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Posted (edited)

This is not really good as I look toward high school.

 

I think I'm going to get her eyes checked again with the regular optometrist. Last year she was checked by the covd optometrist and he said she was slightly far-sighted. So we can try reading glasses. 

 

There's also the question of scotopic sensitivity syndrome, which the covd optometrist suspected might be an issue. Maybe I can try out different glasses or overlays.

 

Other than requiring her to read a chapter a day, I'm not sure what to do.

 

The tricky thing is that she's doing well with math and she spends a lot of time on that without being bothered by it.

 

Maybe I should try some really high interest reading.

Edited by Tiramisu
Posted (edited)

Can you shift some of her reading to audio books?  Popcorn reading with you?  Can you find large print resources for some of her reading?  Would large print and lots of blank space with bright white paper and black print help?

Edited by OneStepAtATime
  • Like 1
Posted

We are using Learning Ally to give DD her textbooks as audiobooks to reduce some of the load on her and/or I popcorn read with her.  At this stage, I am finding accommodations are worth much more than trying to remediate.  The only reading I do not support is her reading for pleasure.

  • Like 2
Posted

We are using Learning Ally to give DD her textbooks as audiobooks to reduce some of the load on her and/or I popcorn read with her.  At this stage, I am finding accommodations are worth much more than trying to remediate.  The only reading I do not support is her reading for pleasure.

Learning Ally is a great resource.  :thumbup1:

 

I apologize but I'm confused by the last statement.  Do you mean you are not providing any sort of accommodations for pleasure reading or you don't support her trying to read for pleasure?

  • Like 1
Posted

It means I am not providing accommodations specifically for pleasure reading, as she tends to read 'below level' and her lack of stamina does not affect her enjoyment of reading.  The more books the better, even if is Captain Underpants or Wimpy Kid.....

 

 

  • Like 2
Posted

I'm reading aloud or working aloud with her for everything but math and once chapter of literature a day. She'll also do grammar and geography on her own sometimes but there's not much reading there. Science and history I read to her and discuss. I've also added in some Stobaugh lit analysis stuff recently and that has increase my reading load.

 

I'm going to look into Learning Ally because it might take the pressure off me. 

 

Her reading comprehension is in the above average range in reading according to the np, though she did say she did better on the longer, versus the shorter, passages in the testing she did. She has no CAPD issues, and has been tested by an audiologist to confirm that since her sister has that problem. She was tested by an SLP as a young child because she had a sound that was late to develop and scored in the high nineties percentile-wise in the thorough language testing that was done. My impression is that those language skills have not kept pace with her peers.

 

She'll still read books geared to a younger audience, just like AliR mentioned, but really doesn't read much anymore for pleasure.

 

She said the reading glasses seemed to help a bit today, though not dramatically.

  • Like 1
Posted

What is her reading grade level?

 

Have you tried different size fonts and see if that makes a difference, if so, she could read larger font on a kindle or kindle app on a device.

 

With my students, I like to get similar word lists and compare reading WPM at different font size, equivilent words, for example.

all CVC words, or all CVCE words or a mix of the two in equal proportion.

 

My students find reading easier if they are capable of reading at keast a grade level above their current grade, and teaching all the way to 12th grade level makes it even easier.

  • Like 1
Posted (edited)

Well I keep saying this, but my ds, with his 99th percentile vocabulary and reasonably decent (85th percentile) paragraph comprehension, had crazy low 25th percentile single sentence comprehension.  He basically wasn't completely accurately and consistently understanding anything he was reading or hearing.  We started working on the grammar comprehension, and he began reading environmental print spontaneously.  Seriously.

 

So to me, that would be something to dig in on, even just to exclude it.  Like find what those scores were, what test was run, and whether there's something there.  If it's nothing, then it's just something you scratch off the list.

 

I think in general the other thing you can do is immersion reading, which the others said.  

 

If you want fresh language testing, find someone to do something like the CELF.  Sometimes a SLP can do it.  You could have an SLP do an eval on her and see what they turn up.  My ds doesn't understand prepositions.  Right now he gets them in more situations, but sometimes in a new situation it becomes apparent he again doesn't have them.  So I think the super bright kids can have these funky deficits lurking.

 

Btw, I agree about asking about vision, etc.  I'm just saying there can be a variety of explanations.

Edited by OhElizabeth
  • Like 3
Posted (edited)

What is her reading grade level?

 

Have you tried different size fonts and see if that makes a difference, if so, she could read larger font on a kindle or kindle app on a device.

