Recommendation for Reading help with Dyslexia
 

My almost 12 year old is pretty severely dyslexic. Two of my other kids have mild dyslexia, but his is severe. He was getting private tutoring/therapy up until two years ago. That is not an option right now. It is mainly his fluency and how it takes him so long to sound out a word. I gave him an AAR level three reader to read today and in 10 minutes, I think he had maybe read four pages.

I am really stuck as to what to do with him. We used to have some computer based programs that helped, but we can't really use them right now. I am looking for some paper/hard copy stuff to do with him that will not take more than 20 minutes a day and that is super low prep. I wish I had more time to devote to it, but I have six kids schooling, and they are all at different levels and stages. I really only have about 20-30 minutes per kid one on one per day for school.
I looked at AAR, as that is really working well for my nearly 8 year old, but he would probably hate all those little activities in the student activity book. I saw something on Schoolhouse teachers, but I was just confused.
Any suggestions?

Re: Recommendation for Reading help with Dyslexia
 

Not personally I but know many people have found great help from Diane Craft materials.

Re: Recommendation for Reading help with Dyslexia
 

Is it an option to request services through your local school district? In mine homeschoolers are eligible for evaluations and services free of charge.

Honestly, only 20-30 minutes per day is probably not what he needs. ITU that it's difficult to give more time than that 1:1 when you're homeschooling six children and juggling household. One of my friends who had 5 children ended up putting several of her younger children in public school so that she could spend enough time with her middle schooler who had dyslexia/learning special needs and give him several hours of 1:1 focused time.

This is a site for homeschoolers: https://homeschoolingwithdyslexia.com/

Re: Recommendation for Reading help with Dyslexia
 

He is not the slightest bit right brain dominant.
ETA, I do have her manual. I completely forgot about the brain integration stuff. :doh We were not super successful with that before, but I could try it again.

---------- Post added at 05:20 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:12 PM ----------

We tried the school system route and that was not an option. I can't remember the details, but no.

He doesn't need me one-on-one for his content work or his math. I don't think he could handle more than 20-30 minutes a day of reading instruction. How much time do you think he needs?

Re: Recommendation for Reading help with Dyslexia
 

My friend needed several hours b/c she provided him with a lot of support in writing (paragraphs/essays) as well as helping with content areas such as reading for information (literature/history/science). So it was more about providing 1:1 accommodations to help him learn his other subjects, not just reading skills, b/c he wasn't able to do them independently.

Re: Recommendation for Reading help with Dyslexia
 

I'm going to poke a friend of mine who posted here in the past (ie, I'm hoping she is still active and can post for herself) who homeschools and works at a library where they do lots of things focused on dyslexia.



Reminder: this forum is for supporting and encouraging moms who have decided to homeschool their children. The focus needs to stay on ideas and resources to make that work.

Re: Recommendation for Reading help with Dyslexia
 

There aren’t any other tutoring options? Is there a local
college in your town with an education program?
(When I was getting my masters to be a reading specialist, we had to work with kids to get practical hours, so it was free for the parents)



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Re: Recommendation for Reading help with Dyslexia
 

There is a local university. I am really just looking for options of paper curriculum that I can use with him at home as soon as next week. I know that a lot has come out since I began homeschooling him, so I wanted to see if anyone has any good things they like or have tried.
Thanks!

Re: Recommendation for Reading help with Dyslexia
 

My dyslexic child needed 30 min a.m. and 30 min p.m. to remediate and make it work. I agree 20-30 min/day may not be enough :hugheart

I also agree with what Katigre said about other subjects. :yes

We did A LOT of things. Before making a recommendation, I'd need to hear what specific deficits? Visual dyslexia? Phonological dyslexia? Working memory? Comprehension?. Typically it is visual and/or phonological and working memory with comprehension skills. BUT there are different severities within each deficit. There is actually a wide spectrum range within the dyslexic classification.

My son has both visual and phonological dyslexia with a severe working memory deficit. He was also dysgraphic. However, his comprehension was OFF THE CHARTS (which is not typical. His huge strength can be his Achiles heal though ;) ). He STILL guesses occasionally on very long multi-syllable words. Just because he's reading quickly.

The gold standard for dyslexia remediation is typically Orton Gillingham and the Scottish Rite often has free dyslexia tutoring. My dyslexic had to go through lindamood bell to remediate his phonological dyslexia (the ability to HEAR different sounds) before he was able to handle any sort of Orton Gillingham. Because of having a more severe than is typical working memory deficit, he had to use several different curriculum before actually remembering it.

What CAN he READ? (type up a sentence or paragraph -- I am not sure we used AAR 3 but I am going to go dig around here. I have gobs of used resources sitting around).
Can he rhyme? Can he cross his midline? Can he hear the difference between b, d, p, t? (or any other sounds that are similar). Can he listen to you sound out a word like fast (fffffffffaaaaaaaasssssssstttttt) and answer "fast"?
Is it visual? What have you done on the computer? What worked and what didn't work?

