Intro & ?'s

>to the next big step of opening a reading center. We are opening Sept 1. A lot of work but well worth it!!

Yikes yike. I am still not making ends meet, so I do wonder how you go
about it.

> Having worked primarily with dyslexics using Barton (not certified yet, but hope to be in the next year. Way to go des!!!) with phenomenal success

Well I would highly recommend that you do go to the certification. It is a great experience!! Susan Barton is awesome in her knowledge and experience as well as humanity.

,> I felt it necessary to get certified in something a little more “mainstream”. I opted for a “PG like” program called E.B.L.I (Evidence Based Literacy Instruction).

I don’t know why you need something more “mainstream”. I explain to
parents it is an OG based system, which some of them do understand (if not I explain that). Barton combines elements that are not in a PG type system like fluency, comprehension, etc. However, the only reason I would think it is a good idea is not that something is more mainstream, but that there are kids who do not need the full route of an OG based system. For example, kids who are drop outs, failures of whole language approaches, etc. These kids would no doubt ace the Barton screening, btw. I also feel Barton is less good for a younger kid (5-8) and a PG or similar program is more little kid friendly. I got an OG based program that is less tight than Barton for such purposes.

You might also want to expand to include some fluency and straight comprehension approaches (Visualizing and Verbalizing comes to mind).

Another thing would be to take the training for LiPS. I have had two kids fail part C of the Screening. I am doing LiPS netless but it isnt’ especially recommended, and requires enormous time and energy to study and figure it out.

>ersatility of EBLI. You can use it one on one, small group, or an entire class.

You CAN use Barton in a small group (4 perhaps) but not an entire class.
I have no problem with the later, I think that a PG program would be great for a public school or similar situation though.

>Regarding advertising: ISER’s a definite, but can I register with IDA without being certified in Barton?

I would do this at a local level. And that depends on that state, NM doesn’t require certification. The training is a funny one. I think that S.Barton mentioned that 1 book is about 5 hours of training. One thing it doesn’t cost you anything. Victoria I think mentioned that people would contacted her on the IDA website had no idea where she was located.

>Join IRA (international reading asscociation) for professional liability insurance?

I haven’t gotten into that.

>Funny, I had a whole list of ?’s when I started this post. Unfortunately I can’t remember all of them.

Hah! Well drink your coffee and fire away.

—des

Hi, I’m wondering if I know you from other message boards?!

Anyway, I am also trained in a few programs like Lindamood-Bell that do not offer certification. I have the IDA form and plan to send it in with all the documents which prove my attendance. So I don’t know how they’ll treat it. But if the form says “certified in”, I just write “trained in”.

I first did PG and also moved on to a much improved PG type program called ABeCeDarian. I am familiar with EBLI, too.

I don’t think I could join the IRA. They are SO whole language oriented. I’d hate to have their publications coming in my mail. I think I’d choose the LDA (Learning Disabilites Association) to get the liability insurance. The IDA is hands-down the best organization for reading disorders in my book.

Good luck with your business! Let us know how it goes!

Janis

You can register with IDA whatever training you have. You just fill out the form and say what you are and aren’t certified in. Be honest, but no problem there.

That said, my IDA registration was a comedy of errors.
First I registered in Maryland when I was down there. They were going through a reorganization at the time and told me it would be a minimum of six months waiting list before they listed me. I finally got on their referral lists just about the date I moved back home to Montreal, and for a year after got referrals from six hundred miles away.
Here, I tried to register with the New York State office, since I’m only forty miles from the border. They could find no record whether I ever had ever actually become a member or not and insisted I get a membership number, not unreasonable. I contacted the head office again and got the forms and filled them out and sent the money, waited another three months for cross-border mail back and forth, back and forth — and found myself assigned to my “local” office in Vancouver.
I telephoned and explained as nicely as possible that Vancouver is on the Pacific coast, three thousand miles away, and this is like assigning someone in Boston to a “local” office in San Francisco.
After a lot of runarounds I got reassigned to a “local” office in New England, covering NH and VT and MA. I duly registered myself as available in the northern border areas. No referrals ever came in.
I called the NY office again, now around a year later, gave them the registration number at last. I explained clearly that I was in the Plattsburg/northern border area. I did get a few referrals, two or three from New York City — getting closer, now only three hundred miles away! — and a couple from places like Syracuse — now only two hundred miles!
I considered trying one more time to get somebody with a geographical clue and straighten this all out. But at that time two things happened; my membership came up for renewal, quite expensive for a lot of trouble and zero results, and the New England branch split — and reassigned me to a new “local” office in Boston, now back to four hundred miles away.
I gave up on IDA registration. May try again when I’m feeling stronger.

