One of my friends just told me her son did vision exercises for right-to-left scanning (or something like that -- to go from one line of text to the next line of text). She said that besides the exercises they also did I Spy books. How wonderful it is working!

The best thing for my son was using letter tiles (with AAS -- but any would do). Then we would have words with the short vowel sound, and then add e to make the long vowel sound. So we had rat/rate, mat/mate, hat/hate, cut/cute...etc. That is what helped him. He took a while to understand the concept of it. He took a while to get solid with just adding e to the end of a cvc word. Then, he needed to practice reading individual words for a while, before starting to read words in text.

My son received an improvement award. It can be for high achievement or improvement. It is special to us -- we have the certificate up in the living room. He went from failing Dibels screening and not doing well in anything pre-reading or reading all through K, to starting K in the lowest reading group and going to an extra session of reading in another room for the bottom 3 kids in the class, to meeting the grade level goals. He has worked very hard this year. He is not concerned with grades per se but I am very happy he was noticed by his teacher and got some recognization. I also was passed over for behavior awards when I was a child. My Mom told me that I didn't need to be rewarded, but some kids were working very hard to behave and deserved some positive attention, while it was not difficult for me. I don't think it is a great method though. At my son's school they have a reward for positive character but it goes to an entire class. They are big on doing class projects for 4th-6th grade, so I don't know much about it, with my oldest child in 1st grade.

Just going to say -- we had a similar experience last year with pre-reading skills in K. They were happy to say what he couldn't do and give worksheets he couldn't do. But -- to sit and work with him? They did not know what would work. I did have some guidance from them -- I knew from them he was poor in learning the letter names and sounds, phonemic awareness (knowing first and last sounds in a word, rhyming), and blending. They were just like -- he can't do it. We give him the worksheets and he doesn't do them. Although -- I liked a lot of things about his K teacher and she did teach these things so that other kids understood them. But -- commisserating, and saying my son is doing a lot better now that I am working with him one-on-one and have researched how to teach him. I have my own doubts still and everything is not perfect, but still it is like night and day.

All referrals with our insurance go through the pediatrician. She would be helpful in knowing what to call it, I think. But -- not sure.

My son's school does Math in Focus. I think it is a good program.

I am heavily involved in my son's reading and spelling in 1st grade. I sit with him while he reads and help him, and for spelling, he needs to have a lot of the words explained to him. He is starting to do many pieces of this on his own but not all. So -- I am asking him what is tricky about a word, what spelling pattern is in a word, how he sounds it out, how he can remember it. This week his tricky words were more, here, and about. He is not a natural speller, lol. Telling him copy his words to practice does nothing for him. He just copies the letters, iykwim. He can do math homework by himself no problem, but he doesn't get much -- his teacher told me at conference that she would like me to concentrate on helping him with reading b/c that is his weak area, and he is doing well in math at school. I am planning to do Rightstart Math Level B with him soon, though. Definitely we are doing it this summer.

I am not saying that it is the problem, but being able to re-read words could mean he is figuring the words out from context. How he reads a list of words or nonsense words would show you that better. I just say that b/c my son can "figure out" words in context that he cannot sound out. To a point that is fine and good, but for him I know he is still working on phonics. Also, how old is he? Also, have you tried to make his Quranic memorizing multisensory in some way? That is what I have found I need to do with my son, though I am still early on trying different things. Have you read Overcoming Dyslexia? I think it is very worthwhile. I would read it before thinking about doing an eval, b/c it will make you more knowledgable going in, if you decide to do it. There are other books, too, but that is the top one for me. edit: Not just phonics, but that kind of thing.

Thanks!

