fluency question

I’d test the ol’ phonological memory and see. I did have a student who definitely forgot the first half of a word’s sounds by the time he got to the end of it. The effort of retrieving the sound and then tryin’ to get the next on used up all the memory resources. (A rare individual, though.)

Hi, Sue,

We already have testing on phonological memory. Someone suggested that visual issues should be checked out on any child having reading problems. I was just trying to decide if that was really warranted if the poor reading fluency can be attributed to poor phonological memory.

Janis

Are you talking about fluency which is reading rate plus accuracy or just rate?

I think most fluency tests include both rate and accuracy, don’t they? But in any event, GORT scores were:

rate 6
accuracy 7
fluency 6

Janis

Comprehension scores from the GORT? Those scores are below average; are they similar to other academic achievement tests?

GORT comprehension was maybe a 9 - 37th%ile (I have my notebook with test scores in the car for a meeting this afternoon). The last time they gave her the WJ, she had a comprehension score of 91 which would qualify her for LD with WISC fullscale of 106. But I know that comprehension is not the underlying problem. It is juts effected by the poor fluency.

Janis

My son scored perfectly on all the tests in reading reflex before vision therapy. He had the code down, could blend and segment well.

He still would miss small words, lose his place and read right through the periods without a pause. Those aspects have been remediated with vision therapy. He also has increased his speed.

His spelling has also improved a great deal because now he can see the words in his head and does not just rely on phonetics to spell. I think a child who had trouble remembering the code could benefit from learning to visualize.

His spelling still has a little way to go but he has come a long way from where he was.

Linda,

Were there any other signs of visual issues such as low subtest scores on the performance part of the WISC, etc.? Anna just does not have any signs in any other area that there could be a visual component. She has beautiful handwriting and excellent visual motor skills overall. I would just think there would be a hint somewhere if there were visual issues aside from the reading fluency. I’ve spent a small fortune on test already and woudl just like to avoid an unnecesssary one, if possible!

She definitely needs Seeing Stars and V/V, though.
Janis

Oh yes, there were other signs. Big screaming neon signs. He had a performance IQ of 89 despite the fact that he is very bright. He could not draw a square at the end of first grade.

I think that is perhaps why seeing stars was not enough for him. Perhaps it would be enough for a child with less severe issues.

Hold up a pencil and ask her to follow it with her eyes without moving her head. Move it in big circles, all the way left right etc. This is exactly the test the dev optometrist did with my son. I have done it with a few friends children, my husband and one neighbor who was a dyslexic as a child. Every single person that has trouble reading had trouble tracking. When I did this with neurotypical children like my 4 year old or my nephew there is no problem. They track easily.
It is a good litmus test.

My neighbor’s wife was absolutely floored. She has him practicing his tracking which I find impressive. He is an extremely successful individual despite his tracking problems. He does have trouble reading all the contracts for work.

One thing to add. Tracking is only one of many possible vision problems.

Why split hairs? If she has a “reading disability” I’d attack it from various fronts, and unlike many posters here I’m not a big believer in very specific sensory therapies(vision, SI, etc.), but whatever you are willing to pay for and see results from is what counts. From yrs in working in a dev. eval clinic, I take all testing with grains of salt and don’t hang my hat on any one test result ESPECIALLY IQ testing done once in kids under 7-8yrs old(you really need more than one IQ test done 2-3yrs apart as the P part becomes harder as you need bonus pts for speed to score well.)

I found in my son and others like him who had both phonological and orthographic processing issues affecting reading, that the phological was easier to remediate at school(they used Wilson), and thru tutoring(from 1st thru 5th grade), than the orthographic processing. I was unprepared for the amount and length of time it took for him to “catch up” in reading grade level, and spent 20 minutes a day reading aloud with him for YEARS!! Just now(the summer before 7th grade) he is reading on his own the new Harry Potter book and others on his summer reading list; now I don’t expect him to read as fast as his 10yo brother, but he does read with great comprehension. We read to him and still do, stopping every so often to ask him to summarize the plot, charachers, and explain inferences, etc.

I found the Reading Fluency article in LD in Depth to be a nice summary and very helpful. Good luck!

I understand exactly where you are coming from.

