Does anyone have suggestions regarding an effective reading program for this child? He is six years old and has poor verbal learning and verbal memory but fine phonological processing (for his age) in that he can rhyme, complete partial words, and isolate the first sound of words… And he frustrates VERY easily. IQ is average and visual memory is fine. He also has some fine motor difficulties- and we are looking into sensory processing. He’s having a very hard time learning the symbol-sound associations. Dyslexia runs in the family so we want to begin with the right approach for this little guy from the start.
Re: effective reading program
Please choose a research based program. I like Phono-Graphix as well and also Lindamood Bell. Here is an article on good reading programs. Some are for regular ed. and some are for remedial.
http://www.schwablearning.org/Articles.asp?r=318&g=2&d=5
Janis
Re: effective reading program
I do one-to-one tutoring, and this guy sounds like a lot of my students; he could really, really benefit from one-to-one interactive teaching *now*, before the bad habits and frustrations have a chance to get built up. Look on the time and cost as an invesztment — fifty to a hundred hours now, versus several thousand later trying to unteach and reteach.
I do interactive teaching — find out what the student can and cannot do, and work from there. This makes it hard to make a cookie-cutter program, but it is not that difficult to do.
I use a combination of Orton-Gillingham inspired multisensory reading/writing approaches to teach alphabet and sound-symbol relations, direct teaching of phonics in an organized systematic progression, practice reading using phonics to unlock *all* words (consistency is important, and helps kids learn much faster and more dependably than a wishy-washy half-memorization approach), controlled-vocabulary readers to develop complete mastery of high-frequency words, and massed practice oral reading for fluency.
I’ve been doing this for more than twenty years, and it works; it also happens to follow exactly the recommendations of the NIH report of 1999.
You can email me if you want downloads of outlines that I have made up describing this approach.
Re: effective reading program
Thanks for your detailed response. I agree that this is the right track for this little guy. I certainly do not want for him to develop bad habits…or for present behavioral issues to become further entrenched.
shawn - send me your email address
If you send me your email (you get mine by double-clicking my name above, or just type in [email protected]) then I can send you the very very long and extremely detailed outlines that I have typesd up previously.
might be a good match. See comments about it on the ReadNOW list at groups.yahoo.com. Website is http://www.soundreading.com.
I use Phono-Graphix. Sound Reading is similar but starts with more fundamental skills development than PG.
A CAPD evaluation by a qualified audiologist would be a good idea, in case he would benefit from FastForWord or other sound therapies.
Nancy