#160: Homeschooling 5 Kids While Running a Business (And Navigating Dyslexia)

In this episode of The Homeschool HowTo Podcast, Cheryl sits down with Stephany Rios — a homeschooling mom of five — to talk about building a business from home, navigating dyslexia, and learning to let go of school timelines.

Stephany shares:
 • The preschool bus moment that made homeschooling non-negotiable
 • Running a jewelry business while homeschooling
 • What to do when curriculum isn’t working
 • Discovering her daughter’s dyslexia
 • Practical tools that helped
 • Why being “behind” isn’t failure
 • Creating a morning rhythm that works
 • How real-life learning beats rigid schedules

If you’ve ever wondered whether you’re doing enough…
 If your child struggles with reading…
 If you’re juggling work and homeschooling…

This conversation will remind you that you have time — and that love of learning matters more than checklists.

Find Stephany:

IG  @ivianaandco; @stephriosblog

www.stephriosblog.com    (Blog)

www.ivianaandco.com  (Jewelry)

Home(school) with Steph Podcast

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Transcript

Meet Guest Stephanie Rios

SPEAKER_01 0:02

I didn't plan to homeschool. I started asking hard questions, realized how little control parents actually have, and made the hard decision to leave a government job to homeschool my kids. Now I interview other homeschooling parents to learn how this all works. I'm Cheryl, and this is the Homeschool How to Podcast. Let's learn this together. Welcome, and with us today I have Stephanie Rios, mom of five and homeschooling mom. Stephanie, thank you for being here. Yeah, thanks for having me, Cheryl.

SPEAKER_00 0:32

It's good to be here. So what are the ages of your kiddos? You look so young. Thank you. I'll be able to take that as a compliment for as long as I can. My oldest is 13, and then we have we kind of do it every every other year, baby, for a while. We have a 13-year-old, an 11-year-old, a nine-year-old, and a seven-year-old. And then we had a little caboose. She's three.

Ages And Family Snapshot

SPEAKER_01 0:52

Yeah. That's awesome. Okay, so what made you decide to homeschool in the first place?

Why Homeschooling Became Non‑Negotable

SPEAKER_00 0:56

Yeah, so it, you know, there's a few, a few different reasons, but we kind of everything culminated and then it was just like, this is what we're doing. When I was getting starting to think about sending our oldest to school, first of all, I was just like, no, that was too fast. I am not ready for her to be gone. Five days a week, every day, you know, seven years ago or so when she was ready to go into kindergarten. We didn't have the school choices in our area like we do now. We live in a small rural town in Idaho. And at the time, my option for kindergarten was five days a week, all day, you know, eight to three. I was just like, I don't think this is gonna work for her personality. She just, so sweet, a little bit quiet, really tenderhearted. We'd never been away from each other. And I was like, I just don't think either one of us want this. And so I started bringing it up to my husband, and he says, uh-uh, no, we're not gonna have those weird homeschool kids that don't know how to talk to people. I was like, I really think I can do this. Like, I wasn't homeschooled, he wasn't homeschooled, we didn't know anybody who was homeschooled really, but I said, I think I can raise her as a homeschooled kid, and she won't be weird, I promise. And he's just like, I don't know about this. And so a little bit more time goes on, and I had some friends who had kiddo, kiddos who were like a year older. And so they were going to preschool, and there was just some really unfortunate circumstances happening on the preschool bus that was chaperoned. And I'm telling my husband about this, and I said, These kids can't even be protected by the the chaperone for whatever reason, there's things going on a bus. Like it's a closed environment, it should be pretty well contained. It's one preschool class, and there are devastating things happening on this bus. And it was just kind of a few of those things were going on, and I just said, I can't do it. I can't send this sweet little instant baby off into this world at five years old.

The Preschool Bus Wake‑Up Call

SPEAKER_01 3:00

Some of the things, if you don't mind saying, just for us who haven't sent our kids on a bus.

New Baby, Business Sale, And Kindergarten

Building A Jewelry Business While Homeschooling

SPEAKER_00 3:04

Yeah, so yeah, I don't think there's any harm with me saying it was years ago, and but there was some there was a child who was inappropriate with body parts that they wanted to touch and body parts that they wanted to show. Yeah. So it's like one of your worst nightmares as a mom. And I'm thinking, a chaperoned preschool bus. No, I can't do it. I can't do it. And so it was like this first, I have this poll to keep her home, anyways. I'm not ready to let her go. And then that happens, and I'm thinking, absolutely not, absolutely not. We're not going anywhere. So that your husband agreed. So then he agreed, and it was a wild time. I had my fourth baby this in the spring of 2018, and that was her kindergarten year in the fall. And so we started kindergarten with a newborn, and in that same year, my husband sold his business and joined me full-time in my jewelry business, and we started to run the jewelry business as our full-time income. All of it happened in the same year. Wow. What kind of business did he have? He had a cell phone repair business. I he would and the jewelry was more lucrative. No, it wasn't at the time. At the time, it was a little side hobby, and I was getting ready to shut it down because I was tired. And he was just really burnt out from his business. A lot of a lot of things had changed in the industry, and it wasn't as profitable as it had been for us. And he kind of just said, like, I'm done. So he found a buyer, sold it. I had a baby, but I still had orders coming in. He's like, We're not shutting this down. I'll help you scale it. And so he did. Wow. I love this story.

