photo memory

Your son has some impressive skills! He’ll likely carry those wonderful skills through life but in the meantime there are lots of audio books. Your local libary has some. Also check into www.recordedbooksontape.com and listening library.com to get their catalogue.

Television isn’t always junk either. Cable TV has the Discovery Channel and Animal Planet and the Learning Channel and the History Channel. They all show great shows some of which would work well for even young children. You can also rent some good tapes made by National Geographic on many interesting subjects from a good movie rental store.

Have fun!

Thanks Sara, those websites hsould be useful. Up to now I’ve fed his mind by reading to him and videos. He loves those Discovery , History Channel things. And so I’ve always looked thru the 2nd hand videos to find stuff on what he was interested in. But recently I’ve just run into time probs. We’ve found some great books in library on Vikings and he was fascinated but I couldn’t keep up with the reading.I hate having to say no when he begs me to read to him but I do have a 3 yr old too… If I could only have recorded books on this stuff. Will check your sites. Also found “destination imagination” which seems to be just up his nad his fathers alley. So feeling encouraged lately.

It’s a bit of an investment, but TextHelp! (“software for dyslexia”) has software that will scan and read books and with it comes writing tools like word prediction and pretty sophisticated spell checking.

>>Also found “destination imagination” which seems to be just up his nad his fathers alley.<<

I am an old and grizzled veteran of DI, back to when it used to be OM.
This is our 6th year coaching.
I love the program, even in Feb. when it comes down to the wire and we seem
to be working all the time.

All three of our children have been in it.
My youngest is our LD in reading and writing
but hand him a motor, ask him to wire something up and
he’s *cool*. DH says if anyone is going to invent a perpetual
motion machine our youngest will do it.

Anne

I think I found the website through an old posting of yours. If so thanks loads. Throughout our marriage I’ve found if I can conceive of it-my husband can build it. I’ve always wanted a way he could pass those practical skills onto the boys. We can’t wait! Kudos to your littlest engineer. My 3 yr old has been able to take apart the vacuum cleaner and other appliances and reassemble it in an (for Mom) incomprehensible puzzle for about 2 years now.

Do I understand you right? It reads the books back ALOUD after scanning them? Sorry to be such a hick, but if that’s true I just had a feeling like my grandmother must have had when she saw the first dishwasher!! That could be Very useful INDEED!.

??? Did I miss something here? Does your child have an LD that you didn’t mention in your post?

I don’t quite get this — the kid has an amazing visual memory, is verbal, and is otherwise bright and competent — OK, what my family has done with all of us is teach us phonics so we can figure it out ourselves, and then let us loose with books. No high tech necessary, just some oral lessons and then regular trips to the used book store and library. Yes, there is a period where he will be picking his way through slowly, but with a goal in mind he should get there. Reading about Vikings for himself will certainly keep his mind occupied. In our experience kids with good vision and memory and language can pick up reading in anywhere from one month to six months — this is going from non-reader to independent and moderately fluent (OK, slow, but it isn’t a race, and we’re talking about beginners!) Again, this is kids with good memories, good vision, and good verbal skills - if there’s an LD here of course that changes the picture.

I am always a bit worried about the scanner and speech generator. My friend who is totally blind uses them because he has to — but he would go to Braille immediately if he could get it (he says a lot of people have jumped on the high-tech bandwagon so Braille is hard to get) and if he had even the partial vision he used to have, he would be back to reading print as fast as he could get to the library. The text generator is a nuisance — fixed speed, very difficult to look up a section, extremely difficult to go back and reread. And it is too easy to use as a crutch to avoid learning to read.

Since I’ve been posting about him and had asked a question about possibility of photo memory with ld I assumed people knew. Also did not mean to post this here but in teaching ld. Kid most likely has APD. Since working with Writing Rd to Reading has learned most individual phonemes (trouble with some vowel sounds) (but they still don’t come together into words. With a lot of work can sound out two letter words. On, at, no, in, ox ,ax, but each time meets them anew has no memory for them. Three letter Bats, Cats he still can’t hear as words though he may recognize the sounds individually again-they don’t blend into a word. And again no memory for them. Large spoken vocab but missing r’s and l’s. Guard pronounced like God. Since pointed r in there out to him has been trying to put in. I’ve come so far in past month please don’t give same old developmental prob, gifted not ld, don’t worry, just not motivated crap I’ve been fighting from family, school, friends one an OT. Yeah he’s a bright kid but he still can’t read and what am I supposed to do meantime. There’s a whole world out there he’s desperate to know about.

