Rod I have read alot of your posts

Hi marion,

It’s hard to know what to say based on what you’ve written, but one thing I would be curious about is what your son’s teacher would say about whether Phono-Graphix was used in the curriculum last year. His teacher may also have some insight into his reading problem, so I would be inclined to contact her/him and see what you find out. Definitely don’t hesitate to make such a phone call.

If the teacher says it was “similar” to Phono-Graphix, or some such statement, then he didn’t get Phono-Graphix. I suspect the teacher won’t have a clue what the psychologist was talking about, but let us know. If it’s a small school, the psychologist might have been right on top of your son’s situation, however.

Here’s where I’m at on reading. The only kids I’ve worked with who have not made significant progress with Phono-Graphix have had previously-undetected vision problems, except for one who I worked with prior to being trained. He, too, may have had a vision problem, but I wasn’t looking for such things back then. If the vision problem can be addressed (and so far, that has been the case in most instances) then reading progress can resume.

The “grade level in 12 hours” thing was oversold when the first version of Reading Reflex came out, but gains are, nevertheless, startling compared to most methods, and especially compared to whole language for those particular kids that need an explicit phonetic program. Some kids may never read at age level, and some may never read for pleasure, but so far I haven’t run into one that can’t make a lot of progress with Phono-Graphix, augmented by vision therapy if needed.

Let us know what you hear from your son’s teacher of last year….Rod

Hi Rod,

My son will have the same teacher this year I already know she has never heard of Reading Reflex, she does phonix but not phono-graphics, she uses McMillian readers. My son thinks they are baby books and I must agree since his tutor last summer let him select library books he was interested in at 2nd-3rd or more level.

The teacher was not receptive to talking to the tutor at the beginning of the year and seems to get an attitude when I ask questions. His tutor last summer up until Christmas was a senior in elem. ed and just a great guy my son looked forward to their library trips and worked on his vocabulary through the week. He did really well at least he was advancing.

This summer I have had a remedial reading teacher working with him. I loaned her Reading Reflex and although she was not familar with the book uses techniques from the book. Now summer is over and it’s back to baby books.

I will keep paying a tutor if it helps but really want the test results and good directional advise. His speech therapy has his phononems (sp?) down pat.

He also got reading glasses and had a very complex exam by a Dr. that used to work at a clinic that did vision therapy and did not think he needs that. It will take awhile before I can tell if the glasses are helping his correction was mild.

Sorry this is so long.

Anne

Hi Rod,

My son will have the same teacher this year I already know she has never heard of Reading Reflex, she does phonix but not phono-graphics, she uses McMillian readers. My son thinks they are baby books and I must agree since his tutor last summer let him select library books he was interested in at 2nd-3rd or more level.

The teacher was not receptive to talking to the tutor at the beginning of the year and seems to get an attitude when I ask questions. His tutor last summer up until Christmas was a senior in elem. ed and just a great guy my son looked forward to their library trips and worked on his vocabulary through the week. He did really well at least he was advancing.

This summer I have had a remedial reading teacher working with him. I loaned her Reading Reflex and although she was not familar with the book uses techniques from the book. Now summer is over and it’s back to baby books.

I will keep paying a tutor if it helps but really want the test results and good directional advise. His speech therapy has his phononems (sp?) down pat.

He also got reading glasses and had a very complex exam by a Dr. that used to work at a clinic that did vision therapy and did not think he needs that. It will take awhile before I can tell if the glasses are helping his correction was mild.

Sorry this is so long.

Anne

A lot of programs CLAIM to teach phonics when what they do is throw in a disconnected trivia lesson once a week, and it is neither tested nor graded so of course both student and teachers ignore it.

I don’t know MacMillan, but from what you say about “baby books” it’s very likely a word-memorization program and any phonics is just to keep those silly parents quiet. A phonics-based program will involve letters and sounds, while a word-memorization program will have Dick-and-Jane type baby books. Not an absolute distinction, but a sign.

