Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Help with reading and writing problems

DD7 has struggled with reading and writing since K. I was on here asking advice about a possible grade repeat at the end of year K. We chose to keep her going as reading and writing were the only issues, and she could conceptually keep up. We are now halfway through year 2, and she is still finding reading and writing/spelling challenging. We had an assessment with a speech pathologist this year, and she agreed there is a gap between her potential and her ability, and she has started weekly speech therapy sessions. The problem is she does not like the therapy, and today I had pencil throwing refusal to do the homework for it. I am not sure what is best to do. She has tried really hard over the last couple years, and she has been making progress, albeit slow. She is now attending a multilit program 3 mornings a week at school that also targets her reading. She is happy to go to that, and it does not involve homework. I don't want her to be doing homework she really dislikes when she does try hard at school all week. I don't want her to hate reading and writing, but I also want to ensure that she is getting the support she needs so that her literacy skills don't interfere with her learning. So I am wondering if this is a time to push and try to get her through the speech homework, or if the support she is getting through the school is enough and I should back off on the speech. When she was in K we worked through the ABC reading eggs program at home, and the explicit phonological instruction in that really helped her along. We have done some Literacy Planet this year, and that is helping her too. I am wondering if working through a program like that which she does get a bit bored of, but is willing to work through with me would be better than trying to push her through something she is actively resisting.

She resists writing more than reading, I think mostly because she finds spelling so hard.

What have others with dyslexia or reading challenges found to be most effective?

I hope this is somewhat coherent. I am tired and a bit stressed with the uncertainty of how best to proceed.

Can you look into the interventions being used, and make sure they are the right interventions for her, being used the right way/ frequently enough, and have a good evidence base?

Our district is big on using all sorts of reading interventions that range from unproven to proven useless, saving the one proven Orton-Gillingham-based intervention for "extreme cases" (and only after they've tried and failed with everything else). The result is a lot of kids put in a lot of hours doing work they are told will fix the problem but doesn't. The child feels even more stupid and useless than ever, and tends to absorb the message that this failure is their fault. It's really, really hard on the kids.

What was life-changing for DD was starting a proper O-G program (we used All about Reading/ All about Spelling, at home). Using a properly-structured program meant that every day when she had to read, she had already been explicitly taught everything she needed to know to read what was in front of her. She was never given a task she hadn't yet been taught how to handle.

That was massive. She stopped being "stupid" - and frustrated and angry - and started to be able to realize she was competent. Eventually, even confident. Able to say, "I am totally capable of learning, as long as you teach me the way I need to learn."

Which isn't to say it wasn't a long and excruciating process. "Gifted" plus "explicit and repetitive teaching" is not a fun combo. But while she always resisted the core lessons, more and more she would ask if she could read more to me from the books that come with the program. What a huge change from the knock-down-drag-'em-out battles we used to have about her nightly school reading!

So all that to say, our experience is that remediation (any kind) isn't fun. Really, really not fun. But if you've got the right kind of remediation happening, the actual function being remediated - like reading - should be getting easier and more appealing, even if the repetitive remediation itself is not.

Yes.

I would agree with both PPs. Typical speech language intervention, especially at this age, does not involve pencil and paper. An effective reading/spelling intervention (and there are really only two effective evidence-based decoding/encoding approaches, including variations: OG and LMB) does not have to require writing. Even for spelling. One of the beauties of AAS for spelling is that you can use only the magnet tiles to practice spelling, if you need to, which reduces the fine motor demands substantially, while helping with visual reinforcement of the phoneme-grapheme combinations.

And likewise, the DC for which I used AAS still doesn't love writing, but did go from refusing to do any whatsoever, to completing short answers independently, and even multi-paragraph writing with support (mostly of the motivational kind, these days). And from reading only under duress, to some grade-level pleasure reading. Mine is a little older than yours, but was about that age when we started AAS.

Ditto to everything above, especially the quote above from Platypus.

