Diagnosing child with reading difficulty

What kind of phonics instruction? (There’s phonics instruction that assumes you are using auditory processing to do what you’re asked to do, and there’s phonics instruction that teaches you how to do the auditory processing. Many “phonics based” curricula are the former, and work very well with most students; it doesn’t mean you should abandon phonics though, since that’s the basis of the written language.)

A friend, who doesn’t like computers very much, asked me to post this. We have been looking over different reading programs together today since we both have a child that needs a different approach than what we have been doing. She just left, but I know that she is now using Sing, Spell, Read, and Write. I don’t know if she has used anything else or not. I will ask her and post again if she has tried any other approach.

Phonics — yes I would look for some additional phonics program. Some people on the forum mention Phono-graphix. I highly recommend this book.

Beyond phonics — it is extremely important not to focused solely on phonics. Since your daughter is not able to decode for herself, it is extremely important that you read to her. By reading to her you will maintain her interest in books.

I recently completed three graduate courses in the teaching of reading. My Professor emphasized over and over the need to read aloud to children at all ages. They should be a daily activity. You can obtain recorded books which also help.

I have additional information at my web site
www.geocities.com/jnuttallphd

Jim — Michigan
Dictated with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.

Hi,

I have had success with a direct, concrete, multisensory strategy that works with any text. Email me if you would like to know more. Anita
[email protected]

Hi,

I have a son that is 12 years old and has dysgraphia. I don’t know much about his condition. But I do know that my son is a bright boy and he’s an excellent chess player and a wizard with math problem…problem that he doesn’t need to read to get the correct answer. I am concern because he doesn’t read at his grade level. I need information. Help!

Nory

[quote=”Nory”]Hi,

I have a son that is 12 years old and has dysgraphia. I don’t know much about his condition. But I do know that my son is a bright boy and he’s an excellent chess player and a wizard with math problem…problem that he doesn’t need to read to get the correct answer. I am concern because he doesn’t read at his grade level. I need information. Help! [email protected]

Nory[/quote]

Hi,

I have a son that is 12 years old and has dysgraphia. I don’t know much about his condition. But I do know that my son is a bright boy and he’s an excellent chess player and a wizard with math problem…problem that he doesn’t need to read to get the correct answer. I am concern because he doesn’t read at his grade level. I need information. Help! [email protected]

Nory

Yes, there is phonics and there is phonics. Phonics is an absolute must, but that is only the start; you have to teach the child how to use this skill to get into meaningful reading. If you are interested in my how-to-tutor posts, email me at [email protected]

The board is acting weird. The above posted to the wrong thread (how??) Offer of notes is still open.

Before phonics instruction can really be effective, you need to teach kids about how spoken words break down into their individual sounds and how to blend and manipulate those sounds. That understanding and the skills in that area are called phonemic awareness.

Also, overlearning is the key to many students’ success with phonics instruction. You really need to make sure they have mastered a skill/sound before you move on to the next. The temptation to whiz through a program is tough to resist when a kid is really struggling.

Find a book/website that gives you activities for improving phonological awareness and phonemic awareness (the latter is part of the former). There’s a good website that has assessments for these skills so you can target your instruction:

http://teams.lacoe.edu/documentation/classrooms/patti/k-1/teacher/assessment/tools/tools.html

Also, check out the Reading Rockets website for more ideas.

It is possible to teach phonemic awareness *along with* phonics. This is in fact quite effective with older learners, who are strongly motivated to learn to read and don’t want to play around with preliminary stuff.

The approach that I know works is direct teaching — say the sound (repeatedly), do some identification task to identify the sound with the letter or letters both sound to writing and writing ro sound, write the letter or letters, read several words with that sound in them, write words with that sound in them, do sorting tasks separating words with similar but distinct sounds, in advanced levels do tasks involving variant spellings for the same sound, etc. etc. etc.
“Fun and Games” phonics approaches that try to pussyfoot around the *work* involved in teaching or learning by having kids play with rhymes and so on are ineffective in many cases because they put the cart before the horse — if the kid could already do rhymes or same beginning sounds or whatever well enough to play a game with them, he wouldn’t need extra help.
Once they get over the initial shock of being asked to really work hard at this for an hour, most kids actually enjoy their lessons that I teach directly; discovering new ideas is fun, really more fun than repeating the same dumb rhyme over and over.