greatleaps

You cannot expect her fluency to improve much until the decoding problems are remediated. What are they doing for the decoding?

Janis

Not much, I keep trying to get them to have her sound out words and keep trying to put it in the IEP under spelling and reading as objectives but she takes them out. I am in the middle of our IEP now.All that the teacher is doing is having them read out of a book and I viewed her and have told her a couple of times this year to have my child sound out instead of guessing but she just doesn’t get it.

Many teachers do not have much training in teaching decoding. What types of materials or programs is the teacher using to teach decoding? Does she have the materials and support to teach decoding? How about your tutor? How is she doing with teaching decoding?

We’ve had a world of success with fourth graders two years or more behind. Simple decoding is powerful help for children with moderate learning problems. I’m not sure if I buy into the idea that speech difficulties impact “fluency” - certainly they can impact oral reading fluency - but the jury’s out on the other issues. Speech errors are not reading errors. If I can understand what is meant, I go on. (I have little to no background in speech - but I do know behavior and the behaviors in reading I’ve obtained with children with both speech and phonics difficulties.) As the author of Great Leaps, I can say without reservation that many children with the scores you have mentioned have successfully used GL as a piece of the overall strategy. I would not wait for the successful completion of a decoding strategy before beginning fluency work - the behavioral damage mounts and mounts - the child may just give up before the phonics reaches proficiency - and we couldn’t have that - now could we??

At this point you’d better teach her yourself and/or get a tutor. The school has clearly said no and she will be in high school before you can get through fighting with them. You can get an amazing amount done during the summer if you set your mind to it and schedule the time and keep at it.
I’ll be happy to send info about how I tutor if you haven’t already asked me (have a backlog to send but will get to it shortly.)

Thanks for the replies. I found out that they had the wrong birthdate on my child’s IEP and therefore the standard score is higer.78 word reading 93 comprehension and 88 pseudoword decoding.I was also just told that they don’t have any decoding programs and suggested that the speech pathologist do the sounding out of words.The tutor and I will give the fluency a try this summer since the school doesn’t seem to be getting it’s act together. Thanks again

Ditto to Ken. As a resource teacher who uses Great Leaps, I find the phonics probes useful. If a student has learned the CVC pattern, for example, and can decode this pattern of words, albeit slowly, I introduce phonics probes to that point. I am, for the first time, building in the fluency training early because this area is such an issue for almost every student I teach. Same for the phrase probes. These require the student to attend to the confusing high frequency words, the ones the “dyslexics” tend to mix up all the time: the and she, where and there, of and for, when and then, was and saw, etc. Of course, I also use the story probes.

I have added some phonics probes to either provide some extra practice or to place a mini-step between two “steps.”

Finally, I have never “cured” the common tendency to forever confuse short e and short i, despite multi-sensory practice. However, I have found, to my pleasure, that several months of daily work with the Great Leaps phonics probes has made a big difference for my students.

Are the phonic probes part of the program? I am going to buy for my tutor to use and would like to know what you think I should get.

Good news, Ken C. Our local school district has JUST decided to start using Great Leaps in their special ed department. Could it be part of the new laws coming down?! I’m sure of it.

FINALLY, something that works!

Do you know how different districts make the decision to adapt certain methods? Supposedly everyone reads the same journals and there should be some consensus about what has been properly researched enough. How can districts like the hugh L.A. Unified still use Open Court for all learners?

I feel uncomfortable using the board for business QA. You can call toll-free at 877-475-3277 or check the website at greatleaps.com for more info. Ken

Honestly, I think our district has been sued so many times they are ready to begin compliance. It’s a beautiful sight to behold.

What are phonics probes?

In my district they already use it but have never used all the parts to it. They have used passages, for example, but never the phrases part. So don’t assume too much!!

Beth

A number of answers: First a probe is a one minute timed test. You can design probes for everything from teaching European capitals to teaching the bones of a human body. In GL probes are used in three areas of reading: phonics, phrases, and story reading

The phrases piece if unique to GL - not because we use timed phrases - but the purpose of the phrase work - the purpose is to increase focus thereby increasing the generalization of sight word vocuabulary - meaning children will not miss so many of those critical “little” words. A district not using the phrases is certainly not following the intent of Great Leaps.

If I have done my job in all of this, it appears almost too simple to work. I am not into the mystique of reading and its instruction. I have spent a career in trying to get things down to the very simple, to getting research technolgy in the hands of everyone - to help as many as possible with the obvious small amount of resources available.

Many programs require extensive budgets and time. Mine involves neither.

On this board you’ll hear us get passionate about many issues - teaching letter names for instance. But I think you’ll be able to see quickly who’s in it for the kids, and who’s in it for the money or the glory.

The whole language fanatics are as regrouped as Al Queda - we can expect even greater carnage than their first round. Their words sound sweet and idealistic….but so does “the lion will lay down with the lamb.” A wonderful, idealistic, beautiful world view. Go try it sometimes. You’ll get a mess everytime.

So those of us into direct instruction, into precision teaching, into multi-sensory teaching, into phonics - let us not quibble and divide our passion - keep the pressure on whole language and its inherent refusal to accept phonics.

Ken C

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Post Edited (06-03-03 20:04)

Oh well, I was excited for a little while. Doesn’t matter. I’ve never let the school remediate my daughter - must be why she’s doing so well!

Both of my boys (neither with LD) are in public schools. I taught them to read. My mom (no degree) taught me to read. I was languishing (now I write the books.) Public schools are ok, if your children are equipped. I’ll never trust anyone but family in the ultimate education of my loved ones. We use the schools to take from them what we need. So far it has worked.

Yes, and the entire program is very cost effective. Use all three sections, daily, if possible. You can use it days the tutor is not coming.