Thanks everyone. Indigo-- yes, although it's not unwelcome. I really enjoy working with him. Both kids have 504s/IEPs (not sure which? Probably both, if that's possible. I had a 504 due to a physical disability which they share, but not an IEP). I believe SK11 was held back a year or entered a year late to allow him to develop some extra executive function / social skills.
I absolutely do not intend to focus too much on handwriting-- I was probably very mildly dysgraphic or had some related learning disability as a child, as I struggled with handwriting quality and physical ABILITY to write longhand until my second year or so of college. It was absolute torture going through cursive and writing drills! I don't see a problem with his handwriting for now except that he complains of pain, so I'm going to be working with him on building up hand/forearm strength a bit.
Currently the school has done some really egregious things with SK6 and SK11 both, and the parents are dealing with it with the assistance of legal counsel. The end plan may well be for me to take over teaching SK11, at least, full-time (Mom and Dad are both academics and have little to no time/energy to deal with his angst regarding homework). We're avoiding official diagnosis due to this issue with the school currently; parents' stated plan is to give the school enough rope to hang themselves with. As such, we're documenting his progress and what we do together at EVERY session. As a result of him not really learning anything at school besides social skills, though, parents and I agree that he needs to be getting that instruction at home-- so we're not going to be exclusively focused on maths and literacy, I'm hoping to pick up history/geography and some art as well. SK6 will likely join us for art and music since he's very talented in those areas. (I've played piano for about ten years, so thankfully that potentially complicated base is covered!)
Thanks for the tip on maths, sanne. I agree that he'd probably really enjoy ratios and some really basic probability stuff. I have a couple of my old 7th grade math books-- maybe we'll start on those Wednesday.
