End goal for dyslexia

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would spend the next 6 years with a writing tutor to help you child learn to formulate a good paper.

In college, mostly, my kids needed help with papers. They were excellent at projects and presentations which I joke is because they had an accommodation to do tests orally.

My kids feel that typing helps spelling since the computer spell checks. Voice to text also was very helpful.

I remember middle school just being the tipping point where they could not take any more OG.

Thanks. Writing tutor was our plan after “finishing” OG. Might be next step if we can’t make OG happen.

Suggestions on finding a writing tutor for kids with dyslexia?

I do not, I'm a little "out of the game" since my kids are in college now. I'd check with ASDEC.

Also, my kids did tutoring for the SAT/ACT. We set 10 days aside after school was over and did 10 straight days of tutoring, then took the exam right after the tutoring. Treated each day like a 5 hour school day.

I don't mean 10 straight day I mean 2 weeks, 5 days a week.

I could use a writing tutor. Lol. the apple does not fall far from the treee.

Thanks. We will add SAT tutoring to the list too. Hoping to hear back from ASDEC soon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My daughter finished the OG program in 6tj grade. She can read but it is not something she enjoys. Her handwriting is terrible. Spelling is terrible. She has accomdations at school

She has learned to enjoy audio books and is great at speak to text. I think the endgame is that dyslexia doesn’t go away but there are technologies available to help.

Thanks. Their school is 100% focused on (minimal) accommodations. Now that kid tests in passing range for grade level for reading - on multiple-choice tests that are easily guessed - they no longer think it’s an issue.

My daughter gets extra time on tests, had audio for tests (if she wants) and always starts paper, tests that require and written assignments off with speak to text (her spoken vocabulary is much better than written).

Thanks. We are scheduled to have a check-in soon so I might push for speech to text. Kid speaks well, but writes like a first grader.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
The end goal is to be a financially independent adult, OP.

This means going to college, since the income gap between non-college educated adults and college-educated adults keeps widening.

This means having solid reading comprehension skills as well as solid writing skills! College admissions get more competitive every year. You can't just walk into your state U anymore. UMD and UVA both require top GPAs and if you submit a standardized test score, they need to be high.

I cannot overstate the importance of working on this! You need to persuade/bribe/crush your middle schooler's opposition to additional tutoring because she does not realize she's sabotaging herself for life. Explain it and say it's non-negotiable.

I'm not an expert on dyslexia. But my son with several learning disabilities, ADHD and HFA needed to work specifically on reading comprehension and a skill called inferencing (understanding unwritten information from context clues). He had a writing tutor that worked on all aspects of written organization and reading comprehension, but mostly on inferencing, for most of middle school, and then he had ACT test prep in high school, as well as occasional tutoring for some of his AP course work. We have spent a small fortune on this, and it's been worth it: he would never have made all the progress he has without one-on-one tutoring.

Please tell your child that families who can afford it pay for tutors to increase their kids' changes of getting into a good college, even if they have good grades to begin with and no learning disability. In my corner of Bethesda, most students will have a tutor for something at some point, whether they're in private or public!

I agree and disagree with this response.

The part I agree with is that you should encourage your child to continue tutoring (once you assess what the correct intervention is). Until your child reaches an adult reading level and spelling (or as high as they can get with the dyslexia) intervention makes sense. My approach with my child has been to acknowledge that it is difficult and a commitment to continue tutoring and a downside of dyslexia but also highlight the strengths of how my child’s brain works (for my child it is creativity). The tutoring in the end will allow your child the most / best opportunities and options as an adult.

My disagreemet would be not to frame it as needed to get into a “good” college. I am not sure if such additional pressure is necessary. Also, for a special needs student especially, the focus should be on finding a college that is a good fit (and being flexible if college ends up not being the next step). The right fit might not be what the genera population views as the “good” college.

Thanks to both PPs.

At this point, we would be happy if kid goes to college. We have been trying to explain college vs no college careers and kid seems indifferent. Kid is super bright (“very superior”) but they hate school because they thought they were “stupid” for years. They are in a much better place now, but still disinterested in school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
The end goal is to be a financially independent adult, OP.

This means going to college, since the income gap between non-college educated adults and college-educated adults keeps widening.

