We will be moving our 10 y/o DD from a private LD school to a private christan school this next year. We just completed complete baseline testing to have a better picture of her current needs. She’s at grade level on math, way behind on writing, and still about 1.5 years behind reading (absolutely no growth this year – school financial problems, whole other story!). Anyway, we’ve hired a tutor to help with the writing skills (she’s at 1.5 for fundamentals, 4.5 for expression). I’m going to continue to work on math with her at home (strengthen multiplication, help her understand time and measurement, strengthen fractions — which I know aren’t in her long term memory yet, etc.) However, I’m not sure what to do to strengthen her reading. Suggestions? I’d like to be able to do something at home, so that we can still do swimming, chase bugs, things I think are important for her to do as well this summer! Thanks for your help!
Re: Advice, Please
P.S. Get a book she really likes. My son is reading Harry Potter to me. It is a stretch for him but he wants to do it. Last night we read a whole chapter (every other page) because he wanted to know what would happen (not like he doesn’t know—we’ve read the book to him and he has watched the movie a zillion times).
Beth
Re: Advice, Please
Beth had some great ideas about reading. Also check out Earobics and PhonoGraphix. Perhaps add little “incentives” for reading. For my son, depending of his intersts at the time, it has been extra allowance or working towards a special toy or a trip to the movies.
Also, be sure the Christian School is willing and able to provide accommodations so that you will have a smooth transition in the fall. Perhaps meet with next year’s teachers to go over her test results and IEP from last year so they are aware of your child’s needs. Perhaps try to get her extended time on tests, use of assistive technology—such as a keyboard. If it’s a school that prides itself on assigning lots of homework, then maybe a reduction in homework if you think that is needed.
LJ
Re: Advice, Please
She can do two or three one-hour sessions of reading tutoring a week, in the morning before going out or in the evening after a day of being a kid, and not miss a thing about having a real summer.
You can have a tutor come in if you can find someone who will do scientifically-proven reading programs, or you can do it yourself if she works well with you.
Reading aloud is an excellent and vital part of this, but you can also get in twenty minutes or so of skill teaching three times a week, and it can make all the difference in the world — learning how to really read instead of practicing the same mistakes over and over.
I’ve typed up some long outlines of what I do in tutoring, whiich is time-tested and proven very effective, and I’ll be happy to download these to anyone who is interested. Just email me.
Re: Advice, Please
Beth,
Are you using the white board with your son for Harry Potter?
(I keep wondering if my son will ever internalize these patterns enough that I won’t have to always remind him or point out the various sounds…. :-(
I’m glad your son has found a book he is excited to read! That’s awesome!!!
Re: Advice, Please
Actually, no, although I found it to be invaluable in the past. He now seems to be able to decode the words in context. He still doesn’t have the patterns internalized enough either, although he is better. I think the brief stint we did with Seeing Stars and Glass Analysis helped. He at least now recognizes “ing” as well as common multisyllable word first syllables like “con”, “de”, “re”. We abandoned the decoding work for comprehension work when the FCATs were looming.
I find that he handles the multisyllable words pretty well but has more trouble with the unusual (out of his vocabulary) one syllable words in the book. I think this shows that he still doesn’t have decoding down. Sigh.
Beth
Re: Advice, Please
Thanks to all for the advice. I do plan to do audioblox with her this summer — we haven’t done that yet. We already read each day, and will continue that. For some variety, I’m thinking about using an old “Hooked on Phonics” set that I have, which has the SRA stories and comprehension booklets. It starts at a pretty easy level and increases (and I know she won’t be able to do them all) but it would give her some short stories with comprehension questions to help keep those skills solid. Her comprehension is good, so am not too concerned about it — just don’t want it to get rusty over the summer. Once her writing skills are more solid, we’ll have the tutor work with her on reading, but until then I wanted to ensure I was keeping her on track.
Re: Advice, Please
Victoria
Could you please e-mail your outlines to me . Last summer my daughters reading level droped so much that I’m worried about this summer. Also she has trouble breaking down words like because and bench .I dont know if there are any clues to this or is it just reading these kind of words over and over.
Thank you so much for sharing something that could be so helpful!
Donna
Re: Advice, Please
Rowena My daughters school uses Rigby PM readers for the reading recovery program, These books are great because they are leveled. If you find a level is easy you can move up to a level 11 or 12 for example. My dd teacher says look for books she can read with no more than 5 word per page that cause her trouble. I hope this helps. I know with my dd I dont wan her to regress by reading books that and to easy. Good luck Donna
The easiest thing to do with her is to read with her every day. I would pick a book a little hard for her and then do every other page. Keep a white board handy to help when she can’t decode words. My son seems to do better if the word is written somewhere else. Spend a 1/2 a day doing this and you will see progress.
There are lots of types of reading instruction you can do at home as well. One of the most parent friendly is Reading Reflex.
Beth