UPDATE on my 6 yr old failing K again! Teacher puzzled!!

Did you ask me for my outlines on “getting started” and did you get a chance to start working with them? In there I outline a multisensory approach that is designed to work with exactly this kind of problem. It is work, it takes time, but it helps where he needs it. You and the teacher should *not* be trying to get him to memorize the letters purely visually, as this is clearly giving him directional confusion and making him more frustrated. It will take time and effort to work around this direction issue but you can get there.

Please email me at [email protected] — and please be sure to type in your return address; I’ve had some of my send-outs bounced back and maybe you are one I missed.

victoria,
Yes, I did get your outline. (THANKS) :D I have not worked with him yet. I haven’t gotten the supplies together. What kind of issues is he having? Is this a processing issue, vision, etc? I just want to have a direction to point the teacher in.

BTW, I use to work at the school as a computer lab/library aide, so I know all of the teachers well. I have alot of confidence in the teacher that is working with Kaden. She is a good structured teacher that has taught for a number of years. Her specialty is not in ld, but she said if she knew what was going on then she might have an idea which direction to go.

Also, his speech therapist at school is very good too. She has been doing speech/teaching since I was in school!! I’m 30, so I bet she has been teaching 20-25 years. She is the one that approached me (as a friend) about Kaden possibly being ADHD.

Cheryl

Please, please don’t rely on your pediatrician to evaluate whether your child has a learning disability. Most pediatricians are generalists and when diagnosing LD or ADHD, a specialist is key. For example, just because your son’s “hearing” is normal doesn’t mean that his ability to process what he hears is okay. Did the audiologist assess auditory processing or did he just do the standard “raise your hand when you hear the tone” test?

Your son sounds like mine when he was that age. My son has reading, writing and math disorders and ADHD.

I’m concerned that your school folks are “puzzled” by your son. That means, to me, they have no clue what to do about it.

I would have him evaluated by an outside specialist who evaluates kids for learning disabilities as a living. Check out private schools for kids with LDs for example, as they often have evaluation centers open to the public.

He’ll need specialized reading and writing instuction using a research based multi-sensory sequential reading therapy program. Most public school do not provide this. You will need to find private resources. A private LD school is best or homeschool and have him attend tutoring using this type of method.

Study these issues. Read about it. You son will probably be able to learn to read and write (even LD schools make no guarantee) but it will take a long time and cost a lot of money.

The worst possible place for your child is the public school.

[quote:7694968d4e=”Anonymous”]I’m concerned that your school folks are “puzzled” by your son. That means, to me, they have no clue what to do about it. [/quote]

Well, this is coming from just one teacher, who does not specialize in ld. She is just trying to see if she can help. I have not had him tested or evaluated by the counselor or special ed dept.

[quote]He’ll need specialized reading and writing instuction using a research based multi-sensory sequential reading therapy program. Most public school do not provide this. You will need to find private resources. A private LD school is best or homeschool and have him attend tutoring using this type of method.[/quote]

I’ve been down the homeschool road….not for me! I don’t have enough patience, nor do I feel like I’m doing a good enough job. I was always worrying that we weren’t doing enough. We live in a very rural area. I don’t know of any private ld schools. I can check into it though.

About the hearing test, it was just the normal hearing test. The audiologist said that the speech therapist would have to test him for the APD.

Thanks for all of your suggestions though. I will keep checking back.

That is not true….I am an SLP and very good friends with one of the Audiologists in my area whose specialty is CAPD. The Audiologists who know what they are doing in regards to assessment for CAPD do a HUGE battery for CAPD done with background noise, dichotic listing, word discrimination, etc…etc…

SLP’s aren’t the experts in CAPD. Yeah I know more than most SLPs about CAPD but it is because I have it and I understand it and I sought out a relationship with Audiologists who specializes in assessing it.

I cannot diagnose LD, not being an expert psychologist, and nobody can give a proper diagnosis over the internet.

