what is the purpose of exercise?

but I probably would not be returning. This sounds like someone who has read no research since the 1970’s…
Robin

Hi Bach,

It looks to me like the reading specialist was testing for one particular aspect of vision problems….visual perception. If you want to find out more about it, particularly the “connect the dots” exercises, check Jerome Rosner’s book, “Helping Children Overcome Learning Difficulties” especially Appendix A.

This is an area of Vision Therapy that I haven’t had any experience dealing with, so I can’t say much more than that…Rod

Hi Bach,

I have a few more comments on your son’s reading that I didn’t have time to add earlier.

I assume that your description of your son’s reading as misreading short function words is similar to what I call “careless reading.” A careless reader will mix up words like “when” and “then,” “where” and “there,” and “for” “from” and “of” and will often say “a” for “the” and vice versa. Following any such mistake, they will very frequently change a word tense or form to force agreement with what they have misread already, for example, changing “sits” to “sat” if they’ve drifted into the wrong tense earlier in the sentence.

I tend to disagree with your reading specialist’s comment that such misreading is due to having learned to sound out the words originally, and suspect that he actually has a poor appreciation of the underlying phonics of these words, especially since you say he actually learned many of them as sight words originally. I had one boy misread “when” as “then” and upon being told “you said ‘then’ here” he looked at it again and said “That is ‘then’!” Then he realized his error. To someone who knows the phonic structure of those words, such an error seems almost impossible, but to a sight word reader, who knows what mnemonic “tricks” are underlying such words?

So, the first thing I would do is make sure he can spell simple words phonetically (sounding them out as he writes them.) Even words like “a” and “the” and “what” and “was” can be accurately broken into common sounds if they are pronounced “perfectly” (ay, thee, whot, woz.) Words like “were,” “are,” “there” and “where” all have an extra letter “e” tacked onto them that makes them a bit tricky, but at least it’s always an “e.” Also, make sure he understands that “wh” at the beginning of a word has a specific /hw/ pronunciation, and that the letter “o” can represent the /oo/ sound in words like “who” “to” “do” and “whom” and that “s” can represent the /z/ sound in words like “his” “has” and “is.” Most “sight words” can be spelled out sound-by-sound easily.

My other suggestion is that such behavior is often induced by an underlying vision problem. You should suspect this if he tends to avoid reading on his own, if he was quite slow learning to read and if another sibling or a parent was also slow to learn to read or is reluctant to read. Another marker for a vision problem is when the carelessness increases the longer he reads, or when he moves to smaller print. See the vision therapy threads below for some suggestions and further comments if any of this sounds familiar.

Good luck…..Rod

Hi Bach,

I just saw your similar post on another board where you added that your son had recently had vision therapy for “convergence insufficiency.” Assuming he needed it, and that he responded to the vision therapy, you may be left with a situation where he now has to break the bad habits he developed when he was trying to read with a vision problem….primarily a guessing habit.

However, you also implied in that other post I mentioned that he had a good understanding of the phonic structure of words, and that there were also some other language issues, so it’s starting to get confusing…..perhaps you could be more specific as to the nature of his reading problem?….Rod

I agree with RobinG that your “specialist” is a touch out of date (like a couple of decades) and is merely applying by rote a program that is neither based on good science nor fitted to your son’s needs.

I agree entirely with Rod; this kind of reading difficulty comes FROM sight memorization of words, and the more sight memorization you do the worse it gets; also that almost every word in English is at least partially phonetic, the difficulties usually lying with a few letters, either a vowel sound that is not the common pronunciation for that spelling or a silent consonant.

The treatment for this problem is to *slow down*. Forget the “fluency” advocates for now; a lot of them can’t tell fluency from speed, and a lot of the others are memorization teachers in sheep’s clothing; he’ll get fluent *after* he is correct, not before. Read every word, and if it is missed, go back and sound it out.

At first this is very frustrating for the student. He thinks he can read fast and well, and he has been taught that speed is good. You have to deal with this and insist on correctness and accuracy because a lot of errors in small things add up to errors in big things. I always show my students a sheet of paper; so light you can nhardly find its weight, and so thin you can hardly measure its thickness. Now get a box with ten packages of five hundred sheets of paper; suddenly it’s a big clunky box and too heavy to lift. All those little bitty sheets of paper added up to something big and ugly, and that’s what all those little bitty skips and errors and guesses are going to do to him — a big lump to trip him up.

Once you fight through the frustration and complaints, in a very short time (usually five to ten hours, but of course this varies) suddenly the student finds that by really *reading* what’s on the page instead of making up half of it, he is actually *more* fluent, and in a short time after that he finds that he can actually read *faster* because he is not constantly backtracking to find out what he missed.

