dyslexia question

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My 7 year old DS is also dyslexic, also diagnosed this past school year, and can also only read for 5 to 10 minutes. And he does not have ADHD, so I think it is part and parcel of the dyslexia, and reading being so hard. My son can sustain longer periods of work and concentration with his tutor, but they mix up what they do, it isn't just reading a book out loud the whole time, and that probably is part of why. When my son is having a day when he simply isn't recognizing words - the old name for dyslexia was word blindness, and sometimes that feels like what it is, though it has nothing to do with the eyes - we do just cut the reading short. I add on to my normal reading out loud to him time. Some other things that seem to be working are: have DS video himself reading something he knows and likes and replay it to himself. He thinks its cool. Re-read books again and again. Elephant and Piggie books are a big hit for that, since they are easy but still funny enough for a 7 year old. So are poems - some Shel Silverstein poems are easy enough, once read through a few times. If you haven't already, you might read some books on dyslexia. Overcoming Dyslexia is, I think, the best book for parents. And, I hate to say it, but I'd cut camp short for tutoring if need be. I guess that is only true if your daughter is suffering because of the problems with reading. My son was miserable for most of last year because he felt stupid and ashamed, even though he is clearly very very bright. His pain about it was coloring everything in his life, so making addressing the dyslexia the first priority has helped him feel better pretty quickly. Good luck, OP!

I'm 08:54. My daughter doesn't really understand rhyming. I know dyslexia presents differently in different kids, but do you know which poems you're reading? We have "Where the Sidewalk Ends". Do you think it's helped him with rhyming?

I haven't been getting my daughter a tutor, but a friend of mine has recommended one that she works with as a Special Education teacher so I have that in the back of my head. The school hasn't recommended it.....but she's not super upset about it. She is upset, but she's (so far) just saying "I'm good at X and he's good at Y!". What you're describing is my fear for next year. I've already contacted the Guidance Counselor about it in case it becomes an issue. Does your son see the Guidance Counselor? What is your experience from the emotional side?

Obviously, if your child is in so much pain I would absolutely do my best to get as much outside support as possible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Even if she doesn't appear tired, I would try earlier in the day - I learned from my friends, that was their biggest redo if they had to do it over again. After a long school day, we often underestimate how mentally tired they are - especially if processing takes more work than a normal kid. Summer maybe a time that you can switch when you do that. Weekends are great. Agree that you need far more then 5 to 10 minutes a day, so you may need to chunk it up during the day.

I'm a huge fan of whisper sync on Kindle - though my DC is older. Its audio but highlights each wordand you can adjust font to be bigger. The school and I saw a huge improvement in DC's reading - as well as comprehension and vocabulary. For the kindle time, we had her read at least one grade level above, sometimes 2 grade levels. DC was proud to "read" the books that other kids were into and would "read" hours. It was a real confidence boost and brought back the love of reading. It can get pricey, especially if you are doing a lot of shorter books. You can buy the previous Fire Kindle version which amazon often runs on sale. I don't think it works on the print only kindle or iPad.

Other things to try to "extend time", in slightly harder books, you read one page, she reads the next (with your help). Or in a early chapter book, you pick out the easy pages for her to read in a chapter (shorter pages/ pages with dialougue), and you read the harder ones. Magic tree house (thru book 28) is a good series for that and also is a series, where the author repeats the same words over and over and over. (tedious to listen to , but works).

good luck

Kindle is very expensive once you start buying books. If a child is dyslexic and has an IEP, they have a "print disability" and can easily be qualified by a school special education teacher for Bookshare. (https://www.bookshare.org/_/membership/qualifications) It is free to those who qualify thanks to the Department of Ed as part of an effort to get publishers to provide print access to those with disabilities. It's basically a huge electronic library of books that can be read on computers, laptops, iPads, etc. (but not Kindle as far as I'm aware). You download the software and once qualified simply access the books electronically for download. You can manipulate type size and color of typeface and background as well as highlight sentences or words to be read by text to speech with a variety of computer voices. There is every book your child could imagine on there, including textbooks. One drawback is that is not as interesting to Browse on Bookshare as it is to browse in a bookstore. We still go to the library and bookstore to find books but then we download the titles through Bookshare.