SPEAKER_01 4:47

Okay. While we homeschooled. Okay. So you know why I love this story? One, both of you are like, we're doing our own businesses, like kind of F the government. I am working for the man. All right. I'm gonna be my own man. So you make your own hours, your own rules. You, you know, you do what you can um to get by and you're home with your kids, but you're also living this life where like this is your livelihood. Like you have to work, you have to raise four kids and make sure that they're like not dying. Like they need food every day, they need clothes washed, they need supervision. Uh and then you're homeschooling too, and you're like, we gotta educate them a little bit. Yeah, this is so cool because so many parents are like, oh, I'd love to homeschool, but I can't because I work. And it's like, no, no, no, this is possible. You don't understand. So, yeah, lead us into that. How did your day-to-day work back then?

Morning-First Schooling And Daily Rhythm

SPEAKER_00 5:40

So when we first, well, from the get-go, my husband really hasn't been involved in homeschooling. There's been like a spurt or, you know, like a little time frame here or there where he'll jump in and get involved. But it's 99% me. Just because I think I he never liked school to begin with. And now that we've homeschooled, he's settled right into it. But that's always been my main role. So my main main role is always more of that traditional homemaker role. I'm the one doing most of the cooking, the grocery shopping, most of the laundry. And now you're saying, like, wait, when do you run a business? And I'm thinking exactly the same thing, right? So he jumped in and he handled order fulfillment, customer service. Um, we hired makers to make the jewelry. So I do the designing and they come in and make um and do the shipping. And so all the time-sensitive things were getting taken care of by him for our the business aspect when we work together in my jewelry business. He's doing back doing his own thing now, and I still have the jewelry business. But, anyways, so back then when we started, it was very much I'm still taking care of the kiddos most of the time, I'm still taking care of the household most of the time. So I am a homeschool in the morning type of mom because I can't trust myself to do it if I put it off. If we if we start doing things, we'll find other things to do and we'll never circle back around. So we get up and we have breakfast. But because we are both work from home and um my jewelry studio is in the basement, that's where I'm filming from today. But we get to have breakfast together, which is so great because I know a lot of families don't in the hustle and bustle of let's get out the door by 7:30 in the morning. Uh, we have breakfast around like 9-ish, 8 30, 9-ish, and then I jump right into school, and I've always done that. You know, I really miss those little kindergarten years where school's done in 20 minutes. That was so nice. So yeah, I do this.

SPEAKER_01 7:37

Yeah, and do you spend on it now that you have a 13-year-old and 11-year-old?

SPEAKER_00 7:42

Yeah, I we're still done by noon. Just like you know, there's some aspects of it that they're doing on their own now, and so they can get going. A lot of times we're done by noon-ish lunchtime. It just works best for us to get it kind of out of the way, so to speak. And then we have lunch, and then the afternoon, that's when I use I use that time to catch up on chores, or if it's nice, we'll get outside, uh, do some of my work. Not every season has been like this when I have the new babies, but right now I get up a couple hours before the kiddos, and that's when I get my work in. But back then, when the kiddos were younger and I wasn't getting all sleep every night, it was just kind of I'd squeeze it in when I could type of thing. But one thing that was super beneficial was my mother-in-law, probably about six years ago, started taking my kids one afternoon a week. And so that gave me a solid, okay, I've got four hours of uninterrupted time where I can get some work done, I could count on it, and that was super helpful in building a business while homeschooling.

Afternoons: Free Play, Outings, And Work Blocks

SPEAKER_01 8:49

And, you know, just to put this into perspective, so you built a business where you could actually pay people to do certain aspects of it, even with having the four kids and the homeschooling and like just squeezing it in or having four hours a week to work on it. You've got to have some sort of knowledge on like this is the most efficient way, this is the best platform to sell on. Because a lot of that I would imagine is research too. What are designs that people like? How what's the best way to market it?

SPEAKER_00 9:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:19

Um, how many posts do I have to do a week on it? You know, do I need an Instagram page? That's a lot of it too, right?

SPEAKER_00 9:25

Yeah. Our business has an interesting story because there was a third-party platform that was really lucrative for us. It's where we made 99% of our sales for five years. So from like 2018 till the end of 2023, we did enough in sales on this platform to sustain our business. So we were very fortunate. However, I never really learned how to market on my own. And then that platform the week before Thanksgiving, so like leading right up into holidays, we'd stock for holidays and everything, they went bankrupt. And we basically didn't have a business anymore because I hadn't learned all of that. So it made it possible to scale. It also was like, it was almost like cheating in a way, because we had this platform doing our marketing, right? They took a commission off the sales. What was it? What was the platform? It was Jane.com. They were based out of Utah and it was an online marketplace, and it wasn't as saturated as Etsy, and they ran it differently where they did like three-day auctions or not auctions, three-day deals. So we would have a style of earrings, say we put this hoop on for three days, and we could sell, you know, two or three hundred pairs of earrings in a couple of days. Yeah. Whatever they were doing, they were doing well until they weren't. And then our business went under.

