Locan

Well not sure. This looks like an alternative alphabet that the child learns and then transitions into the regular alphabet. This is not a brand new concept. Has been going on for years with ITA, Unifon, and Distar. (Might look these up for comparison purposes.) However much I would like to redo the alphabet is it not going to happen. I think that you are still going to get numerous problems when you translate back.

IMO, you should be looking up Orton Gillingham and Lindamood Bell. ALso look up the files on the ldonline pages. Highly visual spatial kids DO learn to read this way, and sadly the only way to read is learning the alphabetic code. There is no real way around this, but these above system work by making the code clearer and more explicit and logical.

If he doesn’t learn the code he is doomed to about 3-4th grade level reading. IMO, these special alphabets just delay learning the code, though they might have application for some kids.

—des

Thanks! Locan looks interesting but I agree with you. You still have to make the jump from the symbolic into the semantic. DS has a pretty good grasp of phonics and his sight word vocabulary is okay but he does make frequent mistakes. LMB is too far away, one hour in non-rush hour traffic could be closer to 2 hours during rush hour. I’m looking at an LD school 15 minutes away that teaches reading based on Orton Gillingham.

Des says that Locan is one of those adapted phonetically regular alphabets.

Considering that your child is already ten and is already reading a fair amount in the regular alphabet, I think this would be a very bad move. He is not quite sure of the symbols and code according to what you say; so how is introducing a new set of symbols and a new code supposed to help? The symbols he has spent five years learning with great difficulty are to be forgotten, and a whole new set learned — recipe for confusion and frustration and likely giving up. Even if it is moderately successful in that he may learn to read more smoothly in the new symbols, then in a year you ask him to transition back to the ordinary alphabet — most pre-teens I know would say several rude words and quit reading for good at that point.

In general, these phonetically regular adapted alphabets are a most interesting idea, fascinating to us linguists, but there are two huge as yet unsolved problems: (1) The transition to the regular alphabet never seems to work as smoothly as it should. It is a point that has been observed in many areas that American education is really bad at transitions in general, and this is a notable example. In theory the special alphabet is phased out gradually around the Grade 2 level, but in practice it seems that one year you’re using the special alphabet and poof, the next year you’re using the regular alphabet with little or no guidance as to what is going on or how or why. The students learn to write with the special alphabet, not following good handwriting patterns, and learn to spell phonetically, both learned in their very most malleable learning period when they develop their patterns for the rest of their school and life; and then one day they are supposed to write regular letters and spell with our weird English patterns; many of them never make the jump.
(2) You learn to read in order to read books. You want the child to be surrounded by a rich literary environment and to learn to love books and dive into them daily. So you need a large library, in the classroom and in the school and in the town and if possible in the home. But theere never have been enough books printed in any of these adapted alphabets. It’s a vicious circle: if you got the alphabet accepted as the standard way to learn to read, then publishers would put out all their early-level books in that alphabet, and you would have the reading materials needed — but since you don’t have the reading materials, it’s hard to get it accepted.

The place that’s thinking about using Locan is a local learning center that starts with addressing sensory integration issues, then moves up to processing deficits, and then on to content. DS goes back Monday for in depth testing for possible placement. DS’s reading will be tested and I think that he’s probably too advanced in the mechanics for Locan. DS’s sight reading is close to grade level (5th) but his comprehension is maybe at 3rd grade probably 2nd grade. His vocabulary is really poor.

At home I just started Idea Chain with him and this may help with the comprehension as long as he can increase his vocabulary.

Well you need to figure out if comprehension problems are really due to problems in comprehension and not to problems decoding larger words. If he is “sight reading” at 5th grade level, what is he decoding at? If he is just having trouble with decoding longer words, take a look a Rewards by Sopris West. www.sopriswest.com

If he is having trouble decoding small words as well then he needs a more intensive approach ie Orton Gillingham.

If he is NOT having trouble decoding (sounding out) at all, then you can get into Idea Chain. I would NOT do this unless I knew what his actual decoding skills were.

Not sure what else Locan has to offer. If he needs sensory integration, I’d think about going outside some program like this and take him to a regular OT (that does SI) or see if you can get this included in his school program. I am inclined to think that a program like this will jack up prices all around.

I also find the phonetic alphabets interesting. Perhaps they could make sense for early normal learners— not sure how the studies have worked out. But if he is already in 5th grade or so, it doesn’t make sense to me.

—des

DH and I work a lot with DS and have a pretty good feel for his skills. He’s decent at reading especially out loud. I don’t feel that his decoding skills are bad. They’re not great but he can decode most words with minimal errors. He has some recently discovered vision problems (lack of binocular vision and so-so tracking) that are impacting his sight reading.

There’s definitely a reading comprehension/vocabulary problem. Plus his ability to express himself is probably at a 1st or 2nd grade level. You can see that he understands, especially when the material is presented visually and he gets the main idea and some of the details but can’t relate the details to the main idea. He does great on multiple choice tests but essay questions are terrible.

He probably has some auditory processing problems and he’s being tested this week and next week by an audiologist and SLP who specialize in this.

The school won’t do any more OT because his motor skills are considered adequate for school. He can write and get around without seriously injuring himself. There’s also the issue of “only Autistic kids have sensory integration problems” and DS isn’t autistic. It seems like many psychologists don’t recognize sensory integration as a separate disorder. They may be right and all of DS’s problems are part of a different disorder or disorders but sensory integration seems fairly obvious to me, the Mom.

My gut feeling is once this center tests him they’ll decide against Locan and if they do recommend it I’ll run away very, very fast.

Please excuse me if I’m repeating myself because I’m looking at many different things to try and get a handle on how to help my DS.

If you could, please let us know how the idea chain program is working out. I am considering it also. I am hoping it is user friendly. Let us know how it is going. Thanks

Idea Chain is very user friendly. There are 6 lessons and each lesson has 4 sessions. You need to do 4 sessions a week. If you want to do more that’s fine, too. There’s a script for you to use and that makes it very easy for the parent. I’ve just started it so I can’t tell you if it’s helping.

>DH and I work a lot with DS and have a pretty good feel for his skills. He’s decent at reading especially out loud. I don’t feel that his decoding skills are bad. They’re not great but he can decode most words with

Rewards still may be helpful, also you might consider looking at a program called Great Leaps. It builds fluency which may be lacking in his case. Consider that the load of multisyllable words will just be gettting higher.

>There’s definitely a reading comprehension/vocabulary problem. Plus his ability to express himself is probably at a 1st or 2nd grade level. You

Hopefully you’ll find the Idea Chain helpful in that case. The comprehension problems he has seem to be those that are higher order thinking than the multiple guess questions get to, or at least your kid is smart enough to see thru them. :-)

>injuring himself. There’s also the issue of “only Autistic kids have sensory integration problems” and DS isn’t autistic.

Wow! That’s quite an idea. Wonder about all those ADHD kids that Jeanne Ayres wrote about. Autism was written about some what separately. Kind of interesting as she invented the whole thing. :-)

>My gut feeling is once this center tests him they’ll decide against Locan and if they do recommend it I’ll run away very, very fast.

Of course I wouldn’t assume they won’t. If they have it to sell… But sounds a reasonable idea, if the testing folk are competent. Can’t answer to that one.

You can look up “sensory integration diet”. There are some things that you can do yourself. Ideally if he has problems, he should have a trained OT. I doubt you will get any payment reimbursement, but you can try. I think parents would help you most here.

—des