We also love Learning Ally. It is $120 or so a year. Similarly, you can manipulate type size and highlight portions or all of the text to be read aloud. The difference is these are "audiobooks" with human reader voices.

Both are valuable for helping with reading. Sometimes it is useful to be read to entirely, sometimes to try to read oneself and only use the text to speech for help with difficult words.

OP, I think if your child has ADHD, then attention is likely playing a role in her variable performance. But, also, IME, with our dyslexic child, "fluency" is a problem. By this I mean the ability to find pieces of information in the brain and get them out of the mouth in sync with speech and thought. Our child has a lot of "umms" and "errs" and "like" pauses in speech and often uses the wrong word (lifeguard when he means security guard) and other types of "word-finding" difficulties. He also has difficulty pulling math facts out in rapid recall, even though he's great at math and definitely knows the facts. His IQ is very high but his "processing speed" is very low. Overall, this kind of "rapid-naming" ability is part of what is required to read fluently and easily. IMO, my kids brain is not wired to really be able to do "rapid-naming" well. Although practice helps, he needs more practice of a more explicit nature before he can develop the fluency necessary at a particular skill. Once he's got it, it sticks though.

[Anonymous]

There are several different ways that children have trouble reading. Some researchers combine some and others separate them into different types. It is important to figure out what type your DD has and then pick a reading program that best fits that type. O-G programs use multi-sensory things to help the brain recognize words. For example, Wilson has the student "tap" words. Orton-Gillingham and the Orton-Gillingham types of reading programs are the Gold Standard. Program like Wilson, Barton and Orton Gillingham have been proven to be effective. Wilson has been generally aimed toward teachers and has a certification program. Barton has been aimed toward parents and you can buy the program to use at home.

Your daughter may have trouble decoding. Phoneme awareness (how the words sound) and orthographic ability (what they look like) play into the decoding issues. All of the above programs work well with decoding.

Your daughter may also have trouble with Rapid Automized Naming (RAN). This is the ability to pull out the correct word from her brain. The only program I know that tries to address this is RAV-O by Maryanne Wolf at Tufts. This has shown to be somewhat successful prior to grade 3, not so much afterwards.

If your daughter has both problems, decoding and RAN issues, then that is sometimes called "dual type". My DC is dual type.

Other issues that impact reading ability are ADHD, background knowledge (vocabulary and general knowledge), and comprehension issues. There are some programs that address Comprehension. I believe Read123 or 123Read tries to address comprehension. Other posters may know other programs. Sally Shaywitz at Yale is currently studying Strattera and dyslexia -I do not know if she has posted any results from that. I do know, anecdotally, my DC's reading ability didi take a leap forward when he started taking Strattera for his ADHD.

fMRI's have shown that in NT brains there are three locations that are active when reading. The fMRI in a dyslexic brain has shown that there are active spots all over.

Depending on the severity of your DC's dyslexia, it will be a long slow slog. It isn't something that can be addressed and cured. It is there to stay. Here the tortoise wins the race.

In addition to bookshare.org and Learning Ally, I recommend wrightslaw.com. It is a website that will explain the IEP and 504 process and what is within your rights and what isn't.

Two books I recommend reading are Sally Shaywitz's "Overcoming Dyslexia" and Maryanne Wolf's "Proust and the Squid". "Overcoming Dyslexia" is an easier read. "Proust and the Squid" is denser but I learned quite a bit from it. I didn't like "The Gift of Dyslexia", it was too sunshiny, rainbow and unicorns for me.

