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My 9th grade son has just been officially diagnosed with dyslexia.  The high school has begun 'services' with him.  I have a list of programs given to me by the school psychologist that the school is willing to purchase to use with my son.  But I don't know anything about any of them!  Can someone guide me and let me know which is the better option?  Or is something like this too complicated of a question for a forum post?

Wilson Reading System

Read 180

Kaplan Spell/Read

SRA Corrective Reading and Reach System

HOSTS

 

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Wilson

make sure they're doing enough hours ( 3-5 days a week) and compel them to get the person trained. A good program poorly implemented is not good enough. They'll use the term fidelity, that the person needs to be trained to implement it with fidelity.

Congrats on making this happen!!

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5 hours ago, PeterPan said:

Wilson

make sure they're doing enough hours ( 3-5 days a week) and compel them to get the person trained. A good program poorly implemented is not good enough. They'll use the term fidelity, that the person needs to be trained to implement it with fidelity.

Congrats on making this happen!!

Thanks!  It felt like a big win to get this far.  Wilson looked the best to me, and it was recommended first by the psychologist who did the eval.

I think it will be a battle to get a teacher trained.  Does that change your answer? 

The only special ed teacher is young and new and inexperienced.  He confessed we were his first, first-time IEP meeting. He didn't know how to write out goals for the IEP.  He typically works with kids who are intellectually challenged, and my son is the only kid he sees who has an average IQ.  Our tiny school district only holds classes four days/week and my son has online classes that conflict with the times the teacher is available on some days.  Because of all that, I am concerned.  Hopefully we can make decent progress, though. 

Thanks again.

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Of those, I'd pick Wilson, too.  

My remedial students with actual dyslexia have also been helped by working with syllables and nonsense words, they do my syllables program followed by the complete 2+ words in Webster's Speller and daily nonsense word work.

http://www.thephonicspage.org/On Reading/syllablesspellsu.html

But, 99% of my students do not have actual dyslexia, they were just taught with sight words, Accelerate Reader, and other poor methods in the public schools. With even more nonsense words and syllables, they remediate really fast.  It takes a lot more time and work for those with true dyslexia.  

Also, did they do a phonemic awareness assessment?  If he needs something like LiPS first, even a good OG program like Wilson will not work well until the phonemic awareness issues are dealt with.  You can do the Barton pre-screening to see where he stands with this.

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I'll be a third vote for Wilson! A bonus is it's really easy to use, and the teacher's manual is well written. There are other materials that are very helpful (dictation book with words/sentences, student readers, etc). Definitely find out if the person giving the intervention is going to get trained in the method. That is non-negotiable. Even a young, inexperienced person could be great with training. You should also make sure they have systems in place for progress monitoring, to make sure this intervention is working for him - otherwise they need to switch to something else.

Task #1 would be to make sure the special ed teacher is getting trained in whatever program you use. Wilson has recommended timetables of how often kids should get instruction, and how long the sessions should be. You could also use that when you talk to the school district.

Kudos for getting this for your son! Yeah!

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2 hours ago, ElizabethB said:

Of those, I'd pick Wilson, too.  

My remedial students with actual dyslexia have also been helped by working with syllables and nonsense words, they do my syllables program followed by the complete 2+ words in Webster's Speller and daily nonsense word work.

http://www.thephonicspage.org/On Reading/syllablesspellsu.html

But, 99% of my students do not have actual dyslexia, they were just taught with sight words, Accelerate Reader, and other poor methods in the public schools. With even more nonsense words and syllables, they remediate really fast.  It takes a lot more time and work for those with true dyslexia.  

Also, did they do a phonemic awareness assessment?  If he needs something like LiPS first, even a good OG program like Wilson will not work well until the phonemic awareness issues are dealt with.  You can do the Barton pre-screening to see where he stands with this.

Thanks for this.  I've gone through your program with him before.  He was taught to read using phonics, for three years in a row. He's been at home since K, but did attend ps last year for 8th in a neighboring district (as an out-of-boundary student) because I thought the problem was me.  He got almost all As and a spot in National Junior Honor Society.  He could not read his acceptance letter.  The testing and psychologist we recently completed are through a district local to us. 

How would I go about knowing if he is truly dyslexic? 

He earned a grade equivalent score of 3.2 for pseudoword decoding test.  He earned a grade equivalent score of 5.0 on the word reading test.  He earned a grade equivalent of 4.0 on the sentence building.  For comparison, he tested at a general IQ of 110, and did fine (grade level to above-grade level) on the math, visual spatial, oral expression, and listening comprehension portions.

Thank you again!  I want to help him. 

