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Every once in a while, I receive a note from a customer that takes my breath away. This is one of those stories. As I read Raquel’s testimonial* about how All About Reading helped her daughter, I couldn’t help but remember my own son’s struggle with dyslexia.
I knew exactly what Raquel was feeling—the sadness, the fear, and ultimately the incredible hope—as she walked with Katie through her journey to reading. I knew I had to share their story with you.
I just had to take a moment to tell you what the All About Reading program has meant to my daughter Katie and me. My precious daughter was almost in third grade and not progressing with reading at all. We had homeschooled her from the beginning and had an older son who was a very late reader. Once he hit second grade, his reading exploded, and he was reading sixth grade level books by the end of that year. We thought our daughter would follow a similar path.
Unfortunately, by the end of second grade, Katie was still struggling despite wanting to be able to read. My husband is dyslexic, so we began researching symptoms of dyslexia regarding our little girl. I cried when I realized we could check off every single indicator for her. I felt like an utter failure! My heart broke in two seeing how all the signs had been in front of me, but I hadn’t recognized them. As a homeschool parent, you bend over backward to give your children the very best education possible, and in front of me was proof that we had let Katie down.
We immediately scheduled an appointment for Katie to be tested for dyslexia and any other learning challenges she might possess. We felt lucky that there was a local private school strictly dedicated to helping children with reading challenges. We were willing to do whatever it took to send our little girl there if it meant that she would get the help she needed. We had her tested and the results were dismal. She was in the lowest range for both the visual and auditory aspects of dyslexia. The school asked us to have Katie take a more in-depth test to see precisely how negatively the visual dyslexia component was affecting her.
I still remember sitting in the office with my husband while we awaited the final information. The head of a school specifically created for dyslexic children looked at us and told us it was hopeless. He told us that there was no clinically effective treatment currently available for Katie’s form of dyslexia. They informed us that they would not admit her into the school because they did not believe they could help her, and that we needed to accept that she would likely never read beyond a first-grade level. I was furious! How dare this man tell me my daughter was a lost cause. We knew Katie was bright, creative, and capable. He had NO idea who he was talking to, and I was determined that my girl would have anything she needed to succeed.
We immediately ordered All About Reading Level 1. It was slow going at first. Truthfully, it was slow going for the first two years. It took us a school year and a half to complete Level 2. There were lots of tears. Fluency sheets were dreaded! It was so bad that I put a chocolate chip on top of each word that she could eat after she read the word. Every five lessons resulted in a prize marked off on the progress chart. There were lots of hugs and reassurances that this struggle did not mean that she was stupid. Thankfully our girl is a fighter.
Fast forward four and a half years and Katie can read fluently at grade level. I am attaching a picture of her reading a complicated Star Wars book. She was desperate to read it because her big brother had read it. I was doubtful that she would make it through the whole book, but that was silly of me. It took her a while, but she did it.
Thank you for equipping me to do what professionals told me would not be possible. I tell everyone I meet how much we love your program, and if they want to start their kids out on the right foot, then there is no better program than All About Reading.
Katie read a book for fun today for the very first time: The Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness. I wasn’t sure if this day would ever arrive, but it did! Thank you from the very bottom of my heart! May God richly bless you as you continue this beneficial and necessary work!
Raquel loved using our Chapter Book Review posts and Library Lists. These resources helped her find engaging, age-appropriate reading material that motivated Katie and helped her enjoy reading.
Did you enjoy Raquel’s story? Read more stories from Real Moms and Real Kids.
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*To preserve the privacy of the child featured in this story, we did not use the family’s real names.
Claudia
says:Please help! I feel overwhelmed by my grandson’s reading progress. He was born with a genetic disease that affects muscles. He is wheelchair dependent and has limited strength. However, this disease does not affect intellectual development. Because his doctor asked us not to put him in school (respiratory problems) I retired from teaching and began homeschooling him last year. We started out 2023-2024 fairly well in kindergarten. In September of 2023, he was hospitalized for three months. He received an hour each day of schooling from the hospital’s teacher, and I did my best to continue our homeschool program too. Towards the end of the year I noticed he was starting to struggle with sounding out and reading cvc words. A friend suggested AAR as she is a lover of Orton Gillingham. We began Level 1 this September. He has no problem recognizing letters and giving their sounds, but sounding out is a struggle! He often guesses, reads words backwards. and takes so long to sound a word out. I’m scared. I’m doubting my ability to help him progress. It can take up to 20 minutes to complete review sheets, and that’s only half the words, phrases and sentences. What if he can’t get through one? Do I still go on to next lesson? Please accept my apologies for this looooong post. I just fear he will not grasp reading.