This means having solid reading comprehension skills as well as solid writing skills! College admissions get more competitive every year. You can't just walk into your state U anymore. UMD and UVA both require top GPAs and if you submit a standardized test score, they need to be high.

I cannot overstate the importance of working on this! You need to persuade/bribe/crush your middle schooler's opposition to additional tutoring because she does not realize she's sabotaging herself for life. Explain it and say it's non-negotiable.

I'm not an expert on dyslexia. But my son with several learning disabilities, ADHD and HFA needed to work specifically on reading comprehension and a skill called inferencing (understanding unwritten information from context clues). He had a writing tutor that worked on all aspects of written organization and reading comprehension, but mostly on inferencing, for most of middle school, and then he had ACT test prep in high school, as well as occasional tutoring for some of his AP course work. We have spent a small fortune on this, and it's been worth it: he would never have made all the progress he has without one-on-one tutoring.

Please tell your child that families who can afford it pay for tutors to increase their kids' changes of getting into a good college, even if they have good grades to begin with and no learning disability. In my corner of Bethesda, most students will have a tutor for something at some point, whether they're in private or public!

I agree and disagree with this response.

The part I agree with is that you should encourage your child to continue tutoring (once you assess what the correct intervention is). Until your child reaches an adult reading level and spelling (or as high as they can get with the dyslexia) intervention makes sense. My approach with my child has been to acknowledge that it is difficult and a commitment to continue tutoring and a downside of dyslexia but also highlight the strengths of how my child’s brain works (for my child it is creativity). The tutoring in the end will allow your child the most / best opportunities and options as an adult.

My disagreemet would be not to frame it as needed to get into a “good” college. I am not sure if such additional pressure is necessary. Also, for a special needs student especially, the focus should be on finding a college that is a good fit (and being flexible if college ends up not being the next step). The right fit might not be what the genera population views as the “good” college.

Thanks to both PPs.

At this point, we would be happy if kid goes to college. We have been trying to explain college vs no college careers and kid seems indifferent. Kid is super bright (“very superior”) but they hate school because they thought they were “stupid” for years. They are in a much better place now, but still disinterested in school.

My very bright dyslexic kid was appalled at the idea of college in 6th grade - it made school seem so endless. He still dislikes school in 10th grade and finds it a chore and a slog, but he now does plan to go to college. He gets Bs in a local independent school, so he’ll have options at private colleges or a lower-tier state school.

My son also wrote like a first grader in middle school. He skated through without much progress. This year he is taking a writing class elective and it is really helping. He dislikes it because of how hard and nitpicking it is, but he acknowledges it is useful and he needs it.

So much growth happens between 12 and 16! Hang in there. Get buy in from your daughter for whatever supports she’ll accept, but have confidence that what she rejects now she may accept in a couple of years. I’m dyslexic too and I was an utter mess through middle and high school. My writing was atrocious. I write for a living now (though I still can’t spell).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our kid completed two levels of Wilson with a tutor and was part way through level three when we had to stop for various reasons. We are trying to get started with OG again and looking at options. Kid is now in 7th grade and very resistant to more tutoring “I can read!”. Kid can read now and scores ok on school reading exams (multiple choice) despite most just skimming.

Kid still cannot spell or wrote though.

If we push to continue OG how much will that help with spelling/writing? Will kids with dyslexia always struggle with spelling/writing?

Do most kids “finish” OG? I believe there are several levels in most programs?

Is OG the best next step at this point? Is there someone we could ask? Former tutor had health issues and isn’t available anymore. School is worthless.

It’s probably going to be painful to make this happen but we want to do everything we can to remediate while we still can.

[Anonymous]

Sorry, hit return above. Wilson starts to get harder at Step 3 but it is still very limited levels of skill. I would want a better reading assessment than whatever they are doing at school that is multiple choice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
The end goal is to be a financially independent adult, OP.

This means going to college, since the income gap between non-college educated adults and college-educated adults keeps widening.

This means having solid reading comprehension skills as well as solid writing skills! College admissions get more competitive every year. You can't just walk into your state U anymore. UMD and UVA both require top GPAs and if you submit a standardized test score, they need to be high.

