HELP!

My son (gr 3) is permitted to use a Franklin Speller to check his spelling in class - actually they are available to all kids in the classrron but he has his own. For an older child, using a computor with a Spell Check program for written work is helpful. We’re still struggling with written expression ourselves but having the child keep a journal can help them get their thoughts together on paper and may improve expressive writing skills for class assignments. Re: organization. Try a calendar posted above the desk she uses and have her keep track of assigments and their due dates. Make it a point to work on each assignment each day - you will no doubt have to help her with this. This can work for everybody, not just people with LD’s. Good luck. SusanW

Have you thought about Attention Deficit Disorder-Inattentive? ADD would explain the disorganization, procrastination, inattentive errors on spelling and problems with organizing her thoughts for writing.

If your daughter was tested to determine her LD back when Wilson Reading was initiated, she may have been tested for ADHD (ADD) as well. It was part of the battery of test my son was given. I would guess that most reliable psychologists look at all the possiblities when testing a child. Check back with them. Susan

My daughter is in 5th grade with a similar profile. This is the first year she has been able to memorize words for spelling tests, but she still misspells even simple words when she writes. Her writing is also extremely slow.

We have started using Sequential Spelling from Avko, and I credit that program with the progress dd has made so far. It is a very easy approach, requiring only about 10 minutes a day, and develops some visual recognition of patterns in words (similar to Glass Analysis). Sequential Spelling is available from http://www.avko.org.

Meanwhile, I have just started my daughter on the Avko keyboarding program (reinforces the spelling program). Once she is reasonably proficient we plan on getting her an AlphaSmart — basically, a laptop word processor with many built-in tools for writing. You can find websites that describe the AlphaSmart by doing a search at http://www.metacrawler.com.

Excellent writing programs include IEW (http://www.writing-edu.com) and Step Up to Writing (http://www.sopriswest.com). They both teach strategies for organizing thoughts, among other things. Inspiration software (http://www.inspiration.com) can also be extremely helpful for learning ways to organize writing.

I think children often procrastinate on projects that appear to be overwhelming to them. She probably needs someone to help her break down a big project into manageable units — e.g., Monday spend one hour reading and taking notes, Tuesday spend one hour organizing notes and creating outline, Wednesday spend one hour writing rough draft, Thursday spend one hour editing and re-writing, Friday turn in — that kind of thing. One thing that helps my daughter is defining all work in very small chunks of time — 20 or 30 minutes at most (and much of what we do is in 10-minute chunks).

Mary

She IS ADD. I am sorry that I didn’t mention this in my first post. She is on concerta. I guess I should tell you about her l.d. SHe had leukemia when she was a toddler (2 years old) and was on chemo for 2 1/2 years. Because of this, she developed a non-verbal learning disability - which was diagnosed about 4 years ago. Her language is excellent. At the time she was diagnosed NVLD, her performance and verbal scores were over 30 points different - verbal being in the “superior” range and performance lower. 2 years later she was retested and also this past summer, and she has compensated so that she would not be diagnosed as NVLD anymore. The problem, as I see it, is that according to the academic section of her test, her written expression skills were at a third grade level (something like that), and her spelling was similar. Her reading comprehension at an 8th grade level. She was just starting 6th grade. Her teacher last year really helped her with reading. Because she has/had a visual perceptual problem, she was being taught at her old school, in 1st grade, to read with a whole language program. Obviously, this did not work. It was suggested she do Wilson, which she did /does and she has learned to read. The teacher she has this year does not understand ADD , I don’t think, and I told them a few months ago, that she (my dd) had to have things broken down in small tasks for her (she does read very slowly). This has not happened until this weekend when I started screaming.

I am concerned that molly is not learning what she really is capable of learning. She needs to be taught how to take notes, and to organize herself. She needs a structured written expression program (I think –-although I am NOT an educator)but they are not offering it (yet). Am I wrong in thinking that is what she needs? Spelling - to me is so stupid. SHe memorizes the words like “feather, etc.” and gets good grades on the test and still can’t spell many simple words that are used all the time. Any suggestions? I agree that spell check is the way with her for the long term. help!!!!

I like the Written Expression program from SRA. It is very structured and really teaches students how to write simple but complete sentences, paragraphs and essays. It has built in success. The students feel like they can write. It has a word box to keep spelling from being an issue. I would give your daughter an individual word wall of frequently misspelled words .She can use it to edit and correct her writing. I would make sure her teachers know that she needs her assignments broken into small parts. She probably needs them to help her organize herself and her assignments. Maybe a peer helper could be arranged. She might be more willing to accept help from a fellow student. They could be buddies and keep each other on task.

For spelling, there’s also the Lindamood-Bell “Seeing Stars” program, which is based on visualizing the individual letters that make up the words. It’s an easy program for a parent to use with a child and it’s cheap. I took the training in all of the Lindamood-Bell programs and although they have scads of expensive materials you can buy, in nearly every case it’s easy to get by without them. If you buy two books, the “Visualizing and Verbalizing” book which is the book for comprehension issues and organization of thoughts around what they call “structure words” and if you buy the “Seeing Stars” book and have a wad of index cards, you’ll do just fine. The “Visualizing and Verbalizing” book really lays out the philosophy behind the need to visualize so it’s very worthwhile.

LMB says that some kids have great phonemic awareness, read wonderfully, comprehend well (so their ability to think in pictures is just fine) but are poor spellers because they don’t visualize the symbols (letters) very well. I happen to like the “Seeing Stars” program because it’s actually fun for the kids to practice.

If the school is willing to do whatever it can, that’s wonderful. The first thing I’d have them do is e-mail you the weekly assignments. That way you can sit down with your daughter and plan out a homework schedule. Children her age often have a different idea of time than do adults. They believe there to be endless time until the last minute and then… they panic.

As to spelling, I find that a harder obstacle. I know adults who do not spell well and I’m not a fan of any program out there. My advice would be to have her type or dictate to a typist and have her use Spellcheck.

I suspected she was ADD. I recognize the “symptoms” I have a houseful of ADDers’ and I am a coach to many of the kids I tutor…Can you be her ADD coach at home or find a tutor who can teach her organizational skills? It will take a lot of hands on activities and follow through on your part. I have to go through my daughter’s notebook every night to make sure that she has done all her homework and show her how to organize her materials. She is catching on and is starting to have pretty good organizing strategies, but she occassionally has a paper stuffing party in her backpack… LOL

Anita Archer has a great series called Skills for School Success that can help in this area and also Daniel Amen has some materials to teach ADDer’s how to get organized..