Victoria, comment...

How far behind does the child have to be for this to apply?If the child is in high school and reading at about the 6th grade level which intervention is best?Surely with a level this high the child cannot be relying solely on sight words.Would the method depend on if the child is in 9th grade or 12th.Do we say this child will never be able to read on level just because they made it to high school with this type of reading ability?Just curious to know when we give up on teaching reading.

Would this not depend on the situation? If a child has not been given lessons in phonics until 5th grade or later wouldn’t the student still benefit? Wouldn’t there be a difference between a student who received 2 or 3 years of phonics and still didn’t get it by 5th grade and a child who did not receive phonics training until 5th grade or later. My youngest son is 10 and in the 4th grade (retained in preschool) and is just know learning to sound out words. The first school district we were in used the whole language approach and when he got here in 2nd grade he could only read about 2 words. Now in 4th grade he is reading at a begining 3rd grade level, alot of growth in 2 school years. He now picks books up for pleasure and tries to sound out words for himself. Some kids need phonics esplicity taught to them. My daughter on the other hand could read even before she went to school and can pick up and read anything. She was exposed to the whole language teaching method from K-3 and she picked up reading. My two boys on the other hand had to be taught using phonics. Just trying to see what the theroy is based on.

Hi teacher,

My son just started 4th grade - and has identified APD, NLD, and inattentive ADHD.

Reading has always been problematic for my son - I think because of the APD. In kindergarten he wanted to learn to read NOW! I bought a traditional, colorful, fun, comprehensive phonics book - and he followed me around the house with it until I finished my chores and we could sit and work in it together. He tried, but never got past the short vowel sounds. We tried the book again in 1st grade, and 2nd grade …

After working with the school to improve his reading skills, I was told repeatedly that he would never learn to read phonetically - he must rely on “patterns” and “sight words.” Reasearch indicates that this method only supports children educationally through third grade. I also researched various methods of reading instruction - phonics, direct instruction, whole language. All those methods indicate the basis of reading is decoding and phonemic awareness - they simply vary as to when these skills are taught. They all say for children to be able to “read to learn” and move ahead in school and life with their peers, these are necessary skills.

After a lot more research (and 5 IEP meetings, and three private tutors) I decided to tutor my son myself over the summer. I used Reading Reflex by Carmen McGuiness, and also used the teacher’s guide that goes with it “Phono-Graphix.” My son can now decode and is aware of the various sounds and their letter representations in the English language. It will take a lot more work to make that automatic and fluent.

A side benefit to this has been that his articulation has improved now that he can look at a word and see what it is supposed to sound like (he was in speech therapy for two years - and was let go once he could make the individual letter sounds correctly).

So, with persistence and the correct tools, students CAN be taught to master phonics and phonemic awareness and decoding skills. I have talked to two of my son’s private tutors about his new abilities, and they both have said “It’s a miracle!.”

When little Johnny is in Grade 1 and the teacher may demonstrate how “igh” says /ie/, Johnny may still be unaware of all the individual letter sounds. He becomes lost in the sequence—if there even is one.

The National Reading Panel’s research review is pretty clear about this: Approx. 80% of disabled readers in grades 4+ do need structured, sequential phonics and phonemic awareness training.

I developed and implemented a reading program to serve a 6th grade school of approx. 1,000 students. Students took the Star Reading with their classes during the beginning of the year. Low scoring students were observed by classroom teachers and referred for an IRI (Classroom Reading Inventory) by me.

Students are tested on words in isolation, graded paragraphs, and listening comprehension. A trained reading teacher can tell the difference between a word caller, who makes no meaning of text, and one who struggles to connect the printed word to known vocabulary in the speech center of the brain. They can’t *get* to comprehension due to poor word recognition skills. Since most classrooms offer a more whole word approach, one must assume that this model isn’t working for this category of students.

If students score on or close to grade-level in listening, one can assume that they don’t need comprehension training. Their vocab is good. Inferencing is good. Fact recall is good. They just can’t recognize the words to connect them to meaning.

