resistance to programs from dd

Wow, it’s like you’re living with my boy too! My son is in the exact same spot. I am so fearful of 5th grade. In our district, after 5th they move to the jr. high for 6th-8th changing classes, taking notes (oh dear Lord), I am petrified. I really wish that I could offer you suggestions because I truly understand your concerns. We have not made any progress and the school has not offered much advice other than the teacher telling me this year that my husband and I have to take control of this boy and let him know who’s boss as far as all of this goes (great advice huh?) I can tell you the one positive thing that has happened is that he has been seeing a private child pyschologist and his attitude about taking risks has improved, he is not AS afraid to take chances and he gets to tell the pyschologist what is really bothering him without confrontation. To top all of this off, he absolutely HATES getting help. He hates being pulled out of class for Resource help and he hates having the spec. ed teacher hanging over his shoulder to help him out in the regular classroom. So how do you help a kid who doesn’t want help and shuts down when the going gets tough. So, I hope you don’t mind that I’ll be looking to take advantage of any advice that the others will be offering you.

Sounds you’re on the right track with home therapies, but I think you’re dealing with overload. Just getting through the school day is Herculean for these kids. I don’t wonder she is too burnt out by day’s end to do the home therapies on top of it. Can you just pull her out for the rest of the school year to give her some recovery and do the basic therapy work she really needs? (If she’d miss the school social stuff maybe she could just go half day and be excused from homework.) Otherwise, I might suggest waiting until summer—if she’s got a spring break coming up you could perhaps do the Reading Reflex then. (I don’t know if it’s worthwhile to do Audiblox for a week and then drop it until summer.) Also, if money is not an object, you could think about combining a trip to Disney World with five days at the ReadAmerica clinic in Orlando to get her off on a solid start. (I wouldn’t feel the least bit guilty about her missing school for this.)

Maybe you are trying to do too much at once. She isn’t used to working hard and doesn’t like it. One option would be to try one program first until you got her to accostomed to working hard.

I had much the same reaction from my son (then 7) when we did Fast Forward. He melted down the first day. We have done a lot of therapy since then. Here are some things I have done.

1. Make certain things just expected. My son knows he has to read every day, even on vacation. We do “buddy reading” —we read one, he reads one—which gives him a break.
2. Don’t give in to the whining on the expected things. I have sent my son to his room many times until he is willing to do what he should do. Over time, it becomes clear that there is no choice.
3. Look for ways to make expected things pleasant. My son goes to Neuronet therapy about every two weeks. One week he did so wonderfully that I spontaneously offerred to take him out for ice cream. Now it is a tradition. We have found a Dairy Queen that offers .99 medium cones in the middle of the day.
4. Consider bribery for some things. We got through Fast Forward two summers ago and PACE last summer with rewards. He disliked both of these programs and found them very hard. There is a limit I think to what you can expect without some sort of compensation. Audioblox might be in that camp for your daughter. On the other hand, we have done lots of PG work–it has just always been expected. It is not as painful or difficult to do as cognitive training.
5. Take into account your child’s tolerance. When we did FFW, my son had to take a break after each 20 minute segment. We seldom do more than 20 minutes of work at a time, often less. I will use a timer to give a five minute—otherwise it will go on forever. I also do some therapy in the morning (about 15 minutes because we have early school) to break it up as well.
6. I also have used threats, if truth be known. I told my son he would have to go to summer school if he wouldn’t work with me. I gave him a choice (he choose to work with me) but then when he balked later at working hard, I told him he could go to summer school all morning if he wanted or work two hours with me. Now this was in the summer so it wouldn’t help during the school year but I am sure if you are creative you can think of a worse alternative than working with you.
7. I control outside distractions. I work in a quiet area away from my other kids. I talked to the parents of the neighbor boy who was always ringing our doorbell. My son wouldn’t focus when there were better alternatives than working.
8. I work when my son is at his best even if it isn’t convenient for me. This is hard work and if he is tired, it is a futile exercise.

My son isn’t the easiest to work with either but out of sheer determination to make it work, it has. Someone told me when we were in the middle of FFW and having an awful time with his unwillingness to do it, that if your child had leukemia you would insist they get chemotherapy even though they don’t like it. Once I thought that way, it became easier somehow.

