Mama2two Posted July 21, 2014 Share Posted July 21, 2014 My father was a severe dyslexic and my Aunt and Uncle are mildly dyslexic.Although not officially tested I believe my 10 year old son has some dyslexia.He struggled to learn to read. He is now reading at a end of 3rd grade reading level. He has been stuck at this level for a year.His problem comes with sounding out multi-syllable complex words. He will read part of the word and guess. He struggles sounding it out. I have him read out loud to me, any suggestions on ways to help him?His biggest struggle is spelling. He had a year improvement (according to Woodcock Johnson) on this test this year. However, he is still very behind- more than 2 years. We are 1/2 way done with AAS 3. It is very slow going with slow retention. He will make the same mistake day after day on same words (ex..back for bake)We tried Sequential Spelling without retention.Any suggestions? Keep with AAS since we have progress although very slow and he is behind? Try something else? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Storygirl Posted July 21, 2014 Share Posted July 21, 2014 DD9 is also a word guesser, undiagnosed but probably dyslexic. We're using Dancing Bears for reading right now to remediate the word guessing habit. Have you looked at it? You cut a notch out of the corner of an index card and use it as a cursor to reveal one letter or phoneme at a time when sounding out words. It hasn't solved all of our problems, but I think it has helped DD learn how to slow down and work on sounding things out instead of automatically guessing. You could try this cursor concept with whatever reading you are doing now, even without purchasing the DB program. About spelling, I don't know. We haven't figured it out. We threw in the towel soon after starting AAS, because DD could not memorize the letter sounds and all of the rules. I'm probably trying Apples and Pears this year (published by the Dancing Bears people), but I don't have any experience with it yet. We're woefully behind on spelling, because I haven't yet found something that works for those of my children that struggle. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LaughingCat Posted July 21, 2014 Share Posted July 21, 2014 For guessing, the notched card (ala Dancing Bears) or the child marking the word under each syllable/sound (ala Abecedarian or Rewards). DD hated both of those those but they both helped. For complex multisyllable words, Rewards Intermediate or Secondary. If he's only guessing on complex multisyllable words I would go with Rewards. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mama2two Posted July 21, 2014 Author Share Posted July 21, 2014 Thank you for the suggestions. I looked at ABeCeDarian when he was learning to read initially and haven't look at it since. He does guess on other words as well, just not as much. I may be ABeCeDarian a try (Level B Short or Level C) and then do Rewards. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
merry gardens Posted July 21, 2014 Share Posted July 21, 2014 Does he hear sounds within words? I'd suggest you give Him the Barton Reading & Spelling screen, which may help catch severe problems of sound confussion and a few other things. I love the Barton program. Level 1 is easy for most people but a severely dyslexic person would likely find it difficult unless those skills have been remediated. Teaching prefixes, suffixes and roots helps with spelling multi syllable words. Many programs for dyslexics do that, including Barton and Seeing Stars. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mama2two Posted July 21, 2014 Author Share Posted July 21, 2014 Merry, can you explain a little bit about what you mean about hearing sounds within words? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OneStepAtATime Posted July 21, 2014 Share Posted July 21, 2014 Our spoken language is made up of sounds. But for some kids hearing the individual sounds that make up those words can be challenging. I have two dyslexic children. DD does not seem to struggle with hearing sounds at all. She DOES struggle with holding words in her head (working memory, etc.) but she hears them just fine. I gave both her and my son the free Barton student screening and she breezed right through. I expected my son to do the same, since he is extremely verbal and did really, really well in school until 2nd grade. He bombed the screening. Why? Because he was not hearing certain sounds and sound pairs. And we had no idea. He needed remediation on that first, before he could move forward with an O-G based phonics program. The Barton screening is easy to administer, doesn't take too much time and you don't have to buy a thing to do it. You are not obligated to buy Barton at all. It is free, on-line. I linked it below. You need to give yourself the tutor screening first to confirm that you are also able to hear all those sounds (among other things) but again it is free and easy to do. Just make certain you are well rested, you administer it in a quiet place with no distractions or interruptions (for both screenings), and you may want to watch the student screening all the way through before you actually give it to your child so the presentation is smooth. http://www.bartonreading.com/tutors.html#screen http://www.bartonreading.com/students_long.html#screen Hope that helps.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
