Parenting a Struggling Reader

Rating:
Summary: Gave me the confidence to ask for help for my daughter......
Review: A caveat before I begin: I am a parent struggling to understand why my daughter has a hard time reading; I have no background in education. With that in mind, I will say that this book made me realize that I, as a parent, and not her teachers, was in the best position to know if my daughter was struggling more than she should be in first grade. I had known my child to be clever, creative, etc, but she has classic dyslexia symptoms that no one recognized as clearly as my husband and I. Although my daughter was not doing as well as others, she was ready to fall between the cracks until I spoke up loud and clear to her principal and teacher about her learning difficulties. I asked for an evaluation because of the message of this book: get your child help asap! Thankfully, she has now had special help for a year and her LD teacher feels she may be up to grade level by year end. I don't know how long I would've waited without the information in this book about dyslexia and its symptoms, etc. While it may not be a perfectly researched book, it helped me begin to understand the IEP process and the IDEA and my need to be vigilant to get my child the help she needs.

Rating:
Summary: Parenting a Struggling Reader
Review: Before reading Parenting a Struggling Reader, run out to your local office supply store and buy a package of post-it flags. This book is filled with great information you will want to mark and refer to again and again.

Parenting a Struggling Reader takes you on a journey to help solve your child's difficulty with reading. Written in a very readable, informative, and practical format, questions parents ask the authors set the navigational course for the information offered in this book. Charts throughout the book highlight important information parents need to help them reach their goal and final destination--having their child be a reader.

This book begins by discussing how parents need to act promptly and not wait, how to become informed about the latest research, and what are the available approaches for teaching reading. Knowledgeable informed parents are parents who know what questions to ask and where to get help for their child.

Chapters 3 and 4 discuss how parents are their child's best advocate, how to identify the problem, and assessments used to identify children at-risk at a young age.

The journey continues as Chapters 5 and 6 contain invaluable information on testing and seeking a diagnosis. In a style that is very easy to read and understand, the authors explain the different levels of testing and what tests are commonly used to assess the different aspects of reading acquisition.

Chapter 7 gives concrete examples showing how to recognize effective instruction as well as an overview of the most common structured language approaches to teaching reading. Chapter 8 addresses older students who have still not learned to read or to read well. The balance between the accommodations used as well as a necessary intense remediation program is discussed.

The final chapter on navigating the IEP clears the fog for parents as they journey through the IEP process. In a very clearly written style, an overview of the process is given, concrete examples of goals and objectives are shared, and practical advice about how parents can prepare for the meeting and become an important part of the team to help their child overcome his reading difficulty is clearly stated. The Appendices provide terrific recommended resources to help parents as they journey towards the land of the readers.

This book is not only about completing a journey-it is about hope for all children.

Rating:
Summary: This Book Belongs in Your Home
Review: Before reading Parenting a Struggling Reader, run out to your local office supply store and buy a package of post-it flags. This book is filled with great information you will want to mark and refer to again and again.

Parenting a Struggling Reader takes you on a journey to help solve your child's difficulty with reading. Written in a very readable, informative, and practical format, questions parents ask the authors set the navigational course for the information offered in this book. Charts throughout the book highlight important information parents need to help them reach their goal and final destination--having their child be a reader.

This book begins by discussing how parents need to act promptly and not wait, how to become informed about the latest research, and what are the available approaches for teaching reading. Knowledgeable informed parents are parents who know what questions to ask and where to get help for their child.

Chapters 3 and 4 discuss how parents are their child's best advocate, how to identify the problem, and assessments used to identify children at-risk at a young age.

The journey continues as Chapters 5 and 6 contain invaluable information on testing and seeking a diagnosis. In a style that is very easy to read and understand, the authors explain the different levels of testing and what tests are commonly used to assess the different aspects of reading acquisition.

Chapter 7 gives concrete examples showing how to recognize effective instruction as well as an overview of the most common structured language approaches to teaching reading. Chapter 8 addresses older students who have still not learned to read or to read well. The balance between the accommodations used as well as a necessary intense remediation program is discussed.

The final chapter on navigating the IEP clears the fog for parents as they journey through the IEP process. In a very clearly written style, an overview of the process is given, concrete examples of goals and objectives are shared, and practical advice about how parents can prepare for the meeting and become an important part of the team to help their child overcome his reading difficulty is clearly stated. The Appendices provide terrific recommended resources to help parents as they journey towards the land of the readers.

This book is not only about completing a journey-it is about hope for all children.

