A Cognitive Child

Where in Canada are you? I’m just west of Montreal.

I find that even “easy” phonics reading books put a lot of cognitive demand on the kid — they expect that since a sound has been presented once, it can then be used in any combination, and new vocabulary comes up constantly. It’s a good thing to learn new vocabulary but these books can have an awfully high first step.

Even though I am a phonics and decoding teacher period and I never tell a kid to just memorize a word, but always to look at the letters and sound, I have had great success with high-frequency readers with an incredibly high repetition rate — the first book has only a seventeen-word vocabulary, and every new word that is presented is repeated at least ten times within the next ten to twenty pages. To us as adults it may seem clunky but to a beginner lost in the process, there is a wonderful security and stability.
You can teach phonics with high-frequency words, you just have to help the student over long vowels and digraphs for a while until you get to them in the phonics book.

The particular books I use are the OLD Ladybird Key Words series 1a (Play With Us) and 1b through to 6a and 6b, from which you can go into any standard First Reader (although I like to review more primers first.) The Ladybirds have recently been reprinted and are available from penguin.uk — note the .uk, not .com The shipping form England is terribly expensive but a lot less than you have wasted so far. Be sure to get the workbooks for these books if you possibly can because they are things kids feel confident doing and they provide even more repetition.

If he is only mildly cognitively impaired and already eight years old, after all these interventions we would hope to see him beyond the beginning of Grade 1. What IQ score does he have?

Victoria, sorry I did not log it. I always forget.

We have spoken before. My son went through The Reading Foundation here in Calgary for Dr. Trush’s 80 hour remedial intense program. He love it there, but just did not make huge gains. I know that I can not expect big gains, but for $4,000.00 for one month I was hoping to see something. Dr. Trush uses some great programs and methods. I did alot of research on him and his clinic. Ever since he started he won’t read to me anymore. He read more in Grade one than he is now. It is like his fustration has completly taken over him. I HAVE TO READ TO HIM. I try to make a game of it. I will read one sentence he can read one word. I will pretend that I can’t read a word to see if he will help me…sometimes that works sometimes not.
I had a few opportunities to sit in some of his classes at The Reading Foundation. They were teaching my son “Sound Link”. Every word is sound out. I sat there thinking to myself, my son knows that word, why are they making him sound it out? It got my son more confused and more fustrated that he was mixing up his sounds. I understand that this is a wonderful way of teaching…..teach kids the sounds and not have them memorize the words. But it confused him, and now he does not want to read to me anymore.

I have his pre evaluation and his post evaluation….if you want to see more, maybe I can email it to you. It may give you a better understaning of where my son is at and the tests that Dr. Trush uses.
My son scored 64 on the WISC in grade 1. He is in the 1% percentile in almost all the tests and subtests.
I have taken him to a Ron Davis clinic to get him evaluated…of course it came back that “my son has the gift of disorientation”…..but does he really?
I will give you my email if you want, just let me know.
Thanks…..ONCE AGAIN!

Also, I use the Ladybird series

that the summer did not provide all that you had hoped! But please don’t give up! DON’T let him give up!

Victoria has the best advice tutoring- wise — so I’ll leave that to her. Here’s some Mom advice, which you can take or leave. It’s just my opinon — not just as a mom, but as a cub leader, former sunday school teacher and superintendent, and kid in a grownup’s body: this is what I believe, about learning, cognition, IQ, and all that stuff!

There is NO quick fix! You need to begin coaching your child to accept that some of us get a raw deal in one way or another. As the aunt of an 11.5YO with Duchennes Muscular Dystrophy, that is something that our family is quite used to dealing with. We still cry about it sometimes — but we never lose hope, and we NEVER stop trying. Even when trying means accepting that you must now, for your own safety, use a wheelchair all day, every day when not in your own livingroom — we never stop ‘trying’. This should be your attitude for your son, and for yourself. But it ain’t easy — it’s something that also TAKES TIME…and hard work!

