I have a theory based on my experience with my expert memorizer/bad speller/struggling reader who now reads well . . . Some people are really good at remembering things at the meaning level and so they don't remember things below the meaning level, the parts that build up to the meaning level. So my dd10 could memorize whole passages of books but not be able to read the simplest words. She can memorize speeches I give to my little kids--verbatim, and spew it out weeks later. With spelling, she remembers the words and the meaning of the words and passages--but not the parts (the spellings) that don't have meaning beyond their correspondence to sounds. The activities I described previously are meant to put all the important parts together connected by meaning. One thing that I have been doing is emphasizing over and over again that words each have their own correct way to be spelled. You can't just put letters down that will get you close to the word, you have to put the right letters down. Just a theory . . . Melissa Minnesota Reading Program Junkie dd(10) dd(6) ds(4) ds(1)

Elizabeth, I just had to go through so many to NOT find one that worked! I'm always looking for the next best thing. :) I really enjoy visiting your site! Great work! Melissa Minnesota Reading Program Junkie dd(10) dd(6) ds(4) ds(1)

Sorry for the unoriginality of this post, its a reprint from another forum, but hopefully will be helpful . . . My daughter has a very difficult time with spelling, just as she did with reading. I have experimented with many approaches and programs and find these strategies to be the most helpful for her: 1. Spelling lists based on the sound-spelling correspondences. So a list of words where the sound /ee/ is spelled 'ea' (teach, each, reach, beach, tear (as in from the eyes), dear, beam, seam, cream, etc.) 2. The words are analyzed for their parts, letter teams underlined, and strange spellings circled. She says the sounds for the parts as the words are written multiple times, currently 5 times. If possible, she exaggerates the pronunciation (for example, /lem-On/) 3. She composes original sentences, trying to combine as many words into a sentence as she can (Each teacher sat on the beach eating cream.) She says the sounds as she writes the words. 4. The words are tested until she gets them right at least 3 times in a row. The tests are not lists but dictated sentences I make up using the words from her list and previous words. I test every day. This takes about 20 min. a day (She is 10 and has 15-20 words a week) 5. The words she gets wrong go through the study process each day. 6. Every Friday we do a random, cumulative test from previous lists. I pick the correspondence to work on based on her writing, then put together a list of similar words. The nice thing about this is . . . its free! If you would like a list of correspondences and words, you can email me privately. Melissa Minnesota Reading Program Junkie dd(10) dd(6) ds(4) ds(1)

Unfortunately, dyslexia is a catch-all term that doesn't really apply to specific characteristics, it just means "can't read well." Even if you had your child tested and labelled dyslexic, the testers probably couldn't give you much information about what to do. Often the best approach is to go through the component skills of reading and work on them. For left to right tracking issues, I would suggest: 1. Marking the left side of the page or a word to clue what side to start, and have your son slide his finger under the letters as he reads. For my daughter, I also put an arrow from the end of one line to the beginning of the next to help her eyes continue moving in the right direction. 2. Make up a sheet of numbers, letters, syllables, or words and have him work through them in the correct order. The emphasis isn't on understanding reading, just practice tracking correctly over and over again. 3. Something I'm just making up on the spot, print the first letter of each word in red as it will draw the eye to the left and give a clear place for the eye to jump to. For especially difficult letters, write the left side in red, the right in black. 4. While working on these issues, minimize book reading with pictures. The pictures draw the eyes away from the text and it can be difficult for children to return their eyes to the right spot. This then compounds the problem as they try to search for where they were. These activities and modifications are designed to keep the eye moving appropriately across a page. The eye is controlled by muscles that can be trained. Good luck, Melissa Minnesota Reading Program Junkie dd(10) dd(6) ds(4) ds(1)

Spelling rules only get you so far. What's the rule for deer and dear, hear and here,? What about lamb, bomb? Why is 'built' spelled with a 'u'? How about done, gone, stone, and one? In the end, it is about making connections among the three components of a word: its meaning, its written form, and its pronunciation. There are over 220 correspondences with more than 10 words (for example, the spelling 'et' for the sound ballet, beret, buffet, etc.) My daughter has a very difficult time with spelling, just as she did with reading. I have experimented with many approaches and programs and find these strategies to be the most helpful for her: 1. Spelling lists based on the sound-spelling correspondences. So a list of words where the sound /ee/ is spelled 'ea' (teach, each, reach, beach, tear (as in from the eyes), dear, beam, seam, cream, etc.) 2. The words are analyzed for their parts, letter teams underlined, and strange spellings circled. She says the sounds for the parts as the words are written multiple times, currently 5 times. If possible, she exaggerates the pronunciation (for example, /lem-On/) 3. She composes original sentences, trying to combine as many words into a sentence as she can (Each teacher sat on the beach eating cream.) She says the sounds as she writes the words. 4. The words are tested until she gets them right at least 3 times in a row. The tests are not lists but dictated sentences I make up using the words from her list and previous words. I test every day. This takes about 20 min. a day (She is 10 and has 15-20 words a week) 5. The words she gets wrong go through the study process each day. 6. Every Friday we do a random, cumulative test from previous lists. I pick the correspondence to work on based on her writing, then put together a list of similar words. The nice thing about this is . . . its free! If you would like a list of correspondences and words, you can email me privately. Melissa Minnesota Reading Program Junkie dd(10) dd(6) ds(4) ds(1)

