SPELL-Links

[PeterPan]

Did someone say they tried this? And are you selling?   Any feedback on what components you used, what you liked or didn't, etc.?

[mamashark]

I tried it this year with DD8 because we hit a wall with Barton that I couldn't get past. But sorry, not selling, I expect to use it with her more before I'm finished with it, and it's actually a pretty neat spelling curriculum that I might use down the road with the boys.

DD really enjoyed the variety of activities - one of them uses coins and she LOVED earning coins for reading her words! I liked how they looked at language from a more holistic perspective - so all spellings were taught for a single sound in a single chapter. (I thought this would be overwhelming, but it was pretty easy for her to filter the odd spellings out as we went and I think it was good to expose her to those words anyway) We moved SLOWLY, though, and I should have bought stock in index cards, lol. 

She got really good at word-level reading on the sound we were working on - so by the end of a given chapter, she could read the word lists for me with 95+% accuracy. BUT her fluency was sub 20% across the board. I saw her confidence shoot up, she was suddenly willing to try to read random things, even in front of peers. So it helped from the perspective of starting to fit in a little better with her peers as she was able to start picking through things that Barton would not have gotten to as quickly.

She gained several sight words, and is able to read and even recognize a lot more individual words - things that she previously struggled with. She also can better see small parts of words inside larger words. 

I Didn't like that the extra books to reinforce the concepts were extra $$. I didn't spend the money on them and wish now that I had, because more book reading would probably have been beneficial in the fluency/sentence level reading.

Also I saw some of the previously learned Barton skills have been lost - she never did like using the b/d trick but she still cannot for the life of her keep those letters apart in her head. And she lost the ability to tap and sound out cvc words. 

So overall, we gained some automaticitiy with sight words, gained some spelling rules (we have taken a break after finishing all the long vowel lessons), and gained confidence. In turn, we lost the ability to approach an unknown word, tap and say the sounds, get your mouth ready for the first sound kind of skills. So a mixed bag. 

One of the things I really liked about the curriculum is how much effort they put into word-level learning. We did tons of sorting activities and looked at spellings, rhymes, etc. We reviewed their rules, and wrote words down, and underlined parts of words, etc. Just lots and lots of word-level work. Like I said, I just didn't do enough sentence level reading with her to reinforce the skills because the stories that come as part of the downloadable files for it are just small print on a single page and took a lot of leg-word to make into something usable for her. Some of them, at the beginning of the year, I would copy a sentence per page and print out pictures for her to choose and glue on each appropriate page as she read. This was useful but a lot of work for me after spending all the money on the curriculum.

[PeterPan]

Are there lessons in the manual or concepts that you turn into lessons? How open and go idiot proof is it? And is structured to be done in one year or longer? Are there samples online or something you could share? 

[mamashark]

14 minutes ago, PeterPan said:

Are there lessons in the manual or concepts that you turn into lessons? How open and go idiot proof is it? And is structured to be done in one year or longer? Are there samples online or something you could share? 

It's very open and go - Well, when I don't prep ahead it means I'm writing words on index cards while she waits...so I try to do that ahead.

Each lesson has several activities, targeting different concepts within. So for example the lesson on 'k' and hard 'c' has 7 activities and a journal page. The activities for this lesson include tap and map (counting sounds), sort it out (sorting by spelling and they have 9 spellings for this sound plus "foil words" that help you focus on the correct sounds), who's the neighbor,  the long and the short of it - 1, the long and the short of it 2, take time to inspect the rime (sorting words by rime), and missing letters. (I've not done this lesson, it's just what I opened the book to). The word study journal page has them list the spelling options at the top of the page as you learn them, strategies and rules that you cover (you can have them put a sticker on the rule or strategy you learned that day, which was very motivating to my daughter, although it bugged her that all the strategies are listed, and only the bolded ones are the ones relate to the lesson you're working on so not all lessons will have all stickers). Also a word gallery on the bottom of the study journal page, where I had my daughter write the words by the end of the lesson (which often took a week to complete, or longer) and she could write them without a visual or help by the end of the lesson. 