Even if he is ‘cognitive’ and not ‘LD’ — what he needs is TIME and support. You have the tools — Victoria and others will help you work with him, since it sounds like you are able. But he needs to understand that together, you and he wWILL get where he needs to go. I can’t throw a baseball at all, or catch, or hit targets with just about anything, or park my car in a tight space. But reading came easily to me. Your son will have talents that may not yet be apparent, but reading is something he is NOT finding easy. That doesn’t mean he will not become a proficient reader — it is WAY too early to make predictions like that. You have to convince him to STOP judging himself, and feeling bad, and start trying to do what he can, little by little.

If I remember correctly, he is definitely a visual-spatial type. This may mean that the IQ is NOT accurate. So don’t go buying ANOTHER story, that he ‘IS a ‘cognitively slow’ person. YOU DON’T KNOW FOR SURE YET, and I warrant that there is no expert who can tell you for sure! But you spent your money on the Trush tutoring, and you have either learned that that was NOT the best solution, or you are on a temporary roadblock. Don’t let that make YOU judge your decision as wrong, or wish you had chosen Davis instead — that might have been MORE wrong! As you know, Victoria and I differ in our overall attitude to Davis — but I share some of her concerns, especially for a young child, and I don’t think you should rush on there, after choosing Trush. What does the Dr. Trush centre say? Have they given you any advice? Will tutoring continue during the school year?

Here’s my idea: School has just started. How about trying in all ways to take off the pressure? Just let him get started in school, and let the tutoring ‘settle’ a bit. Tell him you are proud of his hard work all summer, and sorry that he is still struggling, but that it was wrong to expect so much (since many people have trouble becoming fluent readers — but he WILL get there!) when reading is not an easy task. Praise his improvements, or even just his hard work, and tell him that sometimes it takes TIME for our brains to begin using what we have learned.

Go back to reading aloud for pleasure to him, without pressuring him to read also, until he is less upset about it. Tell him he’s going to have a holiday to help his brain learn to use what he learned at the centre. Then, after a brief rest, if he has a level where he IS ok, even if that is very low, he should just STAY there for a bit, without the pressure to ‘improve’. Does he have any books that he WILL read — or are you getting total attitude? If he has SOME that he will read, just go with those. Stop striving, for a bit, and take a rest. SHARE all this with him — if he trusts you to help him, it will help him relax!

Keep posting, especially about tutoring progress. Though I’ve never met her in person, I have full faith that Victoria’s methods WILL work to improve anyone, LD or ‘cognitive’ — leave the potential vs limitation analysis for later. You are one of us — an LD mom. That isn’t going to change, but that is NOT a death sentence — and I’m already planning the HS graduation party I’ll be throwing in another 7 to 9 (see, reality!) years — you’ll get there, too!

Best to you — read a really favourite book and snuggle your boy tonight! Talk yourself into confidence — then pass it to him!!!
Elizabeth

Elizabeth TO,
Everything you said in your post I have done or I am presently doing it. I have given him time off of his “tutoring”. He went in July to The Reading Foundation; we had lots of vacation time in August with no work for him at all. He just started school on Monday, so we have not had any pressure at all to do any homework. Mind you, his class is for “special needs” children, and they don’t give out much homework anyway. I praise him ALL THE TIME. I was so excited the other night because we were at the beginning of sounding out a word, and he first looked at it and said “mom, that is way to big for me”. So I began to sound it out for him. The word was “Favorites”.
I started with the “F”, then the “A”, the all of a sudden, he blurted the entire word out. I literally jumped out of the bed and did a little “jig”. He laughed at me and during the course of reading our book he would say “mom lets go back to that word again”. Anywords that he reads I praise and praise him. I don’t take anything for granitite. Everything he does, even when he speaks in a full sentence, I tell him how wonderful that sentence sounded.

I have hired a private speech therapist for the end of September. So, not only will he get the minimal amount that he receives in school (about once a week for a group session of an hour), but also once a week private therapy. (He has severe receptive/expressive language delay). I am also on a waiting list for Visual Therapy. Gosh, I know I am trying everything aren’t I?

Dr. Trush’s words
There is no doubt that he will require additional Intensive work here at the clinic, he would also benefit from regular Saturdays’ or once a week sessions”.
He said that “Retaining letter/sound connections and blending issues seem to be his major challenges”.