Robin
says: Customer ServiceClaudia,
I’m sorry to hear that your son is struggling with reading. I’m happy to help, and I’m available as much as you need! You can reach me by email at support@allaboutlearningpress.com if you would prefer to converse more privately.
First, health issues are going to affect a child’s learning ability. When a body is struggling to heal, there is less resources for mental focus and development. A hospitalization can cause delays in learning, even when it’s a shorter hospitalization. Please have patience and focus on helping your grandson make progress compared to himself only. He will grasp it in his own time.
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Second, please know that a lesson in All About Reading will take more than one day to complete. On average, a lesson takes 2 to 3 days at just 20 minutes a day. Some children will need a week or more on the same lesson! Our blog article on A Typical Day and Week in All About Reading shows how I spread a single lesson in All About Reading over a week because that is what my daughter needed at that time. (That little girl is 17 now and reads classic literature for fun. It was slower than typical, but she mastered reading and learned to enjoy it too with All About Reading!)
So, when you reach the 20 minute mark, make a mark on the fluency practice sheet where you left off, and then pick up from there on the next day. Don’t go on to the next lesson until he has mastered the current lesson. That means that he needs to be able to sound out the words without help or hesitation before moving on.
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Third, since he is having difficulty sounding out words, he may be weak in some foundational skills. Did you use our reading placement test before deciding on Level 1?
Specifically, how does he do with these skills:
– Can he rhyme? If you say bat, can he come up with a rhyming word like hat?
– Does he understand word boundaries? If you say the sentence “Don’t let the cat out,” is your grandson able to separate the sentence into five individual words?
– Can he clap or count syllables? If you say dog, does he knows to clap once? If you say umbrella, does he knows to clap three times?
– Can he blend sounds to make a word orally? If you say the sounds sh…eep, can he respond with the word “sheep?”
– Is he able to identify the beginning sound in a word? If you ask him to say the first sound in pig, is he able to respond with the sound /p/?
– Is he able to identify the ending sound in a word? If you ask him to say the last sound in the word jam, is he able to respond with the sound /m/?
If he has trouble with any of these, let me know. It may be that he needs to work on phonological awareness skills. We have a blog post on Fun Ways to Develop Phonological Awareness that can help, but I may have additional ideas. And if he struggles with three or more of these, he may be struggling with Level 1 because he is not ready for it. Children who are weak in phonological awareness skills often struggle with blending.
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Here are some specific tips for helping a child learn to blend sounds into words:
– Make sure to work on reading daily. (You probably are already doing that, but I always like to double-check!) We recommend working for about 20 minutes per day on reading, but it is best to do even shorter lessons if your student grows tired or frustrated sooner. However, it is the consistent day-in, day-out work that allows for progress. It is better to do just 5 minutes of review than to skip a day altogether.
– Make sure he is solid on the phonogram cards and that he is transferring that information to the letter tiles. If he doesn’t know some of them automatically, there are free downloads you can use for fun review in this article on How to Teach Phonograms.
– – Review the Blending Procedure at the start of each day! (Before anything else.) You want to make sure he is doing every step as shown in the book in Lesson 1 and in our Helping Kids Sound Out Words blog post. Start each day with a tile demonstration until he is able to demonstrate all the steps back to you. (Help as much as he needs while he’s learning to do this, but eventually, it should be easy for him, and he will be able to demonstrate it without help):
First, point to each letter and say the sounds. “/p/-/ă/-/t/”
Second, draw the finger under the first two letters. Blend those and then point to and say the last sound. This cumulative blending step is really important for kids who tend to forget the sounds or mix them up. “/pă/-/t/”
Third, draw the finger slowly under all three letters and blend those. “/păt/”
Fourth, say it fast or “say it like a word.”
It may be that focusing on that third cumulative blending step helps your grandchild with this difficulty. It often does.
However, you may need to model the full blending procedure for your grandson and then have him do it for the exact same word. You may need to model every word for him this way for a while before he can do it easily. But once he can do it easily, try changing just the final letter and see if he can blend the new word without you modeling it first. If he has trouble with it, then model it for him and then have him do it so he can have success with it.
– The Change-the-Word activities in the Teacher’s Manual are especially helpful for working on blending and paying attention to all sounds in a word. Change one letter at a time, starting with simple 3-sound words like: bat-sat-sit-sip-tip-top…and so on. You do not have to wait until this is scheduled in the Teacher’s Manual but can do it as often as is helpful for your child.
– – Work on oral blending. You say the sounds of a word you are thinking of, and then he blends them into a word. Can he guess a word that you mean if you just say the sounds? Do easy 3-sound words first, like /k/-/ī/-/t/ (kite). This is a game that can help develop his blending skills. If he can blend orally, then he is well on his way to being able to blend written words.
