New and lost! Need help for my dyslexic 8yr old.

[Melaz4]

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.

[garddwr]

I don't have any specific ideas for you, but wanted to reply to give you a bump. Hopefully someone has some insights to share.

[Lecka]

I tutored my son last summer. You can do a lot in the summer.

 

If you haven't read Overcoming Dyslexia, it is very good.

 

If she doesn't have the skills of Barton 1, you could work on those. It would be $300 (I think). Doing Barton 1 doesn't mean she has to go through the entire program.

 

If you google "phonemic awareness Amazon" phonemic awareness programs aimed at pre-schoolers come up. These kinds of activities were the kind that would go over my son's head, but I think they are good for a lot of people.

 

Something that was good for my son was Elkonin boxes. This is a way to practice segmenting. You pull a token into a box (drawn on a piece of paper), one token per sound. We did this with All About Spelling and the letter tiles with All About Spelling. Very helpful. Very hard though -- lots of modelling on my part.

 

With tutoring -- this is what has worked for me: Lots of modeling. If he can't do something independently, he can copy me.

 

Reading Reflex is another book for phonemic awareness. It works for some kids -- but not all kids. I would use some kind of letter tiles instead of the cut-out paper squares from the book.

 

I have also used Abecedarian. There is a free blending and segmenting thing on the website. But it would be hard to use, maybe, without having an idea how to do it. Barton has videos and is scripted!

 

I am out of time on the computer -- but some ideas anyway.

[Pen]

I like High Noon's Reading Intervention program along with their Sound Out chapter books (not the Kirk et al phonics program that they also sell--which my son, at least, detested). It is Orton-Gillingham based (as is Barton), but is less expensive, and it is what worked for us. The High Noon intervention program starts with work on letters and sounds and moves on to decodable patterns with some sight words to be able to start reading. It works on fluency, and if you get the workbooks, also some spelling, dictation, and comprehension.

 

Short of vision therapy, my son did home exercises working on keeping his eyes on the eraser of a pencil as it moved (recommended by his optometrist). My son has refused to use, but I myself find a colored overlay that I got for him and that highlights an area of text very useful.

Edited June 13, 2012 by Pen

[merry gardens]

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.

Since you say she has a phonological problem, I'd suggest the screen on their website to see if she even qualifies to start with a program like Barton http://bartonreading.com/students_long.html#screen I use Barton for a couple years now with my dc, but we had to start with LiPS. Barton is an Orton-Gillingham based program and it'snot expensive compared to tutoring and special ed services. It costs $250-300 per level, and all ten levels will take a dyslexic child at least a few years to complete. The first level of Barton is small but it builds foundational skills that many dyslexics lack; the later levels get bigger and take longer to complete.

 

Since your dc qualifies for special ed services, you might ask if the school system would work with providing a program like Barton or LiPS for her-- maybe even for you to do at home with her. If your dd needs a program like LiPS first, a good speech therapist may be able to provide that for you. The kind of service she'll get at the school depends in large part on the school and the specific teachers. Some may use Orton Gillingham methods, but some might not. But since you're looking for a reading program to do at home this summer and you've never done tutoring before, I'd suggest you look at Barton and at least see if you both pass the tutor and the student screens.

 

As far as her eyes, a child can have both eye problems and phonological processing problems at the same time. Eye problems alone don't explain a phonological disorder. Yet, if her eyes aren't working together, that also can complicate and contribute to reading problems. Vision therapy is expensive, but given the history that she's got something going on with her eyes, I'd probably take her with her files for a second opinion from a good covd also. Vision therapy won't cure dyslexia, but vision problems can make reading harder. I'd ask around for a good covd, but I work on her phonological problems too.

 

And yes, all of this gets expensive.

[myboyluvsdinos]

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.

 

It's actually pretty simple. Her symptoms do sound suspicious for dyslexia. Please understand that schools will NOT diagnose dyslexia (long reason why -- suffice it to say that they don't want to remediate it).