My son WAS seen by a vision specialist several yrs back and she found him to be borderline in his need-recommended therapy but just barely-his test scores alone were not enough to qualify. She also admitted he tested ‘differently’ than she was used to

Some folks cant believe I did not follow through-that that should have been a 100% red flag. But at 100/hour, I personally felt I needed something more definitive. We could easily put ourselves in financial stress if we followed every possible therapy recommendation out there

But…..that said, I have second guessed that decision numerous times. I almost wish I had followed through just to have one less thing to feel guilty about :)

Personally, I would try some vision exercises at home-pick them up from the net or old posts. If they seem to go down easily and if she continues to show no other markers, Id let it go. JMO

I work in Early Intervention and deal with therapists daily. It is far from an exact science. For example, I do believe sensory integration disorder exists but I dont think every toddler who cries when his hair is washed needs therapy and it’s beginning to look that way from the requests on my voice mail. I was thrilled to get a message from a sensory qualified therapist who had just done a sensory eval as recommended by another therapist. I chuckled as she said “hes hyper and theres no structure in the home-get him in preschool-there are no sensory issues.”

We forget sometimes that there are plenty of ways in our daily living to deal with minor deficiencies. The therapists REALLY should be there for the severe cases. Again, JMO.

IQ can change. The IQ results did match his performance in the visual motor area. It did expain why he could not do even simple puzzles. I do think you have to decide whether or not the testing results fit the overall picture. I am quite sure the results will be different for my son after therapy.

For all those who poo poo therapy all I can say is that my dear husband (big burly non sentimental type) almost cried when we were in the optometrists office discussing my son’s test results. He had lived with this, struggled with this, his whole life and here he realized there was something that could be done for this problem.
He used to tell me he didn’t want to have children because he didn’t want them to have his problems. I always found this strange because to me he was an all around great guy. He had always hid his dyslexia.
He carried this disability, worked around it and succeeded but all things for him could have been easier.

For my son, they will be easier, they already are.

This is why I do this.

:oops: Please dont take my post that way. I think major deficiencies should be remediated and I would place your son’s situation in that category.

But, with my job, I see a lot of state resources being allocated to minor issues which ultimately takes away from those who have major problems.

As a service coordinator, I currently have a waiting list for physical therapy. It includes a child with juvenile arthritis in pain and unable to find services. Meanwhile, therapists are seeing 2 yr olds who occassionally hit their foot on the stairs while climbing-in fact, one PT has special ordered a set of foam stairs so he can practice in the home at the cost of about 600 bucks to the state

obviously, this doesnt apply to most the therapy we discuss on the boards-I dont think any of us are hurting anyone else if we choose to remediate a minor or major problem with our own children. So perhaps I am out of line to even bring it up here.

But it has made me concious of how dependent parents desperately in need can become on therapists. And it worries me at times-not here, but with my job. I mean, take the 2 yr old to the park and let him climb. THAT should be the first option IMO and, when it doesnt work, you go to something more extravagant

Thats all I was trying to say. If a parent doesnt think something is a major part of the problem, dont immediately jump into therapy. Try something more low key and see……

I accidentally responed in a new thread above.

SAR, Mary, and Linda,

Here were her WISC performance subtests at age 6 (we are about to do it again for potential LD placement):

picture completion 9
coding 14
picture arrangement 11
block design 12
object assembly 10

That just does not scream visual problems to me. I have tried some tracking type exercises someone told me about and she seemed to do fine.

I do not think I am in denial as I referred her before she was 4 for auditory/language issues (which is more my area of expertise). But I would feel guilty if there were a problem I overlooked because of ignorance!

I’ll also admit to this suspicion that the optometrist would find SOMETHING (regardless of whether it was relevant or just a developmental issue) in order to get us to come back for therapy.

SAR, I guess I am pretty much taking the same course of action that you did. I know what to do to increase the decoding and I think that the orthographic imagery issue will be helped with something like Seeing Stars. I’m just not confident enough at this point that FFW, PACE, or other therapies would solve anything. Reading fluency takes a lot of time and practice, as we all know, in kids like these.

