Dyslexia Resources That Helped Us

I have two dyslexic children. We didn't realize the older one was dyslexic until high school, but for my youngest I was much more aware and began working with her sooner. Neither has been formally diagnosed.

1 - Reading Reflex
I have a friend who is a reading specialist trained in Orton-Gillingham and she recommended Reading Reflex which was so valuable for us. My daughter was about 9 when we first used Reading Reflex. This is a really affordable and practical solution for moms wondering what to do. 


2 - Dyslexia Tool Kit
 After we spent a couple years on Reading Reflex, I searched for another practical help for her to focus on reading fluency and I found The Dyslexia Tool Kit which contains 24 tools that can be implemented separately or in conjunction with others. We didn't use all of the techniques, but the ones we chose really helped her greatly.



3 - Short Cuts to Long Words
She is now 14 and last year (8th grade), I wanted to focus on being able to decode long words. I found this resource - Short Cuts to Long Words by Nancy Lewkowicz - and ordered it sight-unseen. It has really helpful. The website gives an overview of the method. Looking back at the website now, I see there is a higher level of this method that I may order for her this year. http://www.thewordworkshop.com/workbks.html

 4 - Colored Overlays
Another tip that really helped my oldest son was colored overlays. He found that using a blue overlay on a white page really helped him to read better. Other dyslexics find success with different colors. I first heard of this when I was teaching school. Irlen is the company that did the initial work with colored overlays, but they are expensive. At first I used colored overhead transparencies, but later I found a company at a homeschool conference that was selling colored overlay rulers. (I can't remember which company since it's been a few years now.) These are similar, although ours are in varying widths.

Convention Season: In Which I Understand The Will and The Appetite (or Why It's Hard to Teach Kids to Read)

Teaching Reading in the Screen Age - Andrew Kern

I chose this seminar because I was so inspired by Kern's seminar on writing. I also am concerned about the difficulties in not only teaching reading nowadays but also in sustaining interest in reading.

Six pages of notes! I apologize because I wrote down the nuggets I found memorable or interesting, but they don't always connect to the things I wrote down before or after. Kern does tend to speak like this, but it all makes sense in the end. I found a lot of meat in this talk, so here goes:

Use books!

Teach a child to....
...pay attention.
...remember things.
...bring it into harmony.

Do you pause when reading to allow images to form in your mind? IMAGE-ination....

Teach your child to handle the screens. (in the sense of creating good habits) Make a distinction between will and desire.

Nietzsche - everything living wants to live.
Humans have the ability to know what we want is bad.
There is a difference between what we want and what we will.
The screens appeal to the appetite. They are market-driven.

Capitalism (Marx) - desires will lead to centralization of big companies. Centralized economy --> socialism.

Strengthen the will and not the appetite. Train the will. Coaches know this. We accept this idea in sports.

Strong-willed people are actually weak-willed people with strong appetites. -Charlotte Mason

Discipline = legalism in some people's view

We tend to encourage the teaching of reading by exciting the appetites.
Instead, use white paper, black text, no distractions.

A child is a symbol of God. The eternal and unknowable "ikon".

Only the expert knows the basics of a subject. Kids can handle what is most obvious but not what is most basic.

Three Stages of Reading

1 - Dependent

When? Begins in the womb. Unborn babies can hear. Read to them. Choose adult books with good language.
Understanding is over-rated at this stage. Feel the flow of the language. It's complex.
Wind in the Willows contains the best sentence ever written. The second best is in Brideshead Revisited. (He did not tell us what they were.)
If you only read Cat in the Hat type books to children, the child will not be able to handle a complex thought.

2 - Decoding

This is an agonizing process of how the symbol = sound.
Only a symbolic creature could invent symbols and phonics.
Get to the point where you ignore the symbols for the meaning.
Study a foreign language with a different alphabet.
When you teach phonics simply, you are strengthening the will.
Discipline!

3 - Independent

The will keeps us going when the desires fade.
Reading is not a "subject." Not only is reading not a subject, there is not much difference between reading and writing.

Same Five Common Topics are for Reading and for Writing. (See notes from other seminar: The Five Topics of Invention aka The Common Topics.)

Use the rules like toys you get to play with.

What do these things teach us about how we learn?
1 - We don't know how we learn.
2 - No elemental sequence to reading.
3 - We read with the mind using the senses.

