Maui Boy Makes 4 Years Reading Growth In 12 Months
A parent from Maui sent in this message about her son Kai:
Aloha! It’s been about 18 months since we last spoke. At that stage, I’d just taken Kai out of school because he had “fallen through the cracks” and the teachers were totally unequipped to deal with his visual learning problem. He was reading at less than a 5 year level, according to the testing from the specific learning school I took him to for assessment. They were ready to put him in with the severely learning disabled kids. Frankly, I didn’t believe them. What parent does?
So I went “shopping” for help. Took him out of his school and found a Linda Mood Bell teacher. Kai’s self esteem was in shreds and he was at the same time battling an intestinal parasite, so life was pretty traumatic for several months. The teacher was lovely, but Kai found it extremely difficult to focus, and each session was a battle.
I put him in a small “home school”, but socially that was also difficult as so many of the kids were younger and Kai, even though he was officially “behind” the rest of his class was still way ahead of the other kids - so he had no motivation whatsoever to do any work. His attitude was “I’ll just sit here and let them catch up.” Unfortunately he was good at math, so he had a long wait. And the others were only starting to read from scratch, so Kai “looked” good, even though he would fail once the reading reached a certain level. Let me just say that learning at this stage for Kai was NOT fun, and he was becoming more and more of a behavior problem.
Luckily I found the PACE program with a wonderful teacher, so I started him off on that. Because it starts with the basic perceptual building blocks of reading & learning, it wasn’t so much associated with his “reading problem” and he was much more willing & co-operative. But he wanted to “read”. I tried several online reading programs, but Kai would reach a certain level and get frustrated, then resist etc etc.
I found Reading Upgrade. I just introduced it casually as something “fun” to do, rather than serious “reading” because he’d built up such a strong resistance to learning. He seemed motivated to “get to the end” of the program, despite a lot of bronzes and silvers. The program started with easy levels, so he could feel successful. The music was jazzy & “cool”. And better yet, one of his friends from the home school program who was also having difficulty grasping even basic concepts became interested in the program, so they’d do it together. Kai rather enjoyed “showing off” his abilities, being very competitive by nature. (And I turned his friend’s dad on to the program, so he subscribed to his own copy).
Kai continued on the PACE program for 6 months, just logging on to Reading Upgrade every so often. He found it easier than before and slowly moved up in levels. As his new skills became more integrated he started “clicking” with the levels and finished the program, albeit it with some bronzes and silvers. He enjoyed the process of going back and converting them all to “golds”.
He was out of real “school” for a full year, and then I put him into public school and let him stay back a year. He could have gone to his grade level, but I didn’t want to put him in a new school where he’d be struggling to keep up again. I wanted him to experience success. It was a hard decision, but I didn’t want him to identify himself as a failure yet again. When they assessed him for entry he was reading at a NINE YEAR level, far closer to his chronological age! He’d gained four years in 12 months.
He did a year in public school. At the end of that time, he was one of the best readers in the class. And at the end of the year he TOPPED ALL THREE CLASSES IN HIS STATE TESTING. He still struggles to maintain consistent focus for long periods of time, but he no longer feels like a failure. I really feel that the Reading Upgrade program contributed to this in a big way, simply because it made learning fun again. I do like the fact that you’ve randomized the questions & answers when they go back to repeat a level in your new versions. Kai, being an adept “rote” learner, managed to fool the program sometimes because he “knew” the answers from having just attempted the level!
Now I think he’s ready for the Math Upgrade & Comprehension Upgrade, which I think should be a great alternative to the X-box that is way too available. Have you guys ever thought of developing some interactive games like these by the way? or putting a “playground” of games on your program to act as a “reward”? I found Kai responded well to that kind of thing!!!
Best wishes - and thanks for a great program!
S.S.
Maui, Hawaii.