Lexia Learning systems

A computer simply cannot replace a teacher. Period.

That said, Lexia is the best thing I”ve seen out there on the market (period :-)). So, given your options, I think it would be a good choice, especially if you can get some OG foundations first, so he really does think sounds instead of pictures.

Hi, Pam!

I am so glad you asked this. I am looking at the Lexia software, too. I am a special ed. teacher (mainly hearing impaired) and my own first grade child has auditory processing disorder, so I am updating my knowledge on best practices and materials. I would suggest that you go ahead and use Earobics at home. It will help him no matter what else you use. Don’t waste school therapy time with that since it can be so easily done at home. I watch my child part of the time she does it and check her progress, She does have a tendency to skip the games that are difficult for her!

I am also undecided about Fast ForWord. I think it is difficult to get the school to provide it since it really doesn’t have the outside research confirmation yet. I have heard some people say it did help with auditory integration deficits and some say it didn’t at all. If it were reasonably priced, I would not hesitate to try it. But $850 just for the license to use it with one child is a lot for something that is not guaranteed to help!

I live in NC and am very interested in where you had your child tested. We had to travel out of state to find quality APD testing. My child has Sacon phonics in her regular first grade class, so she is not at such a disadvantage as some APD children who are not being taught systematic phonics at all, but I can see she will need some extra support. Right now she only qualifies for speech/language therapy. I was considering Lexia software and I am also looking at Phono-Graphix (Reading Reflex-book, not software).

Janis

Sue,

The LD teacher at my child’s school is not OG trained. I am taking her for some PG training in April, though. I am wondering if the Lexia would be good for her to use with my child. If she did, would she need to use some other instruction and then use the software as practice or should she use the software and let that guide where she needs to give extra instruction? What would you use along with it?

Janis

MY DAUGHTER HAS JUST TURNED 7 AND IS 1/2 WAY THROUGH 1ST GRADE. SHE IS REALLY STRUGGLING WITH READING AND HER TEACHER WANTS TO HAVE HER TESTED.
SHE WAS LATE LEARNING HER LETTERS AND SOUNDS. HER TEACHER DOESN’T REALLY USE PHONOCS ,MAINLY WHOLE LANGUAGE. I AM FRUSTRATED WITH THE WHOLE THING.
WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Bev,

Just order the book “Reading Reflex” (about $12.75 at Amazon) which is a book for parents to teach a child how to read. They do not like to call it “phonics”, but it does teach a child all the sounds and how to blend and segment them in order to read (so it is a lot like phonics!). Whole language does not work for a lot of children. And some children need a more structured phonics program than the regular curriculum provides. I have a 6 year old daughter in first grade now, too. I ordered Reading Reflex (you will also see it referred to as Phono-Graphix around here) and will use it with her soon. Try that first because it is so easy to use. She may be suffering from poor instruction rather than a learning disability. But you may want to have her tested.

Janis

It would be best to use the software to support instruction. What I like about the software is that it does not try to be an instructor (with lots of lecture), though it does explain about syllables, etc. It’s very interactive from the start. I have not tried to use it with someone who wasn’t also getting tutored, so I can’t say how well it would go — though it’s engaging enough and structured enough that I suspect it would help a lot.

Sue,

Do you think it could be used with someone being tutored with Phono-Graphix, or would the combination confuse the child?

Janis

As Janis C said, she may be suffering from poor instruction. In fact I personally go a lot further than that; in my experience, in at least 9 out of 10 cases poor instruction is the cause of reading problems. Then the problems snowball into other problems later.

Whole language is a disaster. It leaves a large number of kids in every class lost and confused - often more than a third of the class. Even the kids who are “succeeding” in whole language very often run into trouble later, with poor spelling, habits of inaccuracy in reading which cause trounle in math and science and other subjects, slow reading, and so on.

Your daughter will benefit from good phonics instruction. Many people here like Reading Reflex. The most time-tested is Orton-Gillingham; the Lexia software that started this thread is supposed to be OG based. Other companies put out good products; look for something complete and detailed that does NOT promise overnight miracles (avoid snake oil).

Teaching and learning take time and hard work (those three dirty little four-letter words). You may be able to do this yourself. Or, you may prefer to have her work with a tutor once or twice a week. I have posted a resource list for finding tutors here; if you can’t find it, ask again.

Hi Bev, Please don’t get your daughter tested for special education. It really is a dead end street. If it worked, then all of the kids who were in it in elementary school wouldn’t be in it when they are seniors. I am a special educator who really believes that abour 95% of those in sped. are there only because they weren’t taught. Whole language never taught anyone how to read. About 50%,( may be high), of students will learn how to read no matter how they are taught and the rest have to be directly taught. We aren’t doing it in the schools. Whole language is alive and well in most counties. The kids that can’t learn how to read using” nothing”, are labeled LD or in that grey area and they are lost in the system. Too many LD kids aren’t remediated but given accomodations that circumvent their deficiencies. I use PG in the classroom with eleventh graders and have seen a great improvement. If I can remediate students decoding skills to grade level in about a month, were they actually disabled? I think not. Not only are we not teaching kids to read, we aren’t teaching them how to write (expressive), spell, understand grammar and the multiplication table. I am sorry that this is kinda diverting from the Lexia Learning systems, but it kinda hit a nerve. I would first use Reading Reflex and go from there. I like to use computer programs as supplemental, not as the only thing.

I don’t think it would confuse the child.
Orton-Gillingham teaches a lot of the same *things* P-G teaches — just more explicitly. P-G teaches a similar sequence — closed syllables, silent e, etc. — and the concept of the structure of the language is the same.

On LD In Depth section of this site, a wonderful article “Whole Language Lives On”. It really blasts the false assumptions, lax logic, and total lack of verification of a lot of “reading” programs out there.