Best resources for dyslexic students...

[thundersweet]

All subjects! What have you found to make a difference in educating your child with dyslexia? I would particularly like to hear stories of how maybe you were doing things differently before diagnosis and what a difference a simple change in curriculum or teaching method did for you. I suspect my 8yo may have dyslexia. We'll be having him tested just as soon as I can find someone to test him in my area. I'm in Roswell, GA if anyone has a good recommendation: )

 

Thanks,

Sandy

[Lecka]

For my son a big issue is math facts. For now we are practicing orally or through games. Drill formats of flashcards or sheets of problems are not good for him.

 

Then just straight reading and reading practice.

 

I do pre-teach and focus on key vocabulary.

 

But I only after school, so I do things that are not going well.

 

Besides reading my son's issues are math facts and handwriting though. I am taking him to OT for handwriting and scribing at this point. I "should" be thinking of a typing program.

 

 

Big changes for me are 1) not expecting him to love a narrative approach to history vs. a non-fiction book with pictures for introducing a subject. 2) the whole math facts thing -- I am taking a long range approach, and will not let it hold him back in math.

 

So those are the things for me as I support him. But I am not providing his whole curriculum, lol.

 

Oh, also I am very open on reading material. Comic books, series, anything to encourage reading.

 

Audiobooks would not be a main approach at this point, a little is good, but he does not follow things well if they are talking fast or using complex sentences or using many words not familiar to him. He is at a higher level than he could use with audiobooks imo. For him audiobooks need to be a little easy or he gets lost. But -- I do like audiobooks for him. But it is more for enjoyment.

[thundersweet]

Yes, math facts are a huge struggle. My son has made progress using the Addition the Fun Way program. He will still forget the stories if I don't "flash" him daily. I'm planning to use something similar now that he is getting to multiplication. I decided a while back to just keep going forward. He gets the concepts, it's just his fact recall holds him back. Like your son, my son struggles with math facts and reading. Oh....spelling too!

 

Sandy

[TheReader]

My son is also 8 yrs old, and just dx'ed with dyslexia (and other stuff; basically, he has all forms of processing disorders out there). Here are the things we are doing that are helping:

 

math ---

 

--we have free play with math manipulatives. Often. He makes connections, even if he doesn't always put the vocabulary together with the toy. But, because he's familiar with the toys, he gets it when I do pull out a manipulative to show him a technique or concept from math. So, I let him play to his heart's content with that stuff. (by toys I mean cuisenaire rods, pattern blocks, linking cubes, base 10 cubes/rods, counting bears/objects, tokens, dominoes, dice, etc...)

 

--we were given a simple abacus. Not the complex type, just 10 rows of 10 beads each. This has been HUGE in helping him understand subtraction, as I count over the starting number (move to the right) and then we subtract (move back to the left), the subtractant (?) and he sees the answer. This has helped as well with any addition/subtraction over 10. Being able to SEE when we have to dip into the previous ten, OR that it stays the same, OR that adding so many ones means we go up to the NEXT ten, etc. has really helped him grasp all of that.

 

I plan to use it for multiplication some too when we get there, showing groups of x. We can move so many from each row over to the right hand side and he can then count those to see how, for ex, 3 x 3 is the same as 3 + 3 + 3. I hope.

 

--calculator. We were told by the edu psych who dx'ed him, get him a calculator that shows the whole problem, and let him/encourage him to use it. So we do. I teach him the concept with the abacus, then he "works" the problems with the calculator and reads me the answer, then I "check his work" with the abacus. Takes the pressure off, but he still gets the concept. This is working really well, and this way he sees/learns how to "read" a math problem. Incidentally, the other thing she suggested to us was to have his problems all written in one format, or at least to not switch it up on the same page. So, all horizontally written, or all vertically/stacked, but not to go back & forth within one lesson as that confuses him.

 

Reading --

 

--we had been using Explode the Code (the pre-Explode the Code books) for two years, to no avail. He still had no idea what sound each letter makes. We switched, at the edu psych's prompting, to All About Spelling and he's getting it. We go slow, but it's working.

 

--tied in with that, we use Handwriting Without Tears and the letter formation in that program is good for him. I have him write the stuff from AAS on the HWT paper, using their methods. It works well. We also add in games -- ABC bingo, sound bingo, etc. and rather than make him write everything, I'll lay out the letter tiles, he and I go over them together, then I call a sound, he finds the tile and places it on the space on the bingo card. Stuff like that.

 

History & Science I just ask him to listen. I don't worry, at this point, about retention. Instead, i jot down the questions he asks while he's listening, and we talk about those things. Whether he remembers it the next day or not, or a week from now, I know that he was engaged in the text at the time. For now, that's enough.

