"Winter Break" at the LMB Clinic

Laura that is exactly what we did last year/ 2 weeks during our winter break, and then 2 more weeks of leaving school at 1 pm. It was grueling, but was the only thing that yielded observable improvement in his decoding. He hated it, but it showed me the efficacy of intensive remediation, and contributed to our decision to put him in an LD school. Good luck!!

We’re off to Read America next week for the very same reasons that you cite. I feel like I am beating on an old drum and I need someone else to make a difference. And it is almost easier to totally be gone from school than to try to fit it in with everything else.

We may follow up with LMB next summer.

I’ll cross our fingers for both of our kids.

Beth

Good luck Beth!!!! :-) I’ll keep my fingers crossed for both our guys too!

So far everything seems to be going well. My son is doing 5 hours a day with a 1 hour break after the first 3 hours, and then followed up with 2. I’ve even talked with them about doing 6 hours a day but that might be pushing it!

The school is not too thrilled about me pulling him out to do this. He will miss 15 days of instruction. I’m a little worried about him falling behind and yet, he was barely keeping up! It was just such tremendous effort to keep up at the “bottom of the class.” They’ve warned me that if he misses too much school and then does poorly on the state testing, they will retain him. So I am really hoping it helps — and yet I’m keeping my expectations realistically low.

laura, I get so mad when the school that is failing your child isn’t supportive of intervention that you are struggling to do!!!

My son’s teacher complained the 2nd day of the week he was doing LMB that he wasn’t turning in his homework - despite the fact we had had many many meetings with him and the school pscyhologist agreeing that for those 2 weeks (8 days!!) he wouldn’t do any homework unless it was part of an ongoing project. Honestly, this was part of what made me thinka special school would be better. Holding back a child that needs remediation is not the answer!!

OK, done venting. Good luck with this and let us know how it goes!

Yes, pitiful huh? I wonder how one of my families will be received when they are taking their kid out of school early to be tutored. The kid is reading at a first grade level (in 5th). I doubt they’ll be happy though.

—des

With the public school system, the bottom line is money (and state test scores…which is money too).

Des, when I used to take my son out of school early once a week for vision therapy, that was no problem (it was still a long enough day for them to receive their funding). So there’s a chance your student’s parents won’t have any difficulty with it.

Laura,

Do whateveer you can to shield your son from the ramifications of the state testing. I told my son that the school was so concerned because it made them look bad if the students on average didn’t do well. I told him about the year the school got a C and all these parents moved their kids. But he found out at school that not passing the test was not passing that grade and he stressed out over it terribly. He started falling apart at home on a regular basis. We had gone as far as to find a counselor for him but once the tests were over, he was fine.

In the end, he passed but we switched him to a parochial school which is ahead of the public and held him back anyway.

It has been a good move, although a lot more work than any of us anticipated.

Beth

…by the threat of retention! I feel for you all and I’ll be thinking about each and every one. Up here (Ontario, Canada) they can’t retain in elementary without the parent’s permission. Plus, for once I agree with the general philosophy of our Board — that retention is NOT GOOD for elementary students except in unique situations where the child is also behind physically/maturationally/socially and it is done very early, ie kindergarten/Gr 1.

I DO agree with what you did, Beth — no sin in that and we all know it did take alot of pressure off. But not everyone can do the school change.

Good luck with the intensive reading instruction! But when they get home, please think of me up on my adult literacy tutor soapbox — in with the reading practice where decoding is expected, do some ‘assisted reading’ with your kid, 15-30 minutes a day if you possibly can. I call decoding ‘word work’, right up there with spelling and grammar — necessary, but not necessarily FUN, which reading should be by definition!

