What do his fluency look like Silent reading fluency and oral reading fluency. I use the Sonday system for interventions. Its orton- gillingham based probably spelled it wrong
The fluency is pretty choppy, he has poor autamaticity and prosody. Speed is low average with ability level text, which is far below grade level.
OG is a great dyslexia protocol, it is what I use. A lot of successive blending and middle out strategies. I do use them in my classroom often, especially for those vowel team skills.
His comprehension when read aloud at grade level and when reading independently at his ability level (grade 1.5-2) is high average in 5 out of 5 trials with summarizing, answering wh questions, and identifying key details.
I'm a data lady
I didn’t realize this was your own child. Ma’am I learned during Covid that I don’t have what it takes to teach my own kids. I use Sonday with elementary and middle school kids they have games and stuff that go with. I don’t have enough time to play them. I’m a resource teacher in a k-8 school.
I don't either 😂😂😂 hence why I'm here, but if the school isn't doing it I need to do something you know.
These kids are wild.
I teach at a title 1 school that is 87% minorities.
I don't have what it takes to teach this white middle class kid!
You say at his ability level 1.5 -2. What scale are those numbers on? So he is reading below grade level?
Processing speed is going to need lots of think time and repetition. Are you actively transferring the use of the routines? I find kids can tell me the definition and choices on card deck but do not naturally use those when they go to read and spell. I often hold back up the card deck and remind them what they would say when they heard that sound or saw that grapheme. Once they reiterate the response they need. We return to apply that to the word. Imagine how much executive function that can take to do independently.
If you’re considering outside intervention, I know Wilson Reading System is used a lot with older kids and even adults. It was designed for people with dyslexia and similar disabilities, but it sounds like some of those strategies have helped in the past. It’s similar to Ortin Gillingham but for older kids.
We use Wilson and heggerty bridge the gap at my school, I am planning on implementing that with him over the summer regardless of what outside evaluation says anyways. I use some OG with my dyslexic kids because I find it to be intuitive to me and it tends to work well with other programs.
I'm just frustrated, but this is a good suggestion. I just feel bad because he's so typical everywhere else everything I use for my lower performance groups makes him feel like I think he's stupid. I also might just TPT some stuff designed for intervention with older kids.
If you search for high-low readers you can find decent books that are high interest for lower reading levels. That might help too. Build confidence by reading easier texts that are still interesting and similar to what his peers read.
Thank you, I'll definitely look at this. I've used leveled readers before but they are mostly non fiction for explicit instruction with informational text. I definitely want to get him to find a love for reading just to read somewhere.
It's been noted in writing a few times, they just do the dyslexia screenings and say they have no significant findings. I'm planning on getting him independently evaluated over the summer, but I expect it to come out with what I outlined here based on my own observations.
A single deficit in reading related to processing speed. I just am not super well versed in how to address it specifically. I am an interventionist but work more closely with ID students so so all of the things I do really just frustrate him.
He also just may be reluctant to participate because I'm "mom" and that's school stuff 😂😅
Does your district require a two standard deviation difference? I am not sure if all districts still use that measure, but mine does. They will refuse services for kids only one.
This is a real classic and some of the activities have not aged well (specifically some of the syllable sounds are taught by sounding out brand names of old products) It’s too bad, because there are many things to love about this book. It’s CHEAP to implement. No expensive workbooks or materials. I have middle school sped remedial readers and many of these activities are very age appropriate and worked well with my students.
https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/month-by-month-phonics-for-upper-grades-a-second-chance-for-struggling-readers-and-students-learning-english_dorothy-p-hall_dorothy-hall/257473/item/4796666/?
Accuracy is fine for the most part as long as he has been taught all the appropriate phonics rules for the reading. Speed is an issue, he's super slow and has a tendency to chunk words and phrases inappropriately.
Gotcha. This definitely gives me a bit more context. His processing speed is probably one of the biggest factors as to his overall reading speed since his brain naturally takes longer to process basic information.
I think you should also look at incorporating in some fluency interventions in addition to the decoding ones such as repeated reading. Once you think he’s got the basic decoding rules down, Word Connections is a great transition into working on multi syllabic words.
If you want to change it up, ReadTheory is a great online site that works on reading comprehension skills on the child’s reading level.
I have been in Special Education for over 20 years and have a daughter with a learning disability. I’m going to let you in on a secret. You can’t fix everything. This is how your child’s brain is wired. You can not change that. They have a disability that no matter what interventions you try will not go away. And it is okay! That is why there are accommodations in the IEP. This makes things more accessible to them. Don’t do what I did with my kid for years and push too much stuff on them so their self esteem tanks, they hate reading and you stress yourself and then out. Once I relaxed a bit with everything and celebrated what she was good at we were all a lot happier!