 

There is TONS of research out there that all comes to the same conclusion: the most effective way to remediate dyslexia is through an Orton-Gillingham program. This is not an opinion, it is a fact. There are many O-G programs, however Barton is mentioned often as it was designed for parents to implement themselves.

 

Most of the time, dyslexics will not qualify for special ed services. However, if they do manage to get something, it's most often not what they need (again -- they need an O-G program). There are some schools that are coming around and providing 0-G remediation, but they are rare. So don't get excited that she's qualified for something, as it's likely not going to help. Often schools will work on fluency only, which is terrible for dyslexics because what they really need is decoding work. Once they can decode accurately, then the fluency comes up. Fluency training without decoding will actually just reinforce guessing, which is a common and damaging strategy that dyslexics use.

 

Yes Barton is expensive. However, if you buy a level at $300, you can sell it within a few days for $250. It has an incredibly high resale value. The entire first Barton level is phonemic awareness, which your daughter will absolutely need to be successful in ANY reading/spelling program. It takes many children 3-5 years to complete all 10 levels.

 

Parents spend so much time piecing together programs and trying this and trying that. It's really pretty simple: use an O-G program. They work the best, and it's not just my opinion, it's a fact!

 

As for the vision therapy, I agree you will find people on this board who've had much success with it. I tried it for my severely dyslexic ds. We worked diligently for 6 months, and it did nothing. However, once I started using an O-G program, the progress came. He is now in 6th grade, and just tested in the 97%ile for reading!!!!! (He has gone through the first 8 levels of Barton.) Research supports the use of O-G programs for dyslexia, but it doesn't support VT. Does that mean it never helps? No -- I truely believe it helps some kids, but since that isn't being replicated in scientific studies, it leads me to believe it's not the typical outcome.

 

Hope this helps and good luck!

[Melaz4]

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!

[myboyluvsdinos]

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!

 

Which section did she fail? Lips is only for if they fail section C... If it's A or B, there is different remediation. Contact Susan either way, as they don't need the entire LIPS program in order to pass section C. She'll tell you what LIPS section they need to get through.

[Lecka]

My son did some serious speech therapy last year (2x/week for 1 hour or 45 minutes) and it helped him a huge amount. He has made solid progress since then.

 

My son is in school too, I afterschool.

 

His school is full of nice people but they can't provide him as much time as he needs. They don't have an O-G reading program. They also would bump him out of pull-up as soon as he made any progress.

 

I don't rely on them for his tutoring.

 

I love his school, though. I am in a part of the country where I don't think hardly any schools have a good reading program for struggling readers. They just don't.

[Melaz4]

Which section did she fail? Lips is only for if they fail section C... If it's A or B, there is different remediation. Contact Susan either way, as they don't need the entire LIPS program in order to pass section C. She'll tell you what LIPS section they need to get through.

 

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.

[myboyluvsdinos]

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.

 

Reading to her is great as it will continue to grow her background knowledge and vocabulary, which is super important. You can also download books onto an MP3 player, or get books on CD from your library. The other thing you can do is find and focus on her gifted areas, which they all have. Whether it's sports, art, music, math, drama, science, whatever. Focusing on those areas in which your child succeeds is important to help build the their self esteem.

 

Please do call Susan so that you don't spend more time than you need on the LIPS. And believe it or not, catching them after second grade is still considered early! :)

 

Good luck!

[Melaz4]

My son did some serious speech therapy last year (2x/week for 1 hour or 45 minutes) and it helped him a huge amount. He has made solid progress since then.

 

My son is in school too, I afterschool.

 

His school is full of nice people but they can't provide him as much time as he needs. They don't have an O-G reading program. They also would bump him out of pull-up as soon as he made any progress.

 

I don't rely on them for his tutoring.

 

I love his school, though. I am in a part of the country where I don't think hardly any schools have a good reading program for struggling readers. They just don't.

 

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

[Melaz4]

Reading to her is great as it will continue to grow her background knowledge and vocabulary, which is super important. You can also download books onto an MP3 player, or get books on CD from your library. The other thing you can do is find and focus on her gifted areas, which they all have. Whether it's sports, art, music, math, drama, science, whatever. Focusing on those areas in which your child succeeds is important to help build the their self esteem.

