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Anyone using IEW for a dyslexic student


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YES!!!!!!!!!!!!! We're using IEW with my dyslexic rising 4th grader. It has been a success so far. I'm also using IEW with my older rising 7th grader, and we've been learning the basics together.

 

My youngest dd is also very dysgraphic, so I scribe a lot for her. If she had to write the stuff out, she'd never be able to keep up with the pace. And she also has virutally no puncutation or spelling skills at this point. But Andrew P. that created IEW also has a dyslexic child. And he talks a lot about writing using a different part of the brain than spelling and grammar. SO, in these earlier years we are using IEW to teach the *process* of outlining and writing strong paragraphs and using different programs for spelling, grammar. IEW is very systematic and structured, so it makes it easy for the child to feel successful using the checklist approach. The only thing I will say is that my dyslexic kiddo is super creative, and I've had some battles with her on the creative Writing from Pictures unit recently. She doesn't want to be stuck using topic sentences, etc. or confined to the IEW structure. She was very upset about being confined to this when coming up with stories, etc. So, we may just focus on the IEW for the academic/report style writing and not worry about the creative units as much. I don't want to stifle her creativity.

 

Hope this helps! :)

Paula

P.S. I'm not sure why it was listed under Reading resources, unless they are talking about the PAL early language program (which I've heard is very good). It's main focus for language arts is on the Writing aspect.

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I teach co-op classes, and I am an Orton-Gillingham trained tutor. I think IEW is wonderful for students with dyslexia, once they are able to write sentences. Many people don't like it because it's formulaic for a few years, but kids with dyslexia often thrive with a formula.

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Just wondering if anyone has had success with this program. It its listed under the resources for reading in the Dyslexic Advantage but not under the writing resources.:confused:

 

The Writing Skill books by Diana Hanbury King are also mentioned under writing.

 

I tried IEW and thought it was a very good program (though for us the All Things Fun etc. was not fun). My son did just a little and I thought it helped him. However, he was extremely balky and reluctant about doing IEW assignments at all such that it was an exhausting battle.

 

He is currently working on the first Writing Skills (Hanbury) workbook. I do not see as much benefit from the program as I did almost immediately from the IEW work (2 assignments before massive protest)--or at least not as yet--but ds much more happily does 1/2 hr each day on Writing Skills and is now about 3/4 way through the first book, which may eventually get him farther than 0 min. per day on IEW.

 

Or at least I hope so. There have been things we have tried that have turned out to be a waste of time in retrospect. I cannot tell yet which this will turn out to be.

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A couple years ago with my dyslexic daughter and it has been very helpful here. It gives her a way to have something to write about and a method that forces her to use different sentence structures that she would never generate on her own. I also like that it can be used with any topic. IEW provides topics, but you can just as easily use topics from ypur student's course of study.

 

The best part is that she likes it better than what we were doing before.

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For us, we started with the Student Intensive because I wanted to have the children have a different "teacher" than me- Andrew teaches on the DVDs and then I act more of a "guide" ;) What level you pick depends on the age of your child. If you want to go completely on your own slowly working your way through the various writing units, all you would need is the Teaching Writing with Structure and Style. This DVD walks YOU through how to teach your child. I think it's best to do this anyway, but for a "quick startup" we like the student intensive.

 

Hope that helps! :) Also, others in my group for younger kids really enjoyed Fun and Fascinating. So if you look on the IEW website it has things listed into categories based on age groups (A for younger, B for middle schoolers, C for high school) and basic readers/K-1 would go for something like PAL (primary arts of language).

 

Paula

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Thanks I will go look. My DD is going into the 5th grade and is Dyslexic. She is currently without an O-G tutor (due to availability). So I am going to start working with her again.

 

Nancy

 

For us, we started with the Student Intensive because I wanted to have the children have a different "teacher" than me- Andrew teaches on the DVDs and then I act more of a "guide" ;) What level you pick depends on the age of your child. If you want to go completely on your own slowly working your way through the various writing units, all you would need is the Teaching Writing with Structure and Style. This DVD walks YOU through how to teach your child. I think it's best to do this anyway, but for a "quick startup" we like the student intensive.

 

Hope that helps! :) Also, others in my group for younger kids really enjoyed Fun and Fascinating. So if you look on the IEW website it has things listed into categories based on age groups (A for younger, B for middle schoolers, C for high school) and basic readers/K-1 would go for something like PAL (primary arts of language).

 

Paula

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  • 4 months later...

DS just completed week 16 of IEW's ATFF. ATFF is recommended for 3-5th graders. He takes the class once per week with an OG tutor, who is terrific. DS is 1 of 4, 13 yo old boys with varying language based disorders.

