their
eyes to see if they stay at thetip of that thumb, right,
you're watching their eyes tosee if they stay at the tip of
that thumb.
If they turn their head andtheir eyes go to the right or
left along with their head, thenit's indicative of a possible
tracking.
Interesting, Okay, so there'ssome tests you can do at home to
(50:57):
see if that's one of the thingsthat needs to be addressed
before just throwing that labelof I think my kid might be
dyslexic.
Interesting, and you saidvision therapy and there's
things that you can be addressedbefore just throwing that label
of I think my kid might bedyslexic.
Rebecca Twomey (51:05):
Interesting, and you said vision therapy and
there's things that you can doat home.
I imagine it's exercises thatare probably similar to that,
where you're asking them tofocus on something and
practicing that over and over.
Joanna Meliti (51:16):
Yeah, so they they have, you know, just much
like occupational therapy andphysical therapy.
Vision therapy is kind of likea once a week visit that you can
go in and they'll, you know, doexercises and things, and
they'll send you home withthings to do and then you can do
them at home that week and yougo back in.
The worst I've seen is sixmonths of vision therapy.
(51:38):
That's the worst I've seen.
And so when you think about,like, how much we are
remediating within those sixmonths for that child to then
improve their tracking, theirfluency, their comprehension,
their focus, coordinationthere's so much that can go into
just eye tracking.
When I had yeah, when I had a,when the mom came to me and said
(52:03):
, oh, you know, I think my voice, my son's, dyslexic, and I
didn't think that he was.
He had the eye tracking testdone and they'll give you
percentiles.
And if you were to put words ina column and this is what I
noticed things, words in acolumn he could read them top to
down, no problem when you putthem from left to right his
(52:25):
fluency dropped drastically, buthe was.
He was very, you know, he couldtell you about pretty much
anything.
Very bright, he could write.
I didn't see rehearsals in hiswriting.
And so that's when we had theeye tracking test done and he
scored less than one percentile.
Wow, his eye tracking from leftto right was pretty much
non-existent, oh my goodness.
(52:46):
And once, once he had histherapy, he was the one that had
six months of therapy.
The mom was just over the moon,excited.
She's like I didn't know thisexisted, I didn't know this was
a thing you know.
To have eye tracking done totest and then to see that the
remediation for that is, it'svery short, it's very easy, and
(53:10):
even if you're not having itdone in office with someone
there's, you know exercises andthings you can do at home.
Much like the thumb, you knowbeing held out, you can get a
popsicle stick with a sticker atthe top and you hold it out and
then your child will look atthe sticker that's at the top of
the hold it out and then yourchild will look at the sticker
that's at the top of thepopsicle stick and you start out
small with short left to righthead movements and while they're
(53:33):
keeping their eyes on thatsticker, and as they improve,
then you expand to larger headmovements to the left and right
while they're looking at thesticker, and then you can move
to angles.
So now you're moving thepopsicle stick to the top left
top right, bottom left, bottomright, and they're following
that popsicle stick and you'reworking on that.
Basically, you think of it aslike going to the gym for your
(53:55):
eyes.
Rebecca Twomey (53:56):
You know we go to the gym our muscles and our
arms.
Joanna Meliti (54:00):
These are eye exercises that improve them.
Rebecca Twomey (54:03):
The eyes for tracking.
That is very interesting.
I have never heard of thisbefore, so I'm learning as we're
talking.
It's very, very interesting.
It has me wondering is thissomething that's always existed
or been around, or do you thinkthat this is a result of our
lifestyles of kids watching TV,or what are your thoughts?
Joanna Meliti (54:26):
It's funny.
You ask that because mymother-in-law just came back
from the eye doctor last weekand she said they want to give
me eyeglasses with prisms inthem and that's one of the
therapies.
There are two differentapproaches to eye therapy One,
they'll give you exercises andkind of improve the muscle, I
guess, or whatever of the eye,whereas the other approach is
glasses with prisms in it.
And this is something I alwaysencourage my families to
(54:48):
research and choose what's bestfor them and their child.
You know, because we all havedifferent opinions when it comes
to different therapies.
And she said he wants to put mein glasses with prism.
And I said did you have eyetracking challenges as a child?
And she said, yeah, I rememberthem holding out a pencil and
having me follow the pencil.
(55:08):
And I thought, oh, I know whatthat is.
I think it's been around.
I don't know.
I mean there's I'm sure there'sresearch out there about what
causes it.
I feel like it's more prevalent.
I think it's always been there,but I think we're seeing more
of it.
For sure.
Rebecca Twomey (55:25):
But I know we're starting to understand it.
Joanna Meliti (55:27):
Yeah, I don't know.
Also like W sitting, so kidsthat sit with their kind of legs
spread out where they're notsitting, like with their legs
tucked underneath them.
They're kind of like flaredlegs to the side.
It's called W sitting.
Rebecca Twomey (55:42):
Okay.
Joanna Meliti (55:43):
Pretty indicative of a eye tracking.
So it's like that midline.
Yeah, there's like that midlinething.
Um, so I in my own research asa mom and trying to choose my
prenatal vitamin, um had comeacross, uh, midline defects.
You know, if we have marker,there's certain things to look
for when kids are born.
(56:04):
If they have a storks, what'sit called?
A storks kiss, I think it'scalled.
Okay, yeah, anyhow, there'smidline markers and so folic
acid, from my understanding inprenatal vitamins can kind of
mess with the midlinedevelopment and that's what eye
tracking w sitting and a fewother things are from.
(56:27):
It's the midline, the crossoverbrain hemisphere type things.
So, yeah, I'm not.
You know it's funny.
You asked that question toobecause I had the same thought.
Is it our vitamins?
that moms are taking, you know,prenatal, that they are in those
vitamins that are with thedevelopment of babies.
Rebecca Twomey (56:49):
Like, yeah, that is very interesting and that's
a definitely interestingconversation.
We love talking about birth andpregnancy on this podcast too.
Joanna Meliti (56:58):
So you're right on track here.
Rebecca Twomey (57:00):
But you, you brought up folic acid, which we
are told by the medical systemto take a prenatal because you
need folate.
But folic acid is not folate,that's right.
It's synthetic and people justdon't.
You know, don't think thatthrough much.
This is not a judgment.
Because you're told by your OByou need folate and this has
(57:24):
folic acid in it.
But you're right, it'ssynthetic.
It's not the same things.
Our body doesn't process it.
The same way it doesn't give usthe benefits of actual folate,
which comes from food, fromactual food that we're eating.
So if you're pregnant right now, definitely look into foods
that contain folate versus folicacid.
(57:46):
There's more and more studiescoming out of issues that are
arising from mothers takingfolic acid, which makes sense.
It's synthetic.
And man, I was just watchingthis video last night about how
all of the big box store brands,supplements like Nature's Way,
nature's Made, everything'scalled Nature something because
(58:08):
it's greenwashed but they areall owned by pharmaceutical
companies.
Bayer and Monsanto is evenaffiliated with some of them.
So it's very important when itcomes to prenatal health to get
your sources from actual food,if at all possible, and not from
these synthetic pharmaceuticalcompany created, lab made
(58:33):
vitamins that aren't actuallynourishing your body.
There's this illusion that it isbecause it's called vitamins
and it.
You know that's what the bottlesays, but there are so many
other great sources.
You know that's what the bottlesays, but there are so many
other great sources.
You know, I know Whole Foodshas some good options if you're
going to take a prenatal.
I personally do not takeprenatals.
(58:55):
I take supplements that I knowmy body needs, right, like I
take beef liver capsules, forexample, or it just depends on
what my body needs at that time.
Because I don't think.
I think that the prenatal is amarketing gimmick and every
(59:16):
woman's body is different andwe're all going to need
different things.