Beth

Thanks for the suggestions so far, as well as for making me feel less alone in this. I forgot to mention that I am a single working mom, so pulling her out of school is not an option, though if I could afford it I’d go part-time for a while to get to her at 3:00 instead of after 6:00 PM. Mornings are not an option because she definitively is NOT a morning person.

The length of time we work doesn’t seem to be the issue either, since if she hits something difficult in the first minute, she’s already a gonner. She melted down on me during the RR eval test when I asked her to say “pim” without the “p”. She was very angry that I was using “nonsense” words and got very stressed out when should couldn’t separate the sounds in her head. She had a similar meltdown last night when we were doing the VCC auditory test, and she had to change “rap” to “brap” and pronounce each sound separately. Phenome manipulation is definitely an issue, and if you try and do it with “nonsense” words, it seems to add insult to injury.

I’m already doing it in a separate part of the house, away from my other daughter and TVs and such. I may be able to take a couple of days during spring break and try something more intensive to maybe get her a jump-start on RR. That’s a good suggestion, as long as the other one is occupied (and not with something fun, or the one working will be doubly upset because it’s “not fair!!”). And perhaps I should let the Audiblox go until summer, and just concentrate on RR now. I was just so intent on getting her caught up before any more water passed under the bridge and she found herself floundering in 5th grade (followed by middle school).

Bribery/rewards may work well — I just have to figure out the dynamics with my younger daughter. I have been doing RR-only with her because she’s been pretty slow (in relative terms) at the transition to reading and writing English (also Bulgarian, arrived mid 1st grade at age 8), but I haven’t been able to identify anything deeper yet. But if they are both working on the same thing, they will compare notes and compare rewards, and if the younger one is doing BETTER, oh my gosh what a problem THAT will cause!! Though they are 2 grades apart (4th and 2nd) they are only 18 months apart in age, and are VERY competitive in many ways. Right now, because I am also doing Audiblox with the older one, it doesn’t matter if the younger one gets further with RR, because that’s all she’s doing.

I like the “this is expected” idea - maybe once I give her a couple of time outs, and she gets over hating me, she’ll buckle down. But that won’t stop her from getting stressed out when it gets hard. Maybe the child psychologist is a good approach for me as well, so that she gets more comfortable in taking risks and realizing it is OK if she gets it wrong in the safe environment just between us.

Another thing I have thought of (and this would stretch the wallet some) is if I could find someone else to work with her. It might not be an easy thing to find or afford, but that way we would remove the mother-daughter dynamic. Has anyone tried this? Any success?

Thanks,
Dorothee

We go to Neuronet therapy every couple weeks and I do think that is part of the reason it has been so successful for us. One option might be to find a PG tutor to see her every couple weeks, if you have one in your area.

It is difficult schedule wise to fit in a tutor so I think it is a tradeoff. I like the every couple weeks because of the accountability (on both of our parts) but not too much inconvenience.

My son falls apart too when things are hard. There are no magic solutions but I do know he is less that way now that he has had some success. My son hates nonsense words too but has grown accostomed to them. I would just explain to her that this is so that you learn the skills to be a better reader instead of relying on what you already know. I think it is important to break things down enough so she can have some success. I would go over things over and over again with PG until it is automatic with her. I know the book stresses moving on but for a kid like her some mastery I think is critical.

I think 6 pm might be too late for what you are attempting with two kids by yourself. I work too and have three kids but only one with special needs (and a husband too) and I know how challenging that can be. If I were in your shoes, I’d think about droppng the Audioblox until summer and focus on RR. We started on the therapy path during the summer and I think it is easier to insist then than after a long day at school. Then you have set up patterns that are easier to keep at rather than starting them.

If the girls are really competitive, then you might want to work with each by themself. Not the easiest with limited time but maybe then you can let each of them do some activity by themself—drawing, watching a favorite video or whatever for a half hour while you work with the other.

Beth

I very much agree with Beth and wondering. These kids are burned out at the end of the school day. I can’t really do therapy with my first grader because of her reading and math homework. That is all she can take. (I have dropped the spelling because I think the words are too advanced for her). If your daughter’s homework is above her level, I would try to get the homework eliminated, so that you can work on Reading Reflex. I agree with Beth that anything else should wait until summer.