So, I can tell you from experience that IDA registration is easy and they do not demand any particular certifications, just report honestly what you have; however, unless you are in the actual city where the IDA state or regional office is located, you may or may not get any referrals that are of any use, depending on whether your “local” office has ever heard of a map.

Thanks for all the encouraging replies!!!
To des: in re: to the reading center, I have recieved so much positive feedback from the schools in the area. One school wants to send our info home with every student and we are enrolling the principal’s daughter and the principal’s secretaries son. I also have several friends who work in special education in our district who will be sending us students and the homeschooling community has embraced us warmly. Keep in mind, I am in 23rd largest school district in the country with over 70,000 students. Within that, 36% of our 3rd graders are reading below level. We have overcrowded classrooms (who doesn’t, right?) and limited resources. The other well known reading/tutoring center is admittedly not equipped to deal with language related learning disabilities. Not all of this 36% have a disability, however these kids are not getting the help they need either.

I had the opportunity to speak with Susan Barton last year at the FRA convention. She was great!! I am planning to get certified soon.

I guess “mainstream” wasn’t quite the word I was looking for when referring to PG or EBLI. I totally agree that not all kids need the full spectrum of OG. You put it into the words I was so lacking this morning while in my “only had one cup of coffee so far and looks like this is going to be a full pot day” stupor. I also forget to mention that I use Great Leaps for fluency (must have been daydreaming about that second cup o’ joe).

To Janis: After reading many of your posts, I couldn’t help but feel a familiarity in them. Maybe from ReadNOW or RBG3 perhaps? Let me know how the submission of the IDA form goes. I will look into the LDA, thanks!!

To Victoria: Egads!!! I will definitely be enclosing a map with the IDA form. Keep in mind that there are dyslexics that are directionally challenged, usually it’s left or right confusion, but I suppose it could be global as well, just a thought. Keep trying though!!! One a personal note, I have family in Plattsburgh and E-town, have been there many, many times. Love the area!!!! Any recent Champ sightings?

Champ sightings? We’ve had so much rain here this so-called summer that I’m wondering if the next project should be building an ark; Champ is probably having a field day swimming around the lake down the road and occasionally slithering up my street, hidden by the sheets of water falling. I’ll wave hi for you next storm, which is due tomorrow night.

Yep. I’m on both those lists. Do you post there or just lurk?

I rechecked about the insurance. Go to the Forrest T. Jones Insurance site. If you click on the private practice liability insurance you will see a list of organizations that includes the LDA. I decided to go ahead and join the LDA, too. I have the beginnings of a private practice going but I am presently too busy with school jobs to really do much with it. Maybe next year I can work at one school part time and work on developing the private business.

Thanks for the IDA info, Victoria. I need to send that in.

Janis

>To des: in re: to the reading center, I have recieved so much positive feedback from the schools in the area. One school wants to send our info home with every student and we are enrolling the principal’s daughter and the principal’s secretaries son. I also have several friends who work in special education in our district who will be sending us students and the homeschooling community has embraced us warmly. Keep in mind, I am in 23rd largest school district in the country with over 70,000 students.

Well being in the middle of NM is probably not an advantage for me!!
I also don’t have any ties to the schools at all. I have sent flyers, etc.
to schools and also had a few “interviews” with private schools.

>Within that, 36% of our 3rd graders are reading below level. We have overcrowded classrooms (who doesn’t, right?) and limited resources.

I’m sure that’s all similar. They use whole language in the Albuquerque public schools (even in special ed. with poor readers), they haven’t a clue.

>I had the opportunity to speak with Susan Barton last year at the FRA convention. She was great!! I am planning to get certified soon.

It’s a great, if intimadating, experience. She has roughly 10 people in a group for this, and everyone “teaches” the lessons to her as you sit in the group. She teaches a LOT as you do this— it isn’t just a testing situation.
She gives you an opportunity to try again.
Get a good handle on error correction and basic presentation (for example the hand signs). It helped that I have used LOTS of error correction and she asked the same ones that I had done. Out of 10 people, only 2 didnt’ pass, so you are likely to pass (we knew pretty much who wasn’t going to pass). She will refer people to you, but thus far being where I am I have gotten no referrals.
Everyone was very nervous at first, but settled down pretty fast. She asked at the end if there was anything she could do differently to help us feel more comfortable, and no there is nothing.

—des

Love your sense of humor Victoria!!!!! Come to Florida and I’ll show you what a storm looks like. I will be watching hurricane Frances very closely the next couple of days. Still haven’t put things back together since Charley blew through.

