The mom’s group was at the park for our weekly gathering. While my children are grown up for the most part, I do take my nephews out and have gotten pretty friendly with the local Housewives of Generic County. I couple my bi-weekly walk and exercise with their weekly meetings and it works out pretty well. If you ever were a fly on the wall, our conversations are sometimes noteworthy and/or episode worthy on a cable network. But what goes on in Generic County stays in Generic County!

There was a topic that came up that was all-too-familiar. One of the women had her son tested, not for a more common label being given out nowadays of ADD or ADHD, but she said that her son had seemed more bored, disinterested, and withdrawn. Coupled with poor grades and having problems at school, particularly in reading and writing, her child had been diagnosed with dyslexia. We want our children to be as close to perfect as possible, and this diagnoses seemed to hit her particularly hard. This was familiar to me because I have gone through this with a relative of mine. I tried to offer her some insight about what I had learned and she was definitely a happy recipient.

I have read this type of behavior is commonly inherited. Also these types of learning challenges come with difficulties in comprehending the link between letters and sounds. The biggest problem is in decoding and using the rules of phonetics (sounding out words). These poor kids are miserable and exhausted trying to do what seemingly comes easily for others around them and are a lot of times called names and embarrassed. Obviously, avoidance is a coping mechanism and this can be seen as being uncooperative. All of this seemed to apply to her and her son.

Undergoing professional help and support had helped in our family, but for those that may not have the time or the resources; there is definitely help out there. With the internet, there are online support groups, chat rooms, and endless reading material that can be had. On the subject of online, we had discovered an amazing group of online reading programs for kids, called ClickN KIDS during this whole process. It was recommended to us through our therapist and it was one of the best phonics tools that we used. There are a lot of parental hours that are going to be logged in through the process, but this online phonics program can be seen as a little respite, if you will. If a child knows how to use a computer and a mouse, they can work independently on this learn to read program, and it does a stellar job! It is completely online, and the lessons are taught in a classroom like environment, but it’s all animated so the children love it. The children are led by a mascot dog and they are taught to get it correct, and the answers are not just given to them. It is easy, and it’s challenging at the same time. It’s easy enough for them to master, and yet it’s challenging enough to have them captivated.

My favorite things about this program for the moms are that, it’s transportable. The program can be logged in from any computer where there is an internet connection. Families can take it on vacation, visiting relatives, friends, etc. And, the online progress report that comes with every program; it tracks exactly what your child is doing and it’s completely user friendly.

I saw my friend last week, and she couldn’t wait to try this program. I can’t wait to hear what her son thinks of it!