My district is about to spend a lot of money on Reading materials for our Special Ed department. Has anyone had first hand experience with either the Autoskill (software program) or the Wilson Reading Program. I would love to hear your comments pro and con. Thanks
Re: Autoskill (reading software) and Wilson Reading Program
I have gone through the initial 2 day taining for the Wilson Reading Program. I found it a lot easier than the Orton-Gillingham training because the Wilson Program comes with everything in a nice kit, with word cards, books, and stories. I have found it easy to use with the students. Also, the kids like the structure to it. They know what to expect and are feeling and seeing success with their reading. good luck!
I am using AutoSkill for a Gr. 9 LD English class and a Gr. 11 Literacy Skills class of LD students. In addition, my son uses this program at school (half-time SLD class placement). My impressions (and I’ve just been using the program for my classes since Sept.) are that it is an okay program if there are no serious auditory processing difficulties. Also, I think the age of the students may be a factor. My 8 year old son likes the program (despite his CAPD—he likes computers in general); my grade nines hate it (“borrring”) and the grade 11s, after I modified the mastery criteria for those experiencing slow progress and frustration, are getting into it. (Until I mastered doing this effectively, both I and the students were frustrated with the program.I would have turfed it, I think, if I had not invested a lot of time and energy into lining up computers for my classroom and getting supply coverage so I could do the full test series with the Gr. 11s.) I am more positively disposed to it now (though I have some reservations—see below.)Four of the class of 9 Gr. 11 kids ask to go on it; two hate to be pulled off of it. The two students with the lowest reading levels (3-4) have the least success and the most frustration. (One of these students, I suspect, would be a candidate for CAPD testing and FastForWord if his parents could afford it.)
It is a bare bones drill program compared to, say, the pricey FastForWord programs (for which I’ve just become a provider). (For ex. match visual letters, nonsense words, words, phrases etc. on the upper part of the screen with a series of three possibilities lined up below; or match audio to visual. The Phonemic Awareness pgm. has a bit more pizzazz).The students do not start the compreh. pgm until they’ve mastered either half the audio-visual match series or all the visual match series (depending which one is recommended based on testing) (a minus, I feel since there is no direct connection between the subskills and practice with real text.) Co. claims of an avg. 2.5 level gain after 25 hrs. are suspect—my prediction is most of my LD students see that kind of gain.
I’ve scaled back on the recommended time for my grade 9s (3 of the 6 are severely delayed) and am using Phono-Graphix with great success. (They love it. It’s loads more fun. And it’s quicker to do.Also I can relate it directly to what we are reading right off the bat.) Whether PG will provide the intensity the most delayed need I don’t know. This trio might benefit from Wilson or a similar OG pgm. (One of the boys was recommended to go to one of our provincial govt. LD demonstration schools where the Association Method is used—a less commonly used OG pgm. than Wilson.)
In conclusion, it’s a fairly reasonably priced program with some limitations. If your district (like mine) buys a site license, try it, but I think it works best as a supplement to a direct instruction program like PG or OG. (PG is the least costly option.) In January, I will be post-testing the grade 11 AutoSkill class—ask me for my opinion then. Email me as follows: [email protected].
Regards. (PS—there is no “one size fits all” but for my classes, I’m betting on PG.)