Where to start?

[barnwife]

DS7 is not yet reading independently. I was starting to get concerned last summer, but decided the break when baby was born in fall might be just what he needed. Anyway, DS7 still isn't reading independently. I switched to AAR couple months ago. We had been using Webster's Speller and Progressive Phonics, with a little OPGTR thrown in. Even if he isn't progressing rapidly with AAR, it has given him a more positive attitude, so that's definitely a win for the time being. 

Basically, after almost 4 years of pretty consistent reading instruction, he still can't move past CVC words. He is fabulous at blending things orally. But a word he sounds out today just fine somehow seems to disappear out of his brain again the next day, when he will need to sound it out again. He still doesn't recognize common words like can, man, sat, etc...without sounding them out when reading them in list of words or a story. There has been some progress on his recognizing them when they are the only word around. 

Tell me how to help this kid. What kind of person/doctor would be worth pursuing an eval from? 

[PeterPan]

Sounds like you've done a LOT trying to make reading click for him!!! And is this in any context? Like does he have siblings who read fine or he had speech therapy for several years? Any other developmental differences or things that have happened?

Yes, it's time to make a move. 

So a psychologist is the person who does psych evals. There are different kinds of psychs (ed psychs, neuropsychs, educational psychs, clinical psychs, etc.) but it's less about the name on the door and more about time spent, how they are to talk with (some are related to donkeys), and what you can make happen for funding. If you need free, you can go through the ps. 

You're wanting:

CTOPP

screening for language issues

screening for vision issues

screening for hearing issues and APD

screening for OT issues

screening for ADHD and mental health issues

IQ + achievement

The ps can do that if you push hard enough, or you can get it done privately if you have funding/insurance.

Edited April 25, 2021 by PeterPan

[PeterPan]

I'm tossing this out for your consideration. https://www.smartspeechtherapy.com/components-of-comprehensive-dyslexia-testing-part-i-introduction-and-language-testing/  This SLP has quite a few articles on dyslexia testing. If you have insurance coverage for SLP services and can find someone like this, it could be on the table. It's not a *replacement* for a psych eval, but the SLP will do *better* the portions that a $$$$$$ neuropsych only *screens*. 

So I guess I'm saying be strategic. Look at your funding, your availability, and the dc and what you're seeing. The more language issues you're seeing, the more you might want to shift toward getting evals with an SLP as part of the process. In the school they make this happen with multi-factored/team evals, but they don't necessarily own the testing or run it unless you PUSH. And because you're new, you don't know to push, lol. 

But not everyone with dyslexia has these language issues. I'm just bringing it to your attention so you can think through as you weigh your options. So for instance we had a neuropsych eval ds and run the CTOPP (fine) and the CELF to screen for language issues (worthless). We would have been better off paying less money and going to a clinical psych but actually getting narrative and other more detailed language testing done. Paying more did not get us better evals because we needed what we needed. You're going to look at your dc and what red flags you're seeing and the options. If this is a dc who narrates beautifully, who has no problem understanding speech in background noise, etc., maybe just go with the first psych who runs a CTOPP strikes your fancy, lol. 

Edited April 25, 2021 by PeterPan

[barnwife]

3 hours ago, PeterPan said:

Sounds like you've done a LOT trying to make reading click for him!!! And is this in any context? Like does he have siblings who read fine or he had speech therapy for several years? Any other developmental differences or things that have happened?

 

Good questions. 

Yes, he has two older siblings who read fine/learned to read just fine. All 3 have had speech articulation issues. (For better or worse, only the oldest has had speech therapy. It was...not helpful and DH isn't interested in trying again.) There are still a couple sounds that are tricky for him. 

Interestingly, I'd say our oldest leans more toward dyslexia, yet him learning to read wasn't bad. I really lean toward it being a memory thing. He has all the pre-reading skills nailed when done orally. He understands things read to him. 

Blah...I guess a discussion with DH is needed re: public school vs. private eval.

[PeterPan]

37 minutes ago, barnwife said:

All 3 have had speech articulation issues. (For better or worse, only the oldest has had speech therapy. It was...not helpful and DH isn't interested in trying again.)

Can you describe the articulation issues? The most probable reason it didn't respond to speech therapy was the speech therapist wasn't treating it correctly. I mean, not to be trite, but it's pretty common if your problem is not run of the mill. And I don't know EVERY path into harder to treat articulation quirks, but the two I know you could investigate a bit are:

-motor planning of speech (praxis, apraxia)

-auditory processing of speech (APD, something tested by an audiologist but technically again a language problem)

Think about it. If the input is not correct, so for instance they're hearing words and their brains are not recognizing the individual chunks, that's going to make it a lot harder to do the articulation. And if they have some motor planning of speech issues, then any method that relies on imitation (basically everything out there) is going to be bunk. The best method for motor planning of speech is PROMPT and if you for any reason think motor planning is a reason (which it would be wise to at least ask) then the person you're looking for is someone *certified* in PROMPT. I wouldn't fool around with anyone lower, not for an eval.