I cannot overstate the importance of working on this! You need to persuade/bribe/crush your middle schooler's opposition to additional tutoring because she does not realize she's sabotaging herself for life. Explain it and say it's non-negotiable.

I'm not an expert on dyslexia. But my son with several learning disabilities, ADHD and HFA needed to work specifically on reading comprehension and a skill called inferencing (understanding unwritten information from context clues). He had a writing tutor that worked on all aspects of written organization and reading comprehension, but mostly on inferencing, for most of middle school, and then he had ACT test prep in high school, as well as occasional tutoring for some of his AP course work. We have spent a small fortune on this, and it's been worth it: he would never have made all the progress he has without one-on-one tutoring.

Please tell your child that families who can afford it pay for tutors to increase their kids' changes of getting into a good college, even if they have good grades to begin with and no learning disability. In my corner of Bethesda, most students will have a tutor for something at some point, whether they're in private or public!

I agree and disagree with this response.

The part I agree with is that you should encourage your child to continue tutoring (once you assess what the correct intervention is). Until your child reaches an adult reading level and spelling (or as high as they can get with the dyslexia) intervention makes sense. My approach with my child has been to acknowledge that it is difficult and a commitment to continue tutoring and a downside of dyslexia but also highlight the strengths of how my child’s brain works (for my child it is creativity). The tutoring in the end will allow your child the most / best opportunities and options as an adult.

My disagreemet would be not to frame it as needed to get into a “good” college. I am not sure if such additional pressure is necessary. Also, for a special needs student especially, the focus should be on finding a college that is a good fit (and being flexible if college ends up not being the next step). The right fit might not be what the genera population views as the “good” college.

Thanks to both PPs.

At this point, we would be happy if kid goes to college. We have been trying to explain college vs no college careers and kid seems indifferent. Kid is super bright (“very superior”) but they hate school because they thought they were “stupid” for years. They are in a much better place now, but still disinterested in school.

My very bright dyslexic kid was appalled at the idea of college in 6th grade - it made school seem so endless. He still dislikes school in 10th grade and finds it a chore and a slog, but he now does plan to go to college. He gets Bs in a local independent school, so he’ll have options at private colleges or a lower-tier state school.

My son also wrote like a first grader in middle school. He skated through without much progress. This year he is taking a writing class elective and it is really helping. He dislikes it because of how hard and nitpicking it is, but he acknowledges it is useful and he needs it.

So much growth happens between 12 and 16! Hang in there. Get buy in from your daughter for whatever supports she’ll accept, but have confidence that what she rejects now she may accept in a couple of years. I’m dyslexic too and I was an utter mess through middle and high school. My writing was atrocious. I write for a living now (though I still can’t spell).

Thank you - this gives me some hope! Kid has truly progressed a lot, but we are feeling lost about this next hurdle (writing, maybe spelling).

[Anonymous]

I do think ASDEC will require you to start at the beginning level. Which will be a tough sell for your child.

In terms of writing/ spelling, our experience is writing content is limited because child is not confident in ability to spell and use higher level vocabulary. Mechanics have improved a lot in middle school but content is somewhat lower level due to difficulties with spelling. While speech to text sounds like a good accommodation, we have noticed since most writing occurs in school that is not used willingly.

We have decided to look at a specialized school for high school because I believe that is the difference in my child attending college or not. The focus is on all of these skills and support through the college testing/ application and essay process.

My child was similar in that by 7th grade thought the reading was remediated and doesn’t need to work on it any longer. So we aren’t pushing it but as I said, we hope to get continued remediation at a specialized school.

[Anonymous]

Once my kid got to OG-3, the focus switched to less direct dyslexia 'tutoring' and more on the reading comprehension and writing/output. But my kid does now fairly ok with spelling and is getting more used to spell check and some speech to text (but s-t-t is a little slow going, we keep being told it often takes til HS for kids to embrace using it, but how knows). Kid did Lindamood Bell intensive over a summer a while ago which was enormously helpful in both reading acquisition and fluency. While it's 'different' it's still fundamentally multisensory reading and teachers/tutors who did OG felt it had clearly been instrumental in getting kid reading and based on the same things that it wasn't in any way conflicting and totally complementary.
BTW - I have dyslexia and am a self sufficient adult with a professional job.
There's such a wide scope of dyslexia and its impacts, my kid's is more significant than mine is/was - and kid also has dysgraphia and ADD issues which compound learning...
Think the biggest things are keeping kid engaged and also confident that they are capable.

