I would love to know the answer to this too. I didn't realize there was an online course.

Thanks for the links. I was trying to google it earlier and everytime I did I could not get the pdf to open. During speech at school she's usually in a group of two but sometimes there are three. Through the local hospital she is in one on one speech. Neither SLP has mentioned Apraxia but I set up an appt. for a consultation at another speech therapy location so it will be interesting to see if they mention it. I have been thinking about pulling her from school. It breaks my heart though, she loves her school. I have been looking at other schools to transfer her to too. Her conference is coming up in a couple weeks so I'm hoping for a good report then we will go from there. Thanks everyone for your help.

She uses SRA Corrective Reading and Expressive Writing 1.

In our school district they do not pull kids from the "core" classes. So she is not pulled out during reading, writing or math, she is not pulled during specials either. So she misses social studies and science. She is in speech both through the school and outside services. When she was tested through the school they did find her to have a phonological awareness disorder and that is the main reason she is in speech. She is also working on her "r" articulation. Just this last week I called another speech therapy place hoping they have a better strategy for phonological awareness so I may switch her. You brought up some great points and I will be sure to bring them up at her conferneces in Feb. Thanks for your help!

She's in basketball at the moment. I want to make sure we encourage her strengths and bball is one of them. Thanks for your help! You've brought up some good questions.

I would say she's hands on then visual with auditory being last.

I posted this in the special needs forum too. I wasn't sure which forum to use. My daughter is currently in 3rd grade in public schools. She is dyslexic and is currently pulled out of class four to five times a week for 60 minutes. During this time she gets extra help with reading and writing. Our school does not have any Orton based programs or teachers available. She is also being tutored through the local dyslexia center once a week for an hour. Additionally I am coming to realize that our math program (it's called Investigations) is really not the best for her learing style. So with that said I'm thinking of afterschooling her. So I guess my questions would be where to start? Does anyone have programs they would recommend? I've been thinking of Barton but I'm worried that with her tutoring and additional help through the school adding another method might just confuse her. As for math I would like a simple program with traditional methods. I guess I'm wondering what a reasonable amount of time we should put into this every night too. I really want to make sure she has down time too so she can just be a kid.

My daughter is currently in 3rd grade in public schools. She is dyslexic and is currently pulled out of class four to five times a week for 60 minutes. During this time she gets extra help with reading and writing. Our school does not have any Orton based programs or teachers available. She is also being tutored through the local dyslexia center once a week for an hour. Additionally I am coming to realize that our math program (it's called Investigations) is really not the best for her learing style. So with that said I'm thinking of afterschooling her. So I guess my questions would be where to start? Does anyone have programs they would recommend? I've been thinking of Barton but I'm worried that with her tutoring and additional help through the school adding another method might just confuse her. As for math I would like a simple program with traditional methods. I guess I'm wondering what a reasonable amount of time we should put into this every night too. I really want to make sure she has down time too so she can just be a kid.

She's usually okay with following directions. Both her and her brother can not concentrate with any distractions. So I guess my next question would be this. If I get her evaluated and she has Auditory processing disorder what kind of services will she need that is different than what she would get from her speech teachers for phonological awareness? I want to make sure she gets all the help she can. Thanks!

My eight year old is in the public school system, she's a third grader. Towards the end of last year we had her evaluated for a learning disability. I believe she is dyslexic but, as many of you probably know, the school system does not diagnose this. She was however, diagnosed as having a phonological awareness disorder. She is also behind on her reading fluency but at the end of last year was in a grade appropriate reading level. My main concern was her difficulty in remember her spelling words. She does fine on her tests but can not remember them in everyday writing. She is in outside the school speech as well as school speech for her phonological awareness as well as "r" and "ing" sounds. Lately I've been considering getting her an auditory processing evaluation. I'm concerned about how she says certain words. Like cupboard is cuvord, bathing suit is babing suit etc. There's many more examples, I just can't think of them now. I guess first of all I'm confused on the difference between phonological awareness disorder and auditory processing disorder. Maybe her mispronunciations are just phonological awareness related? I want to make sure she is getting the right help. I'm grateful that she was diagnosed without a fight last year but I don't want her to fall more behind. Opinions?

I found once the "addiction" was out of my ds system for a year or so the small amount he gets at outside functions don't really bother him anymore. At first I had to pack his lunch and send treats to school for bday parties. He no longer has the cravings.

