Is there a time to give up on decoding accurately?

I posted a similar question at the start of this shool year; but I answered my own question as my 12yo 6th gr son would not continue tutoring, special ed. or decoding work. He has just completed 6th grade in reg. ed. and was an A student in a 750 student middle school. We focused on fluency and math(lots of math) this year; his scores were similar to your son’s, and were much much lower than his IQ…but he succeeded in all classes, his self-confidence soared and the teachers were very flexible. Yes his spelling is terrible, his fluency is slow, and writing is coming along slowly; but when I look at his peers, their spelling is also poor, and writing is not inspired. This summer we are working on math, and he’s reading fiction on his own. I don’t think “all is lost” if you drop decoding for now, just keep the ball rolling in some areas and maturity will also help.

I know the research points to decoding being an auditory skill but I still think that vision plays a role. I just don’t think you can separate any skill as completely a function of one sense. We are all multisensory beings, last I checked. :wink:

My son’s decoding is amazing. His vision therapist could not find words hard enough. He decoded every word I threw at him from Rosner’s D list easily, Literature, metabolism, lackadaisical, ampersand. These words are not words that were familiar to him. He had to really decode.

We haven’t done any new decoding work to reach this level. Just vision work and integration work.

PS. He can now stand on his head. I assumed that was the next step in your exercise. Is there something else we should do?

I have been exactly in your spot.

Ive seen a huge leap in my son here recently-he just finished 5th grade and is 11 and 1/2. He is decoding!!!! He still does not like it-I wish I had a dollar for every “cant you just tell me?” but he is doing it. Still some stumbling blocks especially with long words but Im hoping the Sound Reading program will help IF it ever shows up(not the quickest source)

We stopped tutoring, which was very decoding related, in Dec. I completely backed off-he was getting school resource in for reading Jan-April for the first time. SOMETHING happened and Im not sure what! Did the tutoring sink in after the intensity was removed? Was the resource room for 4 mos THAT valuable?

Or is it just maturation?

Reading up on homeschooling, I am struck by the number of boys who read very late-age 9 or even 12-and then just “caught up” or often surpassed their age level reading level. I dont have statistics but it sure does seem to happen

I think letting it sit for several months may not be a bad idea. I worried with my guy that I was turning reading into an ordeal he would NEVER learn to enjoy.

That’s great your son can decode so well!! But I am a bit confused about the relationship of vision therapy to decoding. I thought you had said (but my memory might have failed me) that your son could decode well after PG but reading was laborious and avoided. That I can understand.

That said, I agree completely that reading has a visual component. For my son, I think his difficulties in decoding have several sources, some visual, some not. Three years ago he had Woodcock Johnson testing done. Conclusions were that he had difficulty with associative memory—integration of auditory and visual information—which combined with his somewhat weak short term memory, would make acquisition of basic skills difficult. We have worked on that integration and memory with success but I think it is still at the core of his difficulties. As his therapist says, little problems can add up to be big problems!!

I also think part of my son’s difficulties with decoding are related to his weak ability to “see” letters in his head combined with his not strong (but significantly remediated) auditory skills. I never was taught phonetically (and have relatively weak auditory skills) but can decode new words because I automatically transfer patterns I know to those I don’t. My son does not do this. We worked with some Seeing Stars and Glass Analysis and made some progress. He knows some patterns now (ing, ed, for example) but not enough. We dropped this to work on comprehension where we got far more improvement for the same time expended.

And there is the rub. We make progress but it is so slow and incremental. I am hoping the AVKO spelling will transfer patterns from spelling to reading.

And if it doesn’t, I am heartened to read marycas and SAR’s posts.

Beth

P.S. We still aren’t doing head stands. I will post next steps on parenting bb. See if your son can do them. If he can, enjoy your headstands!!

Thanks for responding. I am heartened to hear your children are doing so well. SAR, I am especially glad to hear your son is tackling middle school so well. marycas, maybe it will kick in yet. You know my son wrote a note for his dog last night and he spelled every word right for the first time in his life. Note read “Do not take me. Only pet me”. Not Mark Twain but it was a first.

He also is into Harry Potter big time. I have him listening on tape and reading as well in large print book. Maybe that will help too–and he likes doing it–well, he likes it better without reading the book so he does one chapter for me and the rest for himself!!!

