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21 minutes ago, Pen said:

 

So frustrating. I thought that would work. 

The general site you linked is correct, but the page had an explanation of the 3 tiers  IIRC more or less as follows greatly simplified:

The first tier is normal best practices reading instruction

The second tier is more personalized reading instruction  with small group attention 

the third is a lot more personal close attention with, if that does not work, then the student is determined to need SPED services  

 

Most homeschool students already have one on one teaching, which is 3rd tier  

 

It does not seem to address what program will best suit the student’s reasons to be struggling with reading and best remediate those problems. Rather, it addresses what program fits well for what number of students and speed of instruction  — or which,as with Language! can be used with a class with kids reading at a wide range of levels  at the same time  

 

Sounds like this one then:

https://www.understood.org/en/school-learning/special-services/rti/at-a-glance-3-tiers-of-rti-support

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Wow you guys are amazing with all your ideas and information! I’ll probably miss some of the things I wanted to respond to, but in answer to some of the conversation:

*yes, ASD considerations (as well as bipolar and some others that have been mentioned) are still in the back of my mind to keep an eye on as she grows. We are fully aware that things may look didderent as she gets older.

*by good communication skills, I meant that she doesn’t ever seem to struggle conveying an idea or saying what she wants to say. She talks a lot and listens to lots of books and seems to comprehend an age appropriate amount. In the last six months, she’s listened to the entire Narnia  series, the entire Ramona Quimby series, castle Glower series, the first few Harry Potter books, a number of other classics like secret garden and little princess, as well as several children’s novels in German. She seems to have good receptive and expressive communication skills, though they’ve not been formally evaluated.

* I loved LizB’s syllables program, but she did not and refused to continue after the first two months. Just refused. No amount of calling things a game will disguise work in her eyes.

* I will check out that list of materials mentioned, LiPS, and see where the free program ranks in terms of how hard hitting it is. We need to do something fast. Quite bluntly, she is pissed as all get out at not being able to read easily and well. But she lacks the maturity and perseverance to buckle down with lots of work she thinks is boring if the end result is slow in coming. She is tired of being at the mercy of everyone else in terms of having access to audiobooks or read aloud a (but I do not trust her with internet enabled devices right now and we don’t have sufficient parental controls to give her all the audiobooks she wants without access to ones we wouldn’t want her to have. She wants to read sisters Grimm and Tuesday’s awas the castle and has zero tolerance for being told that she’ll be able to after a few years worth of work. I just need to get her reading somehow, and the sooner, the better, at this point. She’s super bright and had some scores that were just off the charts (like processing speed and story memory). She had very few weak areas- mostly visual stuff and phonological processing. The vision stuff is being addressed with vision therapy.

* fwiw, dd loves Spaulding and spelling. She just had trouble keeping the phonographs straight (poor working memory) and still just struggled to read.

*  we just began a German curriculum with her two weeks ago. So far, she loves it. I have some hopes that it might help her, because she will have no prior exposure to sight words, nor will she have memorized any common words yet. She felt very accomplished when she read her first page of very simple German, so it also seems that maybe there is some novelty in learning German that there is not in beginning or leveled readers in English. We are going to continue that as long as it is going well.  The first grade curriculum In German works a lot on sounds and syllables and identifying If sounds are at the beginning or middle or end of words.

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1 minute ago, 4KookieKids said:

Wow you guys are amazing with all your ideas and information! I’ll probably miss some of the things I wanted to respond to, but in answer to some of the conversation:

*yes, ASD considerations (as well as bipolar and some others that have been mentioned) are still in the back of my mind to keep an eye on as she grows. We are fully aware that things may look didderent as she gets older.

*by good communication skills, I meant that she doesn’t ever seem to struggle conveying an idea or saying what she wants to say. She talks a lot and listens to lots of books and seems to comprehend an age appropriate amount. In the last six months, she’s listened to the entire Narnia  series, the entire Ramona Quimby series, castle Glower series, the first few Harry Potter books, a number of other classics like secret garden and little princess, as well as several children’s novels in German. She seems to have good receptive and expressive communication skills, though they’ve not been formally evaluated.

* I loved LizB’s syllables program, but she did not and refused to continue after the first two months. Just refused. No amount of calling things a game will disguise work in her eyes.

* I will check out that list of materials mentioned, LiPS, and see where the free program ranks in terms of how hard hitting it is. We need to do something fast. Quite bluntly, she is pissed as all get out at not being able to read easily and well. But she lacks the maturity and perseverance to buckle down with lots of work she thinks is boring if the end result is slow in coming. She is tired of being at the mercy of everyone else in terms of having access to audiobooks or read aloud a (but I do not trust her with internet enabled devices right now and we don’t have sufficient parental controls to give her all the audiobooks she wants without access to ones we wouldn’t want her to have. She wants to read sisters Grimm and Tuesday’s awas the castle and has zero tolerance for being told that she’ll be able to after a few years worth of work. I just need to get her reading somehow, and the sooner, the better, at this point. She’s super bright and had some scores that were just off the charts (like processing speed and story memory). She had very few weak areas- mostly visual stuff and phonological processing. The vision stuff is being addressed with vision therapy.

 

She sounds in many ways similar to my ds I strongly recommend that you look at the High Noon samples online with her and see if they look like they might fit and appeal to her. 

I am sorry that my attempts at links are still not working right. 

If she needs less than High Noon’s level of intensity and in depth remediation suitable for fairly severe dyslexia,  someone recommended Orlassino’s book Blast Off To Reading as a not too expensive one volume reading program supposed to be accessible and under $30. It is available at Amazon. But I give up on links. 

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1 minute ago, Pen said:

 

She sounds in many ways similar to my ds I strongly recommend that you look at the High Noon samples online with her and see if they look like they might fit and appeal to her. 

I am sorry that my attempts at links are still not working right. 

If she needs less than High Noon’s level of intensity and in depth remediation suitable for fairly severe dyslexia,  someone recommended Orlassino’s book Blast Off To Reading as a not too expensive one volume reading program supposed to be accessible and under $30. It is available at Amazon. But I give up on links. 

 

Ha ha. No worries on the links. ?

and thanks for another idea!

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27 minutes ago, Pen said:

If she needs less than High Noon’s level of intensity and in depth remediation suitable for fairly severe dyslexia,  someone recommended Orlassino’s book Blast Off To Reading as a not too expensive one volume reading program supposed to be accessible and under $30. It is available at Amazon. But I give up on links. 

 

I notice that high noon isn’t on that scribd list of rti levels for dyslexia materials. In looking abt he list and based on your experience, where would you place it?

eek. Nm. While it may be much less than Barton, that is definitely not going to be in our budget.

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1 hour ago, 4KookieKids said:

She is tired of being at the mercy of everyone else in terms of having access to audiobooks or read aloud a (but I do not trust her with internet enabled devices right now and we don’t have sufficient parental controls to give her all the audiobooks she wants without access to ones we wouldn’t want her to have. She wants to read sisters Grimm and Tuesday’s awas the castle and has zero tolerance for being told that she’ll be able to after a few years worth of work.

She may not be reading well enough for a while to access what she wants to read, and her giftedness is going to make that much harder. She's going to be compelled to read things she doesn't want to read and won't be reading what she wants. This means you probably are gonna need to fix your tech situation. You can use a kindle fire, turn on the parental controls, lock down the wifi so it won't turn on without a password, and put on it only the books you want. That's what I do. Not a regular tablet, not the kid version, not an ipad. It's the kindle fire using their parental controls. You'll have very definite control.

If she's diagnosed, you would do well to take the documentation to your ped and get him to sign the form for BARD/National Library of Congress. Incredible resource and FREE. It is unrealistic to assume her reading will come enough in the next year or two to enable her to read what she wants at the rate she wants. It MIGHT and mercy may it. But I'm just saying be realistic, get the audiobooks for free, get the tech issue nailed down. 

