new position and needin some help

Hi lisa,

I guess I’ll spare you the rage I feel when schools do what they’re doing to kids like that one you’re worried about, but geez…..enough…

If she were my child and I was forced by the school to give her over to a teacher with no experince in special ed, no money and no resources, here is exactly what I would want you to do.

Spend about $15 on the book Reading Reflex and read it cover to cover with your student in mind. Then use the method in there to teach her to read. When you run into trouble, ask questions, as there are answers.

If you do this, you will possibly accomplish two things. First, she may learn to read quickly if all she lacks is decent instruction. Second, as a new teacher, you may find yourself very caught up in learning the method and you will find that this pays very big dividends in following years.

Finally, if your student still doesn’t learn to read, and if there are no obvious cognitive issues (or even if there are) start reading about vision therapy, especially if she also has a parent who had trouble with initial reading instruction. There are a lot of vision posts on this board, and many websites devoted to the issue of vision skills and reading.

Good luck…..Rod

Oh, Lisa, I’ll have to agree with Rod. What a terrible situation. Bless you for caring enough to come here for help!

I agree with Rod, you can make it with the Reading Reflex book, and it is only about $12 if you order from Amazon.com. It’ll be a tool that you can use forever to teach any child to read. Come back here for additional help. There are some wonderful teachers here!

The other thing to do is to click on the LD Indepth tab on this site, and just begin reading articles. Especially read all the articles under reading until you get a good grasp of the reading research.

One more bit of advice. Go ahead and give all your resource students the screening tests inside the Reading Reflex book. You will find that others need the instruction as well.

Sadly, many of us in special ed. spend hundreds of dollars (or more) of our own money on materials. You can find out about the very best ones available on this board. In the long run, it is worth it to have good materials even if you have to buy them. You can use them for a long time. Good luck to you!

Janis

Thanks! I ran out to our little book store and amazingly they had one copy. I’ve already begun to read it. I’ll probably be back with lots of questions. Thanks for the start in the right direction.

I’ll add “The First 100 days of school” not sure of the title but it’s by Wong. It’s a must for beginners because even if you have all the techniques and strategies in the world but if you can’t control your class, then nothing will happen. I nearly gave up teaching when I was new because I just couldn’t handle the class. The Wong book changed all that.

I would also get Lindamood training.

Barbara,

Harry Wong actually came to our district to do a presentation a few years ago…I assume your author is the same person.He was a good speaker.

I’m also interested in Lindamood Bell training, but at about $200 per day (LiPS $599, 3 days, Seeing Stars $399, 2 days, Visualizing and Verbalizing $399, 2 days), I am thinking one would need to be very sure they were staying in education long term to make that pay off! Oh, and not to mention $100-$300 or so for each kit. My school system would never pay for training that expensive. (I paid for PG training myself).

Janis

It is an excellent, albeit pricey, book. My district buys each new teacher (whether new to district or new to teaching) a hardback copy.

Harry will help you keep your head above water! Another very nice book is by Carol Tomlinson called “Managing to Teach.” I actually like that one better than Harry’s.

Three other very inexpensive and useful resources:

(1) Check and Double Check Phonics from scholarschoice.ca — note that’s .ca and not .com. Books 1 and 2, at less than ten dollars each including shipping, cover all the basics. 3 and 4 are also useful but many students take off after 2. The onoy caveat I have to add is that you have to actively *teach* the work —silent phonics is a contradiction in terms.

(2) Most schools and/or school boards have a book storage cupboard. Here are filed all the old texts that aren’t used any more. You have to pick and choose — avoid any that have discriminatory language that is no longer acceptable, and read through them to be sure that this is material you want to teach. But there are many many old treasures hidden away here, dropped because somebody had a new exciting experiment or because the pictures are a bit dated. When I taught Grade 1 and 2 , I managed to have three complete sets of readers, one official and two spares from the storage room — and with all that practice, the kids achieved well above a year’s average improvement.

(3) Get to know the used book stores in your area. Old texts can be bought for around five to ten dollars each, and good paperbacks for one or two dollars. Over the course of this first year you can build up a small personal teaching library of fifty to a hundred books. Over many years you can complete out-of-print reading series and refine your library to contain those books you find best. Your name goes in these books, they are signed out personally with you (Make this very clear to parents, that this is nothing to do with the school library, but your personal property) and when you move classes and schools they go with you. It’s a long-term investment in your career and your effectiveness as a teacher.

I am going to give you a list of different programs that work together very well. I have used them together for the past six years with tremendous success. Some are costly but well worth the expense. If you have any questions, please feel free to email me personally. Keep a positive attitude and know that most of your students are sped only because they haven’t been taught. If you believe that they can, they will. Keep the faith!

These are the programs that I use in my reading or English class to bring up my kids to grade level reading and writing. Spelling is a skill that I have never been able to remediate (older kids) but with knowing PG, they at least can come close to the spelling so that spell check will work. These programs are in the order in which I teach them.
Programs:
1. Phono-Graphix ( after the program, error correction is very important) Carmen and Geoffrey McGuinness- $14.00 or less.
2. Read Naturally (fluency)
3 Visualizing and Verbalizing by Lindamood-Bell (LMB)/ and Language Wise, developing verbal intelligence, Author same as PG
4. On Cloud Nine- visualizing numbers (LMB)
5. Kansas Learning Strategies- study skills for content
6. Various other study skills programs, Mosaic of Thought and Strategies that Work ( Amazon)
7. Earobics, computer program for auditory processing
8. Step Up to Writing- Sopris West- $100
9. Computer program Inspiration for pre-writing skills, outlining and webing- great for organizational skills.
10. Spelling Power ( after PG’s Super Speller)
If you like, send me your phone number and we can talk. Let me know when would be a good time and I will call you. I am very hard to get in touch with, I do tutoring after school and I don’t get home some nights until 8:00. All of these programs work. Shay

Shay,

Have you seen, or do you know anyone who uses Step Up to Writing K-5? I just wonder if it is easy to use and if it’s the best elementary special writing program.

I would just add that if she can’t afford multiple levels of Read Naturally, then Great Leaps is a good choice for fluency and one level covers multiple grade levels. It’s about $100 for the student and teacher books.

Janis

Lots of programs have been mentioned that are helpful. Here’s another one that will work with your young lady and also the rest of your class. It’s called, You Can Teach Someone to Read, and can be found on Amazon.com.

I would suggest starting to use some book clubs like Troll, Carnival, or Scholastic to generate a classroom library. I have a huge library and have either bought books very cheaply or “earned” them through points I get when my students buy books. They also offer professional resources as well. Your kids will get a good deal on the books they buy too—much better than at book stores, and always the most current titles! Though some kids may not be able to afford to buy books usually you can find enough who can to keep the orders going!

Can you give me some more info? I’m always looking for new resources for students and parents. The title sounds good, but behind good titles lurk some very different things. What’s the basic philosophy of reading teaching in this book?