Tag: reading instruction

Brenda’s Story

Brenda’s Story

by thecindyleafhall ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Imagine a child so reluctant to write that she lays her pencil down between each word.  That child was Brenda on her first day in my fifth-grade small group. We had opened the first day of a new small group by talking about how the students felt about reading, spelling, and writing – the areas which tend to give students with dyslexia the most difficulty.  Brenda quietly let us know she liked reading, and could work on spelling, but strongly disliked writing. Brenda arrived at this dislike of writing in what is, unfortunately, the usual way.  

Her mom began noticing that Brenda had some differences in her reading compared with the older children in the family when Brenda began completing assigned reading homework in first grade.  When they read together, Brenda tended to either skip over or greatly struggle with common, high-frequency words which other children her age read with ease. If there were questions to answer about the passage, Brenda would have no idea how to answer – as if she had not listened to herself reading.  Spelling in the early years was a complete mystery to Brenda. She simply didn’t make the connection between the letters and the sounds they represented. Brenda and her mom spent a great deal of time studying and working on word lists for upcoming spelling tests only to have Brenda perform very poorly on test day.  

Being a proactive mom, Mrs. C researched possible reasons for the language struggles and took Brenda to be tested for dyslexia at the end of Brenda’s second-grade year.  The test results found that Brenda was identified with characteristics of a person with dyslexia.  Feeling she had found her answer, Mrs. C. pulled Brenda out of XYZ, the private church school she had been attending, and intended to homeschool her.  A plan for teaching Brenda to read using phonics was recommended, so Mrs. C. purchased a popular book on how parents can teach their children to read in just over three months’ time.  She had successfully homeschooled her older children, so felt prepared for the task of teaching Brenda to read.  

Brenda did not share her mom’s enthusiasm for their homeschooling endeavors.  Mrs. C. recalls how Brenda would hide the reading manual, causing time to be spent searching the house for the book so lessons could begin.  Clever even at a very young age, Brenda would find unique caches for the book every day.  Mrs. C. recalls being confused that a child bright enough to search out new hiding places couldn’t simply sit down and learn the lessons the book promised would teach her to read! 

Two years invested in homeschooling efforts had yielded a closeness between mother and daughter (as well as an intimate knowledge of all possible hidey-holes in the house!) but had not resulted in Brenda reading and spelling on grade level.  Writing had now joined the list of challenges and became Brenda’s nemesis. 

Brenda’s folks came to me at the Dyslexia Center at the end of Brenda’s fourth-grade year, looking for a different way to approach Brenda’s language instruction.  They enrolled Brenda in small group and tutoring, planning to start at the beginning of fifth grade.  

At ABC, Brenda responded positively to the open and frank discussion of dyslexia that was part of the school culture.  She seemed relieved to put a name to her struggles with language and was happy to know there was an approach to learning that would be successful for her.  One of the specific things Brenda mentioned that encouraged her was the rotating classroom display of accomplished and famous dyslexic people.  Brenda applied herself to learning and understanding the Orton-Gillingham approach lessons presented to her.  Her tutor recalls Brenda being a very hard worker who seemed relieved to learn the generalizations and logic that are hallmarks of the O-G approach. 

After completing her fifth-grade year, Brenda had made a lot of progress. She had learned to make a brainstorm box to write down key ideas she wanted to include in her writing so that creating content was separated from remembering the mechanics and spelling rules that govern writing. Even though she was not finished the program, Brenda felt she had been given the tools she needed to succeed.  She longed to return to XYZ, the school she had attended in first and second grade, feeling her closest friends were there.  Her parents enrolled her in XYZ and arranged for a private O-G trained tutor to come to the school and give Brenda tutoring lessons multiple times per week. The plan felt sound, but it was not a success. 

Brenda was dismayed to realize school XYZ did not have a culture friendly to dyslexic students. She worked extraordinarily hard to earn average grades, but her teacher did not pick up on the fact she was not thriving.  She was not allowed accommodations in the classroom, and the girls she was longing to reconnect with mocked and ridiculed her need for tutoring.  Brenda’s tutoring lessons fell during the classroom math lesson, and the teacher did not alter the schedule. Unsurprisingly, Brenda soon added math to the list of subjects in which she was flagging. Realizing the failure of school XYZ to meet Brenda’s needs, her mom chose to move Brenda back to ABC for her seventh-grade year.  