And if we can source vitaminsfrom real food, we're going to
do the best service to ourbodies.
But now I'm on the tangent.
Joanna Meliti (59:27):
Well, and I think there's, you know.
There is a connection, I think,to what we've been told, what
we're doing and where we seethings going with learning
disabilities.
I was taking a master's class Idon't remember the name of it
and there was a chart and it waslearning disabilities and how
they're on the rise.
We see more and more of them.
And then you take the vaccineschedule, look at that and how
(59:53):
that's on the rise, and then youput those two charts on top of
each other.
They could be the same chart,you know.
So there's a lot that I thinkyou know.
We do the best we can with whatwe know, but one of the things
we do see is more kidsstruggling with learning.
There's, you know, some of thatshowing up even in
(01:00:15):
homeschooling, even thoughthey're home with their parents.
But it's the best place forthem to be because even though
moms are not quote teachersbecause they don't have that
education degree my degree doesnot make me a better teacher
than you you know, or you aregoing to see and recognize
(01:00:36):
what's challenging your child.
And then, as with anything,we're going to go and find the
best resource on how to fix thator remediate it.
You know, like I said, withvision therapy we're talking six
weeks to six months and we arejust doing so much with that
therapy.
So, that's one of the thingsabout homeschooling is we're
(01:00:58):
going to recognize some of thosechallenges early on.
And early on you know saying Ihave a first grader that's
having these challenges.
I go to the county, have thetest done.
Well, we can't help them untilthey're two grade levels below.
Well, by then they're in third,fourth grade and you have
missed the window of maximizingthe opportunity to get them
(01:01:23):
where they need to be.
And nowhere in my experience inteaching did I learn about eye
tracking.
It was by my own learning.
Yeah, your own experience, myown experience.
So it's you know.
(01:01:44):
I think there's evenopportunity for teachers that
are in the classroom to knowmore about that so that they can
help their students and sendtheir parents to the right
resources for that.
Rebecca Twomey (01:01:51):
Thank you so much for listening to today's
episode.
As you can hear, joanna and Iare having a wonderful
conversation, but there is moreto come.
So please stay tuned next weekfor more from Joanna, and if you
would like to reach her in theinterim, you can do so at her
website athomeandschooltutoringcom or on
facebookcom.
(01:02:12):
Forward slash home and schooltutoring.
And, of course, as always, weinvite you to follow along
outside the podcast at theradiant mission or the radiant
mission podcast on Instagram,the Radiant Mission or the
Radiant Mission podcast onInstagram, facebook and YouTube.
And today we are going to closewith Romans 15, 13.
(01:02:33):
May the God of hope fill youwith all joy and peace as you
trust in him, so that you mayoverflow with hope by the power
of the Holy Spirit.
We're wishing you a radiantweek and we'll see you next time
.
Bye, everyone.
Hello and welcome to the Radiant Mission
Podcast.
My name is Rebecca Twomey andwe are on a mission to encourage
and inspire you as you'renavigating through this life and
with your relationship withChrist.
As you're navigating throughthis life and with your
relationship with Christ, wehave been in the series on
homeschooling and today wewelcome Joanna Maliti.
Did I pronounce that correctly?
(00:53):
Yes, you did.
Perfect.
She is a homeschool mom and theco-founder of Home and School
Tutoring Pods in StrawberryPlains, tennessee.
She has an MS degree ininclusive education and was a
classroom teacher for 11 years.
During her full-time teachingcareer she was a teacher mentor,
(01:18):
k-3 team leader, school boardteacher representative, language
arts content writer and wasawarded the Dean's Award in
Education.
For the past five years, shehas been focused on tutoring
students and supporting parentsin their homeschooling journey.
In her free time, she enjoyshiking with her husband of 16
years and six-year-old daughterand reading a good book with a
(01:40):
biscotti and a hot cup of tea.
I love that.
Joanna, thank you so much forbeing here today.
Thank you for having me, this isreally, really exciting,
because there are things thatyou and I were chatting before
this that we've talked about alot with homeschooling so far,
but we have not talked about thetopics that you're going to
(02:01):
really bring to the table todayand I can't wait to hear more
about, especially, obviously,from the tutoring pod side of
things and what that looks like,but also from the student
perspective and addressingpotential learning delays or not
learning delays or you knowthat side of things.
So I'm excited for us to diveinto some of this today.
Joanna Meliti (02:23):
Me too.
Thank you for allowing me tocome on and kind of share some
of that information so that wecan help families feel more
confident in their homeschooling, Because I feel like that's
kind of an area that people gethung up on is can I do this?
What is?
Rebecca Twomey (02:37):
Absolutely, absolutely.
So stay tuned.
I'm not going to ask aboutlearning disabilities just yet.
Stay tuned.
I'm not going to ask aboutlearning disabilities just yet.
We're going to start at kind ofthe beginning with your
transition to full-timeclassroom teacher, to
homeschooling and to co-foundingyour home and school tutoring
pod.
So you know, time commitmentfor teachers and students and
(03:02):
time with your own child issuper important, I know.
So tell me a little bit aboutwhat inspired you to transition
from teacher to homeschool.
Joanna Meliti (03:12):
So when I walked into the first day of teaching,
I was this confident teacherthat felt like I could conquer
the world, and I kind of held onto that until the end of my
first year and felt like, hmm, Ithink I need to know more.
I went through my bachelor'sdegree and felt like there was
(03:34):
this desire to learn and knowmore, so I started getting my
master's degree and that waswhen I started the inclusive
education.
Well, as time went on, Inoticed there were students who
weren't doing well in school.
They just weren't grasping.
There were challenges.
And so at the time, you know,met with the administrative team
that was, and I taught inprivate schools.
Rebecca Twomey (03:53):
Okay, I was going to ask that what types of
schools did you teach?
In Were they religious privateschools or just private school?
Joanna Meliti (04:01):
They were religious, so we had, you know,
memory verses every week.
We had chapel.
Rebecca Twomey (04:05):
And so it was a great environment to teach in.
Joanna Meliti (04:08):
I feel very fortunate to have that
background.
But, so I would go to parentsand I would say you know, we
need to explore something, thatwe're seeing and whatnot.
So one of the reasons why Iwent from full time teaching to
homeschooling is I felt like thesystem was failing kids.
The parents, you know, were notable to support their child.
(04:30):
But then, when they reached outto the resources of the county
because private school studentscan get testing for the county,
did your tax dollars pay forthat?
The school system a privateschool system or a public school
system would say well, your kidis not two grade levels below,
so we have no services availableto them.
(04:51):
So I would come in with thisfirst grader and I would say
they are not, you know, showingprogress or whatnot, and let's
do some testing.
Oh, well, as long as they canhold a pencil, that's all we're
expecting from them at thispoint.
And it's like no, no, no, no,no.
Rebecca Twomey (05:05):
We have to do more.
Joanna Meliti (05:06):
So I kind of saw where the system was failing
kids, um, I saw how much wastedtime there was during the day,
um, with a full-time teachingclassroom.
And I taught for 11 yearsbefore having my daughter and in
those 11 years I said I wouldnever send my child to school
(05:30):
School Because of the time thatthey're away from their families
, the pressure, the academicpressures that are put on them.
You know, we had science fairs,history fairs, and then there's
homework in the evening, andthen there's just this we have
to meet certain standards andmeet certain benchmarks by
certain times of the year.
And I just thought this is sooverwhelming to these little six
(05:52):
and seven year olds that Iwould never want to do that to
my daughter or my son.
So I knew from day one that Iwould not be sending my child to
a regular school.
And then I remember teachingthird grade and there was this
lesson about it was it was ageography lesson in different
landmarks and things around thecountry, and I thought how
(06:12):
amazing would it be if we couldactually go to these places and
do things as a family.