1 hour ago, Pen said:

If she had a formal diagnosis of dyslexia she should be able to get NLS and Bookshare audio if you are in USA. 

Ha, hadn't seen Pen's post! Well there you go. 

1 hour ago, 4KookieKids said:

 

I notice that high noon isn’t on that scribd list of rti levels for dyslexia materials. In looking abt he list and based on your experience, where would you place it?

eek. Nm. While it may be much less than Barton, that is definitely not going to be in our budget.

Unfortunately, yeah, budget bites.

57 minutes ago, 4KookieKids said:

After looking at them a bit, I’m wondering if anyone can tell me if the free Rooney one would be comparable to the LiPS?

Did she fail A and B of the Barton screening or C or all three or?? Barton says you shouldn't need LIPS if she only failed A and B. So make sure you're interpreting that test correctly. You wouldn't want to be buying LIPS if you don't need it. No, I don't think the Rooney materials are hitting the early phonemic awareness, but I'm not sure, haven't looked through them. But see what your Barton screening said. Take deep breaths. You can do this. Eat a pan of brownies. You can do this. Or as they put in the Talkies (LMB) manual, You can do anything. I kid you not, they actually put that in there. You can do any of this if you just take deep breaths and give it time to click in your mind. You can do things you didn't think you could do if you just stay calm and give yourself time.

That's why you don't rush. Fix the tech to take this pressure off you. A kindle is like $69 right now, seriously. Get it, turn on the parental controls, download acceptable stuff, and lock it down so no purchases, no wifi, nothing. You don't even have to leave the apps on. Seriously.

1 hour ago, 4KookieKids said:

* fwiw, dd loves Spaulding and spelling. She just had trouble keeping the phonographs straight (poor working memory) and still just struggled to read.

And she's learning German??? And she's reading German??? We had someone (matryoshka? I forget) who said her kids went through SWR and still couldn't read even though they could spell. It *can* happen. Have you done fluency drills with her? Your WRTR/SWR stuff is RTI1, and it really isn't explicit enough on syllables. But it's still really interesting that the dc is spelling but not reading, reading German but not english, on and on. You might want to put the words into Quizlet and drill them to fluency. That's what I did with my dd. Was her visual memory low in her VT testing?

Are you drilling the phonograms enough? It doesn't seem like you can be implementing Spalding with fidelity if she is supposedly spelling well for it but not able to syllabicate and divide words into syllables. The syllabication techniques are the SAME for WRTR/SWR and OG. WRTR/SWR is OG lite. There is no difference. So is she dividing her spelling words into syllables and tapping out each sound before writing? Or has she been refusing and just writing the whole word?

Ok, your shortcut of the week. When you download the Rooney OG manual and start reading, it's probably gonna tell you how they teach syllables and it's probably gonna say something like listening for vowel sounds. It's not so rocket science. The manual is free. I suggest you download it tonight, bake a double thick pan of brownies and put on coffee, and just start reading. And maybe like throw it at the wall a few times but perservere, kwim? It may be you've got some holes here in your implementation that could be patched that would help you use ANYTHING better. This stuff is not about what you're using, because honestly what you were using (WRTR) was fine. The issue is not realizing why you're not getting the results. So if you go to the full bore manual and READ it and pour over it till you get your brain wrapped around it, then maybe you'll find what pieces you missed.

It could happen that way that you read the manual and it comes together for you. It would be a free option. If not, at least the brownies were good. 

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49 minutes ago, PeterPan said:

She may not be reading well enough for a while to access what she wants to read, and her giftedness is going to make that much harder. She's going to be compelled to read things she doesn't want to read and won't be reading what she wants. This means you probably are gonna need to fix your tech situation. You can use a kindle fire, turn on the parental controls, lock down the wifi so it won't turn on without a password, and put on it only the books you want. That's what I do. Not a regular tablet, not the kid version, not an ipad. It's the kindle fire using their parental controls. You'll have very definite control.

If she's diagnosed, you would do well to take the documentation to your ped and get him to sign the form for BARD/National Library of Congress. Incredible resource and FREE. It is unrealistic to assume her reading will come enough in the next year or two to enable her to read what she wants at the rate she wants. It MIGHT and mercy may it. But I'm just saying be realistic, get the audiobooks for free, get the tech issue nailed down. 

Ha, hadn't seen Pen's post! Well there you go. 

Unfortunately, yeah, budget bites.

Did she fail A and B of the Barton screening or C or all three or?? Barton says you shouldn't need LIPS if she only failed A and B. So make sure you're interpreting that test correctly. You wouldn't want to be buying LIPS if you don't need it. No, I don't think the Rooney materials are hitting the early phonemic awareness, but I'm not sure, haven't looked through them. But see what your Barton screening said. Take deep breaths. You can do this. Eat a pan of brownies. You can do this. Or as they put in the Talkies (LMB) manual, You can do anything. I kid you not, they actually put that in there. You can do any of this if you just take deep breaths and give it time to click in your mind. You can do things you didn't think you could do if you just stay calm and give yourself time.

That's why you don't rush. Fix the tech to take this pressure off you. A kindle is like $69 right now, seriously. Get it, turn on the parental controls, download acceptable stuff, and lock it down so no purchases, no wifi, nothing. You don't even have to leave the apps on. Seriously.

And she's learning German??? And she's reading German??? We had someone (matryoshka? I forget) who said her kids went through SWR and still couldn't read even though they could spell. It *can* happen. Have you done fluency drills with her? Your WRTR/SWR stuff is RTI1, and it really isn't explicit enough on syllables. But it's still really interesting that the dc is spelling but not reading, reading German but not english, on and on. You might want to put the words into Quizlet and drill them to fluency. That's what I did with my dd. Was her visual memory low in her VT testing?

Are you drilling the phonograms enough? It doesn't seem like you can be implementing Spalding with fidelity if she is supposedly spelling well for it but not able to syllabicate and divide words into syllables. The syllabication techniques are the SAME for WRTR/SWR and OG. WRTR/SWR is OG lite. There is no difference. So is she dividing her spelling words into syllables and tapping out each sound before writing? Or has she been refusing and just writing the whole word?

Ok, your shortcut of the week. When you download the Rooney OG manual and start reading, it's probably gonna tell you how they teach syllables and it's probably gonna say something like listening for vowel sounds. It's not so rocket science. The manual is free. I suggest you download it tonight, bake a double thick pan of brownies and put on coffee, and just start reading. And maybe like throw it at the wall a few times but perservere, kwim? It may be you've got some holes here in your implementation that could be patched that would help you use ANYTHING better. This stuff is not about what you're using, because honestly what you were using (WRTR) was fine. The issue is not realizing why you're not getting the results. So if you go to the full bore manual and READ it and pour over it till you get your brain wrapped around it, then maybe you'll find what pieces you missed.

It could happen that way that you read the manual and it comes together for you. It would be a free option. If not, at least the brownies were good. 

 

You’re right about the kindle fire, and we even have one, so this is doable. Hopefully the bookshare thing will come through before too long and we can get more audiobooks for her. It’s definitely the case that the longer we wait, the more quickly her listening/interest level outpaces her reading ability, creating an ever widening gap.
 
Yes, I believe she’s officially diagnosed. The diagnosis is something like symbolic dysfunction, though, which they told me was basically the billable term for dyslexic and that anyone in the business will recognize this as dyslexia. The report frequently mentions dyslexia and dyslexic tendencies, but the SLP wanted to give me something billable (even if our current insurance won’t cover it.)
 
