Choosing Programs

I am a regular ed.5th grade teacher who has implemented the cognitive skills program Schoolblox (Audiblox) into our daily schedule. It has been 3 months since we have started. I have noticed some dramatic improvements so far. One ld student is reading and attends so much better. ( At the beginning of the school year, the sp.ed. teacher even wanted him evaluated for ADHD. It is not even a question right now. There are a couple of other students who attend much better to class instruction time. The Title I teacher has commented to me that one student’s handwriting has improved and he attends and concentrates so much better in her class. If I had any influence on a program for the school, I would seriously look at this program to improve the underlying skills so that kids can learn the academics easier. Schoolblox is the only program that I have found that can be used with an entire class in a school setting. I am excited about what I have seen so far and can’t wait to see what the future brings. www.audiblox2000.com

I have also read Reading Reflex and am very impressed with the Phonographix method of teaching reading. Others on these boards have posted regularly on how they have liked this program. It seems easy to implement and it makes sense to me. I would check out this program too for reading. I know they do have materials to use in a classroom setting. www.readamerica.net

I just want to add that if schools provided work on cognitive skills in the early grades, maybe we wouldn’t have so many ld problems to deal with later.

nt

Unfortunately, kids who have extra difficulty wiht learning something like reading really, really benefit (okay, usually *need*) teachers with *more* training, not less. The good O-G programs that are easy to follow are expensive — they take a lot to produce. From what I’ve seen of it, your principal has picked a good one.

So Sue, you have seen the Barton program? I saw the demo video and it did look good. But I haven’t seen the kit yet. I agree that dylexic children need to be taught by people with training. I will certainly insist on that for my child.

Shelia and Mary, I ordered the Reading Reflex book today!

Do any of you think we need to get Lindamood Bell programs, also?

Janis

respond to the Phono-Graphix approach, but there are always a few who need something else. I think it would be a good idea to get one person trained in LMB and/or O-G and perhaps FastForWord (it only costs about $100 to get certified in FFW).

It has been my experience that the most critical factors in teaching children with reading difficulties are (1) using an appropriate curriculum approach to reading, and (2) teaching it one-on-one. Compared to these two factors, the training of the teacher comes in a slow third. This is why so many parents have been successful in teaching a dyslexic child to read at home, using Reading Reflex. Teacher training as a factor becomes much more critical in a classroom setting, however, where group management becomes important.

Mary

That’s true Mary. There are some really good teachers in my district who do not have the best tools with which to teach. So they are really limited in what they can accomplish. However, if they pulled a teacher assistant into tutor reading, I would expect them to provide some training (at least to make me feel better about it!). By the way, I do think homeschooling is a great way to teach a dyslexic child if the parent is committed to finding the best resources. Certainly a parent would have the incentive to learn the correct teaching strategies. I will pull my child out the minute they tell me she can’t make it in the regular curriculum. She’s only in first grade (charter school which has been very good so far), so it’s hard to tell at this point how she’ll do.

One more question, is Phono-graphix similar to O-G? Would it be as good for children with dyslexia or auditory processing disorders? (Sorry if I already asked that; I didn’t look back at my old posts). Does it help with spelling as well as reading?

Janis

could i have some more details about the Schoolblox program you were mentioning earlier.

helen

PG is the best overall approach I have found for dyslexic and auditory processing disorders/

PG does help with spelling to a point. It takes every child at least into a phonetic spelling mode. Advanced code work takes most children who do PG much farther than that.

However, children with severe vision problems and/or dysgraphia (such as my dd) often do not go further than phonetic spelling with PG. PG assumes a certain set of visual subskills that these children sometimes lack. However, there are other programs that can work on spelling with these kids once reading is mastered. We have found Avko’s Sequential Spelling (developed by a dyslexic, and based on the Glass Analysis approach to developing recognition of letter patterns in words) very helpful, especially in conjunction with Megawords. These programs have taken my dd to a point where she can now visualize and memorize quite complicated words for spelling tests. However, as a dysgraphic, this spelling still does not transfer to her writing. I have heard that keyboarding can help a dysgraphic child develop spelling capabilities over a period of years — probably because there is a better feedback connection visually and kinesthetically, along with the ever-patient spellchecker. Keyboarding, therefore, is our next step.