merry gardens Posted July 21, 2014 Share Posted July 21, 2014 Merry, can you explain a little bit about what you mean about hearing sounds within words?One Step explained it well. I'll add that some people memorize words whole or mostly whole. I bought Barton for one son who had severe struggles learning to read. He couldn't pass the screen so we started with Linda mood Bell's LiPS program which showed him how sounds were made with mouth, tongue, etc. Eventually we started Barton. After a while I decided to use Barton with my others. Another son, who had some struggles when he first started reading but who was by that time a good reader took the screen. He barely passed! Well that explained his spelling problems! His spelling left off sounds within the words and/or substituted similar but different sounds and/or mixed them up. For example using a smaller word, split. Spit leaves out the L. Spilt switches the L and I. Spelt both switches the L with the vowel and has vowel confusion with E instead of I. That type of thing happened in the middle of longer words. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OneStepAtATime Posted July 21, 2014 Share Posted July 21, 2014 One Step explained it well. I'll add that some people memorize words whole or mostly whole. I bought Barton for one son who had severe struggles learning to read. He couldn't pass the screen so we started with Linda mood Bell's LiPS program which showed him how sounds were made with mouth, tongue, etc. Eventually we started Barton. After a while I decided to use Barton with my others. Another son, who had some I'll struggles when he first started reading but who was by that time a good reader took the scteen. He barely passed! Wel that explained his spelling problems! His spelling left off sounds within the words and/or substituted similar but different sounds and/or mixed them up. For example using a smaller word, split. Spit leaves out the l. Spilt switches the L and I. Spelt both swithes the L with thevowel and has vowel confusion with E instead of I. That type of thing happened in the middle of longer words. What she said... :lol: :lol: :lol: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mama2two Posted July 21, 2014 Author Share Posted July 21, 2014 I would say that he struggled with hearing sounds as opposed to holding it in his head. I will take a look at the Barton test Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LaughingCat Posted July 21, 2014 Share Posted July 21, 2014 Note: I wasn't really suggesting Abecedarian so much as the technique of "looping" under the sounds - basically a way to force them to look more closely at the word. The notched card does the same - only lets them see a part of the word at a time. If he is reading at a 3rd grade level I would not do Abecedarian B at all and my DD got far more out of Rewards than Abecedarian C. I love LIPS - but it didn't really help my DD stop guessing. But.. is he guessing? or is he mixing up letters? These are two different things IMO - my DD does both but they sound quite different. For my DD -- mixing up letters involves one or more letters moving to a different spot in the word (or being added or dropped) - but otherwise the word is what is written whereas guessing means saying a completely different word or made up ending to a word (first syllable or two is usually correct) LIPS did help with mixing up letters. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mama2two Posted July 21, 2014 Author Share Posted July 21, 2014 I would say he is definitely guessing. He will read the first 1/2 of the word and then guess what the second 1/2 may be. Sometimes he guesses based upon context (will read most of word but completely wrong suffix) So, maybe try to the notched card and you would recommend working through rewards rather than ABeCeDarian? In June he tested 3rd grade 8th month on the Woodcock Johnson for brief reading and reading fluency. that is the same score he had a year ago, so worried he isn't progressing Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
merry gardens Posted July 21, 2014 Share Posted July 21, 2014 I would say that he struggled with hearing sounds as opposed to holding it in his head. I will take a look at the Barton testThe screen is a great place to start. :) The first three levels of Barton (out of 10) work heavily on learning to correctly identify sounds in words, but the screen determines if the student is a able to start there. Some need more work before even starting Barton. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LaughingCat Posted July 21, 2014 Share Posted July 21, 2014 If he does well with mastery (learn once and then don't need later repetition of same information) then I think Abecedarian is good. My DD needs much more ongoing practice of what was learned. The style of Rewards, introduce and then keep practicing throughout, works far better for her. Both of these programs work on prefix/suffixes and splitting a word into syllables/parts. Costwise, if you are unsure of his style, then Abecedarian would be worth it to try. But if you already know he doesn't do well with mastery, then I would go straight to Rewards. However, as far as missing suffixes (ing/ed/tion etc) only - my DD misses those more based on how hard the overall reading is for her. The difference here might be reading "heartrending" as "heartrended" (guessed suffix) vs "heartbroken" (guessed word) [ vs. "hetrarending" (mixed up letters )] The more DD is near her max, the more she struggles with getting all the endings correct (and little words like the/a/in/on). Practicing reading unusual (Dancing Bears) or nonsense words (Elizabeth B's site) at speed (not fast but without pause to consider) is what has helped most with that. It took me a long time to figure this out though (even though I saw lots of people suggest it) - it wasn't obvious that missing the endings means work more on other words and not on endings. What really showed it to me was trying sentences that contained both real and nonsense words - and seeing how her reading sounded just like harder reading. I also think doing the Barton screen is always a good idea to find out if there is an underlying issue. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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