GOALS

1 - Transcendent Insight
2 - Think Analogously (relating to analogies)
We are made to be like Him but it frustrates us that we can't be. We are analogies of God living in a creation, a work of art. The means by which we see truth is by analogies - stories. The best are the most universal.
3 - Information Gathering
4 - Disciplined Thinking - Translating is reading in slow motion. It focuses you.
5 - Community - Friendship is more important than your job in life.
6 - Wisdom. Even from the ancients.
7 - Harmonic Perceptions

THREE PRINCIPLES

1 - Reading incarnates truth.
2 - Reading must not be moralistic. Instead be transformed by the text.
3 - If you're not willing to submit to the work of art, don't experience it.

Teach Three Stages of Reading
Phonograms
Practice narration.
Always read above grade level.
Learn a foreign language.
Put story over information. Verse over prose, Aurality over silence.

FOUR ISSUES

1. What should we read?
2. Why should we read?
3. What are the dangers inherent in reading? (immorality, moralism, laziness)
4. How should we read?

Well, that's it! A lot of food for thought, although much of it seems disjointed when I type it all out. I recommend listening to this if you can find a recording or listen to anything by Andrew Kern.

E-Reader Resources, or Where To Find Free Kindle Books

Maybe you're one of the multitudes who received an e-reader or tablet for Christmas. Or maybe Santa brought one for your child this year. Now you're wondering how to load it up with reading material.

I received a Kindle 3G with keyboard for Mother's Day in 2011 and for my birthday this year, I picked out an Android phone which of course I promptly loaded with a Kindle app.

Did you know you don't have to have a Kindle to read e-books? Of course there are lots of e-readers, one of the most popular being the Nook from Barnes and Noble, but you can also download apps for iOS or Android as well as for your PC or Mac.
At first I downloaded everything free I could see, but I soon realized I'd never be able to read all those books! So now, I always check the reviews before I download a freebie. I've only paid for a handful of books and I have hundreds now.

So, how does one find free e-books? Here are my tips for finding free books for your Kindle or Kindle app.


If you go to the Kindle store and look down on the right hand side, you'll see a link to the bestsellers - the tab showing is "Top 100 Paid" books - see my screenshot. Click the other tab, the one labeled "Top 100 Free." (red arrow in illustration) You'll get exactly that - a list of the 100 best "selling" free Kindle books. If you click on the Kindle store link there, you can poke around more and get lists of top 100 within each category. (orange arrow in illustration)  One caveat: Many authors self-publish on Kindle nowadays, which is a good thing. However, many poorly-written, self-published books show up as freebies. That's why reading the reviews is important. Also, be warned there are lots of romance novels with varying degrees of steam.

Just about every classic book (not copyrighted) is available for free on Kindle.

Other Kindle freebies are often short-lived - sometimes just one day. So don't wait! Click the links when you see them and download them immediately. Otherwise the price may go back up before you make time to look.

I've found a couple websites that send out emails with links to Kindle freebies. Here they are:

With eBookFling, swap unlimited ebooks with thousands of readers nationwide. Just fling an eBook to others and catch the eBook of your choice - choose from the hottest New York Times Bestsellers, timeless classics and even rare, eclectic titles, textbooks and tech manuals! Trade Kindle™ and Nook™ books using your e-reader device, iPad, iPhone, Blackberry™ or Android™ smartphone. Best of all, it’s free to join!

eBookDaily (referral link) alerts you to the best one-day 0.00 kindle deals We search Amazon high and low for kindle books in your selected genres that have recently dropped to no cost. Scoop them up today before they return to full price tomorrow.

Lots of freebie websites list Kindle freebies. Here is one:
The section “Free Kindle Books” on Pixel of Ink includes Limited Time Offers and often forgotten but Popular Classics. Grab these books while you can – most of these books are available for a Limited Time only!

Here is one specifically directed at homeschoolers:
Free Homeschool Deals created this page to feature a gigantic list of currently free books for Kindle – books that have at least been free for some time.  She also updates a list of daily Kindle freebies that you can find HERE.

Also, many libraries offer Kindle or e-reader books for borrowing. Ask your librarian. My library has a limited selection of e-reader books and MP3 downloads of audiobooks.

I picked out three more Kindle freebies just while researching this post! I'll never catch up with all my reading!!!
 

5th grade Reading - Challenges!

