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dianne craft's materials – your experience?
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For those who have used or are familiar with Dianne Craft’s materials, could you tell me how they are working (or worked) for you? My husband & I went through “Indenifying Blocked Learning Gates” and our ds is affected in all 4 areas in some way.Right now I am planning to get the Brain Training manual and the Biology of Behavior cd. I am not sure about the reading and phonics program. I gave my son the reading test from her website, and he tested at his grade level…he definatly needs more phonics practice, because I KNOW he is sometimes memorizing words. We just started Phonics Pathways two weeks ago to help in this area. I started looking into Dianne Craft’s materials since he is still reversing letters and numbers.
I haven’t used all her things. I got the CDs to listen to and we have used a lot of the supplemnets she recommends (we skipped some because they weren’t for problems we were dealing with). I foudn the CDs very enjoyable to listen to. Fr the most part we didn’t find the supplements helpful except that we still use the probiotics she recommends (and sells). They seem to help my dd’s eczema and some issues of mine. I think we probably do have some yeast overgrowth type issues in my son which also can cause bahavior problems but I haven’t been overly diligent in eliminating the foods we would need to eliminate to completely deal with it. I will say our issues have mainly been physical and only milder learning or behavior issues with the one son. But I would definitely try her methods.
Nebby
We’re using them with our daughter, that I would say has “slight” blocks, but definitely dyslexic tendencies that I was worried she was compensating for in other ways and would just prefer her to not have to deal with them.
Her reading is improving, though just 7 she is reading quite well, but does still skip those small words (2 and 3 letter) at times. I think you could get by without her expensive reading book, if you bought the picture flash cards – to help your DS remember the sounds the different blends make and then just have him practice reading those word lists from Phonics pathways – that match whatever blend you’re working on. We have the book, but were able to find it used. and it just has the blend at the top of the page with the picture and then lots of lists for practicing it. Many of the blends don’t even have pictures the farther into the book you go, so $60 is a bit hefty pricetag for word lists you already have in phonics pathways.
@Rebekahy – do you use both sets of flash cards, the phonics blends and sight words?
@nebby – thank you! I listened to an overview of the audio cd off her website, many of the ideas I’ve encountered before, so they aren’t compleltely new, but I’ve not done much research into them yet. Glad to know the cd set was nice to listen to, it will be easier for me to listen than research online.
Hi, I have used pretty much everything with Diane’s program. I even purchased all the Merrille Readers to go with it! Our son is now 10 and I started with him over a year ago. He was at a 1st grade reading level and he is now reading at a low 4th grade level. My son is severly dyslexic and was in a treatment center for behavioral issues. I pulled him out because after 13 months he was not getting anywhere. I tried at first to do her whole program to a tee however I had to cut back because it really did become boring and overwhelming. I chose what he benefited from the most. The other thing that God guided us to was our Ocupational Therapist that referred us to a Behavioral Optometrist. I had no idea that an eye Dr really specialized with children and their behaviors. One eye Dr actually put our son in glasses and the specialized Dr said he didn’t need it, he just needed special exercises to work his eyes correctly. We have been doing this program with our OT since Oct. We have seen a huge difference! The other program I recently started with is called Spell to Write and Read. We focused so much on reading and Diane’s program that he started to lack in spelling. I wanted a program that really made since with the English language so a friend of mine recommended it. It is a confusing program at first but if you really read the way the program works it is awesome! In 3 weeks I have him from a 1st grade level of spelling to a high 2nd! I do not follow all the activities with this program but just do the basics! I wish I would have done Spell to Write and Read along with Diane’s program from the begining, would have made our process faster! You can buy the whole program on Christian book.com and I will use if from Kinder-12 grade for both of my kids, so it is worth every penny!
Don’t give up and take your time, these kiddos really do learn differently and we have to teach their way of learning!
