LEXIA computer program

Lexia has several programs, including one called “SOS:” Strategies for Older STudents. It’s based on Orton-Gillingham principles and it’s very good — though it is a computer program, so for starters it can’t work with a student and it doesn’t have speech recognition so it can’t tell whether a student is reading/pronouncing something correctly or not.
What are her problems with reading?
If the school is trying to tell you “gosh, all these years of schooling and she didn’t learn to read, so… you go buy this software and that will take care of it…” I don’t think so.

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If your daughter is already receiving instruction in an Orton Gillingham or an Orton Gillingham based program, the Lexia computer program would be great as a reinforcement tool, not a substitution for good teaching. You can Email them at [email protected] and request a demo. The students who tried out the demo so far hasn’t needed any close monitoring. But a good teacher will always need to monitor to some extent.

Marilyn

She is dyslexic, just recently tested. Reading has always been difficult for her. She is slowly improving on reading the right words. she has little or no comprehension. They have modified her tests and her teachers will read them to her if needed. Thats all they have done so far. I recently asked the school to give me in writing what is available to help her improve her reading and comprehension skills. I’m still waiting. I have another meeting at school next week and I’m just trying to decide what to do. The speech and language teacher found out about Lexia and requested a copy for the school. She also told me where to call request a demo home version of Lexia.

The home version is basically the same as the school version without the record keeping and features to handle, say, 90 students on each disk. It’s much cheaper though still not pocket change for most folks — but hte difference in quality from anything else I’ve seen out there is significant.

How is her oral language comprehension? It sounds like the accuracy issues are the main impediment to her understanding.

Most schools don’t believe in reading remediation after fifth grade or so — if nothing else, the teachers don’t iknow anything about it which makes it hard to teach. It sounds like you’ve got an ally with the speech/language teacher — you might want to document your appreciation of her efforts to her & her bosses :)

Her oral language comprehension is a little better than her reading comprehension. Her comprehension is better when she can hear and see at the same time. She usually needs to hear several times before she really gets it. Pictures help her comprehension most of all. Do you know if this softeware can help improve her comprehension? Hopefully the school will follow through and get this. It will be a first. Thanks

The software doesn’t directly work on comprehension except that there are some sentence exercises. HOwever, it’s very consistent that when struggling readers get more accurate and fluent, their comprehension improves too. At New Community School, we went from 2 in a class to 5 in a class for our middle schoolers, and focused almost entirely on accuracy, decoding and fluency; we then took a hard look at gains in both areas. Comprehension went up about as much as the accuracy — because the kids knew what words they were reading and they weren’t spending as much brain effort on figuring out the words.
Comprehension can also be worked on with oral language at home a lot more easily than accuracy can — introducing new vocabulary, idioms, abstract ideas, and of course logical thinking.

Does anyone know if Lexia SoS for older student is comparable to FastForword’s Reading? The price is a fraction of FF Reading (about $800), especially when you consider that the family version Lexia will allow up to 3 children to use it.

I am not familiar with the FFW reading program — their original program did not include actual reading instruction, but rather worked on the sound processing itself. Lexia focuses on the reading skills directly but in doing so builds the auditory processing. THe original research on FFW and its breakthrough successes was also done on very young children. My inclination with most kids would be to work on the reading. (SOS is also more fun.)

Thanks for taking the time to reply. I downloaded the demo of SOS, but it is very short. I am now looking at their website to get a better idea of what the different games are like.