On the Barton screening, she did missed 1 too many on A and B, but actually did ok on C, though she was pushing the limit on how many she was allowed to repeat. I must have mis-read the sheet on what comes next thought – I think I must have switched in my mind the “passed C / failed A, B” page with the “failed C” page and gotten those next steps completely backwards. … Oops!
 
Yes, she understands German, speaks it well enough to communicate in Germany, and can now read very basic things like “Mama ist da.” This is the stuff that she’d refuse to read if it were English because it’s too boring and mindnumbing. But she accepts it in German (so far… knock on wood.) In English, we’ve done fluency drills, we’ve done nonsense word games, we’ve split/tapped/clapped syllables until I thought my eyeballs might fall out of my head, etc.
 
Yes, her visual memory was low on her testing. And yet, she memorizes tons of words when reading, which makes no sense to me. She really is a bit of an enigma to me. As for the spelling thing, she doesn’t spell well on her own, but I am supposed to give her the correct phonogram for each sound (e.g., “red” is “r”, the phonogram that says “e, ee”, “d”, and so long as she knows that “e” is the only phonogram that has precisely those two sounds, she can spell the word). In a word like “read”, she doesn’t have to guess if it’s “rede” or “reed” or “read”, she’s told that the middle sound is the phonograph that says “ee, e, ay” and she knows that that can only mean “ea.” So yes, we’ve drilled phonographs a TON. She still sometimes struggles to remember them. The syllable divisions in Spalding are nigh impossible for her, and I always help her with that, using the hand motions and all. But she does often sound the word out by splitting it up into its sounds on her own.
 
Ha ha. Love your comment to eat a pan of brownies, though I don’t drink coffee. I’m trying to download the manual now, but my internet is wonky and my phone screen is tiny. Lol.
Thanks for all the encouragement. ?

Sorry that I was having problems getting the HTML editor to work and thus couldn't reply in-line... I know it makes it harder to follow!
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1 hour ago, 4KookieKids said:

On the Barton screening, she did missed 1 too many on A and B, but actually did ok on C, though she was pushing the limit on how many she was allowed to repeat. I must have mis-read the sheet on what comes next thought – I think I must have switched in my mind the “passed C / failed A, B” page with the “failed C” page and gotten those next steps completely backwards. … Oops!

Well then it's your lucky day!

http://www.fcrr.org/curriculum/pdf/GK-1/PA_Final_Part2.pdf

http://www.readingrockets.org/strategies/syllable_games 

Those are the two things Barton says you need to do and they're FREE. You don't even need LIPS.

2 hours ago, 4KookieKids said:

This is the stuff that she’d refuse to read if it were English because it’s too boring and mindnumbing.

My dd had this gap between what she wanted to read and could read, and she wasn't willing to read easy readers, etc. Your dd is enjoying books that are on a 4th-6th grade reading level, which is why we can safely say she won't be reading them for a while, no matter how hard you work. Even if you got Barton today and kicked butt, she'd only be reading at maybe a 4th grade level by the end of Barton 4. And that would be compelled reading, NOT LEISURE. She's going to be behind that another 1-2 gr for leisure. 

There's also data that kids who start reading later still end up going through the same uggy crunchy stages of reading acquisition, even though they're older and wiser. It's just going to take time and exposure for her to be able to read what she wants. She may also benefit from immersion reading on the kindle. You might check your library for Overdrive, as it will be another good, free resource.r 

2 hours ago, 4KookieKids said:

Yes, her visual memory was low on her testing. And yet, she memorizes tons of words when reading, which makes no sense to me.

She just sounds crazy bright. How far is she in her VT and how is it going? The visual memory is going to affect fluency and your ability to drill and have things stick I think. This is just my opinion and my two cents, but if dividing your time between VT and reading intervention (that wasn't going well anyway) is making neither one go well, then I would do JUST the VT right now, but I would really kick some serious butt on it. Like get religion on it, work on it 3-4X a day, really do that homework. My dd made noticeable progress in a month. How long are they saying for you total and how long has she put in?

If she's enough that one month of REALLY SERIOUS FOCUS would get her vision online, then I would consider doing that. Not 6 months or a year, just one month. But really move it, lots of work, double work, triple work, fatigue level, drop everything else, get that stuff working better. You can use that time to read through the OG manual, come up to speed, gather your materials, practice techniques while you eat brownies, and start in August, early September, with her eyes more on track.

It's really hard to teach through vision problems, because reading is a visual act. Oh I know the speechies will say it's not visual, but really that kinda boggles the mind when you think about it, eh? They're like oh well you've got this orthographic mapping and once the kid has reasonable acuity the rest doesn't matter. Hogwash. We have plenty of stories where it matters. If your eyes are struggling to converge and you're getting headaches, how are you supposed to focus and read? If you have retained reflexes and everything is glitched up, of course things get affected. I swear I read the stupidest stuff online right now from people who proclaim themselves experts and cite eye surgeons. Unbelievable.

I'm not saying wait a long time, but I'm saying you've got a lot of strengths there and a known physical problem holding her back. if focusing on the known physical problem will let you put more effort in there, make tracks, and get her physical side working better, she'll probably be in a better position to do the rest. And if you want to do them both, more power to you. My dd couldn't handle VT and a lot of other academics. It was really fatiguing to her! Go with your gut on that. As long as you're working HARD, it's probably all gonna pan out in the wash.

If you *do* happen to decide to focus on the VT for one month (not 6 months to a year), you might also do RAN/RAS work and work on building up her working memory with games. Those pieces will make the rest go better too. To decode and encode, she's going to need to hold increasing chunks in her working memory. Oh, I forgot, your NILD person probably already did this! Did she do RAN/RAS too? Well then nevermind. 

I think Pen is right that you're going to need to find high interest, low level readers for her so she'll be able to get in the practice she needs without going crazy. You might need to start googling for sources, looking at that Smart Speech Therapy blog, trying your local teacher's college lending library (that's what I did), etc. It's another thing you can be doing while you read the OG manual and try to come up to speed. :)

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She only just started  the VT and it’s over an hour drive away with four kids. So she had her first appointment and the plan for the next month is to see if we can make good progress going every other week instead of weekly but I’m not sure that’s going to work out since she has such a hard time doing the exercises at home. Lots of tears, lots of complaining her eyes and head hurt, lots of complaints that it’s just too hard and she can’t do it, and lots of flat out refusal. I bribe a lot, but it only gets me so far.

But you’re right: it is a lot for her to be doing that at all he same time as working on all the phonological stuff as well.

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On 7/21/2018 at 12:17 AM, PeterPan said:

Well then it's your lucky day!

http://www.fcrr.org/curriculum/pdf/GK-1/PA_Final_Part2.pdf

http://www.readingrockets.org/strategies/syllable_games 

Those are the two things Barton says you need to do and they're FREE. You don't even need LIPS.

...

If you *do* happen to decide to focus on the VT for one month (not 6 months to a year), you might also do RAN/RAS work and work on building up her working memory with games. Those pieces will make the rest go better too. To decode and encode, she's going to need to hold increasing chunks in her working memory. 

 

Are you suggesting to only do those phonological/syllable exercises and not do OG? OT just that she’ll be ready for OG after those?

Also, continuing her enigmatic issues: she blew the RAN section of her test out of the water. Kid has seriously awesome processing speed that she uses to compensate for her low working memory. Same kid couldn’t list more than 2-3 names that start with S or foods you’d eat for breakfast (as many as you can  in a minute) though when the got to that portion of the test though... Too open ended, maybe? To help with memory, we’ve been doing a lot of memory and headbanz and other games, as well as an interactive metronome type app.

