:D
I have a child in my Gr 3 class who is having difficulty reading because of factors such as coding and symbol search. He is particularly having trouble with sight words and can’t seem to remember any of them. He is an amazing auditory learner but when it comes to putting things down on paper, he just gets frustrated and can’t complete the assignments. He has learned to cope with this by watching what other children are doing and copying their work in class. He uses drawings to complement his printing but I’d like him to develop more of a written approach. He has excellent comprehension skills though, he can listen to a story and tell you its elements like it was the easiest task on earth. I’m really having a tough time, does anyone have any suggestions???
Thanks
Re: Coding and Symbol Search problems
You might also research something called “phonemic awareness”. This is the ability to hear sounds within words. This ability is positively correlated with reading.
There is a program called PAS or PASP from ProEd (http://www.proedinc.com) and several good books on this. There are activities you can do with the whole class or small groups.
—des
Re: Coding and Symbol Search problems
The child you describe fits the profile for developmental vision delays. See http://www.childrensvision.com for more information.
Nancy
I’m not sure what you mean by coding and symbol search as these sound like subtests of the WISC. I have never heard them positively correlated to reading. However, if you mean DECODING then this child sounds fairly typically dyslexic. Difficulty with remembering sight words is typical (but not always the case). Despite his ability to retell a story— many dyslexic kids have good comprehension, if they don’t have to read it— I would guess he does NOT really hear the sounds well or put them together.
I am amazed that he is using drawing to assist him, with what is in all probabilities poor writing skills! This is a great compensatory aide , and you couldn’t help him gain a more “written approach” unless you first remediated any reading/spelling/writing disabilties.
I suggest you do some investigation on dyslexia. The use of systematic multisensory phonics approach will help these kids. If this is a more typical classroom, perhaps you might suggest to the parents that the kid be tested for learning disabilties as a first start. Unfortunately, the schools generally do not have people to do the kind of teaching that works. Most schools do not have any (or enough) people trained to do Orton Gillingham or other research based approaches.
—des