Reading from Scratch

Tell us about Reading From Scratch. I have not heard of it.

Anita learntoreadnow

Any links where we could find out more? never heard of it.

Okay here goes. Reading from scratch is a program that is used to teach students with dyslexia to read using the left side of their brain. It can be found at www.dyslexia.org[url].

The woman who developed it says (sorry here goes my poor memory) someone told her that if you could find a way to keep the right side of the brain busy you could teach the left side of the brain to read. So she developed a program to do this. She sends you a package with a set of headphones that you use to send music to the right side of the brain by playing music in the left ear and her phonics program to the left side of the brain by playing it in the right ear. She says it by passes the corpus collosum and sends the information directly where it needs to be.

She also says that the two sides of a dyslexics brain don’t work in sync and this causes some of the problems with inattention, etc. To eliminate the difference in processing speed she provides a pair of glasses that send the image to the brain at different speeds. I’m assuming so they presumably are processed by the brain at the same time.

I’ve asked her if I can do the program myself.
She said she preferred a tutor do it but that I could do it because it is scripted. She also said it can take nine months to a year of doing the work 45 minutes a day because you are teaching the left side of the brain something new. Once the information is there it stays. Similar to neuro-therapy I guess.

If you want more information, check out her web site she goes into it more than I do.

After having read about dyslexia it seems to make sense to me but I wondered what other’s reaction to the idea were. Its not like anything else I’ve heard of before.

Well, I teach kids to read in an average of three to six months doing only two hour a week. And I don’t need headphones and tapes and funny glasses to do it.

I have practically given up reading and posting on this board because the new format has reached the limits of clunkiness, and the subjects are the same old same old — myths, misinformation, magic, and snake oil mixed in with the occasional voice of reason.

Anyway is you would like some real help in how to ttror your child to read simply and effectively and very inexpensively, just ask.

Tutoring notes/book in progress sent free by email
[email protected]

I have been interested in this program also. I am homeschooling my daughter who has Dyslexia. The public schools have failed and so I took her out after 5 years. In 5th grade she had a 1 grade 5th month reading level. Not much progress in 5 years I’d say.

I figure it would be worth the money if it helps some. I have used many other methods and have waisted my money so I am a little gun shy.

Good luck

I am a second grade teacher and I have had experiences with students that seem to have Dyslexia. I have never heard of Reading for Scratch but it seems like an interesting product. I would like to do more research on it. I hope that you have success with it or whatever you do. I know that it can be very frustrating with everyone involved, especially the student.

Interesting concept, It doesn’t show a picture of the glasses, but I can’t see my daughter wearing them as she tries not to wear the ones she has now. I am wondering how a student can listen to the sounds of a tape while listening to music in the other,even if it has no words.I would have my daughter watch me make the sounds and have her copy me during the program I was teaching her, and I think the headphones would interfere. I am wondering how intense this program is. Otherwise the spelling rules are like the ones in the Barton program,but couldn’t tell how indepth they go into the rules. I noticed in a previous post you had said your child had progressed in reading using Barton with a tutor. What happened?

Hi Maja,

If you’re almost certain your child has dyslexia and if you’re going to get additional testing done, have you considered taking your son to a developmental optometrist for an evaluation of his visual skills (not acuity, now, but skills)?

I teach reading (mostly phonics and a multisyllable strategy) to children that would almost all be considered dyslexic, and have found that the ones that go through vision therapy are much more receptive to reading instruction.

Over time, I’ve come to the reluctant conclusion that most dyslexics have undiagnosed vision skills issues that require vision therapy to remediate appropriately. Why reluctant? Because, like most reading instructors, I’d like to think that all a struggling reader needs is an excellent reading program and good instruction. While this combination can, indeed, get a child reading, it can’t make them comfortable if they have a vision problem, and if the vision problem is serious enough (and it is with many dyslexics) then they will struggle to learn no matter what the program.

You will need to find a developmental optometrist nearby by going to the website [url]covd.org[/url] and putting your zip code in the Locate a Doctor search box. Your own family eye doctor is unlikely to assess the problem correctly, as it is out of their area of expertise, generally.