That sounds like a really good technique. I am just starting to look at visual memory. My son was doing speech therapy for sh at the same time we were doing The Shell and something she did was to have cards with a word with either s or sh, and she would hold up the card and say the word, and he had to put it in the s or sh pile. I think that helped him. (She had him look at her mouth and talked about how the sounds were made differently -- that is what I think is like Lips.) My son is starting to read words without sounding them out (yay!) but there are some stubborn words and I think I am going to try flashcards. I am thinking of want, him, had, the, were, there, went and some others like that. He is reading "them" without sounding it out now, and that is exciting. So I have thought maybe just let him keep sounding out these words a million times. But really he probably needs focused work on them and it will help him a lot these words show up so much. I will look at that app, too, thanks for the recommendation :)

Oh, I am glad my son liked I See Sam. BRI 2 Book 5 The Shell was a little bit of a nightmare but he got through it and it did help him. Sell/Shell was a big problem for him.

My son is often confusing "he" and "the" and "had" -- he confuses all 3 of them. He still makes mistakes with "and." He gets them right sometimes but he does miss either "the" or "and" probably every times he reads, at least once. But he is doing well! He is getting better! It is okay! I mean, it is not good, but it is not gloom. My son would not recognize his name in print when he was not expecting to see it -- it would be his name, and he would be sitting and taking a while to sound it out. Some things I think just take time.

p.s. Thanks for that link! It is very good. I spent a lot of time on the Dibels website (b/c my son failed Dibels screening all through K... he has passed the first two of 1st grade since I started working with him effectively!) and they have the same "big 5" skills but they don't explain them as well. Maybe I can start to use phonological awareness and phonemic awareness correctly, lol.

My understanding is that Abecedarian is a Phono-Grafix type program. That is the one whose Level B I am going to start soon (after my son is more solid... but it won't be long... I look at on-line samples of it). The book Reading Reflex is also about Phono-Grafix. I think it is a great book. I did not have success using the games from the book with my son, though. I think now that the squares of paper were too flimsy. He just did so good with the letter tiles from AAS doing the same types of activities. But, I started very easy with just VC words like am, at, it, up for him to have success. I thought he should get the answer after one time, too -- which was my mistake. He needed a lot of modelling. It was harder for him than I realized, while at the same time he was capable of it with repetition and modeling. I still look back at Reading Reflex fairly often.

http://www.abcdrp.com/docs/ABCD_WABS_02.pdf This is just another source I looked at for blending. I didn't actually do it but it was this kind of thing. But -- it is also like AAR and AAS I think. Something I have seen is that kids can memorize words, without learning to blend, and so to get around that they will use nonsense words, like "ig." It is just something I see mentioned. The I See Sam yahoogroup I am on recommends using a notched index card and only showing one sound at a time. You are being very explicit and showing them just what you want them to do. My son will freeze sometimes and if I prompt him with the first sound and wait he can get un-stuck a lot of the time. If not -- I will go ahead and say the sounds for the words and see if he can blend them into the word. I think that really different things work for different kids. They can have the same outward behavior but for many different reasons. That is how you get two kids doing the same thing, but one thing works for one but doesn't work for the other. I have not done an evaluation for my son b/c I do think he is doing well with multi-sensory and very explicit teaching and modeling, now that I have found it. But I tried several things that have helped other children, that didn't work for him. I would hope an evaluation could prevent this trial and error, though. But, as people say, a reading specialist will not look at eyes like an opthamologist trained in vision therapy would, that is not their training or background. When I saw phonemic awareness I really mean the ability to blend and segment. That was the problem for my son, lol. So that is what I will always mention.

