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Help for 10-year-old struggling with reading


ljensen1
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I'm looking for some advice on how to help my 10-year-old son with his reading. Let me preface this by saying he has two older sisters who are fluent readers. We took the "delayed academics" approach. I did phonics with them a few minutes a day starting at age 6, but didn't push. My older daughter became a fluent reader at age 8. She went from what would probably be considered below grade level to well above grade level in a few months. The same thing happened with my second daughter at age 9.

 

My son is 10 and is still struggling. Toward the end of last year I decided to spend much more time working on his reading and spelling skills. He is required to read to an adult for about 20 minutes every day (alternating paragraphs with the adult). He is required to read to himself for 15 minutes. I've just finished working through the B1 level of ABeCeDarian with him. He does Zane Bloser handwriting (has been doing that since 1st grade). His handwriting is okay, but not great. He does copywork a couple of times a week (actually more like once a week, but the goal is twice a week). He is using Sequential Spelling, Sentence Island, and Practice Island every day.

 

He progresses at what seems like a "normal" pace with the programs but this doesn't seem to be transferring to his regular reading. He often reverses B's and D's. He often confuses short, simple words: reads "a" for "the" or "for" instead of "from". He'll read a word correctly in one sentence and struggle with it in the next. He often has to be reminded to sound out a word and not guess. He often has an easier time with longer words (3 or more syllables) than with the shorter, simpler words. Reading is hard work for him. It takes time and concentrated effort.

 

On the positve side, he comprends what he reads. Math concepts come easily to him. He is bright and has a great memory for science and other topics that interest him. He is inquisitive, very verbal and has started typing out a very interesting original story.

 

What can we do to help him become a fluent reader? Do any of you have children who have struggled in a similar way? Are there particular programs or curriculums you can recommend? Are there online tests that might help us identify the issues that are holding him back. Money is tight and I would rather not take him to a specialist, but I will if that is what we need to do.

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We use Phonics Pathways. It has worked fine for my daughters, but my son seems to need more.

 

I was also using that with my son. He was progressing in the sense that he could learn the new rules and do the pages, but his reading just never took off. Finally a friend of mine, who is a reading specialist, suggested that he was dyslexic and pointed out that with the amount of phonics instruction he had, most kids would have been off and reading. My son sounds VERY similar to yours in the way his dyslexia shows itself.

 

We are early into Barton, but so far it seems like a great fit. It is absurdly expensive, BUT you can buy one level at a time used on ebay, and re-sell them for basically what you paid. Plus its cheaper than a tutor, and with doing it at home you can do it every day and see quicker progress. I struggled with the decision to do take the plunge with it, but ultimately I decided I wanted to go for something that had a very high chance of success rather than trying program after program.

 

Good luck...I really think you'll get a lot of help on the other board though :)

Elena

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Your sons sounds very similar to my soon to be 10 year old. I took her to a specialist and found out she has a mild case of dyslexia. We have a tutor using the Barton program with her twice a week. I have her reading to me everyday, using Apples and Pears for spelling problems, and FLL for grammar and WWE. Things are getting better... it is just a slow process.

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I had tremendous success with REWARDS by Sopris West. Worth every penny. And the program only lasts 25 days! We used that along with daily practice of phonograms and daily reading through the old Webster's Speller, using a notched card. Within a few months of intense practice, my son was finally reading on grade level. He is dyslexic.

 

Board member ElizabethB's site has a wealth of information. There are probably cool apps with the phonograms now.

 

We also used Spelling Through Morphographs by SRA (bought on ebay; you need teacher presentation book and student book). That, too, was a success and a great complement to the phonics instruction. Remember, these kids need incremental, teacher directed lessons. It can be done!!

 

Best wishes to you!

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Y'all know I will recommend Spalding. :D Although of course there could be some learning issues such as dyslexia, the problems could also be a lack of formal, concentrated instruction (which is not a criticism, just a comment on the way relaxed/delayed learning can look). Spalding would address all of his issues: reading, b/d confusion, handwriting, not remembering a word each time he sees it, and so on.