Having spent a year away from the support system and understanding culture offered by ABC, Brenda now realized what a gift that support and understanding were.  She felt bolstered by the school culture surrounded by students and teachers who understood dyslexia, at least to some degree, and where everyone accepted her. Once again, Brenda had the environment she needed to succeed.  Accommodations prevented Brenda from getting bogged down and behind.  Class notes that were provided to her by each teacher freed Brenda from the burden of trying to listen to the lecture and write the notes at the same time.  She was now able to focus on what the teacher was saying, and her grades and level of understanding soared.  Brenda was able to take advantage of writing tutoring that could be scheduled during her study period, provided by an English teacher who was O-G trained.  Brenda’s family was exposed to continuing education about dyslexia for families.  This gave the entire family a better understanding of dyslexia and how it was impacting Brenda. 

Brenda graduated from ABC as an honors student and a proud member of the school volleyball team. Brenda’s natural willingness to try new things ripened into confidence, even when success in those new endeavors was not guaranteed.  Brenda is now at a small private college studying nursing, and her grades put her on the Dean’s List.  One day, Brenda’s picture could join that rotating display of accomplished dyslexic individuals.  

Brenda’s mom offers some advice to moms of children who exhibit signs of a reading struggle.

  • Know the signs of dyslexia.  
  • Know that frequently a series of small and seemingly unrelated struggles cumulatively point to dyslexia.
  • Get your child tested and start O-G tutoring as young as possible. 
  • Listen to your “mom radar” when things don’t seem to add up in a way that explains your child’s school struggles.
  • Find a school with a culture of acceptance of children who learn differently. 
  • Allow your child to participate in extracurricular activities that interest them – it can’t be ALL about studying. 
  • Know that you can petition for extra time on college entrance exams and that it can make a huge difference to have that extra time. 
  • Encourage your child to ask for and accept help rather than struggle. 
  • Encourage your college-aged child to register for accommodations at university – even if s/he does not plan to use them.  
Teacher Created Materials: Vocabulary Flap Cards

Teacher Created Materials: Vocabulary Flap Cards

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There is a certain modest pleasure in being able to create exactly the items your students need. I love a good Teacher Pay Teacher download as much as the next person, but let’s face it, you have to put a whole lot of printing and prepping into those items too! I want to share with you some of the simple but super effective materials for helping individuals with dyslexia. You probably already have 95% of the materials, and if you have 5 minutes and a sharpie pen, you can make these items.

Vocabulary Flap Cards are so awesome, because they address a fundamental but over looked deficit among older dyslexic learners. The students are not reading the hard words. They just aren’t. You as the teacher need to help bridge that gap, and vocabulary flap cards will do just that.

The ideal users of vocabulary flap cards are students advanced enough to have multisyllabic words as part of their texts or assessments. Probably grades 4 and up are the target audience for this method.

Here are the step-by-step directions with pictures! It will take you longer to read the directions than to make one, I promise you.

Start with a 3×5 card, and fold it lengthwise with the lines inside.

Write vocabulary word large inside the card, slightly separating the syllables. 

Cut through the top layer, creating syllable flaps student can raise to read the word by syllables.

On the front top, write the verbatim definition you will use on the test. 

The student reads the long, difficult word by syllable, with assistance at first, and has the definition on the front pointed out to him or her so that extra layer of learning is understood. The student can then practice reading the difficult words and linking them with the definition. It is very helpful to your dyslexic student if you use the verbatim definition as it will appear on the test, since students with dyslexia are not very good at rephrasing under pressure.

Let me know if you use this method, and if it works for your students! The beauty of it is not needing to make a card for every single word in the chapter, just the ones that are difficult for that particular student!

Orton-Gillingham method explained

Orton-Gillingham method explained

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Orton-Gillingham lesson explained

In this very easy to read article, Susan Barton explains the Orton-Gillingham method for tutoring dyslexic individuals as well as explaining which brands of tutoring materials are based on the O-G method.  As with all of Mrs. Barton’s articles, get the information, but remember that she is ultimately selling her program.  Just read with that in mind.

E-readers may boost comprehension for some dyslexic people

E-readers may boost comprehension for some dyslexic people

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With the popularity of e-readers, research is beginning to be done to see if this platform is a better one for our dyslexic learners.  The link above leads to an article about research done by the Smithsonian of this important topic.  It certainly is good to think about!