I have a friend who insisted on using O-G (before she had any training) with her reading-delayed daughter. She now has a 12yo who can spell extremely well, who scores well on standardized tests of spelling, but who cannot read what she writes! I suspect this girl has CAPD and tries to read by processing a multiplicity of “rules”. An experienced O-G person would not have fallen into this trap. However, what I like about PG is that it avoids this trap altogether by focusing exclusively on reading and reading skills, rather than rules. To me it makes a lot of sense to teach reading (receptive language skill) first and spelling (expressive language skill) only after reading is mastered to at least an ending 3rd grade level.

Mary

Schoolblox is the classroom version of Audiblox. It works on memory, concentration, and processing skills, visual and auditory, and reading skills. (Maybe others I forgot at this time.) I am currently using it with my class of 20 regular ed 5th grade students. We started the beginning of September and do the exercises every day for 30 minutes. I call it our Study Skills Class. I have noticed the most improvement with 2 ld students I have. Soon we will get into Level 3 of the 4 level program. In this level we will get into more auditory exercises. I just feel so strongly about doing this as I have taught for a number of years and finally feel like I am helping students to learn more easily. Isn’t that what we should be doing?

The people from Audiblox have been extremely helpful. I am currently reading their new book The Myth About ADHD and Other Learning Disorders.
Check out their website. www.Audiblox2000.com

Mary, well I can hardly wait for my PG book to arrive! One thing that has been difficult for my child with the Saxon has been all the rules. Shoot, I’ve never heard of some of them and I have very good reading and spelling skills (can’t type, though!!!). I think her auditory memory skills are weak (or either it is just delayed processing), so remembering all the rules isn’t exactly easy for her. She does know basic letter sounds really well, though. And I think her visual skills are very good. So maybe PG would work with her. Then I would have to use something later for the spelling. Have you ever seen Spelling Power? I thought it sounded pretty good. Is the AVCO spelling mainly for children with visual perception problems? Or is it also designed for auditory based spelling problems as well. (I have looked at the site before…it just sounds like you have experience with it.)

The charter school principal is even open to a summer program for any child with reading difficulties before they’ve been placed LD. Thankfully, there are a few people with good sense left on the planet! (Of course, we’ll see if the money is there to fund it!). It sounds like PG would be a good approach to try with the K or 1st graders having difficulty before getting all the way into an OG program.

Aren’t you familiar with LB, also? How would you see that being used?

Janis

Okay, let me ask a question about Audiblox since we are back on that topic. :-)

My child has good visual skills as far as I know. So would we just use the part of Audiblox that helps auditory processing?

Also, should Audiblox be done before starting something like Phono-graphix?

Has the International Dyslexia Asso. or LD online reviewed either PG or Audiblox? I just have never heard of Audiblox before at all (and no one on the CAPD list has heard of it apparently), and I know there has been controversy over PG (but I don’t remember why!).

Thanks!
Janis

One more PG question, does it have lesson plans or do you have to make them up yourself?

The school I work for as a reading tutor has made a commitment to LMB. The head of the learning disabilities program who has over 25 years background in the business believes that LMB’s program is the most comprehensive. Formerly, she used primarily O-G but feels that LMB offers the same thing plus more. Some of our students who weren’t meeting with enough success using O-G improved greatly using LMB. The entire 1st., 2nd., 3rd. grade staff took the LMB training as did parent volunteers who listen to children read. This way everyone who works with early readers has been trained in the same program.

Many parts of LMB are VERY easy to do using parent volunteers. I’ve taught some parent volunteers and classroom aides myself - not the whole program but enough so that they’d be on the same wavelength. I really believe that even the regular ed teachers ought to receive real training in some method such as LMB or O-G. They’d be much more effective with ALL their students, not to mention that they’d understand their LD kids so much better which could only improve how they work with them.