That said, I can make an educated guess from what you have reported and can suggest ways to go.
I can also recommend good classic pedagogy which can’t hurt and almost always helps.

The thing in your report that raised a red flag for me was the issue of confusing not only b and d but also m and w and other pairs. This tells me that his sense of directionality is quite weak; on the other hand he seems to be *good* at identifying shapes, seeing that m and w are essentially the same shape even if reversed in space.
The saying in computer circles is that it’s not a bug, it’s a feature. You can see this as a terrible problem, that he mixes up letters that are “clearly” (clearly to YOU bit not to him) different. On the other hand, you can see this as a talent that can lead to success in mathematics and engineering and logic, that he can see things from a variety of points of view and mentally move things around in space. I tend in particular to see this as more a feature than a bug since I have it too, and I do great on IQ tests and 3-D advanced math. So, I reverse phone numbers now and then, no big deal, I’ve learned to correct myself (You do need to teach double and triple-checking)

When a child does not have skills in visual directionality, teaching visually is going to be difficult if not impossible. And here you are showing him shapes that he sees (quite correctly, from *his* mobile point of view) as identical, and you are giving him four different names for this same shabe, b, d, p, and q. (Note — cut a b out of cardboard and move it around and flip it if you don’t see why these really *are* all the same shape) No wonder he is confused and well, if he tries to remember the name and the sound and then you tell him no, today it’s different, then he will become unsure of himself and frustrated, the very worst recipe for learning and remembering.

This is why I suggest (a) teaching the letters kinesthetically, by tracing them consistently in a fixed pattern, and (b) teaching one letter at a time thoroughly at first, *not* trying to do compare and contrast until you have a solid base.
It takes no longer to do one at a time than it does to try to teach the whole thing fifty times over, and it’s a lot less wearing, on both you and the child.

Try just one letter, make do with whatever materials you can come up with around the house, and build one new letter every couple of days. Of course I can’t promise, but you should normally see signs of light within a couple of weeks.

[quote:845e8130de=”victoria”] teaching one letter at a time thoroughly at first [/quote]

Victoria,
The bad thing is this is how he was taught last year, and again this year. They take one letter per week. The whole week is all about “x” letter. Usually they will 1)color a ws with the letter 2) write the letter several times 3) learn to read “memorize” a easy reader with a lot of words beginning with that letter. I’m not sure what else they do. His teacher is a really fun teacher, so she may do alot of other things also.

I will share your thoughts with his resource teacher and maybe she can be working with him in the same manner that I am at home (as you suggested). THANK YOU for your time!

Patti,
I was not impressed by the audiologist that I took my son to. The building was new, and the equipment seemed stated of the art. I would never have guess this lady was a doctor though! LOL She hardly spoke to me at all until the end of the testing. Then she was like well his hearing is normal, but he does have some speech issues. WELL DUH!! Like I didn’t already know that. So it was like I drove 1.5 hrs, and spent $90 to be told something I already knew. I thought an audiologist was who would test for the APD. I guess I’ll ask more questions next appt. I make. Live & Learn!!

Usally SLP’s and Audiologists have Masters Degrees…Those that teach at Universities and do research will have PhD’s and the new AUDoctorate is available for audiolgoists…but they are not Medical Doctors. We provide treatment for people with disorders in communication but we can’t prescribe meds or anything like that.

I would bet my bottom dollar that your child has more going on that just APD and a speech issue. I am sorry to say there isn’t a “quick fix” either.

First you say that they have been doing one letter at a time — and then you tell us they have had the kids memorizing (and calling this “reading”) little books with lots of words with that letter. The intention is good, but the actual program is shooting yourself in the foot. What is the message the child is hearing? You have to do this one worksheet because somebody told us to, but “real” reading is memorizing books and reciting from looking at the pictures. And the time allotment is most likely 10% looking at the letter and 90% on the memorized books and pictures — after all, that’s so much easier and more fun.
Also, with the letter-of-the-week approach as you describe it, there doesn’t seem to be any building of skills — we do this week’s letter and then we drop it and we do next week’s. So why bother remembering? You clear out the memory banks to make room for the new stuff.
I do strongly suggest doing one letter at a time, *but* with constant review, spiralling, and word-building out of the known letters so this whole thing goes somewhere. The goal is to *apply* this knowledge to unlocking reading independently, as fast as possible.
As long as “real reading” and phonics are treated as opposites, contradicting each other, kids will remain confused and often resistant to learning.