‘Assisted reading’ should be FUN. PLEASURE…just the way most of us feel when we get to sit down with a good book. With assisted reading, you pick a book that is ‘wanna read’ according to the kid, but it must be possible to read without too many stumbles. You’ll know, after a few paragraphs, if it is too frustrating for them. It may be tough to find a book — but keep looking til you find something right. Get cozy, snuggle up, and start out together and READ. They lead — you follow along. Encourage use of fingers if necessary! (my son hated this but needed it until late Gr. 3.) Then, when they stumble on a word, you give them a beat to sound it out, but only a ‘beat’ — no instruction or forcing to sound out. Just supply the word and move on. Your goal is to NOT interrupt the flow of sentence/story, and to NOT make the reader struggle. You are working TOGETHER to read. It is good to explain that this is WHY and what you are doing — that because of their struggle, they haven’t learned how much fun reading can be, and even though it is still work, they WILL soon be enjoying the FUN.

I know they’ve learned decoding, and they should also practice that — but separately. Assisted reading is to build confidence and PLEASURE in the act of reading. Add in lots of YAY! GOOD! EXCELLENT!, quietly said when they do get a hard word or get one themselves…and really hug them afterwards and reassure them that they ARE going to get there…cuz now they can PRACTICE reading. It is my belief that practice WILL improve their ability — all that is needed is TIME and dedication to make this a regular routine.

I had to post this today cuz I really feel it would be a good time to start, after intensive reading instruction, when hopefully some improvement in decoding has been made, so they will feel that they are ‘on the way’ to independent reading. Forgive me if I am telling you stuff you already know/do — but I don’t see it mentioned much on these boards, so I yabber on about it when I can’t help myself! Nothing like success to make you feel like an expert, even if you’re still a rank amateur, which I am. Just another Mom…

I think this method (and 3 years of 20-45 minutes practice EVERY DAY) is why my son, though he is still not a great decoder for unfamiliar words out of context, and is a terrible speller, is getting great comments this year from his 5th Grade teacher on his fluency and expression while reading aloud — he is near top of the class!!! And, now that he is an independent reader, he is READING…voluntarily, when the book excites him. He has been immersed for the last two days in ‘The Day My Butt Went Psycho’ — a nutty novel a la Captain Underpants, but at 4-5th Grade level…I now have a child who CHOOSES to read during his fully free time, and that is like…better than anything I can name!

Assisted reading is done with adults because they usually come to a community literacy program with 20-30 YEARS of failure and bad baggage, and they CAN’T benefit from ‘word work’ until you get them past the horror that a book presents to them. I used it with my son because it (combined with lots of word work done separately!) worked so well with a young dyslexic I worked with, even though I really knew nothing about dyslexic readers at the time. I usually try to keep my mouth shut cuz I’m no expert, but I’m really seeing the results this year, and it is worth a try, IMO, for any struggler, as part of their program.

It doesn’t replace decoding practice or word work — but it is a necessary part of the puzzle if your goal is an independent reader!

Ok, off my soapbox, sorry! Thanks for listening and GOOD LUCK!

Elizabeth,

Thanks for all the tips. We have done lots of reading and I have gone back and forth between using reading to teach decoding and what you suggest. He certainly liked your approach better!!! But he still won’t read independently, even things he can.

There have been some costs to retaining my son, even with switching schools. He got upset one day when some kids in his class saw him playing soccer in the league up from theirs at our local park. Soccer here is strictly by birthdate. And sometimes he gets upset that kids in his class are better than he and he is doing fourth grade again. That seems to have eased up—but was an issue earlier on.

BUT, he wasn’t passing his math tests by the end of the year, even with a tutor. Fractions and long division were beyond him then. And then of course, his reading and writing were weak as well. This year I see him actually becoming automatic with his math facts. What a struggle that has been. Socially, he is doing much better—with lotsof friends, while he was always on the fringe with his age mates. I would characterize him as immature for his age and am very grateful he won’t be in middle school next year!!

But retention doesn’t solve reading issues, as you can see by me still taking him to intensive reading therapy!

Beth

HI all my old friends on this thread.

I had to chime in. Good luck Laura

Karen,

Boy, I hear you about the school not getting the job done and then not supportive of the parents efforts.

Hi, Linda F! Good to see you!

Janis

Elizabeth,
Thanks for all the great advice. You have a good point about the importance of developing an independent reader.

Hey Linda, nice to hear from you! I catch your posts sometimes, and plan to order that book (I think you mentioned it) by Etta Rowley.