Sponsor: Simply Piano

SPEAKER_01 10:52

They're just why we have to take money for ourselves, man. Somebody did whatever they were doing, yeah. Maybe it made more sense for them to like disband and switch under a different company, and you just yeah, I don't know. I don't know. Well, that's too bad.

Mom Guilt And Protecting Work Time

SPEAKER_00 11:06

So at that point, that must have been devastating. Devastating because we, you know, it's one of those live and learn type of things, but we'd been so busy with it we didn't make a backup plan. It was so good. We thought, how would this ever go under? They don't hold inventory, they don't have assets, they don't have a big overhead, and then they did, you know. You have some C-suite executives that want a bigger paycheck, and money dries up.

SPEAKER_01 11:27

Yeah. I mean, geez, if Instagram knocked me off tomorrow, I'd be like, I have no audience.

SPEAKER_00 11:34

Right?

SPEAKER_01 11:34

Yeah, and so to think about that stuff.

SPEAKER_00 11:37

The interesting thing was a month before that platform went under, I hired a business coach because I started to recognize I'm like, I really think I want to learn and build out my own customer base. And if I hadn't had that support in place when the business went under, I don't think I would have continued. I think it would have been too hard trying to raise the kids, trying to homeschool, trying to fit it all in, wanting to know where I should put my time, what are the strategies. And so having a business coach was really instrumental in helping me rebuild my business and get it to back to a place where I have hired a couple more people again to work with me and I am paying them so that I have time to homeschool the kids still.

SPEAKER_01 12:18

And I love that too, because it's like, well, how much more money could you make if the kids were in school and you were spending 40 hours a week doing this? But when you look at life, what's important and you know, you're never gonna get this time back with your kids. So why don't you talk a little bit? I love that you were giving us the breakdown of the day. What about after lunch? What does that look like? Or what did that look like for you then, and what does it look like now?

SPEAKER_00 12:40

Yeah, so I you know, back when I was having having the babies, had l had little ones around, there's always like that nap time, quiet time, the house is clean, everything's put together, and there's you know, some solace for an hour. Now it's just like a free-for-all, right?

Letting Kids’ Interests Drive Learning

SPEAKER_01 12:57

But then that hour hits and you're like, you literally stand there frozen in the middle of the room, like, what do I do? What do I do? You're like all day long I'm thinking of a million things to do, and right now I can't think of one.

Social Myths, Temperaments, And Growth

SPEAKER_00 13:07

One, nothing, nothing, yeah. And so things look a lot different now that the kids are older. Sometimes they want to have a play date. Sometimes they um want me to take them somewhere. And so it's I try to get up and get most of my work done that has to be done in a day before the kids are up. So that way when the afternoon hits, I can kind of like ebb and flow based off what they're kind of wanting to do. Not to say they rule the roost, but they kind of do, you know. But for example, I have a son who loves to bake. He loves to bake. Really, he just loves to eat sugar. So every day it's like, Mom, we gotta make our cookies. So a lot of times we'll make cookies. I've got a boy who loves to be out and about and play sports, so we'll go to the park so he can shoot hoops, or we'll hit up the skate park and they can take their scooters and their skateboards and things like that, and we'll get out for a little bit. We'll invite friends over. And a lot of times, honestly, they're really just content to have some free time. You know, they've spent all morning doing their chores and their schoolwork, and they have things they want to do. And so if it's one of those afternoons where they're all just content to I think my girls spent like three hours coloring today. They'd been given some coloring books for Christmas that they hadn't touched yet, and they just color, color, color, color. And my boys had some ping pong game going on. They were um throwing ping pong balls across the kitchen table and trying to get them to land in cups that were on the floor. We're pretty simple over here, you know? It's just I think just letting them be is mostly what our afternoon looks like.

SPEAKER_01 14:38

Quick pause to share something that's been a great fit for our homeschool. My son, he's seven, and we butt heads if I am teaching him directly. So his reading and math are done mostly independently, and I'm just there to support and correct when needed. I really wanted him to learn music too, especially knowing how closely music and reading are connected in the brain. That's why we started using Simply Piano. He's learning to read music and play piano on his own using songs he already knows and loves, and it feels more like a game than a lesson. It's been amazing to watch his confidence and skills grow. If you want to check it out, grab the link in the show description.

Curriculum Trials: Good And Beautiful, IXL

SPEAKER_00 15:13

And if they need my help to facilitate that, like if they need to go somewhere or need my help with something, I'll step in. Otherwise, I just let them be, and honestly, I just get on my computer and bust out work, you know?

