By The Numbers: A Look at Results

Our last program day was May 30, 2013.  I feel like quoting...

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, ... it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us ...  

Charles Dickins, A Tale of Two Cities

 This program brought us the best of times and yet some days (especially during the final count down) it was the worst of times.  This program became the spring of hope for our reading and listening difficulties and yet some days seemed like the winter of despair as we struggled to complete another day.  This program put everything before us at our fingertips for success and yet we had nothing before us as a concrete formula for guaranteed success.  But alas! We triumphed!  And I have the numbers to prove it.

In May 2012, I brought my DD to our local school district for an Academic Evaluation.  The Special Education Department teachers met with my DD five times for evaluations.  

Let me highlight a few of the findings from each Evaluator as particularly pertains to skills addressed in the Fast ForWord program.

Special Education Teacher evaluation:

• (T) provided the sound for lower case i and did not respond to lower case u.
• When given a writing prompt, she wrote a two word sentence but then was able to verbally provide extensive details to her frog narrative.
• (T) required verbal prompting, positive praise, tangible reinforcement and breaks between tasks in order to remain on-task and follow directions.
• (T) demonstrates average grade and age level appropriate skills within reading, math, and writing.

Speech/Language Evaluation:

• Throughout testing, (T) had a difficult time attending to task.
• The CELF-4 and CTOPP tests were administered. She tested in the 47% for receptive language, 53% for language structure, 16%, 3%, and 2% for rapid naming skills.  Her Overall Phonological Awareness percentile rank was 77%, Phonological Memory rank was 58%, and her Rapid Naming Composite was 3%.
• On the sentence structure subtest, she demonstrated a relative weakness in her ability to interpret spoken sentences of increasing length and complexity.
• Expressive vocabulary was an area of relative weakness and she used strategies for recall and associative meaning.
• (T) score in rapid naming, the ability to efficiently retrieve information from her long term memory, fell in the poor range.  Students who present with difficulties on rapid naming are expected to have difficulty reading fluently.

Psychologist's Evaluation:

• She required frequent redirection from the examiner.
• On the Verbal Composite, which measures a child's ability to process verbal information and apply verbal skills, she was at 45th percentile.   Information subtest was 37% rank by age, Vocabulary was 25% by age, and Word Reasoning was 75% by age.
• Her Processing Speed Composite, which measures the speed of mental operations and graphomotor processing, was in the 42nd percentile. She did better on a visual scanning task for matching.  The subtest for Coding was 25% by age.

As a parent and and home educator with a strong background  rehabilitative practices, these results put numbers to our needed target areas.  Personally, I saw "Dyslexia" written all over these results in addition to her auditory processing issues.  She relied heavily on visual and context clues for comprehension which was putting a strain on her working memory.  I conceded that it was the brain that needed rewiring for her to improve efficiently and effectively.

I compiled the following table for her Fast ForWord results for a comparison.

Skill Groups	Starting %	Ending %	Total Minutes
Listening accuracy and auditory sequencing	0	29	553
Phonological accuracy	6	69	326
Phonological fluency and sustained attention	0	20	313
Vocabulary and auditory word recognition	0	100	157
Auditory word recognition and phonological memory	0	100	501
Following directions	4	97	300
English language conventions	6	100	172

How amazing is that!

Fast ForWord® for Us!

My daughter is dyslexic and also struggles with hearing sounds.  The combination of the two issues have created much heartache and learning complications for both my daughter and myself.   For the past two and a half years, I have been using various reading intervention programs, auditory programs, spelling programs, and implementing researched strategies.

At this point, she is at a pivotal point in her education: we can continue with these strategies and fall slowly behind or we can jump forward using a proven brain training program that goes behind the scenes where I cannot go easily.  I have chosen to dish out the cash now (it is not cheap) instead of a slow and steady stream throughout her education in remediation curriculum.

I have not come to this decision lightly as it costs more than one month of my mortgage!  However, four months of intense training will have huge payoffs immediately.  Part of the responsibility of homeschooling is in making decisions like these.  In conversation some have said to me that if she were in public school, there would be no cost.  On the contrary, there would be no progress.

Last year I took her in to the public school to be tested for various learning issues.  The results from three days of testing clearly show all of the "symptoms" of dyslexia and poor working memory, however, the Board's decision was that she is within normal learning levels.  I'm sure it would be different once she was enrolled in the school since school funding is greatly increased per labeled child.  She is seven and can not read, can not hear the sounds of short e, short i, b, d, and only hears parts of conversations while relying on context and visual cues.  Lessons in reading, spelling, and math take excessive repetition to acquire a skill base.  When talking with parents with children on the Spectrum, they instinctively recognize traits of their own children's struggles in her.

After much research, I had narrowed down my options to two programs: Earobics and FastForward.  Due to financial constraints, I chose Earobics and have witnessed slow but steady results for my daughter.  Sadly, she is still falling behind because during this time period, a "normal" child develops quite rapidly and she just cannot keep up.  Since that time, I have used Earobics with two other children and seen great results with the oldest one and slight improvement with the middle aged one.  All three are receiving intensive reading and phonics tutoring, which verifies the impact that developmental stages can have on mastery learning.