My 5th grader is still a reluctant reader. She has made progress but she still says, "I can't read," or "I hate reading." She CAN read; she just doesn't LIKE to read. It is a lot of work for her and she avoids it.

I'd love for this to be the year where reading becomes easy for her and she learns to love it. I'll be praying that for her. Meanwhile, I am not able to assign her the chapter books I would like her to be reading independently in 5th grade. That's hard for me to accept, but it is what it is.

Last year she read a lot of easy non-fiction readers and wrote about them daily. We'll do the same to begin this year; it's familiar and non-threatening. I give her a stack of books to choose from and let her choose one. The book shown open is harder than any she's read so far, but I hope she'll be up for the challenge.

I have her read aloud to me every day. Last year I required ten minutes (and she used a timer EVERY SINGLE DAY) and 2 sentences about what she read. This fall I will gradually increase the reading time and the amount of writing required, until we reach 20 minutes and 5 sentences. Once she is reading fluently aloud, I intend to add silent reading and written questions.

Any suggestions for easy-to-read high-interest chapter books at probably a 3rd grade reading level and preferably not twaddle? Those may be next for us, hopefully by November.

We will get back out the Reading Reflex book and work on some of the skill-building activities too, especially the multi-syllable management.

7th Grade Literature

James is entering 7th grade. His literature selections will be taken from the following titles:

• Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls - he chose this to begin with
• The Incredible Journey by Sheila Burnford
• My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George
• A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
• 5 Children and It by E. Nesbit
• The Black Stallion by Walter Farley
• The Bronze Bow by  Elizabeth G. Speare
• Across Five Aprils by Irene Hunt
• The Story of King Arthur and His Knights by Howard Pyle
• Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
• Adam of the Road by Elizabeth Janet Gray
• Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne

I will let him choose from the list and decide what's next each time he finishes one. Not sure how many of these he'll get through, but I think one a month is a good goal.

We will be discussing the books with the Adam Andrews method. :-) Most of these are books I have read in the past, which makes the discussion easier if I can't read them along with him.

He will also be doing much writing to respond to these literature selections.

American Literature

David and Emily are both taking American Literature at co-op this year, taught by someone who isn't me! LOL

This is a list of what they will be reading:

• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (they are reading this now)
• The Simple Cobler of Aggawam by Nathaniel Ward
• Sinners in the hands of an angry God by Jonathan Edwards
• Letters from an American Farmer by J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
• The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
• The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving
• The Pit and the Pendulum by Edgar Allen Poe
• The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe
• Thanatopsis by William Cullen Bryant
• Homeward Bound by James Fenimore Cooper
• Civil Disobedience and other selections by Henry David Thoreau
• The Gift of the Magi and The Ransom of Red Chief by O.Henry
• Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
• The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Whew! That's a lot, isn't it? A number of those selections I have not read before, so I will attempt to read them along with my high schoolers.

I may also have them read The Scarlet Letter to go along with the class. In their spare time. Haha

If the teacher provides assignments to go along with the reading selections, I will require those. If she does not, then I will require writing assignments every two weeks. I am also going to require a reading journal, which is something I've attempted before but not seen to fruition.

Midwest Homeschool Convention - The Struggling Reader

I have a struggling reader. That's been difficult for me to admit since I love reading and it's easy for me. Of course, since I am a certified teacher with graduate work in Reading and Language Arts, I ought to know exactly how to help her, right? I thought so. But she's almost ten and still struggling. So I went to this workshop to see if there were any keys I've been missing to assist her in her path to fluency.

The Struggling Reader! Am I Emphasizing the Right Things?
Does your son or daughter seem to be faltering in their efforts to learn to read? Is it the curriculum? Is it you? Based on current research, Dr. Eckenwiler and his wife have designed this workshop to help parents better understand the most essential elements of the reading process, along with those critical ingredients that must be emphasized to produce a successful, capable reader.

Kristin Eckenwiler, of thestrugglingreader.net, led this 8:30 AM workshop on Friday morning. The room was hard to find and overly warm. She promised each parent that they could learn to be a "mini reading specialist". She reassured parents that their homeschooled children were in the best place - home.

The Eckenwiler's system is a multi-sensory approach and she spent a few moments describing what that means. I didn't take notes on that and apparently her explanation didn't stick with me. She did recommend Visual Vocabulary's materials as a multi-sensory approach to teaching vocabulary.

