Joanne Posted October 10, 2008 Share Posted October 10, 2008 This is posted with her permission. I think she's looking for a private tutor. What I think she wants from me are curriculum/resource recommendations. She came to me through finding out in our son's sports team that I homeschool. The son in question (not the one on the team) is in 4th grade. He is not fluent. He is still struggling some with basic sight words when the are in a story, but knows them on flash cards. He HATES to read, because he struggles so much. He has a decent reading comprehension, even though it may take him 3 times longer to read something, and still not get all of the words correct. He has failed spelling for the first 9 weeks. He really struggles with blends and spelling in general. In {another state}, he was in a co-taught classroom with an IEP (Individualized Education Plan) with additional one-on-one help (special education) when needed. Here, they are threatening to take all of his services away, because his IQ is testing mid-average. It does still show that he has a slow processing speed. His math scores are great, but he struggles where he has to read anything, including Social Studies, Science, etc. In Virginia, they gave him additional time to complete tests. I have some test scores if they would help in what you would recommend. For example, he reads 72 words per minute (not sure what the average should be). I seem to remember them telling me around 150 for his age. One other thing I should have mentioned is that he is ADHD, which affected him quite a bit in the beginning. He is medicated now and seems to do well with both paying attention and behaviorally. I would prefer a private tutor. My only experience with other is a friend who took her son to Sylvan, and other than it greatly affecting her checkbook, she didn't see much improvement. Do you have any experience with those? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Perry Posted October 10, 2008 Share Posted October 10, 2008 I would definitely stay away from Sylvan. They aren't likely to do anything the school isn't already doing. Is she in Texas? I'd try The Texas Reading Institute if she lives near Houston. If she wants to try to remediate him herself, I can suggest some resources. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joanne Posted October 10, 2008 Author Share Posted October 10, 2008 If she wants to try to remediate him herself, I can suggest some resources. What would you suggest? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hillary in KS Posted October 10, 2008 Share Posted October 10, 2008 OK, not knowing *anything* about this boy or what his teachers have tried to do, I can only recommend what I'd do if this were my son. I'd work hard to address the reading fluency first. To address the reading fluency, I'd recommend having him read (as much as possible after school) at a lower reading level than what he tests at. If he tests at a 2.5 level, have him read ANYTHING below that. Were it my son, I'd probably adopt a "let's start at ground zero approach" and back way up. Start with letter sounds, etc., and progress until he gets stuck. I'd also try to find some way to ease the discouragement. I'd have him start reading to me for 15 minutes each night, and increase it to an hour....slowly. Very slowly. I'd set up some sort of incentive system for at-home reading: stickers, points, whatever. Depending on his reading level, I'd try to find comic books, etc. to read with him, either together, or me reading them aloud to him after he's read aloud to me. (My boys all love comics.) I'd also read aloud as much of his homework as I can, for a while. In social studies, I want him to know the concepts of the lesson. While we're working to bring his fluency and academic confidence level up, I'd read homework directions, assigned reading, story problems, etc. aloud to him, if he's not able to do it himself. I'd also talk with his teacher and see if she'd be able to send some reading-heavy work home in advance, so we could go over it together before it was assigned in class. (If he's going to have to work with a partner on a science experiment from their book, for example, maybe she could send the directions home the night before. Then they could go over them and he'd be familiar with the directions in class.) Also, when I taught school, I had a couple of non-readers every year who had their own spelling lists. (Either phonics-focused, or frequency of usage-focused, depending upon the child.) If this boy is studying and still failing every test, his lists need to be altered. Either shorter them, or change them completely. Studying and failing every test does absolutely nothing except show this boy that working hard will get him nowhere. HTH! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aggie Posted October 10, 2008 Share Posted October 10, 2008 OK, not knowing *anything* about this boy or what his teachers have tried to do, I can only recommend what I'd do if this were my son. I'd work hard to address the reading fluency first. To address the reading fluency, I'd recommend having him read (as much as possible after school) at a lower reading level than what he tests at. If he tests at a 2.5 level, have him read ANYTHING below that. Were it my son, I'd probably adopt a "let's start at ground zero approach" and back way up. Start with letter sounds, etc., and progress until he gets stuck. I'd also try to find some way to ease the discouragement. I'd have him start reading to me for 15 minutes each night, and increase it to an hour....slowly. Very slowly. I'd set up some sort of incentive system for at-home reading: stickers, points, whatever. Depending on his reading level, I'd try to find comic books, etc. to read with him, either together, or me reading them aloud to him after he's read aloud to me. (My boys all love comics.) I'd also read aloud as much of his homework as I can, for a while. In social studies, I want him to know the concepts of the lesson. While we're working to bring his fluency and academic confidence level up, I'd read homework directions, assigned reading, story problems, etc. aloud to him, if he's not able to do it himself. I'd also talk with his teacher and see if she'd be able to send some reading-heavy work home in advance, so we could go over it together before it was assigned in class. (If he's going to have to work with a partner on a science experiment from their book, for example, maybe she could send the directions home the night before. Then they could go over them and he'd be familiar with the directions in class.) Also, when I taught school, I had a couple of non-readers every year who had their own spelling lists. (Either phonics-focused, or frequency of usage-focused, depending upon the child.) If this boy is studying and still failing every test, his lists need to be altered. Either shorter them, or change them completely. Studying and failing every test does absolutely nothing except show this boy that working hard will get him nowhere. HTH! Hillary has excellent suggestions. FWIW, my dh struggled with reading until the summer after 5th or 6th grade. That summer he found a series of western books and really took off. By Max...Max...ugh I can't remember Max's last name. DH was finally dx with dyslexia in high school. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saw Posted October 10, 2008 Share Posted October 10, 2008 Lindamood Bell. We did that this summer and it was wonderful. It's pricy, but they do on occasion have financial help. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cillakat Posted October 19, 2008 Share Posted October 19, 2008 This child needs an evaluation for dyslexia asap. A.S.A.P The intervention won't be Sylvan or Reading Recovery....he needs an evidence based daily intensive multi-sensory intervention that covers both encoding (spelling) and decoding (reading). Read, Write and Type! is a computer program that will help with some of it, thought it's not intensive or comprehensive, it is evidence based and *is* absolutely helpful for spelling, reading, phonological coding etc..... He'll need probably 45min (1:1 tutoring) to 60 min (2-4:1 tutoring) using an intensive, incremental, multisensory, approach like Recipe for Reading, Barton, Wilson, etc. I've reluctantly become my child's Wilson tutor....b/c the professional started displaying some alarmingly unprofessional anti-homeschooling bias...and at 2x/week it wasn't going fast enough (and she wouldn't help me come up with a home program for her). So I bought the materials and training videos and off we went! I'd have gone with Barton b/c it's totally scripted, but we'd already started Wilson so I figured it was easiest to stick with it. I'd check Wilson's website, barton's website for tutors in the area......also see if recipe for reading has certified people.....I don't think they do, I think that's one that one just orders and figures out how to do. I'm not sure how much support there is for it in terms of training. A friend of mine here in Atl uses is with her son, but an experienced tutor at the the Schenk School (dyslexia school here in Atl), spent a few hours with the mom setting up lesson plans and guiding her through the process. Wishing her all the best! Feel free to pass on my email if she's interested cillakat @ gmail DOT com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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