Beth

Similarly, I debated about what to do this summer. My son has had quite a bit of decoding and yet reading is not automatic. We decided to try Read Right. You can look at their web site www.readright.com. They use an iceberg analogy that makes sense to me. We have done so much of the top of the ice berg (decoding, therapies), but now we need to practice all that goes on in the brain unseen to our eyes. Anyway, my son was evaluated and tapes and library will be coming in the mail. He’ll be tutored twice a week on the phone. :!: I thought the price was reasonable and we thought we would give it a try. I’ll keep you posted.

Beth, were you able to get Harry in large print? I know my son reads better when the print is larger, but I have not found an affordable source.

I got Harry Potter and Holes both through our county library system. If you have tried that, I’d try interlibrary loan. It is a popular series and somebody is apt to have it.

Beth

Hi Beth,

What I would suggest which has worked well for many of the kids I have been working with who have struggled with decoding/reading fluency is to use audiotapes to improve his reading fluency. I like the Read Naturally or Great Leaps becuase it integrates the auditory, visual piece together to create fluency. My daughter has done so much better with integrating the two, we too did decoding until the cows came home but once we started working on both it really came together.

Oh, by the ways..I still can’t do headstands or cartwheels I survived life so far… :oops:
p

Well, I think “giraffe” is marginally decodable. Now, this is where context does play a realistic role. If this word is in isolation, many youngsters won’t get this word if they don’t know it. In a sentence, the context should provide a brighter child with enough clues to figure out this word. The problem sometimes is that these students are so intensely focused on decoding, which is not their strength, that they overlook meaning. The two must be used in tandem, especially as the student moves into more and more difficult reading material. Multi-syllable words can be almost impossible w/o a large speaking/listening vocabulary and attention to context. The student may get close, but the accent may be off and the word is not particularly recognizable all of the time.

The now, if the student can learn to “play” with words and try different sounds, then words like “giraffe” become more accessible. Exercises of this sort could be attempted to try to build the flexibility to try different pronunciations, unfortunately usually my students fix on one pronunciation and often subsequent attempts depart farther and farther from the true pronunciation.

I like the idea of building fluency with a program or approach like Read Naturally. This can include books on tape. I also like the idea of vocabulary development because this is his strength.

I suspect there is a time that decoding instruction should take a backseat to wide reading. I would like to see more programs like Read Naturally available. The selections are short enough to keep the student’s attention. My upper graders have used such programs extensively once the basic decoding skills are pretty much in place. They never seem to develop the skill and automaticity the nonLD reader possesses, but they make huge gains.

Let us not forget, these students missed out on literally hundreds or thousands of hours of reading during their early and middle elementary years. This also takes a toll. They are playing “catch-up.”

I do not have access to Read Naturally. I looked at it at one time but it is very expensive for a parent—at least at beginning stages where they move from one level to another fairly rapidly. Maybe I should look at it again?? What is the difference between using it and having my son listen to a book on tape and follow along? He clearly prefers to just listen so something is getting a work out!! Do I recall correctly that the student then does timed readings?

I have Great Leaps but it is not on tape so a bit confused, Pattim.

Actually, girafe was not in context—it was in an exercise we were doing where he had to classify animals versus things. So he knew it was an animal or a thing, which isn’t much context. Still, I would say that he doesn’t necessarily have the mental flexibility to switch to other possibilities—but he does it much better in context with words in his vocabulary. I read one article that talked about the importance of oral vocabulary for reading fluency—that is a strength and I can tell the difference it makes. I think listening to books on tape (which he loves—the best thing I got from the trip to the neurologist last summer!!) improves his vocabulary as well as his auditory skills.

Beth

Beth,
Read Naturally is available on CD for about $54 per grade level. Each level has 24 reading passages. The child reads first for one minute with you counting the errors for the cold reading. Then the child reads along out loud with the computer reading the passage (voice is as good as an audiotape) three times, each time slightly faster. Then the child reads each passage three times out loud himself. After that, he answers some comprehension questions and writes as much of a summary as he can in five minute. (All the parameters are adjustable.) Then he reads out loud for you for a minute with you counting the errors to get the final speed.

The website does not explain placement in a level well—if you look on the parenting board down near the bottom “Need help interpreting” from Jan L. you will see some informataion on how to place from the website. I think if you placed your son at a level where he could read 100 wpm you would do all right. I am guessing your son could be placed at third grade level, possibly fourth. If you timed him at both the levels, perhaps the Read Naturally people could direct you to the appropriate level. (It’s important to get the right level before you order. Once you open the diskettes, they are nonreturnable.)

