reading programs

Buy the book reading reflex. It is a very straighforward well researched method that can be used by anyone.

I am a mom and I was able to teach my son to read with it when the schools and tutors failed.

Many here have had success with it.

I second the recommendation to get a copy of “Reading Reflex”. It’s less than $20 in most bookstores.

The company now has a parent supplement available for $59 that is coordinated to “Reading Reflex”. Website where you can purchase the supplement is http://www.readamerica.net .

Just keep in mind that you would not expect a child to complete every worksheet in the supplement! The supplement is most useful for providing you with additional instruction in how to teach advanced code, and for worksheets to reinforce and review advanced code.

Nancy

Your child is entitled by law to “a free and appropriate education in the least restrictive environment”, which means that if your son is in public school, the school must provide the reading instruction or find a placement where he can get that instruction. You may want to take that up with the school administration. At the very least, they should provide a tutor.

Most teachers who specialize in reading instruction have advanced certificates in the field or masters degrees. It really is a specialized area. There are many methods out there to reach the wide variety of problems and learning styles of students, which is why teachers specialize. It is nearly impossible for the well-meaning and caring parent to find and teach the best method for her child. It takes a great deal of training to diagnose and teach reading disabilities. In my school where all the teachers have masters degrees in special education or related fields, we frequently use several different reading series in a class, and we have teachers who specialize in reading for the very difficult cases. So I strongly urge you to find an Orton Gillingham center or tutoring center that specializes in learning/reading disabilities.

If you must do it yourself, you have not stated whether his reading problems are with decoding (reading the sound and words), fluency (speed and ease of decoding), or comprehension. For decoding and fluency, Glass Analysis is a flashcard system works well and is easy to use, but it doesn’t address comprehension. I wrote a spelling series, Looking Glass Spelling, based on Glass Analysis that may help you. See my website www.gwhizresources.com to view a sample chapter of level 1. Great Leaps is a very good series for improving fluency. My school uses the Caught series for lower level readers for comprehension.

I wish you luck.
Fern

Yeah, well I think that though teacher’s go and get masters degrees in reading, most of them don’t know all that much about it. I had about a semester of OG and it is more than most special ed teachers ever get. Most reading specialists won’t know PG, OG or LiPs.

I think she should give Reading Reflex a try, as it makes more sense than a lot of the phonics programs out there. (There *are* some others but I don’t think she should have to look around.)

If the kid doesn’t respond, she hasn’t invested much and might seek out someone trained in LiPs. I think OG would be good if the kid gets the basic code stuff but can’t seem to get the advanced code. If the kid is not hearing the sounds, he/she needs LiPs. If the kid responds to a $20 program, then she hasn’t spent an arm and a leg for nothing.

Though I would agree that LiPs is not for the faint of heart. Some parents have gone thru the Wilson three day program, and even done the LiPs training. Though I am a teacher, I am not of the opinion that this is some secret code that parent’s are not capable and should not be allowed to learn. Some parents won’t want to expend that sort of time and energy, indeed might not have the time.

—des

As far as the schools doing it, they SHOULD but I’d say “good luck”!! My nephew is dyslexic and was in a very good school district (supposedly). Anyway they are NOT required to provide “what works”, I mean maybe they are but they you’d be hard pressed to write that in an IEP. I helped advocate for him and the IEP was a joke. His mom mentioned OG and they said “It’s old”. And i gave some updated versions, “no they didn’t have anybody that did that” nor did they have anyone trained in LiPs.

I guessed the problem was decoding but if it is something else I agree you’d have to use something else. Verbalizing and Visualizing (LMB) is about the best thing I have ever seen for comprehension, and very assessible to parents, imo.

—des

I was assuming that the child was probably in a private school which has no obligation to teach special ed., Fern.