I also took a quick look back at a few previous posts, and I'm wondering - did your DD have a diagnosis of Developmental Coordination Disorder? If she did, even if she's been through OT work for handwriting, part of the issue with the writing and throwing pencils etc *might* be the DCD. Our ds has DCD, and even though we had him go through handwriting for OT when he was first diagnosed, and the OT worked well to give him legible handwriting but handwriting was still incredibly frustrating and challenging. He began using scribing and keyboarding in school the year he was diagnosed and that made a huge difference.

I'll also add that personality can come into play too - both in how a child feels about having a challenge and how they feel about working on remediation and using accommodations. We have two 2e children, and while both have had to deal with frustrating challenges, the way in which our dd deals with frustration made her challenge a whole level deeper in terms of figuring out how to help with remediation and accommodations. For both of our children, we've had to do a lot of thinking through how to deal with the 2nd e looking through the filter of their own personalities. Hope that makes sense.

Best wishes,

polarbear

ps - forgot to add, my dd has a reading challenge and has been through LMB-based remediation. I don't think she ever did *anything* in writing with her reading/spelling tutor.

pps - also wanted to add - no matter how much remediation etc, some things might always be challenging for our 2e kids. My dd has made huge strides with reading and spelling, but spelling will most likely always be difficult for her. She also, in spite of all the gains she's made with reading, takes in information much better via listening. DS began keyboarding and never looked back re handwriting. He's made huge strides in written composition but writing will never be something he enjoys.

ppps - Getting through those early years of remediation was tough but also so very very important. When we were in the thick of early remediation with ds it was difficult to ever see the progress he'd made because it was all such a continuing struggle to work through things that were tough for him. His SLP made a suggestion that we have him repeat one specific type of exercise every 4-6 months so that we all (ds and parents and SLP) could see how far he'd really come. Even ds found that to be encouraging.

Thanks for the responses. I have contacted the SLP to let her know that the homework is not going down too well at the moment. It is the last week of term, so I will let DD have a break this week and then she has 3 weeks off to rest.

I like the look of the AAS program. I am guessing it is based on American pronunciation and spelling? Would it work with Australian English? or does anyone know of a similar program for Australian English?

polarbear, yes DD did have a DCD diagnosis. Not sure where that stands now. She does OT still, and she really likes doing it, and is fine with the homework mostly, although there is some writing work going on there too to develop her text construction skills. Her handwriting is pretty good now, but it's definitely possible that motor skills as well as spelling are making it strenuous for her.

On the upside, she is finally discovering a love of reading to herself. She has always loved being read to, and listening to audiobooks. But the last couple weeks she has started reading during her quiet time before bed, and saturday I actually decided to let her stay up a bit late because she was enjoying a book, and I told her she could have 20 more minutes until lights out. She said, 'please come down and tell me when I have to go to sleep because I am too engrossed in this story to notice the time'.

She also started writing a story this week. She is okay with the fact that she has to interpret some of the words for me because of the spelling. She was proud of the story. So she seems to be okay writing if it is self initiated. Although not for too long at a time.

I poked around the web a bit, and could not easily find a pencil/paper home OG program similar to AAR/AAS. I did, however, find Nessy (www.nessy.com), which is a gamified online OG reading/spelling intervention developed in the UK. Reviews by users of both Nessy and AAR describe them as very similar in fundamental approach (other than the game elements, obviously), as one would expect from two OG-derived curricula.
From what I can glean, you can set it to British or American spelling/pronunciation, which suggests that it might work for Australia. At least it may be better than an American curriculum. The specific subscription product:

https://www.nessy.com/uk/product/nessy-reading-spelling/

Thanks aeh, I really appreciate you taking the time to look at programs. I will check out the nessy. Yes British English will definitely be better for the spelling. I see they have a 7 day free trial, so I think I will try that with DD over the school holidays and see if it seems like a good match for her.