Difficulties with communication and language comprehension can affect social interactions and educational success. Humans developed the oral language as they are social beings and an inability to communicate could affect their relationships socially. Therefore, the issue of dyslexia in children should be addressed at the very beginning both at home and school.
According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP):
38% of fourth grade students have ‘below-basic’ reading skills. They are at or below the 40th percentile for their age group. About 20% of children in elementary schools in the US face difficulty in reading. Thus, dyslexia intervention programs like the language tune up kit (LTK®) act as a remedial tool for children with below average reading skills.
Care and Support for the Dyslexic Child at Home
Dyslexia can often lead to anxiety, low self-esteem, frustration, and disinterest in academics in children. Parents are subjected to uncertainty about their child’s future and worry if their child will not be performing well at the academic level. LTK helps parents and caregivers with reading remediation for their child. It provides ongoing instruction developed specifically to work with children on their reading skills and by doing so to improve many other aspects of their life and education. (Dr. Klimenko).
Dyslexia Homeschool with LTK
The LTK is a reading intervention program based on the Orton-Gillingham approach. By spending 30 minutes a day with the LTK, your child would be able to achieve reading proficiency from 2nd to 6th grade levels in just a span of 2 to 6 months. The LTK home kit provides you with an LTK CD-ROM and an LTK card deck. The user guide for LTK home could be found on the LTK CD-ROM in Adobe® PDF format. With regular practice over the LTK, you will be able to see significant improvements in your child’s decoding and spelling skills thereby boosting confidence and self-esteem.
Dyslexia Homeschool Curriculum
The LTK at home software comprises 87 lessons that are bifurcated into five sections or BREAKS (LTK Brochure, pgs. 1-6). Each of the BREAK is based on the skills mastered by the child in the previous lessons.
- BREAK 1 (Lessons 1-22) introduces reading by combining short vowels into three letters, three sound words and then moves onto five letter and five sound words comprising initial and final blends. BREAK 1 includes 800 words approximately.
- BREAK 2 (Lessons 23-41) includes the sounds of long vowels, many digraphs, long vowel teams, and three letter blends. It covers around 890 words.
- BREAK 3 (Lessons 42-58) progresses to two and then three syllable words, syllable division, and three letter final blends. In this section, the sentences and stories are long and complex and cover 650 words.
- BREAK 4 (Lessons 59-75) includes greater amounts of language decoding tools and comprises the ‘R’ controlled sounds, the silent ‘E,’ and additional vowel teams. This section covers 740 words.
- BREAK 5 (Lessons 76-87) deals with advanced concepts in suffixes, digraphs, and additional silent letters and numbers. This section covers around 620 words thereby bringing the overall vocabulary count of the LTK homeschool to more than 4400 words, which are presented in a stringent sequence based on different phonic combinations and reading skills mastered previously by the child.
Card Deck
The LTK software includes a card deck, which comprises 108 phonemes. The card deck provides sound of each of the first letters in a keyword and then prompts students to record the sound of the letter as they have heard it and re-record it multiple times until they have achieved the desired result. For instance, the card deck provides the phonic sound of the letter ‘k’ in the word ‘kite’. The card deck could be used by a student to practice with the LTK and also when away from the software program in the form of a reference material.
Language We Speak
The LTK at home uses a pre-recorded human voice to instruct the children and can provide instructions in the language that the children are familiar with, that is, English and Spanish.
How to Read Sight Words
The LTK familiarizes students with the rules involved in the formation of words. Sight words are the words that do not follow the rules of word building and are taught at the end of each lesson. The sight words thus taught are stored in a Sight Word Notebook, which is a part of the LTK homeschool software and could be easily accessed for convenient reviews.
The LTK software provides a complete curriculum as one homeschool software for reading skills and can accommodate two students at a time thereby saving your money.
Dyslexia at Home Test
The LTK Placement Test, which is a part of the LTK homeschool software is useful in placing students at the appropriate lesson in the LTK, based on the results obtained in the test.
In the case of older students, the LTK placement test could furnish incorrect results, the reason being that these students would have acquired compensation skills and tend to identify words from a list when they hear their pronunciation. Here, an assessment of the reading skills should be accomplished via the manual version of the LTK reading assessment test featured on the LTK at home software .
During the use of the manual reading assessment test, it should be ensured that the students read the words on their own, without any voice assistance. The parents can then determine the reading skills of the students and decide where to place the student within the LTK lessons. Thus, studying with the LTK could take your child to the appropriate reading level.