Dyslexia Discovery And Adjustments

SPEAKER_01 15:27

Yeah, and that's hard too, because then you're like, all right, so is this an okay time that I'm on my computer? Like, am I supposed to be like playing a board game with them or reading a book to them? Like that just that guilt will never go away, right? Never no matter what you're doing, there's always more you could be doing. So you have to let that go and know, like, hey, I'm doing this for me, I'm doing this for the family in the long run. I'm doing it to afford that vacation we can take once a year or whatever it is. But you know, and I love how you said it too. Like, first of all, what you're saying is we need to bang it out in the morning because other things take hold, and uh I need to start doing that because like it I even wrote a schedule for myself and it's on my refrigerator and I haven't paid attention to it once and I wrote it down. But it's like, yes, it has to get done early because my son, who he's seven, but he finds that there are things that he wants to do, even if we don't leave the house. He actually doesn't even want to leave the house. I'm like, yeah, hey, we can go meet these people at a hike at the park today. He's like, mm-mm, I really had some other things I wanted to do at home. He wants to ride his four-wheeler, he wants to ride his dirt bike when it's nice out. Today, okay, so he had a remote controlled vehicle that like we got him, I don't know, however long ago, and he's broken every part in it. And we recently started saying, like, you're taking over buying the new parts. And so he pays for it out of it. I mean, I pay him to do the videos for the podcast, so he does have money there, and I get it from Christmas and birthdays and stuff, so he bought like a hundred dollars worth of parts. Now the whole dead thing is probably worth it,$150, right? Like, we paid for it four times, but he's learning the value of a dollar, and he's learning to take care of his stuff, and he's learning how to take apart these remote control vehicles and put them back together. So that's cool. So to me, it's worth the money. But it's funny, he spent the last three days outside in the snow making tracks for it, like uh obstacle courses for him in the snow. And like testing, oh, how far could I jump? What can I go over? How high can it go over? Can I go over this climb? And I'm like, that's so cool. Like, how many kids get that opportunity today because they're coming home and they're like, okay, I was at school all day, before care, after care, regular school. Now I have soccer practice and then homework, shower, and go to bed and get up and do it again the next day. Like they just it didn't make sense to me before I homeschooled, right? I'm like, what do you people do all day? And that's because nobody ever let me have time.

SPEAKER_00 17:50

Right.

SPEAKER_01 17:51

So it's interesting having your own time and then letting your kids have their own time.

SPEAKER_00 17:56

Yeah. And they I think it helps them understand who they are quicker. They learn what they love and where they would like to put their time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:05

Yeah. Some of that might disappoint you. Like my three-year-old daughter who will no longer go into her dance class anymore. It's been a very sad two weeks for me coming to this realization that she's not gonna follow in my footsteps and be a dancer right now, but that's okay.

SPEAKER_00 18:21

Oh my goodness. Were you a dancer?

Timelines, Confidence, And Red Flags

SPEAKER_01 18:23

Yeah, I mean, I always grew up dancing and did some like I don't I use the word semi-pro football dance teams loosely because I don't know how semi-pro they were. But uh you were there. I've taught Zumba the last decade or so. Yeah, and I was just so excited, and she did fantastic for the first four months, right in that room. She followed everything the instructor did, but then I was like, you know what? This is only 45 minutes a week. Let's do gymnastics too. And I never did gymnastics, but I brought her into gymnastics class, and it's for the age two and three-year-olds, so the parents are actually involved. And after she learned that parents can be involved, she's like, I ain't going into this dance class anymore while you sit in the waiting room. You're gonna you're either coming in with me, Ma, or we ain't going in at all.

SPEAKER_00 19:11

Yeah. I was like, I bet she'll come back around to it though.

SPEAKER_01 19:16

I hope so. She's so little. I don't think it'll be this year. But no, that's the worst. It's funny to get to be there to like see that stuff. With my son, I know for a long time he would kind of like separate himself from the other kids, and I'm like, why is he doing that? And I, you know, we went back and forth on reasons why and talked about it and stuff like that. And I would get so frustrated, like, you're gonna fall into that weird kid homeschool thing because you're not interacting with other kids, and I'm driving it 45 minutes this playdate. But then you learn about them, like that's just their personality at that time in their life, right? Like, have you had those experiences and have you been happy to be around for these types of things?

Pushing Less, Loving Learning More

SPEAKER_00 19:55

Yeah, I mean, I think we all have those moments where we kind of hold our breath as a parent. Like, how is our child gonna react, right? And mine is I have a couple kiddos, one in particular who I wouldn't say he's introverted, but he's just not very social, if that makes sense. He's like one really good friend. He likes his little his sports buddies that he plays with, but he's played with them for years. But if somebody's talking to him and asking him questions, he just doesn't offer up a lot of information. So I'm always like, talk, talk. I know you know how to talk. Talk to these people, answer them, you know? But like you said, it's has nothing to do with homeschooling. It has everything to do with who he is. That's just him. He just doesn't have a ton to say. And I think it's because he's a very particular kid and he is an observer. So I think he spends more time kind of analyzing what's going on around him than thinking about himself, honestly.

SPEAKER_01 20:49

Well, hey, the world needs more of that. Talk to me about curriculum. How did you decide on what you wanted to teach, what curriculum to choose, and how you know when it's not working in time to switch.

