How hard to push?

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DS8 is in a non-public school specifically for kids with Aspergers. They are doing a fantastic job with the social, emotional, and behavioral aspects, better than I could if we chose to homeschool, but I have concerns about the academics. DS is finishing up second grade, and is reading at an early to mid-first grade level. His triannual IEP testing showed he would qualify for a "specific learning disability in reading" if he didn't already have the other diagnoses. Back in September, he had vision testing that found major issues in visual processing, resulting in mild dyslexia. I pushed for further testing on the auditory side, but found he was in the average to superior range on all the phonological testing (classic dyslexics have major impairment in this area.)

I made a lot of comments about being worried about his reading program (previously they weren't even teaching reading every day, and his teacher was using an eclectic make it up as you go approach) and getting the testing done. I'll never know if I was the reason, but the school did hire a dyslexia consultant to train the teacher and aides in the Sonday System, a dyslexia curriculum that is Orrington-Gilliam based. It's basically multi-sensory heavy phonics and spelling that is very scripted and requires mastery before moving on to the next lesson. The teacher is doing it 3 times a week, and focusing on reading comprehension the other two. (The Sonday website says you should finish the first 26 levels before focusing on comprehension, DS is on level 15.)

DS is paired for reading with his best friend H, who is 3 months older and technically in the third grade. H also has dyslexia and vision issues, and has done vision therapy with only moderate results. H's father said the vision therapy homework was like bootcamp and was taking away his childhood. DS begs me not to send him to vision therapy based on what he hears from his friend.

I'm thinking about purchasing Sonday System, and working with DS myself over the summer. I've looked at the sample lessons and am sure I can do as well as his current teacher, who had no dyslexia experience prior to a brief training on how to use Sonday. The downside would be that if I am successful at significantly advancing his reading, DS would no longer be paired with his friend in the fall.

If DS were NT or in a mainstream setting, I'd be pursuing major dyslexia tutoring over the summer to close the gap as much as possible. However, he is not facing grade-level academic demands in his current school, so there is less immediate urgency. Middle school is 3 years away, but I worry about whether he is getting a solid foundation for the future.

How hard would you push reading in this situation?

In your situation, I wouldn't push "hard" so much as I would push consistent. I would go ahead and order the Sonday system and choose some level that you think you can handle doing it consistently with your son. If it is very simple and easy, add a little more ("one tablespoon at a time until it's the right consistency" - I am sorry for that, I couldn't figure out how to make it clearer. I hope it still makes sense.)

Are there any other vision therapy places nearby? I understand your son's desire to not have to do something horrible, but if it's important--it's important. If you do decide to do vision therapy, you can always drop everything else so he won't be so taxed.





On a personal basis, as a parent I tend to push reading fairly hard. But my family situation is different than yours. It's important that my kids can read so that I can communicate with them.

I would push reading hard but not crazy hard. Because there are many flavors of dyslexia, like autism. If you're wired to be dyslexic, you're going to be dyslexic. My goal for my dyslexic child as for my child with AS, is learning and growing. Not catching up with peers. My dyslexic child will always read slower than average, that's the way she's wired. And she isn't classically dyslexic in every way, but she is dyslexic and it would be a mistake to pretend otherwise.

I think working with him is a good idea, but I don't know that I would really push "hard." You have some time, I think; most kids don't become reading fluent until 3rd grade, so it doesn't feel like you are in crisis mode yet.

I am curious how your son feels about reading. Does he like it? Does he like books if you read them to him? Is any part of him eager to be able to gather all the information that will be accessible to him when he can read for himself? All these things factor in towards deciding how to approach it.

I don't want to speak to your particular situation because it's not like anything we're up against, but I will say this: I make DS do homework all summer long. We have a different subject every weekday, and he has to work on it for 15 minutes (plus reading time, which isn't a problem for him as long as it's structured.)