Each activity includes group adaptations, cross-curriculum extensions, a list of materials needed, the word list, objectives, a helpful did you know box that often relates difficulties a student will have with sounds related to the lesson. Teacher prep section and detailed directions for the activities. Sometimes I would literally read aloud the directions for the activity to make it funny if I was having trouble motivating my daughter and she would laugh and do what was asked. The end of each activity is the sticker number for what strategy or rule you worked on that activity. 

There is a lot of flexibility in the structure. You can buy their assessment and only do the lessons or activities that the student shows necessary to do. You can use it as a supplement to your main curriculum (and they have an appendix sheet that shows the lessons broken out by spelling pattern). Or you can use it as a curriculum model, which is what I'm doing so I have a copy of the appendix pages that lay out the lessons in order of grade-equivalency.

It's 3 spiral bound books of lessons and total of 73 lessons. We took a week or longer per lesson and have gone through a total of 25 lessons this school year before I stopped and am taking a break now. It did get a bit tedious, but not any worse than Barton and honestly it was a refreshing change from Barton at the beginning of the school year. 

There should be some samples online if you check their website.

[PeterPan]

This sounds really fabulous. So what would happen if the student completely doesn't write? It sounds like a lot of this is stuff that could be done by circling, sorting cards into columns, etc. 

Edited May 10, 2019 by PeterPan

[PeterPan]

I need to look at it again. Where there consumables or it's all therapy-style with reproducibles?

[mamashark]

3 hours ago, PeterPan said:

This sounds really fabulous. So what would happen if the student completely doesn't write? It sounds like a lot of this is stuff that could be done by circling, sorting cards into columns, etc. 

yeah, probably. For my purposes, I had her writing individual words only but yes, you could use letter tiles for that part... it's pretty adaptable.

 

2 hours ago, PeterPan said:

I need to look at it again. Where there consumables or it's all therapy-style with reproducibles?

Therapy style with reproducibles. The worksheets that you can copy/print and use are fairly useful, too, no busywork. 

[Kanin]

So that's quite different from something like Wilson... sticking with one sound and multiple ways of spelling it for a whole lesson. Most programs tend to space out the different spellings.

[PeterPan]

35 minutes ago, Mainer said:

So that's quite different from something like Wilson... sticking with one sound and multiple ways of spelling it for a whole lesson. Most programs tend to space out the different spellings.

Yeah, it's kind of interesting to ponder. I think maybe it has a minimum starting age too. Their point is there comes a time when that SWI/analysis is more developmentally appropriate. And we're constantly hearing about kids who don't learn squat for spelling doing it so rigidly like your typical OG. So it's more like toolbag to me. lf you have an older student and they're nailing the reading reasonably well and they just need the spelling, it might make sense. They're also using it more pervasively, with whole classes, but I think that could muddle the brain a lot, I agree. 

So it's just different and shiny, lol. 

[Terabith]

Actually think that would be fabulous for my daughter!  (I mean....I'm probably not going to do it, because she's 14 and I've pretty much exhausted her cooperation with spelling remediation.  But I think it would be perfect for kids like her!)

Edited May 11, 2019 by Terabith

[Runningmom80]

On 5/11/2019 at 1:03 PM, Terabith said:

Actually think that would be fabulous for my daughter!  (I mean....I'm probably not going to do it, because she's 14 and I've pretty much exhausted her cooperation with spelling remediation.  But I think it would be perfect for kids like her!)

I’ve been excited to see old threads of yours when I search because my DD presents a lot like yours. 

I keep looking at SPELL-links, my intuition says this is the kind of thing my DD needs.

DD has one more testing session with the tutor for Wilson placement, so I’m waiting to see how that shakes out before I buy anything.

 

[PeterPan]

3 hours ago, Runningmom80 said:

DD has one more testing session with the tutor for Wilson placement, so I’m waiting to see how that shakes out before I buy anything.

Is the tutor just for the summer or do you have the option to continue her into the fall? 

[Runningmom80]

25 minutes ago, PeterPan said:

Is the tutor just for the summer or do you have the option to continue her into the fall? 

 

Not sure yet. She's a school teacher so she may not have time.

[PeterPan]

33 minutes ago, Runningmom80 said:

 

Not sure yet. She's a school teacher so she may not have time.