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1 hour ago, 4KookieKids said:

She only just started  the VT and it’s over an hour drive away with four kids. So she had her first appointment and the plan for the next month is to see if we can make good progress going every other week instead of weekly but I’m not sure that’s going to work out since she has such a hard time doing the exercises at home. Lots of tears, lots of complaining her eyes and head hurt, lots of complaints that it’s just too hard and she can’t do it, and lots of flat out refusal. I bribe a lot, but it only gets me so far.

But you’re right: it is a lot for her to be doing that at all he same time as working on all the phonological stuff as well.

Sigh, btdt. Did they check for retained reflexes? My dd was like that, and she had retained reflexes that the VT doc (nor the OT we were using concurrently) had identified.

https://www.toolstogrowot.com/blog/2016/01/11/primitive-motor-reflexes-their-impact-on-a-childs-function

http://www.pyramidofpotential.com/primitive-reflexes/  This costs money, but she has some videos. Her integration exercises are what the PT used that we finally got some help with. You can use the list to help you google for the tests. ALL your kids can be doing this. Anybody 5 and up, testing 'em ALL. 

51 minutes ago, 4KookieKids said:

 

Mare you dating to only do those phonological/syllable exercises and not do OG? OT just that she’ll be ready for OG after those?

Also, continuing her enigmatic issues: she blew the RAN section of her test out of the water. Kid has seriously awesome processing speed that she uses to compensate for her low working memory. Same kid couldn’t list more than 2-3 names that start with S or foods you’d eat for breakfast (as many as you can  in a minute) though when the got to that portion of the test though... Too open ended, maybe? To help with memory, we’ve been doing a lot of memory and headbanz and other games, as well as an interactive metronome type app.

RAN/RAS isn't the same as processing speed. That's really interesting if her RAN/RAS is strong, since RAN/RAS issues are usually a lagging indicator of dyslexia, even after intervention. There are multiple iterations in the CTOPP, allowing them to find the deficits even if one type has had intervention. Processing speed is usually run with IQ. You can have low processing speed and normal RAN/RAS, high(er) processing speed and low RAN/RAS, etc. Has she had psych testing?

The categories difficulties you're describing are a language issue. https://speechamy.wikispaces.com/file/view/100+Vocab+Prim.pdf  This is free. See how she would do with it. You can find workbooks to expand it or use a game like Pickles to Penguins (or anything else you have for that matter) to get more practice.

Sigh, I'm feeling for you. Btdt a little too much. Take deep breaths and take the time to sort it out. You'd rather know about the issues than not know about the issues. Yes, I've gotten wrong, incomplete, shallow help from people charging $100, $150, $250 an hour. Happens all the time unfortunately. So back up.

-Did the SLP run any more language testing? 

-Has she had a psych eval? Who is the one suggesting bipolar and ADHD?

-Check for retained reflexes. We've had people here use youtube and lists and figure it out. Unfortunately, retained reflexes will glitch a lot because they're sort of the bottom of the foundation. So they affect behaviors, vision, everything, because the body hasn't integrated those neonatal reflexes and said done, put them away. They're literally there, activated, giving her problems, and in the process they glitch vision, etc.

You will have to do some things concurrently, but you're going to have to be cognizant which issues are being impacted by things you haven't treated yet. It sounds like your VT doc is a bust. Going less often won't make those issues better. You actually need to do more, not less, but you need to see if getting the reflexes integrated will make it EASIER. So you could call around and find a VT doc who does work on reflexes, look for an OT who works on reflexes (which might be covered by your insurance!!), or use youtube and get the reflexes integrated. That will let you then work on vision without such a mess.

You *can* make splinter skills, even with vision and vision therapy, but I think your dd's body is screaming that she's not ready to do what they're asking. Probably not worth it. Better to go back and work on the issues.

You have the list of syllable exercises from Barton (those two links earlier in the thread) and you have the free OG manual from the MA Rooney foundation. No, if your issues are this profound on the physical, I would not wait on going forward with reading. She's doing well in German and liking spelling in english, so probably things are going to click. It's going to take you several months to get her reflexes identified and integrated and then more time to go back and do VT and work on visual processing. You're not going to want to wait on reading intervention for that.

I'm sorry it's hard. You've got this sort of crash course going on all the things I spent years doing, and your kids are just complex enough that every time you knock on a door they give you simplistic answers that don't quite get you there. That's hard. VT was that way for us and we didn't realize about the reflexes. Like I sorta knew they existed as an issue, but none of the people I was using were actually CHECKING FOR THEM. We persisted, and we did get benefit yes. But it was SO hard. It doesn't sound like that's going to be reality for your dd. Her body is screaming for you to work on the foundational stuff first. 

Keep sorting it out. Eat carrots. You can only eat so many brownies and then you gain weight. :biggrin:

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11 hours ago, 4KookieKids said:

 

I notice that high noon isn’t on that scribd list of rti levels for dyslexia materials. In looking abt he list and based on your experience, where would you place it?

eek. Nm. While it may be much less than Barton, that is definitely not going to be in our budget.

 

 

I’ll reply even though you say, “ no too expensive “

In two parts

1)

I want to encourage you to find a right program for her, and then to go for that — even if it takes waiting a while and saving to get it. 

It is very easy to choose based on cost, and to end up with a lot of relatively inexpensive materials that won’t work to get her reading. 

And to add them up in a few years and realize you could have gotten High Noon or maybe even Barton for what you spent on cheap programs, printing out from free programs, etc.

Also I’d encourage considering your time and energy. And that if you go for a lot of wrong for her to do programs,  discouragement may add to the difficulty of learning. ( not wrong for someone, but the fit for her)

I also suggest looking at where in your homeschool budget you can cut costs so as to be able to put it toward a reading program. 

Certainly getting what free audiobooks you can is one way.  If you don’t yet have them, in addition to NLS BARD and Bookshare, I suggested Hoopla and Library2Go Libby if your library has access and LibraVox for many classics.

Going to few or inexpensive online math likely makes more sense than choosing a program for a dyslexic child to learn to read based on price as primary criterion. 

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Autocorrect changed free to few about math above. 

PART 2

Specifically with regard to High Noon level:

I don’t think RTI is what you should be looking at to choose. I am also concerned that you may not be looking at the High Noon materials I mean and I cannot link it to the page. Can you link back to what you think I mean?

The starting materials are approx $85 for Teacher Guide plus Student Workbook. 

The program, and it says this clearly on its description which is why I think you may not have found what I mean you to find, is suitable for small groups and one on one. (Which fits with RTI 2 and3). 

I was told to get High Noon by a California SPED reading specialist who said it was her top choice by far for bright to gifted children with significant dyslexia, which describes my son. I think perhaps it also describes your daughter. 

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Re: High Noon

Since linking is not possible, below a partial page copy of what you should have found  

High Noon is not traditional OG, they incorporated aspects of OG , but also used research on dyslexia to develop the program  

Among other things it does not require memorizing rules for how two vowels together can sound, but instead teaches this by presenting practice that gets it into the reader’s long term memory of what to do without rule memorization  

what I put below, if you find the correct page online will also link to sample pages from inside the book  

Even if your dd is not yet a third grader, what you describe as her interests in books should make HN okay for her in terms of reading passage contents level of maturity  

1 teacher book, the student book and the student workbook are $78. That is the basics that you would need  

My son also needed the Sound Out Chapter books, but he almost certainly had more severe dyslexia than your daughter  

 

High Noon Reading-Level 1

 

by Rick Brownell, MA / Deb Akers

High Noon Reading is a reading intervention program for students grades 3 and above based on best practices in reading instruction and High Noon's tradition of creating appropriate materials for students reading substantially below grade level.

High Noon Reading was designed with the remedial reading teacher in mind. The program can be used with small groups or one-on-one, and has the following features: 
 

  • multiple entry points
  • flexible pacing
  • easy-to-use lesson plans
  • continuous review
  • on-going evaluation

    High Noon Reading focuses on the development of decoding, fluency, and comprehension skills while also building skills in spelling, writing, and vocabulary. Each level follows a sequence of skills that correlates to the skills typically taught in classroom reading programs. 