Janis (daughter adopted from China as an infant, btw :-)

The time of day you are choosing to do the therapy is a really big issue especially if she is ADD-Inattentive. Does she have problems following through on other activities that take a lot of effort, but she is fine when it is something she wants to do?

You mentioned that her teacher said she is her own worst enemy..that happens when a child feels overwhelmed with everything. When my daughter was in 5th grade she had that overwhelmed feeling too, she gave up. We did a half school and intensive educational therapy program, we found out she was ADD at that time too because she was shutting down and resistant to therapy. We chose to do meds and therapy at the same time…what a difference it made in therapy and retention of what she was learning and her attitude….we made up for lost time…now it is two years later she is a different kid, she still has speech and language issues but she is happy and working hard and mainstreamed in all her classes.

Just some ideas. I had some same probs with son.
You might try with 5 minutes nad then take a break and eat a pretzel as was suggested to me. 5 good minutes is better than protracted battle and this is a trick I use on myself to to get on the treadmill. “I’ll only do 5 minutes, that’s all I have to do and then if I really can’t do more I’ll get off. I usually end up finishing my 40 min.) This works with son and he now does 15 minutes. We set a timer. I wish there was a good CD Rom CD for this boring stuff. There are some good “games” out there for math and my son will do those for hours. Why can’t there be a Reading Rabbit thing for Reading Reflex??? Sigh!!!
I have boys and I think it is easier to get them to do “teams” but just a thought. Can you have them teach each other??? Have a mutual goal that they both have to achieve and they have to present to you and if they suceed for the week then they get to rent a video or do something togeher as a family. Maybe even earn money to put in a fund for that Orlando trip at the end of the year?? Give them each a sound picture or whatever they have to learn and then have them teach theirs to the other one? can you harness that competitiveness??
The other thing, you might check with local moms homeschooling ld children. These moms may be willing to barter homeschooling your daughter with theirs in exchange for some time off on weekends or whatever else THEY may be missing. I know this is something I am setting up. My son is very social and does better with another child there to learn with and I need help getting him to those afterschool scout meeting, swim lesson kinds of things…. I have a husband but he has one of those 20 hour a day jobs so I can imagine a bit what you’re going thru…. Good luck.

There is prob a homeschooling BB or network for your area where you could post looking for someone like this, but also you might think of finding a homeschooling parent who might be interested in sharing cost of a tutour. It’s a bit of a tradeoff. I mean it’s not completely one on one but depending on child may not make that much difference and even help if theres some competition and mutual recognition of working on same prob together. (I’m not the only one..) Or find a homeschooling Mom with kids in highschool and see if she might do to tutour. If she’s taught RR to 4 kids and one ld she or”he” has a lot of experience and might be willing to tutour for a little extra money. Or even a competent teen in the family who’s been homeschooled in RR and good with kids. The local kids who’ve been homeschooled are amazing. And many are taking community college classes in sciences and math. They are soo good with my son when we get together for game nights.

I’ve taught older kids to read an doften they start with a lot of resistance. This is hard — and they *know* it should be easy. Many of them are absolutely terrified that they are simply too stupid to do this. Kids who don’t “play with sounds” easily are totally confused by being asked to say “pim” without the “p.” They *rely* on their grasp of meaning. THey don’t hear the words as a bunch of sounds — their brains go straight to the meaning.

