Research: Case studies

OTTAKEE’S CHILDREN

Ottakee has been posting on the BRI Yahoo Forum: Beginning Reading Instruction since the year of its inception in 2004.
Her two remarkable daughters are the only known children in the world with both a nuclear DNA mutation and a mitochondrial DNA mutation. Both daughters have severe and multiple special needs, most especially the older girl who ‘looks and acts more like (a child with) an IQ in the 60s but tests out at 38 with scores ranging from 20-120 – so quite the range’.
With kind permission of Ottakee

Case Studies have been lightly copy-edited. Names have been changed to protect privacy.

2004
I am hoping to use BRI with my 8dd Jane who is borderline mentally impaired. She knows her letters and sounds down pat, can spell 3 letter words but can not READ the same words…. She has a short attention span and I don't see her focusing on this for longer than that-at least at first when it is really difficult.

So far NOTHING has worked with Jane (8) as to reading words – even though she knows all of her sounds and can spell the words.

I taught my son with fetal alcohol and an IQ of 53 to read and that was EASY compared to my dd. What is the best way for a newcomer to get started? I have not yet used it myself but will be starting in 2 weeks with Jane who can not read at all and has some language delays. If it works with her I think it will work with just about any student.

I started today with my 8dd, Jane. She has multiple issues including IQ of 63, LDs, severe stuttering, mild hearing loss, and word finding issues. We are taking it very slowly. Today we just did the sounds and flashcards for book 1. …She knew all of the sounds already except ee but picked that up quickly. She did read "I see Sam" today and was very proud of herself.
I figure that I will have to move very slowly with her. My ideal goal is 2 books per week. I figure on Monday we will introduce the new stuff and read the story, Tuesday repeat the story, work on spelling the words, review, etc. Wednesday a new story with Thursday review and Friday maybe games and reviewing the previous stories. I don't think she will mind at all rereading the stories.
Maybe over time we can move faster but even at 1 story a week she will be making more progress than we have with any other program.

Interestingly, though, I had Sue, my 7-year-old old daughter (IQ 85) who is reading some of the books to me just for fun. She stumbled more than I thought she would with the books. I think it is because she can't "read" the pictures and the words like sit, sis, Sam, etc. all look close so you can't just use the first letter to guess. I am thinking about working her through the whole set just at a faster pace – maybe 1-2 books per day as she picks up things more quickly.

Any other hints for using this at home with my girls? We can do 1-2 session per day 5 days a week and even some review on the weekends if we need it.
We just did book 12 of set 1 with Jane today. It is still slow going but the word ‘I’ that I thought we would never get a few weeks ago is down pat as are some other words that we struggled with. I just think that she is a child that needs LOTS and LOTS and LOTS of exposures to a word.
BRI seems to give her a REASON for tracking left to right. She really struggled with that even after vision therapy. I noticed yesterday she is slowly tracking left to right and it makes SENSE to her now that she can read a tiny bit.

Jane has severe speech and language delay, severe stuttering (worst possible score), complex-partial seizures, ADHD, bipolar, mild hearing loss, and a huge host of medical issues which require 5-8 different medications per day. She also tests like a brain injury child and may have been a shaken baby. We do know that she had very little stimulation/nurturing during her 1st 8 months of life. She was kept with her hands strapped down and her face covered much of the time.

The neuropsychologist was very impressed yesterday when we went in to see her. Jane is now reading a tiny bit and even read some things out of a standardized test that she has NEVER seen in BRI. They were things like green (she knew the ee sound from see), red box, etc.

My just turned 8 last week daughter Sue is basically repeating 1st grade. I am home schooling so we just go at her own pace. She is on book 6 of BRI 3 since the start of school this year. I am very pleased with her progress.
I think one problem with the public school system is that everyone is expected to learn at the same pace in all of the subjects. If you learn faster they don't know what to do with you and if you learn a little slower you are special needs.
This is one of the reason I am homeschooling – my girls can learn at their own pace and feel good about their learning.

2005

Just thought I would give a progress report.
8dd Sue is on ARI 1. She is doing OK but slowing down with all of the word endings. Also her meds for ADHD are not at the right dose. We are increasing it starting tomorrow. We will see if that helps as well. Over all though her progress is good – she started with set 1 in September.
9-year-old Jane read book 19 of set 1 today. I was very surprised at how well she did.
Just as an aside I showed this program to my sister. She started the books with her 5 -year-old son and 3-year-old daughter last week. Today they called to say they had both just read book 3. These little tykes have no learning disabilities and the 3-year-old is very verbal/bright but I thought I would share their success so far.

