Re: two questions - basic reading skills in order

> First is phonemic awareness - or the letter/sound
> correspondence. For students who have a difficult time
> “hearing” that, other things may be used to help train them,
> such as Earobics, FFW, and perhaps some of the Lindamood Bell
> programs. First and foremost, though, is repetition,
> repetition, repetition until it becomes automatic.

Be sure that the repetition is perfect. Once brain learns something wrong, it is oh-so hard to reteach it. (This happens a lot.) You’ve heard that “practice makes perfect”? Only if it is perfect practice. Practice really makes permanent.

> With phonemic awareness come segmentation - breaking up words
> into small enough phonemic pieces that the sounds from
> individual letters, and letter combinations are easily
> recognizable to the emergent reader (are those pieces called
> digraphs

Those pieces are called “graphemes”. A type of grapheme is a digraph: two letters that make one sound. Eg. /ch/, /sh/, /ng/.

> Again, this takes a lot of practice.

Perfect practice.

> Is this where sound blending comes in? My 10 year old scores
> in the mid-first grade range on sound blending.

Kids who do not segment are generally unable to blend. However, I’ve seen kids who can segment but not blend. I’ve had to teach them that skill.

> Once segmentation is taught, rhyming can be taught.
> Apparently, the jury is still out on whether rhyming is a
> neccessary skill for reading. :-)

Rhyming is an oral language skill not a reading skill. Most kids learn to rhyme in preschool. When kids don’t catch on to rhyming, it is an early indicator of potential reading problems. At some point, most of my kids begin to enjoy rhyming. We use it in writing and games—not reading instruction.

> Does comprehension fall into the mix at about this point?

Next comes fluency. We need to get up enough *accurate* reading speed for comprehension to really flourish. Lots of practice at reading at our independent reading level.

> Read for content, and not for individual words? I suppose
> that depends on the text being read. Any suggestions as to
> what might hold a very serious 10 year old boy’s attention -
> but still be simple enough for him to work on comprehension?

What is his approximate independent reading level?

> Then come the rules and patterns for phonics instruction.
> The “i before e … ,” the patterns “CVCe” for a long vowel
> sound, etc., plus the exceptions to those rules. But only
> teach the exceptions after the students have a firm grasp of
> the basics.

> If I try to follow along with this sort of format, will I
> finally have a successful reader on my hands? Perhaps even a
> moderately successful speller?

Levels and doses make a difference, but generally you are correct.

> Thanks again for all your input! I have worked with various
> methods to try to teach my son to read, but haven’t really
> had an understanding of how the pieces fit until today - at
> least not one I could articulate, which makes my trying to
> teach my son to read all that much more difficult.

It really helps if the reader can understand the steps in the process and where they are breaking down.

Thanks,

My son still can’t rhyme - and we practice - sometimes his Dad and I get into silly rhyming games, just to expose him …

As for independent reading level - I’m not sure. He scored advanced proficiency on the Virginia SOLs at the end of third grade last year … but he isn’t really reading. He’s picking up clues from somewhere else - but I can’t figure out where - maybe enough sight reading to get by …

Shall we try late second, early third for an idenpendent reading level? Maybe his school librarian will have a list I can request.

Thanks again,
Lil

I have a piece of software called DRP and I did a search of its 10-20 thousand titles. No titles appeared at second grade level. Several appeared at mid-third grade level. They are all by the same publisher: Academic Therapy Publications. (They do have a website).

The series are “High Noon Books.” There are lots.

These titles came up in a search for any genre:

“North Meets South” (Historical fiction)
“The Car Trip” (Modern Fiction with a geographical slant)
“Champs” (Sports)
“The Best” (Modern fiction about a boy and his uncle building a boat.)
“Star Bus” Fantasy genre seemed a little akin to Magic School bus but not sure.

DRP selections may not be a perfect fit for kids w/decoding problems. Depends on where they are in the learning sequence. These books are leveled more based on word lists. Not decoding patterns.

There are some decodable stories out there. Until one can recognize CVC, CVCE, CV, CVC/CVC, and CVC/CV patterns, there will be no trade books to read.

This is why I do teach some words as sight words: They are so frequent in language, but learning the pattern is so far down in the sequence. “Is” is a good example. (It is so very frequent—#17 on the Harris/Jacobsen list behind only the, and, to, a, of, in, he, I, was, it, you, that, she, for, his, on, is.) Now, there are some that are just irregular: of is an example of a *very* high frequency word that will never be sounded out exactly. *Some* learners may be able to make that leap from /f/ to /v/—others may not.

