Wilson Reading System vs OG individualized instruction

[Betsy]

I am working with a 3rd grade student at a private school whose Neuropsych showed diagnosed learning disabilities in reading, written expression and mathematics. Despite strong science of reading phonics instructions, we had communicated concern since 1st grade, but the district testing showed no qualifying needs. The family paid for a neuropscyh out of pocket and then the district re-tested this spring. While we have an OG practitioner working 1:1 with 3 of our students through the public district, the practitioner was put in place through the former CSE chair. The new chair/committee is recommending using an elementary SpEd teacher who is certified in the Wilson Reading System. Their initial recommendation was 30 min/5 days/week. We replied that for WRS to be delivered with fidelity, there needed to be a minimum of 2 days of 90 minute sessions (per the Wilson website). They have now offered 45-60 minutes/day to work on all 3 learning disabilities with regular progress monitoring and a program review in 5-8 weeks. While we are grateful for this increase in services, we're concerned about the more generic curriculum vs individualized OG pacing/instruction because this students' deficits are patchy. What type of data would we need to show that progress (improvement or the rate of improvement) with the WRS is insufficient ? Has anyone had a positive experience with the WRS with students with dyslexia?

[JSD24]

I know that Wilson Reading is a popular intervention in my area.  There's a 'tutor center' near me where their person does Wilson Reading when the issue is dyslexia.  Wilson Reading is one of the many O-G based programs that are out there.  My thought is:  progress.  If the teacher is certified in basket weaving and the child is catching up to classmates, whatever they are doing is working and that's the whole purpose of the SDIs in the IEP - PROGRESS!

I'm also on the side of the school with intervention timing.  When I had looked at the Wilson Reading protocol (this has to be pre-COVID), I remember daily and 40-60 minutes.  (I'm thinking the protocol might have changed.)  With a 3rd grader, I'm thinking that 90 minutes of SDI seems long.  With outside tutoring, I'm pretty sure the sessions aren't this long.

With any program, they tend to follow the script so they can say they are doing this with fidelity.  If he doesn't need that lesson, I'd be fearful that he'll shutdown during the parts he needs to learn.  With monitoring progress in reading, I believe they look at WCM - words correct per minute (per hundred?).  So long as they are using the same method to measure progress, you'll see progress if it's there.  I do like the idea of data more often.  Any program will tend to work for ~80% of students.  If this isn't the right program, finding that out and changing your approach should happen sooner & you'll see that with more frequent data collection.

With a good Structured Literacy, Tier 1 program, there will still be ~20% of the population who has dyslexia per the Connecticut Longitudinal Study.  These are the students who need an IEP (or Tiers 2 or 3 with milder issues).  They need more intensive instruction than Tier 1 provides.