Homeschooling Two?!

Today we had a snowy day, and Sara (Tom's 8 year old NT sister) was home for the day. So we tried homeschooling both of them together.

Reading was no problem - we just had each read aloud to us from books they're involved with (James and the Giant Peach for Tom; Spiderwick for Sara).

But then I thought I'd do some read-aloud reading comprehension exercises with the two of them, taking turns asking them for answers. It was amazing: Tom really had relatively little problem coming up with a credible "main idea" for a paragraph - while Sara was totally lost. He was also quick at getting meanings of words from their contexts - another thing that, in theory, he should have found tough. Sara quickly teared up, got upset, and then ceased to even try.

Then we went to math. There, Sara shone and Tom had trouble - and it was very hard to get Sara to STOP and let her brother take a turn. I noticed that he slipped very quickly into his "if someone else will do the work, why should I pay attention?" mode - and basically stopped listening or attending at all! I was having them count up straws (pretending they were cookies) and then give the same number of cookies to each of five kids (represented by cups). Sara instantly understood that she was to give each "kid" 4 "cookies." Tom, who I'm sure COULD have understood, just turned his brain off!

I'm obviously NOT ready to homeschool both of my kids! What's interesting to me, though, is that Tom only goes into his "I dunno" mode when Sara is standing by to do the work. Sara, though, frustrates to the point of tears with or without Tommy around.

Not quite sure what makes her NT and Tom ASD... except the fact that Sara "gets" people, while Tom lives inside his head much of the time. Is ASD and "daydreamer" the same thing??

Perspective-Taking and the Written Word

In the last few days, I've asked Tom to do several "perspective-taking" writing projects. It turns out this is remarkably easy for him - especially given that kids with autism are supposed to have a TERRIBLE time with perspective taking. Hm. Maybe it's easier for him to take the perspective of fictional characters than of real people?

The first project was a little piece describing the experiences of Mike Teavee, a character in Charlie and the Chocolate factory. No prob. Tom immediately plunged himself into Mike's P/V, and wrote in the first person about his adventures. It seemed clear that he could have written a good deal more if he'd narrated rather than physically wrote - but he did squeak out a few paragraphs (we're still working on what a paragraph IS, so he needed some help with that). He also needed some prompting to get out the details (what does Mike like best? etc.).

The second project was a letter to James of James and the Giant Peach, offering James ideas on how to get his aunts to treat him better. With NO prompting, Tom wrote a lovely note explaining that James should get away from those aunts and go to New York City! Again, he had a lot more ideas that could have been included had he been narrating versus writing.

He's a good writer.

Now the question is - do I work on grammar and structure? Detailed story-telling? Perspective-taking in real life? Typing versus handwriting? Do I let him narrate while I type? ALL of the above?!!

Or... do I back off of writing (since he's already pretty good, after all) - and focus extra time on math, social skills, fine and gross motor (his weaknesses)? If only the answers were clear cut!