Jump to content

Menu

Books for a severe dyslexic age 14


Recommended Posts

My dd's friend is 14 and is severely dyslexic. She and her Mom are working through Susan Barton's curriculum and they're up to level 6. DD's friend can read very short passages that have large print and that's about it. The problem is this: all the "beginning to read" books" that I've found are for little kids because of the topics or pictures. And the adult things I've found are for adults. What she needs is a book (of sorts) of one page stories in large print with teens in mind. This is a conservative Christian family so they're not looking, perhaps for your typical (whatever that is) teen reading but something that would be of interest to a 14-year-old.

 

Any ideas?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There are some specialty books available from Barton and other sources, but having gone about that far through Barton, I have a couple other suggestions.

 

Electronic readers (like Kindle or Nook) would allow her to enlarge the print on any book she's interested in. Not knowing her, I'm not sure what to suggest but if she's bright but simply struggling with reading but not comprehension of ideas, I'd suggest short stories by famous authors. By Barton 6, she should have reasaonably decent de-coding ability, but electronic readers can help her decode any words she doesn't know how to decode yet or she could read to her mom and her mom could help her with them.

 

Also, if I were the mom, I'd ask myself why she needs large print and take her to a good covd eye doctor. You report she has "severe" dyslexia, but it's possible she has dyslexia along with eye sight problems. Make sure to let the COVD know the extent of her O-G remediation with Barton.

 

Lastly, if she does have problems with comprehension rather than simply de-coding problems (and possibly eyesight problems), then that would deserve some extra attention and I'd recommend contacting Susan Barton for ideas.

Edited by merry gardens
Link to comment
Share on other sites

What about reading fluency type books - like QuickReads or High Noon Reading Fluency? I think QuickReads is meant for grades 2-4 so probably still a little young but the ones I have are large print and certainly less babyish than "beginning to read" books. They are harder to buy though (got the ones I have used through Amazon and Paperbackswap).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

High Noon Books specializes in high interest/low level materials. Its Reading Intervention program has one page passages that are probably about as good as one can get for a teenager (it is hard to be really interesting while using very limited words). My son did much better with High Noon's program than a friend seems to be doing with Barton. We were in about the same place starting at same time, and I chose the one and the friends chose the other. Their son is moving along in Barton, and they are pleased, but he really isn't reading much yet--sounds a bit like what you describe for the 14 year old. My son reads about 500 pages per week at a level that fits his interests now. I worked very very hard with him, however, about 2 hours per day for a year on just reading to get there.

 

ETA: and yes, their fluency books might also work. The first level begins with a fairly simple half page passage about something like rain, with comprehension questions and a writing prompt on the lower half of the page.

Edited by Pen
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Also, if I were the mom, I'd ask myself why she needs large print and take her to a good covd eye doctor. You report she has "severe" dyslexia, but it's possible she has dyslexia along with eye sight problems. Make sure to let the COVD know the extent of her O-G remediation with Barton.

:iagree: The aspect of a 14 y.o. needing large print sounds much more like a vision issue than a dyslexia issue.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Also, if I were the mom, I'd ask myself why she needs large print and take her to a good covd eye doctor. You report she has "severe" dyslexia, but it's possible she has dyslexia along with eye sight problems. Make sure to let the COVD know the extent of her O-G remediation with Barton.

 

Bingo. :iagree::iagree::iagree: The large print thing is her huge red flag that the EYES are a problem. She needs to get to a good COVD doc, preferably a Fellow. They can correct that. That improved within 1-2 months on my dd.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

Steck Vaughn has a lot of low level reading with more middle/high school content. Even found this one (but there are a ton more & just passages, etc. I was referred to Steck Vaughn as a resource in case my dd needs this when she hits high school):

 

http://steckvaughn.hmhco.com/en/adolesliteracy.htm

 

Also, here's something that we found for history:

 

http://www.pcieducation.com/US-history-shorts-binder-2.aspx

 

I also agree with the referral to High Noon- heard good things about that. Well, this should get her started on some possibilities between all that is listed on this board;)

Paula

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Also, if I were the mom, I'd ask myself why she needs large print and take her to a good covd eye doctor. You report she has "severe" dyslexia, but it's possible she has dyslexia along with eye sight problems. Make sure to let the COVD know the extent of her O-G remediation with Barton.

 

Really? I thought I'd read a study about dyslexia recently where the results indicated that nearly all dyslexics benefited from enlarged print. Of course, I can't find it now.

 

Ds is much younger, but he is the same way. I'm having him checked by yet another COVD doctor, but I honestly think he just gets overwhelmed by the amount of big words on a page of small text and doesn't even want to try because he knows how hard it will be to read those.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
Guest ThereseL

Has she tried audio books? My 15yr old old is dyslexic and downloads all her textbooks and reading for fun books to her iPod from Learningally.org

Yes I know it's hard to believe that a dyslexic child LOVES to read. Well she does now.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Electronic readers (like Kindle or Nook) would allow her to enlarge the print on any book she's interested in. Not knowing her, I'm not sure what to suggest but if she's bright but simply struggling with reading but not comprehension of ideas, I'd suggest short stories by famous authors. By Barton 6, she should have reasaonably decent de-coding ability, but electronic readers can help her decode any words she doesn't know how to decode yet or she could read to her mom and her mom could help her with them.

 

Also, if I were the mom, I'd ask myself why she needs large print and take her to a good covd eye doctor. You report she has "severe" dyslexia, but it's possible she has dyslexia along with eye sight problems. Make sure to let the COVD know the extent of her O-G remediation with Barton.

 

 

:iagree:

 

http://www.covd.org

 

And, try out both a Kindle and iPad with font adjusted to large. Some people do better with the Kindle, some with the iPad, it depends.

 

The font may or may not be too small, but another book suggestion to try is syllable divided books. They are divided up to help sound out the word, making it very easy to decode but high interest and vocabulary level. Syllables that end in a vowel are long. (ba-ker, me-ter, hi-lands, mo-ment, mu-sic) Syllables that end in a consonant are short. (sad-ness, met-ric, hin-der, mon-ster, mun-dane.)

 

I would start with "Lives of the Presidents" and pick out one President to print out and test.

 

http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Reading/syllabledividedb.html

 

Or, you may be able to enlarge the pdf on a Kindle or iPad or on-screen on a computer.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...