 

Please do call Susan so that you don't spend more time than you need on the LIPS. And believe it or not, catching them after second grade is still considered early! :)

 

Good luck!

 

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.

[Lecka]

Hi!

 

For some more background about my son -- he is 7 and a rising 2nd grader. He was recommended to be retained in K last year but my husband declined it (I went along with him but wondered if it was for the best). My husband was held back in 1st grade for reading and was very opposed.

 

My son had been in speech therapy and had poor articulation (he had an age equivalent of 2 years 11 months when he started private speech the summer after K). Other than that -- he was considered a smart and funny little boy at pre-school. Kindergarten not so much -- he had trouble with letter sounds and he couldn't do beginning sounds in words etc. He couldn't learn to say "eleven twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen." He basically didn't memorize any sight words.

 

His speech therapy where he made progress was at a university clinic. He had been in school district speech for 2 years with little progress.

 

Anyway -- I tried several programs that didn't work. I tried HearBuilder for phonemic awareness, I tried Head Sprout, I tried Starfall. Those are all computer-based -- I thought he might do good with computer-based. He did not. I personally know many people whose kids have blossomed with Head Sprout but it was not to be.

 

The first thing he did good with was AAS. With lots of time and practice and modeling he could segment words. I bought Barton 1 and watched videos for it ----- extremely helpful..... but he was such a non-reader I didn't want to do nonsense words with him. The videos were extremely good for me, though.

 

We got a little into book 1 of AAS -- I think Step 5. It was very hard to segment and then do the blends. He needed more practice of those skills before going on in AAS (it just went too fast for him and I was not able to adapt it, though I know people do adapt it and do well with it).

 

Then I went to I See Sam decodable readers. He went through Set 3 in the first semester of 1st grade. They were hard for him. He was sounding out every word in all of them.

 

Then I did Abecedarian Level B.

 

In retrospect I wish I had done Abecedarian Level A at the same time as I did the I See Sam readers. I am not a huge fan of those readers, but at the same time, I don't know of better decodable readers. They are written to minimize guessing and they put in "tricks" -- like stop and shop will be in the same story, so kids can't be like "the one that starts with s and ends with p is such-and-such." I did used the "notched card" to help him read through words. I cue him on the first sound in a word and then slowly blend if he gets stuck -- this is the best way for him.

 

This summer I am working on fluency. So he is reading out loud. I like Wiley Blevins for fluency, and Reading Rockets web site. When he reads a short passage I always pre-read it to him. We do a lot of every-other-sentence of things that aren't hard for him.

 

Right now he is solidifying his things like ie, ea, oi, oy, and things like that.

 

There are times I regret not using Barton. Here are the reasons I have not (though honestly I might go back to it as some people do). 1) I knew he could do the mat/mate hat/hate rat/rate thing just fine -- and that comes early in public school. 2) His handwriting is an issue so I wanted to be able to leave that alone 3) I wanted him to move forward in reading without worrying about spelling. But really spelling does do a lot to re-inforce reading.

 

My son doesn't seem to need manipulatives now that he has got pretty good phonemic awareness. He really needed them to learn phonemic awareness. Abecedarian doesn't have manipulatives, though if you have used them with another program you can add them in. It just worked well for my son. It goes slow. I don't know if I will do level C with him or move to another program.

 

Barton is a full program in a way Abecedarian is not. I have a good opinion of it.

 

My favorite books are Overcoming Dyslexia, books by Louisa Moats, and books by Wiley Blevins. I just like Wiley Blevins and he is available in my library... he writes classroom phonics guides for Scholastic. I have hopes of going back to AAS someday for spelling or maybe even of going back to Barton for spelling. I am not sure what I am going to do for multisyllabic words.... but b/c my son is younger I can let that be for now.

