Is my son dyslexic? Confused about Woodcock Johnson Achievem

Oh my gosh, Beth! I just used the quote “don’t throw the baby our with the bathwater” in another post regading PG! Have we been hanging out together too much or what?! LOL!

Janis

I’m too muddle headed tonight to try to explain. I’ll think on it and try to be clearer.

Where can I read about it? Thanks. Nighty-nite!

http://www.learninginfo.com/

good-night!
Janis

We just started with a new tutor. She’s a psychologist, reading teacher, OG certified - uses spector phonics?. When I broached the subject of phonemic awareness she immediately said she’d look into LMB materials. She hasn’t trained on LMB.

I feel like maybe we have some one smart, well versed, and able to draw on different (but proven) methodologies to help my kid. What do you think?

There is noone on Iser.com in my area, and despite the thousands of tutors/therapists it seems like noone is as up on things as you guys are!

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Well, if the kid reads better after four or five hours, or at most ten, that’s what you want, isn’t it?

As we bring out all the old cliched idioms …

I have taught several kids to read as a private tutor, and in this situation where people have to spend their own money, I get those whom everyone else has given up on.

One pair of brothers had serious genetic disorders, the older Kleinfelter’s and the younger undiagnosed but definitely physical as well as learning problems. Kleinfelter’s affects the ability to sequence in the abstract (although he was fine physically). I have mentioned his math disaster previously.

When I started, the older boy had been stuck for five years at a 1.7 or so reading level, and the younger was at low K (recognized most of the alphabet most of the time.) The older boy had gone as far as he could go by memorizing and was stalled there. He also demonstrated “alphabet soup” spelling — he more or less knew what letters were needed, but had absolutely no idea why any one of them followed any other. The younger one was in the low MR group with the totally untrained aide, and she was religiously teaching the readiness list even though the readiness list clearly said that the student only had to master *most* of the topics. Anyhow, the list included standing on one foot and rhyming, two skills that I would never expect this particular student to learn in twenty years.

I told their mother that I could only try and see. In fact, both boys responded well and learned at pretty much the same rate as most of my students. I did my usual combo method — very similar to your combo method, Susan — involving phonics, word patterns, tracing, writing/printing, spelling by sounds, oral reading, figuring things out for themselves and learning to self-correct errors. After six months the older boy had moved from 1.7 to high 3 or low 4 (the first progress of any sort he had made in six years)and was writing and spelling somewhat better, and the younger had moved from low K to about 1.6 and could print so nicely that when I picked up a paper of his I thought at first that it was one of my models. Both moved to greatly improved school placements the next year.

Now, the point of this post is that neither of them could do the kind of phonemic games you are mentioning if you paid them a million dollars and taught for twenty years. They had genetic disorders that affected their ability to order abstractly or mentally. The older boy at age 12 could not count backwards *at all*, could not tell you what number came before another or whether you put your socks on before or after your shoes. He could get dressed but couldn’t *tell* you. The younger boy had speech issues as well as everything else and had trouble saying or explaining anything at all. You had to kind of listen to him for several minutes and then put the ideas in order for yourself. I decided after the first day that yes, there was someone home inside there, someone reasonably intelligent, but there was a very, very thick well-insulated wall in between us.
So, should I have stopped teaching them to read until they re-ordered sounds to my satisfaction? I could have done like the aide and repeated myself till the cows came home. We’d still be on Lesson 1 today, eighteen years later.

In fact I *taught* them phonemic awareness, at least enough to get reading, and I *taught* them left-to-right ordering in reading and writing (had to teach the younger boy top to middle to bottom of the page by guiding his hand for several weeks), and I *taught* them to order sounds in their reading and somewhat in writing, and this teaching had the added advantage of clearing up the younger boy’s speech quite a bit.

Like many preparatory skills, phonemic awareness up to the level of being able to play word games is a very nice thing to have and makes life a lot easier. But if you *don’t * have it, then you’ve got to teach it or work around it (or some of both.)

