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Interesting link on teaching language/grammar/spelling to dyslexics


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http://www.dyslexiatraininginstitute.org/blog/school-english-thief/

 

Found this this morning in my FB feed.  I don't know if *all* dyslexics feel this way, but it's sort of interesting when you consider that someone can be dyslexic *and* verbally or linguistically gifted.  But this man is saying, just as a matter of human interest, the stories (hello, narrative learner!) would have made the content more relevant.  

 

Now see where I'm stumbling is application.  We did years of latin with dd, and we didn't cover frequentative suffixes or why been is spelled the way it is, lol.  At some point he's asking why el ed teachers aren't being taught history of english, which is usually done via a separate history of english class.  There's just no time in a full education major already packed with discipline, paperwork, psychology, etc. etc.  Nuts, I like these things and didn't take history of english.  (Maybe the history label scared me off?  LOL)  

 

So anyways, I'm just thinking out loud here, how would we *apply* this?  It seems reasonable that narrative learners, verbally gifted dyslexics, a variety of kids would enjoy this, but are there straightforward resources to do this that wouldn't go over their heads?  I remember my friend who took HoE telling me the text was nasty.  I'm not sure saying read a text is helpful either.  MP has a derivatives program.  Something on roots maybe?  But even then, what program covers grammar the way he's wanting?  Frequentative suffixes? Anything that would would be so dry, we'd have to tone it done immensely.  And then the TIMING of it.  But it is true, there's a lot you can cover as an "oh, btw" with our kids that wouldn't go over well as typical R&S grammar exercises.

 

Any thoughts?

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http://www.dyslexiatraininginstitute.org/blog/school-english-thief/

 

Found this this morning in my FB feed.  I don't know if *all* dyslexics feel this way, but it's sort of interesting when you consider that someone can be dyslexic *and* verbally or linguistically gifted.  But this man is saying, just as a matter of human interest, the stories (hello, narrative learner!) would have made the content more relevant.  

 

Now see where I'm stumbling is application.  We did years of latin with dd, and we didn't cover frequentative suffixes or why been is spelled the way it is, lol.  At some point he's asking why el ed teachers aren't being taught history of english, which is usually done via a separate history of english class.  There's just no time in a full education major already packed with discipline, paperwork, psychology, etc. etc.  Nuts, I like these things and didn't take history of english.  (Maybe the history label scared me off?  LOL)  

 

So anyways, I'm just thinking out loud here, how would we *apply* this?  It seems reasonable that narrative learners, verbally gifted dyslexics, a variety of kids would enjoy this, but are there straightforward resources to do this that wouldn't go over their heads?  I remember my friend who took HoE telling me the text was nasty.  I'm not sure saying read a text is helpful either.  MP has a derivatives program.  Something on roots maybe?  But even then, what program covers grammar the way he's wanting?  Frequentative suffixes? Anything that would would be so dry, we'd have to tone it done immensely.  And then the TIMING of it.  But it is true, there's a lot you can cover as an "oh, btw" with our kids that wouldn't go over well as typical R&S grammar exercises.

 

Any thoughts?

While speaking with a local Wilson tutor, I was told that a thorough morphology study should follow dyslexia remediation.  All through Wilson, DS was studying affixes.  As to the actual history of spelling, LOE includes a tiny bit of it in the Foundations materials for spelling.  Denise Eides of LOE might be a good person to connect with directly and ask.  

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The is one of the things I have really like about Barton- learning the whys. (Also HWOT training covers the why's of handwriting).

if I can tell my DS why a word is spelled a certain way, then he isn't just memorizing a list of random spelling words which doesn't work for him any way.

I was a strong reader as a kid, but I have always be a horrible speller because I didn't understand the rules of spelling. Many times, I will get to a lesson in Barton and find something I did not know.

As soon as I could tell my DS why pencil grip, hand and paper position, letter formation, was important, it was like a light bulb came on for him and he was willing to break those bad habits.

 

I am a little embarassed to say that I am a certified elementary school teacher. I have learned so much in the last few years by working with my own DS that I never learned in college. I try not to think about where he could have been if I had known all this stuff when he was 5-6 and just starting to struggle.