I’d have to agree with des, we just don’t have LD teachers or reading specialists trained to properly remediate reading disorders in the public schools, in general. I know there are next to none (besides me) in my entire district. Unless districts go to the point of bringing in and requiring teachers to learn one of the research based methods, we are not going to see remedial reading instruction improve. Most teachers simply won’t go out and find and then pay for the expensive training themselves.

Even if you train a whole district, you will have a number of teachers who do not buy into the new methods. You will have some who just do not understand it and do not teach it competently. And you will have some with good intentions who have too many kids on their caseloads to do any good.

So my advice to anyone is, either find a private tutor who is trained in one of the best methods or the parent can get the training themsleves if they feel thay can effectively tutor their own child.

Janis

Yeah, I forgot to mention to stupid IEP goal for my nephew. “will *tolerate* decoding for ___ minutes.” Now how’s he spose to tolerate what he doesn’t even know how to do! This was a “good” school district. The only time he got any type of decent reading instruction was in a private ld school where they used Spaulding (OG based). His current HS has some copies of Wilson but they don’t teach the folks how to use it or provide them with the outside training. So it would be up to someone to take the incentive (and $) to do the outside training themselves. Good luck. I don’t know who all these reading specialists are and where they are in this district (or the supposed good ones) that they weren’t working with this kid in techniques that work, instead of making up silly goals like the above! So where are they? This kid is dxed dyslexic!!

So yes, the schools *should* be by and large I’d say they aren’t. I didn’t assume the kid *was* in a private school but somewhere where he wasn’t being worked with like the above example.

I’d agree to what Janis suggested. I think there are parents who can’t work with their kids as the kids won’t tolerate it and vice versa. There’s another case where you’d need outside tutoring. I don’t buy the notion that this is some skill that requires years and years of training to teach and is too complex for parents to teach. A 3 day seminar in LiPs will prolly teach you more than most reading specialists in the public schools.

Many won’t want to or can’t for other reasons. And there innumerable reasons that are valid. But that’s another subject.

—des

<<Yeah, well I think that though teacher’s go and get masters degrees in reading, most of them don’t know all that much about it. I had about a semester of OG and it is more than most special ed teachers ever get. Most reading specialists won’t know PG, OG or LiPs. >>

So what ARE teachers in Graduate programs in Reading being taught?

I think a lot of them are teaching balanced literacy (a form of whole language thinly disguised).

My dd is a remediated moderate dyslexic ADHD’er. She is now reading and writing well above grade level, but the ADHD is still there.

One of the best pieces of advice I’ve heard was university based reading clinics. The tutors are students but the programs/cases are monitored by the professors. Fees are on a sliding scale and the reading profiles should be comprehensive, better than anything I’ve seen out of my dd’s school. There is usually waiting lists so that tells you something too. (My dd’s initial reading profile was done as part of a comprehensive private neuropsych eval. and was superior to anything I’ve seen since from her school.)

We went with a private tutor and found her by searching on the International Dyslexia Organization’s web site (interdys.org?) and locating the local chapter reps who in turn gave us contacts. The tutor we landed on was and remains a godsend to our family and my dd. She wouldn’t have taken dd w/o the comprehensive testing though.

This tutor did Orton with dd and explained that Wilson, Reading Reflex, LMB and FFW are all Orton-based methods which is breaking down the 40something letter combinations and their corresponding sounds which make up the English language. Some like FFW may be better for kids with CAPD, but they are derivatives of Orton. Teachers may have different preferences or experience levels with these programs, however.

I pretty much agree with everything des and some others wrote. I have advocated tooth and nail with our school district for four years now. It is a great school district, leading scores in state testing, high real estate values b/c of this, etc. They have done what they can for my dd under the chevy not cadillac remediation legalities they operate within. BUT had I relied on them to remediate dd, she would most definitely not be where she is today. At my dd’s declassification meeting, the sp ed director proudly announces that they now have an Orton specialist at one of the FIVE schools. So that is one teacher for a district pop. of 3,000. So, for the 5% or so of kids who would really benefit from OG that would leave that one teacher with an impossible 150 kid caseload. That was two years after the same director assured me verbally (not on the IEP) that my dd would be recvg. an Orton based reading program from them - that never happened.