    High Noon Reading, Level 1 contains 65 lessons focusing on one-syllable words. Skills taught include decoding words that have short and long vowels, consonant blends and digraphs, variant vowels, diphthongs, spelling patterns, and sight words. 

    High Noon Reading, Level 2 contains 65 lessons focusing on multisyllable words. Skills taught include decoding words that have inflectional endings, prefixes and suffixes, and other forms of multiple syllables. 

    Each of two levels contains 65 lessons. Each lesson begins with a review of previously taught decoding skills and is followed by the presentation of a new skill. Skills are applied as students read the lessons passage and are practiced as teacher-directed and independent workbook activities are completed. Practice lessons provide material that can be used with students who require additional instruction and practice. Teacher preparation is minimal, and each lesson can be completed in 30-40 minutes. 

    Teachers Edition: 
    For each level, this guide provides everything you will need for planning and teaching the program. Each four-page lesson plan includes reduced pages from the Student Book and Workbook. Lesson steps are listed and scripting is provided to model the teaching of new concepts. Review of the "teaching" script is the only preparation suggested for each lesson, and this can be completed in about five minutes. 

    Student Book:
    Each lesson in the Student Book is presented in a consistent format that is easy for students to follow. Part A reviews decoding skills. Part B teaches a new decoding concept. Part C presents a passage in which students apply previously learned decoding skills and develop fluency and comprehension skills. (nonconsumable) Save 10% when purchasing the Student Book 5 pack. 

    Workbook:
    Each lesson is concluded with workbook activities that give skill practice. The workbook includes teacher-directed and independent activities that develop decoding, comprehension, spelling, writing, and vocabulary
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Regarding reading programs, I don’t think there a single be-all, end-all... in my experience, it mostly depends on the teacher. For dyslexic kids, you have to be organized, prepared, and then stick to your plan. Yes, Orton-Gillingham is very important - but each OG-based program is different, uses a different sequence of teaching, etc. There are also probably “OG-based” programs that are bad.

If the OP goes with High Noon, she could take as long as necessary with each lesson. The materials on the sample pages look solid. When I say stick to a plan, I’d don’t mean rush - it’s most important to practice every day to keep concepts fresh. When I had 20-30 minute reading groups in my class, time was short - but we packed it in. Our general plan of the lesson included:

1. Introduce new sound/concept OR choose to review known concepts. 

2. Read words using tiles. Spell words using tiles. 

3. Read words from a whiteboard. Spell words on a whiteboard. (With certain kids, we wrote sentences if they were ready)

4. Read from printed material (High Noon book, other book, paragraph I typed, etc)

Using my “plan,” you don’t even really need a “program.” At my school, we used the Recipe or Reading book that ElizabethB mention. It’s super cheap on Amazon. It includes a sequence of teaching, and helpful word lists and sentences so you don’t have to think it all up on the spot.

I absolutely love High Noon books. Their decodable books are genius. I have no idea how they do it, but their series of books that only contains words of 3 letters or less... they’re really good! Some of the books are downright suspenseful. I’ve never had a kid that disliked their books. In fact... most of my students grabbed the books and started reading on their own, before I could even sit with them, because they were so delighted to see books that they could definitely read. They don’t look babyish, either.

Geez, I’m rambling. Sorry. The main idea is that you just need to jump in and start trying something, like 20 minute sessions of High Noon. Once you get going, you’ll notice if the student is making progress, and if they’re not, then you make adjustments. ? 

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Pen is pointing out some really good things here.

I'm of the Dear God approach to curriculum selections personally. I find all the options, lay them out in front of me, and then I kinda get on my knees bewildered and go WHAT DO I DO...

You'll figure it out. Remember, it's ok to start SOMEWHERE. It's ok to make some mistakes, as long as you don't stay on a mistaken path too long. It's ok to buy something and try it and sell it. It's ok to spend some time with the free OG manual, read it for a week, and then know WHY you want xyz paid materials. It's ok to buy just one tidbit of something or print out the free samples to try and see what clicks and see where they get you.

Do you have achievement testing to know what her actual reading level is? Someone can have poor word attack skills and still read. 

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38 minutes ago, Pen said:

@4KookieKids

after I know you have gotten the message above I will delete the quoted part from High Noon online catalog in case it violates WTM policies to quote that much

 

I got it. Thanks. I guess I found the wrong thing because most of what I saw was a large collection of books and it seemed that you’d have to start buying tons and tons of books. I’ll go check into it more thoroughly!

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@4KookieKids

I skimmed some posts, and am not sure reading  quickly if the same dd who has dyslexia also is doings VT. 

My son needed to practice VT exercises for amblyopia. I did not know he was dyslexic till after that was done because his inability to read was thought to be due to his amblyopia. 

Therefore we did not start dyslexia remediation until after his vision had been remediated. However, I don’t think we could have done both at once even if I had already known he was dyslexic. Each was too intense and needed to be the primary focus during the time that it was being done. 

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4KookieKids, does your daughter know that she has dyslexia? We have a thread going on this forum about creating a positive learning environment, and how stress inhibits learning. Your daughter is emotional about reading - understandably - and it sounds like every time you try to do “reading practice,” she puts a wall up. I’ve taught many kids like that. You somehow have to get her buy-in, which can involve negotiating time, like setting a timer for 10 minutes at first, or offering a fun activity directly after tutoring, or getting extremely fun materials, like a game that you play after the decoding/spelling practice. If she doesn’t know she has dyslexia, I would tell her. She’s obviously bright, and knowing that she has an actual *thing* that keeps her from reading right now might be a relief. It’s not a personal fault.

As for overcoming the reading wall she’s putting up... it will probably take some time to detox from reading stress. For my students, what relieved the stress most is knowing that there is a certain amount of time they’re required to work, and then it’s over. They also enjoyed knowing the schedule, so I always write down what the plan is for the session, and they can check off items as we go. When she starts succeeding a bit, she should become a little more amenable to lessons.

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17 minutes ago, Mainer said:

Hopefully this is the correct link to High Noon Level 1:  http://www.highnoonbooks.com/detailHNB.tpl?eqskudatarq=S8271-8

 

 

Yes! This is it.

17 minutes ago, Mainer said:

 

Yes!  It looks like the have more now and updated some cover art. 

Long will I remember The Red Cap as my son’s first successful reading experience after he had almost given up hope of reading! And also I will long remember it and others on the page you linked well because many were read aloud so many times as he gained fluency and automaticity.

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17 minutes ago, Mainer said:

4KookieKids, does your daughter know that she has dyslexia? We have a thread going on this forum about creating a positive learning environment, and how stress inhibits learning. Your daughter is emotional about reading - understandably - and it sounds like every time you try to do “reading practice,” she puts a wall up. I’ve taught many kids like that. You somehow have to get her buy-in, which can involve negotiating time, like setting a timer for 10 minutes at first, or offering a fun activity directly after tutoring, or getting extremely fun materials, like a game that you play after the decoding/spelling practice. If she doesn’t know she has dyslexia, I would tell her. She’s obviously bright, and knowing that she has an actual *thing* that keeps her from reading right now might be a relief. It’s not a personal fault.

As for overcoming the reading wall she’s putting up... it will probably take some time to detox from reading stress. For my students, what relieved the stress most is knowing that there is a certain amount of time they’re required to work, and then it’s over. They also enjoyed knowing the schedule, so I always write down what the plan is for the session, and they can check off items as we go. When she starts succeeding a bit, she should become a little more amenable to lessons.