[Anonymous]

My DC is still young (9 yo), and they will finish the ASDEC curriculum this spring. The second half was much more focused on spelling than the first half, which was more reading and comprehension.

I’m not sure what is next. Would love to hear from other parents. Is DC really done?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DC is still young (9 yo), and they will finish the ASDEC curriculum this spring. The second half was much more focused on spelling than the first half, which was more reading and comprehension.

I’m not sure what is next. Would love to hear from other parents. Is DC really done?

I’m the PP with the 10th grader. I’ve had to re-learn over and over that DC is never done. He finished OG in elementary school and hasn’t done more OG, but the dyslexia appears in new and exciting ways each year as the learning demands change. So maybe done with OG, but probably not done with tutoring.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm not convinced that being able to spell correctly is a critical skill. My experience has been that dyslexic adults in the professional workforce can use technology to compensate in most situations. Similarly, unless handwriting is actively interfering with other skills (such as higher level math classes), I'm unconvinced that focusing on remediating handwriting is worth the investment. On the other hand, reading comprehension and the ability to write effectively are much more important.

Difficulty with spelling indicates a continued weakness in orthographic mapping which is required to be a fluent reader while attaining excellent comprehension.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
The end goal is to be a financially independent adult, OP.

This means going to college, since the income gap between non-college educated adults and college-educated adults keeps widening.

This means having solid reading comprehension skills as well as solid writing skills! College admissions get more competitive every year. You can't just walk into your state U anymore. UMD and UVA both require top GPAs and if you submit a standardized test score, they need to be high.

I cannot overstate the importance of working on this! You need to persuade/bribe/crush your middle schooler's opposition to additional tutoring because she does not realize she's sabotaging herself for life. Explain it and say it's non-negotiable.

I'm not an expert on dyslexia. But my son with several learning disabilities, ADHD and HFA needed to work specifically on reading comprehension and a skill called inferencing (understanding unwritten information from context clues). He had a writing tutor that worked on all aspects of written organization and reading comprehension, but mostly on inferencing, for most of middle school, and then he had ACT test prep in high school, as well as occasional tutoring for some of his AP course work. We have spent a small fortune on this, and it's been worth it: he would never have made all the progress he has without one-on-one tutoring.

Please tell your child that families who can afford it pay for tutors to increase their kids' changes of getting into a good college, even if they have good grades to begin with and no learning disability. In my corner of Bethesda, most students will have a tutor for something at some point, whether they're in private or public!

OP: this poster is a bit dramatic. Yes find a writing tutor but dyslexia will not ultimately get ‘fixed’ to match a neurotypical child’s brain. And that is what is known as genetic diversity. My dyslexic brother in law is CRUSHING it in insurance- surpassing your surgeons in terms of net worth. He says his social skills - developed while grinding his way through high school and one year of a trade were the keys to his ultimate success. There is even a book that lists the numerous dyslexic entrepreneurs called I think, ‘The Gift of Dyslexia’

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DC is still young (9 yo), and they will finish the ASDEC curriculum this spring. The second half was much more focused on spelling than the first half, which was more reading and comprehension.

I’m not sure what is next. Would love to hear from other parents. Is DC really done?

Approx how long did it take for first half and second half?

How is your DC’s spelling now - even just basic simple words?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DC is still young (9 yo), and they will finish the ASDEC curriculum this spring. The second half was much more focused on spelling than the first half, which was more reading and comprehension.

I’m not sure what is next. Would love to hear from other parents. Is DC really done?

Approx how long did it take for first half and second half?

How is your DC’s spelling now - even just basic simple words?

DC will have gotten through the curriculum in about 15 months doing tutoring 4 times per week and hardly missing any weeks. DC has a good memory to retain all the information, which apparently helps a lot.

DC’s spelling on words that follow the “rules” is pretty good. Of course the English language has lots of words that are exceptions, but it’s a huge improvement over when DC started, where I had a hard time figuring out what they had written.