New 11 Year Old Adoptive Daughter, hearing impaired non-reader, where do I start?

[imagine.more]

Hey, I've got 3 bio kids (5, 2.5 and 10 months). My 5 year old is one of those super-smart kids, he just flies through curriculum. So my challenge with him has always been to well, challenge him.  Not a bad problem to have, but requires extra thought regardless.

 

Our foster daughter just moved in as a pre-adoptive placement. The goal is she will be officially adopted in 6 months (TPR is in process). She is 11 years old, 5th grade, and has hearing and speech impairments. She wears hearing aids which get her about 80% to normal hearing I'd say. Her speech needs improvement of course but we understand her fine and she makes friends easily so she's functional with that. She's in public school currently but as soon as adoption has been finalized we would like to homeschool her and we've been discussing it with her and she likes the idea. Anyway, so she's in 5th grade but oh my gosh she is NOT at a 5th grade level. Her math is around 3-4th grade and improving steadily so I figure we'll just get a good math curriculum and move on with that in a 5th grade textbook next year. Her reading however is WAY behind. She started last year at a 0 and right now is a 2nd grade decoder and I'd say 2nd grade in comprehension as well at best. 

 

The issues I can see right now are:

 

1) she doesn't 'hear' phonics sounds too well. She gets the basics but it's not easy or fluent for her to pick out letter sounds in words.

2) she reads almost entirely with sight words. I'd say she sounds out words like a 1st grader but has enough sight words that her level balances out to about midway through 2nd grade.

3) she hates reading. (duh, I'd hate it too if I struggled like she does, lol!) so while I want her ability to improve I want to also really focus on developing a love for reading.

4) she has poor background knowledge so that context for understanding stories is spotty. In the past week we've had to explain breastfeeding, that cats lick themselves to clean themselves, the difference between sugar and salt content, how we have A/C without a window unit, that it is fall and not winter, what a windmill is, how to play Guess Who? etc. Speaking to her you wouldn't guess how many gaps there are at first, because they're in funny areas sometimes. It's a lack of experience more than anything. 

 

The cognition tests the school ran all came up with conflicting results because they were written tests and she can barely read so of course those came up super low but then she came up almost normal in math skills and spatial reasoning, etc. I don't know why they can't give a non-written test, maybe there aren't any?

 

Anyway, so where do I start in planning for homeschooling her? Any books/resources I should read? How does the Well Trained Mind plan work with special needs kiddos? I'm a big believer in the classical method and literature-based learning so how does that work with a kid who has slightly different abilities? 

 

Thanks for any help you can offer!

[City Mouse]

You might want to check with your state school for the deaf. They might be able to give you ideas so what to use as a reading curriculum.

[Pen]

I suggest that you also post in the regular part of Learning Challenges where more people will see it.

 

I'm homeschooling an 11 year old who I adopted after fostering him first, but the situation is different.

 

One thing I'd like to suggest now  is to use audio and visual materials to help her as you work on the reading.

[Pen]

What are examples of things she can actually read right now?

 

The program I used for my son http://www.highnoonbooks.com specializes in books for kids with high interest, low level needs, which might fit for age versus level--bt  do not know if it would be good for hearing issues.   You could contact them.

 

I think when there is a hearing issue that is one of the times that sight word systems are used more than phonics.

 

I have a friend with a child who was profoundly deaf and just graduated high school as valedictorian last year, however, who I think learned with phonics, but started with that at age 2ish.

[imagine.more]

She can read "The Red Hen" and other simple picture books aloud. She loves The Giving Tree and I believe can read it independently. She likes Junie B Jones but I don't think she fully reads them independently. The school has her reading only leveled readers, none of the kids read novels or anything I'd consider good literature, it's all leveled readers and computer work with this Read 180 program. 

 

CityMouse, there's a state school for the deaf?! lol! I had no idea, I am totally new to this. Okay, so I'll get researching that and see if they have any recommended resources. Thanks so much for mentioning that.

 

Pen, the high interest/low level books list is exactly the kind of thing I can make use of. With my 5 year old we're doing the opposite (high level books that are age appropriate for a 5 year old) so it's interesting now I get to handle both ends of the reading spectrum :)

[geodob]

Something that you could consider, is teaching her Sign Language as a second language?

Sign language is a 'kinesthetic' language, where letters are felt as physical positions, and words as a sequence of movements.

Where it could be used as an addition to processing words.

So that given that 'she doesn't hear phonics sounds too well'.

It would be difficult to concieve of phonics that she can't clearly hear?

But she could no doubt learn to represent different phonemes with sign language. 

So for example, if she has a difficulty with hearing the difference between: 'bat, bit, but, bet'?

Sign language would provide an alternative way to concieve of the different sounds/words.

 

 

 

[wapiti]

I don't have much to add, except for the following:  if it were me, I would (1) see about getting a private eval if you can afford one, since the school eval didn't seem particularly useful (I might start by taking the school eval results to a private psych and go from there, obviously discussing whether another test might be more accurate), (2) assume your student leans very heavily toward a visual-spatial learning preference, so you might read more about that (especially the whole-to-parts angle, teaching the context first, etc.), and (3) rule out developmental vision issues with a covd ASAP, as any such issues could impact any further testing you might decide to do with a psych.

