Hi! My daughter has not been diagnosed with LD, but is a year younger than her peers. She struggles and has to work harder than the others in her class. She does not like to read, but can. She also struggles in math. We have had her tested and found that she does not to have ADD or CAPD. We also had her tested for Speech to see if there was a problem with her language development. She tested very high and they did not perceive that there was a problem. She began taking focus factor as a way to help her focus. We could not see any real difference and neither did her teachers. She went through reading at Sylvan and brought her reading level up a grade level in just 3 months. She does not appear to have a learning disability, but struggles to make A’s, B’s, and C’s. On standardized tests, she does well, but has a hard time with the daily school work. It sounds like we have tried everything, but we are just trying to figure out the puzzle of why she is not performing better. My main objective is to try to help her maintain the level she is at over the summer. Does anyone have any suggestions of programs or methods to use that are fun while still effective? I am a certified teacher and am eager to help her. I teach high school and need some ideas for a fourth grader going to fifth.
They can really slow a child down.
I would do a program such as Audiblox with her over the summer (http://www.audiblox2000.com) or — if you can afford the $$$$ — PACE (http://www.learningskills.com). These are programs that work on developing a wide variety of cognitive skills and tend to be very effective for the type of problem you are describing. The exercises are made as game-like as possible, and there are ways to make it more fun (e.g., turn-about is fair play, with your dd taking your role and you having to perform the exercises), but they still require a fair amount of work.
If doing Audiblox, I would recommend an hour a day five days a week. For most children, it takes about 30 to 40 hours of training before you start seeing significant changes in academics.
These programs can make a real difference in a child’s life.
Nancy