MyLittleBears Posted April 27, 2016 Share Posted April 27, 2016 I am so discouraged. Ds 2 is in 6th grade this year. His reading is coming along but his spelling is horrible. He didn't past the spelling portion of the posttest about a week and a half ago, so we took a break to review the rules and play spelling success games. He did famously with those but does not apply his knowledge to actual spelling. We did the posttest again and he did worse!!! I feel like we'll never get out of this level!! I'm off to eat chocolate..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maize Posted April 27, 2016 Share Posted April 27, 2016 I'm not a Barton expert, but if this were my child I would focus on reading achievement and move on when he's ready; spelling is secondary. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MyLittleBears Posted April 27, 2016 Author Share Posted April 27, 2016 I was told he need to pass with 90% accuracy for spelling and reading. I suppose we could just move on and just do a five minute spelling review prior to each lesson... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OneStepAtATime Posted April 27, 2016 Share Posted April 27, 2016 Did he bobble on the screening before you started Barton? During his lessons is he struggling at all with sound descrimination/sound blends? How did he do on the Level 3 post test? Is it specific lessons he is tripping up on or kind of all of them? FWIW, level 4 was a huge hump for DD. We had to repeat the entire level to solidify those lessons. Sooo worth it because she made huge leaps in the end but it was HARD to get there. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MyLittleBears Posted April 28, 2016 Author Share Posted April 28, 2016 He did pass the screening but he also does have a lot of trouble with hearing the vowel sounds. I have to innuciate. He seems to try sounding everything out instead of hearing the schwa and automatically using his spell checker. I have to keep reminding him to do it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterPan Posted April 28, 2016 Share Posted April 28, 2016 If he's having trouble with vowels, maybe go back to your vowel circle and solidify it... Did you do LIPS? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MyLittleBears Posted April 28, 2016 Author Share Posted April 28, 2016 No he has his vowels down cold but he sometimes will not "hear" them when I say the word and he has to spell it. It only seems to affect his spelling. His reading is very good so far. It did not do LIPS because he passed the Barton screening. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
imagine.more Posted April 28, 2016 Share Posted April 28, 2016 You may need to re-do level 4 as a review, doing 1 lesson per day, kwim? One thing I try to do as I go along is give spelling quizzes (I call them spelling check-ins) at the end of each lesson so I can catch errors as they occur. A 90% or better and I move on. 80% and we review for a couple days, including some games, and move on. Anything less and we go back and re-do the lesson. If it makes you feel better we got to Level 5, Lesson 7 when DD14 forgot seemingly everything. So we're going back and doing every Level 5 lesson again starting at the beginning. I could have screamed. In my head I did scream. Out loud I vented to my husband quite loudly that night ;) Anyway, level 4 is super hard. It's no sign of failure to need to take extra time with it. Maybe go back and review each lesson for a few weeks, paying special attention to tapping syllables. I found both of my upper level students started making silly vowel errors that I thought we had moved past once we added in multisyllable words. After LOTS of practice they settled into multisyllable word spelling just fine. Also, for what it's worth my OG instructor said 6+ months on teaching the syllable types and the concept of multisyllable words is not unusual. That and Silent E are the hardest skills for dyslexic kids to master. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OneStepAtATime Posted April 28, 2016 Share Posted April 28, 2016 (edited) Agree with above. Although it is really frustrating and demoralizing to have to redo things, what I finally had to accept was that not only does it take time for DD to truly internalize the lessons to begin with, the physical mechanism that causes brain connections to be made is not that strong. It is inefficient. She has to overlearn and even relearn before the connections become strong enough that they don't decay and then fail. ETA: That was why brick and mortar school was such a nightmare, although I didn't understand it at the time. The school would introduce new material, briefly review it, then test. If I worked heavily with DD she would seem to learn the material well. But within days or weeks that knowledge would frequently be gone again. I finally realized, after using Barton and CLE math, that for her to really retain things that don't come easily to her we may have to review the material many, many, many times before those connections are strong enough that they stay. Huge hugs and best wishes. Edited April 28, 2016 by OneStepAtATime 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Julie of KY Posted April 28, 2016 Share Posted April 28, 2016 I agree that level 4 is tough. For better or worse, I separated out the spelling and the reading in Barton with my child. I move along in Barton and teach all the spelling and reading, but keep moving as long as they can do the reading. I started using AAS for spelling. Everytime we get to a new rule, I pull out Barton and review it with the Barton tiles and the Barton specific rules. I know it's not designed this way, but has worked at my home. My daughter went through all the levels once, my son needs lots of extra review and goes through them a second time. I think it is hard to get down all the level 4 spelling rules for a long time. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maize Posted April 28, 2016 Share Posted April 28, 2016 No he has his vowels down cold but he sometimes will not "hear" them when I say the word and he has to spell it. It only seems to affect his spelling. His reading is very good so far. It did not do LIPS because he passed the Barton screening. Could it be that he is actually not hearing? Boys in general do not hear as well as girls, so if you speak in a voice that sounds normal to you it may seem very soft to him and hard to hear nuances. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OneStepAtATime Posted April 28, 2016 Share Posted April 28, 2016 Could it be that he is actually not hearing? Boys in general do not hear as well as girls, so if you speak in a voice that sounds normal to you it may seem very soft to him and hard to hear nuances. Plus I was wondering if there might be an auditory processing glitch? As in, his hearing is fine, but he may trip up neurologically on processing certain sounds in certain contexts? 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lilmissc74 Posted April 28, 2016 Share Posted April 28, 2016 I would recommend reaching out to Susan Barton for specific advice. We are also slogging through Level 4 and she's given me good advice via email and phone. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MyLittleBears Posted April 28, 2016 Author Share Posted April 28, 2016 When we did neuropych testing she said that in addition to dyslexia he does have a broader language disorder. If the language coming to his ears is too fast or to complex it all goes haywire. Just slowing down makes him hear typically. I asked her about APD but he said she did not think this was the case, although he does frequently ask us to repeat ourselves. I did speak to Susan Barton a couple of weeks ago and her recommendation was to do the spelling rule flash cards for 6-9 sessions and give him the spelling portion of the posttest. This is what we did when he did not pass it this time. She said he needed to pas with 90% accuracy. His was 65% Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterPan Posted April 28, 2016 Share Posted April 28, 2016 (edited) If he has a language disorder, have you consulted with an SLP or dug in on his testing to see what you can do for it? It might be something else is glitching things and keeping it from sticking. I've read discussion that when dominance isn't determinate then the language portions of the brain don't settle down right. So then you work on OT to improve language to improve how things organize in the brain to improve the school subjects. At least that's the theory. I'm just saying if you've already done the dyslexia end of things, you could explore those other things. They all fit together. With my ds, I've done GPP (Grammar Processing Program) for his language issues, Focus Moves for the bilateral brain stuff, RAN/RAS dots, etc. I think it all fits together. Edited April 28, 2016 by OhElizabeth 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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