[Pen]

She can read "The Red Hen" and other simple picture books aloud. She loves The Giving Tree and I believe can read it independently. She likes Junie B Jones but I don't think she fully reads them independently. The school has her reading only leveled readers, none of the kids read novels or anything I'd consider good literature, it's all leveled readers and computer work with this Read 180 program. 

 

CityMouse, there's a state school for the deaf?! lol! I had no idea, I am totally new to this. Okay, so I'll get researching that and see if they have any recommended resources. Thanks so much for mentioning that.

 

Pen, the high interest/low level books list is exactly the kind of thing I can make use of. With my 5 year old we're doing the opposite (high level books that are age appropriate for a 5 year old) so it's interesting now I get to handle both ends of the reading spectrum :)

 

If she can read The Red Hen, then you can have her do the HighNoon placement on their website and then just fit her into where in their levels she fits.  I thought she might not be reading at all, and was then not sure if their program would fit with deafness, but if she is already at least at CVC words lie red, she can probably move right along from her start level till she did not need them anymore.   As they get higher up they start having books for science and history areas, but not so much in the lower areas (there is a limit to what can be done with all words like red and hen).   Personally, btw, I did not so much like their simplified versions of classics, at least based on the one we tried, finding it too simplified, and preferred to wait for my son to be able to read the originals, but it is possible that both your advanced 5 year old and your 11 year old might find those of interest, if you pick ones that are suitable.

 

Life of Fred, the math books with cute Fred story might also be on interest for your 5 year old (not the question, I know).  The reading would probably still be too hard for 11 year old, but might be good as a read aloud.   So might Sentence Island from MCT.

 

I love the Giving Tree also--Possibly somewhat sophisticated, deep feeling type picture books like City Dog, Country Frog or The Three Questions (both with Jon Muth as illustrator) or The Mountain that Loved a Bird, might be good for her.  Also when she is able to read them, The Magic Tree House books have a lot to offer in terms of content, while not being terribly hard to read.  And they also have non fiction "fact trackers" that help increase the learning that can be gained from them.  (possibly your 5 year old would be ready for that).

 

My son at 5 greatly enjoyed illustrated science encyclopedia type books, and it is possible that  your 5 and/or  11 year old might like that sort of thing.

[imagine.more]

Good idea to focus on the sophisticated picture books, we actually have lots of those around because my 5 year old loves them and I've noticed Daisy picking them up to read to my 2 year old occasionally. My 5 year old LOVES magic treehouse books, I might see how she does with reading those soon once we get her just a little further along with reading.

 

A quick update: I did some research and I'm setting up instruction to teach Daisy and our family "Cued Speech" which is highly recommended for deaf and hard of hearing students. It helps them pinpoint the phonetic sounds and therefore really helps literacy rates and rhyming, spelling, etc. I'm pushing for the school to use it too but if they don't that's fine, I'll probably pull her out and homeschool her next year anyway, especially if the school refuses to make the changes she needs to progress. So far her teacher seems unconcerned that she is reading at a 1st grade level at 11 years old :-/ She is just happy that Daisy is a compliant, sweet student who doesn't make any trouble and tries. Thankfully her math skills are good, she's almost at grade level in math and I expect by the end of the year will be caught up and working independently in math. She's about a C student in science and social studies as long as she has  a few accommodations to get around the lack of reading skills. Actually I find it kind of shocking how easy the assignments are that she brings home from her mainstream class. None of them require her to construct full sentences (something she wouldn't be able to do anyway but I'd expect an average 5th grader to do very competently). So apparently that's how she gets by since she's able to muddle through with one word answers as long as they're not picky about her spelling. 

[ElizabethB]

http://www.uiowa.edu/~acadtech/phonetics/#

 

http://www.thephonicspage.org/Phonics%20Lsns/phonicslsnslinks.html

[OneStepAtATime]

If you can afford it, I agree that getting a more detailed diagnosis through a private assessor might help.  I also think that the bigger push instead of academics (if you choose to homeschool especially) is to work proactively on giving her lots of life experience for background knowledge and just a better grasp of the world around her.  Field trips, movies, hands on activities, etc. If you CAN homeschool, at least for a while, that would give her a chance to catch up without being compared to others her age every single minute of every single hour she is in an academic setting and can give her the desperately needed background knowledge.

 

You might look at reading The Mislabeled Child by Brock and Fernette Eide.  Maybe Homeschooling Your Struggling Learner by Kathy Kuhl.  Honestly, though, since it seems her experiences and background have been so erratic and poor, coupled with her hearing issue, she may really just need more time to be loved, experience life and learn about the world around her before she really needs to press her academics again.  Start her at the levels that are more review, give her time to catch up, give her lots of love and experiences and just try to enjoy time together as she learns to be a member of your family and to learn about life and why things matter.  School stuff will always be there but her time at this age is so precious and is slipping away.  By the time she is a full-fledged teenager, she may not be as interested in family bonding and exploring the world as a family and without family support and a good solid bond, she may lose interest in her education and caring what you think.