Victoria and others.. how to best use my time with my son?..

My son now 11yo was a NONreader in 2nd grade…he had various sevices(Wilson) at school and private tutoring weekly and in the summmer, but the most benefit was from reading aloud with me a half-hour after school 4-5Xweek; we started by alternating paragraphs, then pages, and we still do it now in 6th grade. Great Leaps helped with fluency but his rate is still 16th%, while comprehension and accuracy(decoding) are above 75th%. I think you have to read ALOUD daily simple but interesting fiction and use rewards!! We have come to enjoy the reading and the time together. We DO NOT read his textbooks for reading practice. It is a slow process, and I think there are no quick packaged solutions for kids who are LD.

If you had no resources for a hired tutor, I wouldn’t say this…but you do. So, with that in mind, do the most important job a parent can do: read to your child every day (a book at his listening level). Talk about vocabulary and plots together and make predictions and see if they’ll come true. Keep him moving in literacy while you laugh together. Have fun with books. Make it a special bonding time.

Since you can leave the teaching to someone else, do so without guilt that you (the parent) must always be all things. It’s the best world for a parent to just be a parent.

JMHO,
Susan

We do read to him, literature that he can’t read, every day. And you are right - its important for mom to be mom sometimes - especially for us. And yet I feel helpless, I’ve been able to put all these things in place but its hard to sit back and just wait for them to (hopefully) help him. Thanks for validating that “just” reading to him everyday is important!

I think it’s not just the reading TO the child, because esp. if the child is bright, they’ll get the info. somehow, but the child himself reading aloud. I think it’s like ice skating or skiing or swimming, it just takes many many hours of direct practice to move up each level. Many more hours than any reg. school devotes to reading or any weekly tutoring session can do. My son loves being read to and enjoys literature, but without daily practice in reading he would not have made the gains that he has made. If you don’t have time, hire a high school or college student to have him practice reading with.

I think that SAR’s idea of having a volunteer/tutor/someone with whom to practice reading is a very good idea. It may even be well-selected peer, such as a reading buddy, at school in that after-school time before you pick him up to go home.

Sometimes the evening time—with heavy metro traffic commutes, activities, etc.—is very short. If that is the case, I suggest just doing the read-aloud. Have two copies of the book so you can set the pace for child to follow. Be sure to make it fun.

Children have enough stress all day. After homework is finished, I believe we need to unwind a little. Especially if the time is short.

His school requires 30 minutes of reading as a part of their homework. Sometimes I’m having him read to me, sometimes I’m having him read along with a book on tape. And we always read to him before bed so he’s up on current literature (like harry potter) so he can chat with his peers.

So I guess my original question is: if you had another 20 minutes a few times a week what would you do with that time if you were me? I see my choices as continuing great leaps (but at a much reduced frequency so I’m not sure its worth it), sight word bing? , an educational computer game?, having him practice his keyboarding?

Life should not come down to 20 minute intervals for pressed learning. Let the tutor teach. Let the school teach. Read and play and relax after homework is finished.

Life is too short to cram every single minute with teaching.

I would have him read aloud to an adult who can stop and correct him and also discuss the book. I think it’s the daily practice that makes a difference; I tell my 9yo son the same thing about violin practice…weekly lessons in school are not going to work without daily practice.

Now is the time to push reading; certainly my son’s public school doesn’t teach reading after 3rd grade and once or twice a week tutoring for those who can afford it is not enough. If I hadn’t pushed in the early grades my son now in 6th grade would never have cooperated as much as he does. By 10-11 years old kids have “a life”, and it’s very hard to institute a catch up program. I certainly would not rely on the school to teach reading in middle school(class size is 26).

which is why we are trying to do anything we can now. Plus we are looking at special schools for 4th grade. Because I’m not going to make him suffer through the rest of elementary school when I believe deep down ( I have to!) that intensive remediation can still make a difference.

I agree, that’s why we pushed so hard at reading at home; we can’t afford private school and have only public school to fall back on. I don’t think our son is suffering now; there’s a huge range of kids in 6th grade and in a way it’s easier than in a small elementary school.

