:?: [color=darkblue][/color]I noticed someone posted about the Reading Milestones program down below and indicated that it is not a good program for children with auditory processing disorder. I understand it is a sight word reading program but wY wouldn’t that be beneficial to a child who has auditory processing problems (assuming they are also strong visual processing skills)?
My son has severe expressive and receptive language disorder. I think a part of his problem with language stems from auditory processing disorder. He has no problem with pronouncing any sound but even at age 9, he often has trouble distinguishing letter sounds within words and hears words differently than they sound to other people (e.g he will say Ditch instead of Stitch even though he uses the “st” sound regularly; he will also add sounds to words where they don’t exist - he hears the word “foggy” as if it was pronounced “froggy’).
The educational psychologist we’ve had evalute him twice (private evaluations not paid for by the school) has recommnded that a sight reading approach be used with him (Edmark and Reading Milestones). DS has made great gains with both his speech and reading abilities since using Reading Milestones but is not a grade level.
However, I am now wondering (based on the previous comments) if Reading Milestones is a good aprroach for my son of if I should be fighting for the use of phonics based program.
Re: Reading Milestones
I agree with Janis.
If you haven’t yet done so, I would get an evaluation for auditory processing disorders as soon as possible. To find an audiologist qualified for this type of evaluation (most audiologists are not qualified), see http://pages.cthome.net/cbristol/capd-rf1.html
I would also suggest that you begin to research different sound therapies to see if they would be a good fit for your son. Programs such as Tomatis, AIT-Berard, Samonas, TLP (http://www.advancedbrain.com ), FastForWord (http://www.scilearn.com ) and others often work to reduce underlying auditory processing deficits. This can make learning to read much easier. With severe APD, NeuroNet can be helpful (http://www.neuronetonline.com ).
A program such as Phono-Graphix (read the book “Reading Reflex” by McGuiness, $20 in most bookstores or available from the library) is often a very effective approach for developing auditory processing skills, even when there are unremediated underlying auditory processing problems. I would suggest that you read the first three chapters of this book for a good explanation of the auditory processing skills necessary for fluent reading — segmenting, blending, and phoneme manipulation. These skills (and, of course, code knowledge) are necessary if one is to get beyond about a 3rd grade level in reading.
Nancy
Re: Reading Milestones
And me too.
Our written language *is* based on sounds. Fact.
So, if you have trouble learning the sounds, skipping over that and hoping it will happen by itself is not particularly effective — but it does make that first grade teacher feel good. Hey, that good visual learner is using his strengths! Yippee! And he feels good about himself!! That’s what’s important.
And she never sees the kiddo in fifth grade who can’t spell does or who, reads “vacation” for “vaccination” and even with that 130 IQ isn’t going to be aimed at those college prep classes because clearly he can read well enough (they haven’t heard all his mistakes) for your average joe… but he really isn’t that smart, is he? And by now he believes it too.
There are exceptions to this, but as a rule, if there’s a certain essential skill you have trouble with, you should spend *more* time on it, not less. Even the whole language folks admit under duress that the skill of sounding out words is a necessary part of reading. They simply believe you learn it by doing it… but clearly that’s not happening here.
But hey, it’s only the kids who pay the cost.
Re: Reading Milestones
Oh… but I have to say… if the teachers there are really into whole language — don’t try to force them to use a phonics program.
Research has pretty clearly indicated that believing in your program is a critical part. If the teachers are good, then they’ll do a much better job with what they know and love.
I am sorry to hear that you psychologist has very poor knowledge of reading. I will give you a couple of articles to read from this site which will tell the skills needed to be a good reader and programs which will accomplish it. But basically, written words are code for our oral language. Letter and combinations of letters represent speech sounds. Children must be taught the code of written language to be able to read new, unknown words. No one can memorize by sight all the words encountered over a lifetime of reading. One absolutely must have the tools to decode unknown words.
Many dyslexic children DO have poor auditory processing skills and/or a language based learning disability. Unfortunately, schools rarely know how to help thse kinds of reading disorders and parents must find outside tutors or go for training themselves. But the methods used are absolutely critical if the child is ever to learn to read. I am also going to give you the Lindamood Bell site as you might want to consider an evaluation at one of their clinics since your son has significant auditory processing problems. Also, you may want to consider posting your test results here to get feedback from teachers on this list.
http://www.ldonline.org/ld_indepth/reading/reading_approaches.html
http://www.ldonline.org/ld_indepth/reading/mssl_methods.html
http://www.lindamoodbell.com/
Book to read: “Overcoming Dyslexia” by Sally Shaywitz
Janis