That's off the top of my mind. I'm thinking I'd have to dig through buckets to find any actual resources.

Re: Recommendation for Reading help with Dyslexia
 

Barton can be tutored by you, at home.
It's recommended 2 hours per week, which can be divided up however works best.
I currently do 30 minutes/ 4 days a week with my two dyslexics.

My profound 11 year old went from totally not reading, to enjoying books on her own (not novels, but anything short) in just about 15 months of tutoring.

Re: Recommendation for Reading help with Dyslexia
 

Ohh i forgot to say I did the vast majority of the dyslexia work at home. . Although and slp (speech and language pathologist) trained me on lindamopd bell and helped. I spent hours learning them though due to severity.

May I ask why paper? Asking because one of the best fluency programs we did was online. And please type up what he’s reading. I was very happy w the multi syllable curriculum we used and it’s paper and I believe it’s around here somewhere lol

Re: Recommendation for Reading help with Dyslexia
 

I think Sally Shaywitz had suggestions in her book Overcoming Dyslexia. I know a big one was computer based, but I remember there being a whole chapter on fluency, so I think there should have been some paper methods described.

I would read the AAR readers that are at his decoding level. I believe the strategy is to re-read, aloud, taking turns. So, something like he decodes aloud, you read aloud the same passage while he looks, he reads aloud the same passage, etc. I think the Shaywitz book might explain better. Maybe a silent reading before the steps above.

You can buy the AAR readers separately, or buy the levels for the 8yo but only make the 11yo do the fluency activities if you're positive he's past the decoding lessons/activities. Or you could use any decodable controlled text up to where his lessons left off.

Barton recommends a minimum of 2hrs/week on their program which covers reading/spelling and eventually grammar. Some people do two 15min sessions a day for kids who can't focus through longer. You could do one fluency session and one decoding/encoding session, perhaps. But less than 2hr/wk may not be enough to gain traction on improving.

For writing, speech-to-text often doesn't work well that young, but you could incorporate some copywork from what he's reading, specifically decodable. Beyond that into writing skills, I would try to rotate through kids...each of them getting a little writing workshop time to work with you on capturing and developing thoughts (you jot down for the dyslexic ones). Some people squeeze it in one kid per day and rotate through the bunch, others devote a whole day periodically where THAT is the individual time with you for each child, one after another.

Re: Recommendation for Reading help with Dyslexia
 

I will be back later, and I have only been able to skim, but I wanted to answer Jodi and say the reason I need paper is that we don't have internet on a computer for the kids right now, nor do we have a computer with a CD-rom and that is where most of our programs were. I don't want to wait until our technology situation is remedied to work with him.

Recommendation for Reading help with Dyslexia
 

Someone already mentioned this site.
It has tons of links for worksheets you can print. Hope they help, since computer isn’t a viable option right now.

https://homeschoolingwithdyslexia.co...ia-worksheets/


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Re: Recommendation for Reading help with Dyslexia
 

Sound foundations is another set of curriculum that you might want to look in too. It is designed for dyslexics.

I will say from my own experience that the best thing for the fluency is simply to keep reading. I made it though highschool AP English even with the use of aidio books ( at that point from a group that made them for the blind and dyslexic). I would sit with the book and look at the written word while listening to the audio book, at that point the audio book was at least twice as fast as I could read it to my self. For books that were hard/ impocible to find in autio format ( the unabridged version of Docracy in America by Detocvill) I asked people (my parents, my Dh who I was doing at the time, my best friend, even my little brother who was in elementary school) to read it to me.

When I went off to collage I was still sounding every word out as I read it. I could do all the reading but it was exsausting and so so slow. In the spring semester of my sophomore year, I was 20 years old, I suddenly could look at words and not have to sound them out. The magical ability to look at the random lines in the page and have the sound of the word in my head! I have no explication on what I did or how it worked other than after keeping at the reading I suddenly had gotten to the point that most people get a in about 3rd grade.

It wasn't untill I was in just early 30's that I realized that my silent reading became faster than listening to an audio version, the speed jump that is expected to happen in 5-8 grade. I was in a book club and I checked out the audio book as well as the written version, going back to waht had worked in highschool, and I found that I could read a head of the audio book, and then when I was in position to just read and not lsiten ( while nurseing, or snuggeling girls to sleep) I realized I was moving though faster than when I was listening to it. I still don't read nearly as fast as my Dh or early bird, and I still prefer to listen to my books if given the option, but I am finally at a place in the past 7 years feel like I am actually functionally reading like most adults.