I just need to know if kids go through a stage. My son seemed to have no problems reading to me last year, and especially in grade one, he always wanted to try to read. Is it because he knows he realizes he has difficulties? Why does he not want to read anymore?

that is exactly what I was thinking — did you ever notice when he was little that, just before some big developmental leap, he would sort of be cranky and horrid and babyish — we have discussed this before on the forum, and i know I’m not the only one who felt this was true.

I sure didn’t mean to say I thought you weren’t ‘on top’ of things — I think I responded more to my perception of YOUR anguish, thinking you were less ‘on top’ of it than you are — feeling that he had not progressed and doubting your whole path. Sorry, but I’ve noticed that my posts don’t seem to get across as I intend when I’ve posted to your threads before — so maybe you shouldn’t pay much attention to anything I say, we must be very different! (LOL — I’m not for everyone!) Maybe Victoria or some of the other teachers will have advice on how the additional decoding instruction confused him — maybe he IS reading better and therefore is giving you a hard time?

My own son had a period at beginning Gr. 3 when he tried to convince me that reading silently was now ‘OK’ for him — I knew it was not, and had to really prove I was SERIOUS that he HAD to read aloud with me…had I not done this, I don’t believe he’d be reading at the level he is now! A word like favourite was always easier for my son to ‘get’ than and or the…the typical dolch words took the longest for him to not stumble over. I also agree with Victoria — I NEVER let an error pass. You either read the word, or you get it wrong — there is no in between!

But, I believe that ‘assisted reading’ should not include too much forced sounding out - I separate the two types of reading. With assisted reading, I give a few beats to allow the person to ‘get the word’ — then provide it and move on, so reading is not too painful (literacy tutor training!). When we are WORKING on words, I would force sounding out — but I didn’t do alot of that, cuz my boy jumped from struggling to fluent without alot of it…not a plan, I was flying by the seat of my pants, so I am not able to advise anyone why or how!

But also, he has had quite a hard summer, so maybe he is DUE a bit of attitude…you’re the expert here!

For some reason I got the original impression of your kid as a typical visual spatial learner, whose ‘word language’ is not his strong suit — therefore I DO see him in the ‘Davis’ spectrum, (but don’t give up on Trush, I still think he’s way too young for Davis!) and this is why I am not sure I would (if I were you) accept the ‘slow cognitive’ label — I still have this impression that he is LD. Remember, the experts know alot — but not EVERYTHING!

Maybe you need to just back off on the sounding out…Victoria, jump in here — I’m an expert on my own kid, but she’s an expert on READING! At what point does ‘guessing’ not become ‘guessing’ but truly reading??? Intuitively putting all the pieces together and READING naturally, the basis of the horrible ‘whole language’ movement? (In other words, did he GUESS favourite — or READ it?) It does exist, even if it’s a lousy jump in logic to decide that, because some ‘really good readers’ do this naturally, ALL readers should be taught this way and will therefore become ‘really good readers’ if taught this way…

In my son’s case, we had no funds for formal phonics instruction past fall of Gr. 3 and basically only had assisted reading (LOTS OF IT!) together from that point on — we never got into reading reflex cuz by the time I got it in spring of gr 3, he was very fluent, and BALKED at the exercises, while he would happily read aloud and was obviously improving daily, so I went with the path of least resistance. I was less worried about spelling at that time, since it was still hard to get him to write!!! I do think this is why his spelling is so bad, because he should have had more ‘code instruction’, but so life goes…they don’t come with instruction manuals!

You are right…..about the stage developement. The whole “OH my god, he will never be potty trained, he keeps wetting his pants”. Then instantly he was potty trained.

I don’t know if this is the case with my son. But you never know.

