I’ve been meaning to write this post for ages. A couple years back while lamenting my oldest daughter’s inability to process words phonetically, I commented how my next oldest kiddo was also struggling with reading — but it was because she wouldn’t put in the effort. She was (is) light years ahead in math to her reading. Whereas at her age, I was devouring massive novels by 3rd grade (later earning my BA in Creative Writing and now geeking out about teaching my kids all-things literary). So, like, what’s the deal Mary? I chalked up her hesitancy with reading to boredom and my pushiness to get going already.
Turns out dyslexia runs in our family on both sides.
Turns out reading makes her eyes tired and words move around when she looks too hard (though there’s nothing physically wrong with them).
Turns out one in five kids has dyslexia.
Turns out Mary likely suffers from visual dyslexia (whereas Josie’s dyslexia stems from problems in phonological awareness. Mary has trouble reading music. Josie does not at all. Josie has trouble rhyming words, and Mary does not. How can two kids in the same family present with reading struggles so differently, so much so, that I didn’t even recognize it after seeing it firsthand?).
Turns out our challenge had not been an effort problem, a lack of interest or a result of my personal inadequacies. Our challenge is dyslexia.
All that to say, it has been a very uphill climb. Reading struggles cause ripple effects over everything we do: including but not limited to an inability to do self-guided task cards, research, spell and write independently, and pick up a book for school or pleasure.
Frustrating.
Over the years, I have tried a plethora of programs and products starting with all the usual boxed curriculums and mainstream phonics sites online. I’d email the creators and ask for more direction and when I got a response it was generally “try the preschool version / set, and if that doesn’t work, wait a bit.” Starfall. All About Reading. I bought many, many readers from Lakeshore to Bob Books. We read aloud ad nauseam. We listened to audiobooks for an hour or more every day. We did Snap Words, Heidi Songs and Teachers Pay Teachers worksheets. Cut and paste phonics books from Amazon, Leapfrog DVDs and Hooked on Phonics. I visited a reading clinic at our local university.
I spent weeks intently trying to hunt down a tutoring program locally then remotely. Because my oldest daughter has the trifecta of reading challenges (dyslexia, mild ID and severe articulation errors) no one even wanted to take us on. Not kidding. I got a range of, “I’d feel badly taking your money when it’s probably not going to make a difference” to being told we could always take out a loan to afford the tutoring program ($$$$) but “no guarantees that any progress will be made.” Barton told us through email to try Lindamood Bell. LIPS looks good but was just too expensive to gamble on based on the feedback I’d been getting already. Seriously that’s 5 days of tutoring, minimum of four hours each day, to the tune of $2,340 per week.
Mostly though programs “weren’t appropriate” or “designed” to help my kid.
After going through all of this with Josie and giving up on finding help via a real person, I immersed myself in dyslexia research, special needs books, guides, and methods from Montessori, Muriel Dwyer to Orton Gillingham — plus much in between. I’m far from an expert. I’m just one mom sorting through the resources I can get my hands on. I do feel like I have a good footing though in this extremely variable realm.
All of that said — here is what is working for us right now. I can’t say that these programs will work for every kid with dyslexia, but I can say we have had moderate success and improvement with the following programs. Not only do my kids enjoy these activities and have stuck with them happily for a couple of years (at least 2-3 days a week, sometimes 5-6 days a week — 30 min to an hour per day), but these activities integrate beautifully. They are self-directed, multisensory, systematic and have a control of error.
What it all boils down to are the following products: I am a big fan of Waseca Biomes’ Reading Program, their leveled readers, Lexia Learning Core 5, Heidi Songs and Language Works.
Check back here for more tomorrow (Tues). Post is long and baby just woke up. 🙂 I’ll write a detailed report of what I love about each of these mentioned above and how they work. For now here’s a photo dump mainly of Waseca Reading!
