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Questions 1 | 2 | 3 | All in PDF Dear Dr. McCabe, I have just found out that my 15 year-old son has dyslexia. He is a tenth grader and is reading between the 5th and 6th grade level. I have been reading you book "To Teach a Dyslexic" and would like to order some the AVKO products to help him improve. I will be trying to tutor him myself. I was going to order "If it is to be it is up to me to do it". I would like to know what sequential spelling lesson are for 5th grade and up? I will order these plus the response book after I hear from you. What other materials would I need for home tutoring? Thank you for your time.Your selection of "If it is to be.." is a good place to start. In regards to Sequential Spelling, the volumes are not arranged by grade level. The reason: words like ice are 4th grade words and nice is 1st. I believe in teaching words of the same patterns at the same time. So, the easiest patterns to learn are in the early volumes and the more difficult patterns in the later volumes. If your son hasn't already learned touch typing so he can use a computer keyboard without looking at the keys, I would strongly recommend that you use my Individualized Keyboarding to teach him. If you plan to homeschool him, I would also recommend that you use as your own text for learning how to teach reading: "The Teaching of Reading: a Continuum from Kindergarten through College" If your son is reading at the 5th or 6th grade level and he's in the 10th, the reason is probably because he doesn't know the "FANCY" patterns such as the "cial" being the way we spell the sound "shul" as in special, crucial, racial, and commercial. In both "The Teaching of Reading..." and "If it is to be..." I have lists of these patterns and the pages in "The Patterns of English Spelling" that the words containing these patterns can be found. Dear Mr. McCabe, My son will be turning 7 years old in just a couple of days. When he was 4 he was diagnosed as ADHD. It was recommended that he be medicated but my husband and I chose to try other things that seemed to work. Last year he completed Grade K with great success; however now that he is in first grade and the load is much heavier he is having a lot of trouble! Yesterday I received a note from his teacher saying that he can not continue this for the rest of the year. After staying up all night last night researching the net, I'm almost convinced that he is dyslexic instead. Your site was one of the best that I ran across however it seemed a little advanced for a child just entering 1st grade. Do you have anything that is directed towards this age group. It'll have to be something over the net that is free because I don't have the money to order some of the things I found last night on some of the other sites. Even if you do not, I still want to express my approval of your site, it is the best I've found so far. It seems more people should be more concerned about our children vs. making so much money on other peoples misfortunes. Again thank you so much. I am glad that you avoided the drugs for your son. As far as helping your son, you might want to help him in making his handwriting (probably printing) automatic (fast but legible). You might want to visit our web page http://www.avko.org/write_right.htm and check out the concept of teaching reading and spelling as we teach the printing of the alphabet using D'Nealian, Getty-Dubay Italic, AVKO, or any "continuous" stroke manuscript printing that makes the transition to cursive handwriting a lot easier when it's taught in the third grade (probably). I would start with the letter a, letting him know that it is the word "uh" as in "a book, a man, a dog, a glass," etc. When he can write "uh" and spell it "AY" automatically, then go to the letter B. Now, you can have him write "baa, baa, baa" as in Baa, baa, Black Sheep." and then the name Bab. When the writing of the letters b and a are automatic as well as the reading and spelling of these simple words, work with the letter C. Now we have "a cab." When the writing of c and the spellings of the words available are automatic. Add the letter D. Now we have dad, bad, cad, dab, cab, and baa. When this is automatic, add the letter R. This gives us car and bar and card and bard. When this is automatic add the letter S. Wow does this begin to open up possibilities. We have "ass (the donkey, of course), bass, dads, cabs, dabs, cars, cards. With T comes a tremendous explosion of words. We have the at family: at, bat, cat, rat, tat bats, cats, tats as well art, cart, carts, tart, tarts, start, starts, Bart and tab, stab, tabs, stabs, etc. Then continue on slowly working through the alphabet with e,f,g,h, i, j, k, l, m, n, o, p, q & u together, v, w, x, y, and z. Hi, my name is Kim and I have a 14 year old son by the name of Jimmy. I believe he is dyslexic and would like to see if there would happen to be any tutors in my area that could help me. I am home schooling Jimmy and have been for two years, we have made some progress but very little. When I started homeschooling Jimmy he was on first grade reading level going into the 7th grade. now he is about on 3rd grade level at his best. I took Jimmy out of school because he had been in SLD classes for "learning disabilities" they said he was ADD and put him on several meds but they altered his mood and personality so I took him off the meds. Anyway, the public school system does not have SLD classes when you get into middle school here so they put him in a class with 50 kids and an extra teacher for