A phoeneme is the smallest unit of sound in our language. Phonemic awareness (the awareness of phoenemes) is NOT the same as phonics, as it does not include letter recognition. It is just sounds. Many say that phonemic awareness is the #1 predictor of reading success. Their phonemic awareness test evaluates 21 discrete skills without worksheets, using a multi-sensory approach.

Dyslexia is a neurological processing challenge. It happens IN the brain.

Their phonics assessment takes 25-30 minutes.

Important:
decoding skills = phonics
Vocabulary
Sight Words
Ability to self-monitor (was I paying attention?)
Practice

SIGHT WORDS
Sight words are often misunderstood. Most common/frequent word is "the". Can't sound it out.

The 10 most common words constitute 24% of printed material.
The 25 most common words constitute 1/3 of printed material.
The 100 most common words constitute 50% of printed material.
300 sight words should be known COLD - memorized by sight, like the snap of a finger, that fast.

FLUENCY (sight words are included here)
1 - Reading speed
Third graders read 100 words per minute. Adults read 250-300 words per minute.
However, reading too fast = mistakes.
2 - Accuracy
3 - Prosody (rhythm)

Fluency affects comprehension.

COMPREHENSION
Comprehension is very complex and includes everything from simple recall to inference.
What can affect comprehension? Physical and emotional state, decoding skills, background knowledge

Reading levels
Independent - fun to read on their own
Instructional - THIS LEVEL IS WHERE YOU SHOULD BE TEACHING
Frustration - too challenging, avoid

DRTA - Directed Reading-Thinking Activity
comprehension is NOT "read the story and answer the questions".
Try a pre-reading activity to increase comprehension.

(Sorry, these notes were not as good as some of my others.)

To Read Aloud Or Not To Read Aloud

I got out of the habit of reading aloud to the children during the summer. When we started our lessons back up, it was one thing I didn't jump right back into doing.

Reading aloud is one of my least favorite things. I admit it, however reluctantly.

Does that surprise you? Maybe it does. I love to read. I love my children. I like homeschooling. (notice I didn't say love) I love books. I love to see my children enjoying books.

However.... reading aloud is SO SLOW. I can read way faster than I can speak. And no matter what I pick as a read-aloud, there seems to always be one child with whom my choice of reading material doesn't resonate.

The Great Brain by John D. Fitzgerald was our read-aloud in the spring. I remembered reading this series of books as a child and thought it would be nice to share with my kids. When actually reading though, I realized they weren't as compelling as I recalled, and I tended to think my kids were not really enthralled. We stopped in the middle of it and never picked it back up. (Yes, I will admit that too!)

So, when the kids started asking me when we were going to start reading aloud again, I began thinking which new book to begin.

They protested.

"But, Mom! We were reading The Great Brain!"

"We didn't even finish it!"

"Yeah, Mom, we left the kids lost in the cave."

Wow. They remembered the kids were lost in the cave? Maybe they were paying better attention than I realized.

"OK, I'll finish reading it."

"Noooo....." OK, there's the obligatory child who doesn't like the current read-aloud. Ah well, hopefully the next book will appeal more to that one, but the three who are enjoying The Great Brain will get to hear the rest of it.

And I will keep reading aloud because I know I ought to. And because they like it.

Read to me....

From Summer Sun and Fun

A Reader in the Making?

Yesterday morning James (age 9-1/2) came downstairs into our bedroom reading a chapter book.

I always thought my kids would be readers, since I've always been a voracious lover of books of all sorts. Now, our kids all like books. They browse through books daily, enjoy library visits, don't mind books as gifts, and do their assigned reading without (much) complaining.

However, only Emily (age 12) has been reading novels for pleasure. David (age 14) prefers listening to audiobooks since he can work with Legos or other hands-on things at the same time, and he listens to something just about every day. He has read a few novels, but it isn't something he does regularly.

So, when James came sauntering in with a book in front of his face, I was cautiously hopeful. As the day progressed, he was reading just about every spare moment. He even took the book to a party we went to and finished reading it there. A whole chapter book in one day! By choice! Wheee!

And this morning? He's reading the second one in the series! I am overjoyed!

So, what's the magic series he's found? Hank the Cowdog by John Erickson. He got the first two for Christmas. Happily there are bunches and bunches more for him to read! A big THANK YOU to whomever it was that mentioned these books to me. I'd like to give you a big HUG.