You know, but it's all abstract, you know, it's all like
hypothetical, like, you know, ifyou were to go to this place,
you would see that it's not reallife.
There's no desire to learnthose things.
One of the things that we didthis past summer was we took our
(06:34):
camper and for three months wetraveled around the country and
visited 11 national parks and itwas like this is what school
looks like.
You can get those real lifeexperiences and it makes them,
you know, treasure it, and thenthey come back telling others
about it and it just kind oflike internalizes all of it.
So, you know, I thought if Icould be at home with my
(06:58):
daughter and be her teacher,there would be opportunities for
those like teachable moments,like we're in the moment we're
going to teach and learn aboutthese things, and then we can
spiral, we can go back to thingswe've learned before, things
we're learning currently andinto the future.
And so I just saw that, youknow, being a teacher had its
(07:18):
benefits, with my background ineducation, but I also had the
heart of homeschooling and Ithought how can I blend those
together?
And that's how Home and SchoolTutoring Pods was born.
It was being a resource tofamilies with my background but
approaching everything with theheart of homeschooling.
Rebecca Twomey (07:38):
That's awesome.
So many things to unpack withsome of the things that you said
, the first being it's veryinteresting how you, as a
teacher, observes these childrenare with me all day.
These children are at schoolall day long and not with their
mom.
Joanna Meliti (07:57):
You know, they're .
Rebecca Twomey (07:58):
They're not with their families, spending time
growing with their families andI don't remember the exact
statistic, but something liketwo hours a day maybe are spent
with your actual family becausekids are at school.
I know my mom mentioned that shewas actually on the podcast a
couple episodes ago because shehomeschooled us and she
(08:21):
mentioned one of my nephews, hergrandson.
He comes home at like fiveo'clock, you know, because he
has school and thenextracurricular stuff and and
it's very hard for children.
I mean think I think about itthis way it's a work day for a
child and it's hard for me tohave a work day as an adult.
(08:44):
So I can only imagine what itmust be like for these kids to
start their day at 7.30 orearlier.
If they have to get up to getready and then get home so late
and have homework andextracurriculars and all these
other things to do, it's not alot of time to family bond.
So that's beautiful that youwere able to recognize it and
(09:05):
say we're going to do thingsdifferently and I love the story
of traveling and learning inperson together as you're going
around.
Joanna Meliti (09:16):
Those are memories your daughter's going
to have forever and ever yeah,there's things that she saw this
summer that some adults don'teven know about.
We were telling some friendsyesterday over lunch, you know
about Yellowstone, and they werejust like all we know is old
faithful.
There's so much more to it.
Rebecca Twomey (09:32):
Absolutely.
Joanna Meliti (09:33):
Yeah, and you know you mentioning the two hour
kind of window that kids getafter school.
And what are we doing with thattwo hour window?
We're feeding them, we'rebathing them and we're putting
them to bed.
It's almost as if we don't havethat precious time when they're
at their best.
You know they're tired.
Um, they have all these demandsI've been put on them all day
to get in line, quietly, movefrom this space to this space,
(09:55):
and they have, you know, thisrelease of emotion a lot of
times when they come home, andit's when parents feel the most
challenged, um, so yeah,absolutely, yeah, it was one of
those like light bulb momentswhen I was in the classroom.
just you know, I understand whythe families sometimes need to
send their kids to thetraditional classroom, but
(10:16):
homeschooling has so manybenefits for your own child and
for your family.
It's such a bonding experience.
Like I get the pleasure ofwatching my daughter grow in her
education.
Rebecca Twomey (10:29):
Yeah, absolutely .
One of the other things that Iknow was important to you is
values and teaching yourchildren values that align with
your family.
Joanna Meliti (10:40):
And.
Rebecca Twomey (10:41):
I know one of the things with the school
system and you were in a privateschool, but it's and I know one
(11:09):
of the things with the schoolsystem and you were in a private
school, but it's especiallydifferent in the public school
system is your kids are going tobe taught what the here you
know.
To the opinion of a teacher,let's say that they are super
into something or have a certainbelief system.
That may there may be always anunderlying tone of that belief
where, when we homeschool, we dohave that benefit of saying,
like here's the beliefs that areimportant to us.
I think you had an exampleabout Greek mythology that you
could share.
Joanna Meliti (11:27):
Yeah, so you know I was fortunate with teaching
in private school that we didn'thave a lot of like agendas and
things that we had to, you know,kind of tailor to in the
classroom.
We could stay within ourreligious realm and beliefs and
things.
But I was talking with ateacher she was my neighbor and
good friend and she taught inthe public school system and she
(11:49):
said I am becoming sofrustrated.
She said for an hour and a halfin the afternoon she would have
to teach Greek mythology tofirst graders and she said
because of that she cannot goand do a pumpkin craft in the
fall or, you know, do thingsthat the kids would actually
enjoy and make learning a littlemore enjoyable.
(12:11):
And so instead the kids wouldbecome, they would, she'd have
behavior problems.
She said the toilet paper inthe bathroom was, you know,
thrown all about.
She's like, cause they're bored, they're not interested in it,
it means nothing to them.
Not to mention, what are wedoing with Greek mythology in
first grade?
You know, like why is thatthere?
So you know I value we have ourcore beliefs as a family and
(12:37):
you know we start our homeschoolday with a devotional and
memory verse that my daughtermemorizes every week and we have
prayer together as a family.
And I feel like you know youcan get that in public schools
and, um, it's just as beneficial, but when you're doing it as a
family, it bonds you and it'screating that um, just that
(12:57):
wholesome environment, becausewe have like a thank you board
and prayer board.
Like, can we move somethingfrom our prayer board to our
thankful board?
You know, so are there thingsthat we can instill in our child
at home that hopefully theywill continue to use as they
grow and become adults?
So, yeah, the um, yeah, thecurriculum is also a very big
thing too.
Rebecca Twomey (13:19):
That's a very interesting about the Greek
mythology.
We have addressed a little bitof Greek mythology on the
podcast.
As far as from a biblicalperspective, You're encouraging
me because I now want to lookmore into why they would want to
be teaching this to children.
We know that this is prettypervasive in the medical system.
(13:43):
The Greek mythology, anyway,that's where it all started and
so you've got.
You've piqued my interest withthat.
I've got to do some moreresearch and maybe in the next
series we'll talk about why thegovernment wants children to
know and understand more aboutGreek mythology.
What are the pagan ties thatthey are promoting Light bulb
(14:08):
moment here.
Now I want to talk a little bitmore about your tutoring and
that side of things, but firstlet's get a little bit into your
experience as a teacher,because it is a transition I had
(14:39):
.
If you listen back, yournatural learner, leah well, is
you have to unschool yourselffirst when it comes to going
from being a classroom teacherto homeschooling.
So I would love to hear moreabout kind of your experience as
a teacher mentor, how thatinfluenced homeschooling and
tutoring and do you feel thatyou had to do any mental
(15:00):
unschooling of yourself?
Joanna Meliti (15:02):
Yeah, you kind of really do, cause you're just
set in a system.
I mean, I was.
I was only homeschooled oneyear, and that was third grade,
and so I come from public school.
I went to a private college,however, so I was used to
getting up, going to school allday, coming home doing my
homework and just repeating thatprocess.
So when it became time tohomeschool, it was a mind shift
(15:27):
of it doesn't have to start ateight, and we try I mean,
there's research to say thatchildren's brains kind of wake
up at 10 AM.
So to start school any soonerwe're kind of doing them a
disservice, you know, allowingthem to kind of wake up and get
going.
So when I mentored teachers, alot of the things that I had to
do in the school system wasyou're seeing these things or
(15:49):
these challenges with a student?
What things can we do to helpand support them?