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32 minutes ago, Mainer said:

I'll be a third vote for Wilson! A bonus is it's really easy to use, and the teacher's manual is well written. There are other materials that are very helpful (dictation book with words/sentences, student readers, etc). Definitely find out if the person giving the intervention is going to get trained in the method. That is non-negotiable. Even a young, inexperienced person could be great with training. You should also make sure they have systems in place for progress monitoring, to make sure this intervention is working for him - otherwise they need to switch to something else.

Task #1 would be to make sure the special ed teacher is getting trained in whatever program you use. Wilson has recommended timetables of how often kids should get instruction, and how long the sessions should be. You could also use that when you talk to the school district.

Kudos for getting this for your son! Yeah!

Thanks for commenting.  I reread my post and want to clarify that I don't think the teacher won't be good because he's young.  I think that'll work in his favor with my son!  He's a nice man and energetic and super fun, but I was concerned about his lack of experience. 

So...if you were me, how would you word the bolded in the IEP?  I'm in the process of writing my own IEP goals.

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21 minutes ago, Random said:

Thanks for this.  I've gone through your program with him before.  He was taught to read using phonics, for three years in a row. He's been at home since K, but did attend ps last year for 8th in a neighboring district (as an out-of-boundary student) because I thought the problem was me.  He got almost all As and a spot in National Junior Honor Society.  He could not read his acceptance letter.  The testing and psychologist we recently completed are through a district local to us. 

How would I go about knowing if he is truly dyslexic? 

He earned a grade equivalent score of 3.2 for pseudoword decoding test.  He earned a grade equivalent score of 5.0 on the word reading test.  He earned a grade equivalent of 4.0 on the sentence building.  For comparison, he tested at a general IQ of 110, and did fine (grade level to above-grade level) on the math, visual spatial, oral expression, and listening comprehension portions.

Thank you again!  I want to help him. 

It sounds like he is truly dyslexic.  My students who are not are taught with sight words, they just mimic the symptoms of dyslexia.  My truly dyslexic students were either taught in private schools or homeschool with phonics, or a few public school students that had problems from sight words but also true dyslexia...they take a lot longer to remediate, and generally have a lot lower WPM rates for their age, and even slower WPM rates with nonsense words than with real words.

What are his scores on the MWIA 3 and my nonsense word test, linked at the bottom of my syllables page?

http://www.thephonicspage.org/On Reading/syllablesspellsu.html

The amount of time it will take to get to grade level for someone with true dyslexia is enormous...it might be more efficient to homeschool him and work through Barton or Wilson yourself and read everything to him until he is reading better.  You will make a lot more progress if you spend at least 2 hours daily working on an OG method and extra nonsense words and syllables, mixed in with work on other subjects on DVD or with you reading.  (Four 30 minute pieces of time between other subjects is better than one 2 hour block.) You could also try out the speachify app, created by a dyslexia young man, sounds promising, I would try it either way to help him be more independent in the interim.

https://www.inc.com/john-boitnott/how-one-founder-turned-his-dyslexia-into-an-app-th.html

My dyslexic student that read the slowest read 7 WPM when I started working with him, he also had severe guessing problems from being taught sight words in school.  He went through my syllables program twice with me and then at home with his mom and watched through my phonics lessons 3 times, that got him reading at grade level (he was 3 grades below when we started, a 5th grader reading at 2nd grade level, he was a 6th grader reading at the 6th grade level after all that.)  He was still reading below 20 WPM when I moved, but he was reading accurately and could read grade level books and his homework.  He was a studious and nice young man, he was just happy to be able to read, he never complained about how slow he read compared to others. He caught up while in public school, he watched my phonics lessons while eating breakfast and sitting waiting for his sister to get ready to leave for school.

 

 

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1 hour ago, Random said:

You should also make sure they have systems in place for progress monitoring, to make sure this intervention is working for him - otherwise they need to switch to something else.

You don't have to do anything special to ensure that it goes on the IEP - generally IEPs are reported on three times a year, and the teacher will have to write a little paragraph explaining how things are going for each goal. If I were you, since this is a new teacher, I would ask to have progress updates every so often - weekly, biweekly, monthly, whatever you feel is appropriate. That will keep the teacher motivated to keep good records - I know, as a teacher, I struggle with communicating in a timely manner with parents sometimes, but you have to be the squeaky wheel.

I agree that young and energetic can be good, too - I was just concerned about his inexperience with the Wilson program (or any other reading program). I have a M.Ed. in Special Education, and I was not required to take a single class about teaching reading to students with learning disabilities.

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5 hours ago, Random said:

How would I go about knowing if he is truly dyslexic? 

He's been diagnosed. He's dyslexic. 

As far as the young, newbie, that's their problem to pay and get him trained. Demand Wilson and demand training. Programs should be implemented with fidelity and you don't have time to screw around, not with a high schooler. You want an evidence-based program, something with research and evidence demonstrating it works. 

