WRS and regression

Oh my. You have very good proof that your child has failed to make adequate progress. Standard scores should not go down if the child is improving. I’d spend some time reading the Wright’s law site if I were you.

Is WRS Wilson? It may not be a problem with the program as much as it is the implementation. How trained is the teacher? How many chidlren are in his group? How many minutes a day is he taught reading?

Janis

<<He has had 3 years of WRS. Every year they are telling me he is making progress and his IEP goals keep going up a grade (will read third grade material at 90% accuracy… he is in fifth grade… I later found out from his teacher that this puts his reading level at the high second grade level!… so how is this progress when he was just 1 year behnd in 2001 in the 2nd grade?>>

Think of a repair man coming to your house to fix your plumbing or your stove. He is going to charge you for a basic rate for a service call even if he does nothing. Same thing with a standardized test. If a child is performing below first grade level, but the test doesn’t list scores lower than first grade level, your child is going to be on first grade level, no matter what. This is what might have been the case with your son. Scores on achievement tests for younger children often do not show a discrepancy. So, while it looks like your son was only a year below grade level, he may have been further behind back then. The test just doesn’t register lower than that.

I am a big fan of the Wilson Reading System. I use it on a regular basis. However, this particular program teaches by syllable type. So, it takes quite a long time before students are introduced to vowel-consonant-silent e words, hard/soft c and g rules, vowel combinations etc. Your child may be making progress in the program, but it is not registering on word recognition lists, because he has not learned all the syllable types, yet. For this reason, once I complete the vce words, I supplement the program with SEEING STARS, a Lindamood-Bell program that teaches symbol imagery and combines phonological sequencing with visual memory to teach both reading and spelling skills.

I hope this helps a little.

Marilyn

piece with Read Naturally or Great Leaps…..If he gets more work on this area it may be what he needs to cement all his work in WRS. I have found working on fluency to be the missing link when I have worked with kids on decoding and reading…Once we start on the fluency we are hitting comprehension, vocabulary development, writing…etc…all the things an SLP likes to work on..

He has been in the WRS program for three years now, 60 minutes 5 days a week (excluding summers). He has been on the VC, sinent e, V combinations, C/G, r controlled and le syllables for almost two years now. How long should this take? I believe the teacher is competent since other students have made tremendous progress with her. We read for 30 minutes every night and he struggles with decoding, fluency and comprehension. He also has a processing speed weakness that shows up in his Psychological and and all of the W-J fluency tests. We have asked the school to implement the NILD program to meets his unique needs (reading, spelling, comprehension, processing speed and auditory memory and discrimination). Thanks in advance for any more input.

The Wilson Reading System is a multi-sensory phoenetic approach to reading. If your child is not committed to the program and has not bought into the approach he will not meet success. I have using Wilson for the past 8 years with my students with a success rate of about 90%. I also believe that if the teacher is not trained and certified in the program that they can do more damage then good. This is not a program to race through the idea is internalization of rules and skills. Good Luck.

He is very committed to the program. He wants to read like his peers so badly he can taste it! Even his teachers say over and over again that he is highly motivated. He’ll be entering middle school next year and I am afraid that he will start to lose interest if he does not start to experience some success. By the way, the teacher that is providing Wilson is trained and certified by the Wilson people. Do you really think that having been in the program for three years so far is “racing through it?” Wouldn’t you expect some sort of progress on the WJ-III by this time? You said that it works for you 90% of the time. Does that mean that there is 10% of the time that it doesn’t work? From your comments I am lead to believe that this is is due to the fact that the child is not invested rather than the program simply just not the right one for some student’s unique needs. Basically what I really want to know from those of you who are trained and certified in Wilson, have you ever experienced a student not making progress in their triennial scores, and if so would you surmise that WRS is not appropriate and consider an alternative program?