What I do in this situation is what I learned to do when teaching terrified kids to swim. First earn their trust that I am not going to ask them to do anything they can’t do, for as long as that takes. This means keeping this reading thing ridiculously easy, easy, easy — but *doing* it for 15 minutes a day. OF course the trouble is that none of it is easy right away… but I would just have her build simple three letter words — all wiht the short a sound — and read them back to you… and work on a flash card deck with the letter sounds and 10 basic sight words. So a lesson would go something like this:
1. Go over letter sounds. Make a deck of cards for the first column of the stuff on p. 49 of RR — b c d f g h j k l m n p r s t v w. She may or may not know the rule for the two sounds of c and g — do everybody a favor and take the time to teach it now ;) For these cards, just have her say “/k/ or /s/” for c, and /g/ or /j/ for g.
See how fast she can get these sounds out. If she’s got them already, great! (You can tell her that some of my high schoolers didn’t.) If she knows all hte first column, then include the second column — I would skip “ce” myself because I wouldn’t want to toss in silent e just yet (the answers to the sounds has the sound being just the s sound).
2. have her build words *just wiht the short a sound.* The short vowels are the hardest things to hear the difference between (most of *us* can’t really discern between short i and sort e) so this way she doesn’t have to worry about the vowel. Tell her she’s going to build five words for you so whether it takes five minutes or an hour… hey, that’s her choice. (though if this is very hard for her, cut it to three :)).
It’s best to start with “Stretchable” sounds — so make the first words man, van, Sam. If she has trouble hearing which letters they are, stretch out the sounds so she can hear them. Then you can stick some of the “stopping” sounds at the end — sat and sap and map and mat.
If you go to http://www.auburn.edu/~murraba/ you’ll find some really neat ideas for getting kids to “tune into the sounds of words,” and at http://www.auburn.edu/~murraba/spellings.html some really fun key words to help remember the sounds for the letters” (scroll down to “list of phonemes, spellings…” for the link from his front page) IF you’re not careful you might get sillya nd actually get her smiling… I know that seems unlikely .
Then third I’d just go through a short deck of, say, five sight words. GO through them three times.

Another really good idea is to keep a notebook so that she can see her work and her progress. Have a three ring binder in sections. The first section is for the word building. IF she uses manipulatives for the letters, then you can copy the words she builds there; you can also have her practice writing the words and building as she writes. YOu can even make tiles or use plastic refrigerator magnet letters — I’d give her a choice of using those “baby letters” since that’s what she’ll say or writing out the words… but I”d have her use the letters for at least some of it since it will free up her brain to be thinking of the sounds instead of how to write the letters.
The second section is for the sight words — when she gets one right, first time, perfect, put it on the list and give it a check. When she gets five checks in a row (Five days in arow) give it a star and she can skip it for a week.

… okay, have I overwhelmed you? I’ll be at the Thrusday night chat at www.net-haven.net tonight (thursday) at 9 eastern, 8 central time if you want to ask questions or just tell me I’m nuts :)

Dorothee,
If your daughter is still willing to work with you (despite the tears and fights), get the book The Gift of Dyslexia and try doing the Perceptual Ability Assessment and Davis Orientation.

This problem of “meltdown” and low tolerance for frustration is very common. It really isn’t something the child can control. In a way it’s like a phobia — they just freak out and become overwhelmed. The Orientation can make a world of difference. Also, the book contains a stress-relieving exercise called “Release” that is a big help, too.

If the Orientation works for you, then you might find that the Davis approach for reading is better for your daughter, too. Sue J. is right that kids like this rely on meaning, so trying to break down the sounds of words can be taking them backwards — your daughter’s anger at you for using nonsense words illustrates the problem. Instead of the phonics helping with constructing words, it is taking away from the goal. The Davis methods focus on developing visual tracking, recognition, and comprehension skills and kids who fit this thinking profile often move very rapidly, especially at your daughter’s age.

The Davis program is very compatible with Audiblox, by the way — so if the Orientation works to help your daughter control her frustration level, then you can probably still use the Audiblox materials. Reading Reflex is a very different approach, however — so I don’t know how the two would mix.

There really is no one right answer or approach for everyone. I do think you will find it worthwhile to get the Davis book and give it a try.

The only thing I might say is that you say you want to ‘get her caught up to grade level’ now. You don’t say what grade level your daughter is reading at but it isn’t always the case that any given child can catch up to grade level over a matter of months - no matter what Reading Reflect and Audioblox promised you. Your daughter may or may not feel the pressure of that expectation.

It can also be true that not every program was meant for every child - again no matter what they promised you when you acquired these programs. Your daughter’s resistance may be a signal that the approach of these programs isn’t working for her.

My own son had a severe reading problem that was unresponsive to all the many programs I put him through. What it came down to was me reading out loud all his class reading books to him. I sincerely hope your daughter’s story proves different than ours.

Good luck.