Dad’s Dyslexia And Reading Struggles

Practical Tools For Dyslexic Readers

SPEAKER_00 21:01

Yes, we've definitely been down this road. So when I started homeschooling, I had a friend who was using the Good and the Beautiful curriculum. And I didn't I didn't know anything else, and so I was like, well, if I like my friend, she likes this, let's give it a shot. So I started using it, and I do really like it for language arts. My kids love it for language arts. I used it for I use it for math, but as my kids got older, I don't know if you're familiar with their curriculum, but their math is like a spiral method. And I'll tell you, you know, as a homeschooling mom, your first kid is kind of like your guinea pig, right? I didn't even know what spiral method math was until my kids were frustrated with it. And I took a step back, I'm thinking, okay, what is what is this? We like it, we like it till about fourth grade, and then that curriculum, what spiral math is, is where each lesson has a little bit of all the different. Math subjects you're learning. It might have a little bit of addition, a little bit of subtraction, a little bit of rounding, a little, you know, a little this, a little that. It was becoming the lessons, the lesson reviews were getting really lengthy. What I didn't know when I started homeschooling our children was that my oldest actually has dyslexia. I didn't know because I didn't know what to look for, and it took me a few years to even figure out what's going on. I was not trying to brag, but I was a good reader. Reading was never a struggle for me. And so she really started to struggle with these lengthy math lessons. She started struggling with the curriculum in general for language arts because it was outpacing her reading level. And we got to this place probably in third grade with her, and I thought, I don't even know what to do. You know, I I don't know if I can do this for her. Like, am I enough for her? And so we switched, we kept going with that math curriculum for a little bit longer, but I would lessen the lessons. We would do less. Okay, I wouldn't make her finish every single lesson. And then we actually stepped away from the language arts curriculum for probably a solid year. We didn't do any language arts because she needed time to just read. We just needed to focus on reading. And so for a whole year we didn't do that curriculum. And then once her reading level improved a little bit, her skill in reading, we jumped back into it. If you were to put my oldest two in school, I would get told that they're both behind in language arts, and I really don't care.

unknown 23:35

Love that.

SPEAKER_00 23:36

And I did, I used to care. I've cried about this because I care about my kids. I care about how they're doing. I want them to be well educated. I want them to be good readers, but I had her going through her struggles with dyslexia, and then the second oldest doesn't care if he reads. He just doesn't care. I'm like, buddy, you gotta care sometime, you know. But he's still only 11. So they do the same language arts curriculum, same lessons. We do their lessons together. We've been doing that for years and it works really well. And I realized in that journey that when you're showing up to homeschooling and your kids are showing up and everybody's frustrated, that's that's a huge red flag. Like we need to stop and we need to do something different because it really shouldn't be that way. We shouldn't all be crying by the time we get done with math.

SPEAKER_01 24:21

Right.

Rebuilding After Jane.com Collapsed

SPEAKER_00 24:22

And we kind of had gotten to that point, and I think too, my personality has changed as a homeschooling mom. I was very type A, especially in college. Oh, type A mom, you know, type A student. Wanted straight A's, and I carried that personality into parenting, and then you have five kids, and you realize they don't care if you're type A. So I had to learn to adapt too, and to like just just chill. Like we have till they're 18 plus to get them to be good at something. Like, they don't have to know this all by the time they're six. It was really hard for me because I had kids or had friends who were saying, my kid can read a chapter book and they're seven. Great. I am so like I am genuinely happy for that child. I'm not gonna put that expectation on my kid if it's not going to work for them. And it took me a long time to almost it's like it's like a quiet courage that a homeschool mom has to have that they are enough for their child, that we don't have to live by the timelines and test scores, and that we have time to teach them these things. And once I realized that, like the best gift I can give to my child child as their teacher is the love of learning.

SPEAKER_01 25:43

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 25:43

And if they can love to learn, they will learn anything that they need to.

Tutors, Coaching, And Child Readiness

Managing Multiple Kids And Chores

SPEAKER_01 25:48

Absolutely. And I, you know, I think more parents need to be vocal about that. Like, yeah, my kid's seven, he's not reading chapter books, he's just starting to read on his own. And it was a very like a struggle because it was like, come on, I'm supposed to know the best curriculums. I have interviewed all these homeschooling parents. We've tried this, we've tried that. We went back and forth on a few different I've talked on the podcast before about how we did start out with um, I think I started out with like actual kindergarten curriculum, like from the schools. Yeah. And and the good and the beautiful or something. Oh, all about reading. And I was like doing them both and just hounding this poor five-year-old with two curriculums on it. And um, and then we went to teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons, but they were only easy until they were only easy until lesson 50. And then they were used that one too. So we took like months, like you said, we took months off and then went back maybe six months later and started at lesson one. And I was like, all right, we're gonna reinforce everything, and then it'll be perfect, right? No, we got to 50 again. It was like climbing Mount Everest. So, you know, and I tried this one and that one and this one, that one, and um, I think a lot of it is sometimes it just takes whatever age their body needs for it to like click, and whether it's seven or eleven or fifteen. But you're right, the more you push them because other kids their age are at that level or higher, the more they're gonna hate it. Think about if someone was trying to make you like swim in the Olympics, you'd be like, I don't I don't really like swimming that much. I liked it when it was just hot out and an enjoyable activity, but now that you're forcing me to do laps in an Olympic-sized pool, it's just not fun. And and it it's the same thing for them.