Also, in order to get up enough fluency—later in the process—these words should become more automatic more quickly because they occur so often. (I have seen readers who want to decode every word every time and they can’t build speed until they start perceiving some words as whole words.)

Kids want to read real books like their peers.

Thanks again! I’ll ask the school librarian if she has some of the ones that would suit my son (not too much fantasy - he is so literal (NLD) that he just doesn’t get it).

Another issue that hasn’t been touched on is the small sight words you just listed. He KNOWS them when I make him go back and read them during oral reading - but he often skips and/or reads them incorrectly. His general ed teacher doesn’t see that as a problem as long as he gets the “big” words - but it concerns me a lot. At least THOSE words should be automatic!

There are several possibilities. I’ll name what I can think of quickly:

1. Anxiety with oral reading causing the brain not to focus/attend or produce sounds from that region as well as it might.

2. General inattention for those words due to extra attention requirements for other words (bigger, not so easy).

3. Not making meaning out of what is read while reading. (This is a common issue for NLD kids bcause many of them don’t visualize well.) It is also common in kids who are just going through the motions of reading—not interested.

There are more, most likely. Combinations of reasons are also possible—even probable.

in all areas for my son. So far he’s been identified as (in order) inattentive ADHD, GAD, APD, and NLD. As you know, the NLD strengths are cancelled by the APD deficits, and vice versa. He currently takes Ritalin for inattentiveness and Wellbutrin for the anxiety. His evaluator 14 or 15 months ago told me if he had been just a little bit older, his diagnosis would have been dyslexia. I don’t care about the labels, and probably don’t need yet another one - we have all the cues for reading here. However my school system won’t sit up and take notice unless I get the right label for the right intervention. Where do they learn all that stuff? Is it really so much by the book for some systems?

///

Generalized Anxiety Disorder

I’ve been sort of pondering in my mind as to WHY I didn’t get the sequence of teaching reading to my son. However, I was one of those early, strong readers - started school in first grade (as everyone did that long ago :) ), and was reading “Little Women” independently at the end of first grade. Trying to learn how to teach my son to read has been far more difficult than learning how to do it was in the first place! :-)

Dear Lil,

You have done a great job synthesizing, but why reinvent the wheel? Just buy “Reading Reflex” and you will learn the essential components of reading. (There are other great programs but none that I know of that can be used as easily without training). You will have 4 tests to find out where the breakdown is occurring. You can’t expect there to be comprehension when the child is blending words at the first grade level. Remediate the decoding first and then work on comprehension is my advice.

Janis

Thanks Janis,

We did Reading Reflex over the summer - just haven’t carried through with it after school started - other than to use those techniques to teach vocabulary for science, social studies, and language arts. I thought it would be enough to keep his skills up - but I was wrong. We’re going to start again and work until these things are automatic.

I’m not trying to reinvent the wheel - I’m still trying to understand the parts that make the wheel work. I was probably hyperlexic - and have no clue how to teach reading - went through the Reading Reflex steps - and saw results with my son - but didn’t really “get it” until today. Maybe both my son and I will have more success now! :-)

Lil

Lil, Segmenting and blending is taught throughout the basic and advanced code as well as in multi-syllable words. You don’t need the phonics rules unless you are using one of the programs that have them. PG doesn’t use rules it uses choices for the sound, rules don’t always work and sometimes the exceptions work better. Practice for your son is key. You know what I mean, Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither does reading fluently. Patience Lil, patience!

Lil,

Sounds like you are on the right track! If you are anywhere near FL, I’d consider the week intensive therapy at Read America (Phono-Graphix). That might give you a much needed jump start on getting those skills to be automatic. Once you begin working on comprehension, it sounds like he’d be a good candidate for Visualizing and Verbalizing by Lindamood Bell. I think you’d enjoy reading that manual, too.

Janis

I, too, was one of those readers that no one could mess up. I’ve got excellent linguistic skills and phonological processing, so picking up the phonics for my son was pretty easy despite the fact that I don’t remember much about learning to read. (Funny, I do remember a phonics demo by my 1st grade teacher about “igh” says /ie/. I remember being able to immediately apply it. Oh, I was so smug about things like that. So it goes with the linguistically talented.)

Teaching comprehension was about the only thing I really learned in my teacher education. That is a sad thing. But I have learned a great deal because teaching the code was something I already knew: I was free to focus on other topics in reading and writing.

