Sarah (10 years)
Sarah is a ten year old girl who came for an assessment with Catherine McLennan (Founder of Listen to Read)
An early development questionnaire was filled out by Sarah’s mother while she sat in on the assessment for Sarah. This background information highlighted some areas of concern in Sarah’s early development. These areas of concern would certainly have had an effect on her early attempts to read. Sarah had been diagnosed with Irlen Syndrome a year before the Listen To Read assessment. Wearing the coloured lenses (in her case purple, was deemed appropriate) The lenses made the words easier to read. She was skipping words and lines less frequently and “the white background behind the words did not shimmer and shine as much.”
Why her mother was concerned
Her mother’s main concern was that Sarah never finished a book as she became distracted and lost interest. Sarah’s mother, Kathleen, was worried that poor oral reading and comprehension would impact on other areas of learning.
Catherine administered a reading age test and determined Sarah’s reading age was approximately 8.03 (8 years and 3 months). Given that Sarah was 10 years old, her mother was keen to begin the program immediately before she fell even further behind.
Sarah’s progress
Sarah began the Home Study program immediately. Catherine made several phone calls to check on her progress. During a Zoom call Sarah went through the early lessons with Catherine and Catherine was confident that the Listen to Read program had remediated the gaps in the early parts of the reading process (Consonant Clusters, Bossy ‘e’ and Vowel Blends.)
After a discussion with Kathleen, Catherine determined which lessons needed focus for the following weeks (Prefixes, Suffixes, Bossy ‘e’ and Syllabification).
Three months later, Sarah and her mother again travelled to Engadine for another assessment to determine the improvements which had been made.
Sarah’s results after 12 weeks
Sarah’s reading age had gone up to 10.06 (10 years and 6 months), an improvement of (1.03) 1 year and 3 months in only 12 weeks. Given that the 12 week period included the Christmas school holidays and the fact that she was not doing the lessons every day as recommended this improvement was most impressive!
Catherine recommended that now the focus for Sarah should be on reading aloud every day, focusing on fluency and comprehension. Kathleen was given strategies and suggestions to help Sarah with these focus areas. Catherine suggested the purchase of Forbrain for Sarah. These were purchased and worn by Sarah when she was reading aloud to someone in the family. This extra step helped to consolidate the improvements that had been made over the three month period.