We worked through the Saxon phonics intervention with my DS9, dyslexic DD7 and a little bit with my new to letters Ds4 It has taken us a little more then a year, but we took a long break in the middle of it because of other things. But we finished strong. I started it because my daughter couldn't spell the first 3 words of the survey test for Spelling power, which was first grade. Today she tested all the way to 3.7 (3rd grade 7th month) She went from not handling 1st grade words to almost 4th in one year with only this SIP program. I am so excited. My DS9 is a great reader and terrible speller. He started the year at 2.3 and tested today at 6.1!!!! I am not sure that I really believe that those words are really that level of spelling. But it is a measure of change in their abilities. My daughters reading has increased as well. She still struggles but this has given her major leaps ahead. She also has more confidence that she can read the big words. As a question does anybody with a dyslexic child have any suggestions on what to do now?
Good for you! Great accomplishment. I am no expert. DD14 is dyslexic. We are on level 6 of the Barton system. Keep your dyslexic child spelling using the rules she learned with the Saxon program. Read to her (alot!). Let her listen to audio books. As she gets older, get audio cds for her curriculum if you can. Work on SIGHT WORDS, they follow no rules for spelling! Teach her to type. Read tests to her and let her respond orally or you write out the answers for her. Let her read what she likes and quiz her orally to keep her comprehension up to par. Also, give her lots and lots of hugs! I highly recommend investing in IEW Student Writing Intensive A when she is ready to start writing. We started this year and I wish we had started sooner. (It is worth the investment!)
This is great. I am so happy for all of you. Would you mind telling me about Saxon phonics intervention? You can PM it to me if you want. Thanks!
Thanks for the information. I have seen the IEW and was overwhelmed by it, and confused. I will look into it again. I read a lot to all my kids, most of the work we do is orally, because it helps so much with dd. I plan on using Spelling power with her now, because it will reinforce the rules she has learned already. I am at a loss with comprehension, because I know it has to do with how many WPM she reads, but she isn't doing well in that area yet. I hope with time and practice she will get that.
I don't mind telling you about the Saxon. It is aimed at I think 4th graders and up. Kids and adults who should have already learned phonics but are still struggling. So if you have an older child who needs phonics but couldn't stand the babyish 1st grade phonics lessons. To use the curriculum there is a teachers manual, a student workbook, and a set of review cards. The teachers manual is scripted and has step by step instructions for each lesson, this thing is huge and full of all kinds of list, rules, and information on teaching struggling readers. The student workbook has each lesson in it, along with all the assessments and tests. The first half of the lessons are are list of around 10 words to code, 5 spaces for a spelling test, 5 spaces for a vocab test, and some kind of dictionary or alphabetizing work, and short sentences to code or read and answer questions. The second half has all the other things except instead of sentences it has paragraphs about US government with comprehension questions. The workbook also includes spelling rules, word lists and other helpful information for the student. The review cards are very important and really helpful. They include affixes (pre, -ful, over- etc) have the meaning, and example words on the back of them Letter cards- which show the letter combination to help visualize them correctly together. I flash them and the kids tell me the sounds each make ( did you know letter a can make 4 different sounds no wonder kids have a hard time reading) Picture cards- Each letter, combination affix and everything else is given a card with a word and picture to visually remind the students what each sound makes. Like the ea card has a steak to remind them that one of the sounds it makes is long /a/ Spelling response cards- With these the teacher ask the students to write a response to certain sounds for the /k/ sound the kids write k,c ll ck,k,ke,c. Then they say out loud "k comma c final digraph ck comma k comma ke comma c" New sounds and spellings are added with the lessons. So for the /k/ sound the first 13 lessons they would only respond with the "k,c" then they would add 'k,c ll ck" until lesson 38 where they add in the final k etc.. Vocabulary words- These are introduced in the lesson and , they are examples of the rule taught that day. The word in on the front with definitions on the back. I really thought these were mostly well chosen words and my daughter really has used them in her everyday speaking now. Sight words- These are the top sight words. They are not really incorporated in the lessons except it tells you when you should be taking the assessments to see which ones they have learned. As with most flash cards you continue to review the ones you don't know daily and the ones you have mastered once a week or so. The assessments have check list to show you what was being tested and which cards to remove from the daily study as they are mastered on the test. Which is pretty helpful, but I just removed them as my kids memorized them. Rotating in new review cards on Mondays. What they teach They teach the kids to code the words and break them apart into syllables then sound them out. It teaches the kids what digraphs, dipthongs, combinations, etc are and the symbols used to "code" them in a word. For example in the word hunter you would put an arc under the /er/ to show it is a combination. Or that you would underline the ir in dirt to show it is a digraph that says /er/. It seems a bit daunting or a waste of time to us who read well, but it was amazingly helpful for my daughter. It starts with little words and ends with bigger words, and teaches them how to use a dictionary to look for pronunciation and spelling help. I think the reason it works so well is that first they have all the rules, but mostly it helps my dyslexic daughter see and hear the word in parts and push them together to make a real word. This is very easy to teach. I did zero prep work, other then digging out the new cards for each lesson while the kids found pencils that were sharp each morning. After reviewing each section of cards we would start the lesson. Generally it is the same and takes about 10 minutes of actually at the board teaching time. Where you write out example words and code them introducing the new rule sometimes 2 rules when it is a simple concept. Then the kids code words and read them to the teacher. Then they are given 5 spelling words related to the rule, and then there is about 5 vocabulary review questions. They alphabetize words or use the dictionary for something. The only thing I didn't really like was the comprehension paragraphs. They were a little to hard for my daughter. I thought going from very little to no reading to the big words used was a little to much to expect. But my daughter did actually learn a little bit from it so it wasn't too bad. It takes a long time to do it all every day. About an hour total, with the teacher having to be there the whole time. I would really recommend doing it all though because it is the package that makes it work. My oldest said it was boring, and he is right, but he still learned and liked it better then math. I think he was just upset that I stopped history and science so we could focus on getting this done and not have a really long school day. Another side effect I am pretty sure that has come from this is that my DD's speech has improved. I think that making her say the sounds during the picture and sound review helped cement them correctly in her head. If there are any more questions I would love to answer them. There are 100 lessons, optional vocabulary test, optional sight word test, and periodic assessments, also pretest and post test. The whole shebang is quite teacher intensive and it takes us an hour or more each day to finish it.
Thank you for telling me about this and for taking the time. I am going to look into it. I am glad you shared. Thanks again.
Don't worry so much about WPM. Focus on fluency and accuracy. Have her read short passages outloud but go over any unfamiliar words with her before she reads outloud. Then, ask her questions about the passage. If she listens to a book, have her make a poster or draw pictures to tell about the story. We liked to make dioramas. There are workbooks you might want to try that are High Interest/Low Readabliity stories with comprehension questions. Google High/Lo books or High/Lo reading comprehension. We have used a couple of them but I can't find them right now! Don't remember the publisher. Best of luck to you. My dd is in the moderate to severe category and everything is a struggle. She gets so discouraged at times, but home schooling has helped tremendously! Also, as she matures, her reading is improving and her self confidence is building. :lol:
I am not so much worried about WPM. I just remember reading it when I was teaching the oldest to read. I can't even remember much about the article just that it was peaceful for me to realize that they can't really understand what they are reading until they reach that point, and when they get there the comprehension kicks in. It helped me to relax and understand what was going on in their crazy little heads. Thanks for the book suggestions I will look into them
