Is it her or her age with reading?

Submitted by an LD OnLine user on

I am writing to try to get some ideas on how to help my daughter learn to read. We are homeschooling (just started) and she just turned 6 at the end of last month. I am using Reading Reflex but we have already run into problems. We were doing the starting lessons where you say segmented words and the child guesses what word you are segmenting, i.e. “c-a-t; what word is that?” (I’m sure you know what I’m talking about but I wasn’t sure if I was using the right terminology).

In any case, she does very poorly at it. She will say something completely different—either saying a word that rhymes with or is part of it, like “at” or she’ll say something like “cup”. She also has problems ‘catching’ what is said to her. She’ll say, “What did you say?” quite a bit. She also mispronounces words and they are not always long complicated ones. I do not know the age at which a child should be able to repeat or should I say, mimic, the words that are said to them (or that they are curious about, which is the case with her).

I think she understands what we are trying to do during a reading lesson. I am unsure if this will just take some practice for her to get-the-hang-of-it or because of her other behaviors, if this is a problem. If it is, what should be done?

I have seen something similar to this in her older brother. My son has dyslexia, auditory processing problems, and ADD-inattentive type. He showed very early—as a preschooler—that he had learning differences. My daughter does not show the same sort of signs, like not recognizing rhyming words, or being totally uninterested in books and being read to. She does have speech problems but those relate to the paucity of her speech. She’s supposed to be going to therapy for that but we have been on a waiting list since last August(!)…that is another story….

I would appreciate it if anyone could give me an idea of what I should try with her or which direction would be good to move in taking care of this. Thanks so much for your help and take care.

Drae

Submitted by Anonymous on Fri, 02/20/2004 - 12:18 AM

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I would arrange for an auditory processing evaluation, as these problems are symptomatic. She could have different APD problems then her brother.

With Reading Reflex, I would have her do lots of mapping using a white board and marker (assuming she can write without difficulty).

Also, several times a day I would play the blending/segmenting game for 2-3 minutes (also makes a great car trip activity). Start with just two-sound words. You say the sounds /c/ /a/ and she has to blend them into “ca” (this is blending, not guessing). Then she has to give you two sounds (segmenting practice for her), and you have to blend them. Once she is solid on two-sound words, introduce 3-sound words such as “cat”.

Also, you may want to start Audiblox with her. Audiblox works on short-term auditory memory (among other things). It may be that she cannot remember three sounds in a row. Website for Audiblox is http://www.audiblox2000.com

Nancy

Submitted by Anonymous on Sat, 02/21/2004 - 12:02 AM

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I am not a Reading Reflex person, so I don’t know the ins and outs of it in detail. I do believe that it is a program with many good points. However what I have read and seen here is that the program was originally designed for remediation of older kids who had been taught by guessing. As such, the program goes faster than is ideal for most beginners, even those with no problems. Given that language difficulties run in the family, RR is probably just way too fast, too much material at once for her.

She needs direct step-by-step one-new-thing-at-a-time teaching.
The phonics program which I use does about thirty pages of *just* recognizing and reproducing and differentiating simple consonant sounds and writing the letters, then about fifteen pages of *just* recognizing and reproducing and differentiating the five short vowel sounds and writing the letters, and only then does it enter into activities that involve segmenting and blending.
This program is a standard, time-tested series used with average six-year-olds in Grade One.
A quick student with some background in reading may do two pages a day and finish this preparatory work in a month; a student with more difficulty may do one page a day and take two or three months on the preparatory work. And this is all *before* the first stage of RR, where you are.

While I am doing this preparatory work, I also parallel it with high-frequency words from my favourite developmental reading series; I teach these words using phonics at all times and teach sounding out, but in these preliminary stages I do the first sounding and the student just copies me until the word is well learned. In oral reading practice at this stage if the student stalls I coach by giving the first sound, the first consonant-vowel, the first syllable as needed. During this first one to three months (or more if the kid has real difficulties) we do thirty to sixty words of vocabulary only. I don’t demand any independent sounding out or blending or segmenting until this preliminary getting-to-know-the code stage is passed.

So I would say your daughter at just six is still well in the normal range and it is far too early to start panicking. Be proactive, yes, but don’t panic.
Yes, teach sounds, yes teach blending and segmenting. Just that age/developmentally appropriate goals are a lot slower at six than at eight or ten.
I would suggest getting some material that is much more simple and step by step and gradual. With *all* my students, I at least parallel two series, the phonics and the high frequency reading and writing workbooks. With students whio have more difficulty, I add a second and sometimes even a third phonics book and a second reader, so we get the same lessons twice or three or five times in different contexts; this allows slow and gradual progress without the boredom and frustration of doing the exact same lesson to death.

I have some rough how-to outlines which I typed and posted — lost but now found again, thanks Karen — and I will be ahppy to send them to you if you are interested. Just email me at [email protected], and please be patient as I have major computer trouble and am working at public sites.

Submitted by marycas on Sat, 02/21/2004 - 2:27 AM

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If she just turned 6, I know of no state where she would be in first grade receiving reading instruction. Shes a kindergartener and would be spending much, much time recognizing and writing individual letters and realizing what the first sound in a word is(which she appears to have mastered)

I used Reading Reflex with my now 12 yr old son;I also used Sound Reading and liked it better. But I agree with Victoriah that these both move pretty quickly for a kindergarten age child.

There IS a Sound Reading program for “emerging readers’(or some such terminology) which would be a thought in terms of ‘being on the safe side.”

But there are some excellent homeschool choices too! I’d at least look them over(if you have access) to see the pace they set.

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