I remain hypervigilant about my dd’s education to this very day. Good luck with all. And yes, I would’ve tried Reading Reflex with my dd if I couldn’t afford or find the Orton tutor. But that wouldn’t have been a good situation for her or me given her other issues at that time.

The University clinics are good to try anyway. That’s where I learned the bit of Orton that I know. I worked with someone and the prof worked with me in Orton. But I’m sure it was something of a crap shoot. The school didn’t teach Orton in the reading for special ed kids. There was some mixed phonics, word families, even a tachistoscope thrown in for good measure (keep in mind that this was 20 years ago maybe). I’m sure now they are doing the “balanced” reading. (None of this has much of any good research behind it.)

OTOH, NM university in ABQ has a course in Alphabetic Phonics. This has definitely not drifted down anywhere to the public schools.

There *are* some sound phonic approaches out there. It’s just that they don’t seem to have drifted down to most of the public schools. I was in a local teacher store doing spy work :-) when I saw the all the crap that was out there. I kept wanting to blurt out: “Do you know what you’re buying doesn’t work?” (The math shelves were equally full of drek that’s the equivalent of whole language for math.)

I don’t think we should be asking for cadillacs, running model Toyotas would be fine!! :-)

—des

My grad program in education was a joke.

We had a “methods of education” class. The professor lectured us about one method each day. He lectured us the first day about the discovery method and told us how wonderful it was. He lectured us the second day about guided discovery and how it improved on discovery. And so on. Finally on the last day he lectured us about the lecture method and told us it was absolutely dreadful.
Nobody else even commented on the illogic of this.

We had a “philosophy of education” class in which only two of us were able to maintain a logical argument; the others shouted down the professor with emotional reactions when he made a controversial statement in order to try (hopelessly) to lead an adult discussion.

We had a number of “methods of teaching subject-matter” classes. These all seemed to involve pasting things together or doing a sample lesson which involved having the class play some sort of game. In one case there was a game which had a mathematical base. Having a math background, I immediately saw that the game was fixed. The presenter told us we could change the rules if we wanted to; I raised my hand and took her at her word; she cut me off and went on with it with the fixed rules anyway. In another case we were blindfolded and encouraged to smell and taste unknown substances; having a background in both sciences and art I know how very dangerous this can be, and I protested most strongly, but it went over most of the heads there. I did not learn anything productive about teaching math or reading or any other subject from any of these classes!

Our professor in one class was very politicized and tried to convince us to go on strike against the university. He gave A’s to everyone who boycotted the exam and B’s to everyone who wrote it.

My roommate was doing a master’s degree in early childhood. I asked her about her thesis project. She was doing a study of a test of creativity. OK, I asked, what was she doing with this test? Well, she was seeing how it correlated with an intelligence test. Oh really, I said; and how well does the intelligence test correlate with later learning? Well, actually, she said, it doesn’t correlate with anything much. And how was she correlating it, anyway? Well, she wasn’t any good at math but she had a stats package on the computer and all she had to do was feed the numbers in. So here we give a master’s degree to someone for correlating one meaningless test with another meaningless test using mathematics that she doesn’t understand.

I thought I had dropped one art class. I certainly did not go to the studio and didn’t hand anything in after midterm. But on the grade report I got a B.

I am NOT making any of this up!

There were a few classes that were worth taking. The foundations of education class and the psychology of education class and the tests and measurements class actually taught something, and I still keep the texts for reference. These courses were useful if not inspiring. But they were the definite minority of the classes required.
And some of the other optional classes offered, notably one painting class, were quite good (and that painting professor warned us seriously about the hazardous chemicals in oil paint, luckily).

This was not a fly-by- night place, but a major US university with an international reputation.

Yes, there are grad programs that do teach valuable material. But a grad degree is no guarantee of useful knowledge.