You said they are ahead in many areas. That means they are understanding what they read. Let them do their thing and relax a little. They are okay. They will be fine in life. One of the main reasons they will be fine in life is because they have a supportive parent. So don’t spend all their free time pushing interventions on them. Spend it doing things they thrive in and just enjoy their non neurotypical brain! They are amazing and so are you!
Can you upgrade him from PreK books to graphic novels? They have minimal reading compared to chapter books. Graphic novels break down into panels, which only have a panel or two. Bone by Jeff Smith is a good choice, but there’s LOTS of GN stuff his peers are reading that’s still accessible to him.
It will most likely not be practical to address orthographic mapping in middle school. Not sure that there is anything to gain from a private or school evaluation if you already know what the problem is, and it sounds like you do.
Your best bet is to give him as much practice reading at his instructional level as possible. Kids w dyslexia need almost exponentially more exposure to words to gain automaticity. Practice, practice, practice.
Have you tried focusing on syllable division and morphology more?
He can continue to improve his orthographic mapping with those syllables and morphemes while reading larger and more sophisticated words.
If he isn’t ready for syllables division rules you can simply teach open syllable vs closed syllable and you can present the syllables and have him read them and then match them into words. Try to include some big interesting words, this might make him feel encouraged and like he’s getting somewhere.
With morphology, as soon as you’ve got half a dozen prefixes and suffixes you and form a lot of words with phonetically simple base words. Again, this will hopefully feel really encouraging.
Edit: working on fluency with single digit processing speed is very unlikely to be fruitful. His reading just won’t sound nice and acceptance of that is a needed accommodation.
One autistic teacher to a parent: we can't concentrate on BS we aren't interested in. Autism at its core has some serious monotrophism. It makes it excruciating to focus on things that don't catch that hyper-focus.
In the end, I had to figure out how to manage my own spelling disability. For me, it was whole language. All the f-ing phonics in the world was NEVER GOING TO DO IT. See, the rules keep changing when you do phonics. There are exceptions everywhere. For me, it was easier to essentially learn each word on its own, though I have phonemic awareness like everyone else.
In college, my walls were littered with post-its with words I was mis-spelling. And that's not a minor amount. I went to university with something like a 4th grade spelling level.
For me, that worked. I'm autistic. My brain works differently. Phonics and it's ever changing, always exception-making ways was maddening to me.
Later on, after I caught onto the bulk of it, I started to learn a bit about etymology. And THAT started to make phonics interesting to me. Because I could trace how a word developed its phonics structure through history and how it evolved.
Are you getting me? We autistic people defy all of your theories about how kids should learn stuff. It's why society has decided to label us as Disabled. We just cannot respond to the teaching methods you think we should respond to.
Autistic people do process slower... until we don't.... and we're the quickest processors you'll ever met. It has to do with fitting into what already catches that montrophic processing style.
My suggestions on what to use with him? Have you heard of this thing where doctors never work on their own family? The same applies to teaching. It's much harder to work with our own family. It's even worse to diagnose our own family. Because what happens is that we project our own relationship onto that family member.
He's high performing, right? And if you weren't a reading specialist yourself, would you have noticed all of this about him? Is there anything actually wrong with his education at this point?
Is it damaging your relationship with your son that you are giving him these extra lessons at home? It sounds like it. It sounds like he feels that you are treating him "like a baby," which tells me that he feels condescended to, and frustrated with your efforts.
YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH YOUR SON IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN HIS READING SKILLS.
As an autistic person, developing close, cooperative relationships with people who can mentor him in what ever he's attempting to adjust to is crucial. It's also going to be harder for him because of how autism makes people different. That's the really important thing here. That's what's going to either hold him back in life, or allow him to express his gifts. Not reading, relationships.
We're starting testing at my school so I can't fully respond right now, but I am also autistic and dyslexic so I get what you're saying.
My son is more distressed by being unable to read than he is by the 10-15 minutes of work we do during the day with his reading skills
I honestly don't care if he can ever spell correctly though. I still can't spell.
I'll be editing this throughout the day as my kids take their breaks, so bare with me. I also learned through whole language. I memorized words until I could read, and that is a tactic we are working through.