 

I agree  

We started with just 5 minutes and worked up gradually both in session time and length of sessions  

The male HN author suggested overcoming my son’s reading wall by analogizing to sports drills and having to work hard over and over at various parts of the sports to get good at them, and that just as with basketball or ice skating it might not make sense at first. But the practice would lead to being able to do a type of jump and landing well  with good form...

This was also a situation where focus on good effort put in was really important 

5 minutes with good focus and effort accomplished more than half an hour tuned out  

 

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I had forgotten about this, but High Noon has sampler sets of 5 books and 3 books (complete books!) available for free through ibooks (apple). I'm looking and don't see that on amazon, sorry. But I'm thinking that doing the ibooks version on an ipad might be an option for your dc. Lock down the wifi at your house, make it so the ipad can't do other things. You'd be able to make the font bigger, and you wouldn't have to deal with shipping and upfront heavy purchases. It looks like the ebook versions are a little cheaper too, so $4 a book vs. $28 for 5 plus shipping. 

Just thinking with you. I'm gonna play around with them for my ds, see where we get. The low readability is lower language, which fits his ASD situation really well. I'm going to get him to try them today hopefully. He doesn't read recreationally at all, only what is required by me. I keep it high interest and have him reading a lot, but that would be amazing if we could get him reading recreationally, sure.

If you don't have an ipad, I think you can do ibooks on pc and mac, yes? Actually I'm not sure, sigh. But see I guess. I don't know why they're doing them for ibooks and not kindle. B&N had an epub version, so maybe that would work on a kindle? I should go see.

Tada! https://www.lifewire.com/install-nook-kobo-apps-kindle-1616656  Takes a little effort, because you have to sideload the Nook app, but you CAN load the Nook app on the kindle fire and use it to read the epub versions of the HN ebooks that you would buy through B&N. There you go. $3.99 a book and right onto your kindle that you can lock down.

Now if you do that, the Nook app will turn off when you turn off apps in parental controls, meaning you will need to take off all games and leave apps turned on (if you're trying to make sure she's not playing games when she should be reading). But it can work, yes. 

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4KookieKids, obviously, I cannot advise you on what program to use. My two picked up reading and spelling before age 4 and I used various phonics based and some OG type (WRTR being one of them) programs to ensure that they were in fact reading phonetically and knew the phonograms, morphology, etc. Some areas I still work on with my youngest, even though he decodes and spells at a very advanced level. I don't want to be caught off guard in the future.

Anyway, our needs are different, but what I did want to put emphasis on, if you are going to spend money, is to look at the materials with your daughter. Since you have already had resistance with things you have tried, it might be a good idea to try to find samples, videos of others teaching using the method to kids, etc. Also, I believe Pen mentioned it already, be very careful with free resources. You may spend your time, not have them work, and possibly frustrate your daughter even more. Think of the psychological aspect of it as well. Look over the recommendations found here, see what is doable financially, and then check it out with your daughter. It's amazing what you can find on YouTube these days in order to get a feel for something before you spend the money. 

I hope you find the best solution for your child ☺️

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1 hour ago, PeterPan said:

I had forgotten about this, but High Noon has sampler sets of 5 books and 3 books (complete books!) available for free through ibooks (apple). I'm looking and don't see that on amazon, sorry. But I'm thinking that doing the ibooks version on an ipad might be an option for your dc. Lock down the wifi at your house, make it so the ipad can't do other things. You'd be able to make the font bigger, and you wouldn't have to deal with shipping and upfront heavy purchases. It looks like the ebook versions are a little cheaper too, so $4 a book vs. $28 for 5 plus shipping. 

Just thinking with you. I'm gonna play around with them for my ds, see where we get. The low readability is lower language, which fits his ASD situation really well. I'm going to get him to try them today hopefully. He doesn't read recreationally at all, only what is required by me. I keep it high interest and have him reading a lot, but that would be amazing if we could get him reading recreationally, sure.

If you don't have an ipad, I think you can do ibooks on pc and mac, yes? Actually I'm not sure, sigh. But see I guess. I don't know why they're doing them for ibooks and not kindle. B&N had an epub version, so maybe that would work on a kindle? I should go see.

Tada! https://www.lifewire.com/install-nook-kobo-apps-kindle-1616656  Takes a little effort, because you have to sideload the Nook app, but you CAN load the Nook app on the kindle fire and use it to read the epub versions of the HN ebooks that you would buy through B&N. There you go. $3.99 a book and right onto your kindle that you can lock down.

Now if you do that, the Nook app will turn off when you turn off apps in parental controls, meaning you will need to take off all games and leave apps turned on (if you're trying to make sure she's not playing games when she should be reading). But it can work, yes. 

 

This sounds really helpful!

But it sounds like only the post Remediation Reading Intervention Program books are included.  Not the levels that I most used and that Mainer wrote about  and linked  

Probably will fit your son’s reading level but less likely a fit for OPs dd. 

However, since it sounds like a limited time deal it could make sense for OP to get them now to have when ready.  If then needed—her dd May jump from end of Intervention Program level to the kids novels she wants to be able to read. Time will tell. The page at HN I came to offers them free in versions that sound compatible with Nook and Kindle as well as Apple products. 

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4KookieKids,

I made a separate post about NILD Educational Therapy because the topic does come up periodically. Please see that post for more about NILD. Usually students start the full NILD Educational Therapy program at age 8-ish, but many 7yos are very successful. The key is individualizing to the child's developmental and achievement levels. 

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I wouldn’t say that she has a “wall” when it comes time for reading practice. I would say that she has a “wall” when it comes to reading itself… What I mean is that her biggest source of frustration is actually trying to read her own material. That frustration boils over into reading instruction, but it really only becomes a big deal in the reading instruction if she feels  like  like she is being forced to read boring things. The bulk of her frustration is actually not against learning to read, because she really wants to learn to read. The bulk of her frustration seems to be that she keeps trying, and still can’t read the books she wants to read. So last Spring, Sometimes she would read an entire chapter, and once even two chapters, out of the kingdom of wrenly book that she wanted to read, so long as I sat next to her and provided significant support to her, so that she was able to make it through.  Part of me just wonders if this might not be the way to continue, or if doing this will establish in her bad habits of guessing and such. She can read the book she wants, so long as I am at her elbow helping her the entire time, helping her sound them out, showing her how to split them into syllables, reminding her of what certain phonograms say, pointing out a silent e at the end of the word. It is sometimes exhausting for me, but I love that it gives her a measure of success, and she feels so successful and accomplished afterwards.

So yes, I think keeping  things positive and short is important. But I also think something intense that will get the job done sooner rather than later might be better for her, so long as we can do it intensely in under 10-20 minutes (20 min  seems to the point at which she can’t do anymore). 

Regardimg the VT: no, she’s not  very far along, but we are fairly certain that her Vision issues are independent of her phonological issues, since the phonological issues were tested orally, and did not ask her to read anything off of a paper.

 I will definitely make sure she is a part of the curriculum choices process, since she does have strong feelings about what and how she does things. Even a good program is worthless to us if she refuses to do it. ? Although I think she need something individualized, I have also just been wondering if there might be some sort of group class for dyslexics somewhere, Or group therapy, because she seems to stay engaged for much longer when she’s learning from someone who is not me, particularly when she’s with other children. I don’t know, and I suspect nothing like this exist and even if it did might not actually be a good fit for her, and I certainly wouldn’t want her to start feeling ashamed or embarrassed in front of others. But she works a lot harder when trying to read her younger sister a story, for example and gives up a lot less frequently, then when she is trying to do it just for herself.

 

 

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7 minutes ago, 4KookieKids said:

She can read the book she wants, so long as I am at her elbow helping her the entire time, helping her sound them out, showing her how to split them into syllables, reminding her of what certain phonograms say.