In any case if you could get through third and fourth grade levels in the coming year, you’d be doing well and it’s not that expensive. Also, a lot of Read Naturally can done by the child with little supervision on your part—you just need to do the first and last readings (and of course you have to check up to make sure he is actually reading the stories out loud.) I’m making my ds do this this summer. He’s away at camp right now, so we haven’t yet started and I can’t tell you how it’s going.

Marie,

Thanks for the helpful reply. You are right—the price isn’t bad—and the program sounds like a really good one for him now. I think I looked at it when my son was in second grade—reading on a first grade level and there were many choices and levels. It seemed like it was going to be several hundred dollars quickly.

I will try to figure out level but I could order fourth and see if it is too difficult, knowing I will use fourth. He was reading fifth grade passages in Great Leaps at 135 wpm. But he has queer decoding issues (this morning read plan as plane—again no context) so third might be better to start since fourth will undoubtedly be focused on multisyllable words.

Beth

I went to the web site and it was $99 for 1/2 year……did you find it somewhere else? This is in line with what I remembered—$200 for a grade level and thus $400 for two grade levels. Of course, 2 years ago I also couldn’t figure out whether to do the phonic one either…

Beth

Beth—Sorry—$54 was what the last software I bought cost and that had stuck in my mind. You’re right about the $99. But I’m not so sure you would need the in between levels—that is, possibly you could get by doing level 4 and then going on to level 5—which would help limit the costs.

I’d get the highest level (possibly level 4 or even 4.5 based on your Great Leaps experience) you thought your son could reasonably do and get that. Depending upon how intensively you wanted to do this, you might be able to finish it up over summer. (I think the time estimate for finishing a story is about 40 minutes.) Perhaps you could see enough progress with just one level that you would not need to do more. Or you could decide to go a full level up and work on that (probably more slowly) over the school year.

I got the highest level for my son—level 7—so I didn’t focus too much on the earlier split levels. Since I’m not making my son do anything else this summer, I didn’t mind spending the $99—it’s cheaper than two hours of tutoring where I live.

Tutoring is higher where you are at than where I am but you do have a point. Too bad there isn’t somewhere you can “rent” these materials. You should see the collection of stuff I have at this point!!!

Beth

I believe that, for students with decoding issues, we sometimes take a rest from phonics. Then, go back and give it another go.

There are many variables including attention and confidence and resilience and memory. Many things change with time and experiences.

Hi Beth,
Sometimes I think, with reading, I’m just going to have to treat my son as if he were “blind.” I’m really beginning to wonder if my son will ever be able to read. I think he’ll be fine with traffic signs and eventually he’ll be able to wallow through instructions and directions, but I really don’t know if he’ll ever actually be able to read a book (or want to read a book!).

I have to admit, sometimes I feel so incredibly discouraged. And I too have so many materials, books, reading programs, and information about teaching reading I feel like an LD store! :(

My experience was that 3-5th grades were the hardest for my son, and with maturity and lots of practice reading and academics improved this year in 6th grade; I think I expected too much progress too soon. What helped was an accurate assessment in 5th grade of his abilities, continued reading aloud, and lots of help at home with reading and writing assignments. Many posts on these boards are from parents in the 2-4th grade range who’ve had one evaluation and parents are frustrated with lack of progress; two or more evals over 2-3 years will give you a more accurate guide to what’s happening and what to expect in the future.

I know how you feel. Third grade was the worse grade for me. I was really depressed about it all. I think it was because there are new expectations—comprehension wise—and my son didn’t measure up here very well, and we still didn’t have decoding down too. He also had a lot of trouble in math—and still does (but some how it has never seemed as pervasive as reading).

I have come to the point of thinking my son may never decode well. As SAR suggests, it is interesting contrasting several scores over time.

Woodcock Johnson (3 years apart)
Letter word ID 91 93 (SS)
passage comprehension 95 110

We have done oddles of work on decoding for rather medicore increases. I started working this January on comprehension and have got much larger gains for the effort.

I think it was you who sent me an article on the importance of vocabulary with reading. I can see a big difference with my son when he knows about a subject in his ability to even decode. Context helps a lot. I think he is going to have depend on his strengths in vocabulary and comprehension to get by.