If she is weak on phonemic awareness I think it is worth it to stay on phonemic awareness, but using real letters and letter tiles.... I say this b/c my son could not do phonemic awareness at all orally until after we started with letter tiles and lots of modeling. Now he could do a pull-down of markers when segmenting a word (one for each sound) but with non-letter markers he couldn't do it, until after I had modelled it many many times with markers. But -- it is supposed to be better to do it without letters first I guess. My son did private speech therapy over the summer and I looked into Lips a little ----- and it looks like it is very similar to things he does in speech. It has helped him. He is much better about knowing which of several similar-sounding sounds are in a word now. Much, much better. I think it works. I haven't done it myself though b/c my husband's insurance pays for it. I don't really know what is going on with my son's articulation right now (today) but it seems like he heard sounds as the same sound and then only learned to say one of the sounds, maybe. Who knows. He is much better now but his biggest thing is that he says "d" and "t" instead of "g" and "k." This is called fronting -- he would make the sounds in the front of his mouth instead of the back, and never said "k" and "g" at all until he started being taught in speech at age 4. I would wonder if he even had a concept of K being separate from T. He still makes mistakes but he is much better and I credit the speech therapy. But I am feeling frustrated about it at this moment. I am mentioning that b/c I read a book about auditory processing disorder and it had a little bit about kids who say "d" instead of other letters. It was for one little kind of apd. Well -- my son had no symptoms of any of the other types (where background noise sounds loud is one I remember). So if it is that kind of apd for your daughter, probably my son was not very bad if he had it at all, but I think speech therapy has been good for him. At the same time he is making slow progress with it in some ways and I am frustrated. My son is someone who has made steady progress, slow and with a lot lot lot of repetition, but steady, since he got the hang of phonemic awareness. I don't think he is severe if he has dyslexia -- he doesn't fit a lot of dyslexia things, only the things related to speech articulation (which includes phonemic awareness for him). I bought Barton 1 and watched the videos. That was very worthwhile for me. Very, very worthwhile. But then I did things from her program with AAS tiles and real words. My son is not a memorizer (at ALL) so I don't have to worry about him memorizing. I don't need to do nonsense words. For kids who might be memorizing they recommend to use nonsense words. But with my son not being a memorizer I don't do them. We have done the first 3 levels of I See Sam and he is at the level of the 4th set, but now he is hanging out at that level and consolidating -- just with reading with me from books. I pick out sentences he is able to read and he reads them. He is not ready to move on and needs the practice. I am getting ready for Abecedarian Level B for him. It looks like it will be good for him. I don't think my son is severe enough for Barton or Dancing Bears now that he is through phonemic awareness. I think they look very good. There is a yahoogroup called heart of reading that talks a lot about barton and wilson. I found some good information there.

I really just like to cruise through and look at anything about reading. I look on the K-8 and find some useful tidbits, but more importantly I can see that time I spent doing things that did not work..... I was not doing anything wrong. I was doing things that work for a lot of people. At this point I know very well that those methods are not right for my son but there was no way to know that ahead of time. I also have two younger kids, and one of them seems like he will also need specialized teaching. I did eclectic things with my older son so I am having thoughts of doing a specific curriculum with my younger son. He will be home with me the year he is 5 for sure. Maybe b/c my son left Kindergarten with no ability to blend or segment AT ALL I don't have the same feeling of thinking I am doing something wrong. He had a good teacher and she did phonemic awareness activities with him but he could not understand any of it. So -- no illusions here that someone else could do better with him. I am a huge believer now in the power of a mother.

I am skipping to the bottom. Just my own experience. First, public school is probably not equipped to help with reading. My son is in public school and it is a good thing for our family ---- but they cannot teach him to read. I could go into detail on this (and would if you are interested) but really, a) they don't know how to teach *him* and b) they don't have the resources to work with him one on one. Second, my son is currently reading (just) at grade level at age 6. Once I took it on myself to find a method that will work with him and spend time with him one-on-one he has blossomed. His problem is articulation, and he has had confusion of consonant sounds and other similar-sounding sounds. Speech therapy has helped him with hearing the sounds, and he is making progress in his actual speech, but I think right now he needs more or different on that. My son had big problems with phonemic awareness and required lots of one-on-one time with specific methods (stuff everyone knows about here -- using tiles, going over and over segmenting and blending, doing the thing where you go cat cot pot pat pan man men ten). I can't imagine how long it would take the school to give him 60 hours of one-on-one time or how long it would take them to find the right method. But as a parent I did that with him -- one hour/day for 2 months. It is a mind-blowing amount of time for a school to spend one-on-one but not for a parent. (That is what it took, more or less, for him to go from knowing his letter sounds pretty well to sounding out a cvc word and being able to segment a cvc word. He is making faster progress now but still he needs much more repetition and review than they have at school, including the time he spent in tier 1 pull-out earlier this year.... the pull-out was good in its way but if I relied on that it would never be enough, and right now he is a little above the level of getting that pull-out.) For information I liked the books Parenting Your Struggling Reader and Overcoming Dyslexia, they are both available at my library. They will have some info for things to look for in pre-school, so you can work on it or let your mind be at ease. Overcoming Dyslexia is a better book but I do like them both. edit -- I have read through now and personally I agree with the people who recommend starting to research O-G methods now and planning to work them in.

