"Wilson" vs "Neuhaus" vs Barton

[popmom]

Can someone give me a brief comparison? I had never heard of this Wilson program until yesterday. Also just found out that the highly regarded ($$$$) private school in our city that caters to students w/ dyslexia uses Neuhaus. Never heard of it until today. I've only heard of Barton and Spalding (Writing Road to Reading--which is what I used successfully w/ my learning challenged dd).

I try to stay informed on these things because when I retire from home schooling, I have plans to (volunteer) help/work with students who may be falling through the cracks in the rural areas near me. Not necessarily through the public schools--maybe as a private tutor. Idk yet. 

Edited November 26, 2019 by popmom

[Lecka]

These are all high-quality programs.  
 

Barton is the one that is made with DVDs where a parent or tutor can watch the DVDs and then tutor.  It makes it have a good reputation for a person who is not going to be getting sent to “professional development” or paying $$$ for professional development.  
 

I looked into Neuhaus one time and iirc they offer trainings and they offer online trainings.  Iirc    at the time there was an online training that looked good but pricy and time-consuming (though this is always relative!).  
 

Wilson has a great reputation also.  A while back there was a yahoo group that had some do their teacher training info available in files, but as far as I know there wasn’t a way to have access to videos of teaching demonstrations without having access to that in some way (like — it’s used locally, or you go to a training).  That was totally out of the question where I lived at the time and with my young children at home.  
 

That is all I know!  I do know they are all names I recognize from iirc the International Dyslexia Association.  
 

I do think they incorporate more/less language arts and more/less ways to differentiate — one of  Wilson’s earlier programs can be used as a regular classroom program with additional lessons for students needing additional tutoring — this is how a lot of RTI (response to intervention) works in public schools now.  It would not apply to an individual student already known to need a high level of tutoring — but could be great for a public school trying to provide high-quality teaching to all students.

Otoh Barton isn’t designed (iirc) to ever be used in a group size beyond 5 (?) and they really recommend 2-3 students maximum if 1:1 is not possible.

So this is the kind of thing I am aware of for differences.  It’s not exactly better/worse for anything I am aware of.  

[Lecka]

I just looked at Neuhaus.  The online class prices are high for me for — just working with my own kids.  But it’s the kind of thing where maybe the school would pay for tutor training, or maybe you could ask for a local agency for donations — and I don’t know if it’s something where multiple people could use the class or if that is the price per person?  
 

I also saw a “story retelling cards” packet as part of a class, and that (as far as I know) isn’t part of Barton, but — my son with autism has done a ton with that (and a popular resource on the board is Mindwings — it is an entire program just focusing on comprehension-related things and oral language development).  My other son did not need “more than other kids” on that.  
 

The thing about Mindwings is it is mostly not a “here is a *scripted* curriculum” program.  It is mostly — “here are a lot of tools, add them into what you are already doing.”  It assumes you are already reading or doing content lessons and you would add in their fiction and non-fiction reading tools to what you already want to do.  So it’s not like everything is set up for what to do from day to day — it’s like they explain the program and give examples for how to use it, but mostly it is the parent/teacher deciding how they will use the tool.  It is NOT “do the next thing.”  Even though — it is clear and has a clear sequence.

Its the kind of thing where mostly you are adding it in and looking for ways to “infuse” the teaching into daily activities.  
 

That’s a tangent but — it is a difference sometimes between programs, whether they are more scripted or more — here are activities to add in, but they can be adapted to go along with classroom activities all day.  

Edited November 26, 2019 by Lecka

[Lecka]

Well the International Dyslexia Association has totally changed their website.  They used to have a list of programs that they approved — and I know it had Wilson and Barton, and I “think” it had Neuhaus.  But I can’t find it now.  It used to be one of the first things to show up in a search.  

[Lecka]

What to know about RTI if you see that — tier 1 is whole-classroom instruction.  Tier 2 is — identifying kids who will get (maybe) an extra 20 or 30 minutes of instruction in pull-out in the afternoons, because they are not keeping up with just the regular classroom instruction.

Tier 3 is like — they are getting probably 1:1, they are behind enough to get pulled out of the regular classroom instruction time.

Thats pretty generic but to some extent that is what the tiers mean.  

Edited November 26, 2019 by Lecka

[Lecka]

It’s possible that since there is a school using Neuhaus local to you, they might have seminars, or maybe would teach you methods if you volunteered there, or something.  They might do some kind of outreach.  
 

A lot of dyslexia remediation is in the program (the order and speed things are taught, how the skills are broken down), and then a lot is in the delivery.  The delivery is the part where — I think a video or in-person goes a long way.  There are videos on Youtube, but it can be hard to tell if they are high or low quality!  But the more you know the more you can tell that.  
 

