Dyslexia remediation in an older kid

[Kanin]

I'm looking for a good way to introduce reading remediation to a 12 year old boy who has had pretty negative experiences with school and is now REALLY emotional about reading. I can do my usual spiel about how having a hard time with reading doesn't mean you're stupid, how people with dyslexia have lots of cool strengths, creative thinking, etc. I was thinking of using the analogy of a foundation of a house - being aware of each sound in a word is like the foundation of the house, and once that's in place we can go on to build the rest of the house...?

 

His phonemic awareness is low, his ability to separate sounds, blend and manipulate sounds is low, so I'm planning on starting with LiPS. It's so unusual that I think he may be on board, and I'm fairly sure it's just what he needs, but I'm still concerned about the emotional buy-in. Has anyone had any good/bad experiences with selling reading remediation to a pre-teen?

I'm looking for a good way to introduce the remediation - I can do my usual spiel about how having a hard time with reading doesn't mean you're stupid, how people with dyslexia usually have lots of strengths, etc. I was thinking of using the analogy of a foundation of a house - being aware of each sound in a word is like the foundation of the house...?

[Hilltopmom]

We used Dancing Bears at 11 since it wasn't babyish at all, but still got lots of "this is baby work" back talk. But yeah. We pushed through it cuz it was necessary.

She's reading chapter books now finally at 13:)

[Mandamom]

I've worked with several middle schoolers with below a 2nd grade reading level and usually if I teach them more as an adult and respect them, I can get their emotional buy in (even if their parents are paying and requiring them to attend tutoring sessions). Once they start achieving some success, the buy-in gets easier. I try to avoid babyish activities -- selecting material without a lot of pictures but ensuring that I had leveled materials.

 

You do have the right idea. Explain what you are doing and why to give them control in the learning. In my case, I usually meet the student for the first time when the parents after their parents have hired me and I just tell them that I'm there to help. Usually I get positive feedback and I can build from there. 

 

 

[OneStepAtATime]

Do you already own LiPS?  If not, you might look at Foundations in Sound.  It seems to be organized in a much easier fashion to implement. 

 

I agree with the others, treat them as the older child that they are.  

 

DD was actually turning 12 when we started homeschooling her and began reading remediation.  She was incredibly demoralized and fought back emotionally.  She did not believe she could learn to read.  The school (and me) had been trying to teach her for 7 years with little true forward progress.  Its hard to believe something will work when it never has before.  I knew I was going to have to tread carefully and convince her to try one more time.

 

First, I read up on the current thinking with Dyslexia, including the Dyslexic Advantage, then I approached her with trying to learn to read again.  I told her that I finally understood a bit better how her brain worked, I shared some of what I had read, and that the school and even me had NOT been teaching her the way her brain needed to learn.  I explained that we were going to start over with a different way that was actually designed for her type of brain.  It wouldn't be easy because her brain was very confused by all the input from before but if she was willing to work with me she could genuinely learn to read.

 

Although this has not been the easiest of roads DD is definitely reading well now and she has been willing to work through some really tricky areas because she sees improvement every single day.  We use Barton.  Not babyish.  Level 1 she balked at because it seemed so simple but I just reminded her we were having to start over to overwrite the confusing, unhelpful instruction she had gotten for all those years.  It helped her to see it that way.

Edited August 20, 2016 by OneStepAtATime

[displace]

No personal experiences, but maybe a frank discussion that dyslexia means X, and the teachers before didn't know that student couldn't learn the way they were teaching. People with dyslexia need a specific Y approach to reading. Student may or may not know the lesson or feel it's too simplistic for teaching but it's important to cover everything so your brain relearns how to read properly (or learn for the first time). And perhaps discuss realistic goals, like becoming a "better dyslexic reader" vs a "great reader", and how that sometimes means the reader has to act like a spy decoder WRT reading.

 

Eta- dyslexic advantage YouTube site has a bunch of videos from different people who have dyslexia, or search for news articles of famous people with dyslexia. I'd search for someone the student can relate to (career goal wise or celebrity wise), to show them examples of people he may look up to and didn't realize has dyslexia. It may be encouraging.