Sounds like she needs continued work, yes. What were yo doing that got her this far? Definitely agree guessing is not good. No one wants her guessing. So she did WRTR and she's trying to read but it's really, really hard? Probably you could do almost anything (HN, that free Rooney manual, asking your NILD friend to step it up on the OG intensity, whatever) and get those processes more explicit. WRTR/SWR leave a lot to inference. They streamline OG to make it less tedious for a NT dc, but in the process they leave out the extra steps and practice that would really help NAIL it for a dc with an SLD. 

I'm not experienced teaching lots of kids (ie. take this with a grain of salt), but I personally don't like to see the struggle like that. I would go back, teach the skill explicitly, with multi-sensory, drill it to fluency in words, phrases, and sentences, and then probably kick it right over to those HN phonics readers to nail the practice. Or go super fast through the OG, drilling to fluency at the word/phrase/sentence level and just reading briefer passages and keeping up the pace. Barton includes decodable passages. There's a reason Barton is so popular, lol, because it's all there, boom, done. And the resale value is so high that your real cost is nominal. 

Ok, if you look at the MA Rooney OG tm I linked you to, pages 79-82 explain fluency. They say exactly what I'm saying, only way better, lol. You drill the phonograms to fluency (both ways, sound to written, written to sound). The fact that she doesn't know those SOLID is your first clue on what to work on. For whatever you're instruction, you get the phonograms to fluency then the words then phrases, then sentences, then text. And then they explain repeated reading vs. continuous reading. Repeated reading is what I did with my ds. I loaded the stuff into Quizlet and I drilled it till his eyeballs burnt. That's repeated reading. Continuous reading is more like High Noon, where the put the concepts into a larger text but the frequency is so high that you get the similar effect, just maybe more pleasantly. My ds has asd and doesn't draw inferences well, so leaving it to inference and noticing of patterns wasn't going to be his best bet. But for fluency work, EITHER WAY works. Do both, knock yourself out. 

Page 81 of that manual gives a chart with number of repetitions for the type of learner for developing automaticity. My ds was in that middle category (4-14 repetitions), and in fact he was surprisingly consistent. Syllables have been way crunchier, but for everything else those stats were pretty try. The greatest strugglers can need 20+ repetitions to get to automaticity. All that matters is that you recognize this, find where she is, and get every component (phonograms, words, phrases, sentences) worked on till they're automatic/fluent.

I'll tell you something and you can see what you think. When my ds was first diagnosed, we had a (removing not nice words) $$$$ neuropsych who said parents SHOULD NOT teach their kids with dyslexia. I was like what in the world, I have a background in linguistics and TESOL, I know my kid's speech therapy, I'm the right one for the job. That (again removing really not nice words) (more not nice words) (more not nice words) TOLD MY DH I should not teach my ds!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And it took me a while to figure it out, but basically someone else here on the boards pointed out to me that it wasn't gonna be fun, that it wasn't gonna be nice, and that if I wanted it to be nice and happen naturally and not involve some unpleasantry then the psych was right and I should just pay someone else.

My ds doesn't remember ill the hard work I did with him. It was way hard. Mind-bogglingly hard. Like rocket science, blow my mind every day confounding and hard. And now we do this language work (how to use verbs, pronouns, describe things, etc.) and I'm doing hard things all over again. I know some people are nice, but I'm not. I'm just dispassionate, like this is what we have to do, it sucks, it sucks that it's hard, do it anyway and then we'll go kayak or have ice cream cones or whatever, kwim? And, fwiw, the super hardest part of the new hard thing is usually the first two weeks. After that the brain figures out the new gig, makes the pathways, steps up to the plate, and they get used to it and move on.

What's unpleasant is slogging through text when you're not fluent. Drilling to fluency (phonograms, words, phrases, sentences) is just mindset. Every task is doable and within reach, so it's only whether you're willing to make mistakes and do hard things for 5 minutes, over and over. Mindset.

Twice a week is not enough to get anyone with significant disability over these humps. Tokyo said there should be homework, and that's what we're talking about. And to me, all that matters is it gets done. It doesn't matter if it's words from NILD or things you find online or whatever just that it gets done. It sounds like she's come a long way and that some intense, targeted work with enough frequency (every single day, multiple brief sessions totally a good chunk of time), she might get there. You're spending in gas the cost of buying a good program, and if the NILD person isn't sending her home with work and facilitating enough intensity or getting the OG components done, then figure out what you can modify to make that happen. Maybe she isn't thorough? Maybe she didn't have data and made assumptions about what intervention your dd needed? Maybe she's not experienced? I don't know. But what you're describing is a lack of fluency. So then you need to go back through each component and get it. It's overwhelming to be drowning in lots of concepts. It's easy to have a small list, get those to fluency, then add a little more and build fluency, then add a little more and work on fluency. The WRTR/SWR thing is to plop them in the deep end, but that's only good for some kids. Your dd might benefit from a narrower list, worked to fluency. 

She sounds very brave btw. It's really amazing that she's trying so hard to slog through books like that!! That brave spirit will help her. Get her some steps that are within reach, build fluency, then move her to the next step. Going back can sometimes be the fastest way to go forward.

8 minutes ago, 4KookieKids said:

I also think something intense that will get the job done sooner rather than later might be better for her, so long as we can do it intensely in under twenty minutes (that seems to the point at which she can’t do anymore). 

ADHD is frequently comorbid with dyslexia, and actually someone diagnosed it for her or suggested it, yes? Have you tried short, frequent, intense sessions? So instead of 20 minutes a day, do 15 minutes over and over and over with breaks. You could try for a higher target (1-2 hours a day) but do it with briefer sessions. My ds can't regulate his behavior for longer, so that's how we always roll. So you could shoot for 1 hour of intense intervention work and 1 hour of reading, but divide all that into 15 minute chunks. Is she able to do some of the reading immersion or pairing audiobooks and text? 

 

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Fully agree with everything PeterPan said above!

I taught a kid that sounds something like your daughter. He loved books, and would try, try, try to read them. I think that trying super hard, for long periods of time, really did help his decoding and fluency. He learned words that surprised me.

Since budget is a challenge (I’m right there with ya!), I would buy the Recipe for Reading from Amazon. It’s currently $20. If you don’t already have them, I would also buy letter tiles (ideally with vowels a different color), two small whiteboards, one for each of you, and pretty colored whiteboard markers ? That’s all you really need for a reading lesson. 

Then - just start at the beginning of the Recipe for Reading. The lessons are quite short and easy to do. With my most struggling/resistant readers, I didn’t do everything in the lesson - whatever you can do in 15-20 minutes. Make sure she:

Reads and spells words with tiles (I would make a list of maybe 10 words, and read them and spell them with tiles)

Read and spell those same words on the whiteboards

Read sentences (those are included in each lesson of the Recipe. It’s handy. I would either write the sentences on the whiteboard, or type them and print on paper, if you have a printer)

Read connected text from SOME book. If you can find some at the library that she can read easily and still enjoy, that would be great. I found that nonfiction is pretty good for this purpose, but anything she enjoys will do.

So, for $40 or so, you can have a really good start. ?

And yes, I’d sit with her and read Kingdom of Wrenly, or anything she’s willing to read. For a dyslexic kid to WANT to slog through books, is amazing & something to encourage. If you could somehow find slightly easier books than Wrenly, but still exciting to her, she’ll have even more success.

 

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Are you in the US or in Germany? My students really love the Scholastic Branches books, which you can find at the library. I had to do inter library loan to get all of them.

http://www.scholastic.com/branches/

These books range from beginning 2nd grade to late 2nd grade level. Your daughter might really like the Dragon Masters series. There are also ones that look geared towards girls, but I didn’t read them since I was always teaching boys ?

