Reader Rabbit & Magic Treehouse books

Short answer: no

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Detailed answer:
If these materials worked so great, why would you be here, and why would the teacher not believe that she could succeed in teaching him?

Why take advice from a person who admits that her methods have almost no chance of success?

Magic Treehouse books are OK, not my personal favourites but many people here have done well with them and like them. But they are *books* with extensive vocabulary — perfectly OK to read for practice AFTER you know how to read, but the little problem is learning to read them in the first place …

Reader Rabbit is multicolour and wowie-zowie and intended to grab the attention of the TV generation child; it is long on flash and short on content. Not that the content is wrong, simply that there isn’t *enough* depth even for most average kids, much less a kid who clearly needs something extra. And the flash and all can actually be distractions to the kid with problems, can actually prevent the message getting across.

A question I’ve often asked and never yet got a sensible answer to: How can a kid not yet recognize most of the letters of the alphabet and yet be “reading” storybooks like Magic Treehouse??

It really sounds like the teacher is floundering totally and looking for anything at all at a low level to put in front of him so they can both go through the motions.
This is depressing and a sign of how little most teachers actually have been taught about the science of teaching reading, not entirely her fault but discouraging.

There are a number of appropriate programs that can be used. If you refer to the National Reading Panel report and other articles on LD In Depth, you will see that *out of the phonics-based programs* no single program had a great advantage over the others; as long as you combine the essential elements — systematic phonics, guided oral reading, and comprehension and vocabulary teaching — you can choose whatever suits your style and finances.

If you read the how-to-tutor notes which I send out (ask at [email protected]) you will find outlines of programs that I have found successful and inexpensive, as well as names of others that people here have recommended.

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Where to start effectively:

If he doesn’t yet recognize all the letters of the alphabet, you have just localized the foundation of the problem. Until this is solid, anything else he does will be wild guessing and will fail and stall. Of course he forgets — he never knew what the word looked like in the first place!! You need to use a multisensory approach to get those letter forms into his memory. Multisensory combines auditory (sound) kinesthetic (motion) tactile (touch) WITH the visual (sight).
The usual approach — which is a demonstrated failure with your nephew— is to simply put the letter or word on a flash card and ask him to name it. Several tens of thousands repetitions of this later, it’s pretty clear by now that he doesn’t have a good visual memory, isn’t it?

So instead you have him shape the letter *physically* — and please be careful to teach consistent and correct directionality, a constant problem. And do *lower-case*!!! How often do you read a book in all capitals??

Get a good printing guide and follow the orders and arrows, very important — many students get in real trouble working in all directions and mixing up spelling, see five other posts here this week.
You can use a blackboard and chalk, a whiteboard and markers, sand on a plate (some people like this for the tactile), a large ziplock bag full of something foamy (shaving cream and pudding are suggested), and “air-writing” with eyes both open and closed. For one student I made a binder with one letter and code pictures for its sounds (a - apple, b - ball, c - cat, ceiling, d - dog, e - elephant, eagle, Earth, etc.) on each page; I made the pages were made of cardboard and the I cut letters (lower-case) out of corduroy two inches high; then you put the direction arrows beside the letter and he traces it with his finger, feeling the corduroy texture. Montessori uses letters cut out of sandpaper the same way, but the soft corduroy or velvet is more pleasant (one kid, probably sensory integration problems, became very angry and upset when I had him trace rough letters.) You can also form the letters on the back of his hand or on his back with your fingers. One mother said she even ran her kid around the back yard in the form of an h.
At first you *just* work on printing the letter forms. After he can consistently recognize *and *shape properly five to ten letters and say their sounds, then you start making up short words with *only* the letters he knows. You have him sound out these little words, NO guessing period. You continue having him trace, copy, and write each word until he knows it through his fingers and can shape it in air writing without looking.
Yes, this is a long slow process. And how fast has the other approach worked again?

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By the way, where are you located geographically? If you’re anywhere near me (NE Canadian border) I can show you good materials and approaches; perhaps other good people here could help if you’re anywhere near them.

Jodysue, I just responded to your other post but will add a bit here. Victoria’s right about the multi-sensory stuff. I pondered for years on how to create cards that could be used, short of handcutting all the letters, etc. I finally discovered that transluscent plastic needlepoing canvas allows letters to be seen through it; it’s inexpensive, and won’t damage the child. I printed the letters in 3/8 inch strokes on card stock. I put a green dot where they child should begin printing and a red dot where s/he should stop. The I just put these cards under a piece of the plastic canvas and the child can trace over them. If you put both items in a plastic bag, the kinesthetic/tactile sense is activated just as well and it’s a little easier on the fingers.

If you go to my website, http://www.spellangtree.org, and click on “Free Resources”, you’ll find a very practical way to teach handwriting. Once you’ve taught the letter forms and the principal sound each represents, you’ll be able to create small words. Do this very systematically, starting with something as simple as ‘am’ and building on that. The constant repetition of writing phonetic elements will cement them in his mind.

I’m going to be out of town for a couple of weeks (invading Victoria’s territory) but would love to compare notes with you when I return. You can contact me by email via my website. Grace

I haven’t read the posts in the other thread, but you mentioned that he cannot read at all and has difficulty remembering sound/symbol correlations. If this is the case, the software you mentioned (and the books) are not going to do much good.

Since he likes computers, what I would recommend is that you get the Sound Reading CD for Teens from http://www.soundreading.com . I have seen this help a *lot* of children with difficulties. It starts at the very beginning, and most children (even older ones) like working with it. This program helps develop phonemic awareness, sound/symbol correlations, works on segmenting skills, and teaches basic word attack skills.

The other thing I would recommend is borrowing the book “Reading Reflex” from McGuiness and reading the first three chapters of that book. This provides a lot of good information about the subskills necessary for reading. If you decide to use the program, you can purchase the book for under $20 at bookstores. Before starting advanced code, I would advise purchasing the author’s $39 “parent support guide for older students” and switching to that as your spine. If you decide on this method, you can skip the manipulatives with a child this age and start him out right away “mapping” words on a small whiteboard.

Because of the ADHD, you may need to work with him for only 20 minutes at a time (or less). It’s better to have his full attention for 5 minutes than only half of his attention for 10 minutes.

Good luck!

Nancy

Just wanted to mention that a former contributor to this board, Rod Everson, has created a much improved advanced code workbook to go with Reading Reflex instead of that parent support book. Anyone interested can send me a private message and I’ll give you Rod’s email address. I think the workbook and manual are about $34.

Janis

I have just posted

Beginning the alphabet and reading — long long how-to

here on the Teaching Reading page,

This is a detailed step-by-step teaching guide to getting a grip on helping the problem of the student who doesn’t know the alphabet.