E-Reader article

Blossoming under the Right Conditions

Blossoming under the Right Conditions

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The Christmas cactus in my Dyslexia Center classroom is giving quite the show of blossoms already this holiday season.  I smile as I see it proudly flying its Christmas flags, though the calendar says Veteran’s Day was just Monday.  It took some doing to get this plant to flower.  It needed the right combination of conditions to put on the show it was holding inside.  Equal parts light and dark, limited water, a summer at home on my porch then into the classroom just as frosts begin outside.  The resulting blossoms make the efforts seem very worthwhile, and I am glad I took time to understand which conditions this plant needed to thrive.

Dyslexic students are a lot like my plant. They have such potential for enriching the lives of those around them, if only they are given the right conditions.  I love coaxing the confidence out of them, helping them try to sound out words, try to understand that the silent e at the end of the word is changing the vowel sound, try to remember that cursive f has loops above and below the line.

The sunshine of praise goes a long way toward helping a dyslexic student have the confidence to try.  Celebrating even small successes will help create an environment where it is safe to continue trying.

The soil of a program of teaching that is scientifically based, sequential and given with enough intensity allows students’ roots to anchor in something solid enough to hold and sustain growth is also key.  We use the Orton-Gillingham method for both small groups and tutoring.  It is a proven method that fills the gaps in student learning providing a solid soil for growth.

Fertilizer is an important key to plant blossoms.  In my classroom, I think the support fellow dyslexic students give provides the needed boost for others to feel accepted and comfortable enough to blossom.  Our success would not be nearly as high without this key element of peer support.

With the right conditions, dyslexic students can and do thrive.  I love seeing the buds of understanding appear.  Nurtured with teaching and fun ways to reinforce learning, the flowers of confidence and understanding burst forth, enriching the lives of all who see and rejoice in the transformation of lives.

Ideas on how to choose a book of the right level.

Ideas on how to choose a book of the right level.

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It is summer.  That means time to hit the bookstore, to sign up for summer reading at your public library, to soak up the pleasure of reading a book cover to cover in one or two days.  But, that means picking books at the right level of difficulty, or reading becomes frustrating or boring.  The article above has some great thoughts on how to pick the right book, and how to teach your child to pick the right one.  It’s worth the effort! choosing the right level book  Choosing the right level book

The Best Method for Helping Dyslexic Learners!

The Best Method for Helping Dyslexic Learners!

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Use what works best!

When we do laundry, we pick the detergent or stain remover that experience has shown us works the best on the mess we are dealing with at the moment. Dingy whites?  Use bleach. Ink pen marks?  Spritz on hairspray.  Grass stains?  Rub in Fels Naphta bar soap. We use the best tool for the job, and like the results we get.

Teaching children to read is similar to laundry stains in that there are a variety of learning differences to address. In the same way you would not expect good results from pouring bleach on the knees of grass stained blue jeans, you cannot take a dyslexic child to a traditional store-front tutoring center and expect his or her dyslexia to improve. Different challenges need different teaching methods. Tutoring centers are great for some reading problems, and may have helped your neighbor’s non-dyslexic child, but will not help your dyslexic reader. There is no one single solution for all reading problems. Dyslexia responds best to specific methods.

Brain rewiring

I have written previously in this blog about the amazing way that brains can be rewired.  New brain research shows us more about the brain all the time. Dyslexia is a brain wiring issue, and using a method of teaching which addresses these issues makes sense – and works great!

Orton-Gillingham Method

The best method for teaching a dyslexic child (or adult!) to read is called the Orton-Gillingham method. I have mentioned it before in blog entires, and you can google it and read about it for a whole weekend.

What makes the O-G method work?

The O-G method addresses reading and spelling as what they are – opposite sides of the same coin.  Dyslexic individuals struggle with both reading and spelling, so this approach really works for them.  Each phoneme (smallest sound of language) is taught individually, in a prescribed order.  Practice starts with phonemes, moves to words, then sentences and passages to read.  The spelling side progresses in the same way – how each sound can be spelled, how words are spelled and then sentences are written.