 

With my students, I like to get similar word lists and compare reading WPM at different font size, equivilent words, for example.

all CVC words, or all CVCE words or a mix of the two in equal proportion.

 

My students find reading easier if they are capable of reading at keast a grade level above their current grade, and teaching all the way to 12th grade level makes it even easier.

 

I haven't got the np report yet and that should tell me. An insurance glitch messed everything up. 

 

I also can't find my little notebook where I wrote down some scores the np gave me. I looked them up before and I think she was in the "high average category."

 

The other thing is that in all standardized tests of reading at school, she hit the highly proficient category, so I did not push the reading issue with the np. Her LA teachers raved about her and she won a district writing award. It wasn't until she started hsing again this year that I began to see there was a problem of some kind.

 

ETA: FWIW, I remember her reading fluency scores were super high. She also did better with longer passages than shorter for comprehension. 

Edited by Tiramisu
  • Like 1
Posted

These are her answers to an online Irlen test:

 

Do you skip words or lines when reading?   Yes Do you reread lines?   Yes Do you lose your place?   Yes Are you easily distracted when reading?   Yes Do you need to take breaks often?   No Do you find it harder to read the longer you read?   Yes Do you get headaches when you read?   Yes Do your eyes get red and watery?   No Does reading make you tired?   No Do you blink or squint?   Yes Do you prefer to read in dim light?   No Do you read close to the page?   No Do you use your finger or other markers?   No Do you get restless, active, or fidgety when reading?   No

 

The covd doctor was intrigued by her when he tested her, because she has all the signs of an ocular motor problem but no diagnostic testing turned up anything in that area at all.

  • Like 1
Posted

What diagnostic testing did they do? I'm discovering that even among COVDs, there is a range of capabilities and understanding.  Has she had a Beery done lately? We just did another round of testing on visual motor integration stuff.....even among the Beery subtests there are areas where my kid is performing well above age levels and way below age levels. 

 

Rainbow Resource sells some different colored overlay bookmarks.  Blick Art materials sells full sheet ones under the name "grafix clear lay" for $3. If you look for Irlen overlays, you end up paying $40 for them.  Overlays help my ds read for a bit longer, but the underlying visual and motor and visual motor integration issues are still there.

  • Like 1
Posted

What diagnostic testing did they do? I'm discovering that even among COVDs, there is a range of capabilities and understanding.  Has she had a Beery done lately? We just did another round of testing on visual motor integration stuff.....even among the Beery subtests there are areas where my kid is performing well above age levels and way below age levels. 

 

Rainbow Resource sells some different colored overlay bookmarks.  Blick Art materials sells full sheet ones under the name "grafix clear lay" for $3. If you look for Irlen overlays, you end up paying $40 for them.  Overlays help my ds read for a bit longer, but the underlying visual and motor and visual motor integration issues are still there.

 

I'm not sure what testing the OT or NP did because I haven't got reports back. I know that she did very well on some visual tests with the OT. It was the figure ground that's the big problem, but she also had poorer scores in tests that combine a variety of skills and when the tests are timed.

 

I have a lot of confidence in my covd guy because he's a leading researcher in the field. I actually just emailed him to with all the latest info to see if he has any thoughts about this.

 

Dd has no fine motor issues, but some issues with bilateral gross motor coordination.

 

I think I'm going to look at the overlays. She seems to prefer a gray color from the experimentation we did.

  • Like 3
Posted (edited)

Give the 40L quick screen test and the MWIA version II, the page of holistic words then the page of phonetic words, time each page. If she misses more than one word on the 2nd part of the MWIA or her slowdown is more than 15% some remediation with nonsense words might help. If she is below 12th grade level, Do the things on my how to tutor page, teaching phonics to the 12th grade level.

 

http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Reading/readinggradeleve.html

Edited by ElizabethB
  • Like 2
Posted (edited)

I have another thought...what if she went back to the COVD doc but sat in the office waiting room and read a challenging book for 20 minutes and THEN redid all the tests? I would email him about that, too...

Edited by ElizabethB
  • Like 2
Posted

Give the 40L quick screen test and the MWIA version II, the page of holistic words then the page of phonetic words, time each page. If she misses more than one word on the 2nd part of the MWIA or her slowdown is more than 15% some remediation with nonsense words might help. If she is below 12th grade level, Do the things on my how to tutor page, teaching phonics to the 12th grade level.

 

http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Reading/readinggradeleve.html

 

I gave her the 40L quick screen and her grade level is 9.5.

