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Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Do You Have A Child Who Struggles With Dyslexia?




If you are like many parents who have children who struggle with dyslexia, many subjects will give you fits.  I have found spelling to be the biggest problem for us.  We have tried many different spelling curricula  all to no avail.  One day we stumbled upon something that finally made sense.  The approach it took was through using a multi-sensory approach, teaching students to recognize patterns of spelling based on the rules of the English language, but without all the complicated explanations.  It is called Sequential Spelling and is available through a very helpful website www.avko.org.  This organization was developed by a man named Don McCabe.  He also sends out helpful newsletters.

I like this approach because it is level based.  Not long ago, we made the change in our teaching to level based and not grade based.  I feel that this is important because if you have a child who is not making much progress, he or she does not feel bad when they see that their level is based upon mastery of the subject and not upon grade level advancement.  There are seven progressive levels of difficulty.  The students take tests daily and as they recognize more and more patterns and begin to spell words correctly they become more and more confident- all without studying- and their confidence and spelling skills soar like never before.

I highly recommend this website and this curriculum!  One last thing, to those of you who love Sonlight curriculum, this is a spelling core.

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