I think this would be good for any kid, but particularly kids on the spectrum - my idea was not to produce gains, but to keep his skills up and to try different approaches to see what works. For instance, we've tried a different method for multiplication tables each summer, and finally figured out that DS can learn them using worksheets of the entire multiplication table with a few facts blanked out (actually, for those of you in the same boat, we found an online drill of this at the UK site Skillswise.com)

So, my (non-professional) suggestion would be this: instead of making your goal "closing the gap," look at the summer as an opportunity for you to structure some learning time into your day, keep up his current skill level, and to experiment a bit to figure out how your son's needs are best met in terms of managing his dyslexia - then you can go back to the school with evidence that a particular system works.

I would push hard, because reading is so important, and at nonprofit for LFA kids, they push hard on reading and comprehension, so it makes no sense to me not to push hard for HFA kids too.

I suggest that you work with your son this summer or get a tutor for reading and perhaps other academics, because it sounds like asperger school is not providing solid academic/cognitive foundation.

What are your son's deficits in visual processing? What tests did they do and what are his results?

One thing to consider is that typically kids with a specific reading disability HATE to read. If he has he will need more drilling with a structured multisensory program at his age. As well as emotional support. Just like it hurts me as an Aspie when there's too much noise, and when there is weird social stuff going on, it used to seem almost to hurt my dyslexic daughters brain to read.

Not saying your child has a reading disability, but if he does, things become complicated. You still push, just have to push at his level and be careful not to push catching up if he has a reading disability, push learning at HIS rate or he'll be discouraged.

Does your son process what he hears well? If so and if the school has not, you could probably sign him up for NLS and Bookshare so he can be listening to books in addition to working on reading. It's really beneficial if he is dyslexic, as there's no way he'll read age appropriate material at a reasonable speed. One of the things that confused me was that you can actually be taught phonological processing, so good scores can represent not being dyslexic, or can represent good instruction. If it isn't fluent it doesn't work so testing speed and fluency too is important. And if everything goes well, maybe he will catch up. I just know test scores can be misleading taken in isolation. Hopefully your son catches up. It's tough having ASD or dyslexia, both has to be rougher still.

DS has trouble paying attention in school, so I work with him all summer "pre-teaching" for the next year. I try to get him at least mildly familiar with key concepts he'll be encountering, so that even if he doesn't hear everything the teacher says he'll still have a rough idea how to do the work. We usually do one to two hours a day, about four or five days a week. That's about all I can manage as I have to keep re-directing constantly to keep him on-task, and it stresses me out.

During the summer we have a "break" which means special interest stuff. Most of it is academic so it is not so much a break as it giving him more input.

I would be thinking more along the lines of encourage than "push" just b/c pushing to me has certain connotations. Reading is really important to future work, but if you may it fun or special interest oriented, that might help it seem less painful. I don't know anything about the specific program you are using, but if it can be made fun, that would be a bonus. We have hyperlexic reading comp kinds of issues, and so I am planning some fun Mommy/Child snuggle reading time.

Waterfalls, have you found any good online communities (like a WrongPlanet for dyslexia)? I've found lots of info, but no one to talk to. I'm confused about whether or not DS "really" has a reading disability/dyslexia that means he will always read slowly and need audiobook accommodations. There seems to be some advice (like in autism) for early, intensive intervention -- 2 hrs/day 5 days a week -- but I don't think DS could handle that, especially not on top of his current school, and I'm not sure a dyslexia school could handle his behavioral needs.

Rey Complex Figure test, <2%
Test of Visual Perceptual Skills-Combined (scores are percentiles)
Visual Discrimination, 25%
Visual Memory, 16%
Visual Spatial Relationships, 75%
Visual Form Constancy, 5%
Visual Sequential Memory, 75%
Visual Figure Ground, 84%
Visual Closure < 5%

The optometrist also noted problems in convergence, tracking, teaming, changing fixation, and depth perception.



DS likes reading if it is at his level and not too babyish -- which is getting increasingly difficult to find as he gets older. He is starting to try to read incidental things like signs and packages on his own. He's got enough stamina for about 20 minutes of an easy enough comic book (Calvin and Hobbes and Star Wars Clone Wars are a real struggle), but still needs me to sit with him whenever he reads. If we could just boost his ability a bit there's all kinds of mindcraft and video game related stuff online that would be of interest. DH reads Hardee Boys books to him, which he loves.

This summer he's got a 3 week break, then 4 weeks of summer school (short days focusing on social thinking with minimal academics), then 3 weeks visiting family overseas.