 

Her WPM for the holistic test is 99.2 and her phonetic WPM was 94.7 with excellent accuracy in both tests, so that seems to indicate a slow down that rounds up to  5%. All of this seems to indicate, according to the test instructions, that she's a good phonetic reader.

  • Like 2
Posted (edited)

Those are excellent MWIA scores! You should be able to quickly get her close to the 12th grade level based on those scores with explicit, direct work on multisyllable words, that might help.

 

http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Reading/WellTaughtPhonicsStudent.html

 

Also, some root word work and the focus on spelling and reading of greek and latin roots and words, I will look for that link and add later, the multi syllable stuff should keep you busy for a while.

Edited by ElizabethB
  • Like 2
Posted

Dd has no fine motor issues, but some issues with bilateral gross motor coordination.

 

The work out COVD did on retained primitive reflexes did amazing things for both vision and for coordination. Our COVD tended to just keep looking harder to find ways my kids failed a vision test because the symptoms were there. Eventually, she found the chinks in the armor. :-) My kids were both "mild" cases in the sense that they were accommodating really well for a long time until they suddenly didn't.

 

The questions you saw on the Irlen website are questions our COVD asks all patients. My older son had only a couple of flags, but they were persistent and worsening over time.

 

With the reading glasses--my kids won't always flag something helpful as being profoundly helpful, but we'll see profoundly helpful in their behavior. My little guy never says that things are significantly easier post VT, but he's a totally different kid. No more crying multiple times per day over handwriting, no more spilling things 10 times a day, etc. It's a big difference. He is the same way about the hearing aids he borrowed--we didn't get  a full trial (and need to follow up with a new audiologist), but everyone around him could tell a big difference when he wore them. He did hear better (and at first thought it was a big deal), but then he said not so much. Kids are just fickle. I think kids aren't always good reporters of what helps and what does not. (OTOH, my slightly far-sighted kid sees worse with a slight Rx as tested in the COVD's office, so she doesn't recommend glasses for him.)

  • Like 2
Posted

The work out COVD did on retained primitive reflexes did amazing things for both vision and for coordination. Our COVD tended to just keep looking harder to find ways my kids failed a vision test because the symptoms were there. Eventually, she found the chinks in the armor. :-) My kids were both "mild" cases in the sense that they were accommodating really well for a long time until they suddenly didn't.

 

The questions you saw on the Irlen website are questions our COVD asks all patients. My older son had only a couple of flags, but they were persistent and worsening over time.

 

With the reading glasses--my kids won't always flag something helpful as being profoundly helpful, but we'll see profoundly helpful in their behavior. My little guy never says that things are significantly easier post VT, but he's a totally different kid. No more crying multiple times per day over handwriting, no more spilling things 10 times a day, etc. It's a big difference. He is the same way about the hearing aids he borrowed--we didn't get  a full trial (and need to follow up with a new audiologist), but everyone around him could tell a big difference when he wore them. He did hear better (and at first thought it was a big deal), but then he said not so much. Kids are just fickle. I think kids aren't always good reporters of what helps and what does not. (OTOH, my slightly far-sighted kid sees worse with a slight Rx as tested in the COVD's office, so she doesn't recommend glasses for him.)

 

Just updating...Our covd guy wants to take another look at dd's vision, using the np's observations as a guide to dig deeper. Maybe he'll find that chink in the armor, like kbutton's covd doc did.

 

I noticed checking her math today, she misread some of her own written numbers when copying them. And her writing is rather neat, compared to what I'm used to around here.

  • Like 3
Posted

I just got off the phone from the np. She's looked over some of dd's scores again in starting to write the report. It seems like dd might get another dx due to her visual attention scores being impaired and noted how they deteriorated over time. I don't know if this means she's going to get an ADHD dx after all or a visual perceptual disorder dx. But she did specifically say that she's going to put the need for accommodations in the report.

 

So I wasn't imagining a problem!!!

 

Yes, it's a little depressing. But at least this part of it is figured out and I will have the documentation I need to freely accommodate and help figure out what works for her.

  • Like 5
Posted (edited)

dp

 

But I'll just add...

 

I'm still a little sad.

 

And not sure why this is hitting me more than the other stuff.

Edited by Tiramisu
  • Like 1
Posted

There is no accounting for what "straw" adds to our frustration on behalf of our kiddos. It's okay to let this thing bother you, even if you have no explanation for the magnitude.  :grouphug:

  • Like 2

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