 

Scribbles -- I found this book (a directed coloring book) and ordered it for him. Some of it is a bit much for his skill level, but a lot is fun and if he wasn't also a perfectionist, he'd enjoy it anyway. BUT it's been a huge help in getting his brain into "school mode" when we start our school day. It gets his mind & body focused and working together and then he's able to sit and listen while I read, etc. Any little activity like that -- mazes, dot to dots, etc. would be a good idea.

 

Lastly, patience.

 

Seriously. I've had to learn and educate everyone around us --- this is a marathon, not a sprint. And, my mom-in-law said the best thing --- "Of course it's going to take a long time! This is the first year he's ever been taught stuff so it makes sense to him!"

 

Wow. That blew me away, because it's so true: starting from the point of a diagnosis, this is technically Year One. Forget grade level. Forget what you were doing up to now; it wasn't working for a reason, you weren't teaching to the way his brain works. Forget the "he should be...." stuff. This, starting with the curriculum and methods that make sense to his brain, is Year One of school for him. Period. Look at it as the starting point, rather than trying to play catch-up.

 

So, being totally serious, that's the biggest and best resource I have found: the mind shift from "gotta catch up" to "slow down and match his pace."

 

(((hugs))) and best of luck to you.

[Pen]

I don't think "dyslexia" means the same thing for what works well for all children with it, nor does it necessarily stay the same for all ages/stages. And some kids have both dyslexia and other issues at the same time. Other kids have dyslexia but are also advanced at the same time. Or both. So you really need to know what the situation is with your own child and what the hurdles are, and also what the strengths are.

 

For example, in math, at one point MUS worked well for my ds, especially because it did not require a lot of reading. But now he is doing a math program that is fairly reading intensive. Others have used TT which will read the problem to the child, but that was not good for my ds. My ds (11 years) is now on introduction to algebra (a discovery and logic approach) but at the same time is reviewing basic math, which he needs to do often or it gets lost. He does better at the more conceptual areas, and so I let him do some of that, while still keeping on reviewing the basics--rather than holding him back where he can excel. But that is not necessarily an approach that will work for others with dysl.

 

At 8 for him too, a history that used a lot of pictures was good, but now (and by age 9) he does like to read narrative history.

 

And, unlike for one of the prior posters, mine could at 8 and still can, handle a much higher level of audiobook than he can handle as written text. He gets a lot of information from audiobooks. He also does well with film documentaries.

[Lecka]

I definitely think my son might be uncommon in not benefiting as greatly from audiobooks. He is a little weak with auditory/language in general.

 

When I go over non-fiction with him, slowly, his comprehension is excellent. Much higher than otherwise.

 

He can get a big-picture overview that way ---- it really helps him. In more narrative things, he does not know what to pay attention to. Once he has the big picture he does know.

 

I guess I would say he can need a little scaffolding to know what is important and how things fit, and going over a non-fiction book with him gives him that. I feel like if I don't pre-teach it is all going over his head.

 

It is not that he is a visual learner, but he is not strong with auditory without some scaffolding, and he does not pick up vocabulary words really easily, it takes going over them slowly.

 

Writing that out, I see I am doing a lot of things to make up for a weakness he has with auditory learning. Once he knows a little he is okay, but for new learning, not so much. Anyway -- I am concerned about this auditory thing maybe separately from dyslexia. I know a lot of kids will be excellent with listening, and my son is smart, but sounds can still run together for him when he does not know what to expect. So it is an issue for him, but may just be a strength for your child.

 

But he does better with audiobooks than reading -- it is really just they can talk so fast and also move fast. When I read to him I can go at a pace good for him, and it is on the slow side. But so worth it! After he has got some words and overview down, then he does very well. The beginning part he does good with slow, at his pace... But when he can speed up he wants to jump into higher-level ideas, and has no trouble in doing so.

 

Of course at school they see the smart side but not the hard times, though I am going to be working on that next year.

[FairProspects]

I agree. This is a huge question because it differs so much by the dyslexic's strengths and weaknesses, which is where the individual testing results become very helpful.

 

My older son is reading really well now, but still prefers audiobooks for anything with considerable length because of vision/crowding issues with text on the page. An Orton-Gillingham program was very helpful for him - AAS and then Sopris Rewards for reading and spelling. His biggest dyslexic weakness is now dysgraphia, so we are focusing on using Cursive First (which is spatial and uses a clock to teach cursive) and Verticy for writing composition.