Well, we are now on book 4 of BRI 3 with 9-year-old Jane. So far, so good. She is struggling a little with blending 2 sounds together like the /d r/ in drum, /s l/ in slip, etc. but once we go over it once or twice she gets it for the rest of the story – and even the next book.
My 8-year-old daughter Sue started the program last September so she has been doing this for about 12 months now. She is on book 3 of ARI 2. She is also doing a lot of off BRI reading.

My 9-year-old Jane is on book 12 of BRI 3 now. She started last September as well. At first it was taking us one week per book then we went to 2 books a week and now we are up to 1 new book per DAY. Yes, she is still quite behind but she is transferring this knowledge to other books. Also, she was never expected to be able to learn to read so we are pleased with her progress.

2006

Just another note since my daughter Jane is (also) in ARI 1. I honestly don't think she would test well in other books. YES, she can read the words she knows from BRI in other easy readers and even some with the same code BUT throw in too many of those hard sight words/advanced code words that many K/1st grade kids learn and she would be totally lost.
Even with my 8 1/2 daughter Sue who has a low average IQ and LDs didn't really start reading off BRI stuff until about mid ARI 2. Even now she still struggles with some words that she hasn't gotten the code for yet.
Just want to encourage you to keep going. It IS slow moving but look at how much your daughter has learned with you compared to what she would have learned without you and your BRI books.

BRI can't be beat for teaching them to READ - decode the words.

You were not around 18 months ago when I started this process. If you can go back in the messages that far you can see just how TOUGH this was for my 10-year-old daughter Jane back then. It took us 6 MONTHS--not weeks or days, but MONTHS to get through set 1. I thought we would never ever ever get the word ‘I’ down. Fast forward, 18 months. My 9-year-old daughter Sue is reading just about anything she wants - about a 3rd grade level and 10-year-old Jane that struggled so much is working on ARI 2 which is the end of 1st grade.
Use the NOTCHED CARD and show her only ONE sound at a time (remember ee/th/sh, etc are one sound). That way she HAS to say the sounds as if she just sees the ‘S’ she won't know if the word is sit, sat, set, see, Sam, etc. If she sees the m the word could be meet, men, me, mat, mit, etc.-she has to blend the sounds one by one. Then show the next sound, then the last sound. Have her then blend the word. If she still doesn't get it - model it over and over and over again - then start again.
….Try to keep the sessions short - maybe 10-15 minutes twice a day would be best but no more than 20 minutes at a time for ALL of the activities-reading, flashcards, and spelling work.
…one more note, with tough kids it can take WEEKS to get through the first few books. I modelled the blending over and over and over and over again for my dd. It took her likely 100+ tries to get Sam down. We would get through it on page one and then do it AGAIN on page 2. I just kept working in 10-15 minute session, once or twice a day, and SHE GOT IT. She is now in ARI 2 and doing great with the blending of new sounds into words. This might not be easy but it does work.

Here are the updates for my 2 students that happen to be my 2 daughters.
9-year-old Sue (LDs, low average IQ and VERY ADHD) started out with ARI 2 this fall and read through set 2, 3, and most of 4 when she transitioned to LOTS of library books. She is now reading just about anything she wants from the children's section. She is not doing much with chapter books as she really like picture books – but will sit and read 5 or more picture books in a sitting (non fiction too). ….
10-year-old Jane (mild mental impairment, seizures, severe stuttering, speech and language delays, ADD and a host of other medical issues, and a rapidly changing eye glass prescription). She started out the year with BRI 3. We worked our way through BRI 3, ARI 1 and part of ARI 2 but the stories were just getting too long. We re-read BRI 3 and ARI 1 but the stories in ARI 2 were still too long. No real problem with the code, mostly just the length of the story. We are again re-reading the Boosters and she LOVES that as they are easy for her (no sounding out). She is really trying but … everything is a huge struggle for her.