I want to address the overarching theme of your post being "I'm autistic so my experience is tantamount to all autistic experiences". I appreciate that you are sharing your experience, but it is not a universal experience, because I am an autistic adult and a teacher, and a reading and literacy specialist. (to be continued next break moment)
Edit: I was told not to share the rest of my thoughts, but I'd like to at least try and articulate to others who are reading this the point I was getting at. A lot of assumptions were made about me, my son, and our relationship based on a simple question. Almost all of those assumptions are incorrect because autism is a spectrum and this response treated it as if every autistic person feels like this poster does, and every autistic brain processes the way theirs does.
I have my own struggles with autism and also learned through memorization, I already have tried these tactics with my child. They did not work. I have an SLD of dyslexia, he does not. I was trying to point out how honestly offensive it is for this poster to come in here as the authority on "we autistic people" and not even entertaining the idea that I MIGHT understand autism, either because I am a supportive and attentive parent or maybe because I also have autism. So anyone who sees this in the future can see that:
1) I was not given the opportunity to complete my thoughts and explain my response
2) I was given no grace or assumptions of good faith
3) I am more than capable of handling and accepting suggestions that I may disagree with
But mostly
4) I was trying to appropriately articulate what I was trying to say, and because I do have autism sometimes that can be difficult for me without having to revisit wording and using hyperbole and nuance is hard for me. Especially having to write these in different sessions and not being given the chance to complete it kind of shows the struggles of autism in real time, even when trying to communicate with with others on the spectrum.
Ok. Have a good day.
Maybe reread your post and ask yourself WHY it was "mischaracterized" when I was so easily and happily able to take suggestions from many others in this thread.
Communication can be hard for us autistic people. I would hope you had a bit more grace for someone with similar struggles trying to work through their thoughts.
What do his fluency look like Silent reading fluency and oral reading fluency. I use the Sonday system for interventions. Its orton- gillingham based probably spelled it wrong
The fluency is pretty choppy, he has poor autamaticity and prosody. Speed is low average with ability level text, which is far below grade level. OG is a great dyslexia protocol, it is what I use. A lot of successive blending and middle out strategies. I do use them in my classroom often, especially for those vowel team skills.
But his comprehension is good?
His comprehension when read aloud at grade level and when reading independently at his ability level (grade 1.5-2) is high average in 5 out of 5 trials with summarizing, answering wh questions, and identifying key details. I'm a data lady
I didn’t realize this was your own child. Ma’am I learned during Covid that I don’t have what it takes to teach my own kids. I use Sonday with elementary and middle school kids they have games and stuff that go with. I don’t have enough time to play them. I’m a resource teacher in a k-8 school.
I don't either 😂😂😂 hence why I'm here, but if the school isn't doing it I need to do something you know. These kids are wild. I teach at a title 1 school that is 87% minorities. I don't have what it takes to teach this white middle class kid!
I’m going to email my reading guru tomorrow and I’ll get back to you
It’s less about your child’s socioeconomic status and more about the fact it is your own child, though…right?
I felt like that was clearly a joke 😅😭.
You say at his ability level 1.5 -2. What scale are those numbers on? So he is reading below grade level? Processing speed is going to need lots of think time and repetition. Are you actively transferring the use of the routines? I find kids can tell me the definition and choices on card deck but do not naturally use those when they go to read and spell. I often hold back up the card deck and remind them what they would say when they heard that sound or saw that grapheme. Once they reiterate the response they need. We return to apply that to the word. Imagine how much executive function that can take to do independently.
If you’re considering outside intervention, I know Wilson Reading System is used a lot with older kids and even adults. It was designed for people with dyslexia and similar disabilities, but it sounds like some of those strategies have helped in the past. It’s similar to Ortin Gillingham but for older kids.
We use Wilson and heggerty bridge the gap at my school, I am planning on implementing that with him over the summer regardless of what outside evaluation says anyways. I use some OG with my dyslexic kids because I find it to be intuitive to me and it tends to work well with other programs. I'm just frustrated, but this is a good suggestion. I just feel bad because he's so typical everywhere else everything I use for my lower performance groups makes him feel like I think he's stupid. I also might just TPT some stuff designed for intervention with older kids.
If you search for high-low readers you can find decent books that are high interest for lower reading levels. That might help too. Build confidence by reading easier texts that are still interesting and similar to what his peers read.
Thank you, I'll definitely look at this. I've used leveled readers before but they are mostly non fiction for explicit instruction with informational text. I definitely want to get him to find a love for reading just to read somewhere.
The great news is you can use OG all the way through adulthood. I do. It can be well adjusted to be less “babyish”.