So my options seem to be:
-- read with him 30 minutes a day, not using any special curriculum
-- tutor him 30 minutes a day using Sonday System (the same system he uses at school)
-- skip summer school and enroll him in something intensive, 2-4 hr/day 5 days a week

Last edited by zette on 24 May 2014, 8:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I haven't found any online parent communities. Came across a couple for kids, though. I met someone who knew a lot and shared some of what she knew. That helped. If you find something, please let me know.

I knew my child had a reading disability. I just knew. Maybe being confused could be a good thing?

From what I have read, the more structured programs are best for any child who is struggling with reading because they allow the child to learn, where unfiltered exposure to reading is too chaotic and overwhelming. But one has to prioritize. I agree with you, two hours a day of reading instruction seems like more than my child could tolerate.

I think working on this stuff over the summer (assuming the rest of his summer is relatively academics free is a good idea. I would worry a bit about burnout if you're adding extra lessons to an already packed week, but it doesn't seem like that's what's happening. Reading is an important skill and supporting it seems like a good idea to me. I understand your hesitation if it alters his placement in school, hopefully you can make up for the time that he is away from this friend by making play dates and getting them to socialize out of school. I don't think this needs to be a choice between education and social development...although if it was, I would understand being very torn about it.

They sometimes have children's programs where they read with companion dogs and sometimes cats. Don't know if that would help but it might help relieve a tough task. I think one of them is called PALS reading dogs. In Calgary the dogs just come once a week at the local library.

http://pawsaslovingsupport.org/

Push it, but not hard. Like someone else said, consistently. I know it bugs you, but the gap isn't huge, especially considering that he's a young dyslexic Aspie who missed quite a bit of reading instruction. Not saying to ignore it (not at all), but-- The goal of improving his reading will be totally, utterly, and completely wasted if the push is enough to make him hate or resent it.

I have a dear friend who is dyslexic and either an Aspie and extremely adept at logic-ing social interaction, or a schizoid who's learned to like being around people, or something.

He's a strange bird, for sure. But that's beside the point. The point is that he was practically illiterate all the way through grade school (to the point that the fourth grade teacher told his mother he was probably ID, to which his mother responded, "BS").

He learned to read eventually. He reads very slowly, and has to read most things at least twice. He says that dictionaries and phone books are just hellish and refuses to use them.

Today, he is an avid reader, an autodidact, a sales engineer for a firm supplying cooling equipment to data centers, and generally one of the better educated and more intelligent people I know.

My DS is neither dyslexic nor autistic (probably-- IMO it's still pretty easy to confuse Asperger's and ADHD at his age, but I'll take ADHD and run with it). But we have gotten MUCH better results by stressing "Reading is great! Reading is fun! Reading is wonderful!" and "Think about what is on the page. Double check your first impression." MUCH better than the results we were getting stressing performance and stressing performance and stuffing hours of assigned reading down his throat every week and drilling and drilling and drilling. The change in attitude when I turned into NaziMom really screwed him; the change back while it has been slower to bear fruit has been a beautiful thing to participate in.

I don't know jack about teaching dyslexic kids to read-- I might talk to my friend tonight (it's been a few weeks) and I will ask him what he knows. Off hand about kids in general, my first suggestion would be to lovingly and happily promote the idea of reading for information and pleasure (which at this point is probably going to involve as much reading TO him as reading WITH him).

I can think of one other guy you might look up. I don't have the article handy, but one of the lead guys over at Backwoods Home Magazine (runs in my mind it was either John Silvieria or Dave Duffy) had a great article about six months ago on homeschooling dyslexic kids (with the bonus of having been written by a dyslexic ex-kid who grew up to read and write for a living).

I agree. When my nephew(n/t) was a kid he spent his summer and his free time learning to read via pokemon cards(learned math that way too) and video games. We steered him to games that were more role playing and had a lot of text, we made him read it with us. We would talk to him about the stats on the pokemon cards. If you are sneaky, you can get tons of reading him and he will just think it is playing.

You might also want to start your own reading program. A small reward for a small book or chapter and a larger reward for hitting x number of books. Maybe even a big summer goal.

What are his special interests?