I feel like I just got the run around

I think you need to request complete assessment. Put it in writing. If he has no phonemic awareness then he must be having trouble reading especially since his spelling is so bad. Some kids compensate by memorizing site words but since his spelling is so bad I don’t think that is what he is doing.

Helen

I hoe to heck you diodn’t sign anything!! Even if you did, you can bring the father in and have him re-request — please do!! But it will be easier if you didn’t sign.

Look, the school doesn’t want to spend time and effort, they don’t want to spend money, and they have already proved that they are not terribly competent anyway and they think negatively about their students’ potentials (surprise, surprise!). So if you will just shut up and go away, they can go on their merry little routine and your son’s educational chances can just flow quietly down the drain, exactly the way things are suposed to happen.

Read posts here from socks and others advising about legal rights.

In writing, request an evaluation. Be polite but let them know you expect it in a timely manner and that far too much time has been wasted already. List specific areas of concern, such as phonemic awareness, difficulty with wqritten work, and discrepancy between cognitive ability and written work as already stated by the English teacher. But also leave it open for any other problems thant may be found.

Next, take a good look at the remediation offered by this school. Since the kid’s own teacher is advising against it, it probably isn’t worth much — few high schools offer anything much useful, usually just more of the same and bandaids. So you do want his needs on record, but if you really want to get him help, you may need to step in yourself.
You can buy programs relatively inexpensively, or you can hire a tutor, or you can go to a reading center (not Sylvan etc.!) or combine methods. Your kid sounds like a prime candidate for a good phonics/phonemic awareness program. Shay and many others would recommend PG, many would recommend Lindamood-Bell, and I and some others here use some more classic materials which cover the same thing.
Decide what you have more of, time or money. If you have more money, the LmB seems to be doing very well for kids like yours. If you have more time and less money, contact Shay about how to do PG yourself, or me about how to combine other inexpensive materials yourself, and we can help you get this kid moving ahead. It’s a long road, but the sooner you start the sooner you’ll get there.

As usual, good advice in all areas. We all know the squeaky wheel gets the grease, i.e., services.

OK, I would like to know whether or not he can decode? If he can decode words successfully at grade level, that includes handling multi-syllabic words, then he must have some phonology skills. Spelling words has some overlap with reading decoding, but there are some differences, too. It is possible to have a spelling deficit, yet not a reading deficit. Spelling is not considered the basis for placing the child in an LD program. When spelling deficits are accompanied by other language arts deficits, then yes, we can place the child. Spelling includes a strong visual memory component, as well a the auditory.

If you are in the market for working a short while daily on remediating him at home, try looking into AVKO. Search on the internet and you should find this inexpensive program.

If he actually does read grade level materials OK (7th or 8th grade?), then he does not have a severe enough problem to get sped. designation for spelling alone. It is not possible for any child to read 7th -8th grade level via memorization. The number of multi-syllabic and content area words is far too great for any student to be successful reading from memory beyond, in most cases, the third grade level. Kids who cannot attack and decode words usually crash by 4th grade reading level material.

Though I believe Victoria’s methods are effective for kids who just have never been taught properly I do not think they are effective for kids who are severely dyslexic for cognitive reasons. To tell a laymom that her easy, cheap methods may help this boy may lead a confused mom down the wrong path. Other posts have indicated this kid may have underlying probs. I think first Mom has to find out whether the boy can decode and at what level and whether his probs are due to just disteaching or something harder to fix.

I have some of the materials Victoria uses. They are cheap but designed for a dyslexic child. Used systematically, especially one on one, I think a parent could very effectively use them.

Beth

I Agree with you Anitya!! Spelling will have to be done on parents time. In defence of the teachers they may not have the tools to help this student???

I guess I’m thinking that YES get the exact needs defined first, but re: school’s help, at this stage, is not going to be effective. I think also, the openminded approach of naming several different methods was fair. Parents have to be vigilant re: their children and follow up on the success ratio. We did LMB for 1 year then had my child re-evaluated to see the difference. It was significant.

Again, as you said, lots of issues are there and ALL need to be addressed.

Yes beth absolutely.

I think it bothers some teachers that moms can be effective. I think that is a sign of insecurity.
Victoria is rational and very secure.

This Mom is a stepmom starting with a 13 year old. The family has been thru a lot. He’s already been misdiagnosed ADD and fedup. She may only have one chance to get this kid on track before he refuses to try anymore and all of you are honestly saying the first thing you’d turn to is Victoria’s methods without finding out what’s wrong with him? I think that is loyalty to Victoria rather than the best advice to a newbie Mom on this board who doesn’t know methods or personalities.

