For the Love of Reading

"So please, oh PLEASE, we beg, we pray,

Go throw your TV set away,

And in its place you can install,

A lovely bookshelf on the wall."

— Roald Dahl, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Nothing is more rewarding than seeing children become excited about reading. Will is a first grader who recently completed sessions with us. You can see by the look on his face in this picture that he was happy to receive a book at his ending celebration. Kristin, his Learning Coordinator, picked one special for him that she thought he'd enjoy. What you don't see, is the sense of pride Will displayed in sessions as his reading skills developed.

When checking in with Will's mom a short time later, Kristin learned that Will had already read the book she'd given him and moved on to one from the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series! Mom reported that, while the book is challenging for him (it's above his grade level!), he really wanted to read it and is able to work through and decode most of it on his own.

"So, please, oh Please, we beg, we pray,

Read with your children every day.

Keep books on hand for lots of fun,

They'll be so proud, once they're done!"

---Langsford Learning Acceleration Centers

Jon: A Real Goal Getter!

Jon is a first grader who recently came in with his spelling test for the previous week. He was excited to announce that he'd gotten all the words correct for the first time this year.

A lot of our clients have goal sheets to help keep them on track in sessions and to promote independence in using their new skills. Jon has a goal sheet with things like:

ask the teacher questions

try my best

and follow the steps for tasks.

As Jon was about to start his session, he asked his instructor if he could add a new goal to his goal sheet. She asked what he wanted to add. He said, "To make a good grade on my spelling test every week!"

Describing Evan In One Word

If allowed only one word to describe Evan in relation to reading, everyone agrees the word would have to be confident.

Evan's parents are very pleased with his progress and they say he is reading more independently at home now and is taking an interest in sports books.

His Language Arts Teacher wrote:

If he comes to a word that he does not recognize, most times he is able to figure out the word based on the skills he has learned....He is much more confident in his ability that he CAN DO IT!

His teacher in other subject areas noticed a change in Evan too:

...Evan, I feel, is much more confident about reading in the classroom than he was in the beginning of the year. Whenever I call on him to read aloud in class, there is no hesitation at all. He read about two paragraphs yesterday and had trouble with only one word.

Way to go Evan and all of us at Langsford are confident you will enjoy reading those sports books!

Katie Reads The Wig

This is Katie. While on her break between sessions the other day, she was sharing her excitement with everyone in the lobby about how she finished reading a whole book and was able to decode all the words!

The photos above show her in sessions reading that book, titled The Wig. It's a story about a dog who gets into some mischief which Katie found really funny. In the second photo, Katie is showing us a picture of the dog wearing the wig.

Nice job Katie!

Teddy's Reading Novels

When Teddy first came to work with us, his Learning Coordinator, Mary, created a customized plan of action that developed his reading and spelling up to the simple multi-syllable level. Upon finishing that phase of work, he stopped attending daily sessions and then returned the following summer for 2 weeks to work at the complex multi-syllable level. This is often done with our younger clients so we can give them time to stabilize their new skills and then work on the more complex levels at the same time this type of work is increasing in school, usually after the third grade year.

This past summer, Teddy returned for a one week review. Teddy is now at the level where he is beginning to read novels so we also did some work on Novel Noting. Our Novel Noting sessions help with organizing and planning this type of school reading to gain a deeper understanding of the book. Our work includes ways to organize the setting and characters, develop main ideas of each chapter, and also learn new vocabulary words.

Elizabeth Knows Horses

Elizabeth and her mom traveled here all the way from Tennessee to do sessions with us. She was great fun to have around and knew a lot about horses. One day as I worked with her, we were reading a story about Lippizaner Stallions. Elizabeth already knew quite a bit about them but we were both curious about why they are now so rare. Well later that evening, she did some research on her own and the next day she brought me a printout of information she found on the internet explaining the history of this breed of horse.

That's one reason why it's great working here, it's not just the students that learn a lot!



This picture above is Elizabeth and her mom.



This is Elizabeth and Claudia, who was her Learning Coordinator while she was here this summer doing sessions.

Michael's Becoming an Independent Learner

Michael just finished writing a sentence dictated to him by his Langsford Instructor. He's now checking it over for any possible errors he may have made with his spelling. This is a very important part of the work done at Langsford. Our goal is to help all of our students learn to become self-correcting and independent with their skills.

Following Up: The Learning Continues

Kristin, one of Langsford's Learning Coordinators, recently followed up with a family of a student who will be entering 8th grade this fall. At the end of his work here, Kristin prepared further recommendations so he could continue to benefit and strengthen the gains he made from his work at Langsford.