But Linda, if I was seeing the symptoms you’ve described, I certainly would not hesitate to get help. I am always suspicious when a child has reading problems in combination with very poor handwriting. That clues me in that there may be a visual or visual motor component. Anna just doesn’t happen to have any of those clues other than lack of reading fluency.

I do want to thank you all for your responses. I value your input very much!

Janis

Yes, the P scores look fine; you’re on the right track, it just takes a long time! But all the time reading together has really allowed my 12yo son to develop a relationship with me where we can talk about lots of issues, I hope it continues!

That’s a wonderful side benefit, SAR! Cherish those times. My big boy is now 21, and I miss the little boy who I used to read to.

Janis

I think I had the same fear about the optometrist finding something just to get us in therapy. I think those types of fears are completely unfounded.

The exercises are very easy if you don’t have any of the underlying issues. I know this because they are extrememly easy for my nephew and my 4 year old. It would be very clear if the exercises were unnecessary because the child would fly right through them.

I did take my 4 year old in for an eval and he was not recommended for therapy.

Janis,

I think there are a group of kids with visual-motor difficulties, which used to include my son. In fact he was bad enough that he was classified as having a visual motor disability at the end of K. He scored a SS 49 one the same Bender test a year ago. These kids are those with SI type issues in addition to visual issues. This is not Anna.

I know though that there are some kids whose difficulties are only visual. There was a woman, MaryMN, who used to post here a lot and with whom I privately corresponded with for about a year whose daughter had a combination of vision therapy, PACE, and PG. Vision therapy, which was not motor or vestibularly based, addressed visual issues, PACE gave her the fluency, and PG corrected her phonological processing issues. She had bought Great Leaps but never needed it after PACE. Her daughter, who was a nonreader at 8.5 was reading fluently above grade level two years later. I was following the same model when I did vision therapy followed by PACE with my son. It didn’t work as well for us because my son’s issues are much more motor based. This is why it is hard to generalize from other’s experiences, although I have found that the experts often don’t do much better than us experienced parents.

I think you have two options. You can find a reputable behavioral OD and have Anna evaluated. If he/she says nay, then you can close that door. It seems that some percentage of kids with fluency issues have underlying visual issues, but certainly it isn’t the only cause and the testing you have done provides an explanation for her deficits.

Or you can proceed with Seeing Stars and revisit the visual possibility only if she doesn’t make adequate progress. If you read the manual for Seeing Stars, it was developed because some kids didn’t develop automaticity with coding. It, combined with lots of repeated reading, may be enough for your daughter. Mild vision problems (not that I know if your daughter has them at all) remediate themselves through the act of reading.

I will tell you that I could see my son’s eyes not working together when I initially took him in for a vision evaluation. It was pretty bizarre.

Beth

Thanks Beth (I emailed you). I know MaryMN and am on a couple of other lists with her. She does know a LOT of programs!

Janis

I believe flueny is both rate and accuracy. One way to improve this is with repeated reading at the level of the child

My now 11 year old son can read and decode just fine, but has a severe fluency problem. It is NOT a visual problem; it is for him a retrieval issue (retrieving the sight words, retrieving the rules for decoding). fMRI studies show fluency is not a visual problem. Before I knew all this, I tried a visual program called PACE. Total waste of money, and more importantly, a waste of time when I could have been using a beneficial program.

LD Online has a good article in the In Depth Section called Reading Fluency. I have tried several of the products listed: Great Leaps, Read Naturally, Concept Phonics. All of these are GREAT programs to enhance fluency.
Kathleen

Could you provide a link regarding MRI studies that prove fluency is not related to a visual issue?

PACE isn’t vision therapy just so you know. I don’t think my son could have done PACE without remediation of his visual issues.

Janis,

my son has both retrieval deficit and visual problems (phonological problems are somehow remediated although not perfect; he will segment and blend but not automatically and not fast and still has sequencing problems for multi-syllabic words).