Edited August 20, 2016 by displace

[Heathermomster]

I visited the local dyslexia school and met with the director after DS was diagnosed.  Many of the kids there were pulled from ps and experienced trauma from failure in the classroom.  (I hate that term failure in the classroom.  They were failed by their teachers.)  Anyhoo..At the beginning of the school year and especially with new students, the school taught a class about the brain so that the kids understood their reading difficulties better.  The kids completed a poster style project and then taught their family the information.

 

These kids are intelligent and I think it is important to be both honest and realistic.  Retraining the brain and addressing the visual/auditory challenges take time and may be difficult; however, it is possible to learn to read with the appropriate instruction.  If this child needs LIPs and never had it, then it makes perfect sense that he was not reading.  Good luck with your student.  

Edited August 20, 2016 by Heathermomster

[Kanin]

I do have LIPS, and have used it before so I'm going to stick with that. I am curious about foundations of sound though - it would be interesting to compare it to LiPS. 

 

I like the idea of saying that we need to re-train your brain after all the confusing information it's gotten over the years - no judgement, just that most teachers haven't learned how to teach dyslexic students.

 

Thanks for the reminder of realistic goals - definitely need some short-term (CVC words fluently) and long term  - use my skills so I can be like so-and-so.

 

I'm okay with fighting back against reading at first - definitely justified under the circumstances. I personally quit trying to make good cookies because they came out horribly every time - and wasted all my time and ingredients - maybe I should give it another go!

[OneStepAtATime]

I do have LIPS, and have used it before so I'm going to stick with that. I am curious about foundations of sound though - it would be interesting to compare it to LiPS. 

 

I like the idea of saying that we need to re-train your brain after all the confusing information it's gotten over the years - no judgement, just that most teachers haven't learned how to teach dyslexic students.

 

Thanks for the reminder of realistic goals - definitely need some short-term (CVC words fluently) and long term  - use my skills so I can be like so-and-so.

 

I'm okay with fighting back against reading at first - definitely justified under the circumstances. I personally quit trying to make good cookies because they came out horribly every time - and wasted all my time and ingredients - maybe I should give it another go!

Yeah I wish someone could do a point by point comparison after they have used both systems.  I am very interested in feedback for this since at some point I may tutor for a bit of additional income on the side.  Also, I may be tutoring a family member eventually and they may end up needing LiPS or a system like it.  Mom owns LiPS but found it challenging to implement (but that may have just been a grandma trying to teach a very active, gifted grandson who has trouble staying focused).

[Kanin]

OneStep, I'm with you - I find LiPS to be pretty easy BUT... I don't do all the steps exactly as they are laid out in the manual. :) The progression is mouth pictures to colored blocks to letter tiles, but for kids that already struggle with working memory, I'm not so sure if the colored blocks step is so helpful. With my last LiPS student, we first built the word with pictures (ap = smile + popper), and then went straight into building the word with tiles. It worked fine, although I don't know if doing the colored blocks would have been even better. We constantly talked about what he was feeling in his mouth which really helped too. We also did the Seeing Stars air-writing at the same time, so it was a big mashup of methods. Because I added/subtracted so many things, it's hard to single out what was the most helpful. Oh well!

[Citrusheights5]

I find that telling them that because you are retraining it is hard and it hurts and is no reflection of their ability helps as qell. Once they've been defeated for so long, those same feelings will come up and it is almost a trigger that reminds them if school failures.

Buy in at this age usually comes from the ability to do something they want. For my son it was to read skematicss instructions. I know another kid was determined to learn sports theory. Another was to be able to read a repair manual. Once the ball was in motion keeping in rolling was good.

[ElizabethB]

Syllable division and multi syllable words early. I like the grade level arranged words in Webster, they like to see progression through grade levels. When I added in multi syllable words to my tutoring, it really helped the confidence of my older students, and, as a bonus, got my students to much higher grade levels than when I used conventional phonics materials meant for a younger child.

