Shay, Please Help!

Hi Rowena,

What is the age of your daughter and how far did she get in the Slingerland program. You can probably move quickly through RR if she has a good foundation. There is another writing program called Strengthening a Students Writing through Focus by William Spivey that is good to teach kids how to structure their sentences and writing…You can find it on the Web under it’s new name “Writing Express.” If you can give me more details on where your daughter is I can assist you more.

Also how is she on her vocabulary and reading comprehension, and fluency in reading? Have you done Read Naturally at all?

Hi Patti,

My daughter is 10, and she has been in the Slingerland program since November 2000. We’re going to be visiting other local private schools with the thought that its time to move from the LD school. They aren’t meeting her needs well anymore (financial problems have caused program and staff cuts), and the social side of the school is becoming a hinderance (lots of kids with behavior problems and no staff to deal with the issues).

When we enrolled her in this school, she was in second grade and wasn’t reading. She is now reading at about grade level (4th grade). Her vocabulary is strong (tests at about high school level!) and her reading comprehension is good as well. She can easily read the Boxcar Children series, which is a little below grade level. She struggles with spelling, still functioning at the phonetic spelling level. She’s had almost no instruction in written expression — they do no true writing at this school, because many of the students truly aren’t capable of it. I’m grateful that my daughter does have the capability, just needs the instruction!

My goal is to help her transition successfully to another school, and to keep her skills up so that she can be successful. I’m considering using either PG or Seeing Stars (I have both) to help her build on her Slingerland and help keep her reading level up. I’d also like to use those programs to help her with her spelling. I’ve gone ahead and ordered the Step Up to Writing manual and reproducibles so hope to figure out what I need to do to implement that program. In addition, we’ve been doing Great Leaps Math and Reading to help build fluency. I’m hoping to not add more than 1-hour per day in additional work, on top of the 30-45 minutes per day homework she has.

I haven’t tried Read Naturally, could you tell me more about it? I will look into the Writing Express program, as well. Any suggestions on the best way to implement these programs, or things I should consider, or pitfalls to watch out for, would be greatly appreciated!

It sounds like she got a lot of good out of the Slingerland, and at least you can be grateful to the school for that, and move on.

One little fact, but I hope it’s not a problem: Boxcar Children is more than a little below grade level, it’s quite a distance below. The first book, titled “The Boxcar Children”, is high Grade 2/ low Grade 3 level. The others may be slightly higher, but I believe definitely below 3.5. The author wrote the books specifically for kids with very limited reading vocabularies to be able to read a chapter book. As your daughter’s present grade level is 4.5, that’s a fair distance below. Now don’t panic!! Is she reading it as a text with you, or independently? For instructional level, you should try to move up to something just a bit more challenging as soon as you can (gradual, steady steps are far far better than sudden jumps.) On the other hand, if she is reading it for independent reading, that’s *good*. Independent pleasure reading level is always below instructional level; instructional level is your top speed, the level where you are pushing hard to learn new things.

Just one suggestion: pick a program for each area — one for reading/decoding skills, one for comprehension if you think necessary, one for developmental reading/ massed practice/vocabulary, one for writing — and then stick with it. Give a program a month or two to get in gear and start working (unless you have total disaster of course). Quit only if a real serious try shows no results. Once you get moving, keep at it. You can mix programs that teach different areas — a good phonics program and a good developmental reading basal complement each other, for example. But try to avoid stopping and starting and changing programs more than necessary.

Read Naturally helps kids who are struggling with reading fluency. I have used LIPS, seeing stars and Read Naturally as part of a whole program. I got into PACE later on but I found the kids who used Read Naturally made better progress than just using straight LiPS and seeing stars. Read Naturally uses timed readings, also the child does writing as part of the program. They write briefly what they know about the subject before they start reading and then they do a minute timed reading and the errors are taken out. Then 2 or 3 repeated readings are done along with a tape and a hot time is done. This is where they read as fast as they can to beat their cold time. Usually the kids go up quite a bit and they are jazzed. I have them answer comprehension questions then I have them write. I do mind mapping and help them with idea and sentence formulation eventually creating a paragraph. I love Spivey’s program and he is very helpful. I have been trained in LMB programs and Orton Gillingham programs….and I am becoming an SLP. You can read more about Read Naturally on their website. Hope this helps…Nice to meet you..

I have a child that is also in 4th grade. Unfortunately, he is not near grade level but more likely late 2nd or early 3rd. In your post to Rowena, you suggested to pick a program for each area — what programs have you found success with for each of the areas you listed. I am 95% sure that we will go to LMB for lips and seeing stars for his decoding skills/reading. I feel he would benefit from this but would also like input as to the other areas.

Victoria,

She was reading the Boxcar Children early this fall, as independent reading (book reports are due each 6 weeks). I have her read them aloud to me in the car as we make our daily 50-minute drive — that way I can hear the fluency, inflection, level of difficulty,etc. These were fairly easy for her to read — with maybe an occasional word with which she needed help. I haven’t found a book series to use with her for instructional level, just try to keep putting interesting, challenging books in front of her. If you know of a series for her level, I’d appreciate suggestions!

I’ve got the Reading Reflex Manual and the Seeing Stars Manual and have been debating which one to use for her. She has strong decoding skills, but isn’t very fluent, and her spelling is awful. We will continue with the Great Leaps programs, she enjoys those very much. We are also going to add the Step Up to Writing Program, with Shay’s guidance.

I appreciate all of your advice! You are all wonderful!

Thanks for the nice note. As far as reading, if the Boxcar Children is easy for her (as it should be, good!) try her on Little House on the Prairie. In case you don’t know them the books are an awful lot better than the TV program. She might also like The Borrowers. See if you can get your hands on Owls In The Family and The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be by Farley Mowat. I can’t think of any others at the moment but ask me again especially after I unpack the bookshelf.

I haven’t used LMB myself but have seen good results and have heard good things from other people, so that covers the central core.

For independent reading and massed practice, I use old basals for Grades 1.6-3 (There simply are no commercial books that have limited enough vocabulary combined with long enough stories and sufficient repetition.) You can go to your local used book store or Amazon etc. or a school’s discontinuation sale and simply choose a series whose content you find passable. You can tell it’s a planned developmental series because there is a large mass of reading (by Grade 2, alternate pages are solid blocks of text of several hundred running words with pictures only on the facing page) and because there is a planned word list in the back, usually based on high-frequency vocabulary. The point is *not* to memorize these words directly, but to learn them through real reading practice and decoding in real life terms, on the fly. By upper Grade 2, you can use the Boxcar Children as well.

For spelling, I usually work in parallel with my phonics program; see my note last nightm I think in answer to Belle.

For comprehension, I misplaced the really good program I once had and the publisher is out of business, so I’m still looking. I use workbooks that go with the old basals I’m using, and these are OK. Out-of print, dug up on Amazon z-shops and photocopied. I’m also considering some othe workbooks available commercially but haven’t found anything yet that’s at a real Grade 2 level, other than the old workbooks. We also do a *lot* of oral comprehension discussions.

Other people here and on Teaching Reading have posted thoughts on creative writing programs.

For handwriting, I do this by myself. Some of my old posts go over systematic approaches and you’re welcome to use these outlines. Again still looking for a good published program.

Victoria -

Thanks for the suggestions on books. We’ve got The Borrowers and The Little House on the Prairie series — her older sister read them, just didn’t think of them. I will look for the others as well!