Victoria,
I think that they do review the letters. Yesterday, when we were in the van I brought some words along that his teacher had sent home that he SHOULD know. The words were am, ram, sam, me, see, ear. If there was one he did not know I would point to the first letter and say what sound does this make. He would just call out just anything, several sounds. I think the word was ram. Then we went to “see”. He didn’t know it. I would ask him the sounds, he knew them, but could not blend them to get the word. He kept saying “look”. I know that see does MEAN look, but….. A word like ear that seems as if it would be alot harder, he knew it easily.

Well, anyway, thanks for your time! I don’t know about this kid!! LOL

Cheryl

Oh yeah, I forgot to ask, do you think Kaden has visual AND auditory processing problems? Thanks.

Cheryl

Have you tried making picture cards for the letters? Write the letter a on a card and draw an apple shape around it, so the child knows that the letter sounds like the short “a” sound in apple. Write the letter r on a card and draw a picture of a rat around the letter,so it is embedded in the rat’s body, so the child knows that the letter sounds like “r” as in rat. Write the letter m on a card and draw a mitten shape around it,so the child knows that the letter sounds like “m” as in mitten. Then you can blend the a & m by putting the two cards together, and then you can add the r card to the front of it to sound out ram and then take it away and sound it out again. Hope it helps. I find my child does better with visual images. The word am was a hard one for my child.

Your child may have some underlying cognitive issues that will most likely not be addressed at school no matter how good the school.

Absolutely pursue testing that helps you understand these specific issues.

In the meantime I would recommend two programs.

Phonographix The book is called, “Reading Reflex,” It is a phonemic awareness based program. It has some very specific exercises that will help to train your child to key into the sounds but also address his segmenting and blending issues. He doesn’t seem to have a natural ability to do this so will need alot of extra help.

I would also recommend audiblox to get at some of the underlying cognitive issues.

I would try reading reflex first and add audiblox once he had some of the basic reading skills down.

I have done this. My son is in 5th and scored 100% on the state reading tests last year. It has been a long road and we are not finished.

Don’t ever underestimate your power as an intelligent, loving mother.

He sounds like he is overwhelmed and grasping at straws….which I have seen with kiddo’s who have both ADD and CAPD. They know something isn’t right but for the life of them they can’t figure out what you want. Not to mention some have extreme difficulty in connecting that the sounds we use in our speech represent letters on a written page or the sound symbol relationship. They need to be explicitly taught this and they need some pre-literacy foundational skills of phonemic awareness and following directions.

For these type of kiddo’s I really bombard them with music and auditory stimulation, the more the better… Can you tell me if he knows any nursery rhymes, songs or fingerplays? Can you tell me if he can follow directions and mimic and do what you do? For instance Can he follow your intonation and stress in your speech? Many times with kids I use my voice like a musical instrument by just changing my voice and it keeps them engaged.

Here are just a few of the fingerplays and movement songs I can think of…Can he do heads shoulder knees and toes, Do as I’m doing, Simon Says, mary had a little lamb, Itsy Bitsy Spider, where is thumpkin???

Can you do try and do some with him and get back to us on what he says, and how he says it?

