I have a rising 10th grader. In early elementary, he had 4 days a week of private tutoring in an OG based system. He saw quite a bit of improvement in 6-8 months. We moved him to a dyslexia private school for 5th grade. He said that helped him immensely and he was ready to go back to public in 6th grade. Since then, he’s had OT but that hasn’t helped his fine motor skills in the slightest. Oh well, we tried.

His handwriting is bad. His spelling isn’t great but it’s slowly improving. His math facts aren’t great but he can easily handle regular math and would like to test into the next higher level.

He has an IEP but it covers access to the resource room and meeting with his resource teacher twice a month.

I think all kids are different. There has been great advice given but everyone has to trial and error it to see what works best for you.

Anonymous wrote:Not sure what state you're in, but just something to keep in mind. Many public schools won't allow an outside tutor to come in during the school day for legal purposes. I forget the reason why. Many privates will allow an outside tutor to come (if they want). But they're not obligated to do so as well as find a nice quiet space to do the tutoring. DD had to do tutoring out in the busy hallway b/c the private school didn't have space for 1:1 tutoring.

By allowing in a private tutor during the school day, public schools are "admitting" that the kid needs the service and then they are required to provide it.

I did learn of one mom who just got her kid out of school, every day, during lunch/recess and had tutoring then.

Anonymous wrote:OG private tutor with 4 one-hour sessions per week.

If you can afford private school on top of that, small class sizes help.

Good luck, it’s not easy but kids can do well in school/life with the early supports.

DP but this is exactly what we did. expensive. Did it for 3 years. Returning to public this year with fingers crossed. Also, the quality of the OG you get at your school can range wildly. Don't count on that. Paying about 100/hr for quality reading instruction now will save you so much heart ache in the future.

Not sure what state you're in, but just something to keep in mind. Many public schools won't allow an outside tutor to come in during the school day for legal purposes. I forget the reason why. Many privates will allow an outside tutor to come (if they want). But they're not obligated to do so as well as find a nice quiet space to do the tutoring. DD had to do tutoring out in the busy hallway b/c the private school didn't have space for 1:1 tutoring.

Anonymous wrote:OP here. We can afford the dyslexia private if we're careful about other expenses and don't save much for retirement. It only goes through the end of elementary, with the middle school and high school options here being more limited in terms of specific dyslexia schools. Part of my hesitation is that now seems like the best shot of public school working. If he goes to this tiny dyslexia private, I can't see him walking on into a huge public middle school, even if we are lucky enough to get him close to grade level in reading. I worry that means even more and more expensive private school after that. I guess we can take it a year at a time, though. My other thought is that now is the best time to invest and try to get his level up so he's not even farther behind later.

We went small dyslexia private then into big public middle school - you can def try it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, I’m chiming in as I also have a rising third grader with dyslexia, diagnosed this past June. No dysgraphia.

He’s made significant gains in the past month using the Phono-Graphix approach; there are others (EBLI, Reading Simplifed) based on it that also have very strong evidence. He went three times/week for three weeks, after lower intensity earlier this year. We also did P-G based exercises at home on the days he didn’t go for tutoring.

Despite the widespread praise for Orton-Gillingham, the method actually has middling empirical support. I’m a psychologist who has also conducted educational research; I read through the literature carefully when looking into interventions for my DS.

P-G isn’t a panacea, but it’s outstanding for building phonemic awareness and foundational skills, and usually fairly quickly. Kids benefit from structured interventions, the younger the better, and with sufficient intensity to make a difference. Twice a week isn’t going to cut it. Good luck.

Can you share where your child received the P-G instruction?

My child was diagnosed with dyslexia at the end of first grade and has been doing OG tutoring consistently for 3-4x a week for one year with a highly trained ASDEC tutor and we have seen only a small improvement in reading. My child is entering 3rd grade and can only read CVC words (not fluently). After two sentences she is fatigued because it is still so laborious. My child has a high average IQ and is fully aware of the widening gap between herself and her peers and is starting to lose hope. I feel that I need to look into a different methodology before all of her confidence is gone.

Because of your post I found the EBLI Facebook group and it almost seems too good to be true. It definitely seems to be backed by evidence. Would love to hear about anyone else who has used the P-G approach.