And so when it shifts tohomeschooling and working more
along with parents, it's moreabout helping them shift from
the traditional schoolingthey're used to to what does
homeschooling look like for youat home?
And then what are, you know,good curriculums that you can
(16:11):
use to help support your child,or different approaches.
And then, as they get deeperinto things, what specific
challenges they're facing andwhat we can do to kind of
remediate those.
And so there's been.
I had a mom, she was part of ourpod, and she said we are just
having a really hard timekeeping up.
(16:32):
And I said well, what are someof the challenges that you're
having?
She had her son enrolled in anonline homeschool program but it
was hours in a day that had tobe done online and then he would
have worked complete after, inaddition to the pod said I feel
like you're doubling up.
(16:53):
You know you're doing twice asmuch.
And she just kind of had themindset that it had to be from,
you know, nine to two or eightto three.
It had to be this longer day.
And so, you know, we sat downand we looked at where he was
academically and what we coulddo to support him and get him
where he needs to be.
And then I feel like the biggestthing that parents need to hear
(17:14):
is you don't have to startschool at five, you don't have
to be sitting down and doingthings paper and pencil at five
and even at six years old.
So so it's helping them knowwhat homeschooling looks like
what are going to be some goodpractices to put in place for
their child and kind of just howto organize, organize it all,
navigate it.
(17:34):
Um, I take for granted that Ihave the background of a teacher
and kind of know how to likeapproach things and so, as I
worked with more parents andkind of seeing the need for how
do I do this, I don't know if Ican do this Kind of working them
through what it looks like.
I had a phone conversationrecently with a mom that was
interested in the pod and shewas pulling her kid out of
(17:56):
school this year and she saidkind of don't really tell me
what are my first steps.
And I said well, if your desireis to pull your kids out of
school, you know you need to gothrough the process of that.
I said but you don't have tostart homeschooling next week.
I said you can give yourselftwo weeks, because this was more
of an emergency situation, youknow she wanted them out
(18:17):
immediately.
I said give yourself two weeksto organize yourself.
You know they're going to learnand they're going to do things
in those two weeks.
I said cook with them, you know.
Give them things to play withthat they can do engineering
with Legos.
Legos will count.
And so she said I said the state.
You know every requirementwithin the state you have to
(18:39):
look at.
But I said it doesn't have tobe six hours of paper and pencil
.
No, homeschooling can lookdifferent for every family.
And so we kind of workedthrough what that would look
like for that family and she bythe end, was like are you
serious?
That's what it looks like,cause they just mindset of like
well, my kid has been used togoing to school from eight to
(19:00):
three and I need to replicatethat.
You know in some way.
And it's not, it's totallydifferent.
So you know giving familiesideas on best resources if they
are facing some challenges youknow, sitting down with families
and giving them support if theyneed to talk to another expert
(19:24):
about something more specific.
Rebecca Twomey (19:25):
And you know.
Joanna Meliti (19:26):
I know we're going to kind of dive into that
a little bit later, but kind ofusing the science of learning to
help families.
So yeah, I really enjoyed beinga teacher mentor, but I think I
enjoy working with parents evenbetter, I bet.
Rebecca Twomey (19:41):
I bet Because there's a lot of things that
you've learned that you canimpart and pass along, and I
remember learning this in.
So I went to graduate schoolfor English.
(20:11):
I started out in Englisheducation and I changed my mind
on that A couple episodes.
I talked about how it is ironicI was homeschooled and then for
a period of time I thought thatI would be a teacher in the
public school system, was in itbriefly and then was like no way
.
But one of the things that Iremember talking about is that
(20:35):
attention spans in college agestudents not even elementary
school was around 30 to 45minutes, and then after that
they're checked out, right, andthat's, I think, a lot of the
reasons why they rotate kids'classes so frequently.
Right, cause they're thinkingall right, we'll teach on this,
then we'll rotate to the nextthing, and then to the next
(20:56):
thing and to the next thing.
But how?
How crazy is it If we thinkabout an eight-hour day for a
child?
I mean, how much of that arethey really absorbing?
And then to think about thehistory of school, right, you
know, people weren't alwaysgoing to school here in America.
In the pioneer days they werecertainly not going to school
(21:20):
and attending school andlearning.
You know the same things thatwe're learning now school and
attending school and learning.
You know the same things thatwe're learning now.
They were working with thefamily, working on the farm,
building things, cooking allthat.
And as those single room schoolhouses started to come, what was
that?
A couple hours a day that theywere going.
And now here we are, 200 yearslater, and kids are going to
(21:42):
school from seven to three ortwo, 30, whatever it might be.
I would love to kind of hearyour just even just opinion
after being in this atmosphereand just to encourage, like you
just did, just encourage parentsthat school does not have to be
an eight hour day or even a sixhour day.
(22:05):
When I was homeschooled, my momdid not wake us up.
We woke up when we woke up,which was usually around nine,
sometimes nine, 30.
And we would start, just likeyou did, with devotional Bible
study and then we would, youknow, go get into our work.
And however long it took us washow long it took us.
Right, we had the lesson planfor the day, and I was very much
(22:26):
the type that I want to justget it done as fast as possible
so I could go work on whateverproject I was in the middle of.
I love to sew, I love to docrafts and, you know, make
little pot holders and differentthings, and so it was get it
done in an hour, hour and a halfeven, and that was enough
(22:47):
because I was able to getthrough what I needed to get
through.
So I'd love to just kind ofhear your thoughts on that.
Joanna Meliti (22:55):
Yeah, they.
The thing that I think mostfamilies are surprised by is how
much you can get done in such ashort amount of time.
I mean, we're talking about 11,12, 15 minutes max for math.
We're talking about 10 minutesfor writing.
We're talking, you know, we'redoing what we need to to support
and build our kids to wherethey need to be.
(23:18):
And you know, a progression fromkindergarten up.
But when we talk about the time, I would say you know, we say
with kindergarten, 45 minutestops to get through what they
need to do.
But outside of that 45 minutes,you know it's funny we say
what's the best curriculum forkindergarten?
It's dress up clothes and facepaint.
(23:39):
You know, because there is somuch value to play there.
Their minds are still in thisstage of wanting to be so
imaginative.
They're curious, they want toexplore, they want to see what
happens if I, you know, take abucket of dirt and I mix leaves
(24:00):
and sticks.
And you know, and that's why Iappreciate some of the other
resources to parents.
You know, like the outdoorschools and things like that,
because it gives kids otheroptions.
But outside of you know, thepaper and pencil work,
homeschooling can be the zoo, itcan be your backyard, it can be
(24:21):
a play date, it can be themriding their bike, and so, yes,
we have our state requirementswhen we're talking about those
hours.
Sure, sure, yeah, you know weare 180 days.
We have to mark off that we did.
But don't think that 180 daysof six hour book work.
(24:44):
I think there's value topicking up a pencil and writing
a sentence, like we need tolearn good finger spacing and
letter formation.
But outside of the little bitthat they need to do each day,
there are so many fun things.
Play-doh, you know, you'reworking on this same hand,
strengthening doing Play-Doh asyou would holding a're working
on this same hand strengtheningdoing Play-Doh as you would
holding a pencil and doinghandwriting, and I would argue
that Play-Doh is even better.
(25:04):
So you know, and there's a lotof, there's research that says
if you are trying to teachsomething and you are doing it
with, you know, paper and andpencil kind of a traditional way
, it could take 400 exposuresfor that connection in the brain
to happen.
But if you do it with play, itcould take as little as 10 to 20
(25:28):
.
So when you're integrating playand real-life experiences, that
is all counting ashomeschooling.
That is the benefit of takingwhat a traditional eight-hour
school day would look like downto 45 minutes or an hour and a
half and addressing which iswhat needs to be done.
