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Help with Almost 7 year old(possible dyslexia)


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Hi all!

 

My nephew will be 7 in March. He's in ps 1st grade.

 

His teacher called my sister in law in a meeting to discuss his school work.

She was informed that he is not "on level" and was moved down to the lowest reading group.

I have read with him before and he doesn't really try to sound words out.

He tries to guess.

I attribute much of this to the high emphasis of sight words in K here. Parents think they are reading but most children memorize the small readers npand sight words. Slippery slope here.

(one reason we are homeschooling)

He aso still writes letters backwards sometimes.

 

She does not want to hold him back if they suggest it. He has a younger sister that starts K in the fall and she thinks it would just devastate him to be held back. I honestly don't think it will help though. He just can't focus in school. I don't think their method of teaching is right for him. No phonics=struggling non-readers

 

Okay, what kind of phonics curriculum would you suggest? I offered to work with him when I get AAR Level 1 (which will be soon hopefully). Mom suspects dyslexia, but I am hesitant to say at all. He's still young. I also don't know enough about it at all. The school systems here offer no testing, so they Wuld have to pay to find out for sure. Please give suggestions.

 

On another note, I also offered to homeschool him until he catches up if she wants. I'm a certified teacher and in AL you can have a certified teacher act as a private tutor for homeschooling. I offered it to her in hopes to at least help get him reading well. He's a smart boy, but I don't think ps is working.

 

TIA!

 

 

 

 

 

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We're using AAR, are about a quarter through the first level, and I love it. It's totally helped get my five year old over the hurdle of reading. It's very phonics based, and is teaching him not only basic letter sounds, but how some letters make more than one sound, which really makes me happy. I think it's definitely worth a try. My one caveat is that if he really doesn't know hardly any of his letter sounds, it might move too fast for him. The first lessons have letter sounds coming at you kind of fast. It slows down, but still we're getting one or two every other lesson. It was fine for my son because I had already done some phonics work with him, but you might find you need to slow it down and give him a little more practice. I still think you can use the program, though!

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My best guess is that the school has a teaching disability, rather than your newphew's having a learning disabiity. :glare: IOW, it is highly probable that the school is teaching sight reading, disguised as "whole language," which is still sight reading; some children will learn to read regardless of what is thrown at them, but most children need direct phonics. Since your newphew is on the cusp of being identified as having a learning disability, I'd say he is in the majority and needs good phonics.

 

I'm betting that a good dose of phonics will "cure" the problem. Your sil can do it with Explode the Code, or Victory Drill Book, or AlphaPhonics. You could probably do it with AAR (not familiar with it, and I don't know if it's beginning phonics instruction or not); certainly you could do it with Spalding (Spalding would address his letter reversals). If you tutor him after school, then your teaching credential won't be an important issue, KWIM? That would only apply if your sil took him out of school completely and you taught him every day, all subjects. Not sure if that's what you intended or not (although of course that would be best. Not that I'm the least bit biased, lol.).

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Oh, I definitely offered for her to take him out completely-at least until he is reading well. She has considered homeschooling before but doesn't think she can handle it.

 

That is exactly how reading instruction is here Ellie. This was the nail in the coffin of us deciding to keep our kids home. I student taught Fall 2011 and was horrified by the way I was supposed to "teach" children to read. My nephew is a smart little boy, but the way they teach is just not working.

 

They seriously teach no letter sounds. They expect the kids to just know them. Then, they send lists of sight words home to memorize each week. I just don't get it. I learned with phonics instruction and I didn't need to memorize sight words to read them. Our teachers would help us figure them out in context. The caliber of students graduating in this area is rapidly declining. It is at no fault of the students and is definitely the teaching methods used. I don't even want to say it's the teachers' faults though because if they don't follow the curriculum guidelines they can get in trouble. It's an awful cycle. :(

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You described my son! He's 7 and in 2nd and has been diagnosed with dyslexia, privately. He bombs Diebels testing, never benchmarks, and is in the Tier 2 reading group (lowest level, intensive, small group with teacher). I stalked these forums and read all I could about educating a child with a learning difference. We bought ABeCeDarian and are working through it. We use tons of audiobooks on the IPad and read every day. He is improving!! Tell you SIL to call the Scottish Rites Learning Center in Birmingham. They can put her son on a list to be evaluated for dyslexia, for free; however, the wait can be months. Good luck navigating the school system if he advances to 2nd grade. In the mean time, I continue to haunt these boards in hopes that we can be homeschooling in the very near future.

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OP, I can feel your pain. When I saw how my son was learning to read I knew something wasn't right. It didn't make sense. His spelling is poor and his confidence was low. I am SO glad we brought him home.

 

We have begun Spalding after several failed attempts at AAS and Spelling Power and Sequential Spelling, all to no avail. They also were getting ready to label him "ADD" and the such. I wouldn't hear it. I just started reading Why Johnny Can't Read by Rudolph Flesch, GET IT, read it and nod your head off and agree out loud. The book really resonated with me. I am working to get my son away from WORD GUESSING and back to the basics of letters having SOUNDS.

 

I am so discouraged to know that this is going on. Honestly, I feel that is why so many children are "labeled" and misdiagnosed, unfortunately. I hope that you SIL will be able to find something that can help her son. I recommend Spalding and I really love reading the info and helpful exercises in Why Johnny Can't Read and I like AlphaPhonics as well. Ellie's suggestions are wise. :)

 

OK....END RANT.

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Oh, I definitely offered for her to take him out completely-at least until he is reading well. She has considered homeschooling before but doesn't think she can handle it.

 

That is exactly how reading instruction is here Ellie. This was the nail in the coffin of us deciding to keep our kids home. I student taught Fall 2011 and was horrified by the way I was supposed to "teach" children to read. My nephew is a smart little boy, but the way they teach is just not working.