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Re: Recommendation for Reading help with Dyslexia
 

Knitlove, you have been a constant encouragement to me as I Homeschool my ds :heart :heart

---------- Post added at 12:04 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:35 AM ----------

I always love these discussions. Even at 17yo, ds has some deficits and I appreciate the reviews and the thoughts here. I am going to re-read to evaluate where ds is. I've recently started having him do some multi syllable word reading with me because I notice when he reads aloud he just randomly guesses long words because he doesn't want to pause (I believe because that would show he cannot read smoothly :( )


I went onto All About Learning's website and looked at a sample of AAR. Is he able to read all of that to you aloud or in his head? 4 pages in 20 minutes isn't horrible actually. I have come to grips with the fact that my ds will not be a speed reader by the time he graduates high school ;)

A few suggestions for fluency specifically.
IN addition to the time you spend with him.
1. work up to 30 min of independent reading and then have him spend about 5 minutes telling you what happened in the story. I started really really slowly and kept it casual "what happened today during your independent reading?" Basically you are doing a quick comprehension check and helping him build up the muscle of reading.
2. have him still listen to audio books and follow along in a regular book as knitlove said. We did this a lot and I realized recently we stopped so I am trying to fit this back in organically without too much fuss from my ds. I'm thinking of buying the audio version of MOH since he's using it for ancient history right now. He's been reading it alone so I am not sure if that's a good idea or a bad idea.
3. have him sit and do audio books with siblings.
4. AAS. We did AAS with ds and it's actually really really helped keep the multi syllable chunking that he learned in the rewards program fresh.

Here is how we did it - first three steps
1 Lindamoodbell - alone
2 SSRW (this is most remedial and how he HAD to learn the sounds/letters) - alone
3 Picture me reading - alone

Once he was really really solid on above, we did all these at the same time (well, we kept adding things when he couldn't just do one or two things ;)

step 4
PHONICS INSTRUCTION - 60 MIN
1. Recipe for reading
2. recipe for reading readers
3. word lists (I had 3 or 4 books of lists for him to just work on sounding things out - I did use the word lists from AAR AND DIANE CRAFT in here)
4. AAR readers

step 5
FLUENCY/multisyllable words/typing AFTER PHONICS INSTRUCTION
Rewards multisyllable/fluency
Reading assistant (online)
TTRS (touch type read and spell - also online)

In the midst of all of that we tried AAS a few times but I ended up waiting until we were done with rewards to actually get deep and heavy into AAS.

So, for curriculum, here are some of the things I liked the most. You didn't say where he is but I saw on AAR the approximate - if he needs any phonics remediation or sight words the first two curriculum would help.

Recipe for Reading (this may be too remedial for him but it is good O-G approach for if he still struggles to sound out easy words or guesses occasionally with any type of blending like fast, glide, etc) -- I am pretty sure I own this and all of the readers. I used all the workbooks. BUT this may be an excellent way to do a quick review. It's a bit young but the truth is that if they are behind, young is often needed.


Picture me reading https://www.picturemereading.com for sight words if he is not 100% solid on sight words. My ds was guessing for a very long time and I bit the bullet. It was a very very good move for us.


Rewards multi syllable approach. http://store.voyagersopris.com/rewar...and-secondary/ We DID NOT do this in 6 weeks. We took a long time and moved very slowly doing 1/4 lessons and repeating things A LOT until he built fluency. I will say I am looking at purchasing another level for him just to refresh because he's been "guessing" on multi syllable words again :sigh (this I know I have and I will dig it out and can answer any specific questions).

My final bit of advice - if there is any deficit in sight words or sounding out words and blends, I would start over. The very remedial things are FOUNDATIONAL to reading at higher levels. It was so so hard for my ds and I to KEEP starting over but in hindsight, I was DEFINITELY given the right advice. Some kids can learn to read without all of this. :yes What I did with my ds was A LOT. OH I never got the chance to try AAR with ds because he was ahead of when they were being released. BUT I used readers for reinforcement and fluency practice.

Re: Recommendation for Reading help with Dyslexia
 

This is all so helpful and encouraging.
As far as where he is, it is such a mixed bag and depends a lot on the day.
Today, he read "Daniel's Duck". I really just have him read aloud for 10 minutes. He did not have any trouble with the words except with the three syllable words. (animal, Tennessee, Moccasins, Pettigrew)
But, he reads maybe 1 word every second or second and a half. There were a few times he strung words together like a fluent reader. It is a second grade level book. If I test him with a word list, he is pretty solid second grade. The thing that trips him up most are things that have multiple sounds like "ow". I think he said "Vall-ey" to rhyme with "Ball-ey", because "all" says, well, "all". I hate English!!!

His handwriting is very pretty. Not fast, but very pretty when he wants it to be. He rarely reverses letters anymore. He still reverses him numbers. I kept marking his math wrong because I thought his 6's were 2's.

The computer programs that helped were Nessy, Read, Write and Type, some sight word flash cards on powerpoint that had an audio component so he could run a slideshow and try to say them before she did, or just after if he missed it, Letter Olympics for b/d differentiation, and several brain training type things for working memory.
I am pretty sure he can hear the difference in sounds, so I don't think it is phonological.

Anyone try Logic of English?

Re: Recommendation for Reading help with Dyslexia
 

I LOVE Spell to Write and Read. You need two books, nothing else. It uses the method recommended for dyslexia.

I expect my child to jump 5-6 grade levels this year in spelling/reading based on results so far. No prep. Super easy. Not babyish.