Despite what many people feel—and I used to feel, too—teaching reading to all children involves more than decoding. Decoding is a difficult area to teach, though, and requires some innate talent, too. My teacher-friend w/LD cannot hear the sounds herself. She cannot teach decoding and does not try. I admire her for that.

I’m not anywhere close to Florida - however my brother lives in Orlando - I have thought about that for next summer. :-)

Lil

Hmmm, that sounds like a very promising idea! I am considering it for my child, too. DW is a SUPER incentive to persevere through the therapy!

Janis

Ah, yes Shay - he probably doesn’t need the rules - but since they are teaching the rules in 4th grade, I need to learn how to compensate for their teaching. Plus I need to know where he really is, and how all these things fit together! :-)
Lil

I will try to tell you how these all fit together. The basic code is taught the same in about all of the programs. The big difference ia howPG teaches the advanced code. PG offers choices for the different sounds and this is where the rules come into play. The rules, in other programs are how they teach the advanced code. If you teach him using PG, he doesn’t need the rules. There are, about, 500 rules and exceptions. The problem is that the rules don’t work most of the time and the rules have a tendency of getting in the way of fluency. The child has to stop and think of the rule that governs the word. If you want to know what grade level your son is on, you can use a reading inventory. I am going to send you today the package that I told you I would send and I will run off my basic reading inventory and you can give it to your son. Oh, most programs really don’t teach strategies for MS words, except for OG and it’s clones, they just assume that as a child reads, he will know how to decode them. OG goes in the other direction, explaining open and closed syllables, that I feel really is not necessary for a child to learn to read. Besides it takes a too long to learn that way. Please don’t flame, this is just my opinion from experience.

Thanks - I’m not the flaming type. :-) Not sure what I would flame about. You and PG have done wonders for my son, I believe everything you have said.

I think there are a few of reasons that I am seeing him backslide after this summer: anxiety (school issues, not wanting to admit he can’t do it); his APD (he doesn’t get as much “practice” time as others since he can’t “hear” what is going on); my imperfect understanding of the system; confusion (the school is still teaching reading in a different way). He comes home reciting a new reading/spelling rule every week.

So I am working to increase my understanding, need to do more structured practice time with him (not only review his vocab words using PG techniques), try to reduce the anxiety. His Dad and I got a load of his neurological challenges last night after playing a game of tag with him around the house. Laughing, running - then suddenly a huge melt down because we were “ganging up on him” - sheesh! All these things influence how he learns … and sometimes I still get caught out in left field.

I didn’t mean you flaming me, just others that seem to have left this board.

Yes,
There are some who hear PG and go nuts. It is strange!

It makes me so sad because some might listen to it and not do PG. PG saved my son. I am convinced of that.

Shay,

I generally avoid commenting on PG because I am not trained or certified to teach it.

Your comments about Orton Gillingham are incorrect and I am wondering if you have been certified to teach it. If not, you may wish to consider refraining from directly referring to exactly what it contains and how it works. If you are certified, I am surprised at your comments.

I also generally avoid an confrontation about PG versus OG. This time, I cannot sit by and allow someone to speak incorrectly about an excellent *method* that I use with excellent success that you indicate with the PG program.

I realize that, like other OG folks, I may be run off this BB by the irrate PGers. So be it.

Yes, I’m a little irked.

Susan,

I am sorry that something someone said irked you. But I reread the posts and could not really see why. She prefers PG and you may prefer something else. It’s her opinion and perceprion of two programs. I have viewed some of the Susan Barton OG video training (as well as LiPS) and she did indeed teach about rules for open and closed syllables. At the time I thought, it’ll be a LONG time before my child could comprehend all these rules. Some people feel that PG is a faster way of teaching the code. Others are free to use OG, whole language, or whatever makes them happy. But what bothers me about your post is that you infer that you will be run off the board by “irate PGers”. I feel that is sort of a personal attack in itself. Shay did not say anything against OG teachers. She said what she did not like about the method. Perhaps it would have been more fruitful if you had shown Shay where she was in error about OG content instead.