 

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I think if you see she is not solid on blending and sounding-out left-to-right, you keep working on that.  

You can see if fluency drills detract.  If you see her guessing you can wait on fluency drills.

If you don’t see guessing then I think it’s fine.

But you keep working on blending and sounding-out left-to-right as long as needed!

Unfortunately for my older son, it would be like — he could be solid blending shorter words and fine to do fluency drills, and still need to be working to blend a little longer words.

If he couldn’t blend a certain word he didn’t need to drill on that word (or a word of that difficulty for him).

But if he could blend an easier one (or a word similar) then he could work on fluency for those words.

So I think it overlaps a lot!  

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Basically — if you see something is contributing to memorizing or guessing, is stressful, is not (currently) working out — don’t do it.  

This book is dated in some ways — but Overcoming Dyslexia has an overview of reading.

This part says, to become automatic with a word, first you need to be able to sound it out accurately.  So — first is accurate decoding.  

If she is taking a long time and effort to blend and figure out the word, it’s probably not time for fluency drills of words.

But if you wanted to do fluency drills you could do letter sounds if you wanted to.  If you wanted to do that — it would be appropriate to do a level where she is already doing pretty well.  

If she is often making mistakes in naming letter sounds, then I don’t think fluency drills of letter sounds would be the primary way to teach.  You could be working on letter sounds some ways.

And while you were working on letter sounds you could also be working on blending.  

So — it can just depend what works well and what stage she is at.

My oldest son had great, great difficulty with learning letter sounds and with learning to blend.  There’s stuff out there, but there’s also stuff that’s a waste of time if it’s too hard.  Like — If letter sounds and blending are stalled, it’s hard to do very much, besides working on letter sounds and blending.  But then once they are better; a lot of things open up! 

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I think if she hates fluency drills but is willing to sound out words in books, I think that is okay.  

If she is able to accurately decode, even if it is slow.  She is practicing blending.  

But I think it’s good to try things and see if they are helpful!

And then irregular sight words are a different story, too.

There are a lot of words in Wrenly that are hard to sound out.

I would think she probably also needs separate practice for some things.

But if she likes slogging through I think that is great!  But she needs practice in good strategies also.  

Slogging through doesn’t teach the good strategies.  But it is still good she sees herself as a reader, that goes a really long way.  

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Just to let you know common things:  difficulty with letter sounds.  Maybe especially with confusing certain letters.  Saying letter sounds and they sound mushy or not-quite-right.  

Difficulty with blending.  Saying the sounds but not actually blending them.  Blending incorrectly.  

These were the biggest problems for my older son.  

So if what you see is she is nowhere near accurately decoding a lot of words, but she piecing them together with a lot of comprehension clues, because she scored 90%+ on comprehension ———— yeah she’s not using her blending skills.  If she’s not reading through the words (however she figured them out) and associating the blending with the letters — it’s not teaching her to “learn” the words.  (According to the theory of reading.)

Where — If kids do figure out part of a word by context, and then look and go “oh, I guess that part of the word says that,” then they are learning the word even if they didn’t figure it out 100% from blending.  And that is okay after kids are decent at blending.  

But before kids are decent at blending they may not get as much out of it.  

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35 minutes ago, 4KookieKids said:

My only concern with drilling fluency is that it will encourage her to memorize more instead of sounding out left to right. Thoughts?

Fluency is when you get the word to automaticity. You don't want her to have to sound out every single word forever. No one reads like that. You want her to work with a limited pool of phonograms and skills and apply those over and over till her brain can respond to that stimulus fluently, automatically. 

So with my ds, we had the words we were working on, and he sounded them out. Yes, I controlled it so he had to completely sound them out. I held the quizlet card up (phone, tablet) and said how many syllables (and required him to answer) and he had to say every sound and then we'd go back and run our finger under and say it a little more connected and then a little more connected. So he was left to right, blending, and it was a lot of work and I was requiring every step. For him, after doing that a couple times, it became obvious he could maybe get there with a little less support. So with each session (4 times a day) I was fading support as it was getting easier for him to blend and do it. But yes, absolutely, the dc is decoding with the tasks until they can read it fluently. It's NOT about memorizing visually. I didn't let him do that, no.

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In principle — you are accurate first and then you can become fluent.  So trying to memorize what you can’t sound out isn’t good.  

Especially with a beginning reader.  

After good decoding is established it is fine to use other clues to read words.  Because you will have the decoding to be able to learn the words!  

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Basically — when I started with my older son, I couldn’t have done the flash card idea.  

Because first he would make letter sound mistakes.

Second he just would not blend properly.  He just could not blend.  At all.  

So when I tried things that assumed kids could blend but needed to practice, it just wouldn’t work out.  

So it depends on current level.  If current level allows things, they may be good to do.  If current level means some things are too hard, they may not be good to do.  

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If you suspect your daughter of memorizing instead of sounding out, you may want to use a program with nonsense words, or incorporate nonsense words.

It’s what is recommended for kids who may memorize pretty easily and then not practice the skill of blending.  Some programs use it a lot.  

I never did nonsense words with my kids though as they don’t show a difference between real words and nonsense words for blending.  But some kids do.  That is why some screenings have kids sound out nonsense words to check on blending skills.  

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17 minutes ago, Lecka said:

Basically — when I started with my older son, I couldn’t have done the flash card idea.  

Because first he would make letter sound mistakes.

Second he just would not blend properly.  He just could not blend.  At all.  

So when I tried things that assumed kids could blend but needed to practice, it just wouldn’t work out.  

So it depends on current level.  If current level allows things, they may be good to do.  If current level means some things are too hard, they may not be good to do.  

Even WRTR wants them to drill the phonograms to automaticity. She just hasn't done it. Doesn't matter whether it's NILD or WRTR or R4R or Rooney or whatever, she still has to get the phonograms to automaticity. What I'm seeing differs between these programs is strategies for presenting blending and encoding. They each seem to have a twist. I saw a program recently that uses strings of beads. Some forms of OG teach them to slide their hand across their arm. We used the faces from LIPS and transferred it to tiles. Lots of ways.

Blending is held up by poor working memory, which is where that cognitive work in NILD might be nice. It's a lot of WORK to hold all the sounds in their head and blend them together and come out with a word and actually remember what in the world the word was and not be lightheaded and swooning! So that's why you start small and build up.

That's why I suggested she read through the Rooney manual carefully over the weekend. Anything would do. The trick is to realize these details and go ok, no matter what I'm using, this is what has to happen. She has to have automaticity, hold her thoughts, blend, etc. Until you get that big picture, you're just hopping from program to program, not realizing why they're not working. If you skip components and don't do them, then you can be skipping the steps that would have made it work. Educating the parent is always where it's at, even if you're using a tutor.

So yes you *can* blend with flashcards, but we did it first lots of other ways. We did it with faces and tiles and letter magnets. We did it so many times in lessons that basically a flashcard was just another level of support, a slightly decreased support. I was controlling it and we were fading the level of support that I had been providing in the lessons. We didn't go straight to flashcards, no. And if he was stumbling, I was stopping the thing and using fingers and clapping and slowing it down. Total control, just faded level of support from what we had used in the lessons. And these were words he had previously built in the lessons, encoding and decoding, so he completely understood them and had previous exposure. They were not novel exposures or unknown words.

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I guess what I saw was ———— I drilled and drilled.  It’s not like I just didn’t drill enough or didn’t care.

He was not ready to drill, he had to do all the multisensory stuff first.  And the letter sound stuff.  

If it’s somebody where truly there has been drilling and exposure, and it’s just not doing anything, I don’t think more drilling is something to recommend.

But then when there is some understanding of what is going on, that is a different situation.  

So I think — if there’s accurate letter sounds and accurate blending, then it’s different than if there is not.  

 

 

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