Wow, victoriah,
When is your book coming out? :wink:
From the original post “…Can anyone give me some good suggestions for a reading program that would be good for him? Thanks for the input.” It sounds like we need a whole new topic line…
Get it going girl!

Wow, I hadn’t looked at the responses for a few days to my first post and look at the replies!

To set the record straight, my son attends a private international school in Hong Kong—therefore, none of the public school laws pertain. Since we are in Hong Kong, we also don’t have access to special tutors (that we can afford) or univeristy students. I (mom) am a trained sped teacher but have been out of the classroom for over 10 years. I have done some Orton based work with him and he knows the 40 some sounds like the back of his hand. He just struggles FINDING the sounds in the words—especially words of more than one syllable. And when he does get them found, he has a hard time getting the right sequence of sounds, often saying the last syllable first and getting them all confused. So, do we just keep practicing or what? Thankfully, he and I work well together so we aren’t struggling with a strained relationship.

I’ve ordered the Reading Reflex book. It will hopefully come in another couple of weeks and we’ll see what we can do with that. Thanks to the many who have given suggestions.

Victoria,
Your experience is appalling! Do you believe that is typical? I’m still curious to know what others were taught in a Graduate program in reading - is it just balanced literacy as Janis mentioned? Maybe Shaywitz’s book will shake up the graduate programs as it sounds like that needs to be done anyway.
Karen

I am trained in Phono-Graphix and PACE. The mother of one of my students received a Master’s degree in reading and teaches in elementary school. The daughter is 13 and was reading on a K/1st grade level when she came to me. After four hours of tutoring with Phono-Graphix, the girl is reading on a 2nd grade level. I fully expect her to reach grade level in reading within about six months.

No graduate program I know of mentions of Phono-Graphix or PACE. They are too new (only about 8 years old), and most educational institutions are trailing current research by 20 years or more.

Nancy

I think Virginia and I went to the same school? Though what she described would be my undergrad experience. All pretty much cut and paste. The lectures were boring beyond belief. I usually don’t fall asleep in anything, too much of an insomniac but I was often close. The teacher who taught reading spoke so slowly I kept wanting to supply the next word. As I said it was quite a hodgepodge of various (mostly non-working or semi-working) techniques. I did not have whole language but had some whole word stuck in (leads me to believe I might be older than Virginia :-)).

My graduate classes at one school were a lot better, as I had one (good) teacher for about everything including the practicum where I did a bit of Orton. Most fo the other classes weren’t so hot— but most were nothing quite as bad as the stuff I had as an undergraduate.

They say that education is about one of the most boring majors. They are prolly right. Too bad, imo, it should be one of the most exciting. It sure isn’t that.

—des

You can use Great Leaps or if you want to use audio tapes then try Read Naturally. that is the next piece of the puzzle, so he can cement the connection between the orthographic symbol on the page and the sounds they represent that he hears.

Thanks, Patti. I started using Great Leaps last year with him and will continue it this year. I also have some of the Read Naturally so may use some of that as well. Any other suggestions?

Sadly enough, my experience at a big name graduate school of education was similar…I purposely saved my LD methods class for the last semester because I thought that the background knowledge I received from the rest of my coursework would enable me to really maximize the knowledge. I can’t believe how naive I was. My professor obviously received the same curriculum as Victoria’s.

After my first year of teaching, I realized that I had absolutely no idea how to teach. All I knew was how to write vague IEPs that would keep me out of trouble. I’ve spent the past 4 years researching effective teaching methods, and have been trained in LiPS, V/V. SS, and PGX, for the most part at my own expense. Any part of that training was more valuable to me as a teacher than anything I did in graduate school except my internship. I was fortunate enough to be place with an incredibly gifted teacher who has helped guide me in my search for information regarding the best ways to meet the needs of my students.

Unfortunately for the students in our area, neither of us are with the public schools any longer. We re both tutoring, and unfortunately, business is way too good. With all of the money we throw at public schools, doesn’t it kill you that, despite the fact Johnny still can’t read, balanced literacy is the current diety?