I developed several kinds of groups and homogenously grouped students for reading instruction. The 6th graders in decoding-primary groups (n=26) were those that needed decoding instruction over comprehension instruction. They made an average of 2.0 years improvement in one school year, unless they were also cognitively impaired. Those students progressed, too, but more slowly.

There are still a ton of people in the whole-language-only camp who refuse to consider hard data. It is sad. It is also sad to see resource room teachers do the phonics ditto approach to the exclusion of comprehension. We must have it all!

Yikes and holy cow!!! It is just this kind of thinking that has crippled many an older poor reader, ALL kids can learn to decode, if a kid cannot decode at 5th grade, then he had a poor teacher,

dave

“YIKES and holy cow”

My thoughts exactly, Dave!

This is just absolutely untrue. Teaching casual “phonics” versus a multi-sensory structured language approach to reading are two different things. Instruction must be intensive and structured.

I suggested to the mother of a 12 year old that she take her son to FL for a Phono-Graphix intensive week this summer. His word attack skills were at second grade level when he went…they were at 7th grade level when he finished. His mom felt they saw a miracle! I’d say that’s a powerful testimony to correct teaching!

Shay will probably flip when she sees the post above. She takes high schoolers and remediates reading using Phono-Graphix.

I will say that in my district, most LD kids are not remediated, because teachers do not use the correct tools. I’ve tried to promote them to the special ed. director to no avail. And that’s why my child with APD does not go to school in my system!

Janis

Above, Susan Long answered you in detail and in a polite scholarly fashion — thank you Susan. dave and Janis also make the point. See Shay’s posts describing her regular success with *Grade 11* (ie young adult) non-readers, using a phonics program.

Then you can actually read the research, the report of the National Reading Panel, supported by the NIH and NICHD, which says most clearly that specific, *planned and systematic* synthetic phonics instruction is needed; this is a review of the last century’s work in reading and is about as definitive as you can get.

Below, we have a note from a teacher worried because her “older” (only Grade 7-9, still kids for Heaven’s sake) students “failed” to progress with a so-called phonics program — one part-time phonics program after seven to nine years of obviously failed whole word, but the *phonics* was then deemed to be a failure. I suggested to her that she give it a fair chance — how about 20% of the time that has been given to whole word, before you start passing judgement? I then listed a number of the reasons that phonics programs fail to succeed, including insufficient time, lack of focus and planning in the program, lack of sound-symbol connection, and others. Rather than re-typing this all again, I would suggest that you read those posts; the one I’m thinking of is labelled PS.

If you won’t believe a large number of experienced teachers, a large number of parents, the NIH, and the research of a century, then your beliefs are a religion rather than logic or science. I hope you do not take education as a matter of faith rather than fact.

And one more thing…I have a strong feeling that those brilliant PhD’s are probably the same ones who promoted the whole language fiasco over the last decade or so!

Janis

The problem isn’t always dysteachia. I have had some 12 yr. old children from one of our best elementary clinicians who could not decode. They blossomed with me and it caught on. Is she a poor teacher? Indeed not. The child was just cognitively ready.

While surely poor teaching *could* be the cause, we must not jump to conclusions. It gives teachers a bad name, often without justification.

“The child was just cognitively ready”

this is just an excuse for poor teaching, i firmly believe poor decoding is a result of poor instruction and NOTHING else,

let’s stop making excuses, if a kid gets to 5th grade and cannot read, then change reading methods, change teachers or something,

dave

I’m going to tell you plainly that I’ve seen children who not developmentally mature enough (for a variety of reasons) to receive instruction. More often, it is poor prior phonics instruction. However, not always. We must always be thinking professionals looking for precise, unassuming reasons.

When we fail to be precise by making grand and loud generalizations, we often lose credibility. Words like *always* and *never* have little use in research-based education.

What I thought you might focus on was the fact that our system didn’t just give up on this kiddo and say, “Oh, he’s not going to get it.” We tried again and were successful. I am one exquisite phonics instructor and I sometimes fail a kid. For many reasons. I don’t try to do that, but it happens.