Yes!! Beth Ciangiulli at Stepping Stones Therapy. She is terrific - warm and engaging, but also kept my DS focused. She got him on a good track and we're hoping to sustain momentum through the school year. He was very tired at the end of the first few sessions but built stamina over the few weeks. She made a point of telling me that things that were laborious when he started had become much less so.

https://www.steppingstonestherapy.com/therapists

I'm sending you and your DD all the best luck.

Anonymous wrote:Can anyone speak to the pros and cons of dyslexia school vs private tutoring in the sense of personalization? With one-on-one tutoring, it's so much more personalized than it seems like a dyslexia school would be. Even though they would be more accommodating overall in approach, it still might be tough to focus the interventions on specific, individual needs? Or is that not a problem? The area I'm thinking the dyslexia school would be good for us actually less the reading and more the other subjects because they would be taught in a more accessible way.

For my child:
We did tutoring 1 on 1 after school. At this point my child was drained.
They held it together through out the school day and although they tried, I think they had limited capacity to retain aspects of the 1 on 1 tutoring.
If you school allows it - and you can do a private tutor during the school day, this would be optimal.
Does your child have any speech issues? If they can't say the words properly, they will have challenges hearing the sounds for what they are supposed to be spelling. Make sure you are addressing all of this.

At private school, reading class in elementary had 1 other student in it. The school would change up the make-up of the class based on ongoing assessments, personalities etc. With private school, they take the time to fill in the gaps and they target those. (This is what a highly skilled tutor would do as well)

If I was in your shoes, I would plan on enrolling in private school. This will allow you to just let you child be a student during the school day and give them the space to have downtime and grow. When their systems are not stressed all the time - things click and everything becomes easier.

Can anyone speak to the pros and cons of dyslexia school vs private tutoring in the sense of personalization? With one-on-one tutoring, it's so much more personalized than it seems like a dyslexia school would be. Even though they would be more accommodating overall in approach, it still might be tough to focus the interventions on specific, individual needs? Or is that not a problem? The area I'm thinking the dyslexia school would be good for us actually less the reading and more the other subjects because they would be taught in a more accessible way.

Anonymous wrote:OP, I’m chiming in as I also have a rising third grader with dyslexia, diagnosed this past June. No dysgraphia.

He’s made significant gains in the past month using the Phono-Graphix approach; there are others (EBLI, Reading Simplifed) based on it that also have very strong evidence. He went three times/week for three weeks, after lower intensity earlier this year. We also did P-G based exercises at home on the days he didn’t go for tutoring.

Despite the widespread praise for Orton-Gillingham, the method actually has middling empirical support. I’m a psychologist who has also conducted educational research; I read through the literature carefully when looking into interventions for my DS.

P-G isn’t a panacea, but it’s outstanding for building phonemic awareness and foundational skills, and usually fairly quickly. Kids benefit from structured interventions, the younger the better, and with sufficient intensity to make a difference. Twice a week isn’t going to cut it. Good luck.

Can you share where your child received the P-G instruction?

My child was diagnosed with dyslexia at the end of first grade and has been doing OG tutoring consistently for 3-4x a week for one year with a highly trained ASDEC tutor and we have seen only a small improvement in reading. My child is entering 3rd grade and can only read CVC words (not fluently). After two sentences she is fatigued because it is still so laborious. My child has a high average IQ and is fully aware of the widening gap between herself and her peers and is starting to lose hope. I feel that I need to look into a different methodology before all of her confidence is gone.

Because of your post I found the EBLI Facebook group and it almost seems too good to be true. It definitely seems to be backed by evidence. Would love to hear about anyone else who has used the P-G approach.

Anonymous wrote:NP - do in-school pull-outs / IEP services ever work? Is dyslexia school (almost) always the answer if one doesn't have the time or ability to do near-daily tutoring?

Many I know with kids in private schools still need tutoring. Most schools, even private, do not do the one on one needed for some students.

We did public and tutoring 2-3 times a week, but did work at home on the non-tutoring days. Our tutor gave us what we needed to work on. DC’s strength was in math and the private dyslexia schools did not have the experience to support DC in math. Supporting DC’s strengths was important to us too. It is a balancing act.

Anonymous wrote:Please recommend dyslexia schools.we are in NOVA

Oakwood in Annandale and Sienna in Oakton if your DC has moderate dyslexia. Lab in DC is accessible from some parts of NOVA. There also has to be space. Severe dyslexia is not generally accepted.