Hi
I wonder if this will help with my little boy, he just turned 7 and he has difficulty reading , he’s brother was diagnosed border line dyslexic but with intensive work and great teachers he read almost as good as his friends.
My question is can I use this method on him or is he to old for it keeping in mind he hate (baby’s books ) he need to read and love for us to read for him books that are difficult for him but is in the rang for his age group.
Last any tips or programs you can recommend will be very helpful.
Well, my wife remediates kids with dyslexia and it involves quite a bit of phonics work. Therefore, I’d recommend http://www.readingbear.org as it’s free, phonics based, and can be used by “older” kids your son’s age. The concept is based on Why Johnny Can’t Read by Rudolf Flesch. The site founder taught his oldest kid using a similar but less technological method, and used the site itself to teach his youngest. He’s also known to post around here from time to time so it’s easy to recommend this one to you!
I think good multi-sensory phonics instruction is a good way help kids with dyslexia. Some people think that dyslexia is caused by not learning to read until a child is older and then learning with the whole word method. I think that could be the cause for many children but I do also believe that there are kids who will have it regardless of when and how they were taught and reading will be harder for those children and it only means reading is difficult not that other areas of learning will be. Reading bear is free and a decent resource especially if the only problem is guessing caused by too many whole words but it won’t be enough for some kids. It certainly doesn’t hurt to give it a try.
I think the programs based on the orton gillington methods are really good because they are multi sensory and they go in incremental steps. Some examples are the Writing Road to Teaching Reading (WRTR) which is also known as the spalding method, Spell to Read and Write (SWR), A combo of All About Spelling and All About Reading (AAS and AAR) or the Barton Method are some examples of that. If I was suspecting it I would have the child evaluated to determine exactly what was going on and if it is dyslexia, vision issues or something else so I can find a plan of attack on what to do. Other programs address certin issues like LIPS helps kid who have poor phonemic awareness and Seeing Stars is helpful for kids who have a harder time with visual memory.
Thanks for the quick respond
I tried to have him tested but was told he was still too young and should wait until his in year 3, knowing what I went through with his brother I don’t want to wait until then but on the other hand I’m afraid to push him over his limit.
Poker dad:
Thank you for the link it’s so helpful, he loved it when we tried it today.
Teaching my kids:
Thanks to you too, many sits I have to go through them to see which is best for him.
Does it matter if I joined the sites in USA as they teach the phonics differently here in the UK??