Kristin's main recommendation was that the student continue to work on writing this summer. So as summer arrived, she contacted his mother to remind her about that and to offer specific suggestions. She wanted to offer ideas that would be fun, help motivate and give him more control over the process, so she recommended creative writing. She gave the mom the following link to help along those lines. Readers of this blog may want to check it out as well. Click here.

Another recommendation Kristin made for this particular family was to investigate the possibility of using a Franklin Speller. Technological advances such as these electronic dictionaries and spellers can be helpful depending on the situation. Sometimes these tools are used soley for accomodation or compensation. Langsford believes it's important to concentrate on remediation first and then move to technology to assist in learning and the Franklin Speller can be a great tool.

Finally, Kristin recommended that this family have some fun with a Group Story. A Group Story is where someone starts a story and then passes it off to another person who writes a few sentences and so on. The stories can get quite crazy and you never know how it's going to turn out. I know I (Debbie) did this several times with my children and I still have my favorite. We suggest everyone give it a try.

Kristin received this feedback from mom after her follow up:

Good Morning Kristin,

I hope this finds you well. Yes, Brock did finish with a great report card. All his grades were 88 and above. He made second honors for the very first time! YEAH!

I purchased the Franklin speller for him and he seemed to benefit from it. Thanks for that good suggestion.

To say the least I am impressed with your follow up! I always appreciate people that hold me to my word. I purchased the notebook for the combined story writing weeks ago. Now, making the time for the writing. Thanks for the nudge.

Please pass along my thanks and appreciation to your staff for their part in Brock's success!

Take care,
Courtney

Evan's Tapering Plan

This is Evan and her little brother Tommy. Evan's mother has a special education background and when she first called to speak to us, she said she knew Evan was struggling, but not really at an extreme level. She thought Evan would benefit from a boost and wanted to do something to help her self-confidence when it came to reading. Mom reports that school says she is now reading above grade level.

Working In conjunction with her Learning Coordinator, Mary, Mom has decided to continue bringing Evan in sporadically over the summer to ensure that she has more time to apply what she's learned. At Langsford, we refer to this part of our customized plan as "tapering," which means that we want to gradually move a student out of sessions as they demonstrate the ability to apply their new skills. This tapering plan will differ with each individual client and his/her specific needs.

Our goal is to make sure that every client leaves Langsford with the skills needed to be a self-correcting, independent learner.

CAPD Can't Stop Danny

A very energetic grandmother to a past client came strolling into Langsford's Highlands office last week because she wanted to let us know how her grandson is doing. She said she just had to stop in and tell us about it because "we were the turning point in this young man’s life." This young man was diagnosed with CAPD (Central Auditory Processing Disorder: see below for more information on CAPD) in first grade, received special education services and also had some tutoring before he came to us in 7th grade.

Danny is now a freshman at Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio and is getting straight A’s as well as being quite involved socially. He has also developed into a great cross country runner.

She relayed how they were just lucky to find out about us by talking with other families who have been here. She is a retired teacher and she mentioned how Danny was in special education at his school but was released after doing work here. She said she had never heard of that happening much at all. She is really a proud grandmother!

How does Langsford work with clients who have CAPD?

Many, of our clients have issues related to Central Auditory Processing Disorder (now most often referred to as APD, Auditory Processing Disorder). Saying someone has CAPD is like saying someone has a learning disability. It can include one or many areas of difficulty in varying degrees.

One of our specialties here at Langsford Learning Acceleration Centers is addressing phonological awareness instability, which is one of the many auditory processes that come under the umbrella of APD. By stabilizing this foundational process, and integrating all the other critical aspects of the reading process (phonics, words attack, sight words, fluency) in a very deliberate and systematic way, we have had tremendous success in teaching students to become independent, self-correcting readers and spellers. And Danny is a perfect example.

"I'm Sending My Kids to Langsford"

This week one of our clients told her instructor that when she grows up, she wants to send her kids here to do work. She said she's crossing her fingers and hopes they struggle so she can bring them here.

That's one of the many funny comments we hear around Langsford and while we certainly do not want her children to struggle, we are happy to know that she had such a fun experience working with us that she would consider us an option for her own children.

Of course, the other part to this is that Langsford also works often with students who are not really struggling, but who would just like to boost their skills. This seems to be particularly true with the work we do in comprehension for middle and high schoolers because the metacognition involved in our sessions can really help students think about how they think. This makes their learning easier and much more efficient.