Yep, it kills me. I live in “Four Blocks” land, and it amazes me.

But Guest, I want to ask you how you use LiPS, Seeing Stars, and PG? Do you use PG in conjunction with SS? I took V/V and OCN this summer and hope to take the others next summer. I can see how they could work together but would LOVE to hear from someone who has done it.

Thanks,
Janis

So do I (I think, judging from the books in the teacher’s store which were 98% Four Block related— hmm four block land in the Southwest near the four corners :-)). I mighta just got myself unhired at any of the public schools. On one of my interviews, they talked about 19 to 1 ratio and I didn’t smile happily back at them. On another, at a charter school, they asked me how committed I was to inclusion, and I kept saying that “well if the supports are there it can work”, prolly didn’t sound quite committed enough.

So I guess it will be tutoring for me after all. I’m sure I will have no lack of clients either. Havent’ gotten the first one yet, though I expect that’s the hardest.

—des

My LiPS training was paid for by my old school system (a lawsuit was the motivation). I chose to be trained in PG because it’s so much quicker for a majority of my students. I have found, however, that there are a small number of students who really need the multisensory work at the basic level of sounds in order to differentiate between similar vowels, in particular. However, I can usually move these students toward PG pretty quickly after they’ve made the motor/visual/auditory connections with individual sounds, and they seem to do fine (although they do tend to require more repitition than many others).

I do use PG and SS in conjuction with one another. For the really early decoders, we use letter sounds for the visualization, but we do switch to letter names when we get to more complex spelling patterns. I don’t use SS as much as I probably should unless the student is really struggling with spelling, because my time with my students is so limited I have to look at where they are really losing ground, which is more often reading fluency or vocabulary. I could probably use SS more for fluency, but for me it seems to work best to send home pages out of my Great Leaps manual for daily work on fluency. Parents have been really receptive to working with their children using GL, and I think that they may be overwhelmed SS.

I use VV with almost all of my students, and several of their teachers have commented this year on how well they are doing in content area classes. In general, I think that children who have encountered reading difficulties seem to be really behind in both general knowledge and vocabulary, so I’ve been using the Specific Skills Series for much of our visualization. The nonfiction nature of the text in that series seems to help the kids transfer the skills to their textbooks more efficiently.

I think I’m rambling, but I hope I’ve answered your questions. I don’t tutor as much in math…but what did you think of OCN?

keb

BY the way, the LiPS manual is an invaluable resource, even if you haven’t take the class. It has all sorts of word and/or syllable chains that I use all of the time, and as I mentioned, there are some more language impaired students who just don’t seem to get it without the mouth pictures and names for groupings of sounds (lip poppers, etc.)
keb

keb,

This is great information! I appreciate it!

We use almost the identical programs. I also use Great Leaps and Specific Skill Series.

On Cloud Nine is like V/V for major math concepts. Teaches them to image a number line, etc. I really wish I could avoid math and focus on learning everything I need for reading, but one of my students is SO LD in math that I am just going to have to try it with her. But they say to get to sentence by sentence in V/V before even starting OCN. So I have some work to do before we can start the math.

I am sort of in a dilemma in regard to my own child. She knows basic code well. She scores well on the PG tests. But when it comes to fluency, she just can’t do it. She’ll guess at words and does not always get the advanced code correct when reading. Her phonological memory is her weakest area. Fluency scores on Gray Oral Reading Test are very low (6 std. score, 9th %ile). Most other areas like vocabulary and comprehension are just low average. Word attack scores are good. She does need V/V definitely. But I am uncertain whether I should have her do PG advanced code and multi-syllable work followed by Great Leaps or Seeing Stars. I don’t have the SS manual yet to compare them. Or should I have her do all three? The LD teacher at her school is trained in PG, V/V, and has the SS manual but is not yet trained. Any opinion? Thanks!

