5 yo, sight words, some right, some really wrong

My first guess would be that he may not be seeing the words properly so he is guessing at what he sees. Has he had a vision check by an optometrist?

Vision is a possibility. If you are saying the sounds as well though and he still isn’t getting the words, then there also could be a host of other things contributing to the problem. He could have working memory issues (i.e. forgetting the sound shortly after he or you say it). There could be processing issues where he may have appeared to memorize individual sounds but really has trouble integrating them together. There could be attention issues in that the process is not keeping his attention so he is just throwing words out there to get it over with. His trouble with sight words is a red flag, but maybe you can look for other things as well. At least I have found that learning issues manifest themselves in multiple ways. You can, for example, informally check his memory in other ways, such as saying some numbers and asking him to repeat them back. You also can of course check with his teacher to see if there is anything going on in classroom that is of concern.

he hasn’t had his vision checked but he can see the words he knows and can see the letters in the words he doesn’t know.

He can also spot his little sister across two soccer fields, lol. But he does need a vision check either way so we will start with that.

He behaves well most of the time in class. I don’t get too many reports or anything on him. He completes his homework well, follows the directions.

Honestly, Auditory Discrimination sounds like him. In Feb we both had our tonsils out and he tubes put in his ears. He was never, ever a complainer so we never knew when he hurt. When he started to not be able to hear us, we took him to the ENT. The ENT said this child should have been screaming for all the ear infections he has had. Talk about worst mother of the year. I never knew. His regular dr would say got some allergies, fluid in the ears. So I never knew. But after the tubes he can here us again.

But tonight he couldn’t get the difference b/t the d/b sounds or the d/the sounds. Now I am from the south so it basically sounds like th.

Sounds like some testing would help clear this up. Audiology, speech/language and vision (just in case).

Just an FYI, my son had excellent vision at a distance but saw double up to 3 feet from his face. This caused him to have trouble seeing some words properly even though he could tell me the letters and could read bigger words. It really confused us that he could read some of the bigger words but would skip or guess at smaller words. Vision therapy corrected the problem and he jumped 2 grade levels in reading in a year.

Hi Cathy,

If he’s only five, it might be that he just hasn’t learned how to blend sounds yet. This is a skill, and he might still be learning. If you say the individual sounds, can he tell you the word?

For example if you say “i…t” with a distinct pause between the two sounds, can he tell you the word is “it”? How about if you say “c…a…t”? Does he know you’re saying the sounds in “cat”?

If not, he’s just not learned to blend sounds yet. And, if he’s already got a sight word reading vocabulary, but can’t yet blend, he is getting off to the wrong start, thinking that reading is a memorization game, unrelated to the sounds in words, so you have to be a little careful here.

Also, the advice on vision is good, though he’s pretty young yet. If he learns to blend, or already knows how, and still can’t seem to learn to recognize simple new words, he might have a vision problem getting in the way, but you need to be aware that only developmental optometrists are likely to pick up on it.

Hope this is of some help

Rod