Janis

here, here Janis, finally someone to discuss something and not get personal, this post is long, sorry, could not sit by

i, too, think rules are not productive and i have never met a good reader who had to rely on rules when reading, i read well and could not tell you an open syllable from a closed syllable, i ask you Susan and any reading teacher who teaches rules, just where do you keep your rule book when you are reading, do you use it often?? when you sit down with a hard book, do you reach for the rule book next?

i am being sarcastic, but really, rules!!

my kids cannot even remember /oa/ represents the sound /o/ (long)

rules do make parents and teachers feel secure, it gives some order to our nonsense code,

i had begun this discussion a long way back asking about segmenting and how its impact on reading is shown in poor readers,

i expected a top flight discussion about segmenting, and its impact and did not get one, but as usual on bulletin boards, people start thinking they are being attacked personally, or flamed, let’s get real, we do not know each other, i have little interest in where you teach, where you live etc but i am interested in reading and your observations when watching kids read

surely a good intelligent discussion of reading should be able to take place among educated persons, Shay has years of first hand experience and i for one value what she has to say

if the reading issues are to ever improve, this is one area that could change, get the personal crap out of it, it bores the pants off of me,

but i did use a word that i want to resay ( not sure that is a word), the word is observe, i want to know what you observe when you watch kids read, good and bad readers

i still see flawless segmenters becoming flawless decoders becoming flawless readers and hence flawless comprehenders, teachers think they are smart, kids think they are smart, heck they do look smart

how do we duplicate this process for the poor PA kids???

rules for long vowels, silent letters, i really do not think so, good readers do not do this

i talked with a mom tonight, her son came to me in the middle of 2nd grade over two years ago, and i had trained her son’s preschool and kdg this past summer in PG

when the boy came he could not segment the word /frog/

nonsense spelling with cvcc and ccvc words was impossible for him, took me 4one hour sessions to get the segmenting even on the radar screen,

his mom told me his now first grade sister cannot get books fast enough, reads everything and enjoys the challenge of hard code, can’t wait to try the different sounds

her mom said one thing that stuck in my head, she said, the girl will get to a piece of code that has overlap or variation etc, she said it takes ONE try and she has the word,

she said the son, the weak segmenter, may try many sounds and many sounds that are not even appropriate, then give up, he is in 4th grade now, i have not seen him for 2 yrs but when they came over two years ago, the little sister was 4, she listened intently to the lessons, i knew right then and there that she was segmenting in her head the words her brother could not do,
i told the mother at that time, that the child would read and read well,

she is gifted with sound processing, remembers code, remembers overlap and finds the entire process just one big blast,

she knows NO rules, she is already reading Magic Tree House, she is 6, she does not know what an open syllable is, heck she does not even know the word syllable

this mother has first hand experience with what poor segmenting can do

i do believe that the poor segmenter is forced to learn whole words, he has too,

he has not learned the code, HE CAN”T if he cannot segment, when teacher has the word CAT on board, the good segmenter sees and hears each piece of code, the poor segmenter hears only CAT and sees this group of letters,

NO sound to symbol correspondence and this becomes his reading strategy, memorize whole words, he has nothing else

hence MS words become a complete nightmare, he cannot memorize them and does not know code either, so along comes the teacher scratching her head to help him, so she gives him rules

when she should teach him to segment, i don’t care if he is 18, he must learn to segment every word a teacher asks him

if is say, frog, house, boat, crouch, milk, etc, i want to hear that kid give me all the sounds effortlessly, no help,

so let’s get back to segmenting„ i do not see it as something we do to give kids PA for the sake of saying we teach PA

PA is READING, it is not the beginning of reading, it is reading, i am using PA right now to spell these words and read these words,

so whattya think??
do we make reading toooooooo hard and make parents think it is so hard that only a reading specialist can do it

Moats once wrote an article titled “Reading is Rocket Science”. while she said interesting stuff in the article, her title is wrong,

it ain’t rocket science, it boils down to efficient sound processors, good code rememberers, and it becomes fun,

le’t make it this much fun for the other kids

now here is a good word

/initiated/

everyone out there, tell me exactly how you help the kid who is reading a book and he gets to the word /initiated/, how do you help him quickly and efficiently??

i want to see the PG way, the OG way, the LMB way, the Wilson way, and whatever way there is out there.

put your method up here for comparison, give me the exact language you would use with the child!!!!

and don’t forget, comment on segmenting

libby

\

Not all children who rhyme well can read well.

My son still has a reading disability in spite of very good (maybe even superior?) rhyming skills.