How do I know what "level" he is reading? Level is not important, skills and knowledge are. The important ones are: 1. Read each spelling (letter or group of letters representing a sound) once all the way through the word. 2. Sound-spelling correspondences. In my analysis of the words in 2 children's dictionaries, there are over 400. The typical adult level book has 300-350. Most reading programs explicitly teach less than 150. 3. Word parts that have meaning (morphemes) Prefixes, Suffixes, root words, etc. How do we progress in his reading, now that he has the basics down? Fluency comes about when word reading is quick and painless. Its a good sign that he is slowing down and working through unfamiliar words. Continue emphasizing this skill. Is there some type of reading instruction I should still be doing? ABeCedarian is a solid program. It is based on the concepts in Reading Reflex, but is much more thorough and presented in a more user-friendly format. The website is abcdrp.com has an assessment to help you pick the right level. This program also helps with spelling. And its reasonably priced. Later stages of reading are covered by REWARDS which helps with multisyllabic words and common affixes. How much time should he spend reading daily? If he is still struggling, I would make sure that he is reading aloud. That way you can correct him. Be sure to work through the word, not just tell him the word (the old If you give a man a fish you feed him for a day, teach him how to fish feed him for a lifetime phenomenon:)). You can just point to the part of the word he missed, and say, "this spells the sound ____, try it again.) If there are multiple parts he missed, sound out the whole word then read it. Then have him do it. Slow laborious work, but it retrains the brain. How much longer do I need to sit with him while he reads and help him along? Until his reading is smooth and accurate. What are some good books for boys that are struggling with reading and REALLY need coaxing to get it done? Just reading books may not be enough, and may exacerbate his proclivity towards guessing. Follow an intensive advanced reading program. If he is reading fairly well (its hard to tell from the post) sometimes non-fiction books and comic books are more popular. Compendiums of comic book heroes can be found in the library. They tend to have short sentences but high levels of vocabulary --perhaps just the ticket. I know it can be frustrating. I had to teach my daughter over 300 sound spelling correspondences explicitly, then how to read with prosody to help her comprehension. But now at 10 she reads anything she wants. Her tendencies are still there, and I still have her read out loud occasionally to make sure she reads her suffixes correctly, but she's confident and accurate. You did a good thing taking him out of school. When he's reading well, he won't have any stigma attached to how long it took, he'll just enjoy reading. Just be patient and consistent (I know, easier said than done;)) Melissa Minnesota Reading Program Junkie dd (10) dd(6) ds(4) ds(1)

What program are you using currently? What isn't working for you and your daughter about this program? If you give us a little more information, perhaps we can suggest modifications to the current program or another program. I agree with Mrs. Ives. Don't wait. Its possible what you need is a really explicit, incremental phonics program -- that means no word families, sight words, or word chunks. Everything needs to be taught at the single sound-spelling level. Reading is not like math in that the knowledge and skills involved require a different way of thinking. Each letter can spell multiple sounds and each sound can be spelled several ways. Multiple letters can stand for a single sound. Gifted children can often be the ones thrown by this because they expect regularity and they desire to always be right. My daughter was just as you described and really struggled with learning to read from standard phonics programs because they were not logical to her. As bright as she is, she struggled to generalize information. If the program taught 'ing', 'ang', and 'ong' she would not figure out 'ng' stood for the sound /ng/, and would get stuck on 'ung'. She would do exactly what I taught her to do, but would not guess. She hated guessing or not being sure. It took me till she was 9 to figure out what kind of teaching she needed and she was reading fluently by 9 1/2 and at a college level by 10. Melissa Minnesota Reading Program Junkie

Originally Posted by LaurieNE If we are looking at statistics, most children are abused in their own homes, by people who are related to them, not in schools or by schools. Even if we look at some hsing communtities, for instance, LDS compound raids this past year, and yes I get that they are not representative of LDS, we can see abuse. Does that mean that most hsing families abuse their kids? Of course not. We know it's not because they are hs'd. Public school children do not get to choose their parents any more than hs'd kids can choose theirs. I agree that many public schools are not working well. But I see so many families that are simply not working well or at all. Just a quick correction--it was not an LDS compound, but a Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints compound (FLDS). There is a BIG difference between these two groups, even though the names are similar. The LDS Church put out this information to help clarify the distinctions: http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/news-releases-stories/church-seeks-to-address-public-confusion-over-texas-polygamy-group Melissa Minnesota Reading Program Junkie

Teaching a child to read who struggles with memory can be like sawing through a log with sand paper! It works--eventually. ;) Clear, incremental instruction, with lots and lots of review will get the job done. As the beginning stages of reading are mastered, his learning speed will increase. I had to make up my own program for my daughter, teaching her every little thing. She didn't learn to read fluently till she was 9 1/2 and now at 10 1/2 reads at a high school level. As for programs. . . 100EZ has a different way of writing the letters and teaches a large portion of words as wholes. So if your son is not good at making leaps of logic, I would not recommend it. PP is mostly sound instruction, but you might have better luck making a few modifications. Because of its format, PP makes you feel like you should be moving along quickly, when in fact, each step can be a big jump for kids. I would suggest these things to keep in mind: Do not go on to sentences till his word reading is comfortable. Do not go on to 4-sound words till he is comfortable with 2 and 3-sound words. By comfortable I mean he says the sounds correctly with little emotional upset and can self correct. Write the words on other paper in a less distracting manner. I suggest a format that incrementally builds the words. a n an an t ant ant ant (Tell me about the word ant) c a ca ca t cat cat cat (Tell me about the word cat) Allow him to use his finger under the letters as he reads. This activity will allow him to stay focused on the sound-spelling correspondences, get comfortable tracking left to right, and feel a sense of accomplishment as he cements the connections. Once 2 and 3 sound words feel good you can move onto 2-word sentences and 4-sound words. You might even go back to the beginning of the book, focusing on the bottom of the pages where they have the 2-sound combinations. Stay on these pages till he is comfortable. You can mix it up with flashcards and games if he likes. With incremental instruction and patience he'll learn to read. Melissa Minnesota Reading Program Junkie