My DC is now in HS and this spring we were able to secure accommodations for his PSATs, SATs, AP... anything from the College Board taken in HS. He also has dysgraphia- so he will get a scribe, reader and extra time. We were told to expect it to take 6 months, but we heard within 2 weeks. It is important to have the IEP/504 accommodations in school for several years to get the accommodations with the standardized tests.

Again, and I can't stress this enough audio books audio books audio books. They will increase background knowledge, love of "reading", put the fun back into it, reduce stress. There are reading games to play that are not just reading a book.

Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You could also try listening to audio books while following along with a written version. Kindle does "active immersion audio" which highlights the text while it is being read.

My kid with dyslexia really enjoyed doing that and I think it helped a lot.

I thought the new Kindle (Fire) did away with that and it was only available on the older versions.

The newest Fire at our house is less than 6 months old and it does that. Audible is supplying the audio. It's not cheap, but it works like a dream.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You could also try listening to audio books while following along with a written version. Kindle does "active immersion audio" which highlights the text while it is being read.

My kid with dyslexia really enjoyed doing that and I think it helped a lot.

I thought the new Kindle (Fire) did away with that and it was only available on the older versions.

The newest Fire at our house is less than 6 months old and it does that. Audible is supplying the audio. It's not cheap, but it works like a dream.

We find Immersion Reading and Whispersync great for our 10 year old. The app works on android and kindle. We can switch between reading on slow speed and when he gets tired or if we're in the car he listens at much at much faster speeds. Having multiple ways to absorb content has improved his understanding that he really is very smart. His verbal comprehension is about 4 grades above his reading.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?docId=1000827761

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are several different ways that children have trouble reading. Some researchers combine some and others separate them into different types. It is important to figure out what type your DD has and then pick a reading program that best fits that type. O-G programs use multi-sensory things to help the brain recognize words. For example, Wilson has the student "tap" words. Orton-Gillingham and the Orton-Gillingham types of reading programs are the Gold Standard. Program like Wilson, Barton and Orton Gillingham have been proven to be effective. Wilson has been generally aimed toward teachers and has a certification program. Barton has been aimed toward parents and you can buy the program to use at home.

Your daughter may have trouble decoding. Phoneme awareness (how the words sound) and orthographic ability (what they look like) play into the decoding issues. All of the above programs work well with decoding.

Your daughter may also have trouble with Rapid Automized Naming (RAN). This is the ability to pull out the correct word from her brain. The only program I know that tries to address this is RAV-O by Maryanne Wolf at Tufts. This has shown to be somewhat successful prior to grade 3, not so much afterwards.

If your daughter has both problems, decoding and RAN issues, then that is sometimes called "dual type". My DC is dual type.

Other issues that impact reading ability are ADHD, background knowledge (vocabulary and general knowledge), and comprehension issues. There are some programs that address Comprehension. I believe Read123 or 123Read tries to address comprehension. Other posters may know other programs. Sally Shaywitz at Yale is currently studying Strattera and dyslexia -I do not know if she has posted any results from that. I do know, anecdotally, my DC's reading ability didi take a leap forward when he started taking Strattera for his ADHD.

fMRI's have shown that in NT brains there are three locations that are active when reading. The fMRI in a dyslexic brain has shown that there are active spots all over.

Depending on the severity of your DC's dyslexia, it will be a long slow slog. It isn't something that can be addressed and cured. It is there to stay. Here the tortoise wins the race.

In addition to bookshare.org and Learning Ally, I recommend wrightslaw.com. It is a website that will explain the IEP and 504 process and what is within your rights and what isn't.

Two books I recommend reading are Sally Shaywitz's "Overcoming Dyslexia" and Maryanne Wolf's "Proust and the Squid". "Overcoming Dyslexia" is an easier read. "Proust and the Squid" is denser but I learned quite a bit from it. I didn't like "The Gift of Dyslexia", it was too sunshiny, rainbow and unicorns for me.

