We are trying to set up some kind of reading instruction for
our 6th grade, 12-yr-old son at his middle school.
He reads at a 4.0 level.
The plan is to put him on a computer program, every
other day, in the library for 50 minutes. He would have no supervision
or help. He is able to work independently and is well behaved,
so we have no worries about him keeping on task.
He needs a program which would not need any intervention from
an adult.
Any suggestions?
Our long term goal is to have him reading well enough
for him to keep up by the ninth grade and high school.
thank you!
Anne
Re: What's the reason for the gap in reading level?
Hi Sue,
Thanks for the reference!
He is classified as having a specific learning disability in reading
and writing (his spelling). He has an above average IQ and is
in honors math at school.
From my viewpoint, mom with no training, I see him as having to
decode too many words. His reading is not automatic.
He will do fine with a lot of words, but when he’s been working for
a while he will come across a cvce word and not get it. Or he will
find /l/s in words that have none (his Dad has been known to do this
too). And /b/ and /d/ are also still giving him trouble - usually when he
is tired.
He has had vision therapy, private tutoring, Sylvan tutoring, mom
tutoring, in resource since kgartn, no set program - they seemed to
teach him sight words and work on writing and classwork.
It took me a long time to get to the point where I *think* I know what
he needs. But it is very hard to get the school to do anything - he is
in middle school now. He has an IEP but it is all about accommodation.
The SE classes at school have a hodge podge of kids and LDs and are very disruptive.
He really likes his mainstream language arts class and finds it challenging and rewarding.
This is what we are doing at home:
~ reading short and funny poems, short stories, comics, and his
textbooks.
~ Prolexia Ultra Phonics computer tutor - www.prolexia.com
~ Speed drills for automatic reading from Oxton House
www.oxtonhouse.com
~ Word Workout workbook - decoding larger words.
www.thewordworkshop.com/index.html
The most advanced work is with the Word Workout, but he loves it.
The first two programs work with much simpler stuff and he
gets bored.
This is probably *way* more than you asked for. I have been casting
about for years trying to help him, in addition to dealing with another child
who has had serious health problems (there should be a rule - one high needs
child per family).
Anne
Sometimes vision therapy needs to be followed up with
cognitive training to develop visual processing skills. My own dd was in vision therapy for 8 months, which brought her visual efficiency skills — binocularity, tracking, focusing, field-of-vision, etc. — up to age-appropriate levels. However, it wasn’t until she was halfway through a cognitive training program (in her case, PACE, http://www.learninginfo.com) that her visual processing skills were developed to the point where she could process text fast enough for fluent reading. I can highly recommend PACE for the type of problem you describe, but it’s expensive and requires a real time commitment.
A home-based cognitive training program that has a good visual component is Audiblox (http://www.audiblox2000.com).
Vision therapy is good for correcting visual efficiency problems. However, cognitive training is much more effective for developing visual processing skills, which build on the visual efficiency foundation. Visual processing skills include visual short-term memory, visual sequencing, pattern recognition, discrimination speed, etc.
Our daughter also has severe spelling problems. The one program that has made a significant difference for her is Sequential Spelling by Avko (a non-profit). Website is http://www.avko.org. This program takes only 10 minutes a day and is *very* helpful. We are only halfway through the first book, and her spelling has made tremendous gains.
Mary
Re: What's the reason for the gap in reading level?
Sounds like the SOS part of Lexia would be a good fit for this kid, though it will also be a little on the easy side. If I’m remembering what I saw of prolexia, the games are a little more interesting though.
Your instincts are right as far as keeping him *challenged* but not overwhelmed. If you can keep his interests intact through grade & high school, college will be alot easier ;) Don’t be afraid to be aggressive in modifying assignments so that he’s learning from them — the way he learns. Hey, some of us *do* learn by writing something over and over… for other kids that is tedious handwriting practice, so *talking* about a bunch of science terms is a whole lot more effective than answerig the questions at the back of the chapter. (Other kids need to see the stuff, which is tougher to do, but there *are* good videos…) The trick is to keep the kid’s brain engaged and learning — again, for most kids, reading and then writing about things works and you even have proof on the page. But when you find yourself not having time to really explain question 3 because there are 25 questions… find the most important 10 of those questions and *learn* those.
Re: What's the reason for the gap in reading level?
Thanks, everyone, for your help and encouraging
words!
Trying to wade our way through all the different options
to help our son has been overwhelming.
Sometimes I wish I had majored in Special Ed in college
instead of communications. I should have paid more
attention to my future husband’s wonky spelling and
stories of late reading while we were in college…
Anne
Re: What's the reason for the gap in reading level?
The major wouldn’t have done you as much good as, say, reading up on LD In Depth on REading or going to a few good LDA or IDA conferences!
Let us know what works… and what doesn’t!
I’d recommend Lexia Learning’s “Strategies for Older Students” — though I would want to know what his specific reading problems are. http://www.lexialearning.com will get you to their site — it’s the best program I’ve seen for teaching syllables and sounds, though it’s no substitute at all for having a real teacher teaching.