You write:

Victoria,
I think that they do review the letters. Yesterday, when we were in the van I brought some words along that his teacher had sent home that he SHOULD know. The words were am, ram, sam, me, see, ear. If there was one he did not know I would point to the first letter and say what sound does this make. He would just call out just anything, several sounds. I think the word was ram. Then we went to “see”. He didn’t know it. I would ask him the sounds, he knew them, but could not blend them to get the word. He kept saying “look”. I know that see does MEAN look, but….. A word like ear that seems as if it would be alot harder, he knew it easily

**********************************************

This is a very, very common pattern. As Patti says, grasping at straws. The only thing that puzzles me is why your teacher is puzzled! Is she a new teacher? If she has taught for more than one year with any normal group of kids, she should have seen this happen before. Normally one or two kids out of any ten will have some difficulty catching on to this idea and will do the wild guesses until you re-teach him.

Look at the list of words you have. Three short-a CVC words with am, OK, systematic and can be worked on as a pattern. Then three words me, see, and ear. Great, the long e sound mixed with the short a, and all together *three* different ways to spell the long e: -e, ee, and ea. And note that the ea includes the letter a but in *this* pattern it is silent, while we have just a second earlier been teaching the short a aaa sound for it. And note that we have two patterns, ee and ea, that follow the two-vowel rule for long vowels, and then exception me that follows the *different* ending-vowel long-vowel rule.

**IF** your child had learned all the earlier stages this would be a reasonable practice list. Since he is having difficulties, this mixed set of variant rules and exceptions is a great way to cause more confusion and frustration and make him fold up and quit.

As far as wild guesses, saying any sound, well he is sending you a message that he doesn’t get the connection between symbol and sound, isn’t he? He still wants to learn and wants to please you, but he has no clue what you are getting at. Until this is straightened out, the am - sam - ram isn’t going to help. *Later* it will be good, very good, but he isn’t there yet.

The symbol-cound connection can break down at various places, the vision processing the symbol, the auditory processing the sound, and the cognitive connecting the two.
Because of what you said earlier about his mixing m and w, b and d, I strongly suspect a vision directionality issue. This could be the only issue, or there could be others. Often when there is one issue it masquerades as many other things, as the child develops strange coping and avoidance habits, so it’s important not to make assumptions. The kinesthetic training I suggest is a good learning tool anyway, a good start on easy smooth fast writing, and a way to work around a lot of vision issues — won’t harm and very often helps. You can work on other issues as you find them, too.

The issue of review — well, there is a difference between assigning and teaching. Blending *can* be taught; it takes time and a *lot* of modelling.
Handing out a list of words and saying that the kids should know them by now is again OK for those who have already in one way or another learned the basics and just need practice, no help at all for someone who is struggling.

The see-look confusion: often happens when kids are memorizing without any decoding. I see this as a bad sign, that the student really isn’t getting it and is relying on brute force to memorize. I discourage this both because it’s exhausting and because it leads to so much difficulty unlearning later.

When you are in a dead end, pushing up against the brick wall rarely gets you out. The only way to get back on the road toward your goal is to back up to the place you took the wrong turning and to re-direct onto the correct path.
I wouldn’t worry at all about blending and learning whole words until he can identify letters fairly consistently — at least 80% to 90% on at least ten common lower-case letters.
I would teach sounds directly in every way possible — games as Patti suggests, rhymes, songs, teaching him new vocabulary (things he’s interested in: dinosaurs, cars, machines, tools and stuff around the house, creepy-crawlies …) and teaching him to pronounce it clearly syllable by syllable, and the letter-sound direct teaching I suggested in my notes.
The suggestion of teaching him to follow directions is another very good point. When you tell him something, not only in reading but in other subjects and around the house, have him say it back to you. In particular in teaching sounds, you can;t just tell, but you have to be sure he produces the sound several times over.

Keep at it — you can do this.

[quote:f2aa85e619=”patti”]Can you tell me if he knows any nursery rhymes, songs or fingerplays? Can you tell me if he can follow directions and mimic and do what you do? For instance Can he follow your intonation and stress in your speech? Many times with kids I use my voice like a musical instrument by just changing my voice and it keeps them engaged.

