Dyslexic Daughter Still Struggling with Reading

[Jen in DE]

Does anyone have any advice or programs that they have found particularly helpful for dyslexic kids for reading? My daughter is in 4th grade and still really struggles.
Jen

[Laurie4b]

Jen,

It really depends on the specific situation and what your daughter can do.

1) What methods have you tried and what programs within those methods?
2) Can she reliably sound out short vowel words with three sounds? Can she sound them out if she's never seen them before, for instance if they are nonsense words: mib, gan, doth, mup, fen?
3) If she can do #2, can she sound out short vowel words with blends? Again, even ones she has never seen or that are nonsense words: fleg, crim, stad, brud, clob?
4) Have you been doing repeated oral reading to build fluency?
5) What grade level is she reading on?
6) What kind of testing have you had done? What were the results? (if you have percentile rankings or standard scores, those are more helpful than grade levels.)

If you could answer those questions, people would know better how to advise you.

[Sixmeadows]

the things that have helped are...

Oral repeated reading.
I use a Mcguffey reader and have him read the short lessons 3 times through before moving on to the next lesson( usually 2 times through and then 1 time the next day). They work great for this because they are nice and short. You could use some other reader with short passages.

We are using Barton Reading and Spelling (Orton Gillingahm based system)
-- I really really like this. my son is doing very well with this. It is expensive but it is so easy for the teacher, it tells me exactly what to do. He is doing so much better with his spelling. I watched a few of her seminars on her website. Bright Ideas for Learning. If you have time it may be helpful to watch some of them.

Cheri

[mariah m]

I have used Stevenson Reading with my son and it got him going. Now I am using it with my younger daughter who also has learning disabilities.

[Ottakee]

http://www.soundfoundationsbooks.co.uk/ Check out the Dancing Bears reading program and Apples and Pears Spelling. VERY easy to use for parents and effective. It is from England and made for kids with dyslexia.

For reading I also like the I See Sam books www.iseesam.com if she is not reading at a solid 3rd grade level yet. They start at K and go up to mid 3rd grade.

[Doran]

I thought I'd remark on the fact that just today we learned concretely that our dd has made some dramatic improvements in her reading abilities since February 2007. Our dd started with a tutor when she was just past ten years of age. We engaged a Wilson Reading System tutor to work with her regularly for the past 15 months, and after getting new test scores back today, I can tell you that the change has been tremendous. I've wrestled with whether these rather expensive sessions were money being well spent, but I won't question that anymore.

At home, we're using Learning Language Arts Through Literature, Sequential Spelling, and a lot of reading aloud, narration/copy work, and note taking. All in all, it's been a great year of improvement for our dd.

Laurie4b asks very pertinent questions. When you have a chance, do let us know more about your dd's situation.


Hope this helps.

[proudmamma]

How about the Madsen English method? I just ordered this myself and it looks very promising. It is patterned after how our forefathers learned when literacy was virtually 100%.