Susan,
I was in a Wilson’s class and I left before it was over. I didn’t understand why it taught a lot of things the way they did including open and closed syllables in order to read. The program made no sense to me. I knew that my kids wouldn’t be able to understand it because it was to abstract. My daughter was taught with phonics programs with a lot of rules, exceptions etc and she was still reading on a fourth grade level when she was 19. She knew all of the phonics rules by heart but couldn’t apply them. I have remediated many students that had been in a Wilson’s reading class for 3-4 years and still couldn’t read words with advanced code and MS words. I also have spoke with a representative of Wilson and he told me that it would take up to 3 years for a student to get through the program. My high school kids don’t have that kind of time. Also, most of my students have an IQ of about 80. OG and it’s clones target those kids with 100+ IQ. Susan, I am giving my opinion, I am not an irate “PGer”, and never have been. I think what we, as teachers, have to do is stop treating reading as a ‘religion’. I think that OG and it’s clones was an excellent program when it was virtually the only program out there for remediation for the ‘dyslexics’, but as with everything, things change and new products come on the market based on research. For the first time, we have brain research and we know why kids can’t read. Teaching reading is not rocket science, teaching decoding is not hard and you can do it really fast. I was not attaching anyone who used OG but I do feel that it is not as good as some new programs on the market, Jolly Phonics, yes, PG and one one by Mona Macnee has produced called CAT. If , in medicine, we found a new and faster way of curing a disease and it worked with almost everyone, would we use the other older cure just because we liked it? If some other program, in the future, comes along that gets better results than PG, I will use it, but until then I will always recommend PG over OG because of it’s speed and results. Sorry, but I did say that what I said was my opinion and it has nothing to do with any personal opinions about anyone who uses the program. I am also sorry that you took it that way.

How about my way using PG? First of all, you are right, if a child, no matter what the age, if they can’t segment and blend, they can’t read on grade level and they struggle a lot with no comprehension. I observe this all of the time when I start with new students, either in a classroom or in private practice. Once the student understands the code, can segment and blend, he is on the way of becoming a good reader. One thing when I teach reading that I keep in my mind, is that we know through research that when a program teaches decoding by teaching segmenting and blending and the student finally is able to read, we are actually changing nerve cells and imprinting the advanced code on the brain. The students brain looks just like the brains of normal readers when before, there wasn’t any or very little action in the left side of the brain where sound/symbol relationship takes place. I have the research, can get you the websites, if you want. Keeping this in mind, I know that if I teach my kids to decode using PG, as fast as I can, and when I get to the multi-syllable words, there brain synapses are starting to work just like the students, like probably ourselves, that learned no matter what program they used or didn’t use. This is why, when I remediate, my students only work on PG, no reading of anything except the simple stories in the program I also make the program more visual. My students always have the chart of the digraphs and dipthongs on their desks, and I refer to them all the time. I have the kids look at the chart, I show them the overlap, and I have them look at the letters that represent the sound. We look to see the similarities of the dipthongs and digraphs that represent the sound. This, I think, improves their visual memory. Now getting back to your word, ‘initiate’. By the time that my kids get to this kind of word, their brain seems to be functioning like everyone and, they will usually chunk it like this, In/i/ ti/ ate, they will also say it like this, in/i/tea/ate, they will automatically change it to the proper word because they will know that they are saying a word that doesn’t exist but they do know the proper word because it is close to it and they have heard that word. I don’t teach them how to sound it out, because I already have taught them how to segment and blend all words even MS words.

I do use three rules for MS words, now remember, we are at the end of PG by now. I have just finished teaching them the special endings. The rules:
1. A chunk is only a mouthful of sounds
2. Every chunk has either a vowel sound, a special ending, or one of the 44 sounds that we have worked on.
3. Never split a sound

This seems to work. I then start teaching a vocabulary unit on word roots, prefixes and suffixes as well as study strategies.

I really think that my success with PG has to do with my own beliefs in the program, myself as a teacher, and my kids as great students. I know that I will teach them, and I know that they will be reading fluently in a year, and so they do. I hope that this has answered your question, perhaps maybe a little strangely?

Okay, want to know why I think some kids are poor readers? My child can segment short words perfectly. She can certainly sound out 4 and five sound words. She really hasn’t learned syllabification yet, so I’m not going there. The problem is poor short term/working memory. She may know basic code, but she can’t keep the sequence of sounds in memory long enough to get the word out after saying all the sounds. We’re not to advanced code yet. Just wanted to insert a new thought in this discussion, but I’m in a rush to get to a workshop!

Janis

Janis,

My son was like that. It made PG painfully slow. I don’t know if it is development or the Neuronet therapy (or two combined) but he isn’t anymore. Now he can actually sound out multisyllable words and keep the sounds straight—at least most of the time.

I also see my five year old perfectly segmenting words but then forgetting the sounds before he blends them. So I suspect there is a developmental aspect to this too. Unlike his brother, he has no trouble with sight words though and has the sound-symbol correspondence down cold.