When I homeschool my daughtershe's six we address the reading
(25:50):
and the writing, the math andall of that, and then outside of
that, she gets to choose whatdoes the rest of her day look
like?
And she found an Amazon box theother day and she drew out how
it was going to turn into a carand she took her manipulator,
magnet tiles or her toys andbuilt this car with this box and
(26:11):
a steering wheel.
And I thought you know, myhusband and I joke.
We say homeschooling is donefor today.
You know, like that's such,that's such a degree, that's
math, like you know.
So in our family it's a jokecheck homeschooling done.
Rebecca Twomey (26:27):
I love that.
I love that.
My daughter is almost five andshe is very much the same way
that she loves to create.
You know she'll come to me.
Hey, I have this little dolly,I want to make her a house, but
it keeps falling down, and so wego over to her Duplo blocks and
say, okay, well, what can we doto make this stronger?
Let's talk about the base andhow to make this base stronger,
(26:50):
and it's all play to her, butfor me it's also a learning
opportunity to teach her acouple of things about
architecture, I guess, rightBuilding structures and how
things work.
Yeah, love that.
Joanna Meliti (27:05):
Yeah, we call those teachable moments, that's
right.
Going off of what theirinterests are and turning them
into teachable moments, and,like you said, without them even
knowing.
Yeah, so you know.
The best part is subscriptionstoo, like the excitement that
can still stay with learningbecause they don't even know
that they're doing it.
(27:26):
You know like oh, totally, andyou're like so exciting.
Rebecca Twomey (27:30):
You know you're going to learn about these
different things.
Joanna Meliti (27:32):
Or you're going to get the subscription box in
the mail and it's going to, youknow, inspire you to want to
know more about something in themail, and it's going to, you
know, inspire you to want toknow more about something.
And it's just those, yeah,interest driven teachable
moments, and it doesn't have tobe paper and pencil for six
hours.
Rebecca Twomey (27:48):
Yeah, absolutely Absolutely.
My, my little girl lovesPlay-Doh too.
She could sit there for an hourand just make and create and do
things.
And it's so cool and just makeand create and do things and
it's so cool to watch her figurestuff out right and like figure
out how to make, how to usethis new piece or how to use
this stencil to do something, orhow to use the little cutter or
(28:10):
whatever the case might be.
She's into scissors.
Right now she has kid scissorsand it's great for her.
Dexterity right, she's learninghow to do things and she will
spend an hour dexterity right,she's learning how to do things
and she will spend an hour justcutting things, just practicing.
But it's cool to see how farshe's come in just even I would
say, the last month, with usingscissors.
(28:30):
You know it's like you don'tthink about that as a skill when
you're an adult because you'vebeen using them for your whole
life, right, but to watch alittle child learning how to use
them for the first time and gofrom just making cuts to now she
can cut things out or now shecan knows how to cut off a tag
on something or whatever thecase may be, that's cool.
(28:51):
I mean it's small, but maybethat might not be the thing that
I would appreciate as much if Iwasn't a homeschooling mom.
Yeah, Scissors.
Joanna Meliti (29:00):
cutting uses both sides of the brain at once, so
you want to talk about two birdswith one stone.
If you give your kids scissorsand have them cut, you're
actually developing both sidesof the brain at the same time.
And so when I hear parents, oh,the scissors are kept up on the
shelf, you know it's like amomentary use's like, please, no
(29:20):
do it all the time.
Rebecca Twomey (29:20):
You know, scissors are great to have um
for kids, as long as they're notcutting the curtains or their
hair, which usually there'salways one kid in a family,
right, that's the haircut.
The hair cutter, yep I gottaexplore that too funny.
well, I want to ask you aboutyour background in inclusive
education, because I know thatthat was something that was very
(29:43):
significant in your career.
I'm sure people are wonderingwhat does inclusive education
mean?
So first you know, please kindof define that a little bit for
us.
But then can you share moreabout how you help support
families that are homeschoolingand perhaps have mild learning
disabilities?
Or just you know whateverknowledge you want to share
about learning disabilities andschool and homeschooling?
Joanna Meliti (30:07):
Yeah, so when I I was after my first year of
teaching kind of felt like I wasa teacher, you know, standing
on one leg, I didn't feel solidand I had these kids in my class
that I felt like I wanted toprovide more support for but
just didn't know how.
And so when I started exploringdifferent avenues I could take
for my master's, inclusiveeducation was one of the things
(30:28):
I stumbled upon and it's whereyou know, students could stay in
my classroom and I couldprovide support.
I was not a special ed teacher.
Those are more pullout services, but it kind of just gives you
as an inclusive ed teacher moreresources and strategies and
things so that you can supportyour students and maybe be
(30:51):
proactive in them needingpullout services or kind of be
another opportunity for them toget resources they need in
addition to a pull-out service.
So it's kind of maximizing mytime with them.
And so when I meet withfamilies or talk with what
challenges they might be having,my background in inclusive
(31:14):
education first identifiespossible learning disabilities
that can be there, kind of likethe markers, and then kind of
help them navigate how they'regoing to go about finding out if
their child has a disability,what resources are available and
then kind of best approachesfor them who are at home, like
what curriculums are the best?
(31:35):
So a lot of times I'll seeparents asking for tutors and
the biggest thing you know isyou want when I tell my families
, you want an Orton Gillinghamtrained tutor when it comes to
reading or you want a systematicapproach when it comes to
phonics.
I don't know if you're aware,but I know here in the state of
(31:59):
Tennessee we've, for the past 10years, have had declining
reading scores, and so theinitiative now is to bring
phonics back into the classroom.
So did they ever?
They took it out of theclassroom, we did and for 10
years had declining scores andreading.
In fact, kindergarteners werecoming in as better readers than
they were leaving.
So where the benchmarks grewthroughout kindergarten, the
(32:21):
kindergartners weren't able toreach those benchmarks and so
technically, leavingkindergarten, they were worse
off than when they entered as areader.
Wow yeah.
And if you think about 10 years, you think about a
kindergartner going in.
10 years later they're now ahigh schooler, and so for 10
years the system has failed themand giving them the instruction
(32:42):
that they need.
And and this is, you know, I, Iwas a teacher, and I admire
teachers because they are giventhe resources and told to use
them.
It's not, you know, likethey're given up to date
knowledge or curriculum orstrategies and things.
Once you're in the system,you're kind of doing the
knowledge or curriculum orstrategies and things.
Once you're in the system,you're kind of doing the best
you can of what you have.
(33:02):
And so now phonics is beingbrought back into the classroom.
There's a lot of training,because I just had to restart my
state certification and it wasall on phonics, all on phonics.
Rebecca Twomey (33:15):
That's so interesting.
I wonder why they took it outin the first place.
It was working, wasn't it?
Joanna Meliti (33:21):
it was, um, I was , I was, went through school,
whole language.
So we're at, it's a, we're awhole language generation of
here's the word, learn the word,kind of like a memorization
type approach.
Okay, okay, now it's more.
Kids don't have word attackskills.
They don't know kind of thestructure of language.
And so, with teaching in theprivate school and having my
(33:45):
background in inclusiveeducation, the importance of
phonics, I mean.
If there's one thing I couldwish and desire for every family
is that they would use phonicsas part of their first kind of
years of instruction for reading.
Because there's a there's these, these growths and levels that
kids move through, and whatwe're finding is that most kids
(34:09):
that are struggling readers lackphonemic awareness, and so a
lot of that is addressed throughphonics, and so there's this,
and so a lot of that isaddressed through phonics.
And so there's this kind ofthis desire to make sure that
families that are homeschoolingcan see that there's a value to
what we pick for curriculum.
And then there's multiple waysthat we can teach our own child.
(34:33):
Even if they have learningdisabilities, it doesn't mean
that they have to have a labeland there's only that label
that's going to stay with them.