2007

Just thought I would share an update on my 11 ½ -year-old daughter Jane …..
For those who are new here is a little history:
Fall 2004 started BRI 1. It took us over 6 months to get through BRI 1 - yes 6 MONTHS. I think we did 1000 repetitions of the word ‘I’ before she got it.
Spring 2005 started BRI 2.
Summer 2005 did the Booster books.
School year 2005/2006 did BRI 3, ARI 1 and got part way through ARI 2.
Summer 2006 made changes to her seizure meds.
Fall 2006 [following change of medication] started over almost at square 1. She could NOT read the BRI 1 books without a great struggle.
November 2006 restarted one of the seizure meds we had stopped. SLOWLY worked through BRI 1 and 2.
Winter/Spring 2007 – made it through the Booster books and BRI 3 – now at a pace of 1 new book a day.
TODAY - read story 1 in ARI 1 with NO mistakes and able to sound out the new words on her own!!!!!!
We are still not to where we were a year ago BUT this is HUGE progress for a child that could hardly get through the 1st story of set 1 in the Fall.
Her neurologists are baffled. They say she is the most complex case they have in the office. This seizure med has made a huge difference in her academic abilities.
My goal now is to read through ARI 1 and 2 over the summer (or as far as we can get) and then keep going as far as she can. I am hoping she can make it through ARI 5 and become a fluent reader.
Another interesting side note, she struggles with severe stuttering – at times she can hardly get anything out. The speech therapist said she rated the worst on the stuttering scales. With the increase in the seizure meds her stuttering is getting much better but is still moderately severe BUT..........when she reads she is TOTALLY fluent.

I don't know if you remember my 12-year-old daughter Jane or not. We started the BRI program 3 or 4 years ago now and are just up to ARI 2. She is almost done with this set now. It took us a YEAR to get through sets 1-2 ….. the farther along we go, the better and faster she is moving. It is hard to imagine that the first few books of BRI were more difficult for her to learn than reading ARI 2 books. Now in ARI 2 things are starting to really click with her reading (except that pesky b and d thing).
And as an update on my now 12-year-old daughter Jane. She is up to ARI 2, book 5 and moving along nicely. She still tires easily when reading so now that the stories are a lot longer we break them into 2 parts with a short break in the middle. This is my child who lost all reading ability last year (was up to starting ARI 1) and has come this far in a year.

2008

Just thought I would send out another update on my 12 -year-old daughter Jane…..
Yesterday she started ARI 3. She is doing very well with the actual reading but is getting frustrated with the full pages of text with no pictures. I wish that they had more 1/2 pages of text with more pictures as it would look easier to her. She gets stuck on a few irregular words but otherwise is getting most of the new words totally on her own.
For those of you new, she started BRI and got up to set 3 then due to seizures and med changes lost EVERYTHING and we started over in the fall of 2006 with set 1 and it was a struggle. Since then though it has gotten easier and easier. I think that it is pretty good that in 1 1/2 school years she has done 5 sets of books and is working on ARI 3.
Now, if they only made a BRI math program we would be all set.

Today 12-year-old Jane (in book 4 of ARI 3) was sitting in the "reading room" (aka bathroom) reading a picture book from the church library. It was a simple book but she was READING it---all on her own (minus the proper names) and without being prompted. This weekend she was also trying to read my emails as I was typing.
I think after ARI 3 we might start buddy reading some easy books.
Oh, she is also reading headlines in the newspaper and tiny bits of magazine captions, etc.
The BRI work is transferring to "real" life now for her.

It has been a LONG road getting her reading ……..

Poppy’s tutor, JAC, has also been reporting on the BRI Yahoo Forum: Beginning Reading Instruction since it was launched in 2004. Poppy was born and raised in the States. Her mother has learning disabilities, and her father is deaf. Both parents worked full time, with Poppy placed in day care from 6am-6pm.
Throughout her childhood Poppy suffered many ear infections and delays in language development. She is a very slow learner with IQ of 50, and possibly with other undiagnosed learning disabilities. At the age of seven, she returned to Australia with her parents.
With kind permission of JAC

Spring 2004

Poppy, age 7.6 is in an Education Support Unit, not a regular class. Her language is very poor - I cannot imagine that she would have the skills to express much to me. She just messed about in her quiet stubborn kind of way. First time she has messed about and I did not recognise it for what it was at first.
I would have been in a pickle without these little books for this particular child. I could not see Poppy going on at the rate recommended previously and dealing with all the variation and overlap options.
This is the most delayed child I have worked with and I am learning heaps through her.

Although Poppy does not forget the strategy of sounding out, and remembers a lot of code it takes her so many exposures and sounding- outs before we get automatic recognition. How many times has she sounded out A-nn in Book 14 today - at least 10-15 maybe? I intend to start counting exposures next week to get an idea. The names of the characters are a good way to do this. I shall be making more games using the BRI words to supplement the flashcard exposure.
But thank god for BRI. It came along just when I was wondering where I would get the decodables from. You need to be looking for this stuff before you find it.