Also I researched her supplements and decided against them. Kids hate swallowing pills and our son was on meds since he was 4. I worked with a holistic Dr that helped us wean him and then we changed our diet so that we ate fish at least 2x’s a week, all organic foods, grass fed meats, very limited amount of processed foods, no juices, sodas, etc. I also did a lot of research on essential oils for healing so I was not pumping supplements that are costly or over the counter meds with dyes, additives, sugars, etc. He has been off all meds for 15 months and we use doTerra Essential Oils for adhd, bipolar, and everything health wise for our family. I did a lot of research on this company and how potent their oils are before deciding to use them. We have not used any medications for fevers, allergies, sore throat, coughs, pain, scratches, croupe, etc. doTerra’s oils are certified to ingest as well, the only company certified! We use their supplements because I know they don’t have dyes, sugars, additives, etc in them. We use lemon and citrus in our oils for energy and dehydration so when our son plays soccer, he gets lemon water instead of Gatorade! you can research doterra at http://www.mydoterra.com/megannicko/
Much luck to you
Megan
he definatly needs more phonics practice, because I KNOW he is sometimes memorizing words.
When you read do you take the time to think about the phonics rules as you read each word?
Remember, the goal is to become a fluid reader, not to learn phonics.
Even though my daughter has not been tested, I believe she probably has dyslexia. She definitely has some visual processing problems. She has problems with her eyes and wears prism glasses. So, I think it is a combination of things. She will be 10 in May and is a slow reader. We are also using Phonics Pathways. I agree with Doug. I honestly believe my daughter could continue learning to read words without more phonics. There are probably some areas in phonics that will benefit her, but I’m using it for spelling as well. Her spelling is not good. She wants to spell words the way they sound, so I think going through Phonics Pathways and using the word lists for spelling will be good practice. Since they follow the same pattern, it may help. More than likely she will not remember the rules. Doing reading and writing helps them learn to spell. If your DS is reading at grade level, I don’t think you need a fancy program for him. If you want a little phonics, just work through Phonics Pathways and then stop. Many words are learned by sight. He doesn’t need to keep doing phonics to become a good reader. That comes with exposure.
We don’t use the flash cards because we were able to get the book used – so I just use the book with my DD. My daughter does really well with sight words (as long as they are more than two or three letters).
Dianne’s program is really not an intense phonics program and does spend a great deal of time helping these kids with sight words as well – for instance her spelling program is all about spelling by sight, – you take a word list and write the words on large cards writing the part of the word they struggle spelling in colors the rest in black and then draw pictures on the colorful letters. You also hold them up high and (to the right?) when the child looks at them to help them put them away in long term memory. We just did a few words at the beginning, but since my DD just turned 7 I didn’t keep that part up – choosing to wait til she’s a bit older.
Yes, good point Doug. I do think that my son does need some more phonics practice, though, as he has stopped reading and said “Mom, I can’t remember this word!” or will guess at words, he read “daughter” as “together” for example. When he gets stuck on a word, he will very often not make any attempt to sound it out at all, but will continue guessing. Sometimes compeletly off the wall words, that don’t even fit the storyline. This tells me that the phonics he has learned to up to now is not serving him well. I personally think that children need both (to read by sight and sound/phonics). Trying to sort out just what will help my son has been harder than I thought.
I appreciate all of your responses, and thank you Rebekahy for explaining how you’ve used the material. It has been helpful as there is a limited amount I can see from Dianne Craft’s website. Again, thanks everyone!
It may not just be a phonics problem. It may be that he is just not seeing the word properly. My daughter does the same thing. She will sometimes say something that sounds off the wall, but it is because she is seeing certain letters, but not in the right order. Or certain letters stand out to her when others don’t. When she does that, I have her stop and go back to that word and tell her to take time to look at all the letters. When she does that she usually will say the right word. Some words she will say backwards. I’m not sure if that is a visual processing problem or dyslexia or both. I have been on Dianne Craft website recently and want to try some of her methods. I’ve just been taking in so much information lately that I don’t know where to start:)
I have used Dianne’s stuff. My dd also had blocks in all 4 gates when we tested her. We used a number of Dianne Craft’s ideas for a while….the exercises and some of the reading stuff. While they were helpful it was not enough for my dd. I can say that the dietary and supplement recommendations she makes are right on target. I ended up consulting with Dianne over the phone and she suggested moving to on to Barton Reading and Spelling if needed.
Your ds’s symptoms really sounds like dyslexia to me. Check out Susan Barotn’s sight if you haven’t already…she has great info. When I watched Dyslexia:Symptoms and Solutions, that is when I finally knew what we were dealing with.
Chris
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