Dear Mom,

Congratulations to you and your daughter for her 8th grade reading level. Dyslexia can be frustrating. If you are not already doing so, perhaps you could divide her reading time into silent reading on her own, reading aloud to her, and having her read aloud to you.

Your public librarian can assist your daughter with finding appropriate hi-lo reading material for silent reading. Some libraries offer sections of hi-lo readers that your daughter may use for reading on her own. Your library may offer Usborne books and Dorling Kindersley books, many of which use lots of graphics and cover history and science topics. Physics4Kids.com is a website that offers small chunks of science information with interactive quizzes. From this site, you can also go to Chem4Kids.com and Geography4Kids.com. I have not viewed the entire contents, so you may wish to look over the information first. Perhaps your daughter might enjoy designing her own lesson plans from time to time based upon what she has read. For example, she might want to draw or act out what she has learned. My middle school algebra students got a kick out of turning the classroom into a coordinate graph and moving in ordered pairs instead of having to write down the answers.

Read aloud to your daughter (and other children) several times a week if possible. Choose from a variety of books that are above her reading level. She can focus on the content without having to become frustrated by decoding. Your library may offer audio books that your daughter can check out. Following along in the printed book will be a great help to her. Look for print and audio books of Hank the Cowdog, Little Women, Aesop's Fables, and Wind in the Willows. LibriVox.org provides free downloads and podcasts of many fiction and nonfiction books in the public domain, that is, books that are no longer under copyright protection.

Ask your daughter to read aloud to you and discuss briefly what she has read at least once a week for no longer than fifteen minutes. You may wish to alternate between reading material that you choose that will challenge her yet not frustrate her and reading material of her own choice. Poetry can be perfect for this kind of reading because poetry is meant to be read aloud, and the rhyme scheme will prompt her. In addition, even poetry written for children isn't always obvious in meaning, so it will require some thought. Robert Louis Stevenson's poetry is a good choice, and Fr. John Banister Tabb's short children's verses are in bite-sized pieces.

The multitude of approaches that you are already using is wonderful for your daughter. Because she is the fourth of six children, she can learn a great deal by listening to the older children. Perhaps a dinner table discussion on a specific topic would be helpful for everyone. Some families enjoy these discussions and others have difficulty keeping the conversation going, but give it a try.

Peace be with you,

Sandra Garant