If you don't tease apart what's actually going on, you'll treat incompletely. Once you say there are funky unresolved articulation issues, you're going to want that investigated as part of the path of getting the reading on track. Just saying.

Did I link those materials from Therapro? Look at them and you'll see why. There's serious overlap between the crap phonological processing of the pitch/phonemes/syllables/words of APD and the phonological processing for reading of dyslexia. So you end up needing to tease apart what's going on. And I'm sorry you got unhelpful SLPs. My ds has had so many hours of speech therapy I KNOW it happens. I get it. But I think if you figure out what is going on so you actually find the right person (yes, you read that right), you may get that sorted out. 

[PeterPan]

45 minutes ago, barnwife said:

I really lean toward it being a memory thing.

It's par for the course for dyslexia. It's why you know it's dyslexia. You might have more going on, but it's definitely dyslexia. I mean, maybe you get evals and I'm wrong, lol. But yeah, you're talking dyslexia *+* possibly other things, not dyslexia *or* other things.

With AAR, what are you doing for fluency? And where are you at with it? I used Barton with my ds, so I'm pretty partial. However some dyslexics can learn to read with AAR. Your problem is that once you acknowledge it's dyslexia you expect a fluency hurdle. What I did, and this is just me, is I put every word, phrase, and sentence from the reading program into Quizlet and DRILLED THEM COLD. So that's something you could consider, going back and working on fluency.

https://bartonreading.com/students/#ss  Have you done the Barton student screening? You might administer it and see what happens. It could tell you a lot with just 10 minutes of effort. If he fails that, he lacks the foundational skills to succeed at an OG based program. And yeah, that can happen even if he has been doing AAR. So you might administer that and just see what happens. If he doesn't pass, then you at least know some changes you can make right away based on the results.

[barnwife]

@PeterPan
Oh, I know why speech therapy was a mostly complete failure for our oldest. It was through EI, though it's called something else here. And...our county is rural. And at the time had no speech therapist on staff. (The position had been open for a while.) And so most "speech" sessions were actually with a different therapist. Every once in a while an actual speech therapist from a different county would be approved to come. But yeah...speech therapy with a non-speech therapist has less than ideal results.

Combine that with an aversion to trying lots of treatments/doctors from DH (due to watching his parents drag his brother to 34243098432 doctors to try different diagnoses/meds to deal with his LDs, and getting DH to agree to things is really, really hard.

Anyway, if I had to guess, I'd say the issue is motor planning, or at least more motor planning than auditory. Can you tell me/link PROMPT and Therapro stuff?

We are at lesson 7 or 8 in level 1 of AAR. I haven't been adding anything yet for fluency, because I haven't found anything that screams "this is it!" to me. So throw any resources at me. I've noticed that he does well with things  set up like:

The cat
The cat can sit
The cat can sit on the map
The cat can sit on the map and dig 
The cat can sit on the map and dig a pit
The cat can sit on the map and dig a pit and nap on him.

And he enjoys them. If I had a whole bunch of sentences set up pyramid style like that, he'd love reading them. 

I seriously considered just switching to Barton. And if we have to, we have to. But I figured getting DH's support for that would be easier if I at least gave AAR a shot, you know? 

Thanks for giving me more to think about.
 

[PeterPan]

2 hours ago, barnwife said:

I seriously considered just switching to Barton.

Well then do the pretest I linked, because it's what Barton wants you to do to see if you're even ready for Barton.

2 hours ago, barnwife said:

If I had a whole bunch of sentences set up pyramid style like that, he'd love reading them. 

It's creative.

2 hours ago, barnwife said:

I haven't been adding anything yet for fluency, because I haven't found anything that screams "this is it!" to me.

Barton includes fluency drills. It's really not rocket science. You're going to take the words/phrases/sentences and drill them till he can read them cold. 

I was really upset (understatement) when the neuropsych who first eval'ed ds said he didn't think I should teach him. Talked with someone else here and she's like no, you don't get it that he sees the carnage, he sees the people who aren't willing to do what it takes. It's UGLY. Now fortunately, my ds doesn't REMEMBER what it was like at 5/6/7 learning to read, lol. But yeah, we worked 2+ hours a day and did fluency drills OVER AND OVER AND OVER. In the car, before bed, after breakfast, between movement breaks, again and again. Now you can be fun, give stickers, whatever you want, but it's going to be work. Or you can pay an OG tutor to do it one hour a day for the next couple years and then it won't be personal and it won't be you. 

Usually they'll say 1 hour a day. That's fine. I did 2+ because ds could and because it was good. 

Once you get the diagnosis, you'll start googling fluency reading disability and start finding things like http://www.timrasinski.com/presentations/IRA07Tim_Rasinski_2.pdf  Rasinski is a big name in the field of reading and he has website with all sorts of great resources as well as published materials.

It's just me, but I find it a bit easier to take materials actually meant for the specific disability and tone them down if they're overkill (which they usually aren't, lol) vs. amping up something that isn't disability specific. 

2 hours ago, barnwife said:

I figured getting DH's support for that would be easier if I at least gave AAR a shot, you know? 