In most of my placements, you hear me talk about blending methods together. I don’t hold kids on “moving sounds” to the exclusion of reading. I intro a few consonant pairs and *a* vowel sound and proceed to real reading activities. Then, a few more consonants and another vowel. (If the kid is hooked sound to symbol, I don’t go back this far. I only go back to the point where instruction has broken down.) Yes, I try & track sounds but if the kid can’t do it, I don’t throw up my hands & quit teaching reading until he/she can track. (I try about 4-5 chains per session—no more.) I’d just like for them to do it if they can; however, I track way less than the LmB purists. As long as the students is connected sound/symbol, I’m happy. For some S/L kids, LmB may be the only way they hook sound/symbol and I’m not sure about some others, too.

I don’t want you to feel like I’m criticizing you (or others). If your kids are learning to read commenserate with their listening ability, then you are being successful.

I do think that knowing LmB prepared me to be a better phonics instructor and to better hook sound/symbol in learners. Parents also *know* that LmB trained people can delivery correct phonics sounds. (That doesn’t mean that others cannot, though, just easier to be assured.) Now, that said, LmB people also get so hung up in the word games (nice way of putting it) that they forget about reading.

Eye on the prize. That’s our mission.

Karen,

While it is nice to have Lmb, lots of people are successful without it. Like I said, it is essential to hook sound/symbol and move sounds around using letters. A few kids never get there w/out LmB, but most can and do make that step. (LmB won’t hurt those that don’t need it—as long as the teacher stays focused on reading and not tracking.)

Get some references. Call some families who’ve used this tutor. Use your mom’s intuition. Maybe call some more tutors and compare.

seriously?

Our last tutor, who I think was very good (her ability was not the reason for changing) worked with ds from April-June 2 times per week. He improved but not dramatically. He continues to improve SLOWLY, and of course as time goes by the gap isn’t closing, it may be widening. Its hard to say b/c I think he reads much better in real life than in testing situations.

PACE is a cognitive development program. Mary and many others have received really good results from it. We did it after second grade with fairly minimal results for the work we put into it. In retrospect, it was the wrong program for the time. My son’s problems are very sensory motor based and although he had made a lot of progress, they really put the lid on what he could achieve with the program.

So again, it is the kid and the program match.

The Reading Reflex book is $16 at book stores. It is the parent version of PG. They are the same thing—I have a bunch of the materials from PG because we attended an intensive there. There is noone you can teach using PG that you cannot teach using the methods you already use. The question is whether there are kids you could teach faster than you do.

Beth

Susan,

He can blend and segment just fine now. It is the moving the sounds around without benefit of manipulatives that is a problem for him.

Did you want him to just hear “amp” and “map” and know that it is the same sounds in a different order? He couldn’t do that.

He loves Harry Potter. It is a big leap for him. I tried to read it to him a year or so ago and he hated it. Now he watched the movie and so has a framework for the book. It is great at making him make inferences. I ask him questions as we read it. I have to be careful not to ask too many though. We are almost done—one chapter left.

I like the blend of work you do. I think actually the tutor we are using is like you but without your zeal for individual kids. I think her interests are much more institutional now and she doesn’t have time to see him very often. She has me working with him but I’m not as good as you!!!I’d really like to clone a few of you on this bulletin board.

Beth

Susan,

Thanks for sharing so much.

So, do you just have them do chaining? Does that get them to internalize the pattern? That plus, spelling words with magnetic letters?

I think you understand something that I don’t that is key to my son’s problems.

Beth

“I’d really like to clone a few of you on this bulletin board.”

No question about this. The ones I see here are the rare exceptions. They understand the process so well they don’t need the programs. I need the programs until the methods become automatic for me to teach. I can really relate to these kids who may have the sounds down but can’t make it automatic or generalize. That’s the way I feel! Of course, Susan has had LB and OG training. I have only skimmed the surface of worthwhile training. It just makes me mad that I have to pay for it all myself. But I do feel that PG and LB will be the two I need.

Beth, I can relate to the HP video thing. Anna really does not enjoy me reading to her. She has poor comprehension just listening. I imagine that every piece of literature she ever has to read, I will have to find a video for her to watch!

Janis

Janis,

Your explanation of yourself helps me understand where my son is at!!! He needs the structure and the steps to “know” the material. Unfortunately, reading isn’t like that. I guess that suggests that I need to keep providing that structure until he doesn’t need it.