Yeah, I have been happy with his progress since June, compared to his progress the year before....... but it is still kind-of crappy progress. I am not worried about him being bullied or teased right now and that has let me quit focusing on it. I am looking into this.

Okay, I am going to look again. I looked once before and it didn't sound like him. But, I have heard from another person (off this board) that it sounds like apraxia to her, too. However -- he is making good progress in private speech right now! But -- they do say they usually see kids make a lot faster progress with articulation. Also -- they say he "should" be less intelligible with his specific articulation things, but he uses words that will be understood, and so that makes him more intelligible. edit: he did have a language evaluation in June so I have thought that meant he just had articulation edit 2: I have looked again and I don't think he has apraxia. He started speech therapy when he was 4, made a little progress, made very little progress in K (with group speech), got recommended for private speech, started that in June -- and he has made progress since June. I am going to ask, though. And look through his testing evaluation.

And, the in-home SLP sounds great!!!! I hope she is a great fit for your daughter!

Not at all! I think it is a consideration though -- that you may not be able to duplicate what a speech therapist does. My son did not produce some sounds so he had to be taught to produce them. I am not able to prompt him. To prompt him the speech therapist might point at her throat or point at her mouth and have him repeat. For some sounds she might have him hold his throat and hold his tongue down with a tongue depressor to try to make those sounds. (He did not make K and G sounds ever until he got into speech and it was very difficult for him to learn.) He was having some tantrums when I couldn't understand what he was saying. At the same time, he is very good, that if I model a sound, he will try to say it. I am supposed to be positive whether he says it correctly or not, but let him know when he does say it correctly. He did not go there -- but for a little while they were afraid he would quit talking. He had some starting signs of this, and that was another reason. Now if I have to ask him to repeat himself he will repeat himself, but for a little while he was saying, "no, it's not important." Not good. So basically a) it can be an emotionally fraught subject and b) either he will repeat a modeled word, or not, but I am not able to actually prompt him in the way the SLPs can. Right now he is 6 and his intelligibility is about 80%. But he has made huge gains in the past year or so (with private speech and also some things just coming together). He is still in the bottom 10% for articulation and this summer when he was tested his articulation age equivalent was 2 years 11 months. edit: In the summer when he did testing, when he started the private speech, age 6 -- he had Oral Language Expression 98% and Articulation less than 10th percentile. The Expression is what his expression would have been if people could understand what he was saying. So -- very frustrating for him to try to talk!

My son's private speech is paid for by insurance, but I think it would be $75/hour if we paid. We get a billing statement and our insurance is billed $75/hour. They have told me only to model correct speech, not to directly work with him. This is b/c he was practicing errors with me, b/c I could not get him to make the correct sound. I don't know anyone else who has been told this.

I attend a church that is a member of the UCC conference. I am happy with our church. We are in a conservative part of the country, so it is not so liberal. We have a song we sing that says something like: when God is like a grandfather he does this, when he is like a mother he does this. That is different than saying "God might be a woman." (Which I have not heard.) It is just saying God is also loving and nurturing to us -- when we might think those are not masculine traits, and only associate masculine traits with God. Our church is very involved in social issues. They have a big feed-the-homeless ministry. We go to gay rights things sometimes with our banner - we do affirm and welcome gay people in our church. We get people who visit and say "Wow! I didn't know I could go to church!" It is sad to me. Our open and affirming statement is not just for LGBT -- it is also for anything where someone might feel "less than" in another social context. Our church was a Congregational church before joining the UCC, so it is still a Congregational church, but we participate in the UCC mission drives and can go to a camp that the conference runs. For me I want to agree with the doctrine but mostly I want a place to grow in faith. I recommend visiting a few places!

Thanks for the mention of High Noon books! They look wonderful!