Anyone familiar with Sonday Program? Could use some help!

Sonday is a very good version of Orton-Gillingham. It is usually provided for one hour twice a week by a trained professional, with daily homework in between sessions. Minimum would be one hour a week, and in a school setting one might expect 3 to 5 sessions per week (but perhaps for less than an hour each time). If the school professional is not actually trained in the Sonday program, however, it may not be provided in an effective manner even if the school alots significant hours per week to it. Is the teacher actually trained in Sonday, or has the school simply purchased Sonday for the teacher to use?

I am trained in Phono-Graphix and prefer PG for most children because it is much, much faster than OG approaches, including Sonday. When I get the very rare child who does not respond quickly to PG, I refer the family to a friend who is trained in all levels of O-G (there are three levels of training, and you really want someone who is at least trained through the second level) and Sonday as well.

If you are interested in remediating at home rather than leaving it to the school, I would recommend that you get the book “Reading Reflex” and try that approach first. It would be much faster and much less expensive than getting trained in Sonday, and would be well worth trying first.

Nancy

Thank you so much for your reply, Nancy!

The teacher is trained in this, so that is one good thing. But I know it is not being done as per your post. Oh, well! At least now, I can talk to the school without sounding like an idiot.

Remediation outside the school may be necessary. I don’t feel I am qualified for various reasons but I will use your suggestions when looking for help.

Again, thank you SO much.

Any reading remediation, to be successful, must be done at least twice a week. In my private practice I’ve been pretty well straight with people that I do NOT do homework tutoring. It’s just wrong. The kid is behind and they are wasting his time by keeping him from learning essentially. I’d try and insist that he be worked with on the Sonday program.

If the school refuses then you will have to either hire someone privately or tutor him yourself, if that is possible at all.

The problem is that I don’t think most schools see reading failure as seriously as they should. The fact that they HAVE someone to do it and is trained in it is good, now they should use this person’s skills. Tell them you will help him with homework yourself.

—des

Thank you, des!

Its so frustrating! The reason my child was transferred to this particular teacher was, or so I understood, because I was…well, complaining that the other teacher wasn’t trained or using any of these methods. She was great in helping him to homework but as you said, I can do that!

I do plan on talking to the school more….

Helping with homework by the teacher is a short term fix for the long term problem. It’s like the old proverb “give a man a fish and he eats for a day, teach a man to fish…” The short term help with the homework solves an immediate need. Better that he would flunk ALL his classes and learn to read (not that that would be necessary). If he doesn’t learn to read you will be helping him with homework until he is out of his short school career (it will still seem long enough). And he will have a lowered chance of getting a good job. If the teacher has the skills I think she is just crazy to be helping with homework. (OK des tell us what you really think :-)).
Makes me wonder what is the ratio while he is in there, etc. If there are many students she may be doing this out of necessity of finding it difficult to do a 1 to 1 to small group program. I actually interviewed for a position and when I asked what the ratio was in any given hour they said 1 to 19 and that was a research room!! Needless to say, I did not want the job. But maybe others wouldn’t be so fussy. So how many kids are there at a time. I would really push on this. If the nos are too high I think you have no choice but to get a tutor (and get one trained in a specific OG or other sound approach) and not just somebody who teaches some reading games and so on. One of my students had some “tutor” who played a few little games with her. She made 0 progress but she had “fun”. I don’t know how much “fun” she is having now but she is really learning to read.

—des

Frankly, twice a week for an hour, ***intensively*** would be a bare minimum — think about all the reading demands taht every school day places on you. Most kids will be going back to old reading (non-reading) habits for the rest of the day… and that next day… oh, and all those days inbetween.
One of the reasons our OG worked as well as it did (which was very well) was that we had 50 minutes *every day* even though it was really 25 with the teacher and 25 minutes independent work. The frequency (and the intensity — but Sonday is a program that has active cognitive engagement built into it) is *very* important and there’s a lot of research to bear this out.
It’s a lot easier for a teacher to help with homework, and it does mean the homework gets done. However, I’d suggest copping a deal about cutting back on the homework requirements if that’s what is necessary. I would also check to see whether helping htat much with homework was really helping *learning* or was it adding more fuel to the “school is a lovely sentence to be survived” evidence pile — let’s make the squiggles on this page so that the assignment is done, but yea, we all *know* that you’re just trying to get such good grades on homewokr that those consistently failed tests don’t mean you fail for theyear.