 

His other weakness is math facts/computation. We've been using Memorize in Minutes from Multiplication.com and Math Mammoth for him, both of which are working well. Math Mammoth has you repeat procedures (another dyslexic issue is forgetting procedures/algorithms) often so he is better able to transfer them to long term memory. Even though he understands the concepts immediately, remembering which order to do the steps gums him up often so the practice of MM really helps.

 

MCT has been amazing for giving a whole picture of language and showing how the pieces of language fit together into the whole.

 

I expect my younger son to take much longer to learn how to read - he presents more classically dyslexic with phonemic awareness issues. He is doing well with Barton, but could not handle the speed of AAS/AAR. He doesn't not however, have the math fact retention issue and has a quick memory recall so it really differs by the individual child.

[Lecka]

I wonder if that is the same handwriting program my son is starting in OT. She said every letter will start on the bottom line (yay!) and she does draw a clock he traces around, and tell him "go to 2:00" type stuff. She is starting slow bc he is resistant, but in a bit I will be helping him work on it at home.

 

This is after a lack of progress with HWOT that he has been doing previously. He cannot handle the different starting points for letters/numbers very well, so I think all letters having the same starting point will be really good. Plus she said it may build motor memory for him bc his visual memory is not a strength.

 

Edit: she told me she has used it with kids who cry when she asks them to write, and he is not at that level of avoidance, so I am hopeful. She does not expect my son to use cursive but is helpful that the letter formation will transfer to print, she said she sees that. And maybe he will even learn cursive for actual writing -- too soon to tell.

 

Edit: I googled Cursive First and it is not the same program. It is much more attractive than the one my son is doing. It is not even an actual cursive program that will lead to connected writing I think -- but hopefully it will help him!

[zoobie]

I will PM you the person we used for testing. She's in Roswell.

 

We have an OG tutor for DD. I don't touch anything spelling or reading wise so as not to confuse her.

 

My DD is mathy, but math facts are hard. She usually adds everything up or skip counts to get there. From what I've read, it's not worth stressing over the facts if they're getting the concepts. I just picked up Super-Fun Multiplication something from Scholastic that is $1 on sale right now. It has some fun-sounding ideas. I'm using Math Mammoth as a core, and I think we'll switch to Singapore next year or use it some? Not sure. She wants more challenge but Beast Academy's comic book format kills any potential enjoyment for her.

 

Teacherfilebox.com (Evan Moor) has been great this year. We have used the Daily Science, Daily Geography (a year up), and some other things as a spring board, adding Magic School Bus videos, documentaries, etc. Supposedly we get a basic subscription to Discovery Science videos through GPTV but I haven't figured that out yet. The workbooks don't have a ton of writing or reading, but they're not fluff. :)

 

BBC Dance Mat typing is free online, and typing was recommended for dysgraphia. She knows cursive from Montessori, so we still do some handwriting to keep that up.

 

She loves reading on a kindle or iPad because she can switch the font and size. Any book with a "fancy" font is more confusing to her brain, according to her. :) I may look into a Kindle Fire for her birthday. The synched text to audio books is intriguing.

[Pen]

I definitely think my son might be uncommon in not benefiting as greatly from audiobooks. He is a little weak with auditory/language in general.

 

...

But he does better with audiobooks than reading -- it is really just they can talk so fast and also move fast. ...

 

 

 

Lecka,

 

My player for Learning Ally books (and I think this is also true for Bookshare, which I do not have at the moment) can be slowed down. So can my NLS player. I don't know if this is true for the computer interfaces with these programs, but the separate players have faster and slower buttons. One can be slowed down so far that it is incomprehensible, but there is a wide range where it is still understandable, but just usefully slower. For people who can understand the audio input more quickly and need to read a lot fast (say graduate students using these) it can also be speeded up.

 

 

Thundersweet,

 

The single most important thing was that I got him onto a reading program that worked for him. Prior to that, using regular home phonics programs, 2 brick and mortar school reading systems, and so on, were to no avail, or very little progress for tons of time and effort and he just was not getting reading. After getting on a suitable program for 2E dyslexia, he came along very quickly.

[thundersweet]

Thanks ladies! This has all been so helpful. I've been jotting stuff down do I can go back and look later. Does anyone know if Logic of English would be considered good for a dyslexic child? We've been using it for maybe 4-5 months. My son is making really good progress in his reading, but it's not yet carrying over to his spelling. I did order the spelling journal and I'm going to have him start using that for more practice. I'm thinking i'll have him use a different color pen for the multi-letter phonograms. Someone that I talked to the other day (retired dyslexia tutor) insisted Barton was the best and i should be using it if I think I'm dealing with dyslexia. I have no idea how it compares to LOE.

 

Sandy

[Pen]

My personal opinion is if you have found something that is working for him, stick with it.