Janis - On the RBG3 and ReadNow boards, I do a lot of lurking aka learning and post very little.

Thanks for the info on the Barton cert. process des. Finding students given your geographical location can be challenging. Just a few thoughts to get your name out there (I’m sure your way ahead of me on this one, but thought maybe the suggestions might be helpful). Homeschooling groups like to have guest speakers. Here’s a link to find them in your area http://homeschooling.gomilpitas.com/index.htm. Some homeschooling groups have co-ops in which a parent or other person knowledgable in a particular area teaches a class. There are also umbrella schools that homeschoolers go to for a particular class. We have several in our area that focus on upper level math, science, etc. The director at one particular school originally wanted me to come and work out of his office, but space was a problem. However, he has a stack of my business cards. Advocacy groups for ld’s. I go to seminars that they have for personal reasons, but have also made some wonderful professional contacts as well. Our school district often has seminars too. Found these on the school board web page and registered with them to be notified of upcoming events. Again it’s a personal thing first, professional second. Our local ABWA (American Business Womens Assoc.) has monthly networking meetings as well as a trade show once a year. Membership and trade show fees are very reasonable. Our Chamber of Commerce has a monthly “after hours” networking event. Oh and last but not least, the HUGE magnetic sign on (as my kids call it) “the reading mobile” aka a ‘99 Chrysler minivan doesn’t hurt either. It has been my experience on a personal level that parents will take their children to receive help wherever that help may be, but they have to know that it’s there. That is precisely what has taken me down this path. Had I known that help was available, it wasn’t, I would have never taken on trying to remediate my own child. But alas, my path chose me.

I have the mobile office too, but the magnetic sign got lost/stolen when I was in DC, have to get another. I still get most effect out of the internet in this area, but you never know what will work in yours.

As far as storms, I’ll hold up our January three weeks of thirty below plus wind against anything you got.
We have the world’s most variable climate — tropical thunderstorms in summer and arctic blizzards in winter. Definitely never boring.

Lol! Reading mobile! I have a Chrysler mini-van, too! I’ll have to get a sign when I have time to accept clients. Super idea!

Since you are on ReadNow, you have probably seen us talk about ABeCeDarian. It’s better than PG if you are looking for a decoding program on that order.

Janis

Janis,

My link for ABeCeDarian doesn’t seem to be working anymore. Could you kindly provide? Thanks!!!!

The author, Michael Bend, does not have a site yet. It should be forthcoming. I am sure we’ll post it on ReadNow when we find out. So stay tuned.

There is a reading assessment by Sebastian Wren named ABeCeDarian as well. Perhaps that was the site you bookmarked.

Janis

Hmmm…. At least you can hunker in thirty below. Frances is doin’ a number, and look out for Ivan!
O.G. is getting more and more “mainstream,” though that can be a bad thing if you’re talking to a whole language admin. — it’s “the other side.” Politics really is a stinker. You can spin it, though — you’re trained in it, certified in it, but you use a balanced, eclectic approach … oh, and you have test scores to show that what you do works.
I’ve found the INternet to be invaluable for contacts, and a website not too hard to maintain, and it could be a lot easier if you just do a sort of “yellow pages ad” one. You do want to do a little research (or take a course — most colleges have them and sometimes as onloine courses), because there are things like getting the titles right and meta tags that are worth spending a bit of time getting right. I dunno, to me at least it speaks worse for a biz if you have a website that gives out wrong info, or takes up 1/3 of your screen but you can’t make it bigger (and you have to scroll down to read it, and the picture on it is distorted) than if you didn’t have one at all, but people pretty much expect a “real” business to have a website.
I considered diving into networking hard with homeschoolers (and still should; Illinois is a big homeschooling state) and LDA/IDA kinds of networks — I did present at the IDA conference one year — but somehow I end up working on the website instead… can we say introvert :-)

Will look into doing a website. Thanks for the tips Sue. Oh and I did locate the AbCeDarian assessment. Great website with a lot of valuable info. Especially liked the 10 myths of reading. Hmmmm….makes ya wonder.

Yes, the myths are mostly interesting and mostly correct, imo. I do not buy the argument that there is no “genetic dyslexia”. While the reading hasn’t been around long enough to establish a center in the brain called “reading” (probably parts of many areas), many of my kids come in with family histories of reading failure. It would be hard to just say, well they aren’t read to or somesuch as all of them were read to. (Usually it’s one parent, not two anyway.)

Also there has been extensive brain research on dyslexia. Brains of dyslexic readers work differently while reading than brains of normal
readers.

However, the myths of reading as being a natural process, that type of thing are well established.

—des