Here are just a few of the fingerplays and movement songs I can think of…Can he do heads shoulder knees and toes, Do as I’m doing, Simon Says, mary had a little lamb, Itsy Bitsy Spider, where is thumpkin???

Can you do try and do some with him and get back to us on what he says, and how he says it?[/quote]

Patti,
It’s funny that you should bring this up b/c tonight just before bed he was trying to sing Jack & Jill. He was doing some kind of fingerplay with it. I believe his K teacher must have taught him this. When he was younger he use to do Itsy Bitsy Spider & Thumpkin b/c it was on a Barney tape we had. He doesn’t know all of the words/movements to the songs, but he does try. Kaden loves music. We are big music fans. I always have music on when I’m in the car. Alot of times I hear him singing along. It’s not kids music though.

[quote:b6088d9f6e=”victoria”]The only thing that puzzles me is why your teacher is puzzled! Is she a new teacher? [/quote]

Victoria,
No, she is not a new teacher. She has been teaching a number of years, but in 3rd grade. I’m referring to the reading director/resource teacher that he is getting extra help from, not his K teacher. I guess that by the time she gets kids in 3rd grade they have a pretty good handle on reading.

I Can Do This, Can’t I ?!?! LOL Really, I will try to get this put together as soon as possible with the instructions you gave me.

Linda F.,
I have heard about “Reading Reflex” back when I was homeschooling, and use to frequent the Vegsource homeschooling boards. I’m not familiar with it, but I need to find out more.
I know you must be proud of your son. That is great about his testing! Good luck to you guys, and thanks for the suggestions. I’ll take all I can get.

auditory mom,
I have seen a website called seeabcs.com or something like that, and it had the concept that you were talking about. The letters were attached to the pic. Seems like an interesting thing to do. I’m not really creative, but I could try! Thanks for the help!

What you are describing is a big piece of the puzzle. He knows he is supposed to do something with the nursery rhyme but he can’t put it together. He is doing the best he can but he needs lots of one on one instruction, he needs things slowed down so he can process what he hears, concentrate and then do the song and fingerplay at the same time. He needs to have this skill down especially for as old as he is. Because when you think about it he has been processing sounds since he was young, sounds are processed as we listen but he seems to have more difficulty with executive functioning that are demonstrated with being able to multi-task with connecting the motor movements, sounds and symbols all at the same time.

Ask his teacher to show you some of the fingerplays she has taught him, then I want you to do them at home with him, slowly until he gets them. This will help in two ways. It will help his self-esteem because he will be able to do what the other kids are doing around him in class and also help him with his attention and auditory processing.

Can you get the CD Sounds like fun from Discovery Toys? It has lots of great songs on it and one I really like teaches the letter sounds in the alphabet with lots of repetition. There is a visual aid with the pictures of the word he is singing along with the letter of the sound he is repeating and he can follow along with his fingers touching the picture and then the letter representing the sound he is singing.. i.e., apple apple /a/ /a/ /a/ baby baby /b/ /b/ /b/. Not the letter names but the sound the represent If you do this with him over and over again he will learn his letter sounds in a fun way and also this will work with his attention and auditory processing.

Also ditch playing your songs in the car and play things that will help him with auditory processing, things that are age appropriate for him and sing along with him and the rest of your little ones will also benefit from this. If you attend a church perhaps there is a CD with children’s songs that you can get to help him there too. Also go the library and get books on tape that are age appropriate for him and play those and have him follow along in a quite time you have with him. You can’t be multi-tasking when you do this because you have to make sure that he is following along word for word with his finger and not just making the motions. He needs to make up for lost time and is something you can do and also be a loving mom at the same time. I have been where you are…and I learned the hard way I didn’t do enough of these activities with my daughter when she was young. I ended up teaching her to read in 3rd grade after being trained in LiPS by Phyllis Lindamood, then I went to college to become an SLP.

You can do this but it is going to require lot of your time or that of a tutor.