We finally started vision therapy this summer because I was told on many occasions that his decoding is good (I think it meant it is good for a dyslexic child) and he still was not gaining fluency. We had 10(?) visits and did work at home (but not really vigorously) and OD just showed me how much his vision has improved (but he needs yet another reading glasses- a stronger ones- and I do nto really know how many more visits….). The best outcome is that my son says he does not have headaches when he reads. He did not complain he had them before due to reading- only he would need Motrin a few times per week during school year complaining about headaches!!! (but only when he started LD school when he really was asked to read at school- in regular school he seldom read during a school day). Initially, I did not believe he has vision problems since he has gifted PIQ, but his problems are related to sequencing and suppressing an image from one eye (which I think was causing the headaches). What convinced me was seeing my son eyes when I asked him to follow a pen (as Linda described in one of her posting). As long as there was some motion he was doing so, so (not great) but when I stopped the pen- his eyes were just going all around the walls!!! He could not control the eye movement for a long time, which I believe explains while he could not read for longer periods of time- longer I mean more than 3-5 minutes (he is a 6th grader!!!). How can one gain fluency when one cannot really read for longer period of times (it is like having being asked to improve without practicing, but one cannot practice because you are feeling sick after practicing). Finally in the LD school they have reading fluencies, which pose on the student the task of reading for short period of time – 1 minute for paragraph and one minute for words in isolation- but two/three times per day (once on weekends) until they reach 150 wpm for paragraph reading.

I believe my son has many deficits and although none of them striking, they just add up and create a difficult setting for him to gain basic skills. I think remediating them at least to some extend will produce mild gains- after so many therapies I do not believe we will see sudden gain after a particular one.

I read very fast- but silently- I still cannot read fast in either language, due to (my guess) retrieval problems. I know the meaning of words I am seeing I just cannot produce the sounds quickly enough and even now my LD child (at occasion) reads faster than me and his reading speed is ~100 wpm at 6th grade level material….

Ewa

Janis - I was interested to see where this thread was going. My dd is similar to your child. I do suspect that my dd has a visual tracking issue of some kind. But I have had her tested on multiple occaisons and have not been able to get a diagnosis.

I have tried the ‘following the pen test’ and she does great - even over an extended time. However, when she reads, she tracks with her head, not her eyes. So not sure what’s going on with that? I think that is part of her problem. She also is very much a conceptualize, not a visualizer. PACE has helped, but I don’t think it’s automatic for her yet.

My dd has a split IQ - gifted PIQ (esp visual-spatial) and much lower on VIQ(30pt split). Beautiful handwriting(crappy spelling), good artist. However, her visual memory is on the lower side of average. I have to think some kind of occular problem is going on.

Dea,

Moving the head instead of the eyes is considered a lack of head/eye differentiation. My NN therapist tells me that it is more vestibular than visual though. We have made some progress with vestibularly based exercises but it hasn’t been a complete cure. I took him for another OD evaluation and was told he didn’t need more vision therapy.

I know Shirin, who used to post here a lot, did have her daughter’s similar issues resolved by vision therapy.

Beth

Beth,

I remember you mentioned the head-eye movement issue before; my son is finally moving eyes rather than his head. I do not know what had exactly helped- additional IM sessions or vision therapy- but he is not moving his head anymore.

I believe once he stopped moving his head he also reduced skipping lines/losing place.

Ewa

My 11 year old son has severe fluency problems. I would highly recommend the following programs which we have used: Read Naturally, Great Leaps, Concept Phonics. Most people seem to think that fluency is not a visual issue. You might want to do some research. Maryann Wolf at Tufts University has done some very interesting studies and written articles about the two kinds of dyslexia: one dealing with phonological and the other with fluency. She published several articles (I think in the last issue) of the International Dyslexia Association’s annual publication (your child’s teacher may be able to get this publication from a teacher access school library). Best of luck. Kathleen

Ewa,

That is great!!! I think the situation is the same for my son—if he would stop moving his head, he would stop skipping. Getting there is the question…..he had low IM scores so I am not sure that would help him more.

Has his fluency improved with the lack of skipping or does he read at the same pace but without skipping (not a small thing, mind you)?

Beth

Ewa that was exactly our experience. My son does not skip lines or move his head anymore. We worked very hard on the tracking exercises like the ball on a string and just tracking a pencil.

I saw a definite correlation between gaining control of his eye movements and an end to the head movements, skipping of lines and missing small words. He also finally like to read after that problem resolved. After that, the timed readings improved his speed. I don’t think the timed readings would have worked alone because he did need to learn to control those ocular muscles.

