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With ADD, Dyslexia, Dyspraxia and a child not seeing details . . .


rafiki
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Somedays I feel like it's coming together, other times I wonder what the heck I'm doing.

 

I am so right there with you! Here I have been touting o/g methods, and I just bailed on one. Once more on the SWR group a gal asked about other methods, so I sent her an e-mail off list. That e-mail got back to Wand, and she in the typical gracious fashion she has always acted personally e-mailed me and asked a lot of questions. I founds myself giving ground more than defending straight o/g because of our recent failures. She isn't attacking at all either, but really honestly asking. But in the processing I realized that not only did I get some of my key ideas that I still believe in from her, but the way I prefer to teach reading is a modified from SWR, not from the SL I am teaching from. In essence right now I am using SL for sequence, Barton movements and SWR methods. No wonder I am a wee confused.

 

Given I am staring down the fact that if we go at our current pace (and given how much of a battle every step has been till now I have no reason to hope developmental jumps) he will spend just the next 26 weeks on individual letter sounds and blending CVC words. Next year, assuming her doesn't hit a wall, he will cover blends and short vowels. Basically he probably won't be reading above a 1st grade level by the time he has to take standardized testing, and it is going to reflect in his scores. That makes me wonder if it isn't at least worth the possibility of getting there sooner to try SWR with him, and I mean straight SWR not me modifying things, which I was doing the last time I used it. :banghead:

 

adding:

 

It's not that these kids don't know things, they just struggle combining skills. With spelling, the rule of thought is if they frequently misspell words in their writing those words haven't been taught to the point of automaticity. Ok, but are all kids capable of reaching the point of automaticity through overteaching? So I backed ds up to the level in A&P that he tested at and 95% of it is busy work and neither of us feel like we're moving forward.

 

Yep I typed up the testing scores my kids had from the time they started SWR till now (even through we aren't doing SWR anymore I still use the SWR tests), and only my oldest has really made progress. Now I know my youngest has actual improved more than the scores show, but my poor middle dd has only improved about a grade level in 4 years for all of SWR and AAS we have done. Part of that is she just needs more time, she is 5th grade doing book 3. My failing her. I know she will get there long term, and that PS never taught me how to spell at all, so there is no answer there. But it is hard to see the end goal, know how to get there, but not be able to go as fast as the child is able becuase I have to balance all their needs.

 

On test scores, how do you know when a lower score truly needs remediation or is simply a result of lack of ability to combine skills, see details, or that persons weakness? When I look at the areas he scored lower then his composite on, I understand why on each and every one of them. On the other hand, because they are lower, are they the ones that will "hold him back" from his potential?

I just about hyperventilated when I got my 3rd dd's scores last year. There were several areas where she tested low, but she knows this stuff. Periods at the end of a sentences, for example. She writes a couple a sentences daily between copywork, dictation and narration and almost never forgets her punctuation (including proper punctuation for quotes). But she got half of the punctuation questions wrong on the test???? I can't tell if she just didn't see it, got confused, or her reading issues got in the way. In this case I think I will let go because I know she knows it. There are other area that it isn't as clear why she did bad and I am not sure if we need to remediate or if her improved reading skills will take care of it all. She has another required test at the end of next year, oh joy!

 

(((hugs)))

 

Hope you find some answers.

 

Heather

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My very good at language and reading 3rd grade daughter struggles with capitalization and punctuation, so it's not just a dyslexia thing.

 

She missed EVERY SINGLE capitalization question 2 years ago, down to about half this past year. (This was a multiple choice test, so she should have gotten a few right just by random chance...)

Edited by ElizabethB
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My dysgraphic (but not dyslexic) dd, now fourteen, has recurring problems with capitalization and punctuation when she writes; but she tells me that the same errors, when she finds them in books or in reviews on amazon, drive her crazy! The other day she said that she thought being a proofreader would be a "fun" career!

 

It's so bizarre that there can be such an enormous gap between what a child knows in one format and what he or she knows, or can produce, in another.

 

As far as spelling, dd has made enormous strides. We are currently working on what we call a "personal bugaboo" list -- words dd misspells consistently. One is "captain." And this is a kid who can spell much more complicated words. She always, ALWAYS flips the i and a. I've had her write the word in colors, trace it on sandpaper, close her eyes and spell it orally backwords and forwards, look at the word and tell me if it's spelled correctly or not, write it twenty times... NOTHING works. I finally figured that she's going to do most of her writing on the computer eventually, and spell check will catch that one.

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