High school developmental reading course

I would want more specific data as to why he is below grade level in reading. Where do his difficulties lie, decoding, vocabulary, fluency, comprehension? What is done in the reading class to address those specific areas of need. Is your son in special education? Do you have testing that breaks the reading process down into parts and describes how he does in each area? So, the school program might address his needs or a tutor might, but really you need more information. Start by asking your son what seems to make reading and his assignments difficult. Then ask the school for more specific data, even if that means a written request for the psychologist and special ed teachers to test him.

A student who is one to two years behind at the high school level needs lots of comprehension strategies, such as those outlined in Chris Tovani’s book, I Read It But I Don’t Get It. I would hope this aspect would be a large part of your son’s program.

Another possible problem is a lack of fluency. I am not familiar with AR but have not heard flattering things about it particularly. Your son needs to do lots of reading at a level that is comfortable for him, however, and it looks like the course will address that. If fluency is a big problem, there are fluency programs out there, such as Read Naturally. I think fluency is also a component of the Rewards program by Sopris West.

With a one to two year deficit, decoding is probably not an issue, but I would hope that the teacher would do some kind of diagnostic testing to ascertain patterns of strengths and weaknesses.

My son is at “grade level” in reading and is being demitted for language from his SLD class but recently I gave him the non-standardized reading skills subtests from Phonographix and discovered that while he scores perfectly in segmenting, blending and scores 86% in code knowledge, his auditory processing score lowered his overall level to the “danger” category. (He has CAPD.) His teachers would feel he would not need a program like PG at this point, but I am starting it with him anyway because I am afraid he will slip behind in reading if I don’t. Diagnostic assessments are very important .

Likely the one reading course is for IEP students whereas the other is for non-IEP students. Our school had considered separating the two groups at the grade nine level, but the timetabling wouldn’t “work”.

Eight students—makes me envious. My non IEP reading course got cancelled because it had only 8. The district cancelled all classes with fewer than 20!

It may very well be a decoding issue. I have two students who are two years behind in reading and it is because they can’t decode MS words and therefore their fluency is affected. They have become very proficient at guessing using context cues but have no decoding skills. I use PG for my reading program to begin with and then go onto fluency, study strategies etc. First, find out if he does have a decoding problem by just having him read his literature book out loud. Shay

Shay,

I am a parent of a 11 year old who is still having trouble with sounding out multi-syllable words. I have the Reading Reflex book. Would you recommend purchasing the Parent Support Materials or any of the Extended Support materials offered at readamerica.net?

I decided I needed to go through from the beginning just to make sure there were no gaps. The CVC section seems easy to administer, but I’m not sure how difficult it is to administer the later chapters, and what to do if the child needs more practice.

Any guidance would be helpful.

Thanks for your help in advance.

He has never had a formal evaluation of his reading. In 4th grade he took an IQ test and the woodcock Johnson achievement battery. His FSIQ was 95, and his broad scores were all 80 or higher with written expression being the lowest at 80. He did have some subtest scores that were in the 70’s but the school said he did not qualify for special ed. He did finally receive a diagnosis of ADHD, inattentive type to which all his problems were blamed on. We did try a few meds and they did not work. In 7th grade his independent reading level was determined to be 5th grade on the MAT7, that same year we hired a private tutor who did an informal survey on him and determined he was at the 3rd grade level. The tutor said he was a word guesser with no idea how to sound out words. She was able to work with him for a couple of months and got him up to about the 6th grade level but then had to quit tutoring. In 8th grade he again took the MAT7 and was determined to have an independent reading level of 5th grade, but on the MAT8 he scored at the 38th or so percentile on total reading. Since he scored in the average range on the MAT8 he was placed in a regular Lit/Lang class in 9th grade. He did pass these two courses but it took tons of work. All his teachers noted weak reading skills and most had a test reader assigned to him. His teachers feel that he has good comprehension but poor fluency, word attack skills, and very poor vocabulary skills. They feel that the poor voacab skills is due to lack of exposure since he spent a great deal of time in special ed. Once exposed is able to learn new words meanings although does have difficulty with multiple meaning vocab. He is going to have a nueropsychological evaluation this summer to try and sort things out. The person doing the testing has already reviewed his file and she believes he does not have ADHD but some other underlining processing problem. He does have poor memory skills, 6th percentile for verbal and 7th percentile for visual per the WRAML. On the learning index he scored at the 68th percentile though so we know he can learn with repeated teaching, the problem is high school does not always allow for this.

Sorry, I misread your initial post. It thought he was minimally delayed in reading. I agree with Shay; he has decoding difficulties with multisyllable words. He would benefit from Phono-Graphix.

Also, it may be that his neuropsych evaluation should include the Woodcock-Johnson Cognitive. Sometimes (as in the case of processing disorder) the WISC-R does not reflect true potential because of its relative lack of structure and because of its timing demands. Also, our assessment person (retired from the board but working in private practice with a psychologist) feels that the CTOPP in some areas can be used to identify LD when the W-J and WISC-R would not reflect it. She is pushing for the district to purchase and use CTOPP.

CAPD may also be a possibility; sometimes it is confused with ADD/ADHD in diagnosis. It can also explain decoding difficulties. Working and auditory memory issues, I suspect, are at the bottom of my son’s difficulties.

I am a Canadian Special Educator at the secondary level and would like to address your identification of “processing speed”(ps) as it relates to the other variables in your son’s learning profile. Should his ps difficulties be significant, he will benefit from systematic repetitive training in self-help strategies that mesh with the unique features of his approach to print & overall information attainment. This is best addressed initially in a small group setting with transfer to inclusive instruction. In addition, accommodations are successful when introduced one by one & evaluated in terms of usefulness to him. Students I have worked with have often been able to by-pass their weaknesses through a variety of accommodations that compensate for their weaknesses. A strong repetiore allows for handling higher readabiity text despite having skill delays. Examples: learning to skim & scan,focusing on contextual cues, learning to apply graphic organizers independently by knowing what types apply to particular types of information & using these instead of copying reams of notes, taping answers to exams, using technology such as DragonSpeak Naturally to overcome ps delays in thought processing due to over-deliberation during the act of writing, learning to visualize while reading, learning self-questioning techniques to direct the act of comprehension. A young adult reader who struggles with print presents a challenging skills profile. The unique skill scatter in addition to processing speed is generally clearly evident and I have found that program design that focuses on working WITH the student’s distinct style, rather than attempting to find ways to realign the student’s approach to that which is more usual, has been effective.

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First, they’re guessing at these kids’ reading levels, I’d bet my bottom dollar — and if you actually put those guys through a Woodcock-JOhnson (and with only 8 in the calss, they should be able to do it) Reading Mastery test, I betcha they’d be more than 2 years behind.
Secondly, this is a “the only way to get better at reading is to practice reading” approach — which is one of those dangerous half-truths in life. It’s true that you won’t get better at reading if you don’t practice it, but if your skills are not good, you’re not practicing a skill, you’re practicing pretending to have a skill. Our kids get really good at it.
Accelerated Reader is actually a wonderful program — *when* it’s done right, as PART of a reading program. (There are lots of ways to make it awful, though — making kids compete with each other, saying “you’re in fourth grade, so you can only read fourth grade level books,” not being careful so kids cheat…)

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