My DC is now in HS and this spring we were able to secure accommodations for his PSATs, SATs, AP... anything from the College Board taken in HS. He also has dysgraphia- so he will get a scribe, reader and extra time. We were told to expect it to take 6 months, but we heard within 2 weeks. It is important to have the IEP/504 accommodations in school for several years to get the accommodations with the standardized tests.

Again, and I can't stress this enough audio books audio books audio books. They will increase background knowledge, love of "reading", put the fun back into it, reduce stress. There are reading games to play that are not just reading a book.

Good luck!

This is all excellent advice!! You need to make sure your SLP is trained in an Orton-Gillingham program.

[Anonymous]

Thank you to those who suggested the Whispersync! I have a kindle and downloaded my first audio book this afternoon for my dyslexic 9 year old DS. He will love it.

FWIW, my son will not read to me for 30 minutes, about 10 is all I get. We still read to him most days though and it has kept his comprehension on grade level. Right now we are enjoying The Invention of Hugo Cabret, a great book for an older dyslexic kid because it is a sophisticated story with lots of beautiful drawings.

[Anonymous]

OP here. Thank you all so much for all this great information -- so much to think about! Camp is a very long day and gives her too much pleasure to cut it short, but now I have lots of ideas for next month when it's over. In the meantime, I've signed her up for learning ally; everything new is good for at least a while, but for now it's a huge hit.

Reading this thread also reminds me not to get frustrated when she doesn't "remember" something she "knew" yesterday, so thank you for that too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Thank you all so much for all this great information -- so much to think about! Camp is a very long day and gives her too much pleasure to cut it short, but now I have lots of ideas for next month when it's over. In the meantime, I've signed her up for learning ally; everything new is good for at least a while, but for now it's a huge hit.

Reading this thread also reminds me not to get frustrated when she doesn't "remember" something she "knew" yesterday, so thank you for that too.

Good luck not getting frustrated. It's a challenge for me sometimes. When I think now about all the time we reprimanded her for not "paying attention" to people's names or not "listening" when we told her when something was going to happen.....ugh. I hope she'll forgive me when she realizes what I've done to her!

[Anonymous]

OP, I'm the PP whose son reads me poetry. We do it because he is (oddly) seriously into words - rhyming, puns. He always has been, so the inability to rhyme isn't part of his dyslexia. This is one reason why dyslexia is so difficult, because it presents in many different ways. He has terrible difficulty assigning meaning to symbols, and remembering the meaning - his working memory is very poor. So we read Where the Sidewalk Ends and Silvertein's other books (there are two other books of similar kids' poetry, the last of which is actually quite moving) because they are fun. I don't know that building the ability to rhyme, in particular, is important. I think lack of ability to rhyme in a kid with dyslexia is a symptom of a lack of ability to hear differences and similarities in the sounds of the parts of words. The O-T methodology works on building that very methodically, so I'd focus on getting her into an O-T program while reading out loud to her anything she enjoys - poems, magazines, Harry Potter, poop jokes...whatever holds her attention.

[Anonymous]

Just wanted to thank the PP who recommended Bookshare. I hadn't heard of it before but have now signed up (pending certification from the psychologist to DS's reading disability). It looks fabulous.

[Anonymous]

I'm a fortysomething year old who has dyslexia. I didn't have all the care and attention you all put into helping your children and back in the day they didn't know as much about how to help kids too. (FYI - I did well through school, went to Ivies and am a professional writer). Just my two cents, by I find that when I'm tired I have trouble reading and 'mess up' when writing (which can manifest as mixing up my "p" "b" and "d" letters) when I'm tired.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm a fortysomething year old who has dyslexia. I didn't have all the care and attention you all put into helping your children and back in the day they didn't know as much about how to help kids too. (FYI - I did well through school, went to Ivies and am a professional writer). Just my two cents, by I find that when I'm tired I have trouble reading and 'mess up' when writing (which can manifest as mixing up my "p" "b" and "d" letters) when I'm tired.

