Ace Reader Pro, Soliloquy reading assistant, what else?

[Ms. Riding Hood]

I'm looking for a program (not necessarily computer or digital media-based) to use with my 6th grade dd who has difficulty with fluency and comprehension. Her reading is fast, but she skips words, substitutes words, and doesn't comprehend much of what she reads. From what I understand, she needs to do repeated oral reading.

 

Susan Barton recommended Soliloquy reading assistant to me, but it is only available through professionals...at least, that's all I could see available. I have looked at Ace Reader Pro, but it's not quite the same type of thing...more focused on speed reading. Still, it might be fine and work well for us. I know Laurie mentions Rewards a lot--but I wasn't clear if that focuses on fluency and comprehension in particular. Otherwise, I can do the repeated oral readings on my own with dd...but I'm afraid that learning how to do it, gathering the materials, etc., is going to be a huge task.

 

I wonder if any of you have experience with fluency/comprehension specific products or methods and can share anything with me. I'm kind of at a loss on what to do and how to do it.

 

Thanks so much!

[sandellie4]

I hope you get more responses, because this isn't an area of expertise for me, but we have used Ace Reader Pro and REWARDS. We are currently working with the Six-Minute Solution, by SOPRIS West, the publisher that puts out REWARDS. Maybe our experience will help get a conversation started.

 

One of our daughters, at age 12, read much like your daughter, stumbling, skipping words, etc. I started her off on Ace Reader Pro, but only did that for a couple of months. I was worried about comprehension and I was also starting to figure out that she might benefit from decoding practice. I had noticed she didn't have the automatic recognition for a lot of the words and she also sounded out words incorrectly. We worked through REWARDS, which was really terrific. I can't recommend that program enough and after completing it, I feel comfortable working on fluency with her. I don't really want a speed-reading course, so I'm working on the Six-Minute Solution. Basically, the student takes an assessment to determine reading level and then repeat-reads selections at that level, moving up through the passages as speed increases. There are also ideas to use for comprehension, though they're not really all that useful. She's getting faster and more confident with the reading, though, and is able to summarize what she's reading.

 

I wouldn't recommend Ace Reader Pro for this. We've used the program successfully for our good readers, but I don't think it would have worked with this daughter.

 

Sandy

[Ms. Riding Hood]

Sandy,

 

Thank you for your reply. It was helpful to hear your experience. Can you comment on what it is you liked about Rewards, and the skills it addressed? I've looked at it several times in the past, but I'd like to see what it is you liked. I'm still not totally convinced it's what my dd needs, but she really does need to work on content-area comprehension and it might be good for that. What did you think?

 

Thanks again!

[Laurie4b]

If your dd cannot reliably decode multisyllabic words, then the place to start at her age would be REWARDS secondary. That book focuses on decoding strategy, but adds fluency readings in the last portion of the book. When you're finished, you can move to REWARDS plus.

 

If your dd can already reliably decode multisyllabic words, then REWARDS plus is excellent for fluency and comprehension. http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?p=15149#poststop THis is a link to a review that I wrote of the program.