[ElizabethB]

The first minute and a half of my phonics lesson one actually talks about building the foundation of a house and then shows a house with building blocks of letters, then syllables, then two syllable words, then 2+ syllable words.

 

http://www.thephonicspage.org/iPodmovies/ipodlsn1.html

Edited August 22, 2016 by ElizabethB

[ElizabethB]

Good lego block illustration of why blending is hard, scroll down to allophones:

 

http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Reading/blendingwords.html

 

ETA: And pics and explanation from my dyslexia page, scroll dow to the atomic nature of syllables:

 

http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Reading/dyslexia.html

Edited August 22, 2016 by ElizabethB

[PeterPan]

OneStep, I'm with you - I find LiPS to be pretty easy BUT... I don't do all the steps exactly as they are laid out in the manual. :) The progression is mouth pictures to colored blocks to letter tiles, but for kids that already struggle with working memory, I'm not so sure if the colored blocks step is so helpful. With my last LiPS student, we first built the word with pictures (ap = smile + popper), and then went straight into building the word with tiles. It worked fine, although I don't know if doing the colored blocks would have been even better. We constantly talked about what he was feeling in his mouth which really helped too. We also did the Seeing Stars air-writing at the same time, so it was a big mashup of methods. Because I added/subtracted so many things, it's hard to single out what was the most helpful. Oh well!

 

I would say this is ideal!  That's what we did, buildign the words with the faces.  We brought in our speech therapy (a very hands-on methodology) as well, so we were saying it, seeing it, feeling.  We did the tiles, but yes we then did trades and traded colored tiles for letter tiles.  That's why I always say that I blended LIPS and Barton 1, because that's what we did.  

[Kanin]

Thanks ElizabethB! I like the idea of introducing 2-syllable words early on. He'll love that I'm sure.

 

OhE, thanks for the encouragement... sometimes I feel like I have no idea what I'm doing, but it's nice to know that other people think it's ok. :)

[PeterPan]

Mainer, it's MORE than ok.  It shows you're intuitive, that you get WHY you need to do it that way, and that you go BEYOND the materials to make sure you're connecting with their brain.  It's the ultimate multi-sensory you're doing, when you take what you're trying to do cognitively in their heads and give them a virtual thinkboard with manipulatives.  I was shocked how little multi-sensory clutter I saw lying around the $$$$$$$$$$$ tutoring place I visited.  Now they get results with their kids, fine, happy for them.  But my ds really NEEDED that uber hands-on, multi-sensory, virtual thinkboard with manipulatives kind of approach.  Now that he has a bit more sense of alphabetical order and isn't flipping out, he really likes the Barton app too.  Well like is too strong, lol.  He's proficient and can do the work, lol.

 

I just think it's the next step you go to, from the curriculum said this so I did it, to the concept of the lesson was this but I know my student needed...  So you go girl!   :thumbup1:

[PeterPan]

Oh, I missed that about the multi-syllable words.  Yes, we did LIPS and Barton 1 and 2 skills using multi-syllable and longer words.  I knew that my student, because of his ASD and generalization issues, was not going to "generalize" the concepts from the LIPS and Barton 1, done with CVC, to longer words and multi-syllables.  I knew I was going to need to carry it forward, or we'd get to Barton 3 and 4 and have to backtrack.  

 

So yes, build longer words using these hands-on methodologies if you think that's your student.  We did compound words.  We did plurals.  We did longer words like "plunk" or "stump".  We even worked up to simple multi-syllable words like "sister."  Remember, we've taught /er/ already in LIPS and Barton 1, yes?  Check, but I think I *did* teach r-controlled sounds.  So once I have those chunks, anything I can make with them is fair game, kwim?  And we're actually reinforcing a REALLY important concept there, that multi-letter phonograms are to be accepted as a whole and not broken apart.  It makes the logic of the bigger chunks (all, oll, ild, etc.) make more sense.