So at this point, I am going to do a bit on decoding (right now we’re doing prefixes and suffixes—it is helping a lot—more payoff than from another round of long and short A). I think it was also you who said you were working on multiple levels with your son—at some point it is good to go on and my son has done better learning patterns than individual sounds.

He listens to books on tape a lot. I have him following along in a large print book. I figure that helps vocabulary at least—and that is not a small thing for him. I am going to try Read Naturally because it is a different approach than direct teaching of decoding and not too time consuming. I tried the reading at the same time with him but it got him mad—a computer would be better, I think.

I don’t think my son will ever read for pleasure but he is getting to the point that he will manage classroom work. He can listen to books on tape for pleasure. Do you have these for your son? You have to have a physician sign off on the form but they have been a tremendous gift for my son. We get them through the Talking Book library. They send the tapes to our house and I just reverse the card and send them back when he is done. He can be up on all the Harry Potter this way. We went to S. Carolina and he listened in the car most of the way!!

I find SAR’s messages encouraging. Maybe you and I will be able to write the same about our sons someday!!

Beth

My son too enjoys books on tape. He turns off the volume on his video games and listens to books while he plays. We are mostly using the public library, plus I scour the discount section of the book stores and have found tapes for $4. He also watches the History channel etc. and gets a lot of information that way. Remember, my blind cousin is a practicing attorney with his own law firm - he doesn’t read anything. My son wants to be a writer or a stand-up comic. He has dictated a novel and a video game which I type. Currently he is working on short stories and comedy routines with his tape recorder. He is makeing some progress dictating into Dragon on the computer. Time has both flown and dragged. He is now 16 and his reading has improved a little, his spelling is terrible - BUT he is a great kid who is growing and learning and hopeful about his future. Reading would be nice, but if not he will still be fine!

Beth,
I think AVKO helps with prefixes and suffixes (we’ve started AVKO this summer). I’ve had both my kids listening to books on tape for years now. I just get them from the library, but I may look into recordings for the blind and dyslexic.

I agree with you comprehension and language are good areas to work in (at least that’s where I feel gains are made as well). I also get the feeling visual memory is helping with my son’s word retrieval and memory issues. He still grasps for a word once in awhile, but it’s not as bad as it had been (maybe once or twice a day now as oppossed to numerous times throughout the day!).

Thanks for pointing out that even though decoding might continue to be a difficult area, at least there are other related areas we can and are building up that may ultimately help overall.

Maybe, even if our kids don’t become quick, automatic decoders, they can eventually use good comprehension as a way of compensating….just a hopeful thought there!

First, I think a break is a very good idea. Everybody else needs breaks to rest and rebuild their forces; kids who have to work hard at learning need them as much or more. A month or so is more thna reasonable.

After breaks, all people ofen come back refreshed and often with new insights. Students may perk up and suddenly seem to have learned things that you were teaching them before that were not yet absorbed. So yes, progress after a break is something to hope for.

If you look into Book 2 of those Scholar’s Choice books which I recommend that you say you have, you will find sections on the two sounds of g and c towards the end (there is a simple rule that is over 90% accurate, j or s sound before e or i or y and hard g or k sound otherwise) and you will also find many practices on the short and long vowel patterns, exactly what he seem to be needing. I have the student read the instructions aloud, read the words aloud and decide which place to write before writing them (never practice a mistake), and I reiterate the rule if he is having problems. Usually the student “gets” the rule after doing the one or two pages of exercises like this. Then in oral reading, I point out when he needs the other sound and why. It take a while to sink in but is worth it.

I don’t think it is *ever* too late to keep learning decoding. My daughter did firefighter and EMT training and is working with the local rescue department. She just told me of a co-worker who, when he joined a year ago, could not read at all. He could decode somewhat but had never been taught to blend or do any advanced work. She and boyfriend have been working with him between calls and he has now passed two of the required tests for EMT; is having trouble with the third one because they don’t want to give him extended time, but is working on it. And this is a young adult in his twenties. Elementary school is *way* too early to quit!!

I’ve been working on book three in Scholars Choice Phonics because it has prefixes and suffixes which are similar to AVKO spelling. I think it is helping his spelling—as well as his reading. I don’t think he ever really got that there were root words.

I plan on finishing this section out and going back to book two. I have told him the same rules for g and c, but he has never internalized them.

