Reading, Reading and more Reading...

So, DS1 is 8, almost 9, and has struggled with reading. He's reading at just below grade level and has been advancing on a relative pace with his grade levels, but not catching up. He's been doing resource reading for two years (starting second sememster 1st grade) and he reads to us every night. He is an excellent speller, but only because he is greaat at memorizing. He can spell his entire spelling list correctly but then not be able to read back some of the words to you, and we find that kind of perplexing and almost disturbing.

We're trying to remain patient, we think his classroom teacher and reading teacher are doing a good job, BUT we're not thoroughly convince that there isn't something ther that is beyond their expertise. We realize how important reading is to learning and he's starting to feel the stigma of having to go to resource reading, so we'd really like to get him over the hump. Oh, and the other thing he will do is insert words that aren't there or replace words for the ones that are there (i.e. read an "a," intead of "the," which we think may be focus/attention related.) He also still flips his d's and b's on occasion. Sometimes we'll catch him trying to start a word with a sound from the end of the word...all of this leads us the think there's something more to solving his learning issues than just more practice and familiarity/comfort.

We're contemplating checking out one of those national education chains (he said without naming any names) is offering free evaluation, and we're a fair bit skeptical, because we think no matter what kid you bring in they're going to find something to recommend they can "help" with and then if we don't spring for their services, we feel like bad parents...

thoughts? Ideas? Help us through this minefield. Anybody used one of these places before, what was your experience?

mom2many said:

Have you had him tested or any learning disabilities? The d/b thing isn't so unusual as Cole still does it. But I am reading somethings that lead me to think it is more then just a child struggling. Sounds very similar to my sister and she ended up having dyslexia, which wasn't discovered until she was dang near an adult.

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well that's kind of the thing, somethings kind of point to attention issues and some might point to something like dyslexia, but we've been keeping regular contact with his resource teacher and she hasn't made that recommendation, so we're wlking kind of a tightrope, do you trust the professional or seek out another opinion, and where to go for that testing...He goes to private school, but they have resources available through the AEA system (they do stuff like vision and hearing screening, couneling, library resources etc, just like they do for the public schools) so I'd think they'd do something. I'm just not sure where to turn or how fast to turn.

Thanks everyone.

I knew that the mixing Ds and Bs wasn't necessarily the smoking gun, just added it as potentially part of the puzzle.

Jeremy, when doing spelling, we do it a variety of ways - With him copying his speliing list (my least preferred practice) with me reciting them to him and him writing them, and with me reciting them and him spelling them verbally back to me. Which he usually does quite successfully.

The most disturbing/perplexing part of his reading is when he will attampe to sound out words and insert letters and letter combinations (sometimes pultiple ones per word) that aren't even there. That and when he replaces on "little word" for another.

I think we are going to circle back with his teachers, see what their view of things is now, see about other evluation tools that can be brought into play. If they want to "stay the course" then I think we'll look into seeking our sme resoures through the local University's speech pathology department, and then if they don't turn up anything particular, we'll go the route of looking into a learning center.

He's a very bright, sociable, articulate kid, we don'tt want being a slow reader to affect his learning or his view of himself.

thanks M2M some interesting stuff to try. He never minds sitting down to read, but I do sometimes feel he gets distracted and may look around the other page etc. Isolating may help.

Jeremy - writing stories is a great idea. I actually encouraged him to do so, and I need to work with him on how to do it on him computer as well.

One question about writing stories - would you just let him free write, or should I correct spelling etc...That's partially why I'd like him to start using the computer, because it will correct his spelling, rather than ME. That way it's a machine working for him, rather than me potentially being critical of him. I wonder if spell check could be frustrating if he doesn't get even close to a word.

The other thing is he's a pretty creative person. We made a little book together once, and he drew pictures that we scanned and put in, so I could see him doing that. Right now whenever he wants to make a sign or poster he does it all on paper, I'd like him to start using some of the electronic tools at his disposal. I think he'd be eager to do more, if he felt comfortable using the tools.