I am tutoring a kindergarten student who knows all her sounds but has difficulty putting them together to sound out a word. (This is a skill that she needs before entering first grade.) Yesterday I had her write words on the board by listening to the sounds in the word. /k/ /a/ /t/. She had no problems writing down the letters that she heard. She did have problems reading them back to me. Is this an indication of a problem and what can I do to help her?
Re: It's a problem with blending....
I agree with the previous post. Also, when teaching students that are that young, I try to start out with letters that are easier to blend. For example, I use consonant-vowel-consonant words where the first consonant is easy to “lengthen” - like /s/, /f/, /m/, and /n/. A consonant like /c/ or /b/ forces a student to repeat an abrupt letter sound, whereas /s/ can be repeated as a /sssssssss/ sound. Using letters like this, try having the student blend a word slowly: mmmmmmmmmmmaaaaaaaaaaaaaap - map! Try to have the student blend faster and faster until they realize they are saying a word. When a student develops this proficiency, then move on to initial consonants like /c/ or /g/. Hope this helps!
Mike
The book “Reading Reflex” would be very helpful to you. What you are describing is a child who can segment, but who has problems blending. Segmenting and blending, along with phoneme manipulation skills, are necessary for reading.
A technique that can be helpful is blend-as-you-go. A word such as “cat” would be sounded out as “c”, “a”, “ca”, “t”, “cat”. Poor blenders typically need a ***lot*** of practice to develop skill — far more than the average student. (It has nothing to do with intelligence, by the way.)
Severe blending problems are often an indication of an auditory processing disorder. These can be diagnosed by an audiologist who specializes in CAPD (central auditory processing disorders). FastForWord is often helpful (http://www.scilearn.com) for these children, but most school districts do not offer it. You can find out more about CAPD at http://pages.cthome.net/cbristol/, including a search engine to locate CAPD audiologists. The eval is often covered by medical insurance. Usually the audiologist’s office can provide information on how to get coverage. Regular audiologists do not perform CAPD tests — only an audiologist who specializes in this area has the necessary training.
Mary