I understand about the teaching too!!! I remember once, when I started, a student commenting on an evaluation that I understood the material but couldn’t always explain it. Well, that was kind. I think at some level I didn’t understand it well enough!!

My son actually loves to be read to but not Harry Potter—until now, that is. I thought it was because he is a very concrete kind of kid. He just didn’t get the muggle thing. The language was too complex for him. You might try facts types books which don’t require following a plot with Anna. Nathan loves science so we read many of those books. He also loves social studies so we have books on Egypt, books on ancient civilizations, books on kids in other countries. Many are short segments. This approaches builds vocabulary if not inference, conclusion type skills. Another idea are books that are predictable. We read many Hardy Boys books—starting in first grade. I remember the IEP team being shocked that he could follow Hardy Boys—but he could. I think it is because they have fairly predictable course of events. We now are trying to move to more conceptually demanding books so that he doesn’t fall more behind there even though his reading level isn’t at grade level.

Beth

Now my son loves Harry Potter, the books and the video. But he is light years away from being able to read it to himself.

Send some clones my way. I feel so frustrated that I seem to know more about what’s available than the teachers. But I can’t teach him. I have the reading reflex book but I can’t see doing it with him. He’s too anxious with me. It may be that a great tutor pulls these concepts together without benefit of formal training, but who knows? meanwhile time is going by and my son’s life is effected.

Beth,

Yes, a light came on for me today when I was thinking of my level of teaching reading as compared with our children’s level of achievement in reading. I really do understand the reading process now. But I definitely do still need the structure of a well-based program to help me be sure I’m teaching all the essential elements. I really want to take Anna for PG intensive so I can just observe for a week (i.e. free training for me!).

Something you said was just unbelievably on target about Anna. When I let her choose what she wants me to read to her at night (on the rare occasion we have time for non-homework reading), she chooses the Childcraft volume on dinosaurs. I have shelves and shelves of neat children’s books, but she likes the non-fiction dinosaur book. We go through, she asks me the names, and then she comments on thier size as compared to humans and if are they meat-eaters or plant eaters. She loves the Little Foot (Land Before Time) movies, so that is why I think she likes dinosaurs.

Janis

Janis,

I would stock up on nonfiction. My son loves all the Magic School House books, for example. Learning about science and social studies at home gives them a frame to learn with at school, as well as increasing their vocabulary.

Beth

You will find the way that helps your son. Keep him interested in a good story. Make him love reading. It may take past high school, but it will happen. Truly, I’ve seen kids make astounding progress in only one year when things just seem to click. Wish I could see & observe him…I’d be much more confident in what need be done to help.

Its been a tough week, and its only Tuesday.

Dontcha know anyone great in New York city? : )

We’ll see what we find. Your tutor sounds very, very good. One of my reading mentors, a Ph.D. from Harvard, does tutoring in the Boston area. She is so awesome—one of Jeanne Chall’s students. I met her on this very BB a few years back.

My tutor does sound good. The proof will be in the reading! But I’m always looking for additional resources so I’ll happily take any recommendations. Thanks again for all of your advise and support.

How much better is the question — but you should see some improvement, if only a few more letters of the alphabet for beginners, ar five words less guessed per page. Gradual and steady is the way to go; it does add up, while promised miracle cures and blaming people don’t go far.

If PG isn’t doing it, he probably needs more detail and practice. Email me and I’ll send my outline if I haven’t yet; and if you’ve got my outline and still don’t know where to start I’ll be happy to break it down for you.

Actually, it sounds like you and I do a lot of the same things!

I got irritated with PG and am now worried about LMB because they sell themselves on the basis that they discovered fire and invented the wheel.

I’ve been teaching a phonics/guided oral reading/comprehension/writing approach for twenty years and more, learned from my mother who learned form her mother, plus of course reading about the topic wherever and whenever I can. Since we pre-date the “brand-name” methods, as do a lot of our preferred (and low-cost) materials, it’s annoying to be shut out because we aren’t on the bandwagon.

I also worry when any system sets hard-and-fast rules, as for example trying to force that poor kid to rhyme when he couldn’t even talk. Some people buy into LMB or whatever and don’t realize that there are times to adjust just a little.