It was my son you read about. If you read the ingredients of candy most likely it's sweetened with high fructose corn syrup or corn syrup. What I did when I first started eliminating was to just take out the high fructose variety. Then things got better but he still had symptoms. Then I took out corn syrup which eventually led me to all derivatives of corn. He still had his tic but only during peak allergy season (spring, and fall). His teacher was amazed by his progress and was no longer concerned with holding him back. Emotional outbursts became less too. When we first started I just said "we are going to start a little experiment". We also had "Fun Friday" where we could eat anything and watch a movie. Then on the other days I made sure to bake sweets, or let him eat some of his favorite sweet foods but they were organic and corn less. There are many options in health or organic stores. Amazon is an option too. He's not so addicted to sweets now either. I just started slow because I didn't want him to feel like he was being punished by all the changes. Oh and I should add the new rules applied to the whole family. I would seriously recommend that book by Doris Rapp. "Is this Your Child". It really changed our lives. I don't want to sound like food is a cure to learning disabilities and behavior. Like I said in my other post I still think my son has mild dyslexia but I KNOW in his case his food allergy increased his symptoms. In my option for your daughter it does sound like candy is a problem. You'll get resistance for taking it away at first but I'll be you'll see a difference.

My son is now 12 but when he was in kindergarten there was talk about holding him back. I did a ton of research on it and believed he had an ld. I read the same thing as the pp said. If there is a LD holding them back will not help. Being held back myself was hard on my self esteem. I hated being the oldest in my class. You do have a special circumstance though because of the summer bday. With that said I want to mention that my son had a severe tic as well as what I assume to be dyslexia. With the retention research I also had to add on tic research. It led me to a book called "Is This Your Child" by Doris Rapp. Eventually I discovered he had a corn allergy. Once I took corn out of his diet his symptoms were greatly reduced. I still believe he has mild dyslexia but I also think his allergy made it worse. Now that my dd is showing signs of dyslexia I am revisiting this topic of allergies. If you do some research you will read that dyslexic children can be prone to them. Just a hint usually the food you crave the most is the problem food. In my sons case anything sweetened with corn syrup. I know this is totally off topic but your situation reminded me of my sons story and I wanted to throw it out there incase it could help anyone. Good luck deciding.

Thanks! I feel like their website is kind of hard to navigate. I probably would have never found this. I'm sure it will be very helpful. I left a message with the private slp and she said the same thing about the hearing test. So we'll just play it by ear.

Thank you! So much to think about and research! I just have one more question. Well for now anyway. Should I look into getting her hearing tested? I don't really have any concerns with them other than her lack of phonological awareness.

Thanks! She does have many gifted areas too. She's a petite little girl and very deceiving on the basketball court! So funny! Great sense of humor, good with math and a pretty good singer too. I'll make sure to encourage her in those areas.

Would you mind telling me what program you use for him afterschool?

She failed B and C. I'm planning on calling the slp from our local hospital tomorrow. My sons went to her two summers ago and she was great. I just want to make sure she is trained in LIPS first. That's a good idea about calling Susan. I love that she's so accessible. I also plan on reading alot to my daughter this summer. I wonder if there is anything else I can do to help her before she is ready for Barton? I've actually heard people tell me that I'm lucky the school tested her so early for a LD. I feel so bad though, because she is so behind in the spelling/writing department.

Thanks everyone! I finally decided on Barton. Unfortunatly we just did the student screening and she failed though. I was hoping to get her caught up a little before school started back up but looks like we need to go the slp route with lips for a little bit first. Once school starts back up I'll check to see if they use an orton gillingham program and if not continue with my plan of teaching her myself. This board has been a wealth of information. So glad to have found it!

Hi, my daughter just finished up with the second grade (public school) and I believe she is dyslexic. She has problems spelling. Not so much with tests because we study the words throughout the week but she can't remember even simple sight words. We had her tested through the school and she was found to have a phonological disorder. Her reading is at grade level but her fluency is slow. We now have an iep in place for next year. She will be pulled out for resource for 30-40 minutes 4-6 times a week. In addition she will have speech therapy to work on r articulation as weel as phonological awareness. I was hoping to tutor her this summer myself with a reading system. I'm reading that Barton is good but expensive. I'm also considering All about Spelling. To be honest though this is all very overwhelming as I have never really tutored my children. Not sure if this would be overkill in addition to special sevices she will receive next year. I did hear though she should have an orton gillingham program to succeed so that's why I am considering tutoring her myself. I'm also on a waiting list to recieve outside (the school) speech services. Not sure what program she will use but I already have a good relationship with her as she worked with my boys and their articulation. I did notice too that my daughter's eyes seem to have a focus problem when she reads. She has been under the care of an opthamologist since she was two for accomodative esotropia and wears glasses. I have asked him in the past about vision therapy and he is very against it. I see here many people have had success with it though. It's just very expensive too. I'm hoping someone can give me some more insight to her situation. Programs that might help? Other services I should persue? I've done a lot of research the last few days but still feel lost.