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Vocabulary suggestion for 14 y.o. 2E dyslexic?


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What programs should I look at? Programs like Word Within the Word are far too much straight memorization. Ds writes fairly competently and spells so well you wouldn't know he was dyslexic anymore. He will be completing WWS for writing. Anything based on morphology for early high school age? Vocabulary is his weakest language area at this point.

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We don't right now because he is in private school and has a commute but he listens to audiobooks and I read aloud for hours when we homeschooled. The problem is that ds does not intuit the meaning of words from context. He never has. He comes right out and asks me the meaning (and pronunciation) of various words if I'm around. He just does not think in words. That's why I think it might be best to study vocabulary didactically.

 

His reading level is also super high now. As he gets older iit is much easier to see how he functions as a stealth dyslexic. His English teacher just thinks he is lazy because it takes him a longer time to read and write. All to say, finding a books above his reading level is tough as he reads adult level fiction and non-fiction. He just misses pieces due to vocab issues.

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Maybe he would like the vocabulary feature on Kindles to look words up as he reads them. It does take WiFi sometimes. It is nice for me!

 

From what I understand, writing for younger kids is written in a way, often, where it’s possible to figure out vocabulary words from context. Then that goes away in stuff written for older people.

 

There are programs to help kids learn vocabulary from context, but my impression is it’s not going to work for stuff written at a higher reading level the way it does for things written more for younger kids.

 

The kindle vocabulary feature has something where you can study vocabulary words you have looked up, but I don’t know how it works. I haven’t used it.

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Another thing I have read for autism is that kids who are very visual will learn vocabulary words more easily with a picture than with a verbal definition.

 

Also there are graphic organizers to use to visually show the relationship between words.

 

It might help for a visual learner.

 

I don’t know if any programs, stuff I have seen is more where you have ideas for how to make your own to go with whatever vocabulary or content words are being studied.

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First, I am outraged that his English teacher thinks he is lazy. Does she know that he has dyslexia?

 

Secondly, you might look for a vocab program that teaches word roots. Because learning one root word, and understanding the meaning of prefixes and suffixes, can then help him derive the meaning of any longer word that contains it. I know DD12's dyslexia school teaches word roots, because it provides a way to unlock the meaning of unknown words without having to memorize every word individually.

 

I don't have a suggestion of which program to use, because my kids are enrolled in school. But I'm sure you can find recommendations for word root vocabulary programs.

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My daughter did not explicitly learn vocab from reading until I taught her how.  I build up her vocab with the 1879 McGuffey readers, having her read the vocab definitions before and after the passage and talking about how she could have figured out the words on her own, eventually she could just read them on her own and eventually just checked a few words after if she was unsure, it was a gradual process, though.  I started at a level where she did not know many of the defined words, it was several years below her reading level because many of the words were archaic or interesting choices for the grade level. 

 

My word root bingo is a fun way to make the memorization easier and more fun, and I read out sample words and talk about them while playing.  There are 32 Latin and 32 Greek roots to start, you could add more, links 2- 4 in the teacher folder of my syllables program:

 

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

 

Even if he never figured out how to figure out a word from context, the McGuffey readers introduce a lot of vocab, reading the definitions before and after the passage would be a way to learn more words in a more natural manner.

Edited by ElizabethB
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