Poppy adores her new book and gets very excited about it - we are up to Set 1/19.
She has been exposed/worked on some words well over 100 times. What it does show is that Poppy would probably not learn to read on any other programme that I can think of, that has this amount of repetition. I can't imagine that Poppy will just say the sounds and get the word.

Summer 2004

I usually start with Poppy reading her new book, which will take anything up to 20 minutes. Her absolute favourite thing is colouring in the pictures of the characters, which we do together, Poppy choosing the character and the colours and instructing me which bit to colour. This is where I do a lot of vocabulary work with her.
Our hour flies by and she is fully engaged all the time. One book a week is plenty. She rereads the book to anyone who will listen, usually mum and at least 2 more times in the week.Today on Book 20 was the first time I head Poppy blending as she goes rather than sound, sound, sound word. Previously, she only did this on one word but many other words in this book she has got off pit pat today. This is very exciting. Poppy had a great day today.
For the last 2 books (20/ 21) Poppy has increased her stock of words she can say quickly without saying every sound first. She still has to say all the sounds for that, this, them, what. I have another lift the flap book called 'Whose Feet' which I brought to read to her just for fun. Feet appears on every page. But she blithely guessed every time she saw it, with feet or toes or legs or whatever.

Winter 2004-2005

Saw Poppy today with BRI 2, book 13. The old words that she still needs to blend are: this, that, then, with, we, Is, plus a few newer ones. Errors were with see/is and is/see and me/my. But she is doing ok. I looked at her end of year assessments from school, where she is in a support unit for children with disabilities There was a miscue type running-record. Masses of code Poppy has not yet been introduced to, plus overlap options, a block of text about 12- 14 lines long, many multi- syllable words, and a topic about a building site.
Along with all the crosses was a record of the number of times Poppy had gone off task during this exercise (over 20).
It is as different from BRI as chalk is from cheese and about as nourishing too.

A couple of weeks back I reported how Poppy had read Book 15, Set 2 without any hesitation and without saying every single sound. Then in Book 16 we were back to the old routine of saying the sounds for words she had previously said quickly …. So at the next session I covered up every word except the one she was saying (see Resources: Notched Card ).

For the words she confuses we, will, was etc. I covered the word and exposed each letter or digraph one at a time. So she said the words accurately, blending quickly.

Spring 2005

Poppy has taken a year but she has almost finished Set 2, and is reading the books pretty fluently. It is a delight to hear her read. Only a few words need to be sounded, she does it sub- vocally (almost - I see her lips moving)and she is getting new words after fewer repeats (e.g. Ben took about 5 times). So today she has 2 books to read at home! Dictation of short sentences has paid off and she can produce a short sentence of her own to write. School is giving her spellings every week now, which include words like are,was,said,cow. I don't know if they are part of any systematic instruction. She has had a varied lot of school readers. They send home decodables if her mother asks for them, otherwise the books are the 'emergent' stuff.

Poppy after a full year is now reading the Booster books. I said I was using the interlude with the Booster set to prime her, through games, with the words from Set 3. This is working a treat. She just blends those words without hesitation. Unbelievably she is still muddling see and is– she used to have see off pat but not any more since is came onto the scene; she also muddles the two sounds of /e/. But on the plus side you should hear the expression – amazing! For such a low IQ child, with poor language I am surprised. When she meets a new word like Bill or Ben she usually gets it without further sounding by the end of the book which is 5 or 6 exposures. Without exception she says the sounds to get the word, the protocol is well-embedded.

Poppy was my first student to start with BRI, in fact she was my main impetus because I had nothing to give her except what I wrote myself. Over the last month or two her progress has picked up. She can write a short sentence or two. School must be doing something as well. She gets spelling lists from school which are probably high frequency words, they have no apparent relation to anything else, “Just learn these words, Poppy.” She is going to be moved up to a higher class I heard today, and will be getting individual speech therapy

Summer 2005

Poppy my 9-year-old, is sailing through Set 3 with little difficulty, slight hesitation perhaps at the few words with more than 4 or 5 sounds which appear. Her school continues to send guessing books home, they haven't a clue what she can do. It has taken 18 months for Poppy to get to this stage. I started work with her Christmas 2003 and checking back on her intake test, I find she either scored extremely poorly on all the tests or I could not test her because she could not understand what she had to do.
I bought her a couple of Dr. Seuss books for her birthday. Considering mum is also LD they are doing a great job. We are playing word games to help with exposure to wider vocabulary and speaking long words.