Your son might not have a developmental vision problem (such as convergence insufficiency, for example) but, in my opinion, he very likely does and you should at least consider having him seen by someone who is trained to diagnose such problems. A comprehensive medical evaluation for dyslexia will not be sufficient, incidentally, though they will certainly be able to tell you whether he can be considered dyslexic.

There’s also a lot of additional information on my website at [url]ontrackreading.com[/url] if you’re interested.

Rod Everson
OnTrack Reading

Hi Again,

Argh, I really detest the method for inserting URL’s in here. I have to re-learn it every time I post.

Anyway, here is the COVD website: [url]http://covd.org[/url]

And (hopefully) here is the link to [url]http://ontrackreading.com[/url], my website at OnTrack Reading.

Rod

Rod,

I started following this forum when my oldest son was in first grade he is now in eighth. After a lot of searching someone, I think it was even you, suggested that I see a vision therapist. That was the first step in our long journey. We went to her on a regular basis until she was “bought out” and raised her rates to $108.00 an hour. At that price we could no longer afford to go regularly. There are only two in our state and I didn’t feel good about going to the other one.

To tell you the truth I didn’t see a lot of improvement in his reading ability. It’s probably one of those chicken and egg problems. If his vision was improving, his reading skills weren’t. It wasn’t until this past year that I found a really good tutor. So, after having done vision therapy, PACE and Master the Code we are now doing tutoring using the Barton Reading and Spelling program. I have seen more improvement since he’s begun the Barton Reading program than with either vision therapy or PACE. I’m not saying they didn’t help. I know they address different things and they helped but I have seen the most improvement from the tutoring.

Even he sees the benefit of the tutoring. He has gone from being a non-reader to reading his third 100+ page book since the beginning of the school year. Granted they aren’t at an 8th grade reading level but, he is reading and doing it without our help. Not only does he read them, he comprehends them and is able to recall what he read when he needs to write his book reports. He is also able to read his science and U.S. History book mostly unaided. This is a 180 degree turn around from last year.

Maja

Auditory mom,

If you’ll notice my original post regarding Reading from Scratch was posted in November of 2006. We had finished PACE and Master the Code and I was looking from something to improve my oldest son’s reading. I had read Sally Shaywitz book Overcoming Dyslexia and had come to the conclusion that both my oldest and third son’s are dyslexic. In February or March of last year (2007) I went to a seminar on the Barton Reading and Spelling program and from there was introduced to the tutor we are currently going to. After finding the tutor I quit pursuing Reading from Scratch. We are doing Barton.

Sorry, didn’t notice the date. I am also tutoring my daughter with Barton and am finishing level 8. Two more levels to go. She is reading alot of R.L. Stein and is a Freshman in high school. The only unfortunate thing about her reading alot better now is that she thinks she can handle reading assignments, such as tests on her own.I have entered one of her tests on a readability formula and it was written on a 11th/12th reading level. She doesn’t ask for help, and therefore has been flunking her tests, and she gets open book/note tests.

[quote=majaw]Rod,

To tell you the truth I didn’t see a lot of improvement in his reading ability. It’s probably one of those chicken and egg problems. If his vision was improving, his reading skills weren’t. It wasn’t until this past year that I found a really good tutor. So, after having done vision therapy, PACE and Master the Code we are now doing tutoring using the Barton Reading and Spelling program. I have seen more improvement since he’s begun the Barton Reading program than with either vision therapy or PACE.

Maja[/quote]

Hi Maja,

You’ve hit on one of the big reasons vision therapy has such a difficult time being accepted by reading instructors; vision therapy doesn’t teach reading.

However, it is a lot easier to teach a child to read if his vision skills are already in place. If they’re not, it takes a long time, the child often struggles, and sometimes never really learns to read due to the visual confusion and even discomfort that he’s experiencing.

Nevertheless, some children will continue to struggle after vision therapy because they just don’t understand how print works. They still have to be taught. The difference is, they can be taught more easily after vision therapy.

That doesn’t mean that your son wouldn’t have learned to read using Barton from the outset, but I suspect, given the various interventions that you went through, that you had already exposed him to a phonics program or two and that he was unsuccessful at that time. Now he’s not.