I have come across documented case studies and statistics on the program Fast ForWord® in multiple research texts and online over the past three years.  While online reviews indicated a lack of success, these reviewers also admitted an a la carte approach to the program where individuals were not fully following the program due to time demands.  These reviews were all done on school usage.   Despite this, a small posted comment by a mother of three restored my hope.  She very simply stated that if the reviewer had actually completed the program correctly, it would match her son's results.  She said that she would pay even more money for this program it was that beneficial.  

The Customer Service department is very personable and provide plenty of support.  I found it weird to be talking to someone who understood Auditory Processing Disorders and the like and had a personal testimony about a child like mine. She was not pushy, just knowledgeable.  The FastForward online program we are using is called BrainPro and before you start, you must choose an available Consultant who will work with you throughout the program.  They even match your time zones for phone calls!  All of the Consultants bios were extremely impressive and thorough.

Even before I paid my dues upfront, the BrainPro Representative walked me through all of the screens I would be using online, gave me details on the starting games for my daughter, and logged me in.  

First Use:

My daughter eagerly sat with her headphones on and intently watched the screen.  I later read that I should have a dual headphone jack so I could listen in also; This is needed!  I kept distracting my daughter by yelling loudly so she could hear me ask "DO YOU UNDERSTAND THE DIRECTIONS?" She would nod.  I would ask again because it looked like she was doing nothing.  Finally, she said, without glancing away, "Mom, this is hard! I'm trying to listen!"  She gets it ;)

Several times during the three games, which took 30 minutes, she asked if she could stop.  I'd encourage her and she would resume.  After it was all done, she then asked if she could do it all over again!  (I knew my daughter would ask me this and so I had previously asked the Representative if that was possible.  She said she'd have to ask the Consultant I chose!)

Day One: Success!

I love being dyslexic...

I love being dyslexic.  I can rearrange a room in my head all day long, just moving stuff around without having to scratch the floors to see if things fit.  I can re-watch a movie in my head or reread a great book. 

My dyslexia is where my creativity gets to play and explore new options. 

Dyslexia is just another way of processing, or learning.  It has had such a bad rap for so long and I think it is because of the school system.  History continues to provide data that educating a varied population in one uniform way is not only illogical, but detrimental because “individuality” is too large of a variable to effectively mainstream.  We dyslexics are outnumbered and therefore most of the time our processing “needs” are not incorporated into the educational format.  The school system does not have the luxury of time to incorporate that into every subject every day. 

            We simply need more time and ways to expand on ideas and for repeated practice.

Dyslexics are not dysfunctional in that it is not a mental disorder that can be corrected effectively with medication (I say effectively because medications can do everything and anything, but is it always necessary?  Medication for dyslexia in a school environment appears effective because it is altering in order to conform to a standard processing style.)   Here is where I could insert all the brilliant people who were and are dyslexics and have changed history….You can do your own research.  To this I say, “See!  The public school system is dysfunctional, not all these brilliant people!” 

            “Dyslexia is neurologically based but its treatment must be educational” (Virginia Berninger, 2009)

Indeed brain scans have shown that the dyslexic brain is different.  Sally Sahwitz is the leading “expert” in dyslexia at Yale and you should definitely check out her research about  "transforming dyslexia from a liability to an asset".  If you like to turn pages and highlight, then read her book!

Another favorite author is Virginia Berninger.  For you speed readers, here's what her book says about dyslexia and how to remediate difficulties associated with it:

·        There is a basic, foundational “insensitivity to the sound structure of language”  coupled with a faulty retrieval system (95)

o       You need to draw attention to the sounds of language, at least 15 minutes each day by:

1.      Playing rhyme games in order to recognize that words have parts

2.      Comparing sounds in different words

3.      Pulling words apart, changing the beginning or ending sounds (175)

o       You need to work with words by segmenting and blending syllable groups by:

1.      Comparing and matching sounds in different words

2.      Pulling words apart by requiring segmentation

3.      Writing the sounds (associate the sound with the letter, not “what letter makes this sound”….because one letter may make many different sounds!)

o       PRACTICE is what will create the neural circuits to remediate the phonological weakness

§       Since the neural pathways are amiss---instruction must be relentless and amplified in every way possible in order to penetrate and take hold (256)

If you want more information on dyslexia:

Overcoming Dyslexia

Dyslexic Advantage

Amazon.com

**  Notes in blog above are from this book!

Dianne Craft

Amazon.com

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

Top 5 Purchase Picks

There are books that I ILL (Inter Library Loan) and then there are books that I buy.  The difference is:

1. How much note taking I want to do
2. cost of photocopying # pages/diagrams for continued reference
3. amount of reusable activities or charts

Here are my overall Top 5 "purchase" book recommendations and links

• "There are 8 fundamental systems, or components, of learning that draw on a variety of neurodevelopmental capacitites....(to) develop effective strategies to work through or around these weaknesses" (book flap)
• amazon.com
• Mel Levine's website allkindsofminds.org

• Dyslexia as a processing system, with 4 major strengths detailed (MIND strengths)
• amazon.com
•  http://neurolearning.com/

• Table of Contents online: amazon.com
•  details the theories, models, practices and assessments

• Table Of Contents online: amazon.com
• Author's website:  radteach.com

• amazon.com
• Also wrote Smart But Scattered  online table of contents
• excellent assessments with target skill treatment plans outlined

the best from the best

I am a homeschooling mom of 4 kids who does not like to teach.  Sounds a bit odd, doesn’t it?