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A little bit more than a 6 yo needs, but might be fun for the right student.  Definitely mentions frequentative suffixes, lol.  100 Words Every Middle Schooler Should Know: Editors of the American Heritage Dictionaries: 9780547333229: Amazon.com: Books

 

This book appears to do what he's saying to do.  It compiles etymologies that were published in Calliope (the children's magazine) over the years, but the reviewers indicate it gets overwhelming all at once.  I'm thinking it would have to be chunked and you'd have to DO something with it.  (one a day for a couple years, use pictures or art, make a notebook, whatever)   In a Word: 750 Words and Their Fascinating Stories and Origins: Rosalie Baker, Tom Lopes: 9780812627107: Amazon.com: Books

 

 

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Great article. My oldest studied for the National Spelling Bee for 3 yrs... he took Latin and Greek, and also did tons of etymology study. I learned so much about the history of words and I can figure out the meanings & language of origin for so many words now. Anyway, I can see tons of application for dyslexic students.

 

For ex. the word "ad" in Latin (a preposition meaning "to", and it's stuck onto the front of Latin words) changes to ac-, am-, ag- before c, m and g respectively, which is why "accommodate" has two c's (and that extra m too... con- changed to com-). Students don't learn that unless they study Latin. Which seems overwhelming for a dyslexic student I'm sure.  But that rule is so helpful to me now.

 

I remember reading about why "debt" has a b (the example he gave) in the book ABCs and All Their Tricks. Maybe take that book and read it interesting bits to the kids every now and then.

 

Or plug away, however slowly, at Latin and Greek.

 

I'll definitely have to keep thinking about this. I despair of my two youngest ever learning Latin or Greek... but my 3 oldest all did, and #4 has been learning Greek for a couple years and is about to start Latin. But maybe we'll work on it slowly, when they're older, for the sake of their English spelling & grammar. 

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While speaking with a local Wilson tutor, I was told that a thorough morphology study should follow dyslexia remediation.  All through Wilson, DS was studying affixes.  As to the actual history of spelling, LOE includes a tiny bit of it in the Foundations materials for spelling.  Denise Eides of LOE might be a good person to connect with directly and ask.  

 

What do you mean by a thorough morphology study? What would be some examples of programs? I've seen this recommendation thrown around a bit too but I can't find any accessible materials for those of us who would try to teach it on our own to dyslexics. What works from the whole to explain the parts like this? That would be the holy grail for many dyslexics.

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What do you mean by a thorough morphology study? What would be some examples of programs? I've seen this recommendation thrown around a bit too but I can't find any accessible materials for those of us who would try to teach it on our own to dyslexics. What works from the whole to explain the parts like this? That would be the holy grail for many dyslexics.

Let me email my friend and ask. LOE recommends two separate programs that seem to be dependent upon the age of the student, but I have no idea of their approach. DS took a regular Vocabualry from Classical roots class and aced it. We have also used English from the Roots Up Cards. The materials always look dry as dust to me.

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Teaching Morphology Developmentally — Revised - PRO ...

 

Haven't used it yet, but I did finally take the plunge and order it.  I'm not even sure if Heather meant morphology or something else.  This program is morphology and it's hitting the bits of words.  For instance, if you ask my ds to say 1 girl, 2 girls, he will do a devoiced /s/ for the plural.  He's not hearing it correctly and noticing the bits, and that's his language junk that showed up in the CELF5 testing.  

 

also need to work on prosody.  There's a program I've been eying for that, and I just keep quibbling over the price.  https://www.linguisystems.com/products/product/display?itemid=10888 It's the Prosody Treatment Program by Rothstein.  I found this online that is informative, though I haven't stayed awake through enough of it yet to know if it will do what I need.  I think I'll still need (want) Rothstein, sigh.  Teaching Pronunciation Using the Prosody Pyramid - MCAEL  I think it's just a mental gap on my part, that I don't yet fully understand the topic.  I thought you (or someone else?) asked about prosody recently, so I mention it.  So far all I've determined from the booklet is that prosody = melody + rhythm.  I know he has (almost) not melody and terrible, terrible rhythm, so it's not a shock we're having problems.  What I haven't figured out is what the best way is to GET melody when you haven't got it.  Rhythm I could figure out, because you can physically put your hands on his and make it happen, slow him down, try to get him to be able to clap once, build up.  But melody??

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When I say morphology, I mean roots and affixes. Suffixes like /s/, /es/, and /ed/ are part of that.

 

I can't recall the number, but something like 60% of English words have either a Greek or Latin root word.

 

Do you mean learning the meanings of these types of roots & affixes? Rewards has the boys breaking apart the words and identifying these for reading purposes, but it does not do as much as I would like with meaning.