PK, you might also want to add a program such as LMB’s “Seeing Stars”. The areas of the brain that control visual image and symbol image are different. So your son can have an amazing memory visually as you say, yet struggle tremendously with retaining symbols in his head. Many of these people also have phonemic awareness difficulties as well. The two, combined, can make it very difficult indeed for the child to read initially. This may be true of your son. Luckily, with some intensive work at an early age, he should do well.

No, I’m NOT one to say developmental or all that — I keep stressing getting to the nitty-gritty and teaching kids to read.

Here’s one thing to try — might work, might not, but won’t do any harm and may help some connections kick in. Try paired reading with him. Get some good books with real information, something like “Learn About Dinosaurs”, some topics he would really like to read, with a reasonably basic reading level (hard to get good content below 2-3 level, but aim at that). Sit down side-by side with him on the right so you can point with your right hand (reverse if left-handed). Use a pointer such as a ballpoint pen, retracted. Then read V-E-R-Y slowly, sounding out each word syllable by syllable, pointing to the letters as you go. Go as slowly as physically possible at first, as slowly as you can say the sounds and still connect them into a word. Say mmmmm-aaaaaaaaaaaa-nnnnnnn. Have him pronounce with you This is the important part - he is actively involved, *reading* with you. If this works, sooner or later he will be saying the sounds *ahead* of you, and then you can gently speed up a bit to keep just with him.

The dinosaur names, although long, are generally quite phonetically regular so they are wonderful practice. Same for Viking names etc.

This has many good efects and reaches many goals at the same time — interesting content, phonetic decoding seeing the letters of the alphabet over and over but in meaningful context, pronunciation, development of reading vocabulary also with meaningful repetition, syllables, etc.

The main thing you need is to develop patience. No, it’s not amusing to go at a glacial speed and yes, you could give him so much more information by reading at a natural speed. But to learn to say those pesky sounds that he doesn’t hear in normal speech, and to learn to be an independent reader, he’s going to need to go slowly until he picks up on those symbols and sounds.

Give this a try twenty minutes four or five times a week for two to three weeks, and you should start to see some small but definite positive signs - clearer pronunciation of one or two sounds or words, recognizing a few more letters, or blending a bit better on his own. If you see absolutely no improvement whatsoever, and nobody else sees any either (sometimes a friend or family will say “Gee, he’s talking so much more clearly!” and you didn’t even notice because the change is gradual and you’re there every day), well if it doesn’t help at all, then leave this idea for now and try again next year. Usually, however, things start to connect and the meaningful reading is also motivation to work on the other skills.

Sorry I got testy. Been staying up til 2 or 3 am trying to absorb info. Since end of Oct he has been getting three hours a day one on one with friend who is certified teacher who quit to hiomeschool her kids. He’s come far from where he was, but when I got him at home trying to read with him couldn’;t even get him to try. he’d get angry, cry etc. Recently would try but though could get sounds which I think he felt was big improvement- that at least letters meant that much to him - still no words. It would take ten min to do two or three 3 letter words and no memory of them and all the attention he could give it. (Actually could only stand 5 min.) Just today when I went to pick him up there was a major breakthru. Jan everybody ill so no “school”, and last two weeks we’ve concentrated on math but this morning on his own he took in one of the old Beginning Sounds workbooks (not very good just alphabet letters circle the word that starts with…) that I’d gotten when i first started teaching at home back in Sept. (maybe to show himself he could now do this stuff) and he went thru it did almost all of them correctly and then tutour gave him some words to sound out. And he could, with her filling in gaps he didn’t have and correcting. Haven’t been able to implement even simplest methods like this of reading with him before because there was no reading. Now it just seems too good to be true. I’m almost afraid to try for fear it’ll be gone when I try. Somedays it’s there -somedays it’s not. I do appreciate your help. But really I meant to post for help with how to teach him all the other subjects he wants to know and that make learning fun for him. I realized that for last year and so far this year learning has been mostly about trying to read adn “get math” . For the first 4 years of his life it was fun. Learning was becoming this hard painful slog with no joy. I wanted to get back to learning feeling good, too. Esp if he never will read as fast or as well as his mind can take in info. By way one thing we noticed with him-he usually has better retention with 15 min on , then15 min off. Tutour set the timer for 15 min to study when it went off they switched did something else for 15 min -even when he was interested in the letters, and when he went back to it he had better retention. She started this because his attention span was so short she thought it better to plan mini lessons that he could finish. Now after about 6 weeks off he’s got better retention than when we broke off first week in Jan.