kids who needed help. This made my son so upset that he was physically ill. What kid is going to put his hand up and ask for help in front of 50 kids? Plus Jimmy couldn't even read his schedule or what was on the board. After several meetings and one which included school board members, they told me to quit babying him and that's why they had two teachers in there to help the kids who needed it and "anyways" they said "we don't teach 7th graders how to read, he'll just have to catch on". I figured they had him for 7 years and couldn't teach him to read , I could do better but now I'm not so sure. A little personal info. on Jimmy; he is 14 yrs. old as I said, over 6 foot tall, 225 pounds, he thinks he is stupid, fat and told me he thinks he will never learn to read. Jimmy is very smart, a lot more common sense than his sister who made a 4.0 in school. No one knows of his learning disability unless I would tell them. I could really use some help, I'm not sure where to go from here. Time is slipping away, Jimmy will be 15 in Jan. and things don't seem to be getting much better. In the mean time I stopped working to try to help Jimmy and we are struggling financially. Any help you can give us will be greatly appreciated. Thank you, Kim J Good tutors don't come cheap. They often charge anywhere from $20.00 an hour to $80.00 an hour. And that is a real problem for those on limited incomes. That's why at AVKO we use trained volunteers to tutor on a daily basis. If there is any chance that you live within driving distance, I would suggest that you make an appointment and bring Jimmy with you to the foundation. Here we will train you in some very simple (but effective) techniques and how to use those AVKO materials which are most appropriate for him. If coming here to AVKO is out of the question, then I would suggest that you first purchase my autobiography, To Teach a Dyslexic. That will help you understand why Jimmy's school has been unable to help him learn to read and also understand that it's never too late to learn to read. If you would like to have a course in the teaching of reading, you might want to purchase The Teaching of Reading: a Continuum from Kindergarten through College. However, you probably can begin to get good results by starting first with If It Is To Be, It Is Up To Me To Do It, which only costs 22.95 plus shipping. If I can be of further help, feel free to either e-mail me or to call me on the phone. Mr. McCabe- Please share your opinion regarding the teaching of reading to high school students and adults who have learning disabilities and/or mild intellectual disabilities. Does research support the practice? Thank you. It is my opinion that nearly all high school students and adults with or without learning disabilities or intellectual disabilities can benefit by systematic instruction in reading. My personal research does support this practice. When I first started out in the reading field as a high school teacher at Flint Northwestern High School in Flint, Michigan, I secured permission from the school to pre and posttest the entire student body of over 2,000 students in both reading and spelling and compare them with my five classes. You can find the results of this study in my book, To Teach a Dyslexic. Mind you, I used a "canned" direct instruction method developed by SRA years ago using Power Builders, Rate Builders, Reading for Understanding, and Spelling. If I were in the same position today, I would be incorporating much more systematic and sequential instruction and achieving far greater results. But is there a decent body of research in this area? No. It's much easier for reading researchers to work with children and work exclusively in the early years where vocabulary is limited to a few thousand words most of which follow simple phonic principles. If you would like to find out more about my opinions regarding the teaching of reading to high school students and adults, you might want to either read my book The Teaching of Reading: a Continuum from Kindergarten through College or at least read its table of contents and a few selected chapters on our website. Hello Mr. McCabe, I really enjoyed reading sections of your book in the Internet. I will definitely buy it soon. My son is fifteen and he has dyslexia, I have known about it since he was six years old. I, at the time, did not have any idea what that was. I since bought many books and read many articles about the condition. I am still, a lot confused, about what I had learned. I am from the Island of Haiti, and in my homeland, kids were either smart, average or slow. When I heard, that the school system here recognized that learning disabilities were to be taken seriously and a lot of work were devoted to help the kids in that situation, I was very happy. But I am very disappointed, all those years, I had to fight for Ari to receive the extra help that was due. You see Mr. McCabe, Ari is also gifted with an IQ of 130. I have been trying to tell those teachers that he needed extra help but for some reason they keep saying "this boy is too smart for his age and he just don't want to work " Ari really would like to go to college, but we worry that his grades might keep him from that goal. Ari, wants to be a psychiatrist and work with children. I will keep on looking for a way to help him succeed and reach his goals. Keep up the good work, and God Bless! Does AVKO have a position on the teaching of handwriting skills for elementary students - manuscript vs. cursive, D'Nealian, italics, etc? Yes, AVKO does have several different