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This is exactly like my DS11, 6th grade, who is dyslexic. It has been a long road to fluent reading. He struggles for long periods of time then makes great jumps forward only to struggle again to move onto the next level. I would have your sons vision checked, by a specialist to rule out eye issues. DS has found reading on a tablet in large print helps some. Also we are trying a trick, I've cut a sentence size slit in an index card, he moves it as he reads(print books). This helps the "jumble" of words and has increased his speed a lot. Good luck, be patient and don't let him feel bad. DS's younger sister reads at an amazing speed but he doesn't feel inferior he knows his strengths lie somewhere else.

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There are so many wonderful suggestions I feel I'm drowning in websites:)

 

The programs we are using now are helping, but I don't know if they're helping enough. I guess I think he should be a more fluent reader than he is, but I don't know if that's a realistic expectation. I had him take an online tests for dyslexia mentioned above. He scored 95% on reading short sight words and scored at a sixth grade level for reading vocabulary words (he's in fifth grade). If he's reading one word a time, he's fine, but it's a completely different story if he's reading from a book. That's when he starts substituting one word for another and mixing b's and d's. One sentence he'll read a complicated word quickly. The next sentence he'll need to sound it out. The decoding skills are there, when he stops to use them, but the fluency is not, or at least it's very inconsistent.

 

This morning, I asked him to read me a couple of sentences from his math book. He read, "Subract in parts. Remember: You can add to check a subtraction problem," easily and quickly. However, tomorrow he could stumble over every other word in that sentence.

 

I am definitely going to try a slot in a index card with him. I'm also going to change what's he's reading. He's been picking some pretty long (300 page) chapter books from the library to read with his father (they alternate paragraphs). I think he might do better with some books like the High Noon series that focus on reinforcing what he knows.

 

I haven't decided whether to switch over to a completely different program like Barton or Spalding, or to just supplement what we're doing now with something like "Rewards." His younger brother (kindergarten) is just starting AAS. I wonder if AAS would be of any benefit to him.

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AAS is great for spelling, but is too slow to be of any real help for fluency. We struggle with the same problem. Rewards has helped a lot, but ds is still not fluent. I'm thinking about continuing with Megawords. For now we just have him read aloud a lot and do some echo reading.

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If he's reading one word a time, he's fine, but it's a completely different story if he's reading from a book. That's when he starts substituting one word for another and mixing b's and d's. One sentence he'll read a complicated word quickly. The next sentence he'll need to sound it out. The decoding skills are there, when he stops to use them, but the fluency is not, or at least it's very inconsistent.

 

In addition to exploring the possibility of dyslexia, I would definitely want to rule out developmental vision issues with a covd optometrist.

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There are so many wonderful suggestions I feel I'm drowning in websites:)

 

The programs we are using now are helping, but I don't know if they're helping enough. I guess I think he should be a more fluent reader than he is, but I don't know if that's a realistic expectation. I had him take an online tests for dyslexia mentioned above. He scored 95% on reading short sight words and scored at a sixth grade level for reading vocabulary words (he's in fifth grade). If he's reading one word a time, he's fine, but it's a completely different story if he's reading from a book. That's when he starts substituting one word for another and mixing b's and d's. One sentence he'll read a complicated word quickly. The next sentence he'll need to sound it out. The decoding skills are there, when he stops to use them, but the fluency is not, or at least it's very inconsistent.

 

This morning, I asked him to read me a couple of sentences from his math book. He read, "Subract in parts. Remember: You can add to check a subtraction problem," easily and quickly. However, tomorrow he could stumble over every other word in that sentence.

 

I am definitely going to try a slot in a index card with him. I'm also going to change what's he's reading. He's been picking some pretty long (300 page) chapter books from the library to read with his father (they alternate paragraphs). I think he might do better with some books like the High Noon series that focus on reinforcing what he knows.

 

I haven't decided whether to switch over to a completely different program like Barton or Spalding, or to just supplement what we're doing now with something like "Rewards." His younger brother (kindergarten) is just starting AAS. I wonder if AAS would be of any benefit to him.

 

^^^ This!

 

I just received my Rewards Intermediate program in the mail today. I will be trying it out with my 8 year old son later this evening. I took a look at Barton's and got serious sticker shock! I also looked at Spaulding and could not wrap my brain around it.

 

All of the different websites are causing my head to spin (or is that spinning due to my tonsillectomy pain meds :-)

 

There is just so much to consider! Thanks for all of the information. Sorry to hijack.