Beth

I don’t think it is all segmenting. My son has been able to segment for about two years perfectly. But reading still isn’t at grade level. On PG tests, he scored perfect on segmenting and blending but not on AP or code knowledge.

Beth

excellent posts Shay and very to the point, yes, publish the website for the research on brain activity,

you made excellent points about the word /initiate/,

yes, this word would come up after all the ground work had been laid, i work a lot with 6th and 7th graders and these kinds of words are the ones that stumble them.

the infrequent code, such as the /t/ in this word representing /sh/ and the /i/ representing /ee/,

funny, these same kids can read the word /indian/ and just breeze over the /i/, give them /initiate/ and it is harder

on the Burns and Roe IRI, the word /vicious/ is on the 4th grade sight word test, here we have the /ci/ representing /sh/

i like all of your ideas about the digraghs and dipthongs on the desks etc,

unfortunately for me as a tutor, i do not have that luxury, i will suggest it to parents though, i usually just use a whiteboard and keep them there during tutoring

i find too that overlap seems to be the harder than variation, especially in the MS words, so much overlap with vowels and consonants

thanks shay, your high school kids are very lucky to have you, my tutees all go back to classes that preach whole word memorizing and rules, my district uses Wilson,

libby

your child needs to learn to blend, if he struggled with blending with cvc etc, it will again appear with MS, same thing

blending and holding the chunks in his head requires the same blending techniques that you used when helping him do cvc etc

and yes some kids need segmenting and blending instruction both,

segmenting is what determines how easily he will learn the code though,

and i do believe if we did heavy segmenting in pre kdg and kdg„ many a reading problem would be avoided,

and keep in mind, blending is a separate skill and many kids lack it as well, but segmenting determines code knowledge,
libby

He also blends perfectly—you must have missed that in my message. That is why I don’t think reading well is just segmenting and blending. Now he had to be taught both but he did learn.

Beth

Hi Beth, I thought that I would just re-post this info that was posted a while back. Sometimes I will see something and at the time, it doesn’t relate to my situation and then later I re-read it and I can gleam some info that I hadn’t before.

Your youngest sounds like my son when we first started all of this 4 years ago. He also did very well on the PG tests at that time but obviously couldn’t read at grade level.

Here is the info. Dyseidetic Dyslexia

Damage to the angular gyrus in the left hemisphere of the brain causes
dyseidetic dyslexia. Children with this form of dyslexia have trouble analyzing
and remembering written symbols. They continue to confuse the orientation,
e.g., write numbers and letters backwards long after other children have
mastered these skills. They often confuse letter sequences in reading, and in
spelling often get all the letters but in the wrong sequence, e.g., spelling
“dose” for “does”, “on” for “no”, etc. Their visual memory for words is poor
and after learning a new word, they may fail to recognize that same new word
later in the sentence. They have trouble learning to read and spell
phonetically irregular words. For example they may read “laugh” as “log” and
spell it as “laff”, both of which are phonetically consistent. Their spelling
will have many mistakes but it will be phonetically consistent and one can
usually tell what the word was they were trying to spell. When they attempt to
read an unknown word they slowly try to sound it out.

THE DYSEIDETIC READER AND SPELLER

a.. Has difficulties in visualizing letters and words. Produces spelling
errors in simple frequently encountered words.
b.. Has confusion with letters that differ in terms of spatial orientation
(including shape) e.g. b d p q s z.
c.. Often reverses words e.g. saw for was.
d.. Sounds out simple words, is unable to perceive the gestalt configurations
of whole words.
e.. Sounds out every word as if newly encountered, and thus cannot recognize
words quickly when flashed.
f.. Has a limited sight word recognition vocabulary omits letters from words,
omits words from reading and frequently loses his place when reading.
g.. Tends to spell phonetically but inaccurately.
h.. Has great difficulty in spelling irregular words that cannot be sounded
out as he has difficulty with the perception and recall of word shapes.
What is the difference between dysphonetic and dyseidetic dyslexia?
The terms “dysphonetic” and “dyseidetic” are words used to describe
typical symptoms of dyslexia. The person labeled “dysphonetic” has difficulty
connecting sounds to symbols, and might have a hard time sounding out words,
and spelling mistakes would show a very poor grasp of phonics. This is also
sometimes called “auditory” dyslexia, because it relates to the way the person
processes the sounds of language.
The “dyseidetic” individual, on the other hand, generally has a good
grasp of phonetic concepts, but great difficulty with whole word recognition
and spelling. This type of dyslexia is also sometimes called “surface dyslexia”
or “visual dyslexia.” Typically, words are spelled in a way that you can easily
decipher phonetically, but they may be very far from being correct. For
example, the word “phonics” might be spelled “foniks.” You might also see
transpositions and even sometimes complete reversals in spelling (such as the
word “need” being written “deen”) - but the letters that correspond to the
right sounds are all there.

