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Dyslexia I need some advice

Submitted by an LD OnLine user on

I have a nine year old dyslexic son. My son is reading at first grade level. I have had an on going battle with the school. I had to hire an attorney. My main concern is to get him a good reading program.(Orton Gillingham or Wilson) The school says the reason he has made no progress is that he does not pay attention that he has ADD. I do not feel that my son has ADD.His pediatrician agrees with me.I am taking him in March for a Neuro/Psychological eval. to rule ADD out. I took him for an outside Education eval. two years ago and just recently. The problem is getting the school to follow the recommendations.
I am looking for some friends and some advice? Does anybody know if Reading Reflex works with children who are dyslexic ? I don’t have alot of money. I live in Norton, MA. Does anyone know of any good summer camps?Feel free to e-mail me [email protected] . Any advice will be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Rachel

Submitted by Anonymous on Sun, 01/27/2002 - 2:19 PM

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Hey Rachel!
1. I know a reading specialist in Texas who swears by reading reflex. States that it is most cost effective and is an OG based program.( she is a regular on the chat)

2. The only way to push the school into following the IEE reccomendations is to get them on his IEP. If they are? Then they are in violation of IDEA ,IEP sections.
3. I am also dyslexic,had a heck of a time learning to read,37 now and a pretty good nurse and mother of two very dysgraphic boys.

Please join us us tonight on a chat. www.net-haven.net sunday nights is advocacy night,but the topics wander around.It has been an invaluable support for me talking with others who have been there. It helped when I needed a friend:-) 9pm EST

Submitted by Anonymous on Sun, 01/27/2002 - 5:18 PM

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Reading Reflex works well for most kids. It certainly would be the line of first defense for a kids with reading problems because it is inexpensive. We fought our school system over the past few years, although I didn’t go as far as to take legal action (didn’t have the energy). Anyway, this year they finally have a good teacher (other one left) and she uses Reading Reflex and LIPS (Lindamood)—which are not the district’s programs (causing her some grief). My son was the only one of the resource kids actually reading close to grade level and that is because of our interventions, including Reading Reflex. (I pulled him out of resource room last year and partially homeschooled him because their inventions were so inappropriate).

My son has had multiple underlying sensory-motor issues so reading reflex alone has not been enough. With his auditory processing issues, he would have benefited fro LIPS but it wasn’t available except at the Lindamood clinics for a large sum of money. So we used Reading Reflex and have addressed his other problems with other therapies. He is now 8 and in third grade and reading very close to grade level. After all our work, his resource teacher this year told us he didn’t need LIPS.

Beth

Submitted by Anonymous on Sun, 01/27/2002 - 9:52 PM

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I would check into a cognitive skills program too. Audiblox is relatively cheap, about $100, and can be easily done at home. Right now a mother is posting a diary on their message board as she implements the program with her dyslexic daughter. I use the program with my entire classroom. Check out their website.
www.audiblox2000.com

Submitted by Anonymous on Mon, 01/28/2002 - 1:44 AM

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I do not mind spending the money if it works.Some of the programs I have purchased in the past I feel like I need A Masters Degree in Education to use them.My son is so frustrated. How does this program work? Rachel

Submitted by Anonymous on Mon, 01/28/2002 - 2:25 AM

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The program works on automizing the underlying skills necessary for reading, math, etc. You would need to work through this program with your child for at least 30 min. each day. It is not an easy and quick fix, but may well be worth the time and effort spent by both of you. Check out the site for yourself. I have corresponded with the people from Audiblox directly and they are very helpful.

Submitted by Anonymous on Mon, 01/28/2002 - 2:30 AM

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I second Abby’s statements. The program could well teach your child to attend. If I were a parent with a child in question, I would go this route first. I am not a believer in all the meds handed out so freely these days. The program states that attention and concentration can be developed, and I believe it. I have a few of my students in the class I am working with develop better attending skills. I believe that working one on one with Audiblox would even be better to develop these skills. I have a class of 20 to work through the program.

Submitted by Anonymous on Mon, 01/28/2002 - 5:15 AM

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ADD is a medical diagnosis the school has no business making; if you’ve got a doc saying it’s not ADD that carries a lot more weight … except with the teachers :(

I’m afraid that it’s often in your best interest to take the teaching reading matter into your own hands. If you really want to go easy on the money hop over to http://www.auburn.edu/~murraba/ and you can get that Master’s Degree equivalent online. Basically everything you need to know about reading is there, including my favorite “letterbox lesson” (which is actually a fundamental part of the Reading Reflex program — but the RR book is more ready-to-use).

If you think your kiddo needs the added structure and multisensory activities of an Orton-Gillingham program actually designed for dyslexics, I’d recommend looking at the Barton Reading System (http://www.bartonreading.com/) which is designed for parents, not trained teachers, or other materials you’ll find at www.rlac.com, or Karen Rooney’s “wordstorming” (http://www.krooney.com/ — and she’s got cool stuff for organizing and survivign school in general, too :)). TThese would be compatible with O-G programs if the school would provide ‘em.