Beth

Really, you both should look into books on tape with Talking Book Library. It is a marvelous service and much easier than hunting things down on your own. I occasionally call and ask for a certain author and then we start receiving them. I also have asked not to have certain authors sent—my son thought they were stupid or they were above him.

They lent us the tape recorder and head phones too.

Beth

I just reread all the messages here (it’s a little difficult for me to get used to this new board. I know it will happen, it’s just going to take time). It’s reassuring to hear that 3rd-5th can be hard years, but eventually progress is made and a kid can end up doing well after all.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how to help my son internalize all the rules more easily. Maybe by multi-tasking with repetition? I’ve been curious if Pace’s MTC does something like this?

:P I absolutely agree with all of you who feel that kids need breaks from this and that program. We all need breaks from our jobs and school is a job for the kids. Also kids who learn to read with rules rarely become fluent; there are at least 500 rules and who knows how many exceptions.
I think that we have one set speed, the speed that we read, for our children and maybe that speed isn’t right for all kids. As long as kids can read and comprehend, speed is irrevelant. Also, those kids who are auditory learners do very well in college because lectures are still what college is all about. Those kids who are vision learners usually have problems with learning through the auditory modality. My daughter finds college easier than high school due to learning using her strength, now if we can only get them out of high school with a diploma! I would still let children grow up. Like my kids say, ‘chill’!

Shay said:

“…. I think that we have one set speed, the speed that we read, for our children and maybe that speed isn’t right for all kids. As long as kids can read and comprehend, speed is irrevelant….”

I am not so sure that this hold true for future perspective.

I just met a college gradute who graduated from a very good school with excellent grades (she had a lot of accomodations due to her LD) and cannot pass MCAT to go to medical school b/c she cannot get extended time and her reading speed is less than half of average. This is why heart sinks when my son still reads with less than 100 wpm…. and only for a very short time (after 10 minutes he probably cannot even do 50 wpm…).

Speed and endurance were two areas improved through vision therapy. My son can now read for longer periods of time and get through more material.

I was talking to the doctor at my son’s last appontment and mentioned that I don’t read as much as I used to and that my attention seems pulled away when I read. He told me to make an appointment because that is a sure sign that I need reading glasses.
I sometimes use my son’s glasses and it does help because the print looks bigger. I don’t think I would have even realized this was a problem if I wasn’t taking my son to the optometrist every week.

I just turned 40. I guess it had to happen sooner or later.

I think I am for one as well- the OD told me average age for readign glasses:42. I am 43 so I suppose I am entitled :))

We took a break- my son is at the scout camp for the whole week- I am looking forward to VT because the school kept telling me his decoding is very good, so I cannot see what else could interfere.

I know he has attention issues, but he is also a very curious boy so is there were no problems he should be getting engaged in reading at least for some text, especially that he would listen very attentively when I read to him.

:!:
I would never give up on a student learning to decode words. In fact, I love the challenge of helping students who no one else can help.

I have been doing a multi-sensory decoding method for 20 years now, and have helped lots of students to improve their reading. And I thinik the reason the method works is because it is actually a multi-sensory version of the same decoding technique used by successful readers. And I have used the method with many different texts—it works with any text, because it can be used to decode any word the student needs help with. And because the student is fully involved in the decoding, using hearing, saying, writing, seeing, and reading the sounds of the words, he/she is successful in adding the word to her/his reading and writing vocabulary. All the teacher has to do is to figure out how to show the actual sound spelling to the student.

Go to 1stbooks.com and read about THE SOUNDS OF WORDS.

Anita

>>I’ve been thinking a lot about how to help my son internalize all the rules more easily. Maybe by multi-tasking with repetition? I’ve been curious if PACE’s MTC does something like this?<<

Pace’s MTC does not use rules. Aside from developing auditory processing skills (segmenting, blending, phoneme manipulation), mostly what it works on is development of automaticity. It doesn’t do this primarily through repetition, but rather through graduated development of recognition speed of both nonsense and real word parts (i.e., using the metronome to gradually force pacing). Although there is repetitive practice of the *skills* involved in reading, there is not repetitive reading of the same words and passages over and over.

MTC is always preceded either by PACE or BrainSkills, because these two programs develop a variety of subskills necessary for reading — ability to sustain attention, ability to track along a line without losing your place, directionality, etc. None of these programs teach any reading rules. Basically, PACE/MTC agrees with PhonoGraphix that rules not only are not necessary for reading, but they can also interfere with reading.