Mark Twain: On Reading

Thought for the day:

The man who
does not read
good books
has no advantage
over the man
who
can't read them.

"Boy-friendly" Books

Maybe you were wondering what I meant in my Adaptation post when I mentioned my fourteen-year-old son not being thrilled to read books with girls on the covers. Here's an example of four of the Sonlight 100 titles that he's not thrilled about reading.


















Do any of these look like they'd scream READ ME to a teen boy?

I actually skipped 3 of these books already, and I just may require him to read Christy.

To be fair to Sonlight 100, there are plenty of "boy-friendly" books in the reading list: My Side of the Mountain, The Red Badge of Courage, Amos Fortune, Maniac Magee, The Call of the Wild, The Cross and the Switchblade, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. That's just a sampling of titles.

No shortage of good literature choices, that's certain. Plenty to choose from, even if I decide to skip a few. And my daughters will certainly enjoy these four books even if my sons don't find them intriguing.

Sight Word Game

Suzy is not adept at sight words yet, so I wanted a FUN computer game to increase her abilities with it. A google search turned up a lot, but most games weren't that exciting or were not free. I wanted it to be incremental - not too many words at a time, or in some unorganized manner. I want it to teach her to recognize the word and also to be able to spell the word.

Here's what I found that she liked and met my requirements:
http://www.sightwordswithsamson.com/

It takes you to the main screen, which has an option to buy. However, everything I clicked around on in the games worked fine. Start here, if it doesn't work from the main screen.
http://www.sightwordswithsamson.com/sw/sight_words.asp

There are some printable resources as well.

[EDITED TO ADD - It appears that only the first 3 levels are free. If we work through those levels and they are effective, we'll probably buy the program if I haven't found anything better. I really like it and Suzy liked doing it. More than that though, it seems like it will really help.

EDITED AGAIN - A friend found a promotional code WSBJ which should bring the price down to $20 a year. I haven't tried it yet.]

Becoming a Reader

Today I began teaching Suzy to READ! Whee! Well, she's been learning letter sounds all year, but today we began the section of Alphabet Island Phonics that teaches the student to decode short vowel words. YAY!

It struck me that soon I will have FOUR reading children and I will have taught all of them to read! How cool is that!

"I can read this whole book!"

Today David and Suzy had doctor's appointments at 9 am, so the only school we managed to accomplish was Reading and Math. However, David and Suzy both had Health class, too! :-)

I wanted to post about a moment that gladdened my heart! I signed out a couple of easy reader books at the library the other day. You know the kind - Mat the Rat sat on a cat.... Anyway, I knew James could read them, but I just put them on the library shelf with the other books, instead of pointing them out and calling them "school". That was last week sometime.

So, today, he brings me one of them and announced proudly "I can read this whole book!" He was SO pleased! I would not have taken away that moment for anything.

He loves the Explode the Code workbook I got for him at the conference - it is book 2, which adds blends and digraphs to short vowel words. He is really on his way to reading well! I am so pleased that I waited until HE was ready and excited about learning to read. We have not had any problems at all about it; he has enjoyed it from Day One.

Alphabet Island Phonics

I used Alphabet Island Phonics to teach Emily to read and it worked very well. Now it is entirely possible that Emily would have learned to read easily with ANY program. I didn't discover this program until David had tried A Beka phonics, Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, and probably some other things that have thankfully faded into the depths of my memory. David had a much harder time learning to read than Emily did, but I have a feeling that is just their different learning styles and not the curriculum. HOWEVER, I was very pleased with Alphabet Island Phonics and plan to use it with James and Suzy.


Eagles Wings Products - Alphabet Island Phonics

I am going to start using Alphabet Island Level 1 with James next week. He is 5-3/4. We will start with the kindergarten level curriculum, even though he is going into "first grade". There are 2 sections in the first level.

Each lesson is supposed to take 15 minutes, but in my experience with Emily, they took longer. Songs, games, stories, and more are all included to make the phonics rules memorable. There are workbook pages too to reinforce the concepts, and since we are doing phonics and it is important to see the letters and to write them, I will likely have him do all of the workbook.

Depending on how quickly he picks it up, we may supplement with Phonics Pathways and the Pyramid book that goes along with it. If he needs more practice, I will add those in.

Looking forward to introducing James to the world of reading!