My daughter has been receiving dyslexia treatment with Lexercise for over 5 months now, so I thought I’d share how things are going with this program.
Our first step in the whole process was to see if she even had a problem. I wrote about the beginning of our journey here: Screening for Dyslexia. After a couple of months I posted another Dyslexia Tutoring (October update).
What Does Lexercise Tutoring Look Like?
Lexercise is based upon the Orton-Gillingham approach. Students are matched with a specially-trained clinical educator and meet online once a week for 45 minutes. One of the goals during this time is to work through the Lexercise levels. There are around 31 levels that teach and review phoneme-grapheme pairs, morphology and syllable types and structure. That sounds so formal doesn’t it? Basically it is the frame-work of the program, but the program is also customized to meet the student’s needs. That is one big plus of this program– it isn’t something that is just checked off and completed. Our tutor works with us and tailors the lessons to my daughter’s strengths and weaknesses.
Besides working on the phonics portion, Scott is helping my daughter with her writing, spelling, grammar, and handwriting. She will also have more oral reading fluency practice in future lessons. Each tutoring session is interactive. My daughter has to write, read, talk, and spell. She isn’t just watching a screen or a video lesson. It is just like a real tutoring session except I don’t have to leave my own home! Using Skype and Adobe Connect Classroom, my daughter and her tutor are able to talk to each other and share what they are working on just like they would if they were really in the same room.
During the rest of the week, she works on specialized spelling lists or reading lists, and plays educational video games that are customized for her. (You can test out a couple of the Lexercise games on their website.)
Does Lexercise Work?
Well this picture says it all! Yes, her tutor suggested this book to her, but she has actually wanted to read it! That is a huge step! She is getting closer to reading on grade level– and I believe by the end of the year she’ll be there!
Recently her tutor actually did a mid-year assessment. My daughter has completed 21 levels in the program at this point. Her areas of focus have included: handwriting, spelling (major spelling rules), syllables types and syllable division, reading fluency, and written expression. After several assessments to gauge progress in decoding, word reading efficiency, reading fluency, and written expression, we have seen improvement! We also know what areas to focus on more in the upcoming months as well.
For us the consistent tutoring over the past 5 months has made a big difference. Her confidence in reading and spelling is improving. I am given lists and assignments to help my daughter during the week, and I appreciate the weekly update I get on her progress. I feel very informed about what she is working on, what she is improving in, and things she might need additional help with. Yes, she still has work to do, but we have seen growth that I don’t believe would have happened without our experience with Lexercise. If you are wondering if you child might have dyslexia, or are looking for dyslexia tutoring options, I encourage you to check out what Lexercise has to offer.
Kris from Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers is also sharing her thoughts on Lexercise today. Be sure to stop by her blog too. Follow the Lexercise blog, Facebook page, or Twitter stream for more helpful dyslexia information.
Disclosure: I was thrilled to do this review of Lexercise. I did receive a reduced rate in exchange for advertising space and reviewing this service. All opinions are my own and I was not required to post a positive review. See my complete disclosure policy for more details.
Thank you for sharing this review! I have been frantically searching for information on Lexercise. or some other online Orton tutoring. My daughter’s former tutor and current tutor (neither of whom can work with her right now due to location/scheduling conflicts) both cautioned me about doing any online tutoring because it’s not multisensory. I hadn’t thought about it like that and now I’m concerned. Like how do they handle writing the sentences? And the handwriting? I had my mind made up but after speaking with them realized that the multisensory part was part of what made the tutoring work. They also said once a week is not enough. I’m so confused. Do you feel like the tutoring only 45 minutes a week is enough? And is it multisensory?
For my daughter, once a week was enough. The rest of the week she played the games on the site that reinforced what was taught in the lesson. It is multisensory to a degree because my daughter was writing, used some manipulatives at times, drew pictures etc. It isn’t just sit and watch— the Lexercise tutor is interacting with the student. For writing, usually my daughter just showed the instructor via the camera. For lengthy pieces, I scanned it in or took a picture with my phone and emailed it.