Most remedial programs tend to emphasize phonics. This can help the
“dysphonetic” dyslexic somewhat, but does not address all underlying problems
associated with dyslexia. Often, instruction in phonics will help the person
learn to read, but the student will still find reading very difficult and will
not read for pleasure or progress beyond reading primary-grade level material.

Unfortunately, the phonics-based programs will not help the purely
“dyseidetic” dyslexic at all. Rather, they will only increase confusion,
because the student is being drilled on something he already knows, without
being given a means to develop whole-word recognition skills or learn to
recognize words that do not sound exactly the way they are spelled.

This describes my son pretty much. It’s interesting now that my dd is learning to read. She does some of the same things as my son did. But, I have done a lot of the AP things in PACE and the NeuroNet tasks (starting 1 to 2 years ago) and because of this, she really is doing well with reading. Of course, being in 1st grade, she has a lot to learn but her auditory memory and her ability to hear the phomens has greatly improved her ability to read. I also may be because they use Open Court in school which my son did not have. I think that Open Court is a really good phonic program but it moves along very quickly. So far, she has been able to keep up.

Donna in MO

Donna,

I am hoping that my five year old’s issues are just developmental. He is reading sight words and can segment perfectly—just seems to forget the sounds to blend together. He will not be easy to work with–he got very upset doing PG last summer. He ended up learning all his letter sounds from Read, Write, and Type.

Now he does have writing problems—compounded by his perfectionistic tendencies. He is slow and has trouble reproducing letters. This def. is a family trait—my oldest also had some of the same issues. Now 12, she types everything.

Beth

My son got the sounds pretty quick. He has a good memory. His problem was definitely in the segmenting area. He was segmenting perfectly when we finished PG 1 year ago but I had to go back and do some segmenting with him again. It came right back to him. But it was interesting that he lost it even as his reading improved.

Back to the rhyming: He was always the best rhymer around in preschool. He used to annoy some children because he would give them nonsense nicknames like John the bon etc. I thought it was cute.

thanks beth for the good info, what age was your son when you first got help for him or starting using some type of remediation program,

libby

>>This describes my son pretty much. It’s interesting now that my dd is l>>earning to read. She does some of the same things as my son did. But, I have done a lot of the AP things in PACE and the NeuroNet tasks (starting 1 to 2 years ago) and because of this, she really is doing well with reading.

do you think that improving her segmenting has helped her to learn code?? or do you think something else is at work??

i found your comments very interesting and providing good info,

libby

That is my son too. I disagree about the part where it states you shouldn’t teach them phonics because they already know it. My son did not know it at all. He needed to learn the sounds in a systematic way and he did.

He is a pretty good reader but he still has problems with the spelling part which I am dealing with by using several methods to improve visualization. I honestly believe his spelling problem is directly tied to his inability to hold a mental picture of words, even words he has seen hundreds of times. He can sound things out thanks to PG but he needs help remembering what they are supposed to look like. And yes, he probably would spell laugh, laff.

I am eager to try the PG method for spelling but I will continue to try to get him to visualize.

Linda,
My son used to annoy people with his name rhyming too! Did your son almost rhyme too much? I remember people getting a little angry or looking at him like he was sooo weird and I’d have to explain that he just liked playing with words. What a strange coincidence!!!

Beth,
I’m curious to know what you’re doing to help your son with segmenting. What programs or techniques are you using? Workbooks?

Donna,
Thanks for sharing that information. I wonder if these types of readers often have RAN deficits.

I think some reading difficulties really are developmental. For example, my daughter did not start out with remarkable reading skills (the school had a poor phonics program back them), but she became a wonderful one without any extra intervention or help from me. Reading just “clicked” in third grade and I somehow knew it would.

With my son it was very different. I think the accompanying memory issues was the indication for me that something was different. For awhile I deluded myself into believing his reading would follow the same path as my daughter’s (start off slow and then just “click”), but my intuition told me that something was not quite right. Fortunately I listened to my intuition.

However, if my daughter was the second child, I probably would be pulling my hair out worrying about her reading development!