That's what I thought I remembered. So she's going to get that brain organized and get over basic humps, and then you can come in and do a phase 2. I think I'm with the others that it could be a sort of hairbrained, less efficient way to start at the beginning. But for that phase 2, that really makes sense. And you'll see. Or she may be in such a groove that you're like no plow this way. And personally, I don't think it's so far from what skillful practitioners are going to do anyway. It's just making it easier. People with more experience are always taking things out of the box and modifying to fit the kid. I remember a stage where I was like wow my dd would do so much better if the words were more organized to help her see patterns, rather than being so scattered/varied as the are in SWR/WRTR. We did PR (phonics road, which no one talks about now) to help with that. But it was the same idea, and I think practitioners run into it all the time. She was about that age too, 9-ish. So it's just reflecting where they get developmentally that they're ready to do that. But to do straight Wilson/OG first *I* think is really wise. I think it will be like rocket fuel, getting her quickly to a solid foundation to do that kind of SWI.

[Terabith]

My kid finished Wilson.  Going once a week, it took her 2.5 years.  Her spelling is now good enough that spellcheck is functional, so I am pleased.  I’m not sure there would have been a lot of point to doing it just for a summer though?  Barton, I could see the point of doing for a short while...level one is pretty genius and helpful for everyone.  

[Runningmom80]

1 hour ago, Terabith said:

My kid finished Wilson.  Going once a week, it took her 2.5 years.  Her spelling is now good enough that spellcheck is functional, so I am pleased.  I’m not sure there would have been a lot of point to doing it just for a summer though?  Barton, I could see the point of doing for a short while...level one is pretty genius and helpful for everyone.  

 

We will definitely continue on after the summer, with or without the tutor. I don't think one summer would be enough, I didn't mean to communicate that. 🙂

I'm going to the Wilson intro this summer and hoping that between that and the summer tutor I will be able to figure out how to teach her using Wilson on my own. If not I will switch her to Barton. The tutor is kind just a jumpstart while we figure things out,

[PeterPan]

1 hour ago, Terabith said:

I’m not sure there would have been a lot of point to doing it just for a summer though?

Is running cranking it up to 3X a week? She had been trying to see and I don't remember what the outcome was. 

[Runningmom80]

1 hour ago, PeterPan said:

That's what I thought I remembered. So she's going to get that brain organized and get over basic humps, and then you can come in and do a phase 2. I think I'm with the others that it could be a sort of hairbrained, less efficient way to start at the beginning. But for that phase 2, that really makes sense. And you'll see. Or she may be in such a groove that you're like no plow this way. And personally, I don't think it's so far from what skillful practitioners are going to do anyway. It's just making it easier. People with more experience are always taking things out of the box and modifying to fit the kid. I remember a stage where I was like wow my dd would do so much better if the words were more organized to help her see patterns, rather than being so scattered/varied as the are in SWR/WRTR. We did PR (phonics road, which no one talks about now) to help with that. But it was the same idea, and I think practitioners run into it all the time. She was about that age too, 9-ish. So it's just reflecting where they get developmentally that they're ready to do that. But to do straight Wilson/OG first *I* think is really wise. I think it will be like rocket fuel, getting her quickly to a solid foundation to do that kind of SWI.

 

This is my thought on it as well. Start with getting the phonological remediated and then move onto the patterns. 

 

 

[PeterPan]

Just now, Runningmom80 said:

I'm going to the Wilson intro this summer and hoping that between that and the summer tutor I will be able to figure out how to teach her using Wilson on my own. If not I will switch her to Barton. The tutor is kind just a jumpstart while we figure things out,

I think by the end of the summer you're gonna be whiz bang amazing.   I mean seriously, you'll be Wilson-trained, Barton will then make sense, and you know about other options. All this is going to gel in your brain and you'll figure it out. 

I think if a kid is through a Barton 4 level of proficiency and flying along, it makes total sense to go to SWI approaches. I don't pry, but I snoop, haha, and in tutoring offices, that's the kind of transition I see.

[Runningmom80]

1 minute ago, PeterPan said:

Is running cranking it up to 3X a week? She had been trying to see and I don't remember what the outcome was. 

 

Nothing has been decided on frequency, we just know at least twice a week. The tutor is coming back this weekend to finish the assessment and then she'll give us the lay of the land.