My experience with school psychologists has been very much less than positive. They will often say what you want to hear (Phonographix? sure we teach PG! Chinese writing? Sure we teach that!) and then go on their own way using the program that they like. By the time you catch on, the kid is registered in the program and it’s too late in the year to change.Older-fashioned Freudian-trained psychologists often see the parent as the problem and the cause of the child’s difficulties, so cutting you out of the child’s life can be seen as a the proper action and a duty. (I had this happen personally with my daughter, and the repercussions are still with us)

It has been my experience that the school psychologists and testers I have met go through colleges of education that believe religiously in word-memorization systems. So, when they test the child and evaluate what program is suitable, they *always* go with word-memorization — phonics systems, in *their* view, are only a last-ditch when everything else has failed, for weird kids who don’t learn “normally” in their judgement of “normality”. So they will go for three or four years of failure before even considering phonics. And then the kid is used to word-memorization and can’t break the habits so the phonics “fails”, and the decison not to use it is justified. The kid still can’t read and his education and self-esteem are a mess, but the psychologist has done in his mind the right thing.

If I were you, I would investigate the actual books and programs your child is using, and if that can’t be changed, consider another school placement/ homeschooling/ tutoring at home if that is possible.

Marion- my son is a 9yo dyslexic. It was hidden for 1 and 2 grade due to being able to compensate by the memorization of sight words and simple stories also using picture clues. He had been privately tutored continuously from the summer after kindergarten until the end of 2nd grade with little or no progress. We tried different tutors also so it wasn’t the tutor. It took 1 year for the school resource teacher to test him. Then it was a basic test , it didn’t really tell us anything. We ended up having a complete battery of private testing (to get some answers) The answers were he had no phonomic awareness. He had visual testing at a pediatric opthamologist no problems.

Last summer he was at 1.5 reading level he spent the summer doing the LindaMood Bell and wilson program. By the end of the summer he was reading on a 3.0 level and improved over the school year. Spelling still is a very big problem. We worked out of the Reading Reflex program for several weeks this summer. It seemed similar to the LMB program. He was familiar with the processes RR used. He also did a 2week refresher of LMB at the beginning of the month in preparation for school. I know Linda Mood Bell is EXSPENSIVE! and not for everyone but it did wonders for my son.

We are now doing Wilson Method to assist with the spelling issue. The place he went to for LMB did Wison at the same time to work on both issues. Reading comes before spelling and he may never be a good speller anyway. We will see on that. Wilson can be done at home also (according to his tutor).

Once the specific problem is identified it can be corrected in most cases alot easier, quicker, in the long run less expensive, and better for their self esteem.

GOOD LUCK!

I’m always a bit suspicious when people get defensive when I ask questions— especially when I think somebody has been sold with a very good sales pitch that’s lots of fluff so the only answer to questions is to run back to the people who’ve memorized the sales pitches so they can cheer each other up.

What’s really aggravating is that when you find the answer on your own and build those skills at home — at school they will be *SO* proud of themselves with his progress. PRepare for it… don’t let it get you down. THe victory is in getting the kid reading.

My 11yo daughter is dyslexic (reading at a preschool level at age 8-1/2) and was remediated very effectively with Phono-Graphix (fluent 6th grade level now). However, her spelling had remained at about a 2nd grade level.

We tried a number of different approaches to spelling without success. Finally, we switched to Sequential Spelling from AVKO, and this seems to be working wonders. I would highly recommend that you try it. Website is http://www.avko.org

Mary

That’s what I would try for. You can email from the website (or call) to find out if there is a certified PG tutor in your area.

Mary

I agree with Mary….one good solution would be to find someone trained in Phono-Graphix to work with your son.

Getting someone at the school to do it is going to be a tough sell, unless there’s already someone there interested in the program.

It appears my hunch regarding the school psychologist was right, and I agree with victoria there….you won’t get much help if that is his/her bias.

Another possibility would be to take Reading Reflex and go on your own, but with a 4th grader (?) that far behind, it can be tough….especially if you’ve already tried a lot of different things with him. They can get pretty resistant…..

Also, I know that I’ve been pushing the vision therapy aspect a little too hard lately, but that’s because it’s so crucial for some kids to address that issue…..sometimes it’s the only thing holding them back. Your comment on a “complex exam by a Dr. that used to work at a vision clinic” sounds a little strange. Did he actually do all the diagnostic testing done at his previous vision therapy office, or did he do the standard optometric testing done in most offices? If he doesn’t have a vision therapy operation at his present location, I don’t see why he would have done the diagnostic testing, unless he is a friend of yours and was just helping out.