A really important part of the success of *any* program is just how often and how intensely you work on it. Doing the best program twice a week will have limited results because the other days of the week the kiddo will have to be reading … using the old stratetgies that don’t work. (There’s a fair amount of research on this.) I’ve known folks who pulled their kids from school for a year just to get the skills up, so they weren’t having to juggle the homework and other academic demands while also learning the skills, and the kid can go back the next year able to get what he should get out of the regular classroom.

Submitted by Anonymous on Mon, 01/28/2002 - 3:28 PM

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I saw an intruiging book offered on her website called “Reverse Diagramming”. Unfortunately, the site doesn’t offer sample pages so I can’t get a good sense of whether this would be helpful for my child with language problems. Do you have any further information on this product? Thanks.

Submitted by Anonymous on Mon, 01/28/2002 - 4:00 PM

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From the description, it looks like a good approach to writing sentences, especially for visual-spatial learners who will struggle to remember “noun, verb, adjective” but will more easily remember a visual presentation that’s consistently structured the same way.
Lots of LD kids really benefit from learnign to write strictly formatted sentences in standard patterns (reminding me of the painful, but-I-thanked-them-later writing courses I took). This adds a visual element that I think would make it easier to deal with so the student could focus on the language part instead of trying to remember what came next.

Submitted by Anonymous on Mon, 01/28/2002 - 4:59 PM

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Reading Reflex is an excellent method for teaching students how to decode. The book is under $20.00 and is designed so a parent can easily implement the program. Several of my colleagues and I (we all took the training together since our district offered to pay for it) have witnessed phenominal growth in our LD/ED/OHI population over the last 2 years. We also notice that, once these bright kiddos can decode, the comprehension usually falls into place quickly.

Good luck.

Submitted by Anonymous on Mon, 01/28/2002 - 6:48 PM

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Look like something worth considering.

Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 01/30/2002 - 5:15 AM

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Beth we also are thinking of doing LMB but the cost is absurd (might have to go in debt) my son mainly needs V&V and seeing stars His comprehenson (both reading and listening) are very poor but his phonics are quite good (almost age level we did orten gillienham for 21/2 to 3 years) would reading reflex help him also what other theraphys did you do
Beth from FL wrote:
>
> Reading Reflex works well for most kids. It certainly would
> be the line of first defense for a kids with reading problems
> because it is inexpensive. We fought our school system over
> the past few years, although I didn’t go as far as to take
> legal action (didn’t have the energy). Anyway, this year
> they finally have a good teacher (other one left) and she
> uses Reading Reflex and LIPS (Lindamood)—which are not the
> district’s programs (causing her some grief). My son was the
> only one of the resource kids actually reading close to grade
> level and that is because of our interventions, including
> Reading Reflex. (I pulled him out of resource room last
> year and partially homeschooled him because their inventions
> were so inappropriate).
>
> My son has had multiple underlying sensory-motor issues so
> reading reflex alone has not been enough. With his auditory
> processing issues, he would have benefited fro LIPS but it
> wasn’t available except at the Lindamood clinics for a large
> sum of money. So we used Reading Reflex and have addressed
> his other problems with other therapies. He is now 8 and in
> third grade and reading very close to grade level. After
> all our work, his resource teacher this year told us he
> didn’t need LIPS.
>
> Beth

Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 01/30/2002 - 5:24 AM

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What if the comprehension doesn’t fall in place than whats next.
Kay Smith wrote:
>
> Reading Reflex is an excellent method for teaching students
> how to decode. The book is under $20.00 and is designed so a
> parent can easily implement the program. Several of my
> colleagues and I (we all took the training together since our
> district offered to pay for it) have witnessed phenominal
> growth in our LD/ED/OHI population over the last 2 years.
> We also notice that, once these bright kiddos can decode, the
> comprehension usually falls into place quickly.
>
> Good luck.

Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 01/30/2002 - 11:47 PM

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Good question! It can be taught, just as the decoding can be taught — but htere isn’t nearly as much information or materials available for it. THe general principle is to start with comprehension of oral language (if the kiddo couldn’t understand it if it were spoken and discussed, he’s not likely to grasp it reading it independently), and to work from concrete to abstract, simple to complex. This can be applied to vocabulary, getting literal meaning, summarizing, finding the main idea, finding supporting ideas, making inferences, separating fact from fiction, etc., etc. Priscilla Vail has a good book on comprehension (called _Reading Comprehension_) and Joanne Carlisle has some very good workbooks with a variety of comprehension exercises; there are also some on my site at www.resourceroom.net

Submitted by Anonymous on Fri, 02/01/2002 - 3:04 AM

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yes my son has listening comprehension problems (which seem to have gotten worse this year during the time he had no resource

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