i am a nineteen year old university student from australia and have just started tutoring a year 7 girl (about 12 years old) in english and maths, and am worried that she may have dyslexia or another reading problem. it was our first week last week and she was having huge difficulties reading and spelling. she seemed to have trouble sounding out words she didnt know, for example, when reading “haphazard”, she pointed to the second part of the word and said, “i know that word-hazard”, but then when she had to sound out “hap”, it took her about 30 seconds, and i could hear her sounding it out and mixing up the vowel sounds eg. “he…hu..pah…pe..hap”. she also told me she thinks she has a memory problem because she cant remember words on her spelling list even after she has learnt them. i have done some research on dyslexia and would like to know if anyone has any suggestions for things i can watch out for or ways to test her skills a little bit and maybe isolate the problem? i am a bit out of my league here - the parents have no idea but i dont want to say anything to them yet in case i am wrong. i really want to help this girl but am afraid there’s not much i can do for her.
Re: suggestions for problem reader
Some children have weak word recognition skills. Listen to her read and identify if there is a certain sound that she may have difficulties with. Decoding is a cognitive task. Give her the processing time. You can also teach her to look for root word, prefix or suffix in a word and build on it. Use multi sensory model (touch ,hear, sight)to enhance her memory e.g let her write and read out loud each alphabet of the word. Use words in sentences to increase comprehension.
I hope this helps.
Re: suggestions for problem reader
See if you can get a copy of “Reading Reflex” by McGuinness from a library or bookstore. Read the first three chapters, and then give her the assessments in the book. It sounds as if she has never learned decoding skills. The book provides some easy methods for teaching these. For someone this age you could skip most of the manipulatives and do the work on a small whiteboard.
Another excellent alternative would be Rewards Intermediate from http://www.rewardsreading.com . However, this program costs about $110 not including shipping to Australia.
For other suggestions, you may want to join the ReadNOW email list at http://groups.yahoo.com . Reading tutors post to that list and I think there is at least one who is in Australia who may be able to recommend other resources.
Nancy
Re: suggestions for problem reader
Good to see another Aussie here!
Their is a sub-type of Dyslexia called APD: Auditory Processing Disorder, which could be relevant.
Where APD people are typically Visual thinkers/ learners. Rather than Auditory.
So that words are recalled Visually rather than Verbally. For a Verbal Thinker, they can verbally deconstruct a word into its phonemes.
But for Visual thinkers, a written word is more like a single visual image. For example, take the word; rabbit which a verbal thinker can deconstuct into its auditory phonemes. But for a Visual thinker, the written word is more of a single visual image, equivalent to a picture or a symbol of rabbit. Where breaking it into its phonemes; ra- bbit. Makes as much sense as cutting a picture of a rabbit in half?
Chinese writing is a way to understand it, where Pictographs are used for words. Which cannot be deconstructed into its elements/ phonemes.
So in terms of the word ‘haphazard’ that you gave.
Rather than adding ‘hap’ to ‘hazard’? Where ‘hap’ has no meaning? Haphazard would need to be learnt as word with its own single visual image.
You might like to have a look at http://www.apduk.org and section on Different Styles of Learning.
Re: suggestions for problem reader
Don’t jump to dyslexia too quickly. Many people assume that a child is dyslexic because they get words mixed up (or backwards). Some things that you could try (but I do recommend discussing it with the parents to simply see if they have noticed problems):
-Help her with sounds of consonants—consonants make up most of our language, so if she knows the basic sounds of consonants this can help. It sounds like she is familiar with her vowels somewhat, but work on this some too.
-Try using a computer program that types pictures with words (I cannot for the life of me remember the name of any of these programs, but schools often have them). This would be a good thing to practice with her spelling words…make flashcards with the word, and tape a picture on the card. As you work on this a little bit, take the pictures away to see if this has helped some. I did this with 1st and 2nd graders, and it seemed to help many of them remember.
I think the best thing to do beside teaching her the best you can is to Suggest informing the school so she can get tested and provided with the help she needs through her school. I am sure there is special needs system in Australia and other students with special needs are getting help and support through their school. Good luck.