 

They seriously teach no letter sounds. They expect the kids to just know them. Then, they send lists of sight words home to memorize each week. I just don't get it. I learned with phonics instruction and I didn't need to memorize sight words to read them. Our teachers would help us figure them out in context. The caliber of students graduating in this area is rapidly declining. It is at no fault of the students and is definitely the teaching methods used. I don't even want to say it's the teachers' faults though because if they don't follow the curriculum guidelines they can get in trouble. It's an awful cycle. :(

 

 

Agreed. It's just an endless cycle....it's not working. I learned to SOUND out words, the old-fashioned way. Sometimes there are reasons for the good old fashioned way of doing things --- they worked.

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He might have dyslexia and he might just need to be properly taught to read using phonics. What's good about this situation is that you proceed the same way regardless of what the reason is.

 

I think your offer to homeschool him full time is amazingly generous and probably just what he needs (regardless of whether there is an LD involved or not). If she doesn't want to do full time homeschooling, if you could tutor him every day after school in reading, it would be wonderful.

 

I think that if he does not have an LD (or other issue) that is making reading difficult, you will probably see very rapid progress once you start with AAR (or whatever phonics program you choose). If he does have dyslexia, you might see good progress as he learns to sound out words, but what is very common is that kids with dyslexia continue to sound out every little thing for a *very* long time. The techniques for teaching reading are the same, it just takes *a lot* longer to get kids with dyslexia fluent--and they frequently never develop the fluency of nondyslexics.

 

Another thing you (and she) can do is to get the book Overcoming Dyslexia and see if he has the symptoms of dyslexia listed there. The book has lists of symptoms for even very young children (preschool aged).

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All the suggested programs sound like they could work. Since you'll already own AAR soon, it might be worth trying out that one. It's O-G based, so, if he really is dyslexic, it will probably work for him. If his problem is simply that the school isn't teaching phonics, his reading may pick up quickly once you're teaching him phonics.

 

And encourage your SIL, if she does keep him in school, to fight against retention. My son really is dyslexic (he's been tested privately and is now going through Barton with a tutor), and the school wanted to hold him back in kindergarten because he hadn't learned to read using their sight word method. I insisted he move on to first grade. He's still in public school (DH hasn't warmed up to the idea of homeschooling as of yet), and he's still behind, but he's making steady progress thanks to the after school tutoring, and there has never been any more talk about holding him back. There's all kinds of research showing that retention almost never works that your SIL can reference if the school is insistent. If a student isn't learning, doing exactly the same things for one more year is unlikely to suddenly make him learn.

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Thanks for all the new comments! I did not realize that AAR was O-G! That's really good to know! She told me yesterday that she would work with him for now and then start letting me tutor him over the summer. I think she's worried about overwhelming him right now.

Also, thanks for he response about retention. I told her the same thing. :)

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I second the suggestion of getting ahold of the book OVERCOMING DYSLEXIA. It will give you a good basic idea of whether your nephew's problem is most likely caused by a learning deficit or a teaching deficit As has been said, however, your approach will be basically the same. The results will simply take more time if he's dyslexic.

 

To help with letter reversals, I recommend checking out Letterland (www.letterland.com). It's a phonics program put out by a company in the UK (where they apparently still teach phonics, at least in some schools). It's designed for a school setting, and I don't think a homeschooler would want to use the full program, but some of the individual elements are great and not too expensive. I recommend the initial book ("Welcome to Letterland, I think, but which one it is should be obvious). Once kids associate the letters with the characters, letter reversals often disappear. My dyslexic does still reverse some letters, but he can self correct when I remind him to check if his problem letters look like their associated characters. They also have handwriting books which can be helpful. The center where my son goes for tutoring, mixes some Letterland materials in with Barton for the younger kids, and it's really helpful.

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OP, I can feel your pain. When I saw how my son was learning to read I knew something wasn't right. It didn't make sense. His spelling is poor and his confidence was low. I am SO glad we brought him home.

 

We have begun Spalding after several failed attempts at AAS and Spelling Power and Sequential Spelling, all to no avail. They also were getting ready to label him "ADD" and the such. I wouldn't hear it. I just started reading Why Johnny Can't Read by Rudolph Flesch, GET IT, read it and nod your head off and agree out loud. The book really resonated with me. I am working to get my son away from WORD GUESSING and back to the basics of letters having SOUNDS.

 

I am so discouraged to know that this is going on. Honestly, I feel that is why so many children are "labeled" and misdiagnosed, unfortunately. I hope that you SIL will be able to find something that can help her son. I recommend Spalding and I really love reading the info and helpful exercises in Why Johnny Can't Read and I like AlphaPhonics as well. Ellie's suggestions are wise. :)

 

OK....END RANT.

 

 

 

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the book why Johnny Can't Read. It is fabulous. Another great book to read which can help (and even give you an idea for a "game" to play which REALLY works) is Teach Your Child to Read in Just Ten Minutes a Day, by Sidney Ledson.

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If you truly suspect dyslexia, I suggest an Orton-Gillingham based method of reading instruction, like Barton or Wilson. But before going that route, I'd try good old fashioned basic phonics. ElizabethB is a member here who has developed loads of free phonic instruction materials. Here's a link to them http://www.thephonicspage.org/

 

I've used these with my son, whom I suspect is dyslexic but have never had diagnosed, it is not a severe case. I'm a former school teacher, and I have used Barton materials and other OG based materials in a classroom setting. I started using AAR and AAS with my son, thinking the multisensory approach would appeal to him, these are great programs but just didn't click with my son. ElizabethB's free lessons have helped him a great deal, and they are simple enough for anyone to use. I bought the DVD's, so we could use them on our television, but the free online lessons are worth checking out and giving a try, even if you end up buying another program.

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