[Runningmom80]

Also, I keep meaning to start a thread about this, but you know, life....I had the consult with the OT and she recommended speech therapy for dysgraphia. I'm guessing they just want her treated in the clinic. She didn't qualify for OT, she was at normal for everything, which was what I was thinking. 

 

Anyway, sorry for the hijack!

[PeterPan]

Just now, Runningmom80 said:

 

Nothing has been decided on frequency, we just know at least twice a week. The tutor is coming back this weekend to finish the assessment and then she'll give us the lay of the land.

We have this local tutor who's seriously ADHD, like moving, grooving ADHD. If you had that you wouldn't have this impatient mess of waiting for them to finish assessments, lol. They're like in, bang, whoosh, done. 

It's all good. I think your plan is great. I'm super excited to see how it goes, hear what you learn in the Wilson training, etc. Just think, you can go into the Wilson and create insurrection asking what role SWI plays! Hahahaha.

[PeterPan]

Just now, Runningmom80 said:

Also, I keep meaning to start a thread about this, but you know, life....I had the consult with the OT and she recommended speech therapy for dysgraphia. I'm guessing they just want her treated in the clinic. She didn't qualify for OT, she was at normal for everything, which was what I was thinking. 

 

Anyway, sorry for the hijack!

Well if the OT knows an SLP who is GOOD at language issues with writing, that would be brilliant. If I had that within a convenient drive (not 2 hours, haha), I'd do it, sure. It's not about what you can do (because you're smart and can do a lot) but what you can stay SANE and do. When you have good people, network, use them, and let them be your CLONES. The best way to stay sane is to clone yourself.

Or gain 30 pounds eating chocolate and stressing and do it all yourself. You can. But if someone has some skill, hire 'em, use 'em. Go sit out and get some sun and take a breath. There's plenty of work to go around and kids enjoy the variety. If it's crap intervention or not worth the money or drive, drop. But a really good person can cut your learning curve, yes.

[Runningmom80]

1 minute ago, PeterPan said:

Well if the OT knows an SLP who is GOOD at language issues with writing, that would be brilliant. If I had that within a convenient drive (not 2 hours, haha), I'd do it, sure. It's not about what you can do (because you're smart and can do a lot) but what you can stay SANE and do. When you have good people, network, use them, and let them be your CLONES. The best way to stay sane is to clone yourself.

Or gain 30 pounds eating chocolate and stressing and do it all yourself. You can. But if someone has some skill, hire 'em, use 'em. Go sit out and get some sun and take a breath. There's plenty of work to go around and kids enjoy the variety. If it's crap intervention or not worth the money or drive, drop. But a really good person can cut your learning curve, yes.

 

She's part of a clinic, so she just wanted to set us up with the SLP there. Its $$$ and I doubt it's covered. 

[PeterPan]

38 minutes ago, Runningmom80 said:

 

She's part of a clinic, so she just wanted to set us up with the SLP there. Its $$$ and I doubt it's covered. 

Usually they'll talk with you a few minutes and say what they'd do. You've already had a lot of testing, but still it's informative. Like if she'd meet with you for 10 minutes while your dd is in OT, might be interesting. I'm all for free talking, lol.

[Runningmom80]

She didn’t recommend OT for Dd. 

I’m sure we could go in separately for a speech eval, but then I’m feeling like we just did a ton of testing with an SLP. Maybe they could run TILLS or TNL. I hate that my first thought is “and how much does THIS cost?” 🤦🏻‍♀️

[Lecka]

Okay — my older son did qualify for OT, but his OT could also see that there was “more than OT” going on.  She was So Happy I was familiar with Barton and doing that kind of remediation (I ended up not using Barton, but I watched all the videos for Level 1 — long story).  

So basically she was seeing that he needed reading remediation.

However we were a little opposite and he got referred to OT from a speech therapist.  

She didn’t even see him write but she said “when we see kids with this cluster they basically always need OT.”  More or less that is what she said.  

Anyway — where I lived, speech therapy would not address very much as far as reading.  They would address certain things, but that would be it.  It is different in different places, but that is how it was there.

So my guess is the OT wants the SLP to do a dyslexia screening and maybe dyslexia remediation.

But I think there’s a combination of you already having that, and the speech therapist not necessarily offering therapy for it, and then if the speech therapist did, it’s not the only option.  