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The morphology program I listed is targeted at ASD, speech delays, and ESL.  It covers present progressives, plurals, possessives, past tenses, 3rd person singulars, and derived adjectives.  No roots or affixes, just all those bits of grammar (whether a plural is pronounced /s/ or /z/, etc.) that ds is missing, not hearing, not getting.  It has 500+ cards and goes through every step, every word.  I have no clue if dyslexics in general need that, but ds will clearly benefit from it. I'm at that point in my life where I don't want to invent everything, sigh.  I just want to pick up something, work through it, and get it done. 

 

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Following this thread with interest. Barton does cover some of this but DS especially thrives on a historical and/or narrative tie in. As his tutor told me yesterday he's a sponge if she can link info to historical context or to a discussion or story (bless her, while working on certain sounds that were tripping him up they ended up doing a brief study of Native Americans. It helped him with the sounds and to stay engaged).

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Do you mean learning the meanings of these types of roots & affixes? Rewards has the boys breaking apart the words and identifying these for reading purposes, but it does not do as much as I would like with meaning.

Yes...Check out these samples and see if that is what you are looking for.  I noticed that Elements includes some etymology, aka word history, as well.  For whatever reason, Foundation seems more appealing to me.

 

 

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Here's what the LOE creator says about morphology, and she recommends Dynamic Literacy.

I'll go look at DL, thanks.  Eides' morphology article is limited, and as I'm looking it up it looks like morphology article includes lots of topics .  And I think it's really an emphasis/goal thing.  The SLP is looking for morphology that affects speech, where Eides/Barton/whatever is looking at morphology that affects spelling.  Anyways, here's a nifty article that discriminates morphology and etymology.  Morphological vs. Etymological Links

 

Ok, I looked at DL.  I'm assuming that's stuff Barton covers...  (suffixes, prefixes) 

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Let me email my friend and ask. LOE recommends two separate programs that seem to be dependent upon the age of the student, but I have no idea of their approach. DS took a regular Vocabualry from Classical roots class and aced it. We have also used English from the Roots Up Cards. The materials always look dry as dust to me.

It's the dry as dust that's getting me.  That DL is so dry, it's just a desert.   :eek:   Ds needs hands-on, narrative, something engaging, so DL would require an extreme, extreme amount of modification.  I can think of ways to do it, but wow they managed to strip all the joy and interest out.  There's use of images for the roots, nothing.

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Following this thread with interest. Barton does cover some of this but DS especially thrives on a historical and/or narrative tie in. As his tutor told me yesterday he's a sponge if she can link info to historical context or to a discussion or story (bless her, while working on certain sounds that were tripping him up they ended up doing a brief study of Native Americans. It helped him with the sounds and to stay engaged).

Bingo.  This is how ds will be.  Maybe *slow down* DL, do it in a hands-on way, and then use something that focuses on the history, like the 100 Words books I linked, to give you once or twice a week something more interesting?  So then it would be like covering a bunch and going in-depth on some.  Or maybe there's something more alive?  Even the Red Hot Root Words is still pretty fixed.  

 

The ideas of DL aren't so bad.  They just don't give you enough tools.  Their magic squares would actually work and the stairs would work with manipulatives.  No stories though, no videos, no background.

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It's the dry as dust that's getting me.  That DL is so dry, it's just a desert.   :eek:   Ds needs hands-on, narrative, something engaging, so DL would require an extreme, extreme amount of modification.  I can think of ways to do it, but wow they managed to strip all the joy and interest out.  There's use of images for the roots, nothing.

That info was more for FairP.  These programs are designed for students that have completed phonics instruction and are reading for comprehension.  

 

The very expensive link with the flash cards and pictures looks the best for your purposes.

 

ETA..Wait, I reread the thread.  You ordered it.  Fabulous!  It looks very good for what you need.

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Bingo.  This is how ds will be.  Maybe *slow down* DL, do it in a hands-on way, and then use something that focuses on the history, like the 100 Words books I linked, to give you once or twice a week something more interesting?  So then it would be like covering a bunch and going in-depth on some.  Or maybe there's something more alive?  Even the Red Hot Root Words is still pretty fixed.  

 

The ideas of DL aren't so bad.  They just don't give you enough tools.  Their magic squares would actually work and the stairs would work with manipulatives.  No stories though, no videos, no background.

And now we know why the O-G tutors get trained, work with their own kids, and then tutor others once their children are older.  The prep is unbelievable.  

