I have a fourth grader who was finally identified this year with a written language disability. My husband and I made the mistake of thinking that the schools would provide him services to overcome or at least improve in these areas. That has not been the case. They are making modifications in the classroom, but continue to feel he just needs to try harder.
He has struggled since K and just started reading at grade level. I attribute much of that success to our Phono-graphix tutor. He made great gains with this program. He has completed what this tutor could offer so we need to find a program that would continue working with him in all three subjects.
I have tutor in mind and would like to find a program or resource materials for her. My son has a high IQ so it has been a difficult process trying to convince the school that his lack of achievement is due to his disability and not his efforts. We can not wait any longer for the school to get it’s act together, we have been fighting them since First grade.
Any suggestions would be much appreciated!
:?
Alternatives
I know I sound like a broken record here, but I hope you will look into alternative schools, charter schools, and the possibility of homeschooling. Sometimes getting the school to do what is needed is much more effort than doing it yourself. You sound like you have already helped your child more on a very part-time basis than the school has been able to in 6 hours a day. What if you had control of the entire day? Homeschooled kids have been shown to be more than twice as productive as kids in regular schools, allowing them to complete a year’s work in an average of about 6-7 months at only three hours a day. I think the efficiency would be even more for a kid with a learning difference that made the regular classroom instruction more challenging. We even went to the length of helping to create our own charter school. It’s not the answer for everyone, but it sure worked for us!
Re: Tutoring program for spelling and writing disability
(Steve, our child with LD is in a charter school, by the way.)
Guilly,
I’lll tell you what I’d try if I were teaching writing. I’d try High Performance Writing from SRA. It is a Direct Instruction program, and those are generally top notch instructionally and easy to follow. Many people recommend Step Up to Writing, but it is one of those programs that is not as easy to use.
I’d give the pre-test for Mastering Alphabetic Spelling and see if that is needed. Scroll down to Spelling and you’ll see the placement test.
http://www.oci-sems.com/bookstore/prod_teacher_resource.htm
After that, I’d probably try AVKO Sequential Spelling and/or SRA Spelling Through Morphographs.
And if he needs further work in decoding harder multi-syllable words, I’d use REWARDS Intermediate. It is a good choice to follow Phono-Graphix.
There are many programs out there. The ones that are truly *research based* all work and if you work on them seriously they can all work well. You make your choice based on personal tastes, learning style, the level already achieved, and your pocketbook.
For the last few years I’ve been answering questions like yours on this site and others. Instead of typing the same thing up for the tenth time, I’ve saved all this advice down into a packet — along with a few excellent posts by others — now up to a fairly large book-in-progress.
For a ton of advice, suggestions, and recommendations, just email a request to [email protected]