Severe Dyslexia- Outside School Support

[Anonymous]

I am so sad lately, I feel like I am falling my child and need to do more to help him. He is really struggling at school. My son is in first grade and has dyslexia. We have a IEP, but the school is only providing 3 days 30 minutes of small group reading instruction pull out. I know this is not enough to catch up.

So, if you had/have limited financial resources what is the best outside school support you hired/gotten your child? Is it a tutor? Program? Specialty center? Online? How much does it cost? We are in Fairfax County.

Unfortunately, private school is not in the cards for various reasons, I wish it was.

[Anonymous]

I paid for the Wilson Reading program and bribed my son to do it every evening and weekend. One to one for even 20 to 30 minutes is way better than small group school pull-out reading instruction. I think the kit was around $400.

Throughout the years I have also paid for: Kumon reading (really it is just worksheets but it is easy to get done because there is accountability);
All About Reading program; and
a British program called Dancing Bears with the accompany spelling program called Apples and Pears. Super inexpensive and it was really good.

[Anonymous]

We hired a tutor 3x a week and she gave me homework for the other days.

We also read to him or did audio books at his cognitive level every day so that he could keep up with the comprehension, background knowledge, vocabulary, sentence and plot structures……. 30 minutes a day

We did Wilson, but others I know had success with Barton - Barton is structured in a way that it is easier for parents to do at home.

[Anonymous]

FCPS is terrible with language based learning disorders. I pulled my son out and homeschooled and so happy I did. My friend, who kept her son at FCPS, was so disappointed by the services. The only way to keep her son from not learning to read was to hire a private tutor. Expensive, and it lets FCPS pretend that your child is making progress on their watch. But at least the kid learned to read. r

[Anonymous]

I'm sorry to tell you this but dyslexia is one of those things that you need a specialized tutor to help a kid improve. You can't outgrow it, you can't fake it till you make it. It's a very black and white thing. You can however get better at reading and there are going to be accommodations as he gets older that will take the pressure off. Really, dyslexia is something that is easier to manage as an adult.

DS is in 8th grade and was diagnosed in 4th. Always a strong reader and you'd never have known except we tested him for ADHD and it came out.

There are I think 2 techniques of dyslexia tutoring that is a time commitment. There are also exercises you do with the kid to have them practice reading faster. You can administer the reading tests on your own but for the actually tutoring - it costs an arm and a leg and I'm not aware of any way around it except to hire a private tutor to teach your kid. The good news is that there is a start date and an end date - it's not like it's a forever to be tutored type of scenario.

My kid is now getting As in English and he uses a lot of audio books to help him read which helps quite a bit but he is able to read on his own which is really where you have to get your kid to - without the tutoring I don't know how you do that. Although I will say I have 2 very close friends who say they had it and did not receive any intervention. One because a Cathlab nurse (Cardiology - she had to pass tests for this so on some level I guess you can do it - although she had just an undergrad education) and my other friend works for herself in sales.

Good luck!

[Anonymous]

PS - I'm the PP above - the 2 techniques are Wilson and Orton Gillingham approaches.

We tried both and while more expensive in finding a trained tutor to do, the latter was much more effective. We did Wilson for a year with a tutor and it was Ok but we saw much more improvement and quicker results with Orton. Note both approaches have milestones to reach so it takes time to complete the training. I forget now how long it takes but I think like 2 years if you do it really religiously. For us it was roughly 2 1/2 years I think for our severely dyslexic + ADHD kid (who really focused and didn't have an issue with learning) but we did it a lot because we were lucky enough that the first yr his English teacher was trained in Wilson in school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PS - I'm the PP above - the 2 techniques are Wilson and Orton Gillingham approaches.

We tried both and while more expensive in finding a trained tutor to do, the latter was much more effective. We did Wilson for a year with a tutor and it was Ok but we saw much more improvement and quicker results with Orton. Note both approaches have milestones to reach so it takes time to complete the training. I forget now how long it takes but I think like 2 years if you do it really religiously. For us it was roughly 2 1/2 years I think for our severely dyslexic + ADHD kid (who really focused and didn't have an issue with learning) but we did it a lot because we were lucky enough that the first yr his English teacher was trained in Wilson in school.