All I’m suggesting is that the earlier programs (assuming there were any tried) might have worked also if vision therapy had been the first intervention. And if there weren’t any early phonics programs tried, then it’s obvious that VT wouldn’t be sufficient.

I know that it’s impossible to sort all this out, especially by looking at only one child’s case. However, I see this sort of thing regularly and some kids still need a lot of phonics help following vision therapy.

And then there is always the possibility that one phonics program is better than another. How did Master the Code go? I’m not really familiar with it, but if it’s a phonics program, as i suspect it is, how did he react to it after vision therapy? Just curious.

Rod Everson
[url=http://ontrackreading.com]OnTrack Reading[/url]

Rod,

Vision therapy was the first thing that we tried. He didn’t go through a formal phonics program until we did PACE (not phonics) and Master The Code (“Reading and Spelling Program”.) I didn’t see much improvement in his reading after doing Master The Code. Since beginning Barton and seeing the progess he’s made, I’ve decided that MTC probably wasn’t rigorous enough for him. It is only a 12 week reading program. The only formal phonics program he had prior to Master The Code was what I taught him using Phono-Graphix. It is even less rigorous than Master The Code.

In hind sight the best thing would have been to finish the vision therapy and then start with good phonics instruction followed by PACE. We stopped doing vision therapy because at the time we could only afford to go once a month after she raised her rates so high. I don’t know if he is too old to benefit from more vision therapy after we’re done with Barton but he still seems to struggle some with tracking properly. The convergence problem is gone.

Auditory mom,

I’m glad to hear that Barton has worked for your daughter. Oh, the struggles with tests. I do understand those. It is so hard to to help your children so much and watch them work so hard and then see them fall short when they’ve progressed so much. I wish I had some sage advice but I don’t. I only have lots of sympathy for you and your daughter. I’m glad to hear you only have two levels left. Yeah! That shows lots of hard work and dedication by both you and your daughter.

You said your daughter reads a lot of R.L. Stine. Are they at her reading level or could she read more difficult books? My son has a reading teacher who tests her students reading and gives them their lexile score and I use this score to find books to match my his score. As he’s become a better reader his lexile score has gone up and I’ve gotten more difficult books for him. There is a website that can help you do this. Is there a way you could do this with your daughter? I know many states use these scores regularly.

[quote=majaw]Rod,

The only formal phonics program he had prior to Master The Code was what I taught him using Phono-Graphix. It is even less rigorous than Master The Code.

In hind sight the best thing would have been to finish the vision therapy and then start with good phonics instruction followed by PACE.

I don’t know if he is too old to benefit from more vision therapy after we’re done with Barton but he still seems to struggle some with tracking properly. The convergence problem is gone.

[/quote]

Hi Maja,

I don’t think his age would prevent vision therapy from being effective.

And I wholeheartedly agree with your assessment that you should have first done VT, then phonics instruction, and then PACE or further work if processing speed was still lagging. Too many times phonics is tried, then eclectic reading methods, and finally VT, but by then the child is so confused on how print works that it takes some serious work to replace ineffective strategies with good ones.

Regarding the rigor of Phono-Graphix and Master the Code, I may be wrong, but I think Master the Code might have been modeled on Phono-Graphix to some extent.

I use the Phono-Graphix approach, but after a couple of years of getting less than satisfactory results with some of my more challenging clients, I reworked the curriculum, making it much more comprehensive in the spellings covered, and much better organized so that my clients now easily learn the concept of overlap options. Kids who might be considered dyslexic seem to need everything covered explicitly, rather than assuming that they will infer it from other information.

I also was not satisfied with the Phono-Graphix multisyllable approach and have modified it significantly. I think it’s the strongest part of my curriculum now. The [url=http://http://ontrackreading.com/the-phonics-piece/multisyllable-decoding-1]Multisyllable Curriculum[/url] is available free on my website under the phonics section on the sidebar.

Rod Everson
[url=http://ontrackreading.com]OnTrack Reading[/url]

Sorry, I messed up the link to the [url=http://ontrackreading.com/the-phonics-piece/multisyllable-decoding-1]Multisyllable Curriculum[/url]. Hopefully it works here. If not, it starts with the section titled Multisyllable Decoding-1 on the sidebar of my website.

Rod