[Lecka]

Thanks for that info about Learning Ally! I didn't know that!

 

I don't know specifically about LoE but it is hard to argue with progress. If he hits a wall that is time to change imo. If he is doing well he is doing well.

 

Programs have different sequences so there are drawbacks to changing.

 

But I would say to change if it was not working, it is better to change I think. But it is not something with no drawbacks.

 

 

[Heathermomster]

 

 

 

Lecka,

 

My player for Learning Ally books (and I think this is also true for Bookshare, which I do not have at the moment) can be slowed down. So can my NLS player. I don't know if this is true for the computer interfaces with these programs, but the separate players have faster and slower buttons. One can be slowed down so far that it is incomprehensible, but there is a wide range where it is still understandable, but just usefully slower. For people who can understand the audio input more quickly and need to read a lot fast (say graduate students using these) it can also be speeded up.

 

 

Thundersweet,

 

The single most important thing was that I got him onto a reading program that worked for him. Prior to that, using regular home phonics programs, 2 brick and mortar school reading systems, and so on, were to no avail, or very little progress for tons of time and effort and he just was not getting reading. After getting on a suitable program for 2E dyslexia, he came along very quickly.

 

 

IRT Learningally and listening speed. My son can listen to speeds up to 120%. I have him practice listening at a quicker rate after reading the Dyslexic Advantage.

 

Wilson was great. Winston Grammar Basic has been great. Learning to type..Awesome...IEW has been most helpful. I could not survive without the books How the Brain Learns Mathematics by Sousa, Overcoming Dyslexia, and the Dyslexic Advantage.

 

The software Inspiration for the IPAD has been very helpful. The Alphasmart NEO and Dana enabled DS to be fully incorporated in a nt classroom. We use freerice.com for vocabulary. Interactive Metonome training showed benefit. OT was totally worth the money too. MUS is alright, though I am not 100% with it. Lastly, DS does very well with hands-on activities.

[Ariston]

I would say I was already making accommodations for him without realizing it was dyslexia. I.e. i already knew reading and writing were painful for him, so I would scribe during math and read all directions to him, etc. I would never expect him to do worksheets on his own or do any programs that required reading and writing.

 

The only thing that changed for me with his diagnosis was my attitude toward his struggles (becoming more understanding) and my education level after reading about it.

 

The other big change was discarding other things we had tried with reading and spelling and biting the bullet and getting a program specifically for dyslexics, and making sure that I set it as the main priority in our lives right now. That has been huge.

[laundrycrisis]

Our son has had a huge struggle with math facts. What finally helped him learn them was going through the Mastering Mathematics program, starting from scratch. He finally learned all the facts. He still struggles with retrieval problems, which I have learned are a completely different issue than encoding or sequential memory. But the facts are in there - he just needs a lot more repetition of retrieving them to achieve "fluency". So I have him working in spiral workbooks (first Horizons, now switching to Saxon). The spiral practice is very important for him.

 

He is reading now, after 2 years of vision therapy (his dyslexia was related to visual processing issues and not any phonics/auditory issues so VT was the perfect therapy for him.) But writing is still very hard. He can type, but his retrieval problems get in the way of being able to find the words and use written language well. I'm having him do the Verticy writing programs. It does seem to be helping. I am also going to have him start over with handwriting again over the summer, this time with Getty Dubay.

[Mom-ninja.]

 

--we have free play with math manipulatives. Often. He makes connections, even if he doesn't always put the vocabulary together with the toy. But, because he's familiar with the toys, he gets it when I do pull out a manipulative to show him a technique or concept from math. So, I let him play to his heart's content with that stuff. (by toys I mean cuisenaire rods, pattern blocks, linking cubes, base 10 cubes/rods, counting bears/objects, tokens, dominoes, dice, etc...)

 

--we were given a simple abacus. Not the complex type, just 10 rows of 10 beads each. This has been HUGE in helping him understand subtraction, as I count over the starting number (move to the right) and then we subtract (move back to the left), the subtractant (?) and he sees the answer. This has helped as well with any addition/subtraction over 10. Being able to SEE when we have to dip into the previous ten, OR that it stays the same, OR that adding so many ones means we go up to the NEXT ten, etc. has really helped him grasp all of that.

 

So, being totally serious, that's the biggest and best resource I have found: the mind shift from "gotta catch up" to "slow down and match his pace."

 

 

 

An abacus is great.

 

Also the I bolded the above because I need to remind myself of this.

 

 

 

BBC Dance Mat typing is free online, and typing was recommended for dysgraphia. She knows cursive from Montessori, so we still do some handwriting to keep that up.

 

 

 

Thanks for this!

[thundersweet]

Thank you everyone!