My youngest son Matthew has PDD-NOS and has always had difficulty reading. This year they started using a program of teaching phonics with music and animated creatures. They have worked 1 on 1 with him in his LD class. Tonight I got to witness the fruits of this effort —along with a lot of hard work we have been doing at home with site words. His class is taking part in the book it program. His teacher sets a goal for him for how many pages he has to read to get a pizza coupon. Because of his difficulties it was accepted that he would get credit for co-reading. I would read to him and he would repeat what was read. Tonight he was able to read The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig almost all by himself. He actually used reading skills, looked at pictures, read around the word he did not know and sounded out words. After being told what a word was he did not know if he came across it again he read it!!!! I was so proud of him. This may not sound like much to most of you but for us it was cause for celebration I am sharing this because I know how up lifting and inspiring these types of stories can be.
Re: had to share
Do you remember the name of the reading program mentioned?
Sounds interesting..
Congratulations to both your son, and to you and the school!
Re: had to share
They are using Rock with Phonics. It teaches Phonics to music. The program is sequential in presentation and the books that accompany are bright and cheery. The other thing we have implemented is we read the page with him following along. Then he reads it. This combination has shown great improvement in his reading. At the begining of third grade his reading level was Primer. They have not re-evaluated him yet but I know it has improved greatly because he reads more on his own now with help only for the words he does not know. I think the music help because my son falls on the autism spectrum and he finds music to be calming and seems to help him focus. We have started playing the Mozart effect music for him when he does his homework this helps him stay tuned in. Hope this helps.
Hi Lisa,
What wonderful news! My heart takes a leap of joy each time I hear a wonderful progress report! Hurray for Matthew!
Blessings, teresa