We worked twice a day for 12 weeks to make it happen. I did 10min in the am and 10 min in the p.m. We definitely had that “sudden big change” moment at 12 weeks. He was picking up books and reading everything including the news paper.

I know my son has vestibular issues as well so there is definitley a correlation. I just thought that the physical exercise of those inefficient ocular muscle is what did it for him.

I wonder if we had not done IM first if he would have been able to gain success. It is possible that the vestibular work of IM allowed him to work those muscles.

I know my son’s optometrist is considering recommending some children get IM before vision therapy.

Linda,

Our Neuronet therapist is also starting to send some children to IM before doing NN with them. I told her that would not have worked with Nathan—he needed NN then IM, then NN. She told me these kids aren’t as severe as him!!

I wish I could get to where you and Ewa are with the tracking and head movement. Actually, he now moves just the jaw with his eyes—I don’t know if that is progress or not!! I am going to try the cranial sacral therapy. Our NN therapist said it does wonders with some kids and that we’d know whether he was one of them in 4 to 6 sessions. It is worth it to me to risk that much time and money.

Repeated readings have never generalized for him so I found your comments about them interesting. I think he becomes familiar enough with the words that he does quite well with the readings—but the process does not generalize.

Beth

Linda and Beth,

on the speed: he seems to be reading at ~100 wpm (96-108) FOR A NEW PASSAGE although with some known vocabulary with new vocabulary added. The passages are at the 6th grade level difficulty (he is at passage 45 from 165 passages of 6th grade level, thus I would assume it is ~6.2-6.3 level difficulty- a lto of new multi-syllabic words like “unexpected, circulation, unexpectedly et.c.” ). After 4-6 reads he will get to 150 wpm, which is his passing rate to start a new passage. In May last year he was reading 3rd grade level at 76 wpm; in Sept. he was reading a 4th grade level book with a starting rate of ~80-90 wpm; thus, I am assuming he is making progress. I am curious to see whether we will gain more speed with additional changes in his vision- he still is not fully where he should be.

We started VT on June 23 and I am not as vigilant as Linda (I envy her badly!!!). We worked ~4 times a week for ~15 minutes, with a few breaks (2-3 days without any VT) and weekly visits. Initially mostly tracking, later some with prism (I think this is to relax his eyes- apparently they were very tight(?)- there is this special term for it which I forgotten). Now is mostly sequencing. He also does the tracking (with circling the letters from alphabet- but he does this with flippers- flipping them every line). This one he actually does not mind that much because the print is fairly bid at the beginning of the book (he does a page each day/eye – he does it with a patch). He was supposed to read with flipper (flipping them) and he could not do that one at all.

I think it is really hard to pin-point down what helped what: he tested for IM in June with a ~43ms score, which was exactly were he finished last August. We did the additional IM sessions in August and he went down to ~20ms in 5 sessions (last year we did over 20 to get to 40 ms). Maybe some of VT helped with IM and vice versa? He had two exercises for motor planning to a beat of a metronome through VT, which I suppose could have helped to nail the IM scores so quickly?

I will try to do the VT once we get to some kind of routine with the new school year. My son is in middle school in his school- 9 periods per day and much more HW, so we are still running late with bedtime…

Ewa

Ewa,

That is fantastic progress!!!

IM is a therapy that seems to have spill over effects to other therapies. As I said, we did NN before IM. We had hit a wall with fast naming exercises, designed to improve RAN. The therapist had begun talking to me about “residual disabilities.” After IM, he was able to make progress on these exercises. On the Test of Word Finding he went from 10th percentile to 49% in two years.

So I would suspect it is the two therapies together which have done it for you.

Beth

Beth,

I should actually thank you for asking that question. Only when I was writing the answer did I realize how much progress has he made…

You know how it is- on daily basis we just see the hard work, but do not see the progress that clearly.

I will make a chart for my son, so he will appreciate that his hard work resulted in such excellent progress, but first I would need to buy a reward, so I will be prepared when he asks for it :-)))

Ewa

My dd rarely skips lines, but she does skip words. It usually happens because she tends to ‘anticipate’ the next words vs. reading them. She reads rather quickly and sometimes finishes the sentence with her own words - like when people try to finish other people’s thoughts - not good listeners.

