9 year old DD - reading and spelling suggestions?

[TheAttachedMama]

Hi Everyone,

 

Could you give me some advice for some remedial reading programs for my just-turned-9 year old daughter?  (She just finished up 3rd grade and is headed into 4th.)     I am considering either using REWARDS or ABeCeDarian, but I am open to other suggestions too.  

 

She has trouble sounding out multi-syllable unknown words and breaking them into syllables.   She will often just skip these in her silent reading (or sound them out incorrectly when she is reading aloud and I try to help her.)   EShe has been through AAR 1-4 and AAS 1-3 so she is very familiar with those syllable division rules, but still struggling to apply them when reading.  (She also went through dancing bears, but that didn't really work for her at all.  Really, the "I See Sam" readers paired with AAR letter tiles to teach phonics concepts is what taught her to read.)   She also sometimes has trouble with silent-e syllable types where the vowel is long.  (And I have taught that concept many times using the AAR/AAS letter magnets and then practicing using real words and nonsense words.)   

 

She also struggles with reading comprehension.  She struggles with comprehension when she reads aloud (even if it "sounds" very fluent) or when she reads silently.   Her ability to comprehend things that are read aloud to her (or audiobooks) is slightly better but sill not great.   She also struggles with word recall when telling me stories or narrating.   She will often "circumlocate" the words she is trying to think of.   She uses lots of pronouns when telling things back and I often have trouble trying to figure out which antecedent she is trying to tell me about.  

 

She shows a lot of signs of stealth dyslexia.  Learning to read wasn't easy...but felt easy compared to her brother.   If you know what I mean.  

 

Right now I have her going through The Phonics Page free video phonics lessons and reading through nonsense word lists to practice the concepts.   I also have her going through the word lists from Spelling Plus (taught with letter tiles) then practiced daily for a week.   She has been getting 100% on her tests every Friday doing that.  

 

FYI....here are her latest assessments from Elizabeth's The Phonic Page:

 

40L Quick Screen Reading Level Test Grade Level:   2.9

NRRF Reading Grade Level Test Grade Level:  3

MWIA Holistic WPM:  73.68, Holistic Errors 2

MWIA Phonetic WPM:  48.33, Phonetic Errors 6

MWIA Slowdown Percentage:  33.73%  

(Used MWIA A)

Reading Speed Test (linked from The Phonics Page, Used test C1) was Silent Reading Speed in WPM 135

(After she finished the 32 phonics videos, I will retest again.)   

 

 

Edited April 13, 2017 by TheAttachedMama

[PeterPan]

A neuropsych will usually run language testing like the CELF as part of a dyslexia eval. There also is testing they can do for word retrieval. My dd, not dyslexic, had significant issues with word retrieval and low processing speed. It's stuff you can do something about, but you need the testing to know exactly what you're targeting.

 

Another way to get that testing is with an SLP (speech language pathologist). If you do not formally have a diagnosis for her dyslexia, it would be good to get that done to establish paper trail, get access to BARD, etc. 

 

So I think you probably have multiple challenges there. You're continuing to work on fluency with decoding multi-syllable words AND you have the language issues. And for the language issues, you don't know if you have some APD, word retrieval issues, low processing speed, low vocabulary or overall comprehension, etc. 

 

Sometimes a university audiology dept can do the APD screening on the cheap. Around here it's only $35. You'll need full IQ testing for the processing speed and then language testing for word retrieval, etc.

 

And yes, you could go to a speech therapy website and just pick some labels and order materials. Just saying I would get the evals first. Over the long-run she's going to need accommodations. You're going to want those numbers to see what you need to target. The CTOPP will give you a RAN/RAS score. That's another thing that is super easy to work on that would improve her fluency DRAMATICALLY. So evals would help you a LOT right now. And if you've had them, open the report and look for the data.

Edited April 13, 2017 by OhElizabeth

[caedmyn]

My DD had the same trouble.  We did Abecedarian B & C at the end of last year (4th grade).  It helped a little.  Then we did Rewards Secondary.  It helped quite a bit, but was not enough.  It *might* have been enough if I had required her to stop reading on her own while we were doing it.  I found that even though she had the skills to successfully break apart those longer words, it was easier for her to guess so she just continued to do that.

 

This year we did Barton, and I didn't allow her to read on her own while she did level 4.  She tested out of the first three levels but I did have her do level 3 very quickly because I thought it was a good introduction to Barton before the more difficult level 4.  Level 4 helped A LOT.  I can't say I regret doing ABCD and Rewards, because I think it made Barton easier for her and also made it possible for her to skip the earlier levels, but they weren't enough.

 

I doubt ABCD will help your DD much if she's already done AAR & AAS.  I don't know how they teach syllable division compared to Rewards, so maybe it would be worth a try as it is pretty short and you won't waste much time if it doesn't.  You can buy both the student and teacher's parts on Amazon inexpensively...I think I paid something like $12 shipped for both parts, vs $100ish on the Rewards website.

 

[Ottakee]

Did you do all of the books through the I See Sam series? Apples and Pears spelling works well with them. Dancing Bears is their reading program that might work well for her if she did well with the I See Sam books as they are similar.

[scoutingmom]

Did you do all of the books through the I See Sam series? Apples and Pears spelling works well with them. Dancing Bears is their reading program that might work well for her if she did well with the I See Sam books as they are similar.

There are a lot of levels of I See Sam out there and not all the websites have them all......

 

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[Ottakee]

http://www.3rsplus.com/ has all of the sets for sale.  www.iseesam.com does as well.

[TheAttachedMama]

Did you do all of the books through the I See Sam series? Apples and Pears spelling works well with them. Dancing Bears is their reading program that might work well for her if she did well with the I See Sam books as they are similar.

 

Yes, we used all of the levels of I See Sam and all of AAR 4.  So she has been taught all the phonograms, but she sometimes forgets them. 

 

Like I said, we tried Dancing Bears.   We didn't really get much from it.  The best thing about that book is that it explains how to move a cursor through the words to teach a child to read the word left to right.  BUT--after you learn that, the book isn't all that great itself IMHO.  I think the phonics is sort of questionable compared to what is taught in AAR/AAS.    

 

I think that AAR is pretty clear on how to break apart unknown words.   But she still has trouble doing it.  That is why I was wondering if some direct practice with REWARDS would help.   However, I can't find it used to save my life---and don't want to spend 100 on something that isn't going to help.

[Minerva]

Since you already own DB, I encourage you to give it another try. It does seem like a crazy program and definitely doesn't teach the phonograms in the same way that AAR does, but for kids who struggle to apply the rules to their reading, it can be amazing. 

 

The magic in DB is that every single day you are using the cursor to break down the words into their smallest bits, so the action of breaking down the words becomes automatic. There are more word lists than stories, so that every word you come in contact with must be sounded out since there are no contextual cues. After a while they begin to see the small parts of the word on their own without having to rely on the pesky rules. It gives them concrete, usable word attack strategies without having to memorize anything other than the original flashcards.