Karla, a homeschooling mom in Canada, shares her son’s reading struggles. After being diagnosed as learning disabled, he attended a literacy school. He made some progress but continued to guess every second or third word. She relates how Edublox was the game-changer:
Diagnosed as learning disabled
I have a ten-year-old son who has needed remedial help in the public school system since first grade. During his fourth and the beginning of his fifth year of school, he was sent to a literacy school where he could get more one-on-one help with reading. He only made enough progress there that, about a fourth of the way into the fifth-grade school year, he was able to read at a third-grade reading level. Everyone has been baffled by his inability to read well, given his extremely high IQ scores.
After tons of testing and school reports, they decided that he is learning disabled, though I was never told exactly what is causing his “inability” either. So for the remainder of fifth grade, I pulled him out of public school and started homeschooling him. This was a terrifying thing for me to do, as I didn’t know what I was going to do to improve his reading ability, either.
Introduced to Edublox
Through my curriculum research, I was introduced to Edublox. I read almost all the posts on the message boards and all the articles on the website.
I had an older child who had gone through a program in the U.S. similar to Edublox, and I saw some results. I was excited to find something that I could do at home and which didn’t cost me two thousand dollars (the cost of the other program), plus I am learning how to use the program with my child, so it can be a continual process, not one that is dictated by when my money will run out (like the other program).
Self-esteem and reading fluency improved
My ten-year-old has only been using the Edublox program for three months, and these are the things that I have noted in him. Most importantly, I would say his self-esteem has improved immensely. He is acting more mature and more responsible for his own behavior.
As for his reading, he is still at a third-grade level. This is the good news, though: Even at the third-grade level, he would guess every second or third word. You could tell him to look at it closely, sound it out, etc., and he would keep on guessing. Sometimes the word wouldn’t even look like the words he was guessing.
Now he only guesses at every fifth word, and if I tell him he has read a word wrong, he’ll look it over again and, most times, be able to tell me what the word is (he still has a difficult time sounding out multisyllabic words).
His fluency has increased tremendously, too. For the first time, he is reading without long pauses between words or sounding like a robot. He is actually starting to put some inflection into his words.
Quick progress in a short time
I am excited to see what the future holds for my son. I am finally seeing quick progress in such a short time that I can’t wait to see what the next few months bring for him with Edublox.
I also want to state that I think one of the reasons my son has made progress this quickly is because we started out doing five sessions a day for two weeks, then two sessions a day for two weeks, and now we do one session a day, five days a week. It really takes commitment on the parents’ part, but you really see results.
I want to thank everyone for their support and for answering my questions. The administrators of Edublox have been very willing to give me advice or explain how to do some of the exercises if something was unclear.
I highly recommend Edublox to anyone who is having problems reading. This is coming from someone who has tons of “how-to read books” that were a big waste of money, and I can tell you that Edublox is not.
Karla,
Homeschool mom,
Canada
Edublox offers live online tutoring to students with dyslexia and other learning challenges. Our students are in the United States, Canada, Australia, and elsewhere. Book a free consultation to discuss your child’s learning needs.