Everything you have posted to me has helped and made me feel “not so alone”. It is just nice to have some support, and information. I was not implying that you doubted what strategies I use as a parent. I only wanted to make it clear that I am trying everything that I can think of. Having you or Victoria or anyone else post to my replies has truly help me. I have learned so much by being on this board. I didn’t know who Ron Davis was, or what a visual spatial learner was, not even asperger syndrom, or the many types of LD out there, or the many many books I have had the opportunity to read. It is because of all the posts here and the people like you who have something to say. So, please don’t stop saying what you want to say! The more I know, the better chance I have with my son learning and his mother keeping her sanity.
:)

In regards to when he blurted out the word, I think I was going slow enough by sounding out the first 2 letters, that he took it upon himself to finish the rest of the sounding out in his head without waiting for me. He truly was proud of himself for doing that. But then, there are times he gets stuck on a simple word like “Say”, or “Them”. Wierd..
Thanks for your replies. I do appreciate any information or suggestions.

Hi again.

Yes, plateaus and dips in learning are very common. Yes, they do often come before a big climb up. So take a deep breath and try to relax.

Yes, if a child has been taught to memorize and guess and do things the “easy” way (which turns out to be hardest in the long run, but of course the beginner can’t know that) he often resists learning how to sound out things step by step. It’s important to get behind the sounding out and *not* undercut the phonics teaching by encouraging guessing everywhere but in class. Kids may not always pick up on reading, but they pick up really fast on attitudes.

The “favourite” thing — well, this is the gambler’s ruin. Gambler’s ruin: you win a few hundred dollars when you are first playing, so you are convinced you are lucky or that you have a successful system and you proceed to gamble more and more; always losing more than winning but the system lets you win just enough to convince you that your luck is turning, until you gamble away your life. Same thing in reading — how may words start with the sound “fay” and fit logically in that sentence? So you guess and get it right and get rewarded. OOPS. Now you guess the next word and the next because guessing is easy and gets rewards. It is necessary as a tutor *not* to reward lucky guesses and to come down hard on bad guesses until the student learns he is losing more than winning. Not half as much fun, but it’s called teaching.

What I’m going to say here is going to get me into trouble with many people, but it’s OK if you don’t take it too seriously. Take this as a ROUGH RULE OF THUMB, not as an eternal law, please.
Take the IQ as a percent. 64 IQ = 64/100 = .64
Then multiply that by the child’s age. 8 x .64 = 5.12
This implies that an eight-year-old with an IQ of 64 is *academically* about the level of an average five-year-old. This has nothing to do with other abilities, social skills, sports, or whatever, it’s just a rough (very rough) guide to what can be expected in *school* teaching and learning.
OK, the average five-year-old is a lot more able than many people give credit for, but still you can’t demand everything.
I’d expect a child at this level to be able to learn the alphabet, to be able to learn to sound out short vowel CVC words, to be able to learn the high-frequency words in the old Ladybird levels 1, 2, and be starting 3, to be starting long vowels and digraphs but not having them mastered yet, to be able to print the alphabet and numbers readably, to be able to do most of Phonics Book 1 although maybe not the last chapters, to spell using correct consonants but maybe still be iffy on vowels, to be able to count to ten and maybe twenty, and to be able to do additions and subtractions of small numbers (up to perhaps six, maybe eight) using concrete objects to count.
If your child has reached this level, he is doing OK. If he has passed this level, he is working very hard and doing well. If you are trying to get him very far above this level, you may be pressuring him beyond his capacity.

Continuing with this rough rule of thumb, if he progresses steadily he will be reading around a Grade 2 level by age ten or eleven, and around a Grade 4-5 level by age 15 (and since a lot of kids enter high school at that level, that would be not so bad!). He should be able in high school to learn the literacy and numeracy skills needed to hold a job. The main thing is to keep forward progress, slow but steady, not to give up and let him be warehoused in his classes.

OK, to reiterate, IQ is not an exact number and is not set in stone. You need to do things that will increase his general learning ability. Verbal stimulation of all sorts. Activities of all sorts. Some people speak very highly of Audiblox and it is not expensive to do it yourself so you may want to look into it. You may want to look into PACE later.

Good luck with all this.