In any case…..good luck on finding help…..Rod

P.S. I’m in SW Wisconsin, on the off chance you’re nearby….I try not to market in here, but I’d hate to find out you’re practically next door and nothing gets done.

I live in a very rural area. The nearest vision specialist is 3 hours away. A distance like this to go would not even be considered by the parents of the kids I work with. Is there anything out there that I could do as a teacher to help with children who have vision problems?

Hi Libby,

In a word, no.

First of all, just finding an optometrist who has been trained to detect the kinds of visual deficits I’m referring to will be tough. You won’t even know what kind of a deficit a child has without proper diagnostic testing. And then, the training to become a vision therapist is not as simple as a weekend seminar somewhere.

About all I can say is if you are really interested in this issue, you should satisfy yourself that you have found an optometrist with an effective vision therapy department. Once you’ve found the closest one (with good parent recommendations) all you can do is try to convince the parents to make the trips.

The toughest call of all is whether to refer at all. Suppose you send someone 150 miles one-way, and it turns out to be the proverbial wild goose chase? Detecting these kinds of visual deficits is not easy, even for a trained optometrist. A battery of diagnostic tests have to be administered, apart from the normal optometric exam.

I have had good results in referrals (in that the kids referred did indeed have an undetected visual problem.) My means of determining the need for referring is this: If a child is clearly understanding and absorbing the Phono-Graphix curriculum that I use, but “falls apart” when confronted with a few pages of print, or smaller type, then I refer. So far, that’s worked.

However, I happen to believe that Phono-Graphix is one of the few reading methods that addresses the weak phonemic skills of most poor readers, and that I have therefore addressed the main reason most poor readers are having trouble. If they still aren’t reading, I begin to suspect an additional visual issue. If your curriculum does not address the phonemic aspect, then their failure to improve their reading may be because of their underlying phonemic deficit, rather than a visual deficit. If that is the case, you would be referring a lot of kids unnecessarily using my approach.

To sum up, if I personally were in your location, I would satisfy myself as to the optometrist’s qualifications and would then refer. Some parents will go to great lengths to help their kids…others won’t. At least you would have helped the kids whose parents cared enough to make the effort.

Anyone else got a thought on this?…….Rod

I agree too. I actually had the school psychologist critisize the fact that my son decoded words as his only strategy. She thought he ought to be using context—or in other words, guessing.

I also had a different school psychologist tell me that the problem was was not their program but our expectations—my husband and I, who both had PhDs, had not accepted the fact that we had a disabled child!!

It was at that point I took his education into my own hands, learning more than they, which didn’t take long.

I will be eternally grateful for these boards.

Beth

There are several programs around that deal with phonological awareness (OG, SPIRE, LB, Wilson). It is time consuming, but you should look into them and see what will work for you and your students.
PG promoters, staff in many cases get on this board and monopolize it. Sorry if I offend anyone. This has been my observation. PG claims to remediate reading deficits in 12 lessons, or hours. This is not likely for students with learning disabilities. If it was, it would be the lead topic on the front page of every major teaching journal! PG is a good program for teaching struggling or young readers, but like all programs it is NOT the one and only! If I knew nothing of other programs, and only read this board, I might think it was the only successful program available.
..Don’t want to start a battle here on LDonline, Peace

Actually I took it even a step farther and am enrolled to get my Masters in School Psychology because I am tired of THOSE people. Anyone interested in starting an online charter school :)?? LOL

not a cure, but …

If you work on tracking as part of your regular teaching, day in and day out, you can help a lot of kids whose vision problems are not extremely severe. (Just as, by teaching with strong emphasis on sounds and with repeated modelling of segmenting and blending skills you can help a lot of kids whose auditory/phonemic problems are not extremely severe.)

Things to do:

Never, never just present a visual symbol by holding up a flash card. When you present a letter or a word or a shape, have the student trace over it. In the first teaching of each and every new letter (first lower cases and *later* capitals, separately) and each and every one of the first two hundred words, put it on paper or on a card in the child’s own hands, in print big enough for the child to trace (which means inch-high letters for beginners) and have the child trace over it repeatedly, saying the sound of each letter as he goes.