You can make this easier to do it as a part of an “I-Spy” game. Say, “I spy with my little eye something that sounds like /s/-/ŏ/-/k/.” (Choosing something that is within your grandchild’s line of sight makes it easier.)
Let him say sounds for you to blend too, even if they make nonsense words. Laugh and have fun with it! Hearing you blend sounds can help him begin to hear how individual sounds change slightly when they are blended.
If you are on our Facebook Support group, here’s a great video that a mom shared about teaching her daughter oral blending. If you aren’t in the group already, you can request to join, and we’ll get you approved.
Another thing that you can do with young kids that’s fun: (First, you demonstrate this, and then the child mimics.) Lay three index cards on the table (even better if they are different colors). Write one letter on each index card, like M – A – P. Drive a toy card over the first index card and say /mmmmm/. Drive over the second and say /ăăăăă/. Drive over the third paper and say /p/. Then start over, and do it quicker: /mmmmăăăă/-/p/, and then start over again and go faster, /mmmmmmăăăăăp/. Finally, drive very quickly across the index cards and say “MAP!”
You can also play oral segmenting games–say a word that has 2 or 3 sounds, and see if he can say the sounds in that word. Here’s a video that demonstrates how to segment sounds. (This post also talks about spelling, but don’t work on that yet–just segmenting words orally.)
Another game I used to play with my kids–I would pull down 3 letter tiles such as c, t, and a. I would draw 3 blanks on the board and say, “I want to make the word cat. What’s the first sound in cat?” (/k/) “Right! Which letter should I put first?” (see if he puts the C in the blank, or help him do that). “Good! What’s the second sound in cat? /kăăăăt/” (/ăăă/) and so on. See if he can help you make the 3-sound word, and then model how to sound it out and read it using the full blending procedure.
Basically, just play around with the tiles and other activities and games for a few weeks and see if he starts to catch on to blending.
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I hope this helps! I would love to hear how things go in the next few weeks. Let me know if you have additional questions.
Jan
says:How do I get the written material that Rachel and Katie used
Robin
says: Customer ServiceJan,
Rachel and Katie used All About Reading and All About Spelling. You can find both programs here: All About Learning!
Janette
says:This program was so integral to my child’s success in learning to read as a person with dyslexia and other neurological challenges. We were so grateful to have found it as a resource.
Robin
says: Customer ServiceJanette,
I’m so glad to hear that All About Reading has helped your child success in reading! So wonderful!
Amanda
says:What “type” of dyslexia did she have that they didn’t think could be remediated?
Robin
says: Customer ServiceAmanda,
I don’t know what form of dyslexia the school director was referring to. However, I know of multiple situations like this and like Marie Rippel’s experience with her son with experts declaring with finality that it is impossible to teach a specific student to read. And like this blog post and Marie’s son, dedicated parents proved those experts wrong!
Shana Baumgartner
says:This is so heartbreaking and inspiring. It makes my blood boil anytime I hear of someone saying there is no hope for a child. I homeschooled my two children last year and, because of it, began to suspect they have dyslexia. They have had IEPs and this was NEVER brought up by anyone. I was so infuriated. This story gives me hope.
Robin
says: Customer ServiceI’m so pleased this family’s story gives you hope, Shana! We have a Dyslexia Resources page you may find helpful, but if you have questions or need help, please ask. I’m happy to help!
Lauren
says:This is exactly what I needed. My boys learned to ready typically. But my mom and brother were dyslexic. And I think my daughter is. Slow and steady wins the race. There’s no room for comparison, only celebration.
Robin E.
says: Customer ServiceGreat perspective, Lauren. Slow and steady for the win!
Lauren
says:This is exactly what I needed. My first born is a boy and learned to ready typically. Now he reads all the time. My second born is also a boy and basically taught himself to read. I tried to think that it would be easier since she is a girl. But then she was delayed learning her letters. But my mom and brother were dyslexic. Slow and steady wins the race. There’s no room for comparison, only celebration.
Jenny
says:This looks really interesting. As a mom of an 11 year old boy who is on the spectrum, we’ve noticed a few things that had us questioning whether or not he was dyslexic, and if so, where do we go from there? Nice to know we have option.
Robin E.
says: Customer ServiceJenny,
We have a blog post that I think will be helpful for you, Teaching Reading and Spelling to Children with Autism. Also, we have a Dyslexia Resources page that includes a Symptoms of Dyslexia Checklist as well as articles and reports that you will find informative.
If you have specific questions or need help with placement or anything else, please let me know. I’m happy to help!
Ruth
says:My daughter struggled with dyslexia before there were resources like this available. I’m going to try to use AAR with my grandkids and hope they can become fluent readers.
Robin E.
says: Customer ServiceRuth,
I have great hope that All About Reading can help make a difference for your grandkids. If you have questions or concerns or need help along the way, we are here for you!