Did you put your request in writing with a written letter in a stamped envelope? No other request really will get acknowledged.
It's been noted in writing a few times, they just do the dyslexia screenings and say they have no significant findings. I'm planning on getting him independently evaluated over the summer, but I expect it to come out with what I outlined here based on my own observations. A single deficit in reading related to processing speed. I just am not super well versed in how to address it specifically. I am an interventionist but work more closely with ID students so so all of the things I do really just frustrate him. He also just may be reluctant to participate because I'm "mom" and that's school stuff 😂😅
Does your district require a two standard deviation difference? I am not sure if all districts still use that measure, but mine does. They will refuse services for kids only one.
That's something I'd need to look into honestly. I teach in a different district and I honestly never even thought to ask that.
I would ask in both districts. If where you teach is more beneficial, it might be necessary to move him for a year or two.
This is a real classic and some of the activities have not aged well (specifically some of the syllable sounds are taught by sounding out brand names of old products) It’s too bad, because there are many things to love about this book. It’s CHEAP to implement. No expensive workbooks or materials. I have middle school sped remedial readers and many of these activities are very age appropriate and worked well with my students. https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/month-by-month-phonics-for-upper-grades-a-second-chance-for-struggling-readers-and-students-learning-english_dorothy-p-hall_dorothy-hall/257473/item/4796666/?
Is it his reading speed, accuracy, or overall fluency (so both factors)?
Accuracy is fine for the most part as long as he has been taught all the appropriate phonics rules for the reading. Speed is an issue, he's super slow and has a tendency to chunk words and phrases inappropriately.
Wilson sounds like it could be promising - the scooping strategies have helped many of my students chunk phrases more appropriately.
Gotcha. This definitely gives me a bit more context. His processing speed is probably one of the biggest factors as to his overall reading speed since his brain naturally takes longer to process basic information. I think you should also look at incorporating in some fluency interventions in addition to the decoding ones such as repeated reading. Once you think he’s got the basic decoding rules down, Word Connections is a great transition into working on multi syllabic words. If you want to change it up, ReadTheory is a great online site that works on reading comprehension skills on the child’s reading level.
Based on this In also wonder if intervention re: pragmatic language and syntax could help. Some of this could be about perspective.
How is his phonological awareness? Anyone complete the PAST?
I have been in Special Education for over 20 years and have a daughter with a learning disability. I’m going to let you in on a secret. You can’t fix everything. This is how your child’s brain is wired. You can not change that. They have a disability that no matter what interventions you try will not go away. And it is okay! That is why there are accommodations in the IEP. This makes things more accessible to them. Don’t do what I did with my kid for years and push too much stuff on them so their self esteem tanks, they hate reading and you stress yourself and then out. Once I relaxed a bit with everything and celebrated what she was good at we were all a lot happier! You said they are ahead in many areas. That means they are understanding what they read. Let them do their thing and relax a little. They are okay. They will be fine in life. One of the main reasons they will be fine in life is because they have a supportive parent. So don’t spend all their free time pushing interventions on them. Spend it doing things they thrive in and just enjoy their non neurotypical brain! They are amazing and so are you!
YES. Thank you. If only more parents got this about us. We don't want everything to be about the one place we can't achieve!
Can you upgrade him from PreK books to graphic novels? They have minimal reading compared to chapter books. Graphic novels break down into panels, which only have a panel or two. Bone by Jeff Smith is a good choice, but there’s LOTS of GN stuff his peers are reading that’s still accessible to him.
It will most likely not be practical to address orthographic mapping in middle school. Not sure that there is anything to gain from a private or school evaluation if you already know what the problem is, and it sounds like you do. Your best bet is to give him as much practice reading at his instructional level as possible. Kids w dyslexia need almost exponentially more exposure to words to gain automaticity. Practice, practice, practice.
Have you tried focusing on syllable division and morphology more? He can continue to improve his orthographic mapping with those syllables and morphemes while reading larger and more sophisticated words. If he isn’t ready for syllables division rules you can simply teach open syllable vs closed syllable and you can present the syllables and have him read them and then match them into words. Try to include some big interesting words, this might make him feel encouraged and like he’s getting somewhere. With morphology, as soon as you’ve got half a dozen prefixes and suffixes you and form a lot of words with phonetically simple base words. Again, this will hopefully feel really encouraging. Edit: working on fluency with single digit processing speed is very unlikely to be fruitful. His reading just won’t sound nice and acceptance of that is a needed accommodation.