Get a good traditional book on handwriting/printing and follow the directionality rules absolutely. Specifically, in our standard system, all letters are made first left-to-right, second top-to-bottom, and third, if there is a choice without lifting the pen, counterclockwise. This means that “b” is made stick first (starting at left and top) BUT “d” is made ball first (starting at left, which is the higher rule).”s” is made from the top down. “k” is made with the second line from the *top down*, not as a v with a crutch. (These are some of the most common non-fluencies in printing) Have the child follow this system, guiding his hand over the letters for a month or two if necessary. This may sound like nit-picking, but it isn’t. By physically learning the difference in shape/position of the letters, the student learns to distinguish visually similar shapes. By habitually forming each letter in a consistent way, the student learns both a rhythm to writing (which will make it possible to write larger amounts at higher speed later) and a habit of tracking his eyes according to our reading system. It all hangs together, and non-fluent printing, non-fluent reading, and poor spelling often form a cluster of weak patterning and ordering.

As suggested above, start by printing very, very large. Buy paper in packs of 200 or 500 at your local discount department store. It runs less than one cent per sheet this way. If the child at first needs to write so large as to get only one word per sheet, fine. Which will cost more, ten year’s supply of cheap looseleaf paper, or one visit to the optometrist?

By the way, one of my personal things: I am not trash, my students are not trash, and our class work is valuable work, not trash. If you use paper fished out of the trash pile, what message are you giving to your students about the value of their work and themselves? Use clean, fresh paper, all the time, and *particularly* clean paper for math (I teach math, and it amazes me that people will spend a million dollars setting up a new college math lab and hiring remedial teachers, then undercut their own message by telling the students to re-use trash paper because their work is “just scrap”.)

Avoid writing with pencils and never use cheap ballpoint pens (and never ever have little kids write with crayon). Pencils are useful as drawing tools, but they are very poor writing tools. Grey pencil on cheap grey newsprint, as is used by some schools in a self-defeating attempt to save money, is simply invisible to those of us with vision problems. You want contrast; use clean white looseleaf paper and a good dark ink. I start little kids with markers, which flow smoothly without pressure and which are not too messy for even a toddler. Writing in purple and blue and green is fun, too (avoid yellow or orange, which lack sufficient contrast). After age six or seven, kids can use rolling ball writers or graduate to fountain pens; the ink flows without pressure, allowing for smooth rhythmic writing (very important for fluency, as noted above), and it has a nice visible contrast.

One of the points with smooth writing and fluency is that kids should write *a lot*; this is good in so many ways it’s a book in itself, but in the vision line, it’s important as a way to develop patterning and tracking. Kids need to write whole sentences and paragraphs as soon as they’re physically able to. Pencils and cheap ballpoints, which take too much pressure, discourage any extensive writing.

Typing on computer doesn’t teach these skills, and viewing a computer screen is hard for certain visual disabilities, so computer work may sometimes be best left for later.

Back to reading: when reading aloud to a student, *always* model proper tracking. For a single child, sit beside him with the book in front of both of you. For a group, hold the book upright in your lap and learn to read it upside down (from your perspective.) Use a pointer — I prefer a pen (covered or retracted, not marking the book), which points better than a finger and looks more “grown-up”. Point to each word *as* you say it (This requires speaking fairly slowly, a good thing to keep attention on the actual reading anyway. Work on reading clearly with a lot of experssion, rather than fast.) Run your pen gently left-to right across the page and across each word. If you meet a new word and want to bring attention to it, re-read it slowly, pointing your pen at each letter as you sound it out.

Watch the kid’s eyes, and if they wander off the book, stop and wait until they look back. When you first start doing this, you will be shocked and amazed; you will find that very many students spend 90% or more of your carefully planned reading lesson not attending to the reading. For some kids this may be deliberate avoidance; however, the majority are not even aware that they are doing it. Hey, you’re doing all the work, they just have to sit there. Some kids may not even be aware that they are supposed to be doing something active in their reading class.