 

About the school reading program -- my son's school is considered very good. We are in a university town and people buy homes in my neighborhood for this school. But they don't spend enough time on what my son needs -- they could not provide 30 min. of one-on-one to him unless he were really behind. The problem is -- the behind kids stay behind. Rivers started 1st grade in the lowest reading group. The bottom 3 kids went to pull-out. It was good -- however we are friends with another one of the kids, and he finished 1st grade in Level E. Rivers started 1st grade in Level A and finished in Level I. Finishing 1st grade in Level E does not say a lot of me about the instruction they have in pull-out. It is not bad -- kids do progress -- but at that rate they will fall behind every year. Rivers was the only one of the bottom 3 readers to leave the pull-out group. We are not in the best part of the country for reading -- maybe you are in a much better part.

 

http://www.abcdrp.com/details.asp this is the link for Abecedarian if you are interested. I think Barton is very good and a good first choice, but it doesn't hurt to look at other things to see what they are like. I know there are other people for whom Abecedarian was not enough. I rarely hear that about Barton. But from seeing the samples I thought it was something we would do good with.

Edited June 14, 2012 by Lecka

[Lecka]

Also, I think the cheapest source for "I See Sam" readers is 3rsplus.com. You can see samples there. My son did not make the jump from BRI 3 to ARI 1 with them. But the BRI 1-3 were easy and slow enough for him.

 

We had some rough going in the red books -- he was hung up on s/sh/ch b/c he hadn't covered them in speech therapy. He had a hard telling apart those sounds.

 

For some speech things (like v for th, for him) his articulation did not hurt his reading at all -- he just substituted the sound as he pronounced it. For other things it did hurt him -- it was like sell and shell were the same word to him.

 

I know some of the thing she did in speech therapy to tell them apart: he would have cards and have to sort them into the s or sh pile, and his therapist would talk to him about what her mouth looked like, and she drew a picture of a cave for sh b/c that is what her mouth looked like. That is not exactly like Lips but it is similar -- they talk about what shape your mouth makes and link it to a letter sound. (My understanding anyway.) It helped... but remember that he spent 3 weeks of tutoring, so about 6 hours, on s/sh/ch and telling them apart. Then still some time later reviewing it. That was a particularly hard one for him, at a time that I was observing... I have two younger kids so I didn't always observe him in his private speech.

 

I have looked at samples of High Noon also and it looks good to me. I hadn't heard of it when we started Abecedarian or I might have gotten it .

 

A book in my library "Parenting a Struggling Reader" by Louisa Moats has a chapter that talks about what is meant by "explicit teaching" or "direct and systematic teaching" which are watchwords. There can be many programs that will have those things. Some are more complete, and some have gaps where they assume kids will pick some things up without direct teaching. Abecedarian does have gaps and I am aware of it, and it is acceptable to me. Barton is known for being very complete and not having those gaps. Like -- there is a big gap between Abecedarian Level B and Level C. At that level Barton does many more spelling rules and looks at many more ways of learning how to read different patterns of words. (Or this is what I think from looking at the scope and sequence.)

Edited June 14, 2012 by Lecka

[Melaz4]

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.

[Lecka]

My son had a language battery of tests and a hearing screening when he started private speech. His hearing is fine.

 

My thought is that it's not needed, but I would see what the SLP thinks. If she went for a few months with no progress, I would start looking again, too. If she starts to make steady progress, then I think that means things are working.

 

If she didn't make any progress then I think that would be time to look into other things.

 

However -- my understanding is that it is very common for kids to have horrible phonological processing and no problems with hearing. So -- that is the most likely scenario.

 

I think Overcoming Dyslexia is a good book to read -- it is really all about phonological processing.

[Lecka]

Sharing a link:

 

http://www.bartonreading.com/levels.html#scope

 

There is a link here to the scope and sequence -- it tells the steps in a sample lesson, and then tells what is covered in every lesson and every level.

Edited June 15, 2012 by Lecka

[Melaz4]

Sharing a link:

 

http://www.bartonreading.com/levels.html#scope

 

There is a link here to the scope and sequence -- it tells the steps in a sample lesson, and then tells what is covered in every lesson and every level.

 

 

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.

[Lecka]

I find a lot of reading-related websites hard to navigate. I use Google a lot instead of trying to find something starting from a homepage.