This is not the time to cave and accept crap or doubt or anything else. It's their problem to get him trained. Remember, when you change the world for your son, you're also changing the world for all the OTHER kids coming through this school who previously did not have access to quality instruction. Your fight makes it better for EVERYONE.

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14 hours ago, PeterPan said:

He's been diagnosed. He's dyslexic. 

I have had students diagnosed as dyslexic who most likely were not truly dyslexic.  The rigor of the diagnosis varies greatly state by state and district by district.  

I have had students diagnosed based just on IQ and reading ability, but who were taught with sight word methods; I had one who gained 10 grade levels in 4 months between mom and my syllables class at co-op; he was not dyslexic, he had just been taught with poor methods. Mom had recently pulled him from public high school and started teaching him phonics and homeschooling him.    

I have had several other elementary and middle school kids 4 - 6 grade levels below who were diagnosed as dyslexic but remediated to grade level with WPM rates increasing to 80 to 100+ WPM and reading with 98 to 99% percent accuracy in only a few months of training.  (Full 100% accuracy usually  takes a bit longer and more nonsense words to overcome the guessing habits from sight words.)

 

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On November 14, 2018 at 5:51 PM, Mainer said:

I agree that young and energetic can be good, too - I was just concerned about his inexperience with the Wilson program (or any other reading program). I have a M.Ed. in Special Education, and I was not required to take a single class about teaching reading to students with learning disabilities.

Oh it gets richer. In our state people taking grad degrees in special ed ARE taking reading courses, and it's all bunk, bunk, bunk. They come out convinced reading is hard, complicated, and with misplaced priorities (a hyperfascination with "comprehension" before decoding). Results in these programs that say they're teaching decoding and are STILL spending most of their time guessing and looking at context and pictures instead of just decoding. And they're saying decoding or phonics and NOT MEANING what people who do OG or even good solid traditional phonics mean. Like they'll do this 3 cue mess and look at the beginning, end, and guess the middle. It's utterly absurd.

There's a really interesting SPELL-TALK list serve and now a forum that some of the bigwigs and authors and movers and shakers hang on. You can join and read (lurk, post, whatever) for free. It's utterly fascinating to see all these experts swizzle their heads and go in circles on stuff that the majority of homeschoolers are able to do completely easily, with utterly cheap materials (hello, under $30) for probably 80% of kids. As JW says, IT'S NOT HARD. Not for most kids. What makes it hard is kids with deprived backgrounds (poor language exposure, etc.) and not actually TEACHING THE KIDS to decode. And the experts and bigwigs are finally admitting this on these lists, that really there needs to be a shift to more overt instruction on decoding, that even people who are doing it are lick/promising it instead of really giving it TIME in the class. 

That's a rant, but yeah fascinating place to read. 

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On November 14, 2018 at 4:25 PM, Random said:

I've gone through your program with him before.  He was taught to read using phonics, for three years in a row.

 

On November 15, 2018 at 1:08 PM, ElizabethB said:

I have had students diagnosed as dyslexic who most likely were not truly dyslexic.

We can talk in circles on this, but it's not helpful. I'm already on-record as a not-fan of the DSM and think the whole process is screwed up. I've watched how many psychs now (8? I lose track) work with my ds and try to eval him and EVERYONE has said something different. It's cockamaime. And it's not dyslexia in the DSM anyway but SLD reading (a broader umbrella). If we want to say dyslexia, we could run brain scans, but even that's disputable. Apel has some new research on neuroimaging and was talking about it on ASHA, but then I go back to the Eides and their tiny study that wanted to say what profile people had to fit even if we had other people with other profiles. 

So a psych will assign and lose the label depending on how the dc is functioning. The genetics didn't change, the fatigue with doing it didn't change, and the brain structure didn't change, but the stupid stinking DSM or IEP label changed. Where's the problem there?

If the kid has a problem, he needs intervention. The evidence now is that even tier 1 needs explicit intervention. We all know the ps are not teaching explicitly and enough in the classroom. Professionals everywhere outside the classroom are up in arms about it and upset about grad education and teacher education for reading.

So you intervene and you keep intervening and you up the intensity until you get the level of intensity and explicitness that fits the dc. It's always that way, whether there's no disability or "mild" (which is really a misnomer, like saying my ds is mild is denying it's hard and a disability) or severe. 

So the op used various tiers of approaches, including multiple run-throughs of standard explicit phonics materials and then a run-through of a freely available intervention program that was not labeled as OG but that has benefited many kids. It makes sense for her to step up. At this point what she's risking is depression and how the teen views himself. She's not going to get a lot more run-throughs before the dc GIVES UP. So she needs to go all the way to the biggest guns and compel them to intervene aggressively.