Whew, thanks Victoria. Reading through the posts I kept thinking, I hope someone will tell her what a 64 IQ converts to! Yes, age 5. That means he is now “ready” to learn kindergarten level reading. His reading skills will take time…a lot of time. Patience will be necessary in every skill he learns. If it were me, I’d certainly work on the cognitive exercises in either Audiblox or TurboTutor. He will need years of work to gain basic reading skills. It won’t just happen overnight like it might with some other kids.

You should also really work on language skills as well. Lots of good programs available at www.laureatelearning.com.

Janis

I didn’t know that is how you actually converted the IQ score, but I did know that (from seeing different pschycologists), my son is at a ESC (kindergartend / beginning of grade 1) level. Most people I have spoken to have explained that to me. But that is interesting how you actually convert it.
I have gone onto the website for Audiobox. I downloaded the assessment test, and have read the information on it. I just may order it. I will do the test on my son to see how it works.

Terese, IQ scores can increase. If you look at the component scores, you can see that most of the skills can be taught. Audiblox, TurboTutor and other programs like PACE and BrainSkills work on some of those skills. I was recently told that BrainSkills was a little better for higher functioning children and that Audiblox and TurboTutor were better for younger and lower functioning children. That’s why I suggested those.

I am really not up on the literature regarding children with cognitive delays, but I am convinced that many of the skills on IQ tests can be improved.

Janis

Thanks Janis for backing me up on that one. A lot of us have been jumped on for using IQ scores and learning-equivalent ages like that and I for one am cautious of doing it for fear of starting a flame war, so that’s probably why nobody else jumped in with both feet and explained it. I don’t take IQ scores as a final word either, but they do give you an idea of what you are starting with.

Absolutely, Victoria.

Janis

Just out of curiousity, my son did the WISC III end of grade one, he is now in grade 3, should I look into having another test done in the near future?

There are so many great schools (LD schools here) and I know my son is not LD, but there is no where for him to go, besides one of the private LD schools or to stay in the public schools. A lot of the good LD schools won’t take my son, or say that his tests were too low. I know that once they are coded, they are coded. But I am not sure where he will be placed next year. It is either keep him in the public school, or find a school that caters to children with multipule disabilities. Eg: Asperger, autism, severe ADHD children, OD children. I don’t know if that would be the best place for him because he has such a soft quiet personality, and it would not make sense to me to place him in a school where there are more distractions and the teachers are trying to teach children with more of a learning severity than my son. Does that make sense?

I’m glad my posts were not offending you — being sometimes out of the ‘mainstream’ in opinion, I think I tend to be a bit paranoid if I don’t get a positive response! Thanks for the reality check.

Somehow I am surrounded (and have been all my life) with inarticulate, talented visual-spatial type males — I think I responded negatively to the ‘slow cognitive’ label, which I really think it is TOO EARLY for them to put on him. My cub-leader name is Raksha — ‘Mother Wolf’, and if you know the Jungle Book stories at all, you will understand my approach, because the name really fits me. Any kiddo who suffers ‘reading failure’ is automatically on my list of ‘virtual cubs’, you see — so I may REACT to any negativity in his regard. They are CHILDREN — works in progress, and the sky IS the limit!

As Victoria and Janis have said, these scores can change and improve with the right remediation plus time and maturity — of course, the remediation is KEY, but you are way on top of that. So I don’t find it appropriate to put a label on such a young child — let’s use the scores to give information about HOW to help, not to just ‘slot him in his box’ and let him be….grrr, sorry, I’m ranting again!

I guess the LD schools tend to want kids like mine, whose dyslexia is visual only (he has excellent and advanced speech and verbal skills but reading was a struggle to get and now writing and spelling are still WAY behind his verbal skills) — but this does NOT mean he is ‘slow cognitive’ and not LD. Just that THEIR programs probably work only for certain types of LD kids…

Your take on the available programs vs. his personality makes alot of sense, to me. We have to consider the WHOLE child, not just his academic well-being — a class might be great academically, but bad socially and/or inappropriate in other ways - in which case the regular school might be best, even if it means you must work on remediation outside of school as many people must do. Lots of people here have been through this — keep posting and you will get lots of response to help you decide what to do.

HOw is the reading together going?