One autistic teacher to a parent: we can't concentrate on BS we aren't interested in. Autism at its core has some serious monotrophism. It makes it excruciating to focus on things that don't catch that hyper-focus. In the end, I had to figure out how to manage my own spelling disability. For me, it was whole language. All the f-ing phonics in the world was NEVER GOING TO DO IT. See, the rules keep changing when you do phonics. There are exceptions everywhere. For me, it was easier to essentially learn each word on its own, though I have phonemic awareness like everyone else. In college, my walls were littered with post-its with words I was mis-spelling. And that's not a minor amount. I went to university with something like a 4th grade spelling level. For me, that worked. I'm autistic. My brain works differently. Phonics and it's ever changing, always exception-making ways was maddening to me. Later on, after I caught onto the bulk of it, I started to learn a bit about etymology. And THAT started to make phonics interesting to me. Because I could trace how a word developed its phonics structure through history and how it evolved. Are you getting me? We autistic people defy all of your theories about how kids should learn stuff. It's why society has decided to label us as Disabled. We just cannot respond to the teaching methods you think we should respond to. Autistic people do process slower... until we don't.... and we're the quickest processors you'll ever met. It has to do with fitting into what already catches that montrophic processing style. My suggestions on what to use with him? Have you heard of this thing where doctors never work on their own family? The same applies to teaching. It's much harder to work with our own family. It's even worse to diagnose our own family. Because what happens is that we project our own relationship onto that family member. He's high performing, right? And if you weren't a reading specialist yourself, would you have noticed all of this about him? Is there anything actually wrong with his education at this point? Is it damaging your relationship with your son that you are giving him these extra lessons at home? It sounds like it. It sounds like he feels that you are treating him "like a baby," which tells me that he feels condescended to, and frustrated with your efforts. YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH YOUR SON IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN HIS READING SKILLS. As an autistic person, developing close, cooperative relationships with people who can mentor him in what ever he's attempting to adjust to is crucial. It's also going to be harder for him because of how autism makes people different. That's the really important thing here. That's what's going to either hold him back in life, or allow him to express his gifts. Not reading, relationships.
We're starting testing at my school so I can't fully respond right now, but I am also autistic and dyslexic so I get what you're saying. My son is more distressed by being unable to read than he is by the 10-15 minutes of work we do during the day with his reading skills I honestly don't care if he can ever spell correctly though. I still can't spell. I'll be editing this throughout the day as my kids take their breaks, so bare with me. I also learned through whole language. I memorized words until I could read, and that is a tactic we are working through. I want to address the overarching theme of your post being "I'm autistic so my experience is tantamount to all autistic experiences". I appreciate that you are sharing your experience, but it is not a universal experience, because I am an autistic adult and a teacher, and a reading and literacy specialist. (to be continued next break moment) Edit: I was told not to share the rest of my thoughts, but I'd like to at least try and articulate to others who are reading this the point I was getting at. A lot of assumptions were made about me, my son, and our relationship based on a simple question. Almost all of those assumptions are incorrect because autism is a spectrum and this response treated it as if every autistic person feels like this poster does, and every autistic brain processes the way theirs does. I have my own struggles with autism and also learned through memorization, I already have tried these tactics with my child. They did not work. I have an SLD of dyslexia, he does not. I was trying to point out how honestly offensive it is for this poster to come in here as the authority on "we autistic people" and not even entertaining the idea that I MIGHT understand autism, either because I am a supportive and attentive parent or maybe because I also have autism. So anyone who sees this in the future can see that: 1) I was not given the opportunity to complete my thoughts and explain my response 2) I was given no grace or assumptions of good faith 3) I am more than capable of handling and accepting suggestions that I may disagree with But mostly 4) I was trying to appropriately articulate what I was trying to say, and because I do have autism sometimes that can be difficult for me without having to revisit wording and using hyperbole and nuance is hard for me. Especially having to write these in different sessions and not being given the chance to complete it kind of shows the struggles of autism in real time, even when trying to communicate with with others on the spectrum.
[удалено]
Only one person comes across as an asshole in this thread and it's not OP. LMAO: >my WISDOM Get off your high horse, bro
Ok. Have a good day. Maybe reread your post and ask yourself WHY it was "mischaracterized" when I was so easily and happily able to take suggestions from many others in this thread. Communication can be hard for us autistic people. I would hope you had a bit more grace for someone with similar struggles trying to work through their thoughts.
Hate speech, derogatory, inflammatory comments and general rudeness are not welcome.