Dore Talk

Hi everyone,

My daughter Hollie has just enrolled on the Dore programme. Had her initial assessment yesterday and we started the excersises this morning, getting up extra early armed with a piece of string and bluetack!

We were told at the assessment that because Hollie has Auditory and Visual memory difficulties (part of her thinking brain) but is showing signs of the cerebellum not working correctly we may not get the results we are hoping with her reading, spelling and maths. Felt at bit deflated with this news but decided to carry on with the dore programe anyway.

I would like to hear from anybody else in a similar position please, hopefully whilst i'm pumping up this ball!

Cheers Sarah 

Matthew was diagnosed by Ed Psyc with SpLD but also auditory processing difficulties and most definitley auditory memory difficulties (we were given loads of leaflets). I can say that these difficulties have become significantly better, from starting at the outset age of with a reading age of -24 months we have an age appropriate reading age and spellings are easy for him as long as I learn them with him for one session. I believe this is becauses he now memorises the word both visually and can attempt to sound them out. He was always good at maths so don't know about that.He also had visual problems with focusing but they didn't really test the visual memory.

All I can say is Dore helps with vision and we personally have been helped with auditory memory. If the thinking brain is being cluttered with non automatic tasks then working memory and short term nenory will suffer. So yes I would be very optimistic that Dore can help.

How was Hollie's balance results? How old is Hollie?

PS we have also worked hard at home with Toe by Toe and now reading at least 10 minutes every night.

Hi lesley, thanks for the reply,

Hollie's balance results showed that she is within normal limits, however her centre of gavity is outside normal limits. She is 11 and will be moving up to secondary school in September, so am very anxious to help her anyway I can, especially her confidence. The overall feeling I had is that she is on the border of the testing that they do, I think I was expecting more dramatic results. I suppose I am looking for something to justify her situation! The Programme Practitioner suggested that Hollie has developed a coping mechanism teaching her to balance, rather than an automatic response, probably through her dancing that she has been doing since 3 years.

Hollie also has a sister who is at the other end of the scale, she is in year 2 but the school are giving her year 3 spellings to learn and she is above age in her reading and is always bursting at the seems to help Hollie, which obviously adds to Hollies frustrations.

Its good to hear that Matthew is responding to the programme, how were his results in comparison to Hollie? Oh and I'm not familiar with Toe by Toe!

here's a link to the toe-by toe site http://www.toe-by-toe.co.uk/ many schools use this in tandem with parents, I bought it and used it at home. it was very very good, but of course more work for us both. it's important to try and teach what has been missed out on once the program is showing results, but it's also extremely harde especially when they are being dragged out of lessons for catch up and then missing out on more lessons.

With reference to the balance results I have seen several people's scores who were green at the onset due to compensatory factors and then they get stripped back by the 1st/2nd follow up into the reds- be prepared. That's good because things are moving over to what they want to see, all the 3 parts working together, not 1 working harder than the rest. If you have a look at the blog section you'll see some results on their blogs (ours too), Kieran had bordeline scores to start (and this is the 2nd child in the family to do Dore I'm sure his mum Ellie will pop by and give you lots of motivation) his scores are on the blog.

I believe memory has been 1 of our most successful areas, and amazingly reading and spelling! He couldn't tell you the days of the week at the star,t he now knows 20+ countries and their capitals amongst other things.

Aim not to miss even 1 day and you'll see results. Matthews compensatory coping mechanism were non exsistent and he had all reds and fell off the machine. Although he never fell over or was awkward, so this was quite strange to see.

thanks for the web address, will look into that. Its good to know that it is common to see balance results in the green to start with. I will have to inform her dance teacher that her coordination and balance might start to alter during the next few months! How supportive is Matthews school? Have any other children been on the Dore programme from the same school? Hollie is the 4th, the deputy head who is also SEN Coordinator said the results from the other children have been amazing. Are you working closley with the school to monitor his reading and spelling, or is it the Toe by Toe system that is helping you more? Hollie is on stage 11 reading (yr3 work) so clearly needs the help? She also has a reader to help her with her SATs tests.

Gosh lots's questions!!

Let's see I'll try to get the dates right.

Matthew's school is very good, and are trying really hard with him although  none of the class teachers he has had, truly understand what's going on with him.. He is on school action +. He has 2  x 30 mins S&L lessons per week in Welsh (a biligual school). 1 x 1hr group session Literacy support ( spellings and word games, english/welsh alternative weeks) and 1 X 1hr  1:1 in class  for literacy since last June. The 1:1 is because he can't get his thoughts on paper in any organised fashion and this is probably the problem that needs the work now everything else is better.

I know another 2  doing it- brothers and 1 of which is in his class. Unfortunatley his class mate has broken his arm so is on a break. They are not as advanced through the program as Matthew. Their mum approached our LSA about Dore prior to doing it, and she recommended it, The same teacher hadn't been employed when we had started and I didn't ask as I wanted to see if they saw a change. His current class teacher  (also current SENCO (new to post )) didn't see him at the outset and hasn't realy got a feel for his progress. We have an IEP ever 6 months and for the 1st time we were sent a review this year!! he seems to have been moving through the spelling programme quite well this year. This is done as a group session and is far from ideal as he regularly comes home and says I have done this spelling with you Mum e.g could would and should the other week. Toe by Toe certainly helped more as if we went at their pace which is the group pace we would be furhter bhind now. I strongly believe that these kids need daily input for their needs which needs to be individual e.g in a dyslexia unit withing the school, where they could go do related work to the rest of the class.

The books he brings home from school are chosen by him, which are either ridiculously hard in term of comprehension e.g horrible histories or way too easy. I have controlled what he reads at home in English for the past 18 months e.g I bought age approriate reading books (Oxford tree tops scheme-cheap from a book club 8 books per pack) and he moved through 6-7, 7-8 and 8-9 quite nicely all in the last 18 months and he reads michael morpurgo books now (wow thats 3 age gruops). Of course I can't say whether dore or my constant help has been the big breakthrough in reading, but I know that his memory changes can't be down to me, and it is those memory changes that have been the breakthroough with comprehending what he has read and enables him to retain even the lessons that are being taught. Auditory memory and processing was so poor he couldn't retain anything.

His Dyslexia screening test was >1..0 at serious risk!!

Hi lelly

I am very interested in the Toe to Toe program and have been looking into this.  At present Felix as well as Dore has one hours tuition a week provided by SPELD. This is a Nez Zealand organisation for teaching children with specific learning difficulties.  All of the research I have read of late points to the fact that tuition needs to be provided via a structured programe, and that at present his extra tuition is bits and bobs from many programs.  I am very interested to know how much of a burden 30min an evening this was? and did your child grow to loath it as much as they do the exercises? Look forward to hearing from u.

Deb Hannah

I agree about the bits and bobs currently being taught. We used Toes by Toe for over 6 months,and MAtthew now decodes well.It is advised that tou spend no more than 20 minutes a night on it. We did this at bedtime reading time instead of him struggliong with a reading book I relaced it with TByT.

Some nights he would groan and I would cut it back the time, finishing at a relevant point, he usually found the nonsense word pages a struggle. I also didn't inssit that he do it every day, we normally aimed for 5 days a week, so that he could negotiate a day off and feel in control.It can become monotonous but the children can see the gains coming along. I would do 5-10 mins of a simple reading book after.just to give some free reading we moved through his books quickly. it's a very good system.Yes it's another chore, and 10 mins seems a long time to  children, some schools in the UK do part of the teaching with the children (not ours).I don't think he loathed it but did try to avoid some nights.

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