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What about MCT's stuff?  Caesar's English.  Or the lower level - Building Language.  Very accessible to young kids, but shows how English words are built from Latin (and also shows relation to Spanish).

 

I have heard of this Word Works program.  It seems to be just what you are interested in - but I haven't used it.

 

http://www.wordworkskingston.com/WordWorks/Home.html

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Incognito-WordWorks looks good (at least what I'm seeing so far), but I'm sorta having trouble figuring out how you actually buy it...  Is there a physical product or only workshops?  There's a teacher's resource guide, but where do you get that?  And are there student workbooks or something as well?

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See where I got lost was the Real Spellers thing.  So Word Works wants you to buy their teacher resource guide (only $25) and at some point that Real Spellers disc 2?  Or is that Real Spellers thing a later supplement and not essential?

 

Where ds is right now, the methodology here http://wordsinbogor.blogspot.ca/2013/05/you-can-teach-morphology-to-young.html and http://wordsinbogor.blogspot.ca/2014/04/teaching-morphology-in-early-years-more.html would be appropriate.  So she's making these activities herself using the guidance in the resource guide? Has anybody bought this to know if it's worthwhile?  Not like I'm rushing, but when the time seems right her methodology seems on.

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I only briefly saw the teacher's guide in real life.  I think you can email the people who wrote it for clarification, though.  You order directly from them, and I gather it is a passion of theirs, so I bet they would be happy to explain it to you (and then you can tell us what they said :)).

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What about MCT's stuff?  Caesar's English.  Or the lower level - Building Language.  Very accessible to young kids, but shows how English words are built from Latin (and also shows relation to Spanish).

 

I have heard of this Word Works program.  It seems to be just what you are interested in - but I haven't used it.

 

http://www.wordworkskingston.com/WordWorks/Home.html

 

We did all of Building Language and it was too basic with too few affixes. Older ds knew all of these prior to reading the book and I didn't feel it wasn't multi-sensory enough to engage a visual/spatial dyslexic. There was just nothing to do with the material other than read the book aloud. Caesar's English 1 was too verbally focused for our needs and I didn't bother to buy anything after that.

 

I think I have Dynamic Literacy Foundations 1 lying around but it is too far below older ds. Actually, Elements is the one that looks like it would be a better fit for him.

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This makes a lot of sense. Has anyone mentioned Apples and Pears as a morpheme-based spelling program? We have only just started using it, so we aren't seeing that aspect yet, but I understand that the morpheme approach becomes more prominent in the later books. 

 

DS has the combination of dyslexia and high verbal ability, so I am trying to find a good balance for language arts. I am intrigued by the MCT materials. 

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Thanks for all this discussion. I was just over in AL asking about some light hearted Latin/Greek origins and got the rummy roots game. DS is so verbal and we zip through vocabulary for grades above him. I figure why wait for a year or two to introduce the basics? It will be part of our vocab words. And it helps with so many words to help clarify meaning and origin. I'm looking forward to browsing this thread more closely.

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(Disclaimer: I'm not as educated on dyslexia as you folks are, but . . . )

 

King Alfred's English is a very entertaining history of the development of the English language, and provides a remarkably succinct "story" of how we got this language of ours. She doesn't go into deep morphological explanations and connections, but gives several logical, interesting, and well-told "connections" that can bring language & history alive, even for a kid who is not intrinsically interested, per se.

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Displace, when you pick something, share. :)

ðŸ‘. I already received the rummy roots card game. It's a card game with a greek/Latin root base. It looks fine. I wanted something quick and easy to just expand vocab, not for spelling. But the article is discussing more intimate knowledge for discussion of spelling and reading. I will need something else for that and I think DS may do well with it. We approached some of it with wh and w and how people used to say /hw/ in wh words. But I haven't taught spelling that way really. I'm a tad concerned if I ask him to spell /h-wen/ for when it will be difficult to transfer spelling in the real word and remember to spell /wen/ as when without the verbal cue.

 

But I need to research more. I tend to just google as our phonics rules are still basic enough but as they get more complicated it's nice to have an explanation. We just finished ph says /f/. I should study and explain it more. It would be good to have (another) reference book, I guess. 😀

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Following this thread with interest. Barton does cover some of this but DS especially thrives on a historical and/or narrative tie in. As his tutor told me yesterday he's a sponge if she can link info to historical context or to a discussion or story (bless her, while working on certain sounds that were tripping him up they ended up doing a brief study of Native Americans. It helped him with the sounds and to stay engaged).

hmmm, no dyslexia diagnosis here but this is ds to a T.