And what's interesting too iswe're very quick to put a label
on kids, and I think it's, youknow, part of the system trying
to get funding and, you know,offer the pull-out services and
(34:54):
things like that.
But I'll have a family come andwe'll'll be tutoring a student
and we'll say you know, we kindof see these symptoms, these
things.
What does it mean?
Is my kid dyslexic?
I had a boy he was in firstgrade and I would do my reading
with him and I had him and I wasone of those that I like to
(35:18):
observe the student for a goodbit and then I'll go to the
family and say, hey, I'm kind ofnoticing this because I'm not
quick to jump to it has alearning disability.
We all learn different.
Kids are not linear.
We got to give it time, we gotto get to know the kid and I was
noticing there were certainthings that did not show as
markers for dyslexia.
But there was just somethingnot right with his reading, like
(35:44):
it was just off.
And so I went to the mom and Isaid hey, you know, I'm kind of
noticing a few things.
She's like so glad you saidsomething.
She's like I think he'sdyslexic, like it was her
immediate response I think he'sdyslexic and I'm like well, I'm
not sure that he is.
And she's like what do you mean?
Like automatically assumechallenges with reading, equal
(36:07):
dyslexia, and that's not thecase.
That's not always the case.
There's so much moredevelopmentally that's going on
with kids, not just with thebrain that symptoms, so to speak
, or markers, don't always matchthe label that we're used to
giving kids.
And so, with my background ininclusive education, I like to
(36:29):
work families through thatprocess of like what are you
seeing and what could that mean,and what are the steps we can
take to kind of support and get?
Rebecca Twomey (36:37):
answers.
Joanna Meliti (36:38):
A lot of families do want answers.
They want to know what's goingon and how they can then support
.
But definitely, you know, helpwith curriculum choices, making
sure that kids are gettingmultiple exposures.
Some kids can learn with seeingsomething seven times and it
goes into long-term memory.
Seeing something seven timesand it goes into long-term
(37:02):
memory.
For some kids it needs to be500 or a thousand.
It's not always the same forevery kid.
So we have to look at, you know,are we exposing, are we giving
them multiple opportunities tolearn things in different ways?
And if some of those challengesstill keep arising, then you
know, I kind of can coachfamilies through what our first
(37:22):
steps.
Are we going to look atoccupational therapy, physical
therapy, vision therapy?
Are we going to eventually getto the point of some further
evaluation?
But let's, you know, look atsome other options.
First, are we doing what we canto support at home?
First, with hands-on learningand things like that.
There's a gentleman, his nameis Gardner.
(37:46):
It's multiple intelligences.
You may have heard about itthrough some training, but you
know like I'm a visual learner,so if you try to tell me
something and then walk away, Iwill probably only catch 50% of
what you were trying to tell me.
But if you show me and I evenhave the opportunity to do it
(38:08):
myself, then I'm going to graspthat so much better.
So it's also about finding whatkind of learners we have.
Is our kid more musical?
Are they more tactile?
Rebecca Twomey (38:19):
Do they like to?
Joanna Meliti (38:19):
manipulate things with their hands, you know.
So those are some of the thingsthat you know I'll have
families try out first, likelet's look at how we're
approaching things.
Rebecca Twomey (38:28):
Absolutely.
Learning style is superimportant because, like you said
, some people are visuallearners, some are auditory.
I know my husband he could justhear something and he learns,
but that's not how I am.
Then there's also reading andwriting, or the kinesthetic
having to do, and I'm very muchmore like you where it's visual
(38:50):
and kinesthetic in some senses.
For me, I learn by doing andwhen I'm doing things.
And kids are growing right andthey, they're changing.
They may not have figured itout themselves yet.
It's not like they could say tous oh well, I need you to tell
me, or I need you to show me, orI need you to play me a song
and I'll learn.
(39:10):
They, they, don't know, and soit is up to us to help figure
out what's the best way for themto learn right.
Joanna Meliti (39:19):
Yeah, so that's the fun part is we get to you
know, get to know each kid, bothyou know, in this setting, as
the teacher and parent of ourown child.
And then what I like about thepod is that parents have a
resource to say.
This is what I'm noticing.
This isn't working.
Can you help me?
Rebecca Twomey (39:41):
Can you define for listeners what the pod is?
What does that mean?
Joanna Meliti (39:46):
Yeah, so we I know the term co-op is used a
lot yeah, so we're not a co-op,a lot of co-ops kind of operate
parents, moms, kind of runco-ops.
This pod is another teacher andI kind of came together and we
had this vision where we wantedto help families with their
(40:08):
homeschool journey and have anopportunity to meet with kids on
a greater scale.
So, from the kind of it spurredfrom the pandemic, I had a
family, I left the classroom, Iwas done teaching.
Family reached out and said hey, my kids are in private school,
I need to pull them out.
Can you come and help tutorthem every day, Kind of be their
private tutor?
(40:28):
And um sure, so I went in, Itutored several hours a day both
their children and I was inthat process talking to the mom
about some of the things I wasseeing with her daughter, wanted
to recommend some vision thingsand I thought, wow, I think I
could do this on a greater scale.
(40:48):
I could probably help morefamilies at one time.
So the pods were created, inthat each of our I guess
classrooms you could say ourpods there is a tutor.
We're state-certified teachersbut we're tutors because parents
are their own child's teacher.
But we help.
(41:09):
We meet Monday and Wednesdaysfor four hours and we go through
reading and we go throughwriting and we go through math
and we have a lot of thematictype things we do.
But we are tutoring.
So I have 12 in my pod.
I teach kindergarten first andso we start our morning with
circle time and things like thatand then I teach phonics and
(41:33):
then I teach math and then I dowriting and we do our themes and
we have a garden.
We're growing a garden at ourlocation and so we go through
that with them and then we docommunity service together.
So we're making blankets thisyear for a local humane society.
So the kids are in charge ofmeasuring out the fabric,
cutting it, sewing it, makingthem and then we'll donate them
(41:55):
to the humane society.
So these pods are basicallytutors where the families can
share the expense of having atutor.
So when we meet Mondays andWednesdays, families know that
on those two days we'vesupported them in reading and
writing and math and their kidsare getting the learning through
(42:15):
someone with an experience.
You know, we have theexperience as teachers and so
when we're working with thesekids we can kind of navigate
what kinds of things they need.
How can we better support them?
And then we go to the familiesand we say you know, on Tuesday
and Thursday you can continuethis by doing X, y and Z,
because we have kind of like atiered system so our families
(42:37):
are not tied down to onecurriculum.
We believe that it looksdifferent for every family but
we're there to support and kindof work within these pods so
that you know it's not liketraditional school but they are
working with someone that has abackground in education you know
we can help in that way.
Rebecca Twomey (43:00):
Yeah, yeah.
And now is this something thatyou imagine, Because right now
you're in the same kind of gradespace that your daughter is in.
So do you imagine that you'llkind of continue that pod so
that you're you know she's apart of what you're doing?
Or do you imagine that maybesometimes she'll be with another
tutor for her pod, or what doesthat look like for you?
Joanna Meliti (43:24):
Yeah, so we, um, I do see her with another tutor.
I think there's benefit tosomeone else having my daughter
being with someone else that canwork with her and maybe use
different approaches to learning, um, and so, yeah she'll.
We have another tutor that doessecond through fourth grade,
and then we have another tutorthat works with fifth through
(43:44):
seventh, and so, yeah, so theyjust kind of we kind of give
grades just as a guideline.
We just say, you know, kind oflike, if you're trying to figure
out where to place your childwithin our pods.
It's kind of the general, butwe move kids through pods too,
so we'll, with reading, they'llcome out of one pod and go into
another and get what, get what'sbest for them within that pod
(44:06):
for that subject, and so we'revery fluid, um, and then we, a
lot of parents, appreciate thecommunity that comes from being
together.
