Reading- disability or readiness issue?

I have a 7.5 year old that has been diagnosed with Auditory Processing Disorder.  For us a strictly phonics approach hasn’t worked.  We didn’t use the CM method for reading but while I think it’s a great method and would have worked with my other kiddos, it wouldn’t have worked for my 7.5 year old.  We had to go a different route.

Having said all of that 🙂 have you tried putting away the phonics for a couple of weeks and coming back to it?  Sometimes they just aren’t ready.  Once I had put it away and brought it back out and then just my gut feeling that something was off I went ahead and had her tested thinking that we might be dealing with dyslexia – it ended up instead to be auditory processing disorder.

In my opinion (just my .02) if you are dealing with dyslexia or auditory processing etc you will need to go a different route, such as Orton Gillingham etc.  There are alot of options out there and it really helped me to find out exactly what we were dealing with too.  We ended up using Dianne Crafts phonics and brain integration therapy and have seen much improvement.  Now I know there are many options out there and I’m sure there are lots of good ones, that is just the route we felt led to go down.

This may not be helpful in any way but my ds did not really read until 3rd grade. He went to public school in K and learned to read, I thought, as he was able to read the little booklets he made in school. But when I brought him home in first it turned out he couldnt “sound out” a word at all. I later discovered two things, he either never learned or daydreamed through phonics in school. And two, his eyes were not ready and could not track words on a page. The phonics was enough to correct, but the tracking was just a waiting game, although I am sure there is some sort of treatment option. There is a book called Better Late than Early I think that addresses some of the development of the eye that can make early reading damaging to childrens future vision. In any case I wasnt yet as “researchy” then as I am now and I just waited and came up with my own treatment plan. Since he new letter sounds already I started building one word at a time on a big white board in very large print – no tracking or eye strain. That year I wrote “secret messages” on the board. Short sentences, large print, usually something to motivate him. “Candy after lunch” or “New toy later”. Around third grade he was finally able to read a book. He still hates to read, sadly, but I am hoping that is the 14 year old boy talking and all my years of reading quality books to him will payoff at some point. I wish you luck, you are a good mama for paying attention to his needs.

If it were me I would wait as long as I could before looking into a diagnosis. That is probably not a popular opinion I know. I would research the ideal time for intervention. You know those studies that say dyslexic kids do best if intervention is started by —— age. I would then wait till that age, if that makes sense. I think development can “cure”a lot of what we percieve as problems. I am not discounting learning disabilities. I just think young children can be diagnosed with issues when in fact they are just late bloomers. My sons k teacher wanted me to medicate him for adhd, but I was resistant and in fact he matured and I dont think anyone would suspect adhd today. Keep in mind though that most of those studies are done on public schooled children rather than homeschooled. I remember one study that said if a child doesnt read well by 4th grade they are doomed. That is probably true in traditional school where they have moved on to the reading to learn stage and have no time for kids who arent there yet, but as homeschoolers we can stay in whatever stage for as long as necessary. Anyway my point is that some of those statistics may not be applicable to us. Just my personal opinion. I think a mommas patience, her diligent research and focused attention can do as much or more than a “professional” if in fact it just a timing thing. The trick is knowing when to call in the big guns right.

I just wanted to chime in and say that we used Dianne Crafts phonics (just the phonics instruction book, not the readers) in conjunction with her Brain Integration Therapy and I don’t think we would have gotten the same results if we hadn’t used the BIT.  I’ve used our own readers and that has worked well.