Remediating Stealth Dyslexia

[clemota]

 

Last year DD12 was assessed and diagnosed with stealth dyslexia and dysgraphia. She is a voracious reader, so the psychologist believes that she has basically memorized thousands of word shapes in order to read. She re-reads books multiple times, so we think that she's basically picking up more each time she reads it through, although her comprehension was in the 95^th percentile.

 

The recommendations on her report were to get a COVD exam and possible treatment, an OT eval for visual-motor integration and fine motor coordination difficulties, and “a reading and writing tutor that focuses upon the visual and kinesthetic difficulties associated with reading, spelling, and written production.†There suggestion is a program such as Slingerland.

 

We started with a COVD exam, thinking that we wanted to get the physical processes in place before we worked on mental. She started VT last spring and recently finished. Now we need to figure out what to do next. I'm leaning towards the reading remediation rather than OT for financial reasons.

 

Since a private tutor also isn't in the cards for right now, I was thinking about using Barton. But I'm wondering if her ability to sight-read everything make that a bad idea? Would it interfere with her ability to re-learn? Part of me thinks it would at least be worth a try, especially since I can re-sell when we're done.

 

Any thoughts or other suggestions?

[OneStepAtATime]

Well, I don't have a solid answer but she may very well be resistant to going back to having to sound out words.  If you could get her on board with why you and the professional think this is important, that might help.  Barton has suggestions in the back of the TM and on her site for how to handle resistant teens.  Some of those ideas might help.  They did here, anyway.

 

I don't know if you know anything in particular about Barton but Level 1 doesn't look like much.  If you go this route don't get disappointed when you open the box.  I will be honest, I was really underwhelmed with the look of Level 1.  However, once we started using it, and I got DD to stop fighting the idea of going back to the very building blocks of reading, I realized just how important this level was for her.  Absolutely essential.  Things started clicking for her.  By Level 2 there was marked improvement in both reading and spelling.  By Level 3 she was actually asking for lessons during breaks for holidays, vacations, etc. because while she didn't find them "fun" she realized they were helping her in many, many ways.

 

Our situation is different, however.  She was labeled a stealth dyslexic because she was maintaining good grades in school but I do not consider her one.  She was obviously struggling to read all the way through 5th grade.  The constant work at home that I was doing with her after school was what kept her grades up.  She was still not reading in 5th grade, at least not in the sense that she could pick up a chapter book (even Magic Tree House) and successfully decode with any fluency at all.

[hornblower]

For free or inexpensive options

I would suggest going through Elizabeth's phonics lessons because they're fast & effective & not baby'ish. I suspect the nonsense words will give your child trouble & that's where you can focus more work but start at the beginning.

Also, I'd suggest Apples & Pears spelling because that will break things down for her under the guise of spelling & will positively affect her reading skills.

 

[clemota]

We started Apples and Pears Spelling last year - she place into, and finished Book C.  But she'll still complain about now knowing how to spell words - almost as if the process of breaking down words into morphemes has completely flown out of her head over the summer. She's also at that lovely preteen/hormonal brain fog stage, so that's probably a part of it. 

 

Yes, I'm hoping to appeal to her "this will be worth it in the end" way of thinking. She's already experienced that with the VT, so at least I can make a comparison for her there.

 

I forgot about Elizabeth's phonics program...thanks for reminding me!  She may prefer that, actually.

[FairProspects]

What about Sopris Rewards Intermediate or Secondary? That will teach her to break down words to actually decode them without going all the way back to basic letter sounds. Plus, it is written for older students so it is not babyish.

[clemota]

What about Sopris Rewards Intermediate or Secondary? That will teach her to break down words to actually decode them without going all the way back to basic letter sounds. Plus, it is written for older students so it is not babyish.

 

Looking into them now - thanks!

[Cera]

Will somebody post a link to Elizabeth's phonics program?  I have a child with similar issues.

 

Thanks

[clemota]

Here is her phonics lessons page.

 

And here is a page about working with remedial readers.

 

 

[Julie of KY]

My super-bright stealth dyslexic/severely dysgraphic child "listened" in as I did Barton with younger siblings. He says he learned a lot and I don't think he would have resisted me if I had actually done it with him as well.

[Storygirl]

Have you checked with your insurance to see if they will cover OT? We were pleasantly surprised to find that DS's sessions are almost completely covered (only a $12 copay for each visit). The OT may really help across many issues. I'm not suggesting to do OT before the reading remediation. I think you are right to pursue that now, but if you can do both things simultaneously, you may see more progress more quickly.

 

[clemota]

Have you checked with your insurance to see if they will cover OT? We were pleasantly surprised to find that DS's sessions are almost completely covered (only a $12 copay for each visit). The OT may really help across many issues. I'm not suggesting to do OT before the reading remediation. I think you are right to pursue that now, but if you can do both things simultaneously, you may see more progress more quickly.

 

Yeah, we checked: they only allow OT if you're recovering from surgery/injury at a skilled nursing facility.  They excluded Vision Therapy, too - that's why I'm looking for an affordable remedial program, LOL.

[City Mouse]

Barton includes a lot of work with nonsense words that force the kid to use the skills that they are learning. I am not familiar enough with other programs to know if the do the same thing.

