Although I am leaning toward taking my dd to Shelton in the fall, I am researching all of my possibilities at the schools in my town. The local private catholic school does have the Scottish Rite program which is on tapes the students listen with a “trained facilitator” who has been certified by Scottish Rite. She is not a reading specialist, however. My dd would be pulled out 45 minutes a day to work with this facilitator and the tapes. She would also received speech therapy there and they could work on some auditory processing as well. The principal was very willing to work with me. He is taking our test results and meeting with the first grade teacher and the dyslexia teacher. One thing that concerned me is that he said that kindergarten going into first grade is young to be diagnosed with dyslexia and that maybe she just isn’t ready to read yet.
Does this sound like something I should investigate further OR run as fast as I can away from? I really value everyone’s opinions. You have way more experience than I do! Thanks
Suzi
p.s….Shelton suggested either their program SEE, Alphabetic Phonics or LMB
I'm with Victoria
My daughter knew in kindergarten that she was ‘different’. Somehow everybody else ‘got’ the word wall and she didn’t. I didn’t really clue in until 2nd grade. Good for you and early intervention. I vote with victoria-the principal doesn’t really get it yet. and probably won’t.
Re: Reading specialist vs. certified Scottish Rite teacher..
I think the principal is right, for some kids. My daughter wasn’t ready to read in K. BUT, and this is a big BUT, she had all the prereading skills in place. In fact, my daughter did not read much more than my LD son did in K. She knew all her letters and the associated sounds, however. I assume for a diagnosis of dyslexia in K your child has difficulty with the underlying processing involved in reading. For those children, time will not make a difference. They need to have their underlying processing problems addressed.
I realize now that my LD son was probably two years behind developmentally by the end of K!!!
Here is an interesting article on diagnosis at early grades that relies on processing differences.
http://alpha.fdu.edu/psychology/comprehensive_test_of_phonologic.htm
Beth
I have heard many people speak very highly of Scottish Rite. Apparently (I am reporting second hand here) they use Orton-Gillingham approaches, which in general are good.
In particular, an awful lot depends on the “facilitator”. I would suggest having your daughter work a few hours with her and see how it goes.
Your principal is mouthing the party line from the memorization camp of so-called reading instruction — if their methods don’t work, it can’t be the methods which are perfect, so it must be a flaw in the child. He was taught this all through his teacher training and it has been the party line of most schools for decades, so you will not be likely to change his mind. Just do what is research based — and wait for him to tell you, after all your hard work, that it is just wonderful how maturity takes care of things.