Thank you, Dottie. You wrote Awesome just like it would be written in a Geronimo Stilton book, LOL! I need to play with full reply one of these days. Thank you!

ROFL! That's a lucky side bonus for me. That wasn't as easy as it looks, but I copied a similar exclamation that I made on another thread, teeheehee! The full screen does have some fun options for those with time to kill (yeah, who has that?)

I'm glad to hear your DS is making progress, Questions! How is he feeling about reading? Is he also enjoying it more now?

questions - I'm so glad your son is loving Geronimo Stilton books! I think those stories are really clever and fun. They have some interesting vocabulary too. Those books defintely were the bridge from short books to chapter books for us! Hooray!

questions - that is great news! I really think finding something they really enjoy can be such a great push to help them read. For my DS it was Goosebumps - he devoured them and his reading level sky rocketed. Sounds like your DS has found his "thing" and now his reading will really take off. YEA!!!

Thanks again, everyone. Yes, he claims he likes reading now. I'll believe it when he reads and doesn't ask every few seconds "has it been twenty minutes yet?" LOL!

LOL!

questions - Hi there (forgive me if you know this already, I'm new here, having just discovered this site) - I just wanted to add something on the vision angle. My dd, 6 y.o., saw a pediatric opthamologist for a regular vision checkup and he found nothing wrong with her eyes. Later that month, we happened to do testing at the Gifted Development Center and they suggested we look at vision again, in part because some of her responses on block design were nearly correct but skewed. We went to a behavioral optometrist and lo and behold she has an eye tracking problem. We are now about halfway through vision therapy and she's finally reading at grade level (1st grade, though I'm hoping for still more improvement, more in accordance with her supposed potential). If you are still considering the vision issue, you can find the right kind of optometrist at http://www.covd.org/ . The testing for us was altogether different than the quick check of eye tracking done by the ped opthamologist - a different kind of appointment, actually.

Incidentally, the vision exercises were much easier for dd to do after she completed an intensive program of OT for SPD. The OT thought this would happen, but the improvement was amazing (I wasn't holding my breath. The vision therapist was blown away at the difference). Our OT noticed the eye tracking issue, but if she hadn't I doubt I would have taken her word for it that it wasn't there. The vision homework is a substantial commitment (around 1/2 hr x 5 days per week, plus one hour weekly with the therapist) and I'm counting down the weeks left.

Now I have to go back and re-read this interesting thread since I am looking for tips on building dd's confidence with reading - at this point I think she's capable of more than she's willing to try...


OK, now that I have re-read about half of this, I wanted to point out that getting lost from the end of one line to the beginning of another indeed could possibly be due to an eye tracking problem. I remember the optometrist specifically mentioning that issue.

snowgirl - my ds is also doing visual tracking therapy right now and we found our therapist on the website mentioned above. He has also shown great improvement and I am very excited about this. He was 9 before we discovered what was wrong so I am very happy you found help at a younger age. I think that would have saved us alot of grief.

I too am looking forward to when we're done. He retested a couple of weeks ago and they think we're about half way there.

I'm glad things are working out for you too!

Snowgirl,

Thanks so much for that link. I will search for someone locally and have it checked out. We checked out everything else, may as well be thorough. Meanwhile, that EZ reader highlighting card seems to be helping.

Thanks again!