Dyslexia and Charlotte Mason

My son was diagnosed with Dyslexia this past December. I had diagnosed him with it at around age 6 and asked school to test but was told that they never test until the end of grade 3. Due to other circumstances, I ended up pulling both kids from school and homeschooling. I made sure the resources that I chose were dyslexia friendly and All About Spelling made him cry every time I reached for the box. Wordly Wise, Explode the Code, Sequential Spelling all flopped as well. He reads fairly well, but his spelling is atrocious. I played reading games with him that seemed to help. I would read and randomly start and he would then have to pick up and read and then when he got tired, he would then stop and I would start. This taught him to follow along and he does well comprehending anything I read to him, so we use audio books and he follows along. We use Bookshare and this site requires a diagnoses to join. I upload the audio books into Capti, which is an app that has several different reader voices and you can change the speeds and the fonts of the text and it has bookmarks etc.

I signed him up for an online reading program called Reading Horizons and he is halfway through the program and I’m already seeing his spelling improve. Best part is that he can do it everyday in the comfort of our home.

I am using our own spelling program that has morphed over the years, but is working well enough that my daughter has switched to the same method and seems to be progressing quicker and retaining words better that all the other programs we have tried. I downloaded spelling lists from http://www.bigiqkids.com/SpellingVocabulary/Lessons/wordlistFinder.shtml and I simply started at grade 1 and would have him start spelling through the lists. The first 10 words he couldn’t spell became his spelling list. Everyday I have him attempt to spell the words orally and when he spells it wrong, I tell him it is wrong and then I have him try writing it down and sometimes this is enough for him to get it correct, but if not, then I give him the correct spelling and he writes it down and then we discuss a spelling rule that applies or some way for him to remember such as the word hear that means to hear with your ears has the word ear in it while the here that means a place also spells there by adding a t to the front of it.  Anyway, we do this daily and a word is only removed from his list when he has spelled it correctly three time consecutively. So everyday I place an x or a check and when there are 3 checks in a row, then I put a line through the word and we consider it mastered. Some he masters in 3 days, some words takes 10 days. Once he miss spells a word 4 times in a row, then he will either copy the word correctly 10 times while saying each letter and reading the word after OR his usual favorite method is to pay spelling games while dribbling a ball (something about dribbling the ball helps him to concentrate on this activity) anyway, I spell the word correctly and then he repeats it back to me then I spell the word and randomly stop and he then has to tell me the next letter. If he gets it correct, then we play again, but if he gets it wrong then I start over from the beginning. Game is over when he consistently gets the next letter correct. This does not mean he has mastered the word, the next day he still has to spell it correctly 3 days in a row to have it removed from his list.  It may sound complicated, but it really is easy and quick and remarkably, my daughter sailed through 2.5 years of spelling words in 1 because we were focusing on words she didn’t know and it wasn’t taking a week to get rid of words and get new ones. My son, who is going into 6th grade is currently spelling through grade 4, but he is at the end of the year and so is about a year behind, which for him is a miracle when it took him over 9 weeks to get the word said mastered through All About Spelling!

I will say that in the last few months, his spelling has improved noticeably and I give that credit to the Reading horizons program. I did do the instructor’s crash course, so I could better understand what he was being taught.

As for language arts grades, I do not grade against him for spelling on any of his tests that he does. If I can’t read what he has written, then I have him tell me what he wrote and go with that. I use Michael Clay Thompson’s Language Arts program and I highly recommend it. I believe the man to be a genius. Until I found this program, my son was lost to grammar, vocab, and writing. Now, he loves the vocabulary and looks forward to the quizzes simply because he is so confident in his knowledge. He is excelling in grammar and I am amazed at his age how well he can analyze a sentence and gets the phrases now and can distinguish between the different kinds!  Lord knows I was praying he would just figure out nouns and verbs just a year or two ago. My son is now finally beginning to be able to write not only sentences, but paragraphs and essays. I believed the day might never come several times over the past several years.

So, I can only tell you to be consistent, kind, and patient and results will happen at their own pace. Teach them tools they can use their whole life, not just now. I installed Select to Speak extension onto google web browser.  Now, when I give a writing assignment of nonfictional writing, he can research articles and select the text he wants to read and click the play button and the text will be read to him while he follows along. This has opened a whole world to him and he is able to complete his assignment in a normal amount of time and with less struggle.

Hope some of my suggestions can help you too. God Bless.