Children have many factors affecting their learning. Loss of family members, hunger, other deprivation. I’ve had homeless kids that couldn’t remember anything. I wonder why. Did I stop trying, no. Did I bash my colleagues with sassy rhetoric. No.

Good night, sir.

I know some wonderful, caring LD teachers who simply do not have the tools with which to teach, also. It’s hard to teach a program the quality of PG, OG, or LB by just “winging it” with no training and no materials. You may have some nice little phonics workbooks, but without the knowledge of how to systematically teach it to reach those severe processing disorder kids, you can just forget it really working. That’s how people can say. “I tried phonics and it didn’t work”. So no, it definitely is not always the teachers fault. Our district simply does not provide the training and materials for these programs.

Janis

One more thing. I 100% agree with the developmental aspect. I wrote a reply today elsewhere that basically confirmed another post you wrote on that topic. I am sure that this is the case with my own child and one strong reason I had her repeat first grade this year. I think Saxon phonics is very good for a regular class program, and I think she will gain from the teaching a second time since she will be further along developmentally.

Janis

I’ve got too many emails to keep up with, I think. When I get cranky, it usually means I need my bed…

Apologies.

Janis,

It just makes me so sad that there are teachers out there that still believe that children can’t be taught. Yet, these same teacher cling to methods that researchers have clearly shown do not work.

There was a very nice man with a PHD who tried to talk me out of phonographix. Thank God I was not blinded by his credentials and looked up the research myself.

I agree that the system has failed in many instances. If teachers are not taught appropriate research based methods then they too are the victims of dysteachia.
I did some things as a nurse that were completely wrong. I was a very good nurse who cared deeply. I was never taught to look at the research I was just taught the wrong way and then taught others the wrong way.

It can be a vicous cycle.

And Linda, I’ll have to say “Thank God” that I looked beyond what was being used in the public schools when my own child began having problems. I will be a profoundly better teacher now that I understand the reading process and have discovered good methods and materials to help me deliver that instruction. But I am still surrounded by a special ed. world that thinks inclusion is the answer for most kids. Just have two teachers on the high school English class and all will be well. But when the kids are frozen at a fourth grade sight-word based reading level, it’s hard to get through a high school class. I see very little real remediation going on and it frustrates me.

Janis

Linda,

I agree. It’s bad enough not to be informed about the good programs out there, but it is terrible to have people put these programs down out of ignorance! I hope you sent the man a nice report on your son’s progress with PG!

Janis

I know some lovely, caring teachers who cannot teach reading to all students because they had convincing whole- language professors who taught them *wrong*…and to beware of all those nasty phonics folks.

They are as skeptical of phonics as parents of school systems. Bandwagons, red herrings, are difficult for many people to distinguish.

Susan:

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I am not so sure that your success with him had much to do with your student being cognitively ready. Give yourself some credit here! I believe that reading clinicians and Special Ed. approach the remediation quite differently. This is not to say that the reading clinician was a poor teacher. She just wasn’t trained to teach a child with severe phonological processing deficits. I think the training is quite different for our two different fields.

Marilyn

I may try and be nice about it and try to win him over. He is in charge of curriculm for the school district. The sped director was shocked when I told him my son read well. (He qualified for sped because of his reading)

I heard we have the one of highest LD rates in the state and we are big on whole language in this district. The social worker who told me this said it was because we have such a good LD program that everyone flocks to our district. I don’t know a soul who moved here for that reason.

I happen to know the clincian…have had other students from her. She’s excellent—Lindamood-Bell clinical training and sped teaching. This particular student just wasn’t neurologically gelled enough to connect the dots until he got to me. With a good LmB trained teacher, we should at least get students connected to letter sounds. (Take my word for it, she knows how to do that.)

I give myself lots of credit. I think I’m a darn good reading teacher/clinician (I use these words interchangeably) and it means a lot when one of my students tells me I’m the best.

The whole purpose of posting about this kid was to demonstrate that there are many, many variables. We just cannot jump to conclusions and blame teachers. (They get enough blame as it is.)