When the student reads to you, have him use a pointer (or use one for him) and point to each and every word. Don’t allow skipping or jumping around. Keep stressing going slowly and doing it right. Speed comes *after* accuracy. There’s no value in a fast mistake. I am constantly arguing against a stress on reading speed here, because if you go for speed before you have the skill, you just make more and worse mistakes faster, and you practice your mistakes until they become ingrained habits. Speed *is* possible later, and it will come much more easily if you get the skill down first..

If a student has developed very bad eye habits of circling around the page, I have sometimes cut a little notch out of a corner of a file card and used it to run over the page, uncovering one word at a time. This is rather artificial; in actuality, good readers look ahead and get a whole sentence so they can get the right intonation. One of my bright non-readers complained that this method made him sound like a robot. He was right, but as I pointed out, at least a robot who can read. We are dealing here with breaking non-functional habits, and a *temporary* lack of fluency is not a problem; fluency will come back and be much better once tracking improves. This is a temporary method used only to train tracking in a student who needs a little extra help.

On the other hand, I resist strongly the ruler under the line system; I’ve never seen it do any good and it seems to become another kind of avoidance behaviour.

*After* the student is getting some control over writing on paper and tracking in reading, “air writing” a new word with a finger is a good way to practice spelling formation and tracking. Don’t push this too early; kids in the first two or three years (at least) need to see the word written concretely.

All of the above has to do with specifically encouraging good eye habits in reading. Other activities that are not directly related to reading can also help develop better eye habits. Sports can be good, but popular sports which are competitive and involve the rest of the team screaming at you are going to be counterproductive. For those of us with eye tracking problems, sports and games which involve chasing a little white ball against a bright sky are a nightmare. So baseball and tennis are often poor choices. Individual sports that can be learned at the kid’s own pace and enjoyed either alone or with a group will help development in a number of ways; I’ve personally had good luck with gymnastics (non-competitive) — very good for spatial location — dance, swimming (not racing), and downhill skiing (not racing)— very good for timing and distance. Also music is very good for training the brain in ways that are not fully understood, but which create measurable improvement in many areas of cognitive skills. Art, crafts, working with clay, etc. can provide practice in seeing, visualizing, and coordination. All these activities are valuable in themselves, improve self-esteem, and give the student a skill to enjoy and to share with others, as well as helping develop visual skills/coordination that will come back to the reading classroom.

You can e-mail from what website?

Dear Jack,
Please notice that she DID ask (specifically) for Rod’s advice, hence the title of this thread. I don’t see why Rod (or anyone) should be required to mention every single method out there, when some of us just use PG. And no, I am not a “staff member”, nor have I ever seen one on this board.

Hi victoria,

Wow!…and that was just the “partial” answer. Thanks for taking the time to write all that. I’ll bet you have a few teachers thinking over what you wrote (especially those who think handwriting doesn’t matter, or spelling either for that matter, because of the computer keyboard and spellcheck.)

You also brought me up short when I found myself thinking about the good use to which the back side of all this computer-generated “scrap paper” could be put. I no more than got the thought going when I ran into your admonition about using it.

A lot of people might think you’re going overboard, but I happen to agree with you. Kids need and respect good modeling, and they want to be “little adults.” Unfortunately, some of the “big adults” aren’t much for models.

As to why I wrote “in a word, no,” in answer to Libby’s question, I should explain further I think. The vision deficits I have in mind are those that can often be effectively remediated by vision therapy. They are deficits in vergence or accomodation and intermittant or constant strabismus. A child with one of these conditions (and no doubt a few others of which I’m unaware) will have a devil of a time reading, no matter how carefully you prepare him. His visual system needs training, all right, but it’s not the kind of training that is done by starting with large print and moving along in the way you suggest. When he gets to the small print he will be seeing double, or will have alternating images competing for his brain’s attention. He will fatigue easily when reading, and become frustrated by the entire process. This isn’t to say that a modest visual problem won’t resolve itself favorably with your approach, because it might. Certainly there is a better chance your way than with the whole language, “look at the picture, check for words you recognize and guess the rest” approach that has his eyes flying all over the place.

Also, many vision therapists also attempt to remediate what is known as a visual perception deficit. I doubt there would be many such cases to remediate if all kids were trained to read with the care that you describe in your post, because visual perception is a developmental skill and it would be augmented by your methods.