I know the feeling. With my oldest, reading just clicked at the end of second grade. She is in 7th and loves to read. My second is the LD one and that was clear early on—certainly by K. Now my youngest seems to be doing OK but he doesn’t blend well yet. I am trying not to be too hyper—after all, he is only in K. I didn’t even know what blending was with my oldest!! He distinguishes sounds well and remembers sound-symbol relationships.

Beth

Libby,

My son received speech and language services as part of an early intervention program beginning at age 3. He was classified as speech impaired in K and was in an inclusion classroom. It was then that I started to realize we had more than speech issues. He had a really hard time learning the alphabet and couldn’t remember the sounds for letters at all.

I bought Earobics that year but he couldn’t do it.

In first grade, he was in a pull out resource program. It wasn’t very good and he ended the year really not reading. He did Fast Forward that summer, after being diagnosed with CAPD, and we followed that up with a PG intensive.

And we’ve been at it ever since!!

We caught his difficulties early but because his problems are multifaceted (CAPD, visual processing, RAN) , it still has been a major challenge.

Beth

After posting, I decided to try the PG testing out on my son again, as it has been about six months and he has lots of therapy and made progress in that time.

And he actually got all the AP ones right this time. It wasn’t automatic—he asked me to repeat several of them, even in the middle of doing it. But he got them. And he scored 92% on code knowledge. Missed ce, ai, igh, and oo. Last time I tested him he was at about 84%.

He is 9 and in fourth grade.

It is a long journey!!

Beth

Yes, he did annoy other little kids. Adults thought it was funny. He did learn to stop when I explained that some might consider it annoying.

His weakest area was segmenting but I do relate that to his other sequencing issues. He definitely fits that dyseidetic dyslexia profile. I thought it was one more bit of evidence that my son needs vision therapy.

He will be evaluated in Jan. I have Beth to thank for pointing me in the right direction there. I found someone who will do body work to take his sensory integration issues into consideration. I am hoping he also teaches some visualization of symbols.

It is strange how we all keep finding these similar little quirks pop up in our children.

We did the PACE program two years ago. It has tons of auditory processing work in it, including blending, segmenting, and manipulating sounds. This helped a lot. All it is drill with nonsense words to a metronome. The metronome is for automaticity. You could do something similar by just using nonsense words or even real words and make columns of them. You just want your child to segment each sound. You start with two sound words like ip, op, up, and then go to pi, po, pu, (short vowels) Then CVC. If they have a lot of trouble, it is easier to keep the constanants the same.

Now saying my son scores perfectly doesn’t mean he always does it in practice. But here I think the problem is more code knowledge (I think the two are distinct and good segmenters don’t necessarily know the code–my five year seems to just know how to segment but doesn’t know all the code) But he scores 100% on all tests including those by a slt this summer. Of course, that and his blending score (also perfect) made it seem like he would be a breeze to teach…… Not so!!!

Beth

Hey Beth,

That is good to hear that your older boy is mastering multi-syllable words! I honestly do think it has something to do with development. Obviously therapies help, but I am just hearing more and more perople say something eventually “clicks” and I think it is just that the child’s brain is finally developmentally ready…that plus proper instruction, of course. I hope fourth grade is still going well. If it is, you have reached a real milestone!

Janis

Yes, even if they know basic code and can blend and segment, I am seeing kids with problems in phoneme manipulation. Obviously this is where a lot of kids with auditory processing problems will be tripped up. Many children were in whole langauge and just have to be taught to segment. But manipulating phonemes and decoding multisyllable words require a higher level skill (including short term memory, which I mentioned earlier).

Janis

Still, very encouraging, Beth! Excellent progress!

Janis

Janis,

I think it is a combination of development, therapy, and instruction. Things have clicked for him this year but then we really made tremendous progress with therapy over the past six months in both IM and NN. I just don’t think the 10 weeks of summer by themselves would have done it. I have heard kids make a big developmental leap at about 13 (my Jewish advocate called it the Bar MitzAH effect and my audiologist tells me that the corpus collusium matures at that time) but at nine he is far from that. Shay helped me teach him long versus short vowels in a way that seemed to really visually implant on his brain. So there is good instruction here too. But he was doing amazingly better in school prior to that so it it is more than instruction.

Fourth grade has been such a shocking experience. I still can’t believe it is going so well. She is an exceptional teacher but I think it is partly timing. She would have been wasted on him two years ago.

And to think I spent all summer fretting over the fact we didn’t hold him back!!

Beth