Some parents just want thesocial interaction that comes
with it, yeah.
Some parents are like.
Please help us know exactlywhat to do on Tuesdays and
Thursdays.
(44:26):
Like they just don't have theconfidence you know to to do it
themselves, so they rely on usto guide and help them.
Biggest question I get is whatmath curriculum should I use?
And it's well, it's based onyour child.
So let's look at what theirinterests are and then we'll
navigate those kinds of thingswith our families.
But yeah, one of the familiessaid they kind of don't follow
(44:52):
what we're doing in terms ofcurriculum type things in the
classroom and she said I justloved it, we would get to it
within our own curriculum.
And my son would be telling meoh, mom, we did that already at
the pod and she's like great.
Well, you know like it's eithera review at that point for him
or an opportunity to see itagain and, you know, solidify
some of those subtraction skillsor whatever.
(45:13):
So we have a wide scope, orrange, I guess I should say, as
to what our families desire fromour pod.
But we are all prior teachers,we all worked in classrooms,
left to be home with our kidsand have a desire to homeschool.
So yeah, we just blend it allinto one.
Rebecca Twomey (45:36):
Y'all are like a super co-op because you're, you
know, it's like the mom, youknow I'm not trying to put
anybody down here, but you know,moms that create co-ops I love
and this is like the, you know,teachers, teacher moms that have
a very similar.
It's similar but different,right, because there's a
(45:56):
tutoring aspect to it.
It's similar but different,right, because there's a
tutoring aspect to it.
There is a.
You know you have a very strongeducational background in
schooling, so anyway, that'sawesome.
I love it.
Now I want to go back tolearning disabilities for a
second.
First of all, I have to knowit's been eating me up to know
what happened with the littleboy who the mom thought was
dyslexic.
(46:17):
Did he actually have a learningdisability?
Joanna Meliti (46:19):
Yeah, so no, he didn't One of the.
So I'll just dive into kind ofthe thing that is most amazing
when it comes to helping kind ofnavigate.
Does my child have a learningdisability?
Because, like I said earlier, Ifeel like there's a lot of
(46:42):
labels that are thrown aroundand we're not addressing some
other things first.
Somebody kind of give ahypothetical situation to say
student A Right, and you canjust imagine this maybe as your
child or someone you know andthey are constantly losing their
(47:03):
place when they're reading.
This is a big one reversingletters.
We always hear that, as mychild is lexic, they're
reversing B and D or P and Q.
Their reading comprehension isnot where it should be.
They're substituting orconfusing words when reading or
(47:29):
they might see the same wordtwice and scramble the letters
and things like that, or dropoff an ending to a word or the
beginning letter, or they have ashort attention span,
difficulty copying from a listthat they see when does our mind
go to?
First we would say, oh, thatkid is probably dyslexic, right
like, especially with the letterreversals.
(47:49):
So what I like to mention to myfamilies that have some of these
concerns is something called aneye tracking test, and this is
what I did with one of the withthe family that I tutored for
when I first started gettingback into teaching.
I said, um, I want to recommendthat you go get your child's um
(48:10):
eye tracking test done.
And they said, oh, they hadtheir vision tested and it came
back normal.
And so a vision test will testto see like our depth perception
and things like that to seelike our depth perception and
things like that Whereas atracking test will actually
check how our eyes are trackingacross space, because one of the
(48:32):
most common vision challengeswith kids is tracking and 80% of
a child's learning is visual.
So if we're not addressingtheir tracking, then we're
missing out on a big part ofwhat we would think would be a
(48:53):
learning disability, when reallyit's just a tracking thing.
So there is a study it's out ofthe Journal of Child Neurology,
it's 2017.
And it says in there that 156kids out of 327 first and second
graders scored below the 50thpercentile in eye tracking
skills 50 percentile which thencorrelates to poor performance
(49:17):
in reading and comprehension andum.
So I'll, you know, advisefamilies if you're seeing some
markers of like I think.
Think my kid might be dyslexic.
They're reversing letters,they're not able to copy things.
I encourage.
I almost feel like it needs tobe standard that they have a
(49:42):
tracking test done at the sametime, because it can answer so
many questions as to why readingfluency and comprehension and
things like that are challengingfor some kids, and the
remediation for that is visiontherapy, and sometimes it's six
weeks and that's it.
That's.
All it takes is six weeks ofvision therapy and a lot of it
(50:03):
can be done at home.
Rebecca Twomey (50:12):
Oh, interesting, so you can have this done at
the ophthalmologist but you justhave to ask for it.
Joanna Meliti (50:15):
Is that what you're saying?
Yeah, you have to ask for itand the a lot of the you can
also do it at home.
There's tests that you can doat home.
So, if your child holds theirhand out straight, their arm out
straight, and hold up theirthumb, put their thumb up and
you have them look at the tip oftheir thumb and have them turn
(50:37):
their head to the left and tothe right, you're watching their
eyes to see if they stay at thetip of that thumb, right,
you're watching their eyes tosee if they stay at the tip of
that thumb.
If they turn their head andtheir eyes go to the right or
left along with their head, thenit's indicative of a possible
tracking.
Interesting, Okay, so there'ssome tests you can do at home to
(50:57):
see if that's one of the thingsthat needs to be addressed
before just throwing that labelof I think my kid might be
dyslexic.
Interesting, and you saidvision therapy and there's
things that you can be addressedbefore just throwing that label
of I think my kid might bedyslexic.
Rebecca Twomey (51:05):
Interesting, and you said vision therapy and
there's things that you can doat home.
I imagine it's exercises thatare probably similar to that,
where you're asking them tofocus on something and
practicing that over and over.
Joanna Meliti (51:16):
Yeah, so they they have, you know, just much
like occupational therapy andphysical therapy.
Vision therapy is kind of likea once a week visit that you can
go in and they'll, you know, doexercises and things, and
they'll send you home withthings to do and then you can do
them at home that week and yougo back in.
The worst I've seen is sixmonths of vision therapy.
(51:38):
That's the worst I've seen.
And so when you think about,like, how much we are
remediating within those sixmonths for that child to then
improve their tracking, theirfluency, their comprehension,
their focus, coordinationthere's so much that can go into
just eye tracking.
When I had yeah, when I had a,when the mom came to me and said
(52:03):
, oh, you know, I think my voice, my son's, dyslexic, and I
didn't think that he was.
He had the eye tracking testdone and they'll give you
percentiles.
And if you were to put words ina column and this is what I
noticed things, words in acolumn he could read them top to
down, no problem when you putthem from left to right his
(52:25):
fluency dropped drastically, buthe was.
He was very, you know, he couldtell you about pretty much
anything.
Very bright, he could write.
I didn't see rehearsals in hiswriting.
And so that's when we had theeye tracking test done and he
scored less than one percentile.
Wow, his eye tracking from leftto right was pretty much
non-existent, oh my goodness.
(52:46):
And once, once he had histherapy, he was the one that had
six months of therapy.
The mom was just over the moon,excited.
She's like I didn't know thisexisted, I didn't know this was
a thing you know.
To have eye tracking done totest and then to see that the
remediation for that is, it'svery short, it's very easy, and
(53:10):
even if you're not having itdone in office with someone
there's, you know exercises andthings you can do at home.
Much like the thumb, you knowbeing held out, you can get a
popsicle stick with a sticker atthe top and you hold it out and
then your child will look atthe sticker that's at the top of
the hold it out and then yourchild will look at the sticker
that's at the top of thepopsicle stick and you start out
small with short left to righthead movements and while they're
(53:33):
keeping their eyes on thatsticker, and as they improve,
then you expand to larger headmovements to the left and right
while they're looking at thesticker, and then you can move
to angles.
