Phonics program for child in speech?

[Mommy_of_4]

My ODD will be 4 in a few weeks and I am starting to research phonics programs for her. I am using Horizons for my son and there is no way she can use that, way too fast paced for her. She doesn't really know her ABC's, not from lack of trying with her though. So I would need something that starts completely at the beginning. She goes to speech therapy once a week and her main problem is leaving the sounds off the ends of words and omitting the sounds on the middle. Any recommendations on what might work with her?

[ByGrace3]

I would suggest no matter what you use, go at your dc's pace. ds has some speech issues and we are using OPGTR as a base mixed with some Abeka for reinforcement and ETC 1. We are using a mix because it keeps us going as slow as we need to. Last year we did OPGTR lessons 1-28, took a break over the summer and then just started back this week reviewing all of those. We are now at lesson 29 and guess what? Monday we will repeat lesson 29. Because we are using ETC and the Abeka cards it doesn't seem as repetitive and ds isn't frustrated, I just make it look different. ;) We play a lot of games, work on articulation, and don't worry about "completing" anything.

[Lots of boys]

Hi, my little guy will be 4 in a few days and has Apraxia of speech. He also goes to speech therapy weekly.

 

We have been using AAR Pre-1 and just going really slowly. He is making progress on letter sounds and names but really struggles with some of the other aspects of the program like syllables and rhymes.

 

Overall I have really liked AAR.

[craftyerin]

I think AAR pre-1 would be a great fit for her now! I have a just-turned-5yo in speech with articulation issues. I was really worried about phonics with him. He has had such a good foundation in AAR pre-1 and the Explode the Code primers (Get Ready, Get Set, and Go for the Code), though. He can identify individual letter sounds for every letter, even ones that he struggles to say in his regular speech. I will say that he didn't seem like it was "sticking" until I added the ETC primers to AAR. Having letter sounds coming from multiple sources sees to have really made the leap for him. Just recently, we have started to work through Phonics Pathways, and he's not blending yet. I don't think he'll have major trouble, though. He's progressing nicely!

[Mommy_of_4]

Thank you! I will look further into the suggestions :)

[Crimson Wife]

My youngest child has a major speech delay and depending on how much improvement she makes between now and kindergarten age, I've got Lindamood-Bell LiPS in mind for her. The kit is kind of pricey but a lot less expensive than doing L-B at a center.

[Aoife]

My youngest child has a major speech delay and depending on how much improvement she makes between now and kindergarten age, I've got Lindamood-Bell LiPS in mind for her. The kit is kind of pricey but a lot less expensive than doing L-B at a center.

 

 

:bigear: How does this compare to trying to do something like saxon phonics or LOE with a child with severe speech issues?

 

my 3.5 yo has a severe speech delay and he drops sounds and still at 3.5 cannot say more then 2-4, 2 word phrases and forget sentences altogether :lol: He's PDD-NOS with bad behavioral problems and severe SPD. We (his neuro and I) are beginning to suspect he may be deeper in the spectrum then just PDD-NOS. I am worried about teaching him to read and this is all new ground for me. His older brother my 5.5yo is HFA but his language exploded from nothing at all to talking like an adult at 2yo and teaching himself his letters, sounds and starting to blend on his own. They are two totally different kids! He goes to speech and feeding therapy 1 a week but I am kinda truth be told dreading phonics with him because well for one half of what he does say you cannot understand anyway :tongue_smilie:

 

 

OK sorry for the thread hijack :lol: just looking at picking someone else's brain who may have more experience than I LOL

[Crimson Wife]

:bigear: How does this compare to trying to do something like saxon phonics or LOE with a child with severe speech issues?

 

my 3.5 yo has a severe speech delay and he drops sounds and still at 3.5 cannot say more then 2-4, 2 word phrases and forget sentences altogether :lol: He's PDD-NOS with bad behavioral problems and severe SPD. We (his neuro and I) are beginning to suspect he may be deeper in the spectrum then just PDD-NOS. I am worried about teaching him to read and this is all new ground for me. His older brother my 5.5yo is HFA but his language exploded from nothing at all to talking like an adult at 2yo and teaching himself his letters, sounds and starting to blend on his own. They are two totally different kids! He goes to speech and feeding therapy 1 a week but I am kinda truth be told dreading phonics with him because well for one half of what he does say you cannot understand anyway :tongue_smilie:

 

 

OK sorry for the thread hijack :lol: just looking at picking someone else's brain who may have more experience than I LOL

 

LOE, Saxon, AAR/AAS, OPGTR, and ETC are all solid programs but they are designed for typically developing students. Special needs kids may need a program that is more intensive.

 

LiPS is the program Susan Barton recommends for kids who are not able to start level 1 of the Barton reading intervention program. It focuses on phonemic awareness. If the child struggles with phonemic awareness, then he/she isn't going to have much success with a phonics program (even one designed for kids with LD's like Barton).

 

One other program that I'm considering but haven't been able to find any feedback on is called Sunshine. What interests me about Sunshine is that it is specifically designed for kids with ASD and incorporates principles of ABA.

 

My little one is still 2 years out from kindergarten so a lot could change between now and then. Her siblings were early readers and youngest DD appears bright despite all the language and social deficits caused by her autism. She may well wind up not needing an intensive program like LiPS or Sunshine. We'll just have to wait and see where she is when the time comes.

[Ellie]

Spalding. Of course. :D

 

Spalding emphasizes correct, exact pronunciation, which many have found to work very well with children who are having some speech issues.