Again, thanks for taking the time to contribute all that….Rod

Thanks to both of you, Rod and Victoria!!!

Hi Dana,

The Phono-Graphix/Reading Reflex website is www.readamerica.net. I don’t know why, but sometimes on my computer I’ve got to enter it a couple of times before it comes up, so don’t give up on the first error message. At the website, you can get the phone number or the email address. If you contact them they will refer you to the nearest certified Phono-Graphix therapist(s) in your area.

Rod

You’re welcome. If I can help anyone out there, I’m happy.

I write like I do because I have a lot of personal experience as teacher and student and parent, and in all positions I have been incredibly frustrated by so-called “experts” who couldn’t add one plus one to get two.

I personally suffer from severe vision problems which were made ten times worse by mis-diagnosis. I was born farsighted, as was my older brother. This is uncommon, but it happens. I also have astigmatism, and he also has strabismus and “wandering eye”. For some reason, probably the large visible wandering eye symptom, he was diagnosed properly and given glasses at the age of nine *months*. I was accused by misguided Freudians of trying too hard to copy my brother and my glasses were *taken away* from me when I was five. Throughout elementary school I suffered from what I call the 90% fallacy — since ____ is true in 90% of cases, ____ is what we look for, and if you don’t have ____, you must be faking/mentally ill. (I’m sure an awful lot of you out there are more than familiar with this story!) Of course, the other 10% of us exist, but we get shut out. Since I passed the eye chart (of course! I’m FARsighted!) I was rated by the school nurse as having good vision, and the rest was ignored. My headaches and fatigue were “obviously” psychological, and my walking into walls and tables was “deliberate” laziness and sloppiness and clumsiness. My social ineptness was the fault of my lack of effort and poor attaqchment to mother, or some such. Since one of my eyes is even worse than the other, the better one took over all the work and I then developed “lazy eye” or amblyopia. My left eye works at best 10% functional; the eye itself is perfectly healthy, but the connections to the brain shut off. This means I have no depth perception at all — I get a good laugh in the optometrist’s office when I am given a card with eight depth tests and they do the first one for control to see if you follow the instructions, and I can’t even do that one. I was always a disaster at figure and ground — absolutely not a clue about the “find a hidden figure in the picture” sort of thing. And I will never see those stereo pictures. Along the way, I also never developed the ability to track moving objects very well. When I move quickly, as in skiing or other sports or driving, the world around me is just a blur of flowing colours. Whether from the original weakness, or the stress of straining all my life, I can’t see well in low light and need very bright reading lights for close work. I can only focus on one point at a time, and thus lose objects that are literally right by my hand. My hand-eye coordination never developed much, not having the eyes to work with. Rod, I am sure that I qualify for Vision Therapy — wish it had been available in my youth.

BUT I had good caring parents (even if they were sometimes hornswoggled by “counsellors” whose advice was incredibly damaging). My mother taught me to read (after the school system screwed up my brother), and my father taught me logic and the principles of math and science. I read well, and fast, and tiny print too as long as the light is bright. My mother taught me to track print properly and to use the sound-symbol system of English, my early teachers taught me good printing systems even if at the time my hands wouldn’t cooperate, and Mrs. Ross in Grade 3 with the dip pens and inkwells (her theory was that you’d know if you made a mistake) taught me to write copperplate and the principles of calligraphy — she gave me an F at the time because I wasn’t up to her standard, but her F was most people’s A. The swimming and gymnastics lessons my parents took me to helped me learn to use what vision I have and to locate myself in space. The art lessons allowed me to explore what I do have — great colour and detail sensitivity and creative ideas, and ability to do very fine work if I do it at my own pace. I taught myself downhill skiing with the occasional assistance of a private instructor when I could afford one. My brother taught me to drive and did very well teaching me to manage space.