SPEAKER_00 27:40

Yeah, absolutely. When I was struggling with my daughter trying to figure out why she couldn't learn how to read, you know, back when she's five years old, because everyone says our kids should be reading. I was talking to my husband and he goes, I hated school. I said, Well, why? Why did you hate school? I know you hated it, but why? And he goes, Because I was pulled out of every fun thing to go practice my reading. Was he dyslexic? Yes. But we didn't know. He goes, I don't we didn't realize he was until I figured out that my daughter was. So he's an adult just figuring out, yeah, the system didn't catch it.

SPEAKER_01 28:15

He just went Did he read things backwards or how does that work?

SPEAKER_00 28:19

He's n okay, so he just really remembers struggling. He's like it just never made sense to me. And to the day, to this day, he has never read a chapter book.

SPEAKER_01 28:29

My husband probably hasn't either.

Pod School, Electives, And Piano

SPEAKER_00 28:31

You know? Yeah. But my so I don't know as a kid what he exactly struggled with. Now he knows how to read because he's memorized the words, right? But if he had to break it down and explain, which this is part of the reason why he doesn't help with homeschooling very often, is he gets frustrated. He's like, This is the dumbest language ever. Where? Who made these rules? I'm like, I don't know, but that's just the rules, okay? You know, but he's like, he can't, you know, to break down the English language is a lot. But my daughter, she what she has struggled with is when she was reading, and she even does this now. If it's a longer word, will take a longer word takes too long to sound it out, and then she can't remember what she said. So to then put it together doesn't work for her. A lot of times she'll take what's on the end and flip it and say that first. Okay. And so these are some of the things we were seeing. Comprehension. If she reads something, she can't tell you what she read. She spent so much brain power on trying to decode and sound out and put everything together that she's just like, I don't know what I read. And so we've done a lot of like, you read it, now I'll read it so you can get the comprehension.

SPEAKER_01 29:41

After three years of interviewing homeschooling families, I realized how overwhelming it can be to piece everything together. So I took the best advice, tips, questions, and resources that I've learned along the way and put them into one practical ebook. If you're looking for a clear starting point, you'll find the link in this show's description.

Reporting, Minimalism, And Real Life Learning

SPEAKER_00 30:02

She's very smart. Like, you know, if I read it, she can comprehend it because she's not spending all this brain power trying to decode and decipher and and put the words together. Anyway, she's come a long way, and she definitely can read now. But yeah, as a child, that was that was really, really hard. And I felt um, I felt like a failure. I felt like I was responsible. And, you know, in a way I I was. I was choosing to homeschool her, so I needed to figure this out, and it just took a long time. And I wish I'd given myself more grace because I can look at her now and see how far she's come. And so, like to the parent who has that kid who's just struggling, whether it's with math, a math concept, or with reading or something that this just seems really, really hard, just give it time. Like you have that luxury of time as a homeschool parent, and it they will do it, they will learn it. They just need a little more time.

SPEAKER_01 30:58

How did you get her through learning how to read with the dyslexia? Is there like a method or program?

Money Lesson: Bank Trip To Materials Science

SPEAKER_00 31:06

So there's a lot of different ways people will approach it. Originally I looked into tutoring, and it's so expensive. The only tutoring in our area was it was like$3,000 for 12 sessions or something like that. And I had a friend put their kiddo through it and I said, How was it? And she says, Well, we're getting done with the tutoring, and now they're going on like a 504 plan. Like, so they didn't really learn what they needed to to know. Well, I'm not dropping three grand on that. We just took it slow. We just every day put in a little bit of practice, put in the reps, right? You just keep practicing. And it's like with anything else. You wanna be good at shooting hoops, you wanna be good at swimming, you wanna be good at this, that. You just keep practicing. So we just keep practicing kept practicing. I did take a, I found like an online parents course that was four weeks, taught by a mom who had six kids with dyslexia, and she homeschooled them all. So that was really helpful and really beneficial. It was very validating for me that I hadn't screwed up my kid, you know, that I wasn't the only mom out there who was struggling with this. And we did have a few tools that we could use, did really well with like covering up the page, uh, so you could only see the line that you were reading, covering up the pictures so they weren't distracting, using those colored little plastic sleeves. She really liked yellow. That was a good color for her to read through that. It helped. And then I think it was two years ago. I'd taken them for their annual eye exam every single year, but two years ago, the eye doctor was like, Oh yeah, she needs reading glasses. And I'm like, What? She's 11. She needs reading glasses. So that helped having glasses just in a year's time when we'd lost some vision. And so one of the opportunities that's come through my homeschooling podcast is I met a tutor who does reading tutoring specifically for kids with dyslexia. And my daughter, a couple months ago, she came home from pod school and she says, for the first time, I really feel like I'm behind in my reading and I want to change it. And so she's starting tutoring in April to help fill these gaps. She's an amazing reader for how far she's come. But I also think there is value in waiting till your child is ready. She is ready to put in the work. Like she can read, but she's ready to be a good reader. And so when this opportunity starts in April, you better believe she's gonna put in those reps to advance and become more skilled in reading.

SPEAKER_01 33:35

And yeah, and it's gonna mean so much more to her because she has the drive behind it. That's so huge.