I just think it's astonishing the school actually cares and is listening and is offering choices or offering to train. That's mind-blowing. My ds has an IEP with the ps, and their system is entrenched in stupidity and ineffectiveness. Nobody is trained in anything even RESEMBLING OG, even though the poverty rate is high and the literacy scores are low. It's just outrageous. They take Title 1 funding, etc. and use it to fund more time with failing procedures and doubling down with more time on stuff that doesn't work. For my ds' IEP, to them time in the classroom doing that was an acceptable alternative to actual, proper, trained reading intervention, allowing them to decrease intervention time assigned. It's utterly unbelievable and DESPICABLE. It's not fair for kids to grow up in poverty and go to school and not even be given enough instruction to learn to read.

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3 hours ago, PeterPan said:

Oh it gets richer. In our state people taking grad degrees in special ed ARE taking reading courses, and it's all bunk, bunk, bunk. They come out convinced reading is hard, complicated, and with misplaced priorities (a hyperfascination with "comprehension" before decoding). Results in these programs that say they're teaching decoding and are STILL spending most of their time guessing and looking at context and pictures instead of just decoding. And they're saying decoding or phonics and NOT MEANING what people who do OG or even good solid traditional phonics mean. Like they'll do this 3 cue mess and look at the beginning, end, and guess the middle. It's utterly absurd.

Ugh. This makes me angry! I think I'm allergic to "guided reading" now, just because it's so opposite OG. 

3 hours ago, PeterPan said:

There's a really interesting SPELL-TALK list serve and now a forum that some of the bigwigs and authors and movers and shakers hang on. You can join and read (lurk, post, whatever) for free. It's utterly fascinating to see all these experts swizzle their heads and go in circles on stuff that the majority of homeschoolers are able to do completely easily, with utterly cheap materials (hello, under $30) for probably 80% of kids.

I'm going to check that out!

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3 hours ago, PeterPan said:

Oh it gets richer. In our state people taking grad degrees in special ed ARE taking reading courses, and it's all bunk, bunk, bunk. They come out convinced reading is hard, complicated, and with misplaced priorities (a hyperfascination with "comprehension" before decoding). Results in these programs that say they're teaching decoding and are STILL spending most of their time guessing and looking at context and pictures instead of just decoding. And they're saying decoding or phonics and NOT MEANING what people who do OG or even good solid traditional phonics mean. Like they'll do this 3 cue mess and look at the beginning, end, and guess the middle. It's utterly absurd.

There's a really interesting SPELL-TALK list serve and now a forum that some of the bigwigs and authors and movers and shakers hang on. You can join and read (lurk, post, whatever) for free. It's utterly fascinating to see all these experts swizzle their heads and go in circles on stuff that the majority of homeschoolers are able to do completely easily, with utterly cheap materials (hello, under $30) for probably 80% of kids. As JW says, IT'S NOT HARD. Not for most kids. What makes it hard is kids with deprived backgrounds (poor language exposure, etc.) and not actually TEACHING THE KIDS to decode. And the experts and bigwigs are finally admitting this on these lists, that really there needs to be a shift to more overt instruction on decoding, that even people who are doing it are lick/promising it instead of really giving it TIME in the class. 

That's a rant, but yeah fascinating place to read. 

Someone I work with said she doesn't think Fundations will work because the kids won't like it. I was like... well, it doesn't really matter if they like it. We have to teach them to decode. But really, I think they will like it.

Every time I've taught reading to a kid (with a few memorable exceptions, ha), they're so delighted to actually be taught to read at their level, that they just drink it up.

That's why I'm such a superfan of High Noon Books... because kids can still be reading GOOD, interesting books, and still practicing decoding at their level, not having to guess a bunch of words on each page.

I was recently in a meeting with a pretty neat psychologist. She said that guessing a word is really, REALLY terrible for learning to read, because your brain makes neural connections (I'm sure there's an actual term for this, just paraphrasing), and if you say the word five different ways over the course of your reading, your brain won't lay down any solid neural pathways. So, when you're teaching decoding, you MUST stop and correct every error, and then have the student go back and re-read the sentence correctly. She said that it's even better to re-read the sentence more than once.

Lots of times I've been guilty of letting small errors pass, not wanting to dampen a kid's self-confidence. But now? No more. I've been correcting every single error from then on, and so far, no kid's self-esteem has been dented 🙂

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2 hours ago, Mainer said:

Someone I work with said she doesn't think Fundations will work because the kids won't like it.

Wow, people are so screwed in the head. They're worried about kids having a good time and the parents are worried about the REAL problems, like the stats on high school dropout and JAIL for kids who can't read. My lands, so worried about the wrong thing. But that's what happens in a culture that favors entertainment in school over WORK. Just actual hard work is taboo. Everything should be positive and make you feel good. My lands.

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