Multi-tasking exercises are in PACE, not in MTC. The multi-tasking exercises are mostly working on development of selective attention skills (the ability to ignore outside distractions, which is a higher level attention skill than sustained attention), divided attention skills (the ability to multi-task, which is a higher level attention skill than selective attention), and higher-level cognitive skills (the ability to manage complexity).

Nancy

My son is 6 with a very low working memory, Phonological processing and Mixed receptive/expressive language disorder. Is he too young for PACE?We have recently started PG. He is currently doing Earobics at home 5x’s a week and Sound Reading Solutions along with Speech therapy 3x’s a week.

Could you give me a little info on how we would do the program at home? Or is it only done by a provider.

Thanks,
Diane

>>My son is 6 with a very low working memory, Phonological processing and Mixed receptive/expressive language disorder. Is he too young for PACE?We have recently started PG. He is currently doing Earobics at home 5x’s a week and Sound Reading Solutions along with Speech therapy 3x’s a week.

Could you give me a little info on how we would do the program at home? Or is it only done by a provider.<<

6yo is too young for PACE. It is much more appropriate for age 8 and up.

PACE is done only through a provider. Typically you would meet with the trainer for one hour three times a week, and then do a minimum of 3 hours of homework practice per week also. BrainSkills is the home version of PACE, but is not nearly as comprehensive.

Audiblox is a home program that is suitable for young children (and for those who can’t afford PACE). Website is http://www.audiblox2000.com

Nancy

am wondering and partially in reply to some of these postings, has anybody worked with the Rave-O methods that are being used at Tufts? I have long suspected that for those students who are still at a grade one level ( without appropriate tutoring) when in grade 6, and who do get help with phonemic awareness and the alphabetic principal, and blending, that their continued slow decoding may be based on underlying visual processing problems. I would be interested to know if these methods have been published yet, and if anyone has worked on them, if only from the descriptions in the LD Journal? Thanks

Jennifer, I think you’ll get a better response if you post this as a new topic. I do know of someone who just referred a child to that clinic for evaluation and I am also interested to hear when RAVE-O will be out and how it will differ form what we now have.

Janis

Angela - or anyone who’s had experience with the Read Right program - Can you please tell me more about this program? Thanks.

[quote=”Angela in CA June 24”]We decided to try Read Right. You can look at their web site www.readright.com. They use an iceberg analogy that makes sense to me. We have done so much of the top of the ice berg (decoding, therapies), but now we need to practice all that goes on in the brain unseen to our eyes. Anyway, my son was evaluated and tapes and library will be coming in the mail. He’ll be tutored twice a week on the phone. :!: I thought the price was reasonable and we thought we would give it a try. I’ll keep you posted.[/quote]

:D

First of all, hello to everyone especially to Susan Long, Annitya(?), and Pattim, from whom I have learned so much. I have been using this board, but I’ve been using my screen name, Barbara. I have decided to come out in the open after I’ve seen this new look of the BB and the need for one to register :lol: One thing I like about this new look is that the message doesn’t get burried immediately after having so many responses.

Anyway, to go back to the topic of decoding, I will never give up teaching this. I just came back from a series of Lindamood Bell workshops in San Luis Obispo (I’ve decided to finish the rest of the workshops after taking LiPS last summer) and one of the things that was discussed was that if decoding is not taught systematically one can only read 5th grade level materials. Decoding begins to matter so much after 4th grade when one is suddenly bombarded with content words.

In my 7 years teaching experience, decoding is the one that improves dramatically. I use LiPS and Slingerland. I have met a student though last year that didn’t learn decoding as much as I’ve expected him to, but then he had other problems like low cognitive ability and receptive language difficulty. He was also an ESL student. I didn’t use LiPS with him then because of the language load. I’ll try to use LiPS this August. Maybe he’d be more ready for it.

Thanks Barbara :0) (easier to type)

You just confirmed that I am doing the right think in continuing my daughter’s OG tutoring for this last year of elementary. She comprehends much higher than grade level, but decoding is still slow and mostly she just skips the word and still gets the content.

I was concerned that MS and HS would still be quite a challenge if she didn’t get those MS words down.

SHE won’t be excited, but your post just “sealed her fate” for this upcoming year.