In regards to the school, I have to figure something out soon, as some of Private Schools have waiting lists. If I were to keep him in the public systems, he would be in a “normal” class, but have an aid. I would think that having an aid all the time may make him feel “stupid”. Where as if I were to put him in a Private school, all the kids will have an IPP, and he won’t feel so ‘different’.

As for the reading, we have some beginning phonic books. I told him last night in bed that I was going to read a book for him (he loves Robert Munch), then he was going to read to me, but only 4 pages. He did the “humming and Ahhhing”, but then I said, ok, if you read me 4 pages, I will read one more book to YOU. He was very happy about that, and read 4 pages, WITHOUT ANY HELP. He WHIZED through the 4 pages. It was amazing. Usually he becomes unfocused, distracted, and fustrated. But he read it like a pro. I told him that at the end of my day, when I go to bed at night, the one thing that makes me happy is hearing him read to me. He smiled at me and said “Mom, I read to you tomorrow too”. Good days and bad days! Last night was a great day!

sorry forgot to sign in!

Go ahead and get another IQ test if you want an update. I wouldn’t think it is too important *unless* you want a baseline for before-and-after comparison before you try some learning interventions. It can be very good to have both scores to see if you are making the progress you hope for. However, remember that IQ scores are never an exact science and differences of less than ten points are probably not meaningful.

I would question very strongly putting him in a school with a lot of kids with severe problems. Especially since you describe him as very social. One problem that often occurs is that kids reflect the behaviours they see going on around them.

are in your area…why not start checking them out now, but don’t TELL the public school? Target your school(s), go visiting, look at their programs and type of kids who do well with their programs…maybe pursue updated testing (do it privately, NOT through public school) to have latest info ready…this way, you have BOTH options available to you.

Most private schools (at least the one we looked at but could not afford without trading modest house for small apartment!) will allow you some time to make a decision before paying deposits, etc., without endangering your ‘place’ in line…then go forward also with investigation of options at public school — this will buy you the gift of time to make the best decision.

What support (if any) do you have from the psych who did the grade 1 testing — or was that thru school? A good psych who understands your boyo’s type of learning difficulties can be a HUGE asset…and they do exist! Might need to shop around a bit also to find the right person — have you been to the ‘Understanding Tests and Measurements’ article at wrightslaw.com yet? It is INVALUABLE, IMO…

I was thinking more during the end of this school year or next school year to see about another WISC test. I know that some schools require an updated test before entrance. I just don’t know if it would be valuable to get one done sooner than later.
Victoria, I agree with you about placing my son in a school with children who have more “Behavior problems’ than a LD / cognative child. I have been on the Schwab board, and posted a question about anyone who knows about Private schools in Calary, AB. One lady posted to me who has a child in one of the schools here who have told me they would accept my son, but the school is more Behavior, ADD, ADHD, OC, etc. She likes the school but her son did pick up some bad habits during the first year at the school (swearing, acting up).

Anyway, thanks again for your posts and information. I really appreciate it.

My son’s performance IQ was 88 when we started. I don’t know what it is now but I do know that his visual motor deficit severly impacted his IQ. He has always been verbally bright but the visual motor deficit seemed to impact everything. He always seemed like a bright boy trapped in the body of a boy who couldn’t express his abilities. It was very frustrating and sad.
I have taken the approach of really going gangbusters after the specific deficits. I think I earned the equivalent of my PHD the last several years. It isn’t a phd in any specific field it is a phd in the workings of my little boy’s brain.
He has a sequencing deficit that I addressed throught interactive metronome and audiblox. We had a great developmental optometrist who really understood what he needed and we worked on memory issues, visual spatial issues, balance etc etc. I also addressed his reading issues through phonographix.
I just want you to know that addressing the specific deficits has made a world of difference. He has been released from his burden. Not completely but it is an ongoing process. He is in 5th grade and is doing well in the academics. He is an avid reader and I was told recently that he has high school level comprehension. This was not evident when he was younger and I used to get strange looks from his teachers when I said he was bright.

He is struggling with some of the organizational issues but so are alot of kids.