Finally at the age of seventeen I found a really good optometrist — a professor of optometry in Canada — who was shocked that I hadn’t had glasses all my life. He’s made my glasses for over thirty years.
*After* reaching my late teens, I began developing my visual skills. I studied art, both history and design, and finally that figure-ground idea clicked into place. I worked on watercolour miniatures and calligraphy and increased my hand-eye coordination. I taught myself to type, even fairly quickly, with my own six-finger hunt-and-peck system. I took more ski lessons, later joined the ski patrol at a small place that welcomed the less-than-perfect, and moved from low intermediate to expert skier. I travelled a lot and did a lot of long-distance driving — by the way, I have a thirty-year near perfect driving record; since I *know* I don’t have depth perception, I double my following distance to compensate, and don’t take risks — in fact, this past year I have taught driving safety in the classroom. I do my own home repairs and decorating, and make darned sure I remember exactly where I put the tools. I also still read and write constantly.

The point of all this:
Rod has a point.

No, vision therapy isn’t for everybody, and no, it isn’t a cure-all. Proper diagnosis, competent practitioners, and follow-through are vital.

Proper teaching of reading with attention to vision skill is vital — even kids with good eyesight learn terrible habits, and it drives me to tears to see kids who start with so much more basic ability than I have, and watch it go down the drain.

But given time and hard work, you can do a heck of a lot with some very unpromising material to start.

Victoria,

As a mother of a child who has multiple deficits, it is encouraging to know the difference your parents made. I only hope that my son will someday be able to say the same. Right now he is just tired of his mother’s “programs”….. Now he does like gymnastics and probably, in his mind,that is the best advice I have received from these boards.

Beth

Hi victoria,

Thanks for sharing all that. If even one parent recognizes her child in your story, and takes appropriate action, you will have done a great service….to both child and parent.

As to the vision issue you raised. As I understand amblyopia, it is a near-complete refusal of the brain to process signals from the affected eye, and it is generally caused by the brain having to process two radically different signals from the eyes. After a time, the brain “shuts down” the signal from the eye that is misaligned.

While I can appreciate that your life has been significantly affected by an amblyopic eye, I want to point out to others following this discussion that reading is easier for a person with an amblyopic eye than it is for a child “seeing double” because of a different undetected visual deficit. This is because in the case of amblyopia only one visual image is being interpreted by the brain.

Yes, you probably would have benefited from vision therapy in the first years of your life, and no, all undetected vision problems don’t eventually result in amblyopia (for those of you who were wondering.) However, as in your case, some do. And, as you no doubt are aware, once the developmental period has passed, there is usually little that can be done to restore function to the amblyopic eye, or at least that is my understanding of it.

My message to parents remains the same, and your experience certainly buttresses it….if your child has a reading problem, and a good program which stresses the phonetic nature of English doesn’t turn him around, get a vision check by a behavioral optometrist with a reputable vision therapy department……Rod

Thanks Rod. They have a ‘search for someone near you’ feature, and I found two people within an hour’s drive. This is great. Thanks.

Hey Victoria, Great stuff! Thanks !

I was wondering about Sequential Spelling. From what is shown on their website it appears they use mostly word families. Before being trained in Phono-Graphix, I did not see any problem with word families. However, now I am leary of any reading or spelling program incorporating word families. I read many sterling reviews from parents on Sequential Spelling. I’m curious as to why you feel it is working.

Thanks,

Margo

I’m trained in Phono-Graphix too.

For a long time I held off on SS, thinking it wouldn’t work because it used word families and it looked too easy to work. However, Gigi over on the Reading & Math bulletin board at http://www.vegsource.com, who also is a certified Phono-Graphix tutor and who has a lot of experience, tried SS and found it was working for her post-PG students. Also, I saw a few posts from parents who had started it and really liked it.

Sequential Spelling is really a follow-up to PG. Gigi uses it along with Megawords (another program we have just started that I like very much). Megawords offers a means of continuing systematic work in multi-syllable word management for both reading and spelling, and vocabulary development, whereas SS focuses exclusively on spelling.

Sequential Spelling is actually not based on word families so much as spelling patterns within words. It treats endings and prefixes the same as interior patterns. I have read that it is actually very similar to Glass Analysis, which I understand is an old, tried-and-true approach to reading recommended by neurologists and neuro-developmentalists.