[BriannaG]

My dd had both of these problems as well and had some mix of both articulation and phonological errors going on. She was really pushing to learn to read at that age. We used Spalding, as she hated Phonics Pathways and anything else with lots of text on the page. She did wonderfully with it, she can blend, segment and knows her sounds extremely well. She also took off in her reading way faster then I expected. Her ST said her reading program definitely helped along with her self motivation.

 

My dd still has these issues in conversational speech, but she is usually understood. Oral reading practice, she rarely makes these mistakes. Her problem I think now relates more to being a fast talker. We're working on figuring out a some other things with her...multisyllable words are currently giving her problems.

 

She did well enough with Spalding and enjoyed it so we're continuing with it this next year.

 

Good luck finding what works for your dd.

[happycc]

I think I might go the Sunshine route, Crimson. If not then the LIPS, then PRE AAR.

 

Then OPGTR and AAS eventually.

 

He will be getting speech through our local public school twice a week. They will not place him in an autism program because they say he is too high functioning right now.

[Persephone]

Perhaps your child's speech therapist has a recommendation?

 

The following isn't a program and it's not for a child, but may be helpful for you as your child's teacher. I had rarely thought about the position of my tongue, etc. when saying most sounds, so this video (and others by JenniferESL on youtube) was helpful in teaching me enough to be able to help tutoring students of mine who were struggling in reading and were also in speech therapy.

 

Pronunciation of English Vowels videos:

[PeterPan]

My I've been doing a mixture of AAR pre and MFW K5 with my ds3.75 for the last month. AAR pre I had to entirely rearrange because he couldn't do the Ziggy activities AT ALL. About blew my stack over that one, but I'm chilled about it now. The speech therapist said to get Earobics and go through it. I outlined all the Ziggy activities in AAR pre to see how they grouped compared to the lists here http://phonologicalawareness.org/ The worksheets for AAR are fine and he enjoys them, however we rearranged them to cover all three worksheets to go with the letter of the week study in MFW.

 

It turned out to work best for us that we do the *sound* worksheet first (ironically the last one AAR covers for each letter). Because I've done SWR/WRTR/PR/AAS/HTTS/about everything out there (not kidding), I have him learning *all* the sounds for each letter. If he's gonna memorize one, might as well memorize them all. BTW, we don't do any letters he can't say. That's per the SLP, and it seems wise. Meant I had to rearrange the MFW K5 a bit, but that's no problem.

 

I got the phonogram games book for LoE but haven't tried it with him yet. We've only covered 4 letters so far, so they aren't jumbled yet. We do lots of kinesthetic, because that's his best learning modality. After I outlined the Ziggy activities in AAR pre, I realized I could pull them down to use with ANY sounds and ANY words. And of course he LOVES the puppet. I like the inspiration it gives me as a teacher and the sweet times we're having together.

 

Hmm, what was your original question? So it was beginning skills for a newly 4 yo? Well if you've been *trying* to learn the ABCs and it hasn't been working, she's either not ready and not getting the information in her best learning modality. My ds is dominantly kinesthetic. He has some visual, but according to the SLP he's dominantly kinesthetic. Apparently it gets assessed as part of the VMPAC, which is one of the motor control inventories they do. So once I had those scores I realized I was going to have to DO things to get content to stick. My technique right now is really simple. At some point in our lesson when he seems pretty focused, I pull out the crepe foam alphabet puzzle (Lauri) and have him find the target letter. Give a clue if she needs it. Pop out the target letter and trace while saying the sounds. Trace the *hole* for the letter while saying the sounds. Trace it very slowly, repeating several times. Then get out the Magnatab (they come in uppercase, lower case, and numbers, try Timberdoodle) and have him write the letter while saying the sounds. With my ds at least, that motion while saying the sounds seems to make the connections and get it to stick. We do that ritual all the 3-4 days each week that we do school. The first day he might do the foam puzzle with the AAR sound sheet. Next day do the uppercase magnatab and the uppercase AAR sheet. Next day lowercase magnatab and lowercase AAR worksheet. Sorta like that, but not too perfectionist. He learned his letters because they did alphabet puzzles in speech so much. She had one of those cheap ones from the dollar tree that has 4 rows and a different color of letters on each row. That way if the dc isn't finding the spot, you can give them the clue of color or ordinal. Gives you more language than a puzzle where they all look the same.

 

I'll say again, for phonemic awareness we had NO click with the order the Ziggy activities were in for AAR pre. They totally had to be rearranged. She has hard skills first, has blends mixed in there, just a LOT of phonemic discrimination necessary to do the activities from day 1. Rhyming is a VERY hard skill. It should have started with minimal differences of just initial consonants, simple words. That's great that somebody else's kid can do all that at age 3. If the dc has speech or other problems, it's very possible he can't. So whatever, I'm ranting again. Earobics does all that and is fully accessible to a young child *if you sit with them*. It's $99. Not kinesthetic, but good to add to the mix.

 

If anything you try like that isn't clicking even when you KNOW you've backed up all the way to the most foundational skills, then I would back off, try other modalities, or put it aside for a month and do other things. If you look at the skills at that phonologicalawareness.org site you'll see that it's a lot of stuff you can blithely integrate into your day without your dc even realizing it. So for instance we'll play little games where I "trick" ds to see if he can hear target sounds in the words. It's the same kinds of things we were doing with Ziggy, but it's so easy to continue throughout the day (adding your new letter of the week). That way they get in all that thorough practice they're probably going to need.

Edited August 12, 2012 by OhElizabeth