Hi Karen,
Is he making at least a teeny tiny bit of progress? I’m finding my son does progress extremely slowly (sometimes it seems like 3 steps forward and two steps back). For example, we’ve been going through Henry and Mudge books for a little while and I’ve recently “graduated” him to Nate the Great. Not a huge leap in difference, but there are a few more words per page and slightly more difficulty. He still has a lot of simple errors, but he seems to be reading slightly faster with a little less pausing. Sometimes it’s like he’s completely forgotten and we’re back to square one, but other times his reading does seem to be improving. Yet seeing improvement is over a period of months!

He’s not anywhere near his peers!

From what you’ve told me, your son may not need PG. It sounds like he’s had good tutoring in the past and he may just be at the level where he just needs lots and lots of reading practice.
But if you suspect there’s any problems with decoding I think PG is a wonderful way to remediate this at a quick rate. As I’ve told you before, it’s really easy and you can make it fun. If you have the book, just have him take the test in it and that should give you an idea.

Another thing you might try is having him practice “chunking.” I sometimes print out lists of multisyllable words. You can find them by searching for “multisyllable word list” on Google or someone on this board might suggest some. I just have my son practice these. We use a pencil, break them down and sound the “chunks.” Many times my son doesn’t know what the words mean so I also go over vocabulary.

I think we are somewhere between simple decoding and chunking. It depends on who you ask! (lol) His most recent assessment showed him reading worse than when we had him evaluated last spring. He made mistakes he wouldn’t normally make when reading with me so I suspect a little anxiety/self consciouisness effected the outcome. I would say like your son he’s able to read Henry and Mudge (and amelia bedelia) pretty much on his own. Only stumbles on multisyllabic words. I find if I cover half the word with my finger, and then the other half, he can do it. Is that like chunking ? (I bet if we started at the beginning of either LMB or phonographix or any method, it would look like he was making alot of progress at the beginning because he does have the basic letter/sound relationships. )

Karen,

How about having the tutor give you “homework” to work with him? A tutor we’ve been working with gives us workbook stuff to do with him. You could do it a couple times a week in 20 minute segments easily. It would reenforce what he is learning.

I agree on being the mom part in theory but in actuality I have found there is no way I can pay anyone to do enough. Our kids just need so much repetition. It isn’t just money but time too—it takes time and energy to go to a tutor. Repetition is important and consistency is too.

Beth

I’m impressed that he can read on his own. You don’t need to put your finger under the words? I have to sit with my son and look at everything he reads (otherwise he starts making up the story!). When he’s making a lot of errors I move my finger under the words and say “try again” (sometimes I do this to try and speed him up too). But he can now sometimes read a paragraph or two without me pointing (that’s improvement!).

If there’s any question of decoding difficulty, it might not be a waste of time to go through PG. Did you ever get the book? Just go through it the next time you’re at a bookstore and that should give you an idea of whether it might be helpful or not.

Re: covering part of the word w/your finger and then the next part—

You are modeling what you want him to do by himself—showing him. Keep doing that. I do that all the time until students get the idea and transfer the skill. If can, talk about *why* you chunked it there. (After many, many models, I’ll ask them to try.) If they are stuck, I often use a white board and write the word in nice big letters. Then we disect the word showing where it might break into syllables and what the vowels will do based on that kind of syllable. (A nice book is Marcia Henry “Words” as a resource for you.)

Example: Words usually divide between double consonants like happy or preppy (creating a closed first syllable and normally a short vowel sound). Then often divide between two consonants that are not doubles: nap-kin. This isn’t absolute, so be ready to be flexible w/first vowel sound—could be short or long (but try short first—is usually right). Words with vowel-consonant-vowel (VCV) often divide V/CV such as in pa-per. But, that one isn’t down cold either (i.e. cab-in)—must be flexible w/first sound—long or short. Now, lots of words to practice this.

I like the nice multi-syllable word lists in Wilson Language. Readers 3, 4, 5 ought to last you a good while.