This all came about as my survival strategy to cope with homeschooling.  Two years into homeschooling, I was reading rote discussion questions to my oldest son and he was not “finding” the answers from the short text he had just read independently.  My response was for him to read it aloud to me so I could emphasize the answer as I read it with him.  Even with my exaggeration he was not “getting it.”  I was baffled.  Then it hit me: I had not taught him reading comprehension strategies that I used automatically.  I was the teacher!  Learning is not an innate ability that just materializes!  Even in writing this, it seems silly that I did not put two and two together sooner.  But I am a self-taught learner so I didn’t understand why he didn’t teach himself what he needed to know.  Isn’t this what most employers want in an employee? It had been my survival technique for all my job placements.  I then began to unravel how or why I am a self-taught learner so that I could teach my kids to teach themselves.  I have loved every minute of learning the best from the best.

It wasn’t until I started teaching my only daughter, the third child, how to read that I really internalized someone’s struggle to learn and the feeling of self-defeat.  The basic skills of reading (of which I had no clue) that my boys seemed to grasp without difficulty were just not coming together for my daughter.  I also knew that she has always had ear issues.  I scheduled an ENT appointment and over time I summarized that her hearing was unreliable due to changes in fluid.  At the time of her wanting to read, most of the time she could hear, but because of so many issues, she did not trust her ability to hear.  So I did what I do best to fix "it:" I started researching.   

I love the public library: free education from access to the state’s database of books all at my fingertips!  And, I have a great librarian, Ms. Sue, whom works with me in processing all of my requests.  I started with what I know: Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences model (bluewafflebreakie.wordpress.com) and then I let the website search engine guide me to new book discoveries that spun off of that topic.  I spent hours every night when the kids were sleeping pouring over books from the 1950s through to this decade amassing a huge repertoire of knowledge long forgotten.  I ingested scientific studies, college course load texts (taken from online syllabuses), training manuals, psychological cases, vocational methodology (an interest from my previous career), and online websites.  My initial goal was to find compensatory strategies to assist my daughter in whatever disability I was sure she had due to her learning issues.  I became so focused on self diagnosing her so that I could find a curriculum that would teach her to learn to read.  Then, I became so discouraged that I didn’t even want to teach her for fear of making “it” worse. 

About that time of year, I went to the annual homeschooling convention (a home school mom’s mini-vacation resort destination) and listened to the speaker Candace H., a neuro-developmentalist (Liberty Consultants).  Previously, I had started reading about brain based learning practices so my pump was primed for her methodologies.  What she said startled me: any learning issue is an issue of disorganization. Her CT based business specializes in finding where the brain has detoured or stopped progressing through the developmental processes and then they rewire it with structured activities so that it becomes organized.  That took me a while to digest.  I had focused my research on compensating, not correcting.

I began my process for working through things: staring at the trees and walking the gardens in my yard.  Over a period of a year, the connections were forming in my mind on how it all goes together to impact a person’s learning, from preferences to processes.  I began to study more intensely memory and where each process was occurring in the brain.  I will be doing more research on my theory that if you feed the brain region with the nutrients it needs to optimize the learning experience, then you will be doing less work more effectively.  No longer was this self directed project about learning and applying compensatory strategies to correct or bypass issues, it emerged to form a big picture with details on how to learn effectively and efficiently in any domain.  Without realizing it, my journey had followed what I have found to be the best “map” for learning!  Somewhere along the way, I had subconsciously assimilated and taught myself to learn how to learn.  My one caveat I have found, however, is that I am deficient in retrieving information from my memory. Therefore, my hesitancy to share this journey was stifled by my inadequacy to share confidently my research due to the embarrassment of not being able to remember the details.  I am, by the way, a thirty five year old self discovered dyslexic!

The progression of this blog is intended to mirror how to learn.  I will include all of my research and given credit to every author along the way because this information is not new.  I’ve used my dyslexic insight and material reasoning to connect and organize it in a manner that maximizes learning anything.  The first section will give the big picture.  I will preload key words and topics and then end the section with a fine detail script.  The second section will focus on what I have found to be the foundation for all learning.  I will discuss the sub-skills and the developmental process for mastery of each skill.  Neuroscience will highlight the nutrition and brain regions.  The third section will focus on the tool needed for effectiveness, or automaticity.  Here I will describe and provide strategies for the disorganized brain.  Lastly, a detailed, visual outline will show how to increase efficiency.  In other words: learn comfortably, easily, and quickly from the best, for the best.