 

I never dreamed of using this program until I happened to hear of this tutor through a mutual friend. It helps having a 3rd person be the editor of his work. Honestly, I thought the first 15 weeks stank, and then last week, DS wrote a paragraph from some history notes he'd taken earlier in the week. The clouds parted, a bright light shown in, and I swear I heard angels singing, or maybe it was the cold medicine I'm STILL taking. Either way, I saw progress because he wrote well. There was cohesion and clearly expressed thoughts...

 

I was told by the tutor that writing changes can take time, and it's difficult. I'm curious now to see how the rest of the school year works out. Whatever you use, ensure that the writing instruction goes slowly and is taught explicitly. Be prepared to use webs and mapping if your son is VSL.

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That's amazing! I know writing is going to be oh so difficult. Written expression is the area in which he struggles the most. I'm scared because I don't know how to go about teaching him. How did you find a tutor? Did you still have to buy the DVD's?

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My state requires home schoolers to sign up with home school covers. Several students in our cover are dyslexic, and we know the families. I network and speak with other moms, so that's how I learned of the tutor. We also have a LD support group.

 

I did not purchase any DVDs, just the spiral ATFF booklet, the portable wall, and some materials that had to be downloaded.

 

I'm curious to read input from other moms who actually taught the program alone.

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We went back to doing some IEW ... with less protest, though it is still not beloved by ds. I still think it (the TWSS and SWI-A in my case) is a good program, and the DVD's without tutor seem fine, though my guess is a group setting would have been helpful had it been an option.

 

We also do other things for writing. If you read the thread re SN kids and classical, you will see that much writing recently was about Civil War weapons, which I am a bit concerned about--but I would have to say that I myself now understand all sorts of things about such weapons and their importance to that war, which I would not have learned but for ds writing about it. This has been more in the nature of Brave Writer freewriting, but to an extent using IEW methods in that a book is looked at, and then he goes and writes in his words about what he read.

 

I thought it was very expensive for what we got, but the Brave Writer approach does have online classes, which we took at start of this year. Part of it is to help the parent learn how to work with the child.

 

Actually, that is already old info, and now he writing a journal, a newsletter, and a fiction story--amazing how fast things change.

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Bumping because I'm considering this for my dyslexic 7th grader and could use all of the advice I can get. :)

 

 

My dyslexic 7th grader is using IEW right now. It is a good fit. We're using Ancient History-Based Writing Lessons.

 

This is my second go with this particular IEW resource. The first time using IEW, I watched the TWSS DVDs and went through the syllabus. I watched the first DVD over the summer, then as we went along, watched enough to tackle whatever unit we were on. DS #1 and I went through the student DVD in the back. After that, we used Ancient History-Based Writing Lessons, followed up with Medieval History-Based Writing Lessons the next year, and applied IEW techniques to Canadian studies the third year. I don't know if I will follow the same course with DS #2. The checklists can become constricting over time. They are a wonderful place to begin, though.

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  • 1 year later...

I tried IEW and thought it was a very good program (though for us the All Things Fun etc. was not fun). My son did just a little and I thought it helped him. However, he was extremely balky and reluctant about doing IEW assignments at all such that it was an exhausting battle.

 

He is currently working on the first Writing Skills (Hanbury) workbook. I do not see as much benefit from the program as I did almost immediately from the IEW work (2 assignments before massive protest)--or at least not as yet--but ds much more happily does 1/2 hr each day on Writing Skills and is now about 3/4 way through the first book, which may eventually get him farther than 0 min. per day on IEW.

 

Or at least I hope so. There have been things we have tried that have turned out to be a waste of time in retrospect. I cannot tell yet which this will turn out to be.

 

I got a notification that someone "liked" this today, so thought to comment that for us Writing Skills did not turn out to be useful and we moved on to Bravewriter and other things.

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YES.. I used IEW with great success with my boys, the oldest of which has severe dyslexia.  Another poster mentioned "Step Up to Writing".. We had that program and it didn't work for us. We tried several different programs before IEW.  A different poster mentioned "Brave Writer" and we used that to get over the hatred of writing (instilled in public school), and it was a great program to use before introducing formal writing with IEW.

 

I was hesitant about IEW because of the price, but it was the ONLY program that really advanced my boys' writing skills.  That said, it seems to either work WELL or not at all for kids.  In our Learning Abled Kids' support group a large number of parents LOVE, LOVE, LOVE IEW, but there are some that have said it didn't work at all for them.  So it probably depends on your individual child, his learning style, his specific disabilities, etc.  It is one of the better programs, so it could be well worth the try--and it is really EASY to sell used. ;-)

 

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