When I have her track with the pen or even the visual baseball game for PACE, she uses/moves her eyes. It’s only reading that I have noticed that she wants to move her head.

I remember that post of Shirin’s. It opened my eyes up to the tracking issue. I remember sitting next to a child on a plane (looked about 7), she was reading away and I could just see her eyes tracking back and forth. She was younger than my dd and reading a 3rd/4th grade level book. PLUS she was reading - MY dd was playing her gameboy.

My husband moves his head when reading too. I know that is also a sign of a visual issue - if it runs in family.

Wow, I miss one evening and have lots of catching up to do!!!

Hi Dea, Linda, Ewa, and Beth!

And welcome, Kathleen! You have some good suggestions! I have Great Leaps and Phyllis Fischer’s Speed Drills are on my wish list!

I just skimmed back through Sally Shaywitz’s book, Overcoming Dyslexia. The section on fluency is very good.

Dea, Anna does have some similarities to your daughter. I think the tendency to guess words in order to maintain some degree of fluency is very common, and that can result in skipping words. I don’t think that is a visual issue in Anna’s case.

I really see no signs of visual issues with Anna…no head movement, no headaches, etc.. I do think she needs the symbol imagery component that Seeign Stars offers. I am going to the training in Nov. and have strongly suggested that her school LD teacher go! I strongly suggested that the SLP go to Visualizing and Verbalizing!

Janis

Janice,
The Fluency Drills were relatively inexensive. I also ordered the Concept Cards. One more good thing about the fluency drills is they are really easy to incorporate in any daily routine.

Laura,

Yes, the speed drills are very reasonable. I’ll take a look at the Oxton House site and check on the cards, too. We get a bonus next month and I am going to buy some of these things. My big expenditure is going to be the Seeing Stars kit.

Thanks,
Janis

I am new to this thread. I am a parent of a child with what appears to be fairly severe fluency problems. I read the entire thread, and I’ll admit, most of the acronyms went right over my head…but I did get some other ideas to try with her. I never thought of a visual problem (other than dyslexia, which I think may be a small factor).

Here is my DD background. She is in 3rd grade, but will be turning 8 in two weeks….yes, she is YOUNG..really should be in 2nd…but still, she is below age level too.

Hearing impaired until 9 months due to inverted eardrums from negative pressure. Corrected with PE tubes at 9 months old.

Speech Therapy started at 4 yr 10 mos (entry into kindergarten). Had issues with SH, TH, initial syllabant sound (I think that is what it is called…)

Changed schools to a DoDD school overseas at 2nd grade. Reading issues quickly became apparent.

Has not progressed inspite of reading daily (including ALL SUMMER). She is still BR in SRI.

Here are a few things that I see when I have her read to me:

Mixes up b/d for p
skips small words
sounds out words, gets it…then when she sees it two sentences later, it as if she has never seen the word before.
Reads in bursts…two or three sentences pretty well…then it is as if she is exhausted by the effort.

Handwriting is inconsistent (big, small, neat, messy, capitals in the middle of sentences…all in the same sentence.) She can’t even read her own writing.

She holds a pencil *wrong*. Maybe this is a non-issue, but it seems like she has to work way too hard to write because of the way she holds the pencil.

I appreciate if you’ve read to this point. I meet with her teacher on Wednesday. I KNOW she needs to be evaluated in depth, but DoDDs is terrible for allowing ANYONE to get services. We have at least this school year to finish here, and then MAYBE we will be back in the US…or not.

If you have suggestions, PLEASE let me know. Thank you so much for your help..

She WANTS to read…she feels like some kind of failure. I am VERY worried about her attitude toward school

Katya,

Your daughter sounds a lot like mine. Mine has a mid-October birthday. Because she was so young and behind her classmates, we repeated first grade. She fits better in the new class in every way and is doing much better academically. In your situtation with uncertainty about getting help at school, I’d just order a copy of the book “Reading Reflex” by Carmen and Geoffrey McGuinness and do it yourself. It is quite possible she has some auditory processing issues and needs a program like Reading Reflex (also called Phono-Graphix). It is written for parents, so it is user friendly. Many people on LD Online use it, so you can easily get help if you need it.