Hi, I have been using a concrete, multisensory, pencil-and-paper decoding method which works with any level, any text. Email me at [email protected] if you would like to know more. Anita

Carol — I would consider this slow progress and would supplement the Wilson with something. Since Wilson has a good reputation and he is at least making some progress with it, I wouldn’t throw it out, but would add and review.
My experience in general is that most kids badly need (a) to review the basic phonics step by step until it is not just recognized, but comfortably internalized, (b) to do massed practice, guided oral reading with a coach to work on accuracy, at least twenty minutes a day; starting on a level that is well-mastered and moving up a bit at a time to challenging levels. (c) to work on developing directionality and smoothness in handwriting.

In the large majority of cases I meet, pressure for fast results and speed reading and writing has been the problem, not the solution. The student feels unsure, is missing small but vital pieces, and is stressed. Once those basic foundations are more solid, the rest of the structure holds up better.

While there can be some statistical skew when you start at the bottom, that pretty much goes with reading levels, not standard scores. When standard scores go down, progress is not being made. I’m a fan of Wilson, too… but it seems awfully hard to figure out a way to say this has been working! One possible reason would be if he is severely dyslexic then he’s not going to keep up with his peers’ rate of reading (though as they slow down as they tend to in later years, he may gain on ‘em them *if* he’s been solidly immersed in language), so forward progress is forward progress.
Has his reading improved from that baseline (as opposed to compared with other children)?

Hi,

How old is your child? Has any testing been given that demonstrates other factors like fluency and comprehension skills? Could there be other language issues—receptive or expressive? Has that type of testing been done?

I agree with both posters about statistics. Often the error of measurement is greater at the bottom (or younger end) of the testing range. That leaves a very large confidence interval and seeing where the true score may fall is difficult. I also agree with the other poster about standard scores: if they are dropping, so is progress. However, one must recognize the confidence intervals for the testing instrument one is using.

For reading comprehension, I’m likin’ the Gray Oral Reading. I’m not crazy about the fluency piece, but at least it has a small clue in that department.

Quite frankly, except for measuring progress, I’ll take the Burns-Roe Reading Inventory (or John’s BASIC Reading inventory for that matter) over most of the standardized tests for information about how a student reads and where are the problems. Yes, I give them, but I’m now just giving Word ID and Word Attack (Basic Reading Cluster) from the WRMT and the Gray Oral for Comprhension. I use the reading inventory for everything else, especially fluency and listening comprehension.

I am O-G trained and use Wilson materials (along with many, many others). If your child is able to pay attention, is older that 10 or 11, and is motivated (which sounds true), then Wilson should take about a year to work through books 1-9 if they also possess an adequate visual memory. (You don’t need a standard score for that.) Some teachers belabor the WRS proess. (I have some in my district.) I’d rather teach it and revisit it (loop it) while keeping the pace moving. However, I don’t want to seem critical of a teacher I don’t even know. There are different ways of doing it. After book 5 or so, I *always* supplement with some kind of trade book (novel). If you have done C-LE syllable, you must be past book 5 and 6. (I can’t remember if you said you’ve done R-control which is book 8.)

That’s all I can remember of your post and this blasted system doesn’t seem to let me see what you posted…I liked the old BB where we could string funny post-titles. Just the titles would make ya want to read more. <sigh> The good ol’ days.

Susan:

<<If your child is able to pay attention, is older that 10 or 11, and is motivated (which sounds true), then Wilson should take about a year to work through books 1-9 if they also possess an adequate visual memory. (You don’t need a standard score for that.) Some teachers belabor the WRS proess.>>

I think this may depend upon how many students are in the group; what their abilities are, and the time it takes to individualize within each group. It is important to make sure each student in the group has enough response time for the program to be successful. It also depends upon what the skills of the students are when they enter the program. Some know all the consonants, digraphs, and vowels and cvc words when they enter the program, while others may know their consonants, but not their vowel sounds, nor do they know any other cvc words besides cat.

This is actually the best year I have had so far. I finally have students who will probably begin Book 6 before school ends. Wilson trainers say that the program can take up to three years depending upon the severity of the reading problem. Also, it is important to remember that WRS is meant for students with average to above average cognitive abilities. I have students with borderline verbal IQ scores, but average performance IQ scores. This program is not working as well for these students.

Marilyn