Capturing Curiosity For Unit Studies

SPEAKER_00 33:42

And I think she's old enough too now to understand the reward, like what the reward is going to be. When she was six or seven, that was the other thing too. I kind of gauged was like, can she read enough to go out to other activities and still be included and not feel left behind? And the answer was always yes. Like you can read an open sign on the library, or you can read, you know, little things. And now she is starting to feel that like a little bit left behind in her peer group. And we're ready to do something about it. She's gonna get some great tutoring starting in April. And so that was always a gauge too. It's like, okay, well, yes, she might be behind if I were to put her in public school, but is she behind in her peer groups in her activities? No, it wasn't impacting her in any other area of her life.

SPEAKER_01 34:28

Well, and then you have to look at the statistics of what's going on in the school system too, and say how many kids are actually literate beyond a third grade level when they graduate, because I'm pretty sure that it's a very low percentage. Yet they're spending more time in school, they're pushing reading earlier on, but kids are just not coming out with that reading left. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 34:48

And as guilty as I felt for a long time, feeling like I was failing her. On the flip side of that, I recognize I think she would have come out of school like my husband, hating it. Yes. It would have crushed her. It would have crushed her. And so I'm really glad that we went this route.

SPEAKER_01 35:07

And how about your other kids? Like, how do you manage their stuff? Like, how do you just juggle it all in your morning? Are they all doing things at the same time or are they scream like a crazy woman?

SPEAKER_00 35:16

No. Yeah, so we do. That's a good question because I think a lot of people wonder how does this work? Every day is a little bit different, but we actually have figured out a pretty good rhythm. My older three do IXL learning for math, which is online and it's like they have to get 90 points before it will tell them that they've learned enough to move on, which I like that it's more of like this, it's not just memorization. They have to understand the concept. They really like that it's independent. And so I really just help them when they have questions, but it's really a self-driven program, which is really helpful. For a long time, I was so against computer programs because I felt like I wasn't doing enough. But then I looked around at my capacity and it's like, okay, if we want to maintain this standard where we're kind of done with schoolwork by lunchtime, so we have the rest of our day, I gotta have some help. And so this computer program has been really great for them. My seven-year-old, which is the youngest homeschooler at the moment, he still does the good and the beautiful math. So usually what happens is the older three get started on their math, and I sit down with him, and we do his good and the beautiful math and language arts, and he he's quick. He's like he loves math. We speed through that. Like we're talking maybe 15 minutes of math to get a lesson done because he just soaks that right up. And then we'll do his language arts. So sitting down one-on-one with him is probably like a half an hour and he's seven. Uh, that seems really quick to people, but he's doing his work, it's getting done. And then he does his handwriting uh and he practices his piano. I'm very fortunate my sister's a piano teacher and she comes to the house once a week to do all their lessons. So that is really nice. And then on and then once I'm done with him, I grab my nine-year-old and we get her language arts and reading done. And then I sit the older two down and we do their language arts and reading and spelling. And then we this year have started pod school, which is a new option in our area. The older two go on, go one morning and they take three classes. Right now they're doing leatherworking, sound class, where they're learning about sound waves and different music pitch and things like that. And then they're doing ancient history civilization like Egypt, Roman Empire, those types of things. And so that is their electives. I teach at that pod school one day a week, also, and I take all my kiddos, and I'm teaching space science this semester, and then the younger two stay and they do musical theater and an art class. And so that's how we fit in our electives, and then they have their piano teacher that comes to the house once a week and they practice on their own the other days, they do their handwriting. Um, trying to think if I'm missing anything. I take my toddler to story time once a week, so she kind of gets that one-on-one with mom. And a lot of times she's just sitting on my lap, like doing a puzzle, coloring, painting while I'm doing bookwork with the other kids. She's just content to sit on my lap and kind of do her schoolwork, she calls it. And so she's in the mix, or she'll go off and play with one of the kids who's done. And then while they're not working on schoolwork, if they're waiting for me to do one-on-one time with them, that's when I have them do their housework, their chores. They've the older ones have to do their own laundry, empty dishwasher, feed the dog, pick up the poop out of the yard, those types of things. We just have the slow rotation. They get a zone for the week, and like that's their zone. If your kitchen is your zone for the week, you need to make sure the dishwasher's unloaded, take the trash out, sweep the floor, you know, like a few easy chores. Bathrooms are a zone. Okay, is there toilet paper? Are there, is there soap? Uh, there any dirty clothes on the floor? You know, if someone were to walk in and need to use our restroom, does it look nice? Is the trash overflowing? And I really feel like those household chores are really integral part of our school day, too, if you want to call it. Because these kids need to learn life skills. I'm like, I have friends who are like, I didn't know how to bake a potato or do my laundry and when I got to college. Right. What so many? What? So yeah, they're doing their own laundry. It's not to say I don't do laundry, but I'd that's all I'd be doing if they didn't do their own laundry.