You can also order Handwriting Without Tears to help with her handwriting and pencil grip. It is a relatively inexpensive program as well.

http://www.hwtears.com/

Janis

I’ve posted a lot of direct advice re both reading and writing in the past.

Due to a virus problem I’m having trouble sending off copies of these, but hope to get that straightened out in a few weeks, so email me/post request on the board then if you’re still looking.

Meanwhile, use the search option on this website for posts by victoria and you’ll see a bunch of things I’ve posted in response to the same questions.

Dea,
Was wondering if your daughter gets the general context when she finishes sentences with her own words as you mentioned in a previous post. My son interjects words and sometimes paraphrases whats there when he reads. He’s very fluent in his reading…reads too fast IMO. He’s not as accurate as he should be at least when I hear him reading out loud. This has been fine for storybooks, etc. but I am concerned about “reading to learn” from textbooks, etc. Sometimes when you change a few words, the meaning does change and you don’t learn what is intended. Don’t know if it’s a speed habit or if there is something more to it. He also has a habit of skipping over words he doesn’t know. In the past, he could get away with it because 1. there weren’t many words he didn’t know and 2. again, in stories are different than textbooks.

Just wondering if you see the same things with your child. My son is 9 in 4th Grade.

Lori

Lori,

Real fluency is comprised of both accuracy and rate. So if he is skipping or changing words, I would not call that real fluency. I would suggest trying something like Great Leaps that has the child read passages for one minute and the errors are subtracted form the total words read. The child repeats the same passage each day until he completes the passage in one minute with no more than two errors. This forces the child to try to be accurate. Their scores are graphed and many kids like to try to beat their own scores.

I would stop him from this kind of reading he is doing now, because I think it will hurt comprehension as he gets into more complicated subject matter. Even if you don’t do Great Leaps, have him read orally to you each night and point to any word he skips or changes so that he can correct his error.

Janis

Sorry for bursting in, but following thread and can’t find reference to these terms?
by the way my son 9 in spec ed. reading / math. has had vision therapy 2 years ago…for a full year. did davis program (wasn’t impressed), i still see alot of reading words that are not there. He did “Project Read” in 2nd grade and did OG in third, now they are trying “direct instruction” and we are using Read Naturally at home…. he is diagnosed dyslexic, executive function disorder , and needing ot for visual perceptual needs ( ?) we are following up with a therapy place about this to diagnose his specific needs. this came from the university neuro. dept. which I think is on the right track.
Thanks for all your posts, it’s been helping seeing other people discuss the vision therapy. I know it works , i just wonder if he was actually ready for it……
Thanks,
angie
mom of 9yr old dyslexic ( ps. also read sally shaywitz “overcoming dyslexia” liked alot!)

Lori - yes, I have same concerns as you. My dd is also in 4th grade. She tends to want to read real fast and thus the errors. I worry alot about how much she misreads when reading text books for school. I try to still read aloud so we can ‘correct’ as she goes. She is starting to fight me on this. She now prefers to read alone and I am not comfortable she is ready for this. I know she is doing it because she avoids the ‘negative’ feedback every time I correct her.

Janis - with all the years I have been on this board, I realize I have never really seen anyone explain how Great Leaps is implemented. It clicked in my head that Great Leaps might work for my dd - she is one who likes to beat her own score. I’ll have to look into it more detail.

I’m taking both my kids to IM initial testing on Thursday. I’m not sure I’m going to get my son to do this program. I really looked into it for him, but I think my dd is going to benefit in different way than my son. The IM trainer explained that IM targets the frontal lobe - executive function and also helps left brain/right brain integration.

Angie,

IM= Interactive Metronome

NN= NeuroNet

Janis

Momomice

Your child sounds a lot like my son. Has anyone ever mentioned the possiblity of a visual motor deficit.

My son would not recognize words he just saw too. The exhaustion from reading could also be visual. If he is working hard to focus and track it can get very tiring. Some have found that glasses help, others have used therapy. My son does not have these problems after interactive metronome and vision therapy.

His writing is much better but still not 100%. He actually picked up a pen and started writing for fun last night.