Syllables and Spelling Generalizations

The O-G method uses a lot of hands-on practice methods which can be crazy fun for both the teacher and the student.  Syllable types are learned along with their characteristics so long words can easily be diced into manageable pieces with predictable vowel sounds. Finger sounding keeps the sounds in order as the student works out a word.

Traditional school teaches spelling by memorizing lists of words for Friday spelling tests.  This works great for kids who are not dyslexic.  It is a lot of frustration for dyslexic kids, and does not teach them to permanently spell the list words anyway.  The O-G method teaches spelling by learning spelling generalizations.  These simple rules provide a framework for spelling many, many words, and keep the child from the agony of trying to memorize spelling words that just won’t stick.

An example of a spelling generalization would be to spell the /ch/ sound with a tch at the end of a word or syllable right after a short vowel.  Everywhere else, spell /ch/ with a ch.  You are thinking about words with tch at the end right now, aren’t you? And the generalization is surprisingly accurate, isn’t it?  For dyslexic students, it is almost magically easy.

Testing results show – this method works!

There are lots of reasons to shop for an Orton-Gillingham based tutor or program if you are looking for help for your dyslexic student. We are in the midst of our end-of-semester progress testing with the students in our Dyslexia Center. Results are showing astounding progress in our students this semester. The bottom line reason to use O-G is because it is the right solution for this problem.  Just like bleach for dingy whites.

Dancing Brains

Dancing Brains

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Valentine’s Day dinner out put my husband and I at a table with a front row seat to the kitchen of our local Macaroni Grill.  Although it was an incredibly busy night, they seemed smooth, efficient and unmoved by the avalanche of orders they were asked to fill. As we observed the kitchen, we could see there was a method to the meal prep that prevented chaos and kept the correct meals coming out of the kitchen with the regularity of doughnuts dropping out of the chute at Krispy Kreme.

An expediter stood at his command post across a gleaming stainless steel counter from the chefs, feeding one order at a time to each of the half dozen chefs.  Chefs  concentrated on making one dish at a time, allowing the perfect meals to roll out. Plates passed hands for added garnishes, spills wiped from edges and meals grouped together by table, ready to be delivered by a runner. Each job done with incredible efficiency and concentration in the kitchen resulted in wonderful experiences for those of us in the dining room.

The Brain’s Reading Dance

That seamless Macaroni Grill kitchen made me think of what goes on in brains as reading takes place. I have already admitted to my teacher geekiness, so this mental leap of mine should not come as a surprise.

*DISCLAIMER*  I am not a brain researcher, and my version of the brain dance reflects my understanding of what I read from acutal researchers about what happens in the brain during the millisecond between the time our eyes view a word and our mouth pronounces it. It is amazing to me, but don’t site me as a source on your next research paper.

In the brain, the expediter is called Executive Function. He assigns tasks to brain centers based on what needs to be done.  New word?  Send it off to be decoded. Familiar word?  Long-term memory will quickly bring up the link between those letters and the word with its meaning.  Has this word been introduced recently, but is not yet stored in long-term memory?  Send to short-term memory.  Other brain centers put the words together in the sentence, assign meaning to the words and sentence, and decide on the correct vocal inflection based on that meaning. Speech centers serve as the runner, delivering the sentence or passage to be read.

So What Happens in a Dyslexic Brain During Reading?

Dyslexia is characterized by brain wiring gone wrong.  In the dyslexic brain, the messages from executive function may go missing before they are carried out because the work is not done in the most efficient manner.

Go back to the kitchen analogy and imagine one poor chef who has his work station behind the swinging door that hides the dishwashing area and the food pantry.  He comes to the front to get his orders, gathers his ingredients, then rushes back to the nether regions of the kitchen to assemble his assigned meal.  Along the way, he is asked to hold a tray of silverware for the dishwasher, has to thread his way past someone restocking the pantry shelves, and must unpile a stack of plates from his workspace before he can begin his task.  He realizes he left one ingredient on the silverware station when he stopped to help out there, and spilled a little bit of another ingredient as he avoided the boxes being unloaded near the pantry.  After he reassembles all his ingredients, he is not sure if this order called for extra sauce or no sauce.  Heading back to check on that, he begins to feel anxious, knowing the other 4 plates of food which accompany the order he is working on are probably finished and cooling at the runner’s counter.  The anxiety causes him to be clumsy, and a crash and clatter signal the result of his latest disaster. The dish is reassigned to another chef, and our former chef now manages mop duty.

