How about something in a school? Everywhere I've lived, schools need really good support people. An Ed Tech III position likely pays more than $12 an hour, and is full time so has benefits. I was a teaching assistant for a long time, and it was very rewarding ? The pay kinda stunk, but you could use it as a way to get your foot in the door, and on your kids' schedule, too.

Yup, that's right. Although, many kids can read fluently WAY beyond what they can comprehend, so at a certain point, you have to make them read "easy" books, but ones they can understand. I had to give one of my students books that were waaaaaay easier than her "reading level," and she was kinda aggravated, but her comprehension really improved because she started at an appropriate level. Luckily her mom was on board - many parents balk at reading "easy" books.

That's why I'm a fan of Branches - even though there's not a lot of text, the stories are entertaining. I haven't seen any of the High Noon stuff beyond the CVC readers, but they have a lot of cool new stuff these days for 2nd-3rd grade decoding. They also have a lot of non-fiction which I've never seen, but which looks good on the website.

I make a pretty good lemonade/limeade with water, lime or lemon juice, and stevia powder. I get the kind that comes in packets like sugar packets. 2 packets is enough for me for a quart of water, but your DD might need more sweetness. I hope you get good help from a feeding therapist! ((hugs))

Aw. To me, saying he doesn't read, means it's hard and/or scary. The Scholastic Branches books are really great for an early 2nd grade level - easy for him and fun. I can vouch for the Boris series and Kung Pow Chicken, both comic book style. And available at the library ? The Dragon Masters series is also awesome for reading slightly longer paragraphs, still lots of pictures though. I just love them all.

Oh yes, definitely using it in class! This year I'm doing more 1-1 tutorials, so it'll be me with a student, rather than the student on their own. It's just SO helpful to always have something on-level to read, and you can easily go up or down levels depending on the day. Last year, I had 2 reading groups, and the "off" group did Raz while I was with the other reading group. I had some motivators, too, like if your group is quiet, you earn 5 minutes of free time for the class after reading groups are done. It ALWAYS worked... they were so motivated by the 5 minutes that they were quiet for 20. I also had a motivator for getting a certain percentage correct on the quiz after a couple tries. That was helpful too. There's a fun feature your DS may like. Does he like reading aloud? Raz has a thing where the student records as they read aloud, and then they send it to their teacher. Raz - it's expensive, but if you think about the number of books you get for that $100, it's a lot. If you read it on the iPad, it's pretty neat because you only see one page at time if you hold it vertically. Horizontally, you still see two pages like a regular book. I found the quizzes to be very good, most of the time... there were factual questions and more inferencing questions, and then always a written question so the student had to compose at least one sentence. Sometimes the questions were unnecessarily confusing, and needed a teacher's help to understand. Also good for practicing how to make mistakes and be okay with it...

These are the Choose Your Own Aventures that my students have liked: Easier with mostly short passages (2nd grade level): Author is R.A. Montgomery. These are old, and some of them are really fantasy like a space monster or abominable snowman, and others are more "tame" like you become invisible and trick a bully, or you're on a ship and find pirates. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1933390948/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_taft_p1_i0 Harder with longer passages (3rd to 4th grade level): The series is called "An Interactive History Adventure." This one is the Titanic: https://www.amazon.com/Titanic-Interactive-History-Adventure-Choose/dp/1515733882 Just doing that search I found a whole bunch of CYAs... zombie Minecraft, etc. so there's bound to be something he likes!

It sounds like you're doing great! I love that you alternate sentences with him and then he takes off to read on his own. That's perfect! Your strategy sounds perfect to me - as high interest as you can find, and then if he'll read it with you with no requirements, fine - but if he needs some requirements/motivators, I'd get a visual timer and set it for 5-10 minutes, whatever you think he'll tolerate. Usually, if the book is fun enough, my students won't need any other motivators, but sometimes I'll have to set the timer and then say, after this you get a break, or outside time, or whatever they really want. You just have to find the balance of interesting enough book + right amount of time to read + post-reading motivator. It sounds like he has a little anxiety around reading, so doing what you're doing, making it really fun and also reading with him till he feels confident, is awesome. Even though he can read at a higher level, easier books will also help him feel confident - like, oh yeah, reading time, I can always do well so it's not scary.

Oh, just jump in and start wherever. Maybe give him a 3rd or 4th grade passage? He only has to read for one minute.

Haha, hmm, those scores! Wow. I surely wouldn't score nearly that high on reading comprehension ? I guess you just have to find stuff he's really, really interested in reading! Stuff about... wars, battles? How Legos are made? Gymnastics? I dunno, what's he super duper into? I know what you're saying about graphic novels and how hard they can be. I was at the library recently looking for something for a dyslexic student, and I was having so much trouble finding anything. The graphic novels were all written in teeny tiny print and they were HARD! Bone is a really popular graphic novel. I also saw some that were more historical fiction about the Revolutionary War and such. Has he done Choose Your Own Adventure? There are lots of fantasy ones, but also a lot of "real" ones, like the Titanic and the Civil War and stuff. ?

PeterPan, as far as fluency goes, it would be interesting to have your DS read some fluency passages and see how he does. You can get free fluency passages on the DIBELS website, and here is an updated fluency norms table: http://www.readingrockets.org/article/fluency-norms-chart-2017-update I was just on the Raz-Kids website, and it's about a hundred bucks a year. They've got fluency passages (practice and/or assessment) at every level. I find the range of books on there really helpful. There are dozens, and maybe more, books for every level. You can listen to them as audiobooks as well. I just wonder if your DS would like choosing books on there, and once you find out the level he's able to read fluently, you'd have a lot of good options.