Thanks for suggestion- we did just have breakthru and hope to get him to LB consultation end of March. I ordered Seeing Stars but when got it realized over his head at that moment. Reading LiPS manual to see whethr we can get him there ourselves.

PK, your remarks about his doing better in those 15 minute cycles is right on the mark. Current research supports the fact that our brains work more efficiently when fed difficult material in batches of about 15 - 20 minutes followed by a physical break. Spending just 5 minutes doing something physical like running, jumping, climbing allows our brains to take in the material just offered. When coming back to the work following this activity break, kids (actually adults too) are refreshed. Their brains are ready to take in new info.

When I tutor children for an hour, I break the time up. Halfway through, I have them take a 5 minute activity break. I would break it up even further if I thought the parents wouldn’t mind. If children seem sluggish, I follow a suggestion given me by an OT. I always have really hard pretzels on hand and I have the child eat a pretzel. According to the OT, eating a hard pretzel gives the sluggish body just enough stimulation to wake up a little. And I have to say that kids love this little trick too!

So by all means, keeping following those 15 minute rhythms. I wish we could get our school systems to adjust as well.

Seems progress is being made!

Don’t give up hope of his becoming a fluent reader and taking in info for himself at a good pace. You say he is six - MANY bright six-year-olds don’t read! In many northern European countries formal schooling doesn’t even begin until age seven (There are arguments on both sides of that, not saying right or wrong, just a fact.) Most Swedish six-year-olds don’t read yet, and most Swedish eighteen-year-olds are way ahead of their American age-group in reading AND math AND science. Starting early doesn’t get you ahead if you fall down in the middle.

What I was suggesting is reading *with* him — take the pressure completely off him to read independently, at least for some period of time — and *you* read every word; but read it slowly enough, and point to the words, so that he can say the words/sounds *echoing* you.
If this were the only thing you did it would be like what some whole-language people do, and no, it isn’t sufficient as a reading teaching method on its own.
But along with teaching him the skills to read independently, this modelling/echoing approach can help him build up more memory for sounds and words in print.
One of the problems with beginning reading teaching is that you need intensive repetition to stick things in memory, but you need meaningful new reading to keep any interest and motivation so that the mind is involved. Reading along with a beginner, while he copies your model, is a way to give lots and lots of repetition while keeping meaning and interest level worth having.

Thanks for encouragement. And this morning when I tried sounding out some words what was there yesterday is gone again. But know now that it is still in there somewhere. Thanks for clarification will model for him. He is so literal too that i notice when there are words like cake -he does everything right but when I say don’t worry about sounding out the e his face says he thinks He’s made a mistake. Thanks for the encouragement about the reading, but his minds so quick. The books he wants me to read to him are more like a 4th or 5th grade level. It’ll take a lot for his reading to catch up. The one ting I’m sure of is I’m glad I didn’t send him back to school this year.

My friend seems to have a natural feel for this and of course my son. She’s so excited about this she wants to take some workshops and see about becoming a reading tutour. She said she always thought she couldn’t teach ld kids-she’d get frustrated with the lack of progress but after working with Jack she’s so excited knowing there are bright minds in there that just need to be unlocked. I agree about the schools. Too bad some of the Special Ed isn’t just plain Ed.