[Julie of KY]

Working with a child who is already a reader and probably memorizes words, I would think it is very important to work with nonsense words in teaching reading and spelling rules.

[OneStepAtATime]

You know, besides ElizabethB's stuff you might see if someone else in your community has Barton Level 1.  See if you could rent it from them or something and just use that level at first.  Between those two that might turn things around...

[clemota]

We do have a large homeschooling community here so I will ask around.  I agree that nonsense words are probably the only thing that are going to challenge her since she's reading constantly.  Her reading fluency is at 99.9%, so I've got to get her to somehow look at the letters not the whole memorized word.

 

I've been looking at We All Can Read - the author has a whole online portion now, although I think we could just get away with the book.  He uses many, many nonsense words, so it may be helpful even if we end up using something else as a core program.

[Julie of KY]

Not that it applies to your situation, but the thing that has helped remarkable in my oldest who is an avid reader, stealth dyslexic, severely dysgraphic child was vision therapy.

He read novels constantly, but needed textbooks read aloud. The COVD doc said he thought he was actually spending a fraction of the time he should on each word, but his eyes were jumping all around. He was smart enough to put it all together, but that doesn't work for reading a dense textbook full of definition. VT helped his reading and writing remarkably - he went from me scribing everything to where he is doing his own writing. His print is more consistant - not good, but readable. He is reading textbooks for the first time this year.

[clemota]

We are just starting to see the benefits of DD's VT here - handwriting is still hard, but we switched to typing nearly everything a year ago.  I will say that her ability to line up things in math has improved significantly.  Her numbers are looking better - her 9 looks like a 9 and isn't confused for a 4 anymore.  And there are fewer errors:  she used to confuse + and - regularly, but that's pretty rare now.  We are trying the Writing 8s to see if it helps with the automatic part of writing.  And she's suddenly enjoying drawing - she's working through the Artistic Pursuits book just for fun on her own. 

 

I'm hoping all of this will lend itself to an easier transition to reading/ decoding by sound, not sight.  It's lovely to hear that your son was able to move from novels to denser textbooks after his VT.  It gives me hope.  :001_smile:

[OneStepAtATime]

We are just starting to see the benefits of DD's VT here - handwriting is still hard, but we switched to typing nearly everything a year ago.  I will say that her ability to line up things in math has improved significantly.  Her numbers are looking better - her 9 looks like a 9 and isn't confused for a 4 anymore.  And there are fewer errors:  she used to confuse + and - regularly, but that's pretty rare now.  We are trying the Writing 8s to see if it helps with the automatic part of writing.  And she's suddenly enjoying drawing - she's working through the Artistic Pursuits book just for fun on her own. 

 

I'm hoping all of this will lend itself to an easier transition to reading/ decoding by sound, not sight.  It's lovely to hear that your son was able to move from novels to denser textbooks after his VT.  It gives me hope.  :001_smile:

:hurray:

[LaughingCat]

Due to your DD knowing so many words, if you do go with Rewards I would definitely go with Rewards Secondary.  The biggest difference from what I've been told is that it has harder words.  We needed that here as DD rebels against using whatever the 'process' is -  and there were still many words in Rewards Secondary that DD could and did read without using the procedure.  If we had used Intermediate I think there wouldn't have been enough words that DD actually needed to use the procedure on to make it sink in.    Or you could even put together a list of super hard words and have her use those for practice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[clemota]

I looked at the samples of both Rewards Intermediate and Secondary - I think Secondary is a better fit for the reason you mention.

I had her read aloud the words from one of the activities, and she had to slow down on almost all of them.  She admitted she could only sight-read about 5 of them (out of ~25).  She only mispronounced 2. 

 

At this point, I'm thinking of using Elizabeth's videos for a phonics review and moving on to We All Can Read.  I'm not sure if I will do ALL of We All Can Read, I just really like the huge selection of nonsense words.   They really slow DD down, and she thinks it's interesting.   From there, I'd move into Rewards Secondary, mostly for the longer words, assuming she still needs the practice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[lyssaflin]

My ds 10 is a stealth dyslexic with dysgraphia.  After a lot of research and looking for tutors who understood stealth dyslexia, I decided to give Barton a try.  It didn't seem like he needed the reading help (because he had memorized so many words), but his spelling was awful.  The first 2 levels were very boring and I had to use bribes to get through them, but we're on level 4 now, and his spelling has improved tremendously. Also, having to work through the nonsense words helped his reading.

 

[OneStepAtATime]

My ds 10 is a stealth dyslexic with dysgraphia.  After a lot of research and looking for tutors who understood stealth dyslexia, I decided to give Barton a try.  It didn't seem like he needed the reading help (because he had memorized so many words), but his spelling was awful.  The first 2 levels were very boring and I had to use bribes to get through them, but we're on level 4 now, and his spelling has improved tremendously. Also, having to work through the nonsense words helped his reading.

This is what we found as well.  First two levels seems boring and almost a waste of time...until the kids and I started noticing the changes in their reading and spelling.  By the time they had finished Level 3 there was a dramatic difference.  But we had to go slow at times and repeat lessons to make sure they had internalized the rules.  Rote memorization is useless for my kids.  Internalizing the application and understanding was essential for success.  We are having to review Level 3 though because we had to pause half way through Level 4 for an extended period and lost ground.