I think if the OT didn’t specify, it would be fine to follow-up and ask what the concerns were for referring to speech.  Right now it’s recent and he/she might remember.  

If it sounds like dyslexia related stuff, and especially if you didn’t share with the OT that you are looking at Wilson training (etc), then I think — you have that covered.

Personally I would be surprised if the OT noticed something else that wasn’t noticed by the SLP she just saw.  

Just my $.02!

[Runningmom80]

4 hours ago, Lecka said:

I think if the OT didn’t specify, it would be fine to follow-up and ask what the concerns were for referring to speech.  Right now it’s recent and he/she might remember.  

 

I was able to have a meeting with her and had her clarify why the speech was being recommended. She felt it would be effective for helping DD get her words onto paper. The recommendation came across as "I can't help her getting her words onto paper since it's not a fine motor issue so have our SLP help her."  

Since we are already pursuing that with the tutor I didn't make a follow up with their SLP. 

DD did have speech therapy as a toddler so I was tuned into the recommendation for speech, because if it's a speech thing that we still need to work on then I of course would be more proactive. 

 

[PeterPan]

SLP for writing is normal. An SLP who does it a lot will possibly go farther than the Wilson tutor since you're talking language issues beyond Wilson . I agree the OT is just saying it generally but it's still the right recommend . Or do the intervention yourself . She's just saying she'll need more than Wilson.

[PeterPan]

Some OTs notice language issues, yes. Our OT weaves language work in while he uses his body. So the OT is not being specific because it's out of field but she's saying she sees language issues. 

No one SLP nails everything. They specialize. 

If you don't wrangle with the language then the assumption is fixing the spelling fixes everything which doesn't make sense as that doesn't ge you an SLD writing diagnosis.

[PeterPan]

So with ds we spent years with the assumption that motor planning of speech would fix everything . It held us back from acknowledging ALL the area that needed intervention . You'd rather know now and intervene now. You can do it yourself if you get evals to know the issues. If there's no language issue she should be cranking out age appropriate narratives (expository and personal) with all structures with scribe

[Runningmom80]

1 minute ago, PeterPan said:

Some OTs notice language issues, yes. Our OT weaves language work in while he uses his body. So the OT is not being specific because it's out of field but she's saying she sees language issues. 

No one SLP nails everything. They specialize. 

If you don't wrangle with the language then the assumption is fixing the spelling fixes everything which doesn't make sense as that doesn't ge you an SLD writing diagnosis.

 

Right. Which brings us full circle back to SPELL-Links 😁

I am curious to see what the tutor feels she needs. I am hoping she can address the writing too.

[Runningmom80]

Just now, PeterPan said:

So with ds we spent years with the assumption that motor planning of speech would fix everything . It held us back from acknowledging ALL the area that needed intervention . You'd rather know now and intervene now. You can do it yourself if you get evals to know the issues. If there's no language issue she should be cranking out age appropriate narratives (expository and personal) with all structures with scribe

 

Is this where TNL comes in? I might call the therapy center and see if I can find out what testing they do. We don't need to re-do the testing she's just had but maybe there are some other things we can look at. 

[PeterPan]

8 hours ago, Runningmom80 said:

 

Is this where TNL comes in? I might call the therapy center and see if I can find out what testing they do. We don't need to re-do the testing she's just had but maybe there are some other things we can look at. 

Yeah free info is always good. Look at your list of tests yourself too and see what was hit and wasn't hit. Dysgraphia is usually going to involve some brain organization, language organization, word retrieval, that kind of thing. So the narrative language testing is proxy for brain organization in expository. And they may just go it's diagnosed, it's obvious, and let the issues come out as they dig in. Some SLPs get them in the door with one test and let it unfurl. It's not the norm for them to do zillions of tests upfront. A lot of stuff is just obvious as they dig in and testing is money that could have been spent on the actual therapy. Only people in legal fights are willing to test every single thing like that. If you say dysgraphia they already know what needs to happen. 

What you don't want is to skip working on the language and brain organization of the writing and then be a year down the road and unhappy. That's a year you can't get back. Spelling is so not the reason a dc would struggle to get out their writing, not in this day and age. Turn on the tech and it should be there. If it's not there with tech or a scribe, we have an issue.