Thanks for the supportive "success story"!

I'm not the OP, BTW. We think my daughter's dyslexia comes from my FIL's side. He also went to an Ivy League school and got a PhD in Engineering (more common for dyslexics than writing, obviously ). He also had no support and mixes letters and reads slowly. He believes that if he were born now he still would not have been diagnosed because it didn't actually effect his school progress. I also have a friend who says that the diagnosis "hits home" because she also has some symptoms of dyslexia. However, I'm pretty sure my daughter would have just been thought to be stupid if she were going to school in the 1950s. The problem with it is....she's NOT doing well. I mean, she is, but only because the school is aware of her problems and is working with her and assessing her accordingly. Dyslexia, as PPs have stated, is such a HUGE umbrella. Did you have issues with math? When did you realize you were dyslexic?

I'm hoping that, like you, my daughter will excel in College. I think for the people I grew up with it seemed to get a little easier once they were able to have more of an option as to which classes they took and College was a lot better than grade school.

I'm also hopeful that spell check and things will make some past issues dyslexics faced a thing of the past.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a fortysomething year old who has dyslexia. I didn't have all the care and attention you all put into helping your children and back in the day they didn't know as much about how to help kids too. (FYI - I did well through school, went to Ivies and am a professional writer). Just my two cents, by I find that when I'm tired I have trouble reading and 'mess up' when writing (which can manifest as mixing up my "p" "b" and "d" letters) when I'm tired.

Thanks for the supportive "success story"!

I'm not the OP, BTW. We think my daughter's dyslexia comes from my FIL's side. He also went to an Ivy League school and got a PhD in Engineering (more common for dyslexics than writing, obviously ). He also had no support and mixes letters and reads slowly. He believes that if he were born now he still would not have been diagnosed because it didn't actually effect his school progress. I also have a friend who says that the diagnosis "hits home" because she also has some symptoms of dyslexia. However, I'm pretty sure my daughter would have just been thought to be stupid if she were going to school in the 1950s. The problem with it is....she's NOT doing well. I mean, she is, but only because the school is aware of her problems and is working with her and assessing her accordingly. Dyslexia, as PPs have stated, is such a HUGE umbrella. Did you have issues with math? When did you realize you were dyslexic?

I'm hoping that, like you, my daughter will excel in College. I think for the people I grew up with it seemed to get a little easier once they were able to have more of an option as to which classes they took and College was a lot better than grade school.

I'm also hopeful that spell check and things will make some past issues dyslexics faced a thing of the past.

BTW, since this is DCUM and people always yell at each other, I'm concerned that my questions in the 2nd paragraph sound "rude". Because they're at the end of a paragraph! I'm really just asking. I'm wondering how pervasive the different symptoms are in different people as they get older.

[Anonymous]

I am the PP whose son reads poetry. I am dyslexic as well. My family knew "something" was wrong, and I was assessed in the early 80's for a learning disability. My parents eventually stopped the assessment for fear of having me labeled. Since they didn't really know what to do for dyslexia then, and because diagnosis was so different, not sure whether it would have made any difference. I eventually learned to read, but didn't understand until learning about dyslexia for my son that you COULD segment words into little tiny sounds. I learned to read by recognizing the shapes of words. And spelling? I have already had to retype four or five in this paragraph that spell check caught. I wanted to write the work "odyssy" to describe my son's journey up above, but spell check won't recognize any of my attempts to spell it, so I wrote a different sentence. My working memory is very poor, so math is very difficult. I can't remember phone numbers or other strings. BUT. I went to a very good college, and a stellar graduate program. I devour books for the pure joy of it. I have a job I love and am very good at. Clearly, I have compensated. My hope for my kid is that the early training in reading helps rewire his brain enough that he isn't limited in his life choices by his dyslexia, the way I was. I wanted to be a doctor, but couldn't memorize and do math well enough to get through chemistry.