You offer dissent but really very little actual help.
Are you saying have the child tested. Tested for what? This could be done at an LMB clinic. The reading reflex book has some excellent tests that help you to understand where the problem is. I discovered more about my son’s actual issues from that test than from the schools IQ tests.

You need to be specific. People need specific advice. Your advice seems to be don’t help the child yourself. Don’t take him to an LMB clinic.

Well then do what? Wait to fail? Have the school do more of their tests when they don’t seem to have the resources to do anything with the results.

Personally, I’d follow Helen’s advice first and request complete testing so you have some idea of what you are dealing with. There are some inconsistencies in the profile.

Then, if there is a reading problem, (and I suspect so) I would not rely on the school to help, especially for a 13 year old. Most schools stop remediating at the end of elementary school. And many schools don’t do a very good job in elementary school. If the family has the resources, I’d go for a tutor, a PG intensive, or even a LMB center. But if they don’t, there are good methods that a dedicated family can utilize. I’d probably be inclined to use PG for a 13 year old.

If it just a spelling problem, I’d follow Antiya’s advice, I’d get AVKO. I have the program and it is very good. It is designed for the older child who can read multisyllable words but not spell. It isn’t very time consuming and can be easily implemented at home.

In my experience and in the experience of a lot of parents on this board, parents need to take control of the situation. Often that means not relying on the schools.

Beth

His input mechanism is fine - that is, he can decode words he reads. I think he may be a bit behind others at his level, but not markedly so - he reads Lord of the Rings, Three Musketeers, things like that - no problems! But it is slow going. The problem seems to be purely in terms of written output - e.g. spells “skateboard” - “sakatbd”

Of course phonics does not serve everyone to correct spelling 100% of the time, but I would be happy if he could guess more accurately at least at the sound of syllables. Wouldn’t matter to me if he spelled “executive” - “egzekutiv”, because even that would be a huge improvement over where we are!!

I agree with you Beth. The only issue I would have with school testing right now is they tend to test, label, then stick in sped. I think that could be damaging for a bright 13 year old.

So test, yes, but don’t let them just stick a label on him so they can find a place to stick him.

He knows the sounds but he can’t segment.

If you ask him to say frog without the r sound I bet he can’t do it. I also bet he doesn’t get pig latin.

Hi Anitya,

I’ve come back to your post a couple of times trying to decide if I wanted to disagree with you. :-)

You state that it is not possible for any child to read at a 7-8 grade level through memorization alone. My husband graduated from high school, and then a technical college, and is the most well respected person in his profession in an extremely large city (other people continue to try to hire him away from his company, and he’s had people take a cut in pay to work for him so they can learn what he knows). His IQ in high school tested out at 175, and then 171 (they made him retake the test because they didn’t think the first score was accurate). The words he reads for his work are highly repetitive - as are many of the words in the school system, once the student is exposed to them.

My 4th grade son (the reason I am on this board) scores extremely well in reading on all the standardized tests (93rd percentile a couple of months ago on the Stanford 9) - but he can’t blend, and has extreme difficulty decoding. He has excellent rote memorization skills, and uses those to “read.”

My husband looked at me about a month into this school year, and told me he can no longer help our son with his homework because he can’t read the texts with him (probably because he hasn’t had to “read” so many of these words for a very long time).

So, as much as I don’t like disagreeing with you, there are exceptions to every rule, and they seem to run in my family. :-)

Lil

Lil

It is important to recognize that figuring out just the right materials & methods for a severely dyslexic student sometimes really isn’t cheap and easy.

The usual “brick wall” flies up there around fourth grade, but having seen my share of the older ones, there’s a little group with even better visual memories (and I’m sure other factors) who don’t hit “the wall” ‘til junior high or high school… or even college. There’s another common plateau around ninth-tenth grade level reading. I’d love to do a Gray Oral Reading Test on the kiddo just to see what happens. (Bring him by the college… students aren’t back yet and I’m BORED!!!)

Hi Sue,

I don’t know if your invitation for testing was to me, or not. But I seem to be the only one there. :-)

My son had the GORT-diagnostic done by the sped’s reading specialist in January of last year (3rd grade, 5th month; age 8 years, 3 months) - post meds. Here are his scores:

Paragraph Reading 5.3
Decoding greater than 3.3
Word Attack greater than 7.5
Word Identification 4.5
Morphemic Analysis 3.7
Contextual Analysis 4.3
Word Ordering greater than 7.3

Total Reading composite: 108
Meaning Clues Composite: 103
Graphic Phonimic clues composite: 112
Funciton Cues Composite: 106

I also have the Gray Silent Reading Test (GE 2.5).

