We recently had our 5th grader tested for dyslexia. The report said that although the discrepancy in her scores did not show the classic signs of dyslexia that educators look for, her lack of phonemic awareness does show signs of this disorder. The thing that left me thinking the most was that our daughter seems to take in information too superficially to remain in memory. She has a deficiency in vocabulary as well. I agree with the assessment that she takes info. in superficially, in other words, that she doesn’t seem to process the information or be able to apply it to other areas. Can someone expound on this for me? Is this because of her attention problem, which she does have, although not consistent and not severe? Is it a common deficit of children with reading problems? We have found a wonderful tutor that is using the Wilson Language System, which seems like it could help her phonemic skills. But how does one help her understand the deeper meaning of text and what goes on around her? The tutor will be helping her with reading comprehension as well, but I’m wondering about this “superficial intake of information” and how to help her with that. Thanks
Re: "Superficial" intake of info??
She has started checking out the audio tapes with the books she is reading for school and listens to them with headphones while reading. This has helped her tremendously. Thanks for your input. Kathy
Re: "Superficial" intake of info??
I’ve found that the intensity of working with the language really helps wiht “listening more closely” — I could speculate on why, but I don’t really know. But my kiddos who tended to let things go in one ear and out the other got a lot better at attending to language because when they were wiht me, that’s all we did.
Some people learn more from what they read or see than from what they hear. When people read out loud to me, it washes over me - I can’t retain it. When she reads something or sees something, does it seem to be taken in as superficially as when she hears it?
From what you’re saying I would say this is related more to her attentional issues than to her reading issues. People with attentional issues can do a lot of “Huh? Uh, what? I didn’t get that.” or “Yes I was there when you were talking but it just didn’t stick with me” kind of thing.
I always suggest reading out loud to children and especially to children with learning issues. You could read each night briefly - a page or two -and briefly discuss what you read. Short stories where the ending comes fast might be the best thing to increase her understanding of text.