So now you're moving thepopsicle stick to the top left
top right, bottom left, bottomright, and they're following
that popsicle stick and you'reworking on that.
Basically, you think of it aslike going to the gym for your
(53:55):
eyes.
Rebecca Twomey (53:56):
You know we go to the gym our muscles and our
arms.
Joanna Meliti (54:00):
These are eye exercises that improve them.
Rebecca Twomey (54:03):
The eyes for tracking.
That is very interesting.
I have never heard of thisbefore, so I'm learning as we're
talking.
It's very, very interesting.
It has me wondering is thissomething that's always existed
or been around, or do you thinkthat this is a result of our
lifestyles of kids watching TV,or what are your thoughts?
Joanna Meliti (54:26):
It's funny.
You ask that because mymother-in-law just came back
from the eye doctor last weekand she said they want to give
me eyeglasses with prisms inthem and that's one of the
therapies.
There are two differentapproaches to eye therapy One,
they'll give you exercises andkind of improve the muscle, I
guess, or whatever of the eye,whereas the other approach is
glasses with prisms in it.
And this is something I alwaysencourage my families to
(54:48):
research and choose what's bestfor them and their child.
You know, because we all havedifferent opinions when it comes
to different therapies.
And she said he wants to put mein glasses with prism.
And I said did you have eyetracking challenges as a child?
And she said, yeah, I rememberthem holding out a pencil and
having me follow the pencil.
(55:08):
And I thought, oh, I know whatthat is.
I think it's been around.
I don't know.
I mean there's I'm sure there'sresearch out there about what
causes it.
I feel like it's more prevalent.
I think it's always been there,but I think we're seeing more
of it.
For sure.
Rebecca Twomey (55:25):
But I know we're starting to understand it.
Joanna Meliti (55:27):
Yeah, I don't know.
Also like W sitting, so kidsthat sit with their kind of legs
spread out where they're notsitting, like with their legs
tucked underneath them.
They're kind of like flaredlegs to the side.
It's called W sitting.
Rebecca Twomey (55:42):
Okay.
Joanna Meliti (55:43):
Pretty indicative of a eye tracking.
So it's like that midline.
Yeah, there's like that midlinething.
Um, so I in my own research asa mom and trying to choose my
prenatal vitamin, um had comeacross, uh, midline defects.
You know, if we have marker,there's certain things to look
for when kids are born.
(56:04):
If they have a storks, what'sit called?
A storks kiss, I think it'scalled.
Okay, yeah, anyhow, there'smidline markers and so folic
acid, from my understanding inprenatal vitamins can kind of
mess with the midlinedevelopment and that's what eye
tracking w sitting and a fewother things are from.
(56:27):
It's the midline, the crossoverbrain hemisphere type things.
So, yeah, I'm not.
You know it's funny.
You asked that question toobecause I had the same thought.
Is it our vitamins?
that moms are taking, you know,prenatal, that they are in those
vitamins that are with thedevelopment of babies.
Rebecca Twomey (56:49):
Like, yeah, that is very interesting and that's
a definitely interestingconversation.
We love talking about birth andpregnancy on this podcast too.
Joanna Meliti (56:58):
So you're right on track here.
Rebecca Twomey (57:00):
But you, you brought up folic acid, which we
are told by the medical systemto take a prenatal because you
need folate.
But folic acid is not folate,that's right.
It's synthetic and people justdon't.
You know, don't think thatthrough much.
This is not a judgment.
Because you're told by your OByou need folate and this has
(57:24):
folic acid in it.
But you're right, it'ssynthetic.
It's not the same things.
Our body doesn't process it.
The same way it doesn't give usthe benefits of actual folate,
which comes from food, fromactual food that we're eating.
So if you're pregnant right now, definitely look into foods
that contain folate versus folicacid.
(57:46):
There's more and more studiescoming out of issues that are
arising from mothers takingfolic acid, which makes sense.
It's synthetic.
And man, I was just watchingthis video last night about how
all of the big box store brands,supplements like Nature's Way,
nature's Made, everything'scalled Nature something because
(58:08):
it's greenwashed but they areall owned by pharmaceutical
companies.
Bayer and Monsanto is evenaffiliated with some of them.
So it's very important when itcomes to prenatal health to get
your sources from actual food,if at all possible, and not from
these synthetic pharmaceuticalcompany created, lab made
(58:33):
vitamins that aren't actuallynourishing your body.
There's this illusion that it isbecause it's called vitamins
and it.
You know that's what the bottlesays, but there are so many
other great sources.
You know that's what the bottlesays, but there are so many
other great sources.
You know, I know Whole Foodshas some good options if you're
going to take a prenatal.
I personally do not takeprenatals.
(58:55):
I take supplements that I knowmy body needs, right, like I
take beef liver capsules, forexample, or it just depends on
what my body needs at that time.
Because I don't think.
I think that the prenatal is amarketing gimmick and every
(59:16):
woman's body is different andwe're all going to need
different things.
And if we can source vitaminsfrom real food, we're going to
do the best service to ourbodies.
But now I'm on the tangent.
Joanna Meliti (59:27):
Well, and I think there's, you know.
There is a connection, I think,to what we've been told, what
we're doing and where we seethings going with learning
disabilities.
I was taking a master's class Idon't remember the name of it
and there was a chart and it waslearning disabilities and how
they're on the rise.
We see more and more of them.
And then you take the vaccineschedule, look at that and how
(59:53):
that's on the rise, and then youput those two charts on top of
each other.
They could be the same chart,you know.
So there's a lot that I thinkyou know.
We do the best we can with whatwe know, but one of the things
we do see is more kidsstruggling with learning.
There's, you know, some of thatshowing up even in
(01:00:15):
homeschooling, even thoughthey're home with their parents.
But it's the best place forthem to be because even though
moms are not quote teachersbecause they don't have that
education degree my degree doesnot make me a better teacher
than you you know, or you aregoing to see and recognize
(01:00:36):
what's challenging your child.
And then, as with anything,we're going to go and find the
best resource on how to fix thator remediate it.
You know, like I said, withvision therapy we're talking six
weeks to six months and we arejust doing so much with that
therapy.
So, that's one of the thingsabout homeschooling is we're
(01:00:58):
going to recognize some of thosechallenges early on.
And early on you know saying Ihave a first grader that's
having these challenges.
I go to the county, have thetest done.
Well, we can't help them untilthey're two grade levels below.
Well, by then they're in third,fourth grade and you have
missed the window of maximizingthe opportunity to get them
(01:01:23):
where they need to be.
And nowhere in my experience inteaching did I learn about eye
tracking.
It was by my own learning.
Yeah, your own experience, myown experience.
So it's you know.
(01:01:44):
I think there's evenopportunity for teachers that
are in the classroom to knowmore about that so that they can
help their students and sendtheir parents to the right
resources for that.
Rebecca Twomey (01:01:51):
Thank you so much for listening to today's
episode.
As you can hear, joanna and Iare having a wonderful
conversation, but there is moreto come.
So please stay tuned next weekfor more from Joanna, and if you
would like to reach her in theinterim, you can do so at her
website athomeandschooltutoringcom or on
facebookcom.
(01:02:12):
Forward slash home and schooltutoring.
And, of course, as always, weinvite you to follow along
outside the podcast at theradiant mission or the radiant
mission podcast on Instagram,the Radiant Mission or the
Radiant Mission podcast onInstagram, facebook and YouTube.
And today we are going to closewith Romans 15, 13.
(01:02:33):
May the God of hope fill youwith all joy and peace as you
trust in him, so that you mayoverflow with hope by the power
of the Holy Spirit.
We're wishing you a radiantweek and we'll see you next time
.
Bye, everyone.
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