I’m frustrated. I have a 8 year old son with dyslexia.
School wont do ANYTHING for his dyslexia until next year, and I’m told by many parents the school’s “program” is horrible.
Cant afford tutors, private school, or special programs. No insurance.
Happy to do a program at home, but these programs are EXPENSIVE. I don’t understand— the programs are to HELP KIDS, but they price it sooo high nobody with less income can ever consider affording it!
And they’re almost mean about it. Have you seen the Bartons website for suggestionson lowering cost of their program?
Basically, they say spend the money on their program or let your child fail. See link and you’ll see it for yourself! [url]http://www.bartonreading.com/price.html#options[/url]
nice, real nice. They must REALLY care about helping ALL children. or at least the one’s whose families or schools can afford it.
Even used, we cannot afford 1 level. Then what happens when we need another level? We wouldn’t be able to afford that either.
So I’m researching other programs. The Davis program is $150, but many bad mouth that program for not being scientifically based… not sure about what I think of that. Still out of my reach financially though.
So, what are my options? Spending the money is not an option.
What can I do to save my son?
P.S. Other than testing, which has been done, Scottish Rite has no programs in my area to help us either.
Re: Dyslexia. No help. Now what?
Hi Joyful,
I agree with Scifi’s suggestions.
Though the first thing that you should do, is to get a clearer idea of your son’s Dyslexia.
Dyslexia is the general name.
As their are various sub-types of Dyslexia.
So it’s very helpful to identify what your sons Dyslexia sub-type/s is/are.
So that you know what to focus on.
Where the example of Visual Tracking that scifi gave, is one quite common sub-type.
Which can only be helped with visual tracking exercises.
Though many other Programs will happily take your money, even if it wont help.
Which can result in a child being taken on a merry-go-round of different programs, trying to find the right one, eventually?
So the best approach, is to become a bit of an expert yourself?
Where you can probably find some helpful books on Dyslexia at your local library.
Plus there is a lot of useful information on the internet.
Also if you do a google of: free dyslexia programs you’ll find well over a million.
Though the other important reason to become an expert on your son’s Dyslexia. Is so that you can have some control when dealing with teachers and schools!
Where they only pay attention to parents that know what they are talking about.
So I would suggest that your best option is to look at it as if you are studying Dyslexia.
Geoff,
Re: Dyslexia. No help. Now what?
I replied to Joyful heart via e mail, though I meant to post my experience here. My dtr was referred to Davis method via a very experienced neuropsychologist who trained at the University of Chicago. The neuropsychologist was highly recommended and diagnosed my dtr, at age 18, with dyslexia. It turns out that my dtr thinks in pictures, not words. I was pretty skeptical, because I had led her down so many wrong paths, and there is very little science behind any of these dyslexia and LD programs. I did as thorough an investigation as I could, and decided to go with the recs of the neuropsychologist. I also found some positive words about the Davis program in a book about LD by a couple of Seatle area pediatricians, as well as a small study done in South Africa. But, educational interventions are difficult to study due to the high placebo effect of giving children any type of attention. In addition, there is very little money available for this type of research. However, the neuropsychologist said that my dtr knew the phonics rules and had tested at a grade 17 reading comprehension level. Phonics doesn’t help visual thinkers. Years of trying to fit my dtr into the verbal sequential style of learning (for whom phonics works) resulted in failure and tons of frustration.
But, thankfully, the Davis program has really been helpful to my dtr. She is still working on it daily, as there are 200 words for her to master. She has done about 75 words. She is also in her first year of college and doing well! She says she know recognizes when words are mispelled, is able to keep up with the 200 pages of reading per night, has worked out strategies for learning facts. She is also using the Mind Tools web site materials, also recommended by the neuropsychologist. She has been transformed from a girl who believed she was stupid and could not do anything, to a girl who wants to try everything that is academic. She is now investigating spending a semester studying in England. So, what parent could not be happier with such results?
You can read some of the books out on dyslexia. Many of them have ideas that you can use at home. You may also want to look at things that have to do with visual exercises. Those can help strengthen the eye muscles which can help some dyslexics. Work with text to speech programs (there are many that have a free version or demo versions). These programs often have a highlight feature that can help with visual tracking. You can also change the backgrounds to try different colors. This can be very helpful for some kids.