Forget that “specialist” and find someone who will work on reading accurately and applying phonics; or do it yourself; for a lot lower price in a lot less time you will get great improvement.

ref your question on the previous post, my son has quirky language problems. He went through several years of speech/language therapy when he was younger. At age 9 he still sometimes butchers grammar,saying things like “wented” that I think he should have outgrown by now, although he will choose the correct answer if given a multiple choice grammar test.I think he sometimes has word retrival problems when he speaks(I’m no stranger to that problem) and word substitution (I’m no stranger to that problem either- for example maybe saying “last year” when I meant “last month”. I’ve never done it with reading though. Once he read Oklahoma when the word was Kansas. There were no sentence clues to indicate it was a State. When I asked him to sound it out if you could have seen the bewildered look on his face…he just sat there in silence. That is why I sometimes find myself torn. Speech related problem or visual problem? If you write a list of sentences consisting of random 2 letter words that do not adhere to normal grammar, it is hard to read. So, could this be a language oriented thing….Or is this just fallout from the eye problem? Sometimes he will read things like “this” as “his” as if he’s not attending to the whole word…he does what you mentioned in your post… messing up tenses and then trying to correct the next words to comply. Sometimes he will read could as couldn’t or the oposite. More often the little word he reads looks nothing like the real word like “and” for “the”, but if I go back and point to his error he will read it correctly- instantly and effortlessly. He also tends to guess at new words from context even though he is capable of sounding out very difficult words. He does much better reading if he can hold a bookmarker and move it around and sometimes cover over parts of words. Unfortunately, new paperback books do not lend themselves to this strategy. He also reads much better on non-school days leading me to believe it might just be an eye strain thing. Even if small words are written into gramatically correct sentences, your eyes track differently and at a different pace than a string of large words. By the way, he sometimes reverses things in his writing like “ot” instead of “to”. He’s very consistent with his errors. Most of the time he writes everything phonetically including irregular words that he just spelled correctly on his spelling test which he always gets 100 on. The teacher is very concerned about his spelling and writing. Rod wrote:
>
> Hi Bach,
>
> I just saw your similar post on another board where you
> added that your son had recently had vision therapy for
> “convergence insufficiency.” Assuming he needed it, and that
> he responded to the vision therapy, you may be left with a
> situation where he now has to break the bad habits he
> developed when he was trying to read with a vision
> problem….primarily a guessing habit.
>
> However, you also implied in that other post I mentioned
> that he had a good understanding of the phonic structure of
> words, and that there were also some other language issues,
> so it’s starting to get confusing…..perhaps you could be
> more specific as to the nature of his reading problem?….Rod

P.S. I should mention that on a good day he will self correct himself with the misread words….but he has to self correct several times per sentence. An example- .. he might read “When it is the order” , no I mean, “when the order is complete”..

Hi again Bach,

I feel that vision therapy is indicated in far more cases than people suspect. However, having said that, I also feel that the administration of vision therapy is highly erratic across the country and that it is very difficult to know whether the “right” therapy is being administered, and it is also difficult to know exactly what is being accomplished. I feel strongly (based on parents’ reports and personal experience teaching their kids to read) that vision therapy can be the missing element in a reading program in many cases. But, did it work in your son’s case? That’s the unanswered question. Should he see another therapist? Maybe. It’s impossible to tell, but your comment that he reads better on non-school days, assuming it’s accurate, would indicate that something is up with his vision.

Also, he sounds like he’s retained his sight-word reading habits, even if he does know the phonics. Oklahoma for Kansas is a dead giveaway. The misreading of the “little words” is another clue that he’s not attending to the structure of words, but only to the flow of the story, jumping ahead to meet the next challenging word, ignoring or improvising on the “little words.” If his vision is indeed in place, he needs to slow down (as Victoria says) and use his phonics info. That’s why the notecard works…it forces attention to the sounds in words, instead of to the flow of the story.

Some suggestions which might work if vision is not the main issue, but rather his sight word reading habit:

1. Emphasize accuracy on little words by saying “careful” a lot when you correct the “little words.” He knows them. He just doesn’t look at them. Explain to him (when he provides an apt example) how his careless misreading “the” for “a” has caused him to change the next two or three words in the sentence, so he sees why it’s important. When he finally does read a paragraph or a page without a careless error, congratulate him, both so that he realizes he did it, and so that you can say something positive about the issue.

2. On longer words that he either guesses wrong, or puzzles over, simply say “What’s the first chunk?” This will get him focused on the sounds in the word (much like the index card did.)

3. When he guesses outright, tell him simply “You guessed that word.” Then have him read the first chunk.

4. If you tend to get resistance when you correct him, start each correction with “You said _____ here” (inserting the word he actually said.) He will agree with you because he will have just heard himself say it. Then point out something obvious (If this was “Oklahoma” this would be a k sound…pointing at the “O”) He won’t be able to argue with you there either….then ask him what the first chunk is…to focus him on the work he has to do to actually read the word instead of just guessing at it.

good luck….Rod