And then some things are more on the “just reading” side and assume you will be adding in other programs or teaching (etc) to address related needs.  And some include more of that.  

I used a program that was very good for just decoding but for fluency the introduction said “build your own fluency program.”  Which — yes, that’s great, you can pick things your child is interested in or that are relevant.  Well — I found out my son had a lot of issues with fluency and in retrospect I might have been better off with a program that had that built-in.  But another person might not need that.  I think a lot of things can just depend.  

[Lecka]

An issue with Dyslexia is — it is focused on an “unexpected weakness” in reading but many kids have strengths in oral comprehension and spoken language.  That is textbook Dyslexia, with the phonemic awareness issues.

But in real life, when kids are struggling with readers, it may be this, but they may also have weak language, weak comprehension, etc.  Not everybody is going to do great with “just” the phonemic awareness and explicit multisensory instruction (etc) — they could still be struggling with weaknesses that result in weak reading.  
 

The sad thing is that being able to read doesn’t always mean kids then have good comprehension.  But it goes together a lot, too.  
 

The “big 5 skills” are something like decoding, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, phonemic awareness (something like this).  Dyslexia programs are definitely going to cover decoding and phonemic awareness, those are the big things.  They will probably also cover fluency.  That does leave vocabulary and comprehension often not being the main focus of dyslexia tutoring but possibly being the needs of students with weak reading.  
 

Kids do make progress with comprehension with targeted tutoring, too.  

[ktgrok]

Another approach to add into your research is the Phonographix Method. 

[popmom]

Well, y'all certainly gave me a lot to chew on--I thank you. My B.S. is in elementary ed. It's amazing how little I learned about teaching reading while in college. I appreciate your knowledge. I'm serious about pursuing this. I think I will get in touch with that private school and see if they could use me as a volunteer in some way. I'm not opposed to spending some money on training, but I've got to get a couple of kids out of college first! lol Funds are definitely limited at the moment. 

I'm exploring all options--even thinking about getting a master's degree at my old age.( If I can get healthy enough) I have too many friends with kids in public school that are not getting what they need. It's sad and very frustrating. I can't fix it, but I can do (((something))).

Edited November 27, 2019 by popmom

[ElizabethB]

10 hours ago, popmom said:

Well, y'all certainly gave me a lot to chew on--I thank you. My B.S. is in elementary ed. It's amazing how little I learned about teaching reading while in college. I appreciate your knowledge. I'm serious about pursuing this. I think I will get in touch with that private school and see if they could use me as a volunteer in some way. I'm not opposed to spending some money on training, but I've got to get a couple of kids out of college first! lol Funds are definitely limited at the moment. 

I'm exploring all options--even thinking about getting a master's degree at my old age.( If I can get healthy enough) I have too many friends with kids in public school that are not getting what they need. It's sad and very frustrating. I can't fix it, but I can do (((something))).

I find that 99% of my students coming out of the public schools don't have dyslexia, they just guess from balanced literacy practices.  I use my free lessons followed by all of Webster's Speller, for my students that need more repetition of the basics, I use all of Blend Phonics and another good basic phonics program like Phonics Pathways, whatever you own should work. 

My program is free to print! It is specifically designed for older, remedial students.

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

The cheapest basic OG program you can buy is the Recipe for Reading manual, instead of buying the workbooks, teach it from the whiteboard or with tiles you make yourself.

https://www.amazon.com/Recipe-Reading-Revised-Expanded-Traub/dp/0838805051/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=recipe+for+reading&qid=1574886681&sr=8-1

For a good OG follow on for upper level skills, sophris west rewards, the teacher's manual is a bit expensive but the student workbooks are cheap.

https://www.voyagersopris.com/literacy/rewards/overview

You can also print out a free basic OG program thanks to the M. A. Rooney foundation, links to the curriculum can be found in a post by Tatyana Elleseff of Smart Speech Therapy, the post also has other literacy resources.

The Kilpatrick Equipped book has good phonemic awareness exercises:

https://equippedforreadingsuccess.com

You can find the LiPS manual used for other phonemic awareness activities, and print the page with mouth positions and make your own mouth tiles.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0890797536/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

 

 

[mellifera33]

11 hours ago, popmom said:

 My B.S. is in elementary ed. It's amazing how little I learned about teaching reading while in college.

 

You might enjoy the Educate podcast. The episodes by Emily Hanford about reading address the issues with how teacher training doesn't actually prepare teachers to teach reading.