Comments: Hi

I'm looking for some help and advice. I'm working with a friend's child I'll call him X to help improve his reading and spelling. I first worked with him in July last year, intending to help him a little with a school entrance exam state school. However, it soon became clear to me that his reading skills were very poor he was reading largely by context and his spelling was even worse. I tested his reading, spelling and his basic skills, with the following results:


Child's age at July/Aug 07: 10.8 yrs

27 July 07

Burt word reading test: 42 words correct, reading age 7.7, 3.1 years behind chronological age.

X had a guessing and 'first part of word' strategy for words he didn't know. As examples, he read 'one' as 'on', 'of' as 'off', 'scramble' as 'scrumble', 'beware' as 'brow', 'explorer' as 'explore', 'projecting' as 'project', 'obtain' as 'orbtain' and 'obturn', 'belief' as 'believe'.


Shonell spelling test: 35 words correct, spelling age 8.5, 2.3 years behind chronological age.
His spelling showed a wild tendency to just write anything in multi-syllable words. Simple words were largely recognisable, but, for example, hewrote 'direct' as 'diget', 'circus' as 'circe', 'increase' as 'incrce', 'enthusiastic' as 'inthieastisk' I kept going with the hard words to see what he would do

4 Aug 07
Phono Graphix tests
Blending: 10/15
Segmentation: 41/42
Auditory processing: 7/10
Code knowledge: 82
The child's code knowledge showed considerable letter-name interference. I'd already corrected his tendency to say 'lee' or 'ell' for 'l' by the time we did the P-G tests.

We were able to do some work at the basic level of blending and segmenting, and some work on breaking long words down, over the summer holiday. I did some incidental work with him between then and October, whilst working on other matters, but I was unable to do further P-G work with X until October. Since then, we have had 8 P-G sessions. I have re-tested X over the last 2 weeks with the following results:

30 Jan 08
Child's age at 30 Jan 08: 11.3 yrs
Burt Reading test: 75 words correct, reading age 10.9, .4 yrs behind previously 3.1 yrs behind
X now breaks multi-syllable words into chunks,and sounds out. He re-assembles words very successfully. The word 'melodrama' stumped him because he didn't recognise it, but he tried all manner of different stress patterns to try to get a 'real' word. He read 'urge' correctly, then told me he'd never seen the word before. But he managed words such as 'apprehend' and 'circumstances' which were beyond him before.

Schonell spelling test: 42 words correct, spelling age 9.2, 2.1 years behind previously 2.3 years behind

X now makes a valiant attempt to break words into chunks, and to match sound pictures to sounds, and even quite difficult words have feasible spellings. 'Enthusiastic' was this time written as 'enthousieastic', 'direct' as 'dierect', 'circus' as 'cercous' and 'increase' as 'increes'. Unfortunately, he appears to have little visual memory for what is the accepted picture in a word, and we had 'with' as 'whith', 'skate' as 'skat', 'mistake' as 'misstake'. It was also interesting to note the difference in presentation between the July test and the January one. In July, X had written in 2 columns which started at the top left-hand side of the page, and drifted right-wards. In the January test, he produced two very neat, dead straight, columns. However, X still reverses b/d and f/t. In the spelling test he wrote 'dream' as 'breem', and I have previously witnessed 'great' as 'greaf'.

Whilst X is now able to make a good effort at decoding many words, his reading is very slow and laboured. A recent meeting with his teacher suggested to me that his poor reading is affecting his maths. Computationally he is sound, but worded problems cause difficulties. Though recent written tests put his mathematical performance squarely at average, a computer-based test, where the questions are read to the child, put him at a 'low Level 5'. The expected achievement level for a child his age is a level 4, so he had performed well-above average.
X's spelling also fails to do him justice. At least, now, it is possible to make out what word is intended, but he is still way behind his chronological age.

I am hoping that the school will let me work on a volunteer basis with X for two half-hour sessions a week during school hours, rather than the hour I spend with him after school. By the time I get him he is tire and past his best. My question is, how can I best use that time to a improve his slow reading speed, and b improve his poor spelling? All suggestions gratefully accepted.

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