We questioned the school about our daughters reading level when she started first grade, after pushing they decided to place her in reading recovery group, now three months later they are going to continue reading recovery Title 1 but one on one. We think we should ask for a assessment for learning disabilities but what age should she be to have effective test? Learning Disabilities run in the family and she has been identified as having a word retrieval issues. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Re: Request for Assessment
I have a nine year old dyslexic son. When my son was in 1st grade I had the school do an Achievement/IQ test.A year later I took him for an outside eval. by an educational specialist. To my surprise they weren’t giving him enough services. I am still fighting to get my son a good reading program.(Orton Gillingham or Wilson) My son can barely read. He is so smart. Please don’t trust the school to do what is best for your child.
Rachel
Also is Reading Reflex a good program for a dyslexic?
Re: Request for Assessment
Rachel,
My understanding is that Reading Reflex works for most kids. Some will still need Wilson (or something similar) afterwards, but RR-PhonoGraphix is inexpensive and certainly will provide important skills for any child who is not reading (as far as I can tell from reading the material and hearing others who haev used it).
Janis
Kerry,
I also have a daughter in first grade who is having a little difficulty with reading. To make a long story short, we did have testing done in the fall and she has an auditory processing disorder, which I’m sure is very common for LD kids, just not always officially diagnosed. Anyway, she was given the Woodcock Johnson-R and her reading scores just weren’t low enough yet to qualify her LD reading. She did qualify for speech/language, and that is how I’m getting her help with phonemic awareness and vocabulary, etc. You really have to know the ropes to get services at that age. If I were you, I’d go to the school and tell them you want to make a referral for testing. Ask for educational AND speech/language evaluations, as most LD’s are language based disabilities. Also, ask for the Woodcock-Johnson-III (or ask if the give it), because it also has subtests for listening comprehension and oral expression, which I personally think should be given to all children being tested for reading problems.
My other advice would be when they come back with the evaluation results, share them here (or with someone outside the school system), so that they can see if there is a way to qualify your child that the school missed (happens all the time). Sometimes you may have to go outside the school system to get adequate testing.
By the way, I recently purchased the book “Reading Reflex” which has the Phono-Graphix method (Amazon $12.75). This book is designed for parents, but many schools are beginning to use it because it solves most children’s reading problems with blending and segmenting sounds. You might want to give it a try.
Janis