Well I would do the Barton pretest to see where he's at. And it sounds like he's stalled in AAR anyway. But since you've waited this long, you might see how long it will take to get a CTOPP done by someone at least as a baseline. Things are so different right now, it might be easy to get in somewhere or there might be a long wait. That can help you make a plan. If it's going to be a long wait for a psych, then maybe you could have a plan B like finding an SLP who specializes in literacy or a reading tutor to do some baseline testing. Then begin your Barton.

On the dh thing, I'll just be very discreet and suggest you have to recognize what is anxiety, what is rational/justified, and make sure you're helping him get to the best decision for your kids. YOU need the information to teach him better and YOU are the one doing the research on who can get you that information.

https://promptinstitute.com  This is PROMPT. Not "prompting" but PROMPT. If you suspect it's motor planning, a person certified in this will be highly capable of saying it is or is not and in fact *demonstrating* the motor planning problems. There are specific patterns and they can elicit it and demonstrate it. And of course there are standardized tools they run.

I don't have a link for finding SLPs who specialize in literacy. Learning Ally used to maintain a list. I think just start googling and asking around. Remember right now almost everyone is set up to work via tele. So you might live rurally but you could do your literacy work or even a full psych eval via tele, no problem. If you need PROMPT, that's hands on. When I was looking into it, I spent an hour on the phone talking it through with the SLP. I was driving 2 ½ hours each way, so I needed to be very sure it was necessary. 

https://www.therapro.com/Differential-Processing-Training-Program-Acoustic-Tasks.html

Edited April 26, 2021 by PeterPan

[domestic_engineer]

@barnwife Phonics Pathways has pyramids in the main book. Then there’s an auxiliary book, Reading Pathways , that is ALL pyramids (pyramids of sentences and multisyllabic words).  
 

Also, my dyslexic has found some success with the Abecedarian  curriculum. There are free resources on their website to build fluency.   (Fluency is my dyslexic’s weakest area, and he sounds like your child.  Dyslexics will often require gobs and gobs and gobs more repetition than NT kids. )

[barnwife]

Well, I did the Barton screening today. My gut instinct was right. I knew he'd pass part A with no issues. I knew there would be some in part C he struggled with. But, as he only missed 2, he technically passed. And part B he had no idea what he is doing. So, I guess my first order of business is to work on breaking words into syllables. 

So my current goals are: add in syllable work, investigate eval options (other than PS), and add in more flashcard practice and fluency stuff. @domestic_engineerThanks for the Phonics Pathways rec. It's been so long since I'd looked at that one that I'd forgotten about it being pyramid style. I just ordered a used copy. That's enough to add to my plate today/for the next few days.
 

[Kanin]

On 4/25/2021 at 10:01 PM, barnwife said:

The cat
The cat can sit
The cat can sit on the map
The cat can sit on the map and dig 
The cat can sit on the map and dig a pit
The cat can sit on the map and dig a pit and nap on him.

You have to make sure he's actually reading the words and not just remembering them from the sentence above. If he's not actually reading each word each time, then this exercise is not practicing reading. 

Can he clap syllables? Rhyme? Does he know all the letter sounds automatically?

[Emily ZL]

Forgive me for butting in, but I just wanted to link to this story from Andrew Pudewa (about his son who didn't read until 12) which I just always think is nice when your kid is struggling:

https://iew.com/help-support/resources/articles/the-work-of-a-child

While he was dealing with those years of phonics, he had his son memorize poetry and prose, and listen to read alouds and high-quality audiobooks, and he really learned to excel as a writer (as he has said since in interviews). He wasn't standing still! He was learning all that time.

[barnwife]

@Emily ZL

Thanks for the link! I do a ton of RA, which he enjoys. And while he isn't progressing quickly in reading/writing, he isn't standing still. And in other areas? Boy, this kid in really good with numbers. He is really good at mental math. And he's creative and loves the outdoors. We just have 
to buckle down and make sure we are using all the tools we have available to help him read.

[PeterPan]

9 hours ago, Emily ZL said:

Forgive me for butting in, but I just wanted to link to this story from Andrew Pudewa (about his son who didn't read until 12) which I just always think is nice when your kid is struggling:

https://iew.com/help-support/resources/articles/the-work-of-a-child

While he was dealing with those years of phonics, he had his son memorize poetry and prose, and listen to read alouds and high-quality audiobooks, and he really learned to excel as a writer (as he has said since in interviews). He wasn't standing still! He was learning all that time.

Fwiw, Pudewa mentioned this dc as being the "worst dyslexic" he had ever taught in one of the workshops I recently watched, and I couldn't help but thinking that what he was dealing with was unremediated APD, not only dyslexia. 

[domestic_engineer]

@PeterPan  What bits made you think of "unremediated APD" and not "just" dyslexia?

[PeterPan]

44 minutes ago, domestic_engineer said:

@PeterPan  What bits made you think of "unremediated APD" and not "just" dyslexia?

He was describing issues that were auditory phonological processing. There’s significant overlap but SLO materials will go very deep on the and catch the glitches that OG (using visual supports) isn’t.