positions regarding the teaching of handwriting skills to elementary students. Many of the positions are stated on our web page http://www.avko.org/write_right.Also, what is the best age to teach manuscript, cursive, etc? Ah, the ubiquitous "it all depends..."Do you know of up-to-date research on these topics? There is almost as much valid research on handwriting as there is on spelling. Would you believe that the last time a study was done on the 5,507 basic spelling words in English was done in November, 1953? You might want to contact Kate Gladstone about whatever research is out there, or Getty and Dubay, both of whom you probably are well aware of.I am doing research for the curriculum office of the Medford, Oregon, Public Schools. I came across your website in doing web searches on the topic of handwriting research. My personal preference is to expose all children to all the major styles of handwriting and allow them to use that style that fits their ability to make their words legible. I also strongly believe that handwriting practice can be used to teach "phonics" and spelling and decoding. With such emphasis on legibility to make it clear that dear and clear, dean and clean, and cling and ding, should not be confused because the c and l must not touch to make the letter d, phonics and spelling can be taught especially with student self-correction. Can you tell me if I can just purchase a word list from you to go over with my son who is dyslexic? We have all kinds of different word lists. Each is designed for a specific purpose. If you can tell me what it is that you wish to accomplish, I would be in a better position to recommend a specific word list. Actually, I think you might want to visit our web site and to download http://www.avko.org/First_seven_lessons_from_if_it_is_to_be.htm. This allows you to try before you buy. From a homeschooling mom: I am thinking of ordering some material, and have a few questions first. I have an 11 year old who has very poor spelling, poor handwriting, and poor word-attack skills, though he can read in context fairly well. I am thinking of getting the first few levels of sequential spelling to see if that will help him. I am curious about Let's Write Right. How does it correlate with the spelling? This book teaches both reading and spelling AS it teaches the alphabet both in manuscript and cursive. I would strongly recommend that you use it with him. If he writes stick/ball instead of D'Nealian, I would even more strongly recommend that you teach both the manuscript (printing) and the cursive at the same time. My son can write, though not cursive yet, and I am more hoping for sentence copying type of practice with the cursive. There will be plenty of sentences for "copying" but remember unless your son knows and reads what he is copying, the "copying" will not help either his reading or his spelling. The dictation of sentences with immediate student self-correction is what will help him the most. Would your sequential spelling be a complete spelling program? I cannot afford your Patterns of English Spelling as well. For the most part it is. Every consistent pattern in English spelling is covered somewhere within the seven volumes. Would The Tricky Words be good to get at the beginning? That set does have a lot of "fun sentences" and plenty of preview and review. I'm using it now with a 61 year old dyslexic lady from Germany who came to the AVKO Educational Research Foundation to learn English. She is enjoying it. Mr. McCabe,I was thrilled to find your website today. I worked as an assistant Reading Teacher in Virginia's public school system for 4 years, but still don't feel like I KNOW how to teach phonics!! Of course, it was taboo to use boring old phonics techniques with students. Must use the new Whole Language methods recently discovered. It was very frustrating as a teacher not to be able to use phonics with my students. I am now a homeschooling Mom with 4 kids and am trying to teach my 4.5 year old son how to read. I've noticed that he does have dyslexic tendencies, and often forgets his alphabet letters. What am I doing wrong? You may be doing nothing wrong at all. It may be that he isn't quite ready. It may be that you might be trying to teach too much too fast.Is it to early yet to peg him as a dyslexic? It probably is too early. If I were in your shoes, I might want to begin all over again with Let's Write Right and slowly and methodically teach reading and spelling and handwriting AS you teach the letters of the alphabet and not burden your son with learning 52 different printed symbols (Upper and Lower Case letters) before you begin the reading and writing process. If you have comments about this website, you are encouraged to e-mail DonMcCabe@aol.com. We appreciate any comments that will help us make this website even more useful.
All donations are greatly appreciated. If you would like to support our mission which is to raise the level of literacy to the point where the words, illiteracy, phonemic awareness, learning disabilities, dysgraphia, family literacy, adult literacy, and illegible handwriting will no longer have relevance, please mail your tax-deductible check (in U.S. dollars) to The AVKO Educational Research Foundation, 3084 Willard Road, Suite W, Birch Run, MI 48415-9404. The AVKO Foundation is recognized by the IRS as a 501(C)3 publicly supported organization working with teachers, parents, tutors, and homeschooling parents, publishing materials developed by its research, and providing free daily tutoring at its local reading clinic. |