Dyslexia resources

[AmyinMD]

My 8 yo dd was recently evaluated by a Reading Specialist and she told us that dd definitely has dyslexia. She should be in Grade 2 this year but tested at low 1st grade or kindergarten for everything tested.

 

We are going to work with an Orton Gillingham tutor starting in January but I'm trying to figure out the route we want to go. The tutor has recommended Primary Phonics as well as Explode the Code. We are already using ETC but dd was having a heck of a time with Book 2. She seemed to do fine with Book 1 so moved her to Book 2 but we'll be backtracking and going into 1.5 since she missed numerous CVC words on the test. We have spent hours and hours working on them. She did Lessons 1-40 of IEW Primary Arts of Language- Reading and did very poorly on the word list at the end of the book. All were words she'd practiced many times. I'm no longer going to use that program for her since it doesn't seem to be working. My son wants to finish it even though it is too easy for him. We've been going really slow for dd but it's obviously not working for her.

 

I see a lot of people here seem to like Barton but I'm wondering if I need to purchase all that if we are using a OG tutor. I'm not sure how long we'll use the tutor but I really need some outside help right now to get going with dd.

[Lecka]

You might check out the Barton student screening. Maybe there is a foundational issue that needs to be taken care of, and maybe you could find out from the student screening.

 

It is just good information to have either way. http://www.bartonreading.com/students_long.html#screen

 

The standard book to read is Overcoming Dyslexia by Sally Shaywitz. It is worth checking out if you haven't read it yet.

[Shellers]

I can only speak from my personal experience with my "severely dyslexic" son. He had been in public school for 6 years (repeated K) and was just finish 4th grade with an IEP, and could read a total of nine words!

 

At this point I didn't even know homeschooling was an option. I decided I was going to get my kid reading, even if it killed us both. It's a big joke at home now, but at the time I remember wondering if my son would ever read. Barton wasn't really an option.

 

I worked with him over summer. We live in a very rural area of Northern California, and OG help doesn't exist in our area. I knew it was up to me to get him reading. I started out with the basics, the sounds letters make. We practiced this all summer and into the fall with Dancing Bears. He really struggled with the flash cards, and most pages of Dancing Bears. I wouldn't move on until he could get the page down. Sometimes we'd repeat a single page all week. I've read it'll take a "normal" kid 20 repititions to have something stick, but it could take a kid with dyslexia 100+ repititions. I think it took my boy several 100 repititions.

 

The fall of 5th grade he was reevalutated at his public school, and had gone up an entire reading level, all from our work at home. I pulled him from school at the end of Oct in 5th grade. He's now in 6th grade and is reading at a 3rd grade level. So in 1.5 years of working with him at home he's gone up three grade levels in reading.

 

My advice would be to keep working with something until your child fully grasps it. Don't move on. I know this can get boring but I think it's necessary. Then again I'm just a mom who was desperate to get her boy reading...

[simplyme99]

You don't need both an O-G tutor and Barton ... they are basically the same ... the difference is YOU are the tutor with Barton!! I chose the O-G tutor route instead of using Barton just because my DD responds better to an "outsider" - LOL

[merry gardens]

I agree that you don't need both an O-G tutor and the Barton program--it would not only be a duplication but could potentially confuse your child even more! But even if you don't use Barton, I agree with Lecka that you should check out the Barton student screen. Especially since your child has trouble with CVC words, you --or the tutor or a slp*-- should check to discover if your child has the background phonological awareness needed for any phonics based reading program. Phonics teaches reading based on the smaller sounds within words. A person needs a certain level awareness of the different sounds of the letters within words before an Orton-Gillingham or phonic program makes sense. Most of the time those skills build further as the child learns to read, but some people don't have enough to get started without a great deal of difficulty. Some sounds sound very much alike--and the training to tell them apart usually comes simply by being a native speaker--yet that doesn't happen for some people without further work. People with dyslexia usually don't have that sound discrimination skill develop naturally and even withing the catagory of people with dyslexia, some have more difficulties with it than others. That is why Barton has the screen--because some people with dyslexia need extra help beyond even what many other dyslexics needs and that screen is designed to help identify those who need the extra help.

 

 

(*Your O-G tutor might give a similar screen, but I wouldn't count on it. Speech and language pathologists can do something similar to this if you ask for an evaluation on your child to check for phonological awareness.)

[RamonaQ]

I would just wait and work in tandem with the tutor. I would NOT do two programs (tutor and Barton). I would do ETC based on what the child is learning in tutoring....Also, ask the tutor to suggest homework so you are working daily.

 

For now, lots of audio books and reading to your kid.

[Pen]

You might check out the Barton student screening. Maybe there is a foundational issue that needs to be taken care of, and maybe you could find out from the student screening.

 

It is just good information to have either way. http://www.bartonrea...ong.html#screen

 

The standard book to read is Overcoming Dyslexia by Sally Shaywitz. It is worth checking out if you haven't read it yet.

 

 

I agree with above.

 

What worked for my son was High Noon Books, not Barton. I posted about how we used it in Reading Fluency thread now showing. but will add here that I also was using the High Noon Reading Intervention program, Talkingfingers.com Read Write Type program, and some other things too that were less helpful but added in.

 

for some children more than one thing at a time would be too much. But for others, esp if the emphasis of the year is reading, then doing a variety of things (even to not have any one be boring works fine.

[Lecka]

I think, the OP is trying the right things and not getting good results.

 

I think two possibilities: 1) more review needed, more time needed 2) foundational skills are lacking.

 

If it is foundational skills I think the Barton screening is a good, quick way to find this out.