SPEAKER_01 39:37

So I love that. I mean, and and you do a lot. You do a lot of schoolwork. But then you have the kids in the older grades too. I mean, my kids are seven and three, so yeah, my seven-year-old, it's it's definitely the the language, well, like a reading program, which is online now. We've kind of settled for that because he likes learning not funny, a little bit more independent. And um, and then the math and handwriting. And you know, I'm I'm like really trying to get better at sitting with them and reading, but it's funny because he's never been one that wants to like sit and let me read. Like he's always been bouncing around the room. And even today, I my daughter, she will sit with me and read or open books, and he's like, he's folding his laundry, putting that away. So he's only hearing every other paragraph, and then he was out and I went outside for the rest of the book. And I'm like, oh, all right, I guess he's just not. But like, what do you do, right? Do you force them to sit in? I was reading a book about it was a children's book about the history of Manhattan, how Manhattan in New York City like got there. It was super interesting, but yeah, that's cool. Only for me. But it maybe I should let let them kind of choose a little bit more of what they want to do. But yeah, he takes ukulele and he's he's practicing piano on this um with this Simply Piano app that we've been using. But like I'm like, yeah, I don't really do any science or world exploration, even history. Do we Tuttle twins, but it's not an everyday, like every night thing. So yeah, it's funny, kind of like thinking, like, what do we have to do? Yeah. And in New York, we're pretty strict on our reporting here, but then it's like, okay, well, if he's building a little obstacle course outside, like that's kind of science, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:23

So I agree.

SPEAKER_01 41:25

Liberties that you can take.

SPEAKER_00 41:26

Yeah. I mean, there's so much to be learned that doesn't come from sitting in a book, you know. My kids are doing these extracurriculars because we're involved in pod school, but there's been years that we don't. We just do the math and language arts and let the day be what it is, you know, whatever, whatever they want to do. I tried once, you know, I kind of started off feeling like my homeschool needed to look like public school. And I was trying to get subject after subject in, and then I was finding like I had when I was having our fifth, I was just like, yeah, we're done with all of this. There's no time for this anymore. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:02

You know, and we went back to like very basic. Again, I go back to that question of like, what did I actually take away from school? Because I might have been in nine classes throughout the day, but what did I actually learn? I feel like I didn't learn anything about real life. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:17

Well, and it's like, I'm not convinced that taking nine subjects a day is a great way for the kids to be learning. Like, I feel like, like, I don't learn good that way. We're in nine different switching your brain from one thing to the next. And so that was when I really like scaled back what we were doing and just focused on, you know, one thing. Language, the language arts, and the math, and there may be like one more thing for a few weeks, and then we'd throw in something else and do these kind of like mini units of something, or just let it be. You know, I remember I feel like they get more excited about learning when it when they're interested, right? For example, my seven-year-old, he loves money. Loves money, and he loves saving money. So he saved all his money until he had enough for a$100 bill. And then he had his little ziploc bag of cash and he said, Mom, I'm ready to go to the bank. I have a hundred dollars here. Let's go get my$100 bill. So we walked down to the bank, and I, you know, so then it this is where homeschooling is beautiful because this can be the lesson, right? Okay, son, now what are we gonna say? I'm not gonna do the talking for you. What do you need to ask for? This is, you know, they're called a bank teller. You need to talk to the teller and you need to ask for something. What's it gonna be? So, you know, we practice this little, what am I asking for when I get there? And so he's ready and he talks to me, gets his hundred dollar bill, and he gets to pick, is it a new one or an old one? And then we walk home and he's walking home, he's looking at this hundred dollar bill, and he says, What is money made out of? And I said, I don't know, but it survives the washing machine, so it can't just be paper, you know. So then we go home and we watch find some YouTube videos on what money's made of. And I said, kids, sit down, we're learning about how money's made. And we sit down, we learn that it's made from cotton and you know, just all these really cool things. And that was Lesson. Like, great. Got a lesson in for the day.

SPEAKER_01 44:03

I love it. And you know, that happens so often. If you actually pay attention to the questions, and I had one mom say at one point, she said, I would keep a little jar, or whether you keep it on your phone in the notes tab or a little pad of paper in the drawer, like every question they ask, just write it down quick. And then like one day a week or once a month, you go through and you like, yeah, let's go find a video on that.

SPEAKER_00 44:25

And yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:26

That's happened so many times. It might even be my question, but they see I'm excited about it. Like, where will you know how does that crystallis get formed and what do they do in there? Let's find a video. And it's just so cool to have that time to look at it.

SPEAKER_00 44:39

It is, it is.

Where To Find Stephanie Online

SPEAKER_01 44:41

Stephanie, where can people find you if they want to check out more of your insights and what you have to say and even your jewelry?

SPEAKER_00 44:48

Yeah, yeah, I'm a few places because I uh dabble in a few different things. So I have my Steph Rios blog, and then that's where I put, you know, clips for my podcast and more homeschooling content. And then my jewelry is called Iviana and Co. And both are on Instagram or Facebook, whatever platform you like. And yeah, come check out some of the jewelry as well.

Closing And Resources

SPEAKER_01 45:12

All right, we'll throw those links up in the show's description. So check those out. And thank you so much for being here today. This has been awesome. Thanks for having me, Cheryl. I appreciate it. Thank you for listening to the Homeschool How To podcast. If today's episode helped you, please be sure to follow the show and leave a review. It's the best way to support the podcast. And if you're just getting started or need a reset, head to thehomeschoolhowtu.com and grab my free 30-day homeschool quick start guide. Until next time, keep learning, keep questioning, and thank you for your love of the next generation.