Dyslexia?

[oceandaughter]

My son, who will be 8 in October, has an auditory processing disorder, sensory integration dysfunction (more of a sensory avoider but that isn't a huge issue since we changed him to a gluten free diet), and now I'm thinking he may have dyslexia. For one thing, it (dyslexia) runs in the family on his father's side. Also he seems to meet the criteria.

So where do I go from here. I'm looking into testing. I live in the UK and so things are a bit different than in the US. I'm looking for curriculum, ect, to help. Book titles, websites, personal stories, anything!

Right now he is still at a preschool to kindergarten level with phonemic awareness despite spending two plus years working on it. (I have a folder of info from his speech therapist in the US, plus some books that I've picked up). I've tried to teach him sight words, using a multi sensory approach, and he still can't seem to keep them in his head. The only thing that does work is this long series of stories about a boy named Lewis and his family (which mirrors ours) involving how Lewis learns the letters of the alphabet through his adventures. However, if you show my son the letter Ss and ask him about it, he can tell you about Lewis and the snakes in the cave that turned into kings, but he can't give you any words that start with /s/. (Despite the fact that in the story Lewis had to shout out words that started with /s/ to release the snakes from the force field and turn them back into kings). We have fun with the stories and he is learning the names of the letters and sometimes the sound, but it's not helpful if he can't figure out how it applies to reading is it?

The only thing that does seem to "work" is reading a book over and over and pointing to the words until he has it memorized. I'm not sure whether this is just good for his memory or helping hime learn words. He can find the words in that book, but has trouble recognizing them out of context. (Phonics police, please don't flame me.)

Anyway, please give me some ideas of places to read for more info or curriculum to look into.

As far as numeracy goes, he can't count past 13 without getting mixed up, but understands addition without carrying over (even double or triple digits as long as there is no carrying). He has a basic grasp of place value and greater than/less than, except he sometimes gets the order of the numbers in a two or more digit number mixed up (naturally).

I'm stuck and I don't want to enroll him in school for many reasons the main one at this point being that we are Americans in the UK and will be leaving to go back to America in 2 years. So not only would he be "behind", he'd also be the kid with the funny accent and weird diet (gluten free). I think that would be too much for my exceptionally shy tender child.

[Renee in FL]

How funny! You have my son! Right down to the "can't count past 13", remembers the story but not the actual sound, word, or number, and the gluten sensitivity (he is not gluten-free now, but he was in the past and we plan to again in the future.)

We had a speech therapist who got him reading through the LiPS program by Lindamood Bell. He can now read short-vowel words fairly consistently. I've taught him some sight words as well. I don't know how far he will get academically, but we will keep plugging along.

:grouphug: Sometimes it helps to not be the only one, KWIM?

[Mandamom]

Your child can make gains but it will take work and consistency. I work with students like your child regularly.

First, if you haven't already you need to get a good phonics/phonemic awareness program. ABCdarien, Reading Reflex, Barton are all highly recommended phonics programs. Using multisensory approaches like salt tray, chalk on the sidewalk can help your son learn more of the sounds he needs in order to make reading successful.

I recommend Math-U-See for math and move through the program as slowly as you need to in order to cement the concepts.

Good luck.

[TraceyS/FL]

I've been shocked in my reading how much Auditory Processing is tied to reading struggles. Really surprised.

I'm sure you have read a bunch on it - but maybe revisit it?

http://www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/voice/auditory.asp
http://www.asha.org/public/hearing/disorders/understand-apd-child.htm

To me, the untrained professional (LOL!), it seems there is a huge overlap in the "dyslexia" and "APD" area. My STBXH also has/had dyslexia, and I kept trying to fit her into that area - but it didn't seem to answer everything. The APD went the next step for me.

I'm still waiting for the report from our testing, he said he put suggestions in there for treatment directions (one i know is speech therapy), but i'd try to go that route again if you can.

We've had luck with BJU's Distance Learning in the Phonics area. Phonics & Reading 1 is a great set of classes. Mrs. Walker is talking and showing on screen, and often has handouts and such. She still struggles applying the rules, but actually was able to move up to 2nd grade.

Anyway, we've been able to move past some hurdles, and onto the next ones. I never thought she'd be able to count past 11-13, but that has finally sunk in (we are using MUS Alpha right now). Everything takes her a huge amount of time to grasp....

Lots of :grouphug: and help you can find what works the best for your son.

[Dobela]

I want to add in another aspect of this as well. For my son, while I believe there is an auditory processing problem as well, he also had had a serious visual tracking problem that I believe contributed to the whole reading issue. Until we started vision therapy I had no idea that he simply couldn't track across the page. I honestly believe that part of the reason he doesn't correctly associate phonemes to the correct letter is because visually he has never really seen and heard them at the same time enough, nor has he understood blending because he may bot have been actually reading across the page (or seeing acoss the page) as well as he should have in order to help make sense of it all.

I don't know if you have vision therapy in the UK, but it is something I would seriously consider as well.

[oceandaughter]

Interesting, he has low muscle tone which sometimes affects his eyes (they appear droopy). I've not had his vision tested, nor looked into vision therapy. I will look into these things.

[Shay]

I personally think you should look into products by Sound Foundations (they are in the UK). They have a very informative website and you can look at each page of every product they offer. Actually, I think you , being in the UK, are at an advantage with dealing with this, as there are excellent synthetic phonics programs available there.

The authors of the "Bears" books (don't let the title fool you, they are not babyish at all) , the Burkards, are extremely helpful and would help you if you emailed them. Their products are supposed to help even the most severe dyslexic (and they personally work regularly with them). I bought Bear Necessities to use with a little girl I tutor and it is really a wonderful program. Bearing Away goes slower, though, and in hindsight I wish I would have bought it. Their books are "open and go" without the need to plan ahead. They also have a spelling program, Apples and Pears, that many on this board use and like (Ottakee is one).

You can also get lots of information from the Reading Reform Foundation (UK) online. There is also a message board and lots of links for helps.

http://www.rrf.org.uk/


Sound Foundations (Dancing Bears books and Apples and Pears spelling):

http://www.prometheantrust.org/soundfoundationsbooks.htm


You may want to also look at (decodable readers that are great):

http://www.piperbooks.co.uk/

HTH,
Shay

[oceandaughter]

I'm probably going to get the Bearing Away program. I am dubious about the claim that any four year old is ready to read. I found a similar claim in the original text of TWTM and was a little offended. I think to make some kind of broad claim like that is misleading. At four, my child was just beginning to really speak in complete sentences and thoughts, no where near being able to read and understand written language.

Still, i'm going to email the writers of the program with my questions and concerns.

Thanks!