Thanks, I never thought about it being distracting. I'll have to check with each kid! ?

I had a set of cheap plastic letter tiles that I loved- the vowel tiles were yellow. I'm not sure who makes them, but I thought it was helpful for my students to really focus on the vowels since they're a different color.

Not long ago, I heard a story on NPR or someplace about grammar - and the research has shown that teaching grammar as a separate subject doesn't increase a student's ability to write well. That might be what you're seeing with your DD not attending to punctuation when she writes. Instead, it's best to just write thing, and then edit - connecting the writing and editing process rather than separating it. I did a quick search and found tons of articles, but here's one: https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/02/the-wrong-way-to-teach-grammar/284014/ Would your DD be excited to drop formal grammar instruction in favor of editing more heavily when she writes? You can still teach rules, etc - like have a printout of when to use semicolons, colons, etc, but she would just refer to resources as she writes, not separately. I still have to google grammar things from time to time, and I have a B.A. in English ? In my opinion, it's more important to write with a good voice, use complete sentences, write clearly, etc. and be able to make corrections, than have all the grammar rules memorized. Everyone Googles when they write ?

That gave me a laugh! Thanks ?

I see what you're saying, and agree that teenagers, boys and girls, in bathing suits, can stir up all sorts of stuff - but I think it's different with competitive athletes - if you're on a swim team, you do expect to see your teammates in swim suits.

Oh, so sorry. Eggs are a staple! I feel your pain because DH had the same thing happen. After a couple rounds of antibiotics, he can't eat eggs without feeling gross for a week. However, after a few years, it seems that he might be able to eat them if they've been really processed at high heat (like in a cracker). It really stinks, and limits so many foods at home and restaurants ?

I agree with you that teenagers should be educated about what clothing is appropriate/not appropriate in a gym, BUT - there are reasons why it's not appropriate, like people could slip on water from a suit, it's not sanitary for the machines in swimsuits (maybe, I don't know about that one), etc. Because a girl might make a guy feel "tempted" is NOT an appropriate reason. It's not a girl's responsibility to protect a guy from feeling temptation, it's the guy's responsibility to act like a gentleman no matter how tempted he is. I'd be completely fine with a policy that said both the girls and boys have to change to go to the training room, if that's really necessary. As long as it's equal. BUT the reason should be something logical, not something that wrongly encourages girls to think they're responsible for boys' behavior.

About teaching it - I didn't find it hard, and I don't have a speech background. I did take a while to read through parts of the manual, and re-read, to let things soak in. The first couple lessons were a little stressful, but once I got used to it, it was fine. You can do it! ?

When I do LiPS with a student, I use: Manual Letter tiles Mouth pictures Personally, I don't like magnetic letters/tiles, so I never use those - just use tiles on a table. You do need a mirror, but it can be any mirror that's big enough for a child to see his/her whole mouth, like a hand-held bathroom mirror. I have an 8-inch-ish one that stands up on the table that's nice. I never did the step with the colored tiles to represent sounds, but if you do, you could just use colored paper squares or buy some colored felt and cut it up.

Agreed, reason given is a load of crap. I'm not sure I'd wait till the swim season is over to talk to the principal. You don't necessarily have to raise a stink - maybe he/she will also be properly horrified, and do something about it. It's fine to say that students (boys AND girls) need to change out of suits before going into the training room (if possible - injuries excepted), but to single out girls is completely unacceptable.

Great update! WELL done! LiPS is really pretty fun, and the mouth pictures are funny to kids. It doesn’t feel like reading practice, really. I hope you like it!

Hmmm, interesting! I'm far from an expert at this, but I'd say that it could possibly explain his difficulty with spelling - he tries to sound out the spelling each time, but that's really difficult. As far as I know, the term "symbol imagery" is a Lindamood-Bell term, but there's probably a similar term used more widely. Maybe PeterPan will know? I think Lindamood-Bell would probably say to start by imaging ONE letter from a card - like hold up the card, keep it up for 3 seconds, then put it behind your back. Kid air-writes the letter while saying "b." Then, you do 2 letters. Mostly it'll be nonsense, like "ip." So you show the card for 3 seconds, put it behind your back, and kid air-writes while saying, "i, p, ip." Then you ask questions - what letter did you see first? What letter did you see last? Then you move on to 3 letters. So you show the card that says "cat." Kid air-writes while saying, "c, a, t, cat." Then you ask questions, what's the middle letter? What's the last letter? First letter? To really stretch the visual imagery, you then say things like, take out the c and put in a h." Kid then air writes and says, "h, a, t, hat." THAT part's super challenging. I'd wait till he can reliably air-write 3 letter words before doing that. The Seeing Stars manual has really good scripts for the teacher, and also helpful illustrations ? I find this so interesting. I'm sorry I can't help with what "official" tests are used to test symbol imagery. I've never run across a program that addresses it outside of Lindamood-Bell. Many OG programs have kids air-write sight words, but LMB has kids air-write EVERYTHING. Later on in the program, they even air-write 2 syllable words, and then manipulate them. Pretty neat.

Oh, that sounds traumatic! Best wishes for quick healing!

I was just reading that reactive hypoglycemia can be caused by stomach surgery, because food passes too quickly through the system.