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(Disclaimer: I'm not as educated on dyslexia as you folks are, but . . . )

 

King Alfred's English is a very entertaining history of the development of the English language, and provides a remarkably succinct "story" of how we got this language of ours. She doesn't go into deep morphological explanations and connections, but gives several logical, interesting, and well-told "connections" that can bring language & history alive, even for a kid who is not intrinsically interested, per se.

Something like this may be good for us if it describes some individual words. I make up sight word stories to memorize spelling, but what if they came already with a historical story?

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Dd asked me the same thing, why I would want to teach conversational spanish to ds instead of latin.  I just assumed a conversational language (done exclusively that way) would be better than a written language.  On the other hand, he has a much better processing speed than dd.  He might actually be able to do latin.  And his np report said that if we ever wanted to do a language to do latin or ASL.  

 

Dunno.  I just figured going conversational and skipping all the reading would trump that, but I hear you about the value of the latin roots and stuff.

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I asked several times around the board about Spanish vs. Latin for someone who is dyslexic and never got a real good response.

 

I was never able to make a solid decision, so we're proceeding with Spanish this year. I'm going to reevaluate next year. I decided on the complete opposite end of the spectrum in regard to our Spanish study this year. While DD has a good memory, it has become clear that she cannot read Spanish at all. It's all been memorization where every word is a sight word, so to speak. She's great at matching English to Spanish words and matching pictures to Spanish words, but when she forgets how to pronounce a word, she's at a compete loss. I've decided to focus our entire year teaching DD how to phonetically read Spanish. Without having native speakers to converse and practice with, I figured this would be the most helpful to her.

 

Dd asked me the same thing, why I would want to teach conversational spanish to ds instead of latin.  I just assumed a conversational language (done exclusively that way) would be better than a written language.  On the other hand, he has a much better processing speed than dd.  He might actually be able to do latin.  And his np report said that if we ever wanted to do a language to do latin or ASL.  

 

Dunno.  I just figured going conversational and skipping all the reading would trump that, but I hear you about the value of the latin roots and stuff.

 

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Funny about languages. We live in a high Spanish speaking area and to be able to speak Spanish is really helpful just for talking to people on a daily basis, not just for work in the future. And DH is fluent, which hasn't yet been helpful but I can still hope. I took Latin in college and ended up dropping he course because I felt it was not helpful. Idk a good answer. I think we will try conversational Spanish with Latin roots as a supplement.

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We're going to use Excavating English as part of our LA curriculum this year for DD13.    It's a gentle intro to linguistics in a kid-friendly (ages 10+) format.  It was written by Ellen McHenry's sister, but has the same illustrations and hand's-on activities as in McHenry's science curricula.

 

While it doesn't go into a huge amount of detail regarding morphology and spelling, it does have that narrative aspect and talks about why certain parts of our modern English are the way they are.  More of a general overview than specifics, but we'll likely follow this with some word - history books like the ones OhE listed above.

 

 

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We're going to use Excavating English as part of our LA curriculum this year for DD13.    It's a gentle intro to linguistics in a kid-friendly (ages 10+) format.  It was written by Ellen McHenry's sister, but has the same illustrations and hand's-on activities as in McHenry's science curricula.

 

While it doesn't go into a huge amount of detail regarding morphology and spelling, it does have that narrative aspect and talks about why certain parts of our modern English are the way they are.  More of a general overview than specifics, but we'll likely follow this with some word - history books like the ones OhE listed above.

 

I was just coming over here to ask about this program! We will be using one of Ellen McHenry's science units this year, and I saw Excavating English on her website. I would be interested in hearing how it goes for you. :)

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I'm thinking about this more after yesterday's reading lesson. We have been working on LiPS for about five months now, and while it has worked magic in helping P in distinguish f/v from th/th, he still has a lot of trouble with st and ts. He can't hear the difference, and he can't figure out the separate sounds in /ts/ because his tongue doesn't tap before it forms the skinny air sound. We've tried lots of things--slowing it down, putting it together and pulling it apart, memorizing that the beatboxing cymbal sound is /ts/  :laugh:  but he was getting so frustrated we backed off for a while. Yesterday I tried something new. What are the sounds in vest.....vets? Utter frustration. New approach: spell the jacket with no sleeves. V E S T. Spell two animal doctors. V E T S. He needs meaning for EVERYTHING. 

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