Oops, one more question. Is it worth buying the Seeing Stars kit? My school won’t buy it, but I’m planning to tutor privately eventually.

Janis

I was told that a parent could not teach a child to read by all the muckity mucks at the school. The same muckity mucks who weren’t getting it done despite their many advanced degrees. Most in my district are enamored with reading recovery. I know way too many bright kids who have failed that program.

I really think it is a mistake to tell parents they can’t do this. No one will address the issues like a parent. No one cares enough or has the time BUT the parent in many cases.

I worked as a nurse for many years. I came across many determined parents with kids with much bigger issues than the one’s my child faced. I never would have told a parent that they couldn’t do anything. I saw way to many parents correct nurses and physicans. Many of the experts just float in and out of the child’s life. The concerned parent has the chart committed to memory, has done ALL the research and knows exactly what is going on.
The kids with involved and concerned parents always had significantly improved chances.

Janis,
Fluency is tough…I use the GORT to assess my students at intake and after approximately 3 months of tutoring (at that point, even parents who have seen marked progress in their child’s reading want numbers…and 3 months pretty much coincides with PG’s 12 hours of tutoring). I have found fluency to be the toughest nut to crack…even more so than comprehension. I can get most students up very respectably in comprehension as measured by different forms of the GORT, make stunning progress in decoding based upon results from the WRMT-R, and go almost nowhere in fluency (GORT again). Accuracy invariable makes good progress, but rate refuses to budge. Obviously there’s something needed that I haven’t yet figured out!

Based upon Rod’s advice, I’ve referred students to the only developmental optomotrist in my area, but in both cases the parents have opted for a full private psych, which did not indicate visual processing issues. I don’t think that the psychologists in my area buy into vision therapy, and I know that the research isn’t solid, but I’d probably look into it, if I were you, because there is enough anecedotal advice around to at least check it out, if there’s someone good in your area.

Linda,
I don’t know who you are responding to, but I just want you to know that I would never tell a parent that they were not capable of teaching their own child. If your school feels reading recovery is the only way to remediate reading difficulties, and it isn’t working for your child, by all means, take advantage of the incredible wealth of information available to you here and begin teaching your child to read. I absolutely agree with you that no one is more capable of identifying the little nuances of a child’s life in order to maximize the time they spend learning. Please don’t be discouraged, I’m sure you’d be terrific!

Okay, I just registered…the last response, to Janis and Linda, was me, in case anyone is curious!
keb :D

To Mari — Get some really, really simple controlled-vocabulary books that he has no difficulty reading. In Hong Kong with the British background, you should be able to get my favoured Ladybird (old version) Key Words series, recently republished by Penguin UK. Start at a level that he finds quite easy — Book 1a if you need to. Have him read out loud to you and make sure he is reading *every* word correctly and accurately. Stop him and have him correct of he replaces an a with a the or leaves off the s on likes, etc. Whenever he hits either a problem or a new word, have him **sound it out.** The reason I favour the Ladybirds, dull as they are, is that they have intense repetiton — every single word appears at least ten times in the book where it is introduced and ten times again in the b book on the same level. Usually, after sounding it out twenty times in a couple of hours of tutoring, the student gets the word into his memory. Teaching phonics is absolutely vital; once you have the phonics, teaching the application of the phonics to running text is the next vital step. Work up slowly and steadily through the levels. Once a kid has honestly worked through the twelve books from 1a and 1b to 6a and 6b, he has all the basic vocabulary and a habit of reading accurately and a good basis of fluency; then you can branch out into any First Reader that you want to, as well as Dr. Seuss for rewards.

keb,

I have deliberated over the visual aspect, and there just aren’t any other signs. She has beautiful handwriting. I tried a few vsison exercises with her and she seemed to do fine. I just have to think I’d see something in the handwriting if she weren’t seeing words correctly. But I may take her anyway in a few months if the fluency doesn’t improve. My students are all lower than she is, so I have my work cut out for me!