[quote:0c350dcf58=”patti”]Can you get the CD Sounds like fun from Discovery Toys? [/quote]

Patti,
I will try to find it. Maybe I can find it on Ebay or Vegsource. We have a few Discovery Toys that I have found at thrift stores, and my kids always loved them. They are nice.

We have lots of children’s cd’s that my kids never listen to anymore. I think I bought them when my dd (11) was little. Several Barney cds…they may have some neat learning song, too. (If I can endure BARNEY!) LOL I’ll look in my cds and see what I have.

Thanks for your help! I wish you lived around here, I’d make an appointment with you. :)

Cheryl

You can order Sounds like fun online through Discovery toys. That is how I located it after another SLP told me about it. Another source for good speech related materials is Super Duper. Sounds for Speech is another one I like by Cathy Bollinger.

Today I wrote down some short words on index cards, and then started asking my son which of the words he knew. I was trying to see just how many words he might know. Anyway, when he came to a word he did not know, he almost always would try to sound it out, but seemed to be starting at the END of the word. Also, I noticed that he would not even look like he was looking at the words. It was like his eyes were wandering everywhere. Hmmm…wonder if this might be a visual thing?

The more I think about this, the harder it gets. I think we need an optometrist, neuropsychologist, SLP, Pediatrician….. LOL! It’s hard to know where to start. You know if it is a vision thing, maybe it’s not even ADHD at all. Another thing is Kaden has not had his meds all weekend. I forgot to give it Saturday b/c we were having a family reunion & Halloween. He was kind of hyper, but not too bad. I’m sure he was excited. Then today I forgot again, and he has been very good. I don’t get it. The other day when I was going to the mall w/ all of my kids (by myself), I thought I better give Kaden his meds so he will be relatively calm. He was so WILD that day. Anyway…sometimes I’m not even sure.

THanks for listening to me! I’m so glad to have you guys to talk to.

Cheryl

I must be dense but I missed the fact that he has been diagnosed with ADHD and taking meds? Then go back to the Dr. and have him adjust his meds…this is another BIG piece of the puzzle. It is like wearing glasses, eventually they need to be adjusted as the child gets bigger. Not to mention he is only 6 years old and Halloween hypes up even some big kids I know… :wink:

He is scrambling…I don’t think it is so much of a visual thing as it is the way his brain works and retraining it and his behavior…He is probably running at hyperspeed at what he is interested in but getting him to settle down and focus so he can learn is something he needs to be taught explicitly…

Got to run to work…Good luck… :)

Again, I’m only surprised that anyone halfway competent is surprised.
The scanning from the back and eyes wandering around in circles is absolutely *typical*.

For one thing, scanning left-to-right is NOT natural and has to be trained. Clearly this kid has not yet had effective training in tracking, and everything else is going to be a mess until he is actually looking at the words in order. If you are saying “d-d-d-dog” and he is looking at “in” or even “g”, of course he is wondering what you are getting at, you keep making the same sound when he is looking at different letters and different sounds when he is looking at the same letters …

Second, a lot of kids — my most recent age 13 in Grade 8, this is typical, and can hang on and wreck a school career for years — when left with little guidance and told to figure things out by themselves, start to scan from the end of the word because they seem to find more guessing clues there. Stress on teaching rhymes can even be counterproductive here.

Third, if the kid has only a few words of memorized vocabulary and he is using context and picture clues to try to fill in the rest, then he runs his eyes in circles searching for clues everywhere.

If you start at the beginning at age five and teach left-to-right scanning from day one this takes from a few months to a year to make a habit; if you get kids in Grade 8 like I do then you fight and fight with it for months and years, doable but so much time and effort are wasted.

Hmmmm … I did predict a visual directionality problem, didn’t I?
There are a lot of methods for teaching tracking in my reading notes. Please ask if you need more help.

I have an appointment Wednesday morn for a vision test. I found an opthalmologist who does visual traning also. So hopefully I’ll find out something then! Thanks so much to everyone!!

Cheryl