Alexis D
says:Thank you for this post! It gives me encouragement for my son who is struggling!
Robin E.
says: Customer ServiceI’m so pleased to hear this was encouraging to you, Alexis!
But if you need help or have questions, please let us know. We are happy to help!
stevensplat
says:After receiving ebook ghostwriting assistance from a buddy, I discovered that their writing abilities are exceptional. I must say that the authors ghost writing service is well worth it. Now I have to reward my friend for recommending this service.
Anna
says:What an encouraging testimonial for us mamas working through a similar process! So happy to hear about R’s success!
Robin E.
says: Customer ServiceI’m so glad this was encouraging for you, Anna!
Jackie Rowe
says:I have two kids with dyslexia, this is a great resource.
Robin E.
says: Customer ServiceThank you, Jackie!
Natalie
says:Helpful, thank you!
Abbe
says:I am just beginning this journey. Excited to hear of such great success you are having!
Robin E.
says: Customer ServiceWonderful, Abbe! If you have questions as you begin, we are happy to help.
Niki
says:My son also has dyslexia and we are currently working through All About Reading. I haven’t added spelling yet but I plan to.
Robin E.
says: Customer ServiceLet me know if you have questions about starting All About Spelling, Niki! I’m happy to help!
Miranda Carter
says:Thank you so much for sharing your story I do think my daughter has some qualities of dyslexia but haven’t had her tested. We are working through level one AAR now plan to use the whole sets going forward!
Robin E.
says: Customer ServiceYou’re welcome, Miranda.
We have a Dyslexia Resources page I think you may find helpful. Please let me know if you have any questions or need anything. I’m happy to help!
Deena Hargett
says:Very inspiring story. I would love to get this series for my struggling reader
Judith Martinez
says:My 10-year-old is still struggling to learn how to read and I’ve considered having her screened for dyslexia but on the other hand, she’s learned a lot of sight words on her own. This inspires me to just keep plugging along.
Jamie
says:I love that she is reading on her own!
Robin E.
says: Customer ServiceYes, that is wonderful, Jamie! I also love that she enjoys reading too!
Sandi Wagner
says:My son was recently diagnosed with dyslexia. My other son is suspected to also be dyslexic but we’re unable to assess him at the moment. This was very reassuring to read!
Robin E.
says: Customer ServiceI’m glad this is reassuring for you, Sandi! I have similar success stories with two of my own children, so I personally know the struggle and the success. You can too!
We have a Dyslexia Resources page you will find helpful. If you have any questions or need help with anything, please let us know. We are happy to help!
Sandi Wagner
says:My son was recently diagnosed as dyslexic and my other son is suspected to have but we’re unable to test him yet. This was very reassuring to read!
Alix Owens
says:It’s so encouraging to read how this program has helped others!
Jodie Marsh
says:As someone that is dyslexic I am excited to use with my children!
Ashleigh
says:So glad your program is helping others achieve their goals.
Kathryn M
says:This is so encouraging! We are in the process of diagnosing dyslexia for our daughter, and are hopeful for a success story like this one.
Robin E.
says: Customer ServiceKathryn,
There have been lots and lots of success stories like this! Two of my own children have very similar stories, and your daughter can too.
We have a Dyslexia Resources page I think you will find helpful. If you have questions or need help with anything, please let me know. I’m happy to help!
Amy
says:Thanks for the reminder that there is hope- my son has struggled for years; we are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel in reading though and I know it’s because of your program. 😊
Robin E.
says: Customer ServiceI’m so happy to hear that you are seeing progress in your son’s reading, Amy! How exciting!
Jordan Shepherd
says:Thank you! Great program!
Barbara Hawkins
says:My nine year old grandson is finishing level 2 in all about reading and all about spelling. When I started using your program with him last year, it was just to supplement his homeschooling lessons. However, AAR&S quickly became his main focus. Now, he has developed more confidence in himself and reads with fluency. He hasn’t had any trouble understanding spelling rules,and remembers them well. He can sound out and spell words correctly. I believe the multi-sensory learning tools have helped him tremendously. In fact, he asks sometimes, just to let him do his words orally because he doesn’t need to do all of them with the tiles. He has finally developed a desire to listen to chapter books read to him, and is just starting to read books for himself. He has come a long way in the past two years, and I can see how he could even catch up to his peers, if he sets his mind to it. He just might, too, for we’ve seen him persevere when he wants to learn how to do something new.
Thank you Marie Ripple, for your dedication and the creative ways you help children and parents.
Robin E.
says: Customer ServiceI’m so happy to hear about your grandson’s amazing progress over the last couple of years, Barbara! Thank you for sharing it! He has come a long way in a short time and he will catch up, I have no doubt!
Lindsey Pierce
says:Love this program