Thanks for the feedback on the program I asked for earlier. I’ll need to backtrack through the messages as i have lost track of the programs you are all talking about.

I am a Learning Support Teacher from Australia and the programs you are talking about are not ones I have heard. They sound like they are good. Can anybody supply me with publishers names etc?

It sounds like no matter where we are the same issues exist for our students and we are looking for great resources.

We finished school today for our 8 week Christmas holiday, so right now I am feeling really great. Lots of time for swimming and sunshine.

Looking forward to hearing more about the programs.

Helen

Helen,

Here are the web-sites of some of the programs we have been talking about:

Lindamood-Bell www.lindamoodbell.com

AVCO Spelling www.spelling.org

Phono-Graphix (Reading Reflex) www.readamerica.net

Audiblox www.audiblox2000.com

Have a great vacation!

Janis

JGR,

What a great school! I’d love for our little charter school to be that innovative! Sounds like a good goal to have everyone working with lower grade children to be trained in LB.

Thanks!

Janis

Check out the Audiblox website and I’m sure you’ll find the answers to your questions.

and it tends to work for a majority of children, so it’s a good place to start — especially since it is relatively inexpensive. LMB is good too, but it requires a lot more one-on-one time and so is more expensive. I would save LMB for those children for whom PG is not enough.

We tried Spelling Power. It really does not work well for dyslexics, in part because it introduces too many different spellings of the same word in each lesson. It’s a good program for non-LD kids, but it can be frustrating for LD kids.

Sequential Spelling is not just for dyslexics. It would work fine for non-LD children as well. Like Phono-Graphix, it is an approach that tends to be very effective with both LD and non-LD children. We are very glad we gave up on Spelling Power and switched to Sequential Spelling. We have seen many more gains that way.

Mary

(I think it’s called Word Works) has lesson plans, as I recall. I’m not sure I would call what Reading Reflex has “lesson plans”, because they are not highly scripted. However, it does provide an orderly sequence of materials starting at the beginning and working through advanced code. It is always adapted as you go along to suit the needs of an individual child. I had no trouble using the book even though I am not a trained educator.

Mary

nt

that is most effective when underlying sensory/motor deficits have been reduced as much as possible. This is because cognitive skills (things such as visual sequencing, visual short-term memory, pattern recognition, auditory sequencing, auditory short-term memory, logic/reasoning/strategy, directionality, etc.) all build on a sensory/motor foundation.

A child with severe unremediated auditory or visual problems may make some limited gains with cognitive training, but such a child would make much more dramatic gains from cognitive training after the underlying problems had been addressed.

Some children simply have delays in development of cognitive skills, and cognitive training is helpful for this.

It’s a lot like a physical fitness training program, in that most people will benefit from the well-rounded variety of exercises offered. However, if there is a serious medical condition, gains will be limited. People who are already in good physical condition may see only limited gains.

The type of cognitive training offered by Audiblox and PACE are relatively new. PACE came on the market in 1995 (I’m not sure about Audiblox). Programs such as LMB and O-G have been around for 20-odd years or more, so there has been a lot of time for researchers to obtain government funding for studies. Most of the newer therapies have not been around long enough for independent research to have been conducted. Older cognitive training programs almost always used extremely limited types of exercises, and research has found that kind of cognitive training to be pretty much useless. Just as with physical fitness training, there needs to be a well-rounded variety of exercises with gradations. Simply doing sit-ups for a year will not help someone with weak arm muscles!

Mary

Thanks, Mary! I will check out the AVCO Spelling instead. My RR book should be here in about a week. I am thinking of suggesting that the school offer RR (PG) in the summer, and then those who still have difficulties after that should have a full eval and possible placement where they can get an O-G program or LB.

Janis

My child definitely has short term auditory memory problems. I can read a short passage to her and she will not be able to answer questions correctly. She also had low subtest scores on sentence imitation. She has difficulty learning the words to little songs and poems, too.

It is very difficult to say whether that is more related to her auditory processing problems or a cognitive problem (she has a high average IQ).

Janis