I have the tendency to think it may be more due to the poor phonological memory. But I haven’t seen a lot written about that in relation to fluency specifically.

(Are you on the ReadNow list? You can reply by private message if you think we’re too off topic!)
Janis

I am fortunate to teach at a university where providing the most up-to-date methods in learning disabilities is encouraged. During the last few years, I have been sent to both the Lindamood training and the Wilson training, and through grantwriting, we have purchased the materials (as well as Reading Reflex, Great Leaps, and the Learning Strategies Curriculum). Our students are taught not only about these programs, but they practice the teaching and demonstrate mastery in their methods classes and field experiences BEFORE being placed in student teaching. We are lucky to have several teachers in the field who have been receptive to both the methods and our student teachers.

Just wanted to let you all know that there are programs out there but finding the support of administration and collaborating teachers in the field is sometimes difficult.

Thanks for posting. I learn a great deal and appreciate what you have to say!

Chris[/i]

Hi, Chris,

I think we would all be seriously interested to know the name of this university!!! That is refreshing and hopeful news that at least a few schools are training their young future teachers appropriately!

Thanks for posting and please do continue giving feedback on the forums!

Janis

Hi Janis,

I am a faculty member at Wheeling Jesuit University, Wheeling, WV (www.wju.edu). I know that the Special Education program at our neighboring college, Bethany College, Bethany, WV also provides instruction in many of the same methods. Our local high school just had four more teachers trained in Wilson this summer. Wheeling Park High School has set up their high school resource room with two teachers for the majority of the day — one for content tutoring and Learning Strategies, and one for Wilson. We continue to move in the right direction, but it is always a slower process than many of us would like.

We are fortunate that there are teachers who champion the most current, validated methods. Because of the excellent job they do at documenting student progress with these methods, more people are becoming convinced of their effectiveness.

As for our WVU Teacher Preparation undergraduates, we expect a great deal from our them, and they meet our expectations.

Chris

That is just wonderful, Chris! Oh, that we would all live to see the day that your situation is the norm!

My district is just beginning to train a group of teachers (2 from each school) in research-based methods. I saw the texts and they are excellent. But we live in 4 Blocks land (the author teaches at a university in NC), so changing attitudes here will be VERY slow and difficult. Ultimately, though, the big changes do need to come at the college level so that the new teachers will start out teaching with research-based methods. It’s hard to get some of the old ones to change their ways! I’ve been around a long time, but I’m thankful my last years will be spent doing something worthwhile that will really help children. Of course, I have leeway in what I use since I am in special ed. Regular teachers are handed a curriculum they have to teach. So change there must come from the top.

Janis

What does PG and SS stand for?

Thanks!

PG stands for PhonoGraphix, a decoding program you can learn about at www.readamerica.net. SS is Seeing Stars, a program to help with fluency and spelling from Lindamood-Bell (lblp.com).

Janis:

Janis:

<<Oops, one more question. Is it worth buying the Seeing Stars kit? My school won’t buy it, but I’m planning to tutor privately eventually.>>

I think it’s worth every penny! Everything is right there when you need it. I’ve been using it for four years now, and wouldn’t be without it!

Marilyn

Marilyn,

Super! That is great to know! I’m more than willing to spend the money if the materials are useful. We get a bonus probably in October dependent on last year’s test scores, so the SS kit is on my list!

Thanks,
Janis

Mari,

I teach in an international school and we use the Lindamood Bell programs. You can buy the books and just follow along. The books are pretty straight forward. Of course nothing beats actual training, but buying the books is a good start. www.lblp.com

Maricel

I really appreciate the honesty of all the teachers here who shared their educational experiences. It is the exceptional teachers that realize early on that to teach well they may have to use different methods than they were taught.

Finally, my son got a teacher last year that was exceptional she’s been teaching quite awhile and admits the new wave whole language thing has been very damaging. She just continued her merry way doing her own thing that she knows works.

Thanks.