making muscle wasting history

I can hardly believe it but Josh has done the Decipha project for 12 months. He has really enjoyed it, it has captured his imagination completely! But has it helped? Well, I was not surprised by the results of his recent assessment, to hear his reading age has improved hugely. The evidence was already there daily for us to see, the test just confirmed it all really.
He is now able to try new words, breaks the sounds up, and will read signs, cereal boxes,posters, everything really he will try to read and usually gets it right. Thats a stunning amount of progress. His baseline reading age 12 months ago was 6 years 11 months. It is now 10 years 9 months.
So hes made almost 4 years progress in just 12 months!
His spelling is still poor but its now phonetically correct, so you can read what he has written even if its not spelled correctly, so again big improvement there.
Working memory, thats still a big problem, he still cant hold information to work with, so mental maths, copying from the board, following long instructions, thats all still difficult. But the assessment showed he will needs support in these areas, and thats a positive thing as hes moving up to secondary school in September. Without this, the school may not have been so able to see and react to his needs. Other tests can and have masked the weaknesses, which isnt good when he would still need support.
Josh himself has just one problem with Decipha: that it has come to an end! He also keeps asking when there will be Decipha for maths. He himself has realised how much it has helped him, and hes really enjoyed it. If you are considering trying decipha, yes it does take commitment from school and home, but it took us at home half an hour a week, and the activities were fun. The results were well worth the small effort it took, Josh is now able to read for himself, something I didnt think would be possible just 12 months ago. Fabulous!