My daughter is dyslexic and dysgraphic, and I found that PG’s scratch sheet spelling just plain didn’t work for her. For one thing, her dysgraphia made the spelling of a word in every possible way extremely time-consuming and tedious. For another, her dyseidesia made it next to impossible for her to remember which particular spelling of a sound “looked right”, no matter how many times she had seen the word before. Process spelling worked great for her and was very helpful, but it only takes a child through phonetic spellings. By the end of PG my daughter was reading on a 5th/6th grade level but still spelling on a 2nd grade level.

I thought at first that my daughter had a poor visual memory, but I think now that she is just extremely insensitive to visual patterns in words. Sequential Spelling seems to be developing this sensitivity. I can tell she is beginning to recognize spelling patterns because, for the first time ever, she self-corrects as she writes. That is a real break-through for her.

Mary

My 9 yr old son is currently flunking Spelling. He spells phonetically. But when the rules do not apply he has to rely on his memory. I don’t know how to help and I’ve never heard of Sequential Spelling. The website mentioned in your email, i.e. avko.org doesn’t seem to exist. Can you offer any additional help.

Thank you,
Angela

The website is http://www.avko.org

I just typed it in and tried it, and the website came up. As long as I was there, I jotted down the telephone number (810)686-9283 and email address ([email protected]). You can call or email for more information, and I think they have a printed catalog they can mail out.

Mary

I have a double major, Elementary Ed and Special Ed and a Masters in Reading. I have taught for 25+ years. I am considered, by my collegues, an expert in teaching children to read. i have been told that I could teach a mondey to read. I doubt that, but I have been very successful with children whom other teachers had given up.

My first advice is to forget what the school psycholist tells you about reading instruction.
1. Most psychologists couldn’t manage a classroom full of kids let alone teach them anything.
2. They test a child one at a time
3. They have not taught any child any subject.
4. What makes psychologists an expert on anything other than the scores of the tests that they administer.
5. Children with reading difficulties cannot memorize unlimited lists of words. What happens is that kids that try to memorize too many words is that they begin to guess, using pictures clues or whatever. The most difficult habit to break is that of guessing at words. All achild can do is guess when they are not taught letter sounds and decoding skills.

ASK THE PSYCHOLOGIST WHAT SHE/HE DOES WHEN SHE/HE RUNS ACCROSS A NEW WORD. ALL ADULTS SOUND OUT A NEW WORD

Please tell me you have met one good School Psych…..I have my BS in Child Psych and have been substitute teaching for 2 years, starting full time this year….in preparation for not working for 2+ years while I work on my Masters in School Psychology on my way to my Psy.D.

After teaching for 3 years when I receive my Masters (albeit not always the same class for more than a week) I hope I will end up being more qualified than those you were talking about!!!! I do agree that the members of the Child Study Team at my sons school could not find an LD with a road map without endless testing when any good teacher notices within the first month of school. I can tell who is classified, and who should be within several hours. Does this make me an exception????

Catherine,

It seems to me that sometimes young teachers get very caught up in whatever method they were taught and out of almost shear stubborness won’t try something different.

Exceptional teachers will go to any length to find what works for a child. After all they are all different and I do agree that phonix is needed but with my son just different reading books makes a big difference.

Will any of us read material that is not of interest to us - not willing anyway. So how can we expect our kids to read stuff they don’t like. To me what makes reading great is to use your imagination and mind.

Just mom’s 2 cents.

Catherine,

It seems to me that sometimes young teachers get very caught up in whatever method they were taught and out of almost shear stubborness won’t try something different.

Exceptional teachers will go to any length to find what works for a child. After all they are all different and I do agree that phonix is needed but with my son just different reading books makes a big difference.

Will any of us read material that is not of interest to us - not willing anyway. So how can we expect our kids to read stuff they don’t like. To me what makes reading great is to use your imagination and mind.

Just mom’s 2 cents.

Catherine,

It seems to me that sometimes young teachers get very caught up in whatever method they were taught and out of almost shear stubborness won’t try something different.

Exceptional teachers will go to any length to find what works for a child. After all they are all different and I do agree that phonix is needed but with my son just different reading books makes a big difference.

Will any of us read material that is not of interest to us - not willing anyway. So how can we expect our kids to read stuff they don’t like. To me what makes reading great is to use your imagination and mind.

Just mom’s 2 cents.