I have the Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing:
Phonological Awareness - 91
Age Grade
Elision 8.9 3.7
Blending Words 7.0 2.0
Alternative Phonological Awareness - 97
Blending non-words 6.9 1.7
Segmenting non-words >14.9 >9.7
Phonological memory - 97
Memory for digits 6.6 1.4
Non-word repetition 11.6 6.4
Rapid naming - 109
Rapid Digit Naming 10.0 5.0
Rapid Letter Naming 12.6 7.4
Alternative Rapid Naming - 106
Rapid Color Naming 9.6 4.4
Rapid Object Naming 11.6 6.4

Test of Word Efficiency
Sight Word Reading Efficiency - 96
Phonemic Decoding Efficiency - 97
Total Word Reading Efficiency Score - 96

So, I have a very bright little boy who can’t decode words like “decision.” I don’t know if you saw that on another post - but I used PG with him over the summer. I know he knows the “de” and the “sion.” The only thing left to decode was the “ci” in the middle. He gave me four or five nonsense words - and the consonant after the “de” sound was always different - r, n, k, b, etc. He had NO CLUE what the word was. But because he scores so well, no one thinks he has a reading problem. I don’t know how to get past that.

People have very strong feelings about spelling and often very different feelings. I see spelling as a bit of a ‘bugaboo’. Some folks just don’t spell no matter what is done. I can’t whistle a tune after years of people trying to teach me how. Spelling can be like that too.

These days your stepson should be able to type his work and hit ‘spellcheck’ and everytime he does that, he’ll get some spelling reinforcement. Sometimes over the years of seeing words spelled correctly, spelling slowly embeds and the person learns to spell commonly used words. (to this day my own husband cannot spell unfamiliar words or ‘trick’ words)

Keep a word wall in his room. Put words on it that are commonly used so he can look up and see their correct spelling. You can try voice activation software for your computer but I don’t think that’s working well yet.

Good luck.

You teach that pattern directly. Multi-syllabic words are a bear because so many times the patterns we teach for single syllable words don’t hold up when surrounded by other syllables: as in the schwa. There are a lot of syllables in multisyllabic words that consist of a consonant followed by an “i” where the “i” is short, as in “decision.” Most of the time these two letter syllables or chunks precede a suffix such as “sion.” So, as I said, just teach this. A “natural” reader will intuit this and apply it correctly. A more LD-like reader needs to be taught pretty much everything.

I do not think P-G has a strong enough multisyllabic word strand. I have “Rewards,” which Susan Long nicely critiqued a couple of months back (no, it is not perfect, but it is nonetheless organized and offers most of the skills and examples of the words so it makes it far easier than creating your own). I also have another program that I have, God forbid, mislaid as of this moment. I was working with it, moved it and cannot locate it!

So, there are a small few programs out there that pick up this important piece that most LD youngsters must be taught.

I believe you are misunderstanding me.

I do use some relatively cheap materials — classic tried-and-true materials and methods that I and many others have used with many many kids. Some just mis-taught, and some very seriously LD, and yes, they succeeded — and yes, it was a LOT of work.

I never said it was easy, and I never said it was quick. I think you’re mixing me up with some snake-oil people out there, and please don’t.

I recommend a complete sequence of phonics instruction which is based on the same ideas as Orton-Gillingham. It consists of four books of around eighty pages each. For students for whom this isn’t enough, I also recommend a set of three other books of around sixty pages each, and if the student still needs more backup I offer to photocopy some out-of print materials I use.
I recommend a reading series based on high-frequency vocabulary and very consistent introduction and high rates of repetition. It consists of, for the first grade level only, twelve books of fifty pages each, plus if available several other supplementary books.
I recommend a detailed course of instruction in handwriting.
To anyone who asks, I send several thousands of words of lesson planning telling how to put all this together and how to add hand-made materials to further organize and back up the program.
This is in no way a fly-by-night offer or something second-rate.

I find your continued anonymous put-downs offensive; if you are the expert who knows better than anyone else what to do and can put us all right, then you should not be ashamed to admit who you are.

If he can read Lord of the Rings, he’s doing OK — although some more general help in phonics could make it smoother and easier and therefore mor enjoyable for him.

Spelling is difficult to remediate because there’s so much habit involved, but yes, I do think it should be possible. The concepts aren’t difficult, but changing a habit is a long hard uphill slog.

