Mommy Guilt

A few years ago I had a friend discover that her daughter had dyslexia.  At the time, I wondered if either of my children might have dyslexia.  My daughter wasn't really reading much at the time and neither was my son.  My hubby's always said he didn't really start to read (and comprehend what he was reading) till he was in 5th grade.  Hubby has a bachelor's degree so I chaulked my son up to being like his father and taking a long time to read.  My daughter has since started to read voraciously.

My son is now finishing up 5th grade and although his reading has progressed, it's not where it should be.  His penmanship isn't great either and his spelling is horrible.  I did a quick Google search with those issues and dyslexia was the first thing that popped up.  The last few days I've been researching dyslexia:  symptoms, best practices for helping deal with it, costs of various programs to help deal with it and have come to some conclusions:

1.  My son has dyslexia and he got it from his father (it's hereditary, and hubby has a few of the signs as well).  My son also appears to have dysgraphia (trouble with handwriting, spelling, and putting thoughts onto paper in general).
2.   Although my husband seems to have been able to overcome (for the most part) his dyslexia growing up (he has his bachelor's degree in Computer Engineering), I think intervention even as my son enters 6th grade is important.  I think my son's case may be worse than hubby's, and I think hubby still has some residual effects that intervention could have helped with.
3.  There are a few different programs that all use the same philosophy, and different programs work for different students.  And I've heard different people rave about different programs.
4.  As much as I wanted to try the cheapest program first, I read a few reviews which said that it was missing introductory pieces that the other programs have.  So what did I decide?  I'm not going to use the cheapest program and I'm not going to use the most expensive either.  I've chosen to use a package deal that has everything laid out easily for me.  It will cover reading and spelling spread out over various levels and has a one year money back guarantee if I'm not satisfied.  I figure it shouldn't take me the full year to figure out if I need to switch programs (at which point I will move to the more expensive option).

So when will we start?  As soon as it gets here.  I didn't catch this earlier and for that I feel lots of Mommy guilt.  The good news is that my son is eager to work on things immediately as well.  Being that we live in Florida, going outside can be a bit hot this time of year, so we homeschool year-round.  That allows us to take more breaks during the fall, winter, and spring to enjoy time with family and take advantage of local tourist locations when the tourists are in school.

For those interested, we did not have my son officially diagnosed.  I am comfortable that I will be able to help my son for the next few years, and since dyslexia is not currently a recognized disability in Florida, there really isn't a reason to have him tested.  If we discover down the road that he needs to be tested before attending college, we will address the issue then.