Barton also uses Orton Gillingham techniques.

[Anonymous]

I think $100-150 is pretty common for tutoring. Wilson Reading System has a feature on their website where you can find or request a list of certified tutors. Orton Gillingham is more of an umbrella term and Wilson and Barton are under that, if that makes sense.

I would focus on finding someone to work with him this summer ASAP, money spent now will have the biggest impact.

Find out what system his school is using, and if it's something like Wilson it would be good to find a tutor with the same approach but not necessary.

We used Imagine Possibility, and they did online tutoring during the pandemic, not sure if they have in person options now. Generally, in person would be my preference.

You can ask the school for ideas on supplementing at home based on what they're working on (short a, silent e, ch, th, etc.) Lexia is a good online platform for supporting reading, and I think the price for a year is under $200. Just having your kid read out loud is huge for fluency once they get to the point of being able to read a fair number of words.

My DS enjoyed a cookie sheet filled with shaving cream for reading/ writing practice.

I tried to use the Wilson system on my own, and found it confusing to implement, but others have had more success. I've heard good things about Barton.

[Anonymous]

That's 100-150 per hours.

[Anonymous]

Where does ASDEC fit in with this? Is it OG? Wilson-based?

[Anonymous]

Asdec uses Sounds in Syllables which is based on OG principals. Wilson is also based on OG principals.

The Orton-Gillingham Approach is a direct, explicit, multisensory, structured, sequential, diagnostic, and prescriptive way to teach literacy.

[Anonymous]

My child did a Lindamood Bell decoding program through a speech pathologist, and our medical insurance covered a large amount of it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am so sad lately, I feel like I am falling my child and need to do more to help him. He is really struggling at school. My son is in first grade and has dyslexia. We have a IEP, but the school is only providing 3 days 30 minutes of small group reading instruction pull out. I know this is not enough to catch up.

So, if you had/have limited financial resources what is the best outside school support you hired/gotten your child? Is it a tutor? Program? Specialty center? Online? How much does it cost? We are in Fairfax County.

Unfortunately, private school is not in the cards for various reasons, I wish it was.

This doesn't answer your question, but just know that you are already doing a lot by getting him these in school and out of school supports in first grade! For dyslexia, that is relatively early to be diagnosed so he has so much time to learn and grow.

[Anonymous]

What do you recommend for a recently diagnosed 5th grader? Our kid also has ASD that presents with a lot of PDA-like behaviors, including homework avoidance. What kind of tutor might be able to help us make a dent with her? She absolutely will not do work with/for us nor independently. It would have to be with a tutor. She’s very socially outgoing and has a high IQ but avoids reading, writing, and schoolwork. We have her in a special needs private to help with a lot of the other issues. I think we need to intervene more outside school for the dyslexia but am unsure who to engage.

[Anonymous]

Private school won't help either, and then you'd have no money left over for any of the tutoring that mattered, OP. The psychologist or developmental pediatrician who diagnosed your kid should have written down suggestions for you.

What you need to do is get your kid a one-on-one Wilson or Ortham Gillingham tutor, sit in for the sessions, research the training yourself, read the materials and repeat exactly what they do, at home, for extra training. Dyslexia, like dyscalculia, dysgraphia, and a lot of other disorders, can be improved dramatically by dint of repetition of the methods that work. No one can afford round the clock tutoring. Parents need to make it a priority to practice at home as often as humanely possible.

So you need to pay for that kind of specialized tutoring, and make time to practice on your own with your kid. Both of those things. The more intensely you work, the quicker your kid will catch up, and the less impact his dyslexia will have on his education and development.

The expert who diagnosed your child might have some insight as to which methods might work best with your child, but you too, can do the research and decide to start with the one that seems to be the better fit. Wilson is said to be more structured, OG more flexible. There are others out there.