visual processing, Tufts double deficit, Rave-O,

here is a quote fromTufts University website about RAVE-O and Maryanne Wolf,

We are training the eye of a child,” said Maryanne Wolf, “to perceive the most frequent letter pattern chunks in the language and to recognize them so quickly that when an unknown word is encountered, the child sees the known patterns and doesn’t have to sound out each part.”

this is the million dollar question and issue as far as i am concerned

can we get these kids to see the orthograhphic patterns in unfamiliar words

such as reading /found/ then coming to the word /stout/ and actually recgonizing the /ou/ pattern

or what i call transferring the pattern, good fluent readers do it with no effort, no instruction,

they just do it

my thoughts are that if you got the kids segmenting at age 5 and got them into code that involves more then one letter

ou, ea, au, ie, ow, ir, eigh, ough, igh etc at age 5

possibly some of the code transfer problem would take care of itself,

trouble is, these tough case dyslexic readers do not get help till they are 8 or 9 and for the code challenged kids this may be too late for complete fluency,

we wait way too long for rememdiation, better to teach segmenting at age 5, i mean really teach it, and then get code in front of all kids,

avoid remediation, instead, let us call it instruction,

prevention is a better term,

libby

This is a fundamental problem for my child. He has a grade level sight vocabulary but still doesn’t transfer what he knows easily to new words. And I agree with Libby that good readers do this naturally. I have a six year old who does this easier than my LD 10 year old, despite much instruction.

I think there is something to this approach. I used Glass Analysis for awhile with my son last spring, combined with some Seeing Stars, and saw small improvements. We didn’t do it for very long because our standardized exams called—and we switched to reading comprehension. I have been using AVKO’s spelling program with him this summer combined with some exercises on prefixes and suffixes in a phonics book. Again, I see small changes. By small, I mean he now recognizes prefixes and suffixes—re, dis, ing, ed, er, instead of sounding them out. I don’t know if we have had as much luck with vowel patterns.

I have Rosner’s book and it appears to be based on the same principles.

One of my son’s therapists told me that the problem she has with OG type approaches is that good readers do not read that way—knowing a bunch of rules—they look for patterns and automatically apply what they know. The question for me is whether we can duplicate this more natural process with LD children.

I have read the articles on RAVE-O and it sounds interesting.

Beth

I know nothing about RAVE-O, but of course normal readers do not read like dyslexic readers and don’t have to learn like that. Provided they have good instruction and not some poppycock like whole language, they will eventually learn the code and be able to just look at words and not sound them out for the most part. They don’t need to learn rules like OG or the feel of what their mouth or tongue are doing like LMB, because they are wired to more easily assimilate the rules and structure of written language.
If some system can help them very early, like an early intervention in motor skills does for some kids with cerebral palsy, it is possible that early on the brain *could* be rewired by this early experience. The young brain is quite adaptable and maliable.

Now I don’t know if RAVE-O does this, or how many kids get dxed early enough as dyslexic. I don’t know if some of the resistance to early dx is due to not really being able to tell or having hopes they will pick up later or some degree of denial or a combination of factors.

—des

I think the lack of early diagnosis is because the typical way dyslexia is defined. It is typically defined in terms of an unexpected difference between achievement and potential, usually operationalized by an achievement reading test(s) and IQ test. Since children in K and first grade typically can’t read much such a discrepancy formula practically guarantees that dyslexia won’t be diagnosed early.

Some have advocated a more processing oriented definition to dyslexia. In this view, children who have significant phonological processing deficits would be defined at the very least at risk for dyslexia and of need of appropriate intervention. To me, this is a much more logical approach and one that will spare many children failure.

I realize now that my son was years behind by the time he was in K in prereading skills. He didn’t appear that behind—so he couldn’t read, many children do not read in K. The difference was clear by the time he finished first grade without really learning to read—despite being placed in a resource room program.

Beth

Part of our Orton-Gillingham program includes making “drill decks” of both common letter sequences and, especially, the common “exceptional” ones, so we’re going through flashcards for a minute or two to drill “tion” and even that “ti” and “ci” often stand for “sh” (all of those ‘tion’ words and spatial and vicious and special and nutritious). This comes after the basics and helps the skills transfer into fluent reading, and some kids don’t really seem to need it and others do.

My son is in vision therapy and we are also doing audiblox. I have seen both programs use techniques that require the child look at words/letters quickly and remember what they saw after it is taken away. This is also used in seeing stars but I don’t think there is an emphasis on speed.

We have one exercise in vision therapy that involves a tic tac toe board with various xs and os marked off. I show this to my son for less than a second and he has to fill out what he saw on a blank tic tac toe board once it is taken away. We do another exercise with 4 large random letters or numbers in a line that I flash quickly and then he has to repeat what he saw forwards and backwards. Then there is the CD vision builder that also works on looking at words and letters quickly and remembering what you saw.

He is quite good at this kind of thing and is a very good reader.

I do think it is interesting that so many various programs seem to incorporate this type of exercise.

Although RAVE-O, nor Speed Wizards, are available, if you read through the RAVE-O research papers you’ll learn that the Speed Wizards drills are based on Phyllis E. Fischer’s “Speed Drills for Decoding Automaticity” program that’s published through Oxton House. If you do a Google search you can find their website.

In my opinion, the closest thing to the philosophy of RAVE-O (and I’ve heard MAW & colleagues talk about it several times) is an approach called onset and rime combined with analogy. It is well researched and is available through the activities in Cunningham & Hall Month by Month Phonics for the Upper Grades in the section about Brand Names. Also the Benchmark School in PA has a structured program which uses this approach. It is an inexpensive and highly effective program. What this approach does is promote fluency and automaticity for folks who can NOT deal with the individual sound level.

I’m willing to say more if there’s interest. I check in sporatically so be patient. LD

http://www.oxtonhouse.com

I’ve got an article by her about fluency on my site in the reading and spelling section (http://www.resourceroom.net) (reprinted with permission of course ;))

I like Dr. Fischer’s Speed Drills quite a lot. They were relatively inexpensive to purchase and I think they are helpful. Research seems to back timed rereadings (example: programs like Great Leaps). And I think that for kids who have resistant reading difficulties, concentrating and drilling on these difficult orthographic patterns can be helpful. And speed and timing are helpful for RAN.