Autumn 2005

Even though I have had several children through ARI 1 I am looking at it so minutely now that Poppy is in it. She has started to balk a little at reading. She muddles ed and ing on some words, not all, and the 3 different sounds of ed do confuse her. With all the other kids I can explain about ed and give extra examples but I don't think Poppy even has the past tense in her vocabulary a lot of the time.
Poppy is on ARI 1 Book 4 and doing rather better than I expected. She just about makes it to the end of one story. I can see the wriggling and stress materialising visibly as she approaches the last 2 pages. Extraordinary. Also beginning to learn other code not yet in the stories. School spelling lists this week had vowel plus e words, but also 'give'. ..she loves spelling, and the Dr. Seuss books I bought her last Christmas.

Poppy struggled a lot yesterday on Book 5, ARI 1. We only managed about 4 pages of her mumbling her way through, refusing to read odd words. Using the NOTCHED CARD makes it more manageable for her to tackle the 2 syllable words, and words with new code.
We have slowed right down. I read the stories in Book 6 to her. I don't think she understood “The Long Song” - nothing in her experience there to help, no sibs, no little friends outside of school and in school switching from support class to mainstream for inclusion.
Certainly more work on her speech and language will be the project over the long school holidays. To what extent does decoding helps speech and language? Surely she needs to have use of the past tense in her expressive vocabulary to be able to understand the ed code?

I've looked at my gloomy report for Poppy last week. Today there was a different child - well-rested, happy, pretty co-operative. She got the whiteboard out and wrote all the characters' names in her story. Then every time she forgot the name, she referred back to her writing and said the sounds from that! She made a couple of errors and read with expression and apparent comprehension.

Winter 2005-2006

We have started our Christmas holidays a week early this year so I have not seen my regulars for a week or so. But I still see Poppy on a weekly basis. She has just finished Book 6 of ARI 1. We had a lot of delaying tactics today, she managed to express that her last book was hard.
I decided to give her a rest. We shall concentrate on speaking, drawing and writing for the holidays, and perhaps buddy reading some suitable kid.lit.
The 'Jelly and Bean' decodables that I have just bought are a welcome relief from ARI 1 – for Poppy and me! They are shorter for a start! She is also reading some of the easier Dr. Seuss books.

Summer 2006

The upshot is Poppy is to be moved full-time into mainstream next year with an assistant for some of the time I guess. Parents very happy about this. Poppy, now aged 10, will be transferred out of the LD class next year. Her school thinks her reading progress is very good. ARI 1 was very challenging for her – the length, the additional stuff to learn. We got to about Book 10 or 11 and Poppy became increasingly stubborn and recalcitrant in lessons, anxious, I guess. I switched tack and used Jelly and Bean, Frog and Toad, and now we are reading the Ruth Miskin materials. The stories are shorter, and the code that is taught is done in a different order, but nothing that Poppy can't cope with.

Poppy's language skills are still poor and she does not get any 'treatment' or advice to carers or to me. My impression was that DISTAR language programme was effective last long holidays when I saw her 3 times a week, but have not been able to continue that.
She is still weak on a lot of advanced code, guessing has increased, balks completely a lot of the time. As far as I know school said they are focussing on increasing her 'fluency' and reading with 'expression' no details how but they do not use any code - controlled reading material.
I am planning to return to ARI 1 this week.

Summer 2007

We are just reaching the end of Semester 1 in the Antipodes. Some of you may remember Poppy who was my first BRI guinea pig. She stalled on ARI 1 about 18 months ago and I used other decodables. We have returned to ARI 1 and she is really finding them well within her capability now.
Poppy was moved from a LD to a mainstream class with an aide for part of the day. This has made a huge difference, being with regular children and also, it seems , better teachers. Her IEP was written in plain English, the books she brings home are old but appropriate. I also continue to use Language for Learning at far less than the optimum rate but we can get through a lesson now in about 10-15 minutes.

Winter 2007-2008

Poppy is now in Book 2 of ARI 2. She is inclined to be a sloppy reader but responds well to rewards. Poppy won 72 stickers. These were for getting endings like ed ing s er y and ly as well as not substituting the and a without prompting. Plenty of practice there!
Now I just have to find a way to wean her off the stickers. This school year she was in a mainstream class with an education assistant for part of the day. All seem very pleased with the success of this and she will be mainstream again next year. She had a teacher who was very keen for her to succeed in his class and very good assistants. What a difference from the ed. support class.