Rating:
Summary: A must for dealing with the system
Review: I have to take issue with the teacher who criticizes this book's "agenda." The title is Parenting a STRUGGLING Reader. Does this teacher understand the first thing about dyslexia? It's a disability that affects the child's ability to take words apart, to understand letter sound, to recognize phoenemes that make up words. A dyslexic child's brain functions differently (uses different areas for processing written language) than a regular reader's. Highly targeted phonics instruction is CRUCIAL for these kids. My volunteering in the classroom or reading dozens of books a night is not going to make my daughter's brain work like the kid who sits across from her, who's reading Charlotte's Web while she's still struggling with Sheep in a Jeep. She's not stupid, her IQ's 135. She's dyslexic. If teachers weren't so threatened when we try to get help for our kids with clinical problems, there wouldn't be a need for the "adversarial" advice in this book. As it is, it's a godsend for understanding how to double-check the school, make sure your child is in a program that's going to help and not exacerbate the problem. Believe me, I don't WANT to be at odds with her teachers. But I'm tired of her problems being ignored, I'm tired of being told she could do better if she just tried by people who aren't the ones holding her while she sobbs because she just can't get it. If you want to understand which programs are actually targeted to help a kid with dyslexia (newsflash: Reading Recovery is NOT one), and get some info on what the schools have to do to assist your kid (next flash: they sure as hell aren't going to tell you, you have to dig it out), then get this book.

Rating:
Summary: Parenting a Struggling Reader
Review: If you are parent with a child who is struggling with reading, you will find this book most helpful. It is filled with step-by-step advice on how to go about helping your child. Sitting back helplessly watching your child fall further and further behind while the school system evaluates and proceeds at a snail's pace is a highly frustrating experience. This book gives you the courage to believe in your own assessment of your child, and then points you to the resources needed to help him or her.

When one is first thrown into the world of special needs and learning disabilities, it is difficult to navigate to the proper channels to find the help needed. This book was like the first great wind to move me in the right direction, when I had been sitting on the beach with the sail turned in completely the wrong direction!

I did not need this book for my first child. Reading came easy to him. We had read to him almost every night since he was two months old. Then my daughter came along. She is struggling and so very frustrated. And yes, she has had books read to her almost every night since she was two months also! My point is this, while one reviewer appeared put off by this book, the title clearly states its audience. It is not written for every child, but it is a gold mine of good advice and resources for those of us finding ourselves raising struggling readers.

Rating:
Summary: A must for dealing with the system
Review: This book is not what it purports to be. It is a thorough catalog for commercially available phonics based reading education programs. There is not actually any advice on "parenting". There is plenty of advice on how to be adversarial with your child's teachers and school. There is extensive use of the term "research-based", and this is what the authors use to support their arguments. However, their scope is extremely limited. The research they cite focuses on what works to teach kids to read words (decode the symbols) early in the school years, rather than what works to help kids truly read and comprehend complex language. There is no discussion of reading comprehension. I have no question that with their recommended approach, we could all have 6 year olds reading Dick and Jane. They don't address the ultimate goal of reading, understanding what one reads.

Rating:
Summary: Don't be fooled.
Review: This book is not what it purports to be. It is a thorough catalog for commercially available phonics based reading education programs. There is not actually any advice on "parenting". There is plenty of advice on how to be adversarial with your child's teachers and school. There is extensive use of the term "research-based", and this is what the authors use to support their arguments. However, their scope is extremely limited. The research they cite focuses on what works to teach kids to read words (decode the symbols) early in the school years, rather than what works to help kids truly read and comprehend complex language. There is no discussion of reading comprehension. I have no question that with their recommended approach, we could all have 6 year olds reading Dick and Jane. They don't address the ultimate goal of reading, understanding what one reads.

Rating:
Summary: Tread carefully upon these waters...
Review: While this book may be a life saver for parents, its a teacher's worst nightmare. This book is merely a propaganda ploy designed to promote the use of reading programs that ONLY use a phonics-based approach to solving reading problems.

Every good teacher knows that a balanced, multi-level approach to teaching reading is the best route to go with instruction. Kids come into your classroom with a wide variety of needs; our job is to figure them out, and supply the best level of instruction to meet those needs.

These well intentioned but misled authors seem to think that only one way is best: complete phonics instruction. While I believe that some of my student truly benefit from this, many of my students need so much more. To ignore all the systems that allow us to read, and solely focus on one, is to cheat our children out of cueing systems they need to successfully manage text.

There are several key "code words" they include in their text that lead me to suspect they have a hidden agenda. First "researched-based" literacy instruction. While everything that needs to happen in our classrooms should be proven to be successful, that term is a hot button term meaning only using products sold by the all-powerful educational basal reading companies. They want a return into our classrooms, dominating our instruction by returning kids to workbooks and controlled basal readers, none of which is real, authentic reading.

The second is a report that the authors quote by the "National Reading Panel" (an organizations which many teachers have never heard of before) called "Put Reading First". This report clearly is another propaganda piece written by people with an agenda: to promote a singular form of reading instruction. This document actually suggests, laughably, not to have students in your classroom select books to read on their own. It's not "proven" to show growth in their reading. Apparently, kids do not need to read at home at all, or visit libraries to choose books to read, because it won't help them grow as a reader. The fact that this book wraps itself around this report is suspcious enough.

Let's be clear: this book was written by two people with a clear agenda. Don't allow yourself to be fooled by their tainted words.

If you want to help your children in reading, here's what you can do. Go into your child's classroom. Volunteer regularly. Ask your child's teacher monthly, weekly, if need be, what's happening in the classroom with.reading instruction. Find out what you can do at home. Read to your child every night, and have them see you read.

Become proactive in your children's education, not a victim of someone else's political, financial agenda.