Reading vs spelling

Could mean that he remembers what the word looks like when he hears the sound, but can’t come up with the sound when he sees the letters.
If it’s a lot harder for him to come up with the sounds, then it makes sense that if you do that part (and he probably sends the word info straight to the “what’s this mean” part of the brain, never even pausing at the “what interesting sounds this has” part) then he recalls the visual image of the letters. Coming up with the sounds of the letters — especially if he’s been taught with an emphasis on the sounds, not the meanings of the words when looking at them — would be a lot harder.
(I do hesitate to suggest the obvious next thought — that he *should* be taught to connect the visual with the meaning, without necessarily going through the sounding out process — except that if his phonological issues are that severe, then the benefits of being able to experience language through print and possibly to use that to bridge to the sounds outweigh the ‘risk’ of him figuring he never has to think about the sounds. I would love to know just how much attention has been paid to the sound issue.)

Sue,

Thanks for your response. Clearly, not much attention has been paid to anything in his past schooling.

Your connection to the sound issue is interesting. We’ve lately spent a good deal of time on rhyming and it’s definitely difficult. He can’t always fluently read a list of rhymes (bat, cat, sat, mat, etc.) We only have until the end of the school year to work on this. Any other suggestions?

I’m intrigued by this,

“I tutor a second language learner, age 10, who started as a non-reader (even in his native language.) He has significant phonemic awareness limitations. ”

What do you perceive as his significant phonemic awareness limitations? What is his native language? Do you feel his limitations are because certain sounds don’t occur in his language (such as short a in Spanish)?

“What does it means that he struggles to read the simplest words (mat, bag, etc) but, when asked to write them, can usually come up with it?”

The fact that he can write these simple words suggests that he IS using phonemic awareness and his limited knowledge of sound/symbol relationships. In fact, one might guess from what you’ve said that he’s at the phonetic level of spelling development. Since he’s a second language learner you’ll also have to do a lot with vocabulary. Try to find pictures to illustrate words. For example, if the word is “pin,” show him pictures of many different kinds of pins and label them, “safety pin, bowling pin, straight pin, jewelry pin,” etc. This poor little guy is battling multiple problems.

Even with my English speaking first graders, I sound that sometimes spelling can preceed reading at the beginning level (and only at that level). I’d keep plugging away at spelling lessons and attempt to find some decodable text that matches the words he spells. It will take time but one day the great “Aha” will come.

For a carefully sequenced way of teaching spelling that leads to reading, you might glance at my website, http://www.spellangtree.org

Grace,

Thanks for your reply. Although some of our sounds do not exist in his native language, the problem is deeper. Given a word such as “mat” he may typically segment them properly but, when asked to blend them, come up with “clat” or “hat” or “bag.” Yet, when asked to spell “mat,” he will usually write it correctly. We’ve done lots of exercises requiring phonemic manipulation, clearly these are important.

But I still wonder if this is something any of you are familiar with?

Well, it’s not clear to me that no attention has been paid to anything in his previous schooling, because I’ve seen kiddos wiht LDs not learn things because they weren’t presented in a way they could learn it — but it’s not that no attention was paid. Makes a big difference if the student is a non-reader but has really been working at it (which does happen) or he’s a non-reader but nobody’s tried to teach him at all, or he’s a non-reader but teachers have been using the wrong channel with him.
Also, how is his spoken language (native or English) & vocabulary? How about his memory? SOcial aptitude? What are his strengths (‘cause that’s what you want to work with)?
I know, more questions than answers :)

Hmmm. Have you tried to have him blend just the beginning consonant into the vowel? I have a little blending game in a file that I can email to you if you email me at [email protected] and provide your email address in the body of your message. I found it extremely helpful for children who had trouble blending. Sometimes children would master blending in a couple of days using this technique.

I know we are told to think in terms of onsets and rimes but sometimes starting with the beginning consonant and the vowel is the trick that is needed. Once the child gets that far it’s easy to add the ending consonant.

I saw something similar in a second-language learner last year. She could write sentences in her second language, with fair to poor spelling, but her reading was chaotic, two years behind level and largely wild guesses. She was in Grade 3 with a Grade 1 or less vocabulary in both speech and writing. In writing she knew what she wanted to do, but in reading she was trying for meaning and failing to find it and guesing from visual appearance with no guidelines. She did get much better through working through a good phonetic reading series from page 1 up.

I have had several students with the same response in the past — they have difficulty reading certain words but they can spell them. It was brought to my attention by the author of “Super Spelling - Book One” that spelling is easier for these children because they already know the word before they spell it. But with reading, they have to figure out what the word is first. She recommends the same method for children with severe reading difficulties. Rather than to have them struggle to sound out a word, she tells them the word first and then asks them to underline the sounds they hear in the word. Gradually, they come to use the technique on their own.