 

Once you know one way or the other, you can move on from there. It is not necessary to use Barton.

 

I think you also might think about posting some of his mistakes. Sometimes people post mistakes, and I feel like, I have seen that pattern of mistakes, and I know something that helped for my son.

 

When I looked at programs I have had a good impression of all the ones people here are mentioning.

[AmyinMD]

I'm going to start with Explode the Code 1.5 and Primary Phonics Book 1 and then wait until she starts the tutoring to see if I should get more. I have some games we can play too.

 

I'll look at the Barton test but I'll hold off ordering any of that yet.

 

I've talking to a local mom who pulled her severely dyslexic son out of school in my county after he made no progress at all in 2 years. She uses Verticy and I did the first section of the placement test for that but I think dd is on the young side for it. It looks to be for Grades 3 and up and dd is Grade 2. She says the schools here use Wilson which she doesn't think is as good as OG.

[Tokyomarie]

I'm going to start with Explode the Code 1.5 and Primary Phonics Book 1 and then wait until she starts the tutoring to see if I should get more. I have some games we can play too.

 

I'll look at the Barton test but I'll hold off ordering any of that yet.

 

I've talking to a local mom who pulled her severely dyslexic son out of school in my county after he made no progress at all in 2 years. She uses Verticy and I did the first section of the placement test for that but I think dd is on the young side for it. It looks to be for Grades 3 and up and dd is Grade 2. She says the schools here use Wilson which she doesn't think is as good as OG.

 

Just a slight correction on Wilson. It is an Orton Gillingham-based program. OG is less a curriculum itself than it is an approach to teaching reading. There are a number of curricula that have been developed around the OG principles of which Wilson is one. It is typically used in a classroom, however, and usually 1-on-1 teaching is the best approach for a student who is already signficantly behind the norms for reading proficiency.

 

If you haven't yet, you might check out some of the fact sheets from the International Dyslexia Association. These are quick reads on different dyslexia related topics. Also check out the DyslexiaHelp website, sponsored by University of Michigan. It is a tremendous resource for getting up to speed on lots of topics related to dyslexia.

[Lecka]

I do still recommend the Barton screening. If it is passed, then ignore it. If it is not passed, it means that probably other reading programs are not going to be very effective until a foundational issue is addressed.

 

Not all kids have any need for it, but my son did, so I am quite partial to it.

 

The Barton screening is to make sure a child has foundational skills in place so that they can start any dyslexia reading program, it doesn't have to be Barton.

 

My son had articulation issues and needed speech therapy, he scored as less than the 10th percentile in articulation when he was 6, and he was missing sounds and unpromptable on sounds that are usually acquired by 2-year-olds.

 

He also had a lot of trouble learning his letter sounds, a huge amount of trouble.

 

So he was not ready to jump in with a reading program, and was not able to succeed until that was addressed.

 

So that is what it can look like when a child is not passing the Barton screening.

 

Most kids do pass it and then it is no issue and any quality dyslexia/struggling reader program can work.

 

I have heard that IEW is a good program (I have no personal experience with it, and hadn't heard of it when I was researching programs for my son). But when a child does not do well with a good program, that is a reason to wonder if they have a foundational issue. It could also just be that the program is moving too fast, or not reviewing enough, or the child is memorizing and needs to work with nonsense words, or some explanation like that. I have heard IEW has a multisensory part to it, and the multisensory is something a lot of kids need, also.

 

Wilson in of itself has a good reputation. Wilson as it is implemented in the school.... who knows.

 

edit: Actually I am not sure what I have heard about IEW. I think I am confusing it with something else.

[merry gardens]

I do still recommend the Barton screening. If it is passed, then ignore it. If it is not passed, it means that probably other reading programs are not going to be very effective until a foundational issue is addressed.

 

Not all kids have any need for it, but my son did, so I am quite partial to it....

Me too. The op doesn't need to buy the program in order to use the screen.

 

Like Lecka's son, my son didn't pass one section of the Barton screen either. He'd seen a slp the previous year and two years before that, but unlike Lecka's both of them told me he didn't qualify for speech therapy because he could make all the age appropriate sounds. The problems were he couldn't distinguish several sounds from each other, nor could he detect individual sounds within words--and both of those problems contributed heavily to his reading difficulties. I tried another Orton-Gillingham based program and a few others too, but none of those worked. After he failed that screen, it was Susan Barton who told me not to even start her program until he did a portion of LiPS. Once we'd done that, his reading finally began to progress.

[Rod Everson]

My 8 yo dd was recently evaluated by a Reading Specialist and she told us that dd definitely has dyslexia. She should be in Grade 2 this year but tested at low 1st grade or kindergarten for everything tested.

 

We are going to work with an Orton Gillingham tutor starting in January but I'm trying to figure out the route we want to go.

 

I read all of the replies (fairly quickly, so I might have missed it) and I don't think anyone suggested the possibility of vision skills issues. If you've been diligently working on phonics instruction with your daughter and yet she continues to have trouble, I've found that it's quite likely she's dealing with an undiagnosed visual skills problem and that vision therapy might be the next "route" you should take.

 

You need to find a competent developmental optometrist and if he or she recommends a full developmental vision evaluation, you should let them do it. My guess is that you'll find that she needs vision therapy. Once vision therapy is complete, you might find that she finally benefits from the very programs that you're already using. One of the key indications that vision skills problems should be suspected is when a child fails to "get" phonics instruction.

 

As far as locating vision therapy, the page Find a Vision Therapy Provider on my website might help you should you decide to go that route next.

 

All the best,

 

Rod Everson

OnTrack Reading