The dyslexic brain can be as inefficient in the language areas as the chef from our story.   Information gets lost, activity is too far apart to be efficient, too much time passes and the job is not successfully completed – resulting in uncompleted tasks.

Can a Dyslexic Brain Learn the Reading Dance?

Proven methods are available to teach a dyslexic person to read and spell better.  They are reliant on retraining the brain, creating new pathways between the language centers in the brain, which tend to be scattered for a dyslexic person.  Orton-Gillingham is the method we use, and is considered the gold standard for dyslexia instruction.  It combines kinesthetic methods, prescriptive and diagnostic teaching that targets what each individual student needs, and sequentially layers knowledge on knowledge.  The younger the student, the better the result from remediation.

Rather quickly, teachers, parents and the students themselves see the improvement, as the steps solidify and the reading dance begins, growing more sure and steady with each lesson.

Jeremy, the Jeep Guy

Jeremy, the Jeep Guy

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Jeremy came to my private tutoring practice through the friend of a friend. Two moms were chatting at a baseball game. One mom was telling how her dyslexic son was now able to read better after starting with me and the Orton-Gillingham method; the other mom was telling how her teen-aged son had just told her he could not read and had been faking all these years. Faced with college coming up soon, he was ready and motivated to learn to read. After hearing how one boy had improved through tutoring, Jeremy’s mom called me, got Jeremy tested for dyslexia and we began tutoring.

Jeremy walked in my door ready to learn. He arrived at his sophomore year of high school getting by on charm and the help of a lot of cheerleaders. He was a star athlete at his school, and a lot of books had been read to him by friends and fans. But now colleges were beginning to make noises about athletic scholarships, and he knew he had to learn to read on his own and stop relying on the help of his network of groupies.

In our first session we did an evaluation, part of which was Jeremy reading the back cover of his summer reading book. He stumbled and stammered through the text, and I could tell it was an embarrassing experience for him. Then I asked him what the book was going to be about. His look of incredulity was priceless. I might have just as well  asked him to turn straw into gold. He had no idea what the words he had just labored to read actually said. Our work was laid out for us.

Never having tutored a student this old, I went with my instinct and began at the beginning. Jeremy, like most dyslexic people, had a lot of language information in his mind, but it was not readily available enough to be useful. Our first task was to help him learn that information well enough for it to be called up at will.

Multiple repetitions of material to be mastered are a key for people with weak memory for language. During tutoring lessons, we create a drill ring of small flashcards with material presented but not yet mastered. The student is to go through these cards daily with a parent or adult. In the summer, it takes a mighty well stocked prize box to coax a reluctant reader through phonics practice. Jeremy’s motivation was more tantalizing than prizes. He was thinking of his own future, knowing it was pretty grim unless his reading improved greatly.

Calling on the same self discipline that made him great at sports, Jeremy gave himself to mastering every card in his drill ring. I could see him sitting in his Jeep in front of my house 30 minutes before his lesson started, baking in the hot Alabama summer sun, and flipping through memory cards. He knew what it took to succeed, and was prepared to do it.

The work paid off. As the lessons built his skills, Jeremy could tell his reading was improving. By the end of the summer, he was daring to hope the dream of self-reliance in his school subjects would be a reality. That fall we moved lessons to his school library, and the intensity ratcheted up. He thrived on it. Teachers began to comment on the change they saw in his school performance. His mom was thrilled. His efforts redoubled.

One cold, rainy, winter afternoon I passed him a gift to commemorate a milestone that seemed a distant dream six short months before. It was a signed copy of the first book he had ever read cover to cover all on his own. The author had kindly inscribed a sentiment appropriate for the occasion. “Let this be the first of many steps in a long and successful life of reading.”

Jeremy is now a junior in college, preparing for a career as a physical therapist. On his college bookshelf sits the autographed book, a beacon of hope and a testament to the value of the right path, and determination to reach the reward at the end of the road.

Irregular word practice technique

Irregular word practice technique

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A student traces a word card for “they.” The word is written in glitter glue, which makes a scratchy, interesting surface to trace over. (Once it hardens overnight.  Hide the cards until they get really set!) Tracing, saying the letters aloud as one traces, and then sweeping a finger under the whole word as it is said orally is a multi-sensory way to glue those sight words into the brain.