ISO ideas or recommendations to improve reading

[Anonymous]

Can anyone please recommend reading programs or techniques to help improve reading comprehension? Any helpful ideas or tips would also be good.

[Anonymous]

What age?

[Anonymous]

Try searching Orton-Gillingham or Linda Mood Bell books on Amazon, e.g.:

http://www.amazon.com/Reading-Orton-Gillingham-Lessons-Struggling-Dyslexia/dp/0983199639/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1386205300&sr=1-1&keywords=orton+gillingham

[Anonymous]

Phonographix was recommended as the program with the most evidence-based support.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Phonographix was recommended as the program with the most evidence-based support.

Recommended by whom, Phonographix? "Most" in this case is really subjective. O-G and LMB are just as strongly evidence-based.

OP, I'd go with whichever program has an available tutor that you like and can afford. If you do LMB through it's center, it will be much more expensive then finding an independent tutor certified in the method.

[Anonymous]

It's for a 7 year old. Thanks for the suggestions, I'll look into them. Are there any tips to use at home, besides read a lot and ask the child questions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Phonographix was recommended as the program with the most evidence-based support.

Recommended by whom, Phonographix? "Most" in this case is really subjective. O-G and LMB are just as strongly evidence-based.

OP, I'd go with whichever program has an available tutor that you like and can afford. If you do LMB through it's center, it will be much more expensive then finding an independent tutor certified in the method.

A speech language therapist at the Lab School, who is familiar with many different programs. I mentioned Phonographix because it hadn't been mentioned before on the thread, and I know that there are many publicly available books out there. A parent can also sign up to take a training course thru a Baltimore based school for dyslexia students and/or do the training course online. I think a big part of teaching any of these reading programs is having an effective teacher, and one can debate wether the parent has enough experience to do that based on just one training course. And, another aspect for a parent to consider is how the parent/child relationship may enhance or detract from teaching instruction. (In my case, I think my parental relationship with my son makes it MORE difficult for me to teach him.)

But, this sometimes has to be balanced against cost and time/logisitics. It might make sense for a parent to deliver the phonographix if it can be done every day for 30 mins or something like that vs. 1x a week for an hour via a paid tutor.

For the OP, I think you have to consider very carefully what is at the root of the comprehension -- sometimes decoding is weak (which phonographix is good for), sometimes the fluency is weak (try ReadNaturally), or the working memory for what has been read is weak despite good decoding and good fluency (try some kind of visualization or other memory programs like visualizing and verbalizing or other methods of helping a kid mentally organize what he has read while he is reading).

For our kid, decoding was part of the problem of comprehension. Phonographix has helped us.

[Anonymous]

We have the same issue-- good decoding and decent fluency but a lot of trouble with summarizing and some general comprehension issues. We have been sending her to Huntington which works on both sequencing and other comprehension concepts like main idea, as well as increasing vocabulary. While unfortunately her dra score has not improved due to the retelling issue, her vocabulary has improved and her reading comprehension score on the CA version of SOLs, which Huntington uses to measure progress. We also read every night and practice the dra components-- retell, favorite part, connection, sometimes problem & solution. I often use a 6 box chart to record her retelling in pictures and words to work on sequencing and retelling with detail. We also supplement with kindle apps that have short passages and comprehension questions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have the same issue-- good decoding and decent fluency but a lot of trouble with summarizing and some general comprehension issues. We have been sending her to Huntington which works on both sequencing and other comprehension concepts like main idea, as well as increasing vocabulary. While unfortunately her dra score has not improved due to the retelling issue, her vocabulary has improved and her reading comprehension score on the CA version of SOLs, which Huntington uses to measure progress. We also read every night and practice the dra components-- retell, favorite part, connection, sometimes problem & solution. I often use a 6 box chart to record her retelling in pictures and words to work on sequencing and retelling with detail. We also supplement with kindle apps that have short passages and comprehension questions.

Not trying to offend, but truly, I wouldn't waste money on Sylvan, Huntington, Kumon, whether a kid has an LD or not. They focus on rote memorization and not based on the same quality research as LMB, OG, or Phonographix.

OP, these are activities that make up quality reading programs:
http://www.ldonline.org/article/242/

You can buy LMB, OG, or Phonographix guides for home practice on Amazon.

[Anonymous]

There is a talk on this very subject next week put on by Partnership for Extraordinary Minds xMinds.org

Reading Comprehension Strategies
Wednesday, December 18, 7–9 p.m.
Rockville Memorial Library Meeting Room: 21 Maryland Avenue, Rockville, MD 20850

Dale Frengel and Amanda Leichliter from The Ivymount School in Rockville will present information on strategies to help your student strengthen comprehension, a crucial skill for learning, writing, and critical thinking. More information.

[Anonymous]

Kindle books with professional narration and highlighted text helped my son.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Kindle books with professional narration and highlighted text helped my son.

not OP, but which version Kindle do you have b/c not all of them offer this option

[Anonymous]

One of the posters already mentioned it, but this point needs repeating:

Before you attempt to look for a program to help with reading, you need to figure out the cause of the reading problem.

For dyslexia, you need at O-G based program.

But if the cause is something else, like ADHD, then you will waste your time with the intense, phonics-based approach of an OG program.

Also, before you spend money on anyone who calls themselves a reading specialist or tutor, make sure they actually specialize in your child's source of difficulty. All reading tutors, programs, and problems are not the same.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the thoughtful responses. Decoding and fluency are fine. It's just the comprehension, recalling the details of the story, retelling the story etc. Would the LMB verbalizing and visualizing method work better for this profile? Phonographix seems heavily focussed on decoding. OG seems less so but more decoding than comprehension. Thoughts?

I don't like the approach of the tutoring centers and so many tutors that I've talked to seem to just have done a tutoring course with no other real background in special education. So I want to do the teaching myself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thanks for the thoughtful responses. Decoding and fluency are fine. It's just the comprehension, recalling the details of the story, retelling the story etc. Would the LMB verbalizing and visualizing method work better for this profile? Phonographix seems heavily focussed on decoding. OG seems less so but more decoding than comprehension. Thoughts?

I don't like the approach of the tutoring centers and so many tutors that I've talked to seem to just have done a tutoring course with no other real background in special education. So I want to do the teaching myself.

You're talking to the wrong tutors. I'd look at the Lab School Tutoring or Strixrud.

PP's probably right, you'll need to identify the source of why DC is experiencing this. Comprehension can be a word processing issue can be a memory issue related to dyslexia or an executive functioning issue related to ADHD or both. In either case, your kid can learn strategies from a good tutor. I think if you try to address this yourself and aren't sure how to approach it, it will end in frustration for you and your kid. A good tutor will also give you strategies to implement at home.