Here’s an approach that is what is called diagnostic teaching — combining informal testing with teaching of skills as you go. You can take ten to twenty minutes a day to do this, and make it a bit of a game and a contest to see if he can beat you and move on. It’s not the amount of time per day, but the *regular* steady practice that will make a difference.

For starters, try having him spell nonsense syllables. Step 1 would be CVC — consonant, short vowel consonant, the pattern in the real words cat, bed, tip, hot, run. But try nonsense words like fap, ren, fid, and so on.

If he can do this easily, move on to the next level. If not, he needs to practice. Say a word with continued consonants that you can stretch out, like ren, sim, vos. Say it slowly and clearly and really stretch those sounds. If he still doesn’t get it, back up and dictate individual sounds — fffffffff - aaaaaaaaa - sssssss
If he doesn’t get even that, go back and review a good basic phonics Book 1 (I can recommend a good one if you don’t have one). Be sure to do any review *orally* — the point is to *hear* the sounds, so he has to say them, listen to them, and then write. Many students can get the consonants but have a lot of trouble with the vowels. If this is what’s happening, get the Book 1 and do the short vowel chapter, again orally. Use all the real words in the book for spelling practice, and then make up nonsense syllables using the same letters to be sure he is going by sound and not memory. After he can do the continued consonants, then work on the stops in nonsense syllables like tig, dop, etc.

Once you have single consonants and short vowels, do the digraphs sh, ch, th, ph=f, qu=kw, ng (end) and x=ks (end), making up all sorts of short-vowel syllables like chup, ling, quosh, etc. If he needs more review, work on Phonics Book 2. Keep practicing until he can spell any short-vowel syllable with 90% accuracy.
If he cannot tell s form sh or th, or w from r, he may have a real hearing or auditory discrimination problem and it would be time to take this to the audiologist or speech therapist.

Now the hard part: blends. A lot of people have trouble hearing these and many people don’t say them clearly. Work on syllables like brom, clag, bilt, etc. Phonics Book 2 reviews all the blends and can be used for lists of real words and a sequence for building nonsense syllables. Again practice until he can spell these syllables 90% accurately.
If he has real trouble and really cannot hear the difference between b, br, and bl, (can he tell whether you are saying boom, broom, or bloom? Have him point to a picture of an explosion, a broom, and a flower as you say these words in random order) then you have spotted a real auditory discrimination problem, and it’s time to see an audiologist and/or speech therapist.

Then, the vowel combinations.
Do the silent e exercises in a phonics book, but use them for spelling:
cap - cape
hat - hate
fin - fine
and so on.

Then learn the ay pattern and spell say, day, play, and so on; ai for rain and bait etc.

And keep going through the phonics book, learning one common spelling pattern at a time.

The final and difficult part is to choose between spelliing patterns for the same sound: main or mane, cat or kat, and so on; and to learn irregular words like one, through, cough, and so on. The problem with the majority of spelling programs is that this is where they start, seven steps in. Once your son has worked through the regularities above, *then* he can move into a standard spelling program and learn the tricky bits.

The main thing is to work a little bit at a time but to be systematic and steady at it.

Thanks for the support, and glad you got the materials. Hope you get some good out of them. Ask me questions if there is anything you are stuck on.

Teaching by phonics isn’t new, in fact it’s around three thousand years old. LMB and PG may have good programs, and good for them — but they didn’t discover fire and invent the wheel. There are many excellent materials and programs out there.

One thing I forgot:

The multisyllable short/long vowel rule (obviously taught after the single syllable vowel patterns). I have heard from the people who use PG and RR that this is the weakest point in those systems. The fact the PG rejects verbalizing rules is a hangup there; this is a rule that has just too many cases to memorize without generalizing. I also understand tha OG and some other systems get into fairly complex things about “open” and “closed” syllables — which are correct, but perhaps a little more complex than absolutely necessary.

The rule in simplest form: there are “close” vowels” and “far away” vowels. “Close” vowel pairs are either next to each other or separated by only one consonant. “Far away” vowels are separated by at least two consonants. If two vowels are close, the first vowel usually makes its (so-called) long sound. (if they are next to each other, the second is usually silent as in rain and boat) If two vowels are far apart, the first vowel usually makes its (so-called) short sound. This rule works in at least 80% to 90% of cases and is quite easy to apply — all you have to do is spot vowels and count zero, one, or more consonants in between.

This explains the system of the words
hop - hope
hopped - hoped
hopping - hoping

mat - mate
matted - mated
matting - mating

sit - site
sitting - siting

In spelling, this means that if you have short vowel plus single consonant, you have to double the consonant before adding a suffix that starts with a vowel. Looking at the vowel pronunciation rule, this spelling rule is now logical.