Thanks for being impressed - at this point you are the only person who is (lol). On a recent assessment his reading scores actually went down : (. The gap between him and his peers is widening. (gee maybe we’ll qualify for state funding after all…)

IF I sit right next to him, and IF all the planets are in allignment then he can read that type of book with little to no intervention on my part. I used to have to move my finger under the words, but sometime over the summer his tracking (or whatever you call it) seems to have improved. He doesn’t skip lines as much either. He used to need a lot of visual assistance, but that seems to be better. (no idea why…. we did do interactive metronome, but I think the improvement began earlier…maybe IM helped)

I don’t see a ton of decoding difficulty at that reading level (henry and mudge) but I do as soon as the words are more difficult. I have had the phonographix book on my desk all summer - just haven’t dug into it. But I promise I’ll read it this week. Do you think I can get benefit from their techniques without making him sit thru lengthy lessons? Between school, the tutor, and homework I just can’t do it.

We do need to be thrilled by the little progress. How WONDERFUL that your son has a great memory! That’s going to help enormously.

I understand your worry about the “widening gap” between your son and his peers. This is our experience too. But all we can do is keep plugging away.

I think your son may just need more practice with orthographic patterns (which is what my son needs, but much more so!) Do look through PG. At the very least, you may only need to concentrate on the last section which is “Chunking” multisyllable words. This can be covered in a short amount of time. It’s more like “practice” than instruction. Similar to practicing times tables.

Hi Karen, You have enough time to teach him with PG. Please email me directly and I will help you.

Hi, my name is Teresa Sewell, I have a 10 year old son (Hunter) who was diagnosed with ADD when he was 5 years old. Hunter is a very good reader but he reads just the words he never puts any feeling into the reading, like when something is scary in a story he just reads the words he doesn’t read the material in a scary way, he has visual perception problems and we are having a lot of difficulty getting him to read the required books for Accelerated Reader, I know he does not understand anything that he reads I have been reading the books to him and he makes OK on the AR tests, but this isn’t helping him much with his reading. I have recently purchased a copy of Reading Reflex I am going to try and teach Hunter and his brother Dillon who is 5 and is in kindergarten. Can you offer any helpful information that I need to know before attempting to teach them. Thanks Teresa

Sorry, I’ve been ofline for a while tending to other obsessions (trying to buy a handyman’s special)

I often work two to three one-hour sessions a week tutoring, and at this level I divide my time:

20 minutes with a good phonics book teaching the vowel patterns, digraphs, and other two-letter combinations. I use Scholar’s Choice Check and Double-Check Phonics Book 2 for this level. You can do one page a night if he’s really slow, two to three pages once he gets the hang of it. Shay would recommend Phonographix Advanced Code; covers the same material so whichever works for you.

20 minutes (or a bit more) massed practice reading; read a whole story (three to five pages) out of an old basal reader. The idea is words, words, and more words. Repetition of high-frequency words happens naturally when reading real sentences. Fluency develops from practice at an appropriate level (a little below tested instructional level). Vocabulary develops as you read through a planned reader with steadily increasing vocabulary. Your choice of basal — school book storage or used book store, choosing for content m,ainly at the appropriate level, and with lots and lots of text.

10 to 20 minutes “word study”. This involves writing the new vocabulary words, discussing their meanings, using them in sentences, analyzing endings or compounds or other structures, noting irregular vowel patterns or silent letters, spelling them, looking at rhymes or other similar words, etc.

Schools teach whatever reading skills they are going to teach in the primary grades. From Grade 4 on it is expected that students can read and all that is needed is vocabulary and literary analysis and fine-tuning. The texts change, no longer having lists of every word in the back but just glossaries of special and likely unfamiliar vocabulary. The suggested class activities change, from study and usually memorization of individual words to literature classes.
So, if reading skills are not taught after Grade 3, it is hardly a surprise that kids who already have difficulty don’t often pick up and teach themselves the missing skills without help.
Read the rest of the research, on effective methods of teaching and/or remediating reading at any age. And remember that historically most people learned to read as adolescents or even adults; age has little to do with it except for social pressure.

nt

If I had waited for the public school to teach reading after 3rd grade to my son, I’d be waiting until the cows come home(which they used to do in my Mass. town until they filled it with big suburban homes); instead we paid for tutoring starting the summer after 1st grade until the summer after 5th grade and we are glad we did. If you depend only on the resources of the public school where I live, you’ll be reading below grade level.