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I can see I really need to narrow down and figure out exactly what his challenge areas are.

 

I'm going to read up on dyslexia and see where he falls there.

 

He could get better with decoding. There are some phonics rules that he isn't sure about. I can make sure we drill those.

 

What really puzzles me, though, is how he can read one sentence fluently, and then struggle with the next. It's as if something switches in his brain. Is that a dyslexia issue? Or an attention issue? Or something else?

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His younger brother (kindergarten) is just starting AAS. I wonder if AAS would be of any benefit to him.

 

 

AAS helped my kids with reading. Even though the phonics in the beginning levels was lower than their reading level, it filled in some gaps. Plus the segmenting and syllable work helped with their word attack skills. They went up 2 grade levels the first year they used AAS (Levels 1, 2, and part of 3). So, it's possible that it would be helpful.

 

I'd first look at AAR though, because that's going to have more focused reading activities, and will help with fluency and other issues. Both AAR and AAS are based on Orton Gillingham methods which are known to help students with dyslexia.

 

Hope you find something that helps! Merry :-)

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Well, no one can say long distance, but it sure sounds like dyslexia. We successfully used HighNoonBooks.com Sound Out Chapter Books and Reading Intervention program, which seemed like a better fit than Barton for my son. It was also less expensive. We worked 1.5 hours per day 5 days per week (in divided doses) and 30 min on weekends with reading aloud till his reading was caught up. We let other things go somewhat during that time. We practiced the levels till they were "easy-peasy" fluent at first--I've posted more details on what exactly we did in other threads. My son also seems to have some dysgraphia (it often goes with dyslexia) and has taken to learning typing more than handwriting. He can print legibly, and I decided that cursive was not worth the effort.

 

My son is now reading very well -- finished all Harry Potter books and all Rick Riordan books so far available and is now reading Star Wars books from the adult section. That said, he can still have those b vs. d, (mine also has r vs. v and other letters that get confused) and similar issues moments--especially if the word is unfamiliar to him as more are, now that he is into adult books. My understanding is that this is a dyslexia issue and is why extra time can be had on tests and so on, that it is not by and large an attention issue (though that can enter in, of course). And my ds still does a fair bit of reading aloud (of Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, Star Wars, now) which keeps work going continuing in fluency, though mostly now he reads to himself. A problem with reading to self is that words can be mislearned more easily and become a habit. However, my ds is now reading too much for it all to be aloud. Still, if you can have yours do all reading aloud you will more quickly be able to pick up and fix errors.

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He progresses at what seems like a "normal" pace with the programs but this doesn't seem to be transferring to his regular reading. He often reverses B's and D's. He often confuses short, simple words: reads "a" for "the" or "for" instead of "from". He'll read a word correctly in one sentence and struggle with it in the next. He often has to be reminded to sound out a word and not guess. He often has an easier time with longer words (3 or more syllables) than with the shorter, simpler words. Reading is hard work for him. It takes time and concentrated effort.

 

 

 

Someone else already suggested this, but I'll second the suggestion that you take your son to a developmental optometrist for a vision skills evaluation. This is especially true if either you or your husband, or a few of his aunts and uncles had similar experiences with learning to read. I've got quite a bit about this on my website, but the page Find a Vision Therapy Provider will probably be of most use to you.

 

As for the b/d confusion, Romalda Spalding wrote up one of the best ways I've ever found to straighten that out in her book, The Writing Road to Reading. The page Telling b from d on my site goes over her method in detail. It really works, unless a child is visually confused enough that they're seeing double, in which case they sometimes can't even tell which side of the circle the line is on.

 

Personally, I think you're describing a child with vision skills issues that are holding him back, so that's the next thing I'd look into if I were in your shoes. Unfortunately, vision therapy can be pretty expensive, but it's the answer for a lot of "dyslexics." Also, here's a Vision Assessment Checklist from my site that might help you decide whether your son is dealing with vision skills problems.

 

Rod Everson

OnTrack Reading

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  • 3 months later...
Guest Aki

Can someone please tell me what AAS and AAR stand for? I saw AAS mentioned several times in an older post about Orton-Gillingham v. Spalding methods as well. I'd really like to check out this AAS curriculum, but I don't know what to search for! :) Thanks!!!

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