Word Attack Problem

I work with lots of kids like this and the problem is exactly what you said — he is trying *every* strategy instead of concentrating on something simple that works. I use a very strong phonics approach and NO guessing or telling him what the word is — I do help the student sound out, but he has to put it together. Yes, it is slow at first. And how fast is what you are doing now?
Many people make a good start on phonics and then quit because they are ahead. Sounds weird, but I see it all the time. In order for a phonics approach to be useful, you need long vowels and diphthongs and digraphs, but far too many programs stop after short vowels and single consonants — just enough to get frustrated because you can only sound out some words, not most of them.
Reading comprehension is of course important, but as you have seen, comprehensionis not going to be any good if the basic reading skills aren’t there. Not to forget comprehension, but set it to the side for a while and concentrate on getting his skills in order; he wonlt forget how to comprehend a story in a couple of months of stress on skills.
If you start now with a strong phonics program and work through it a little bit, twenty minutes a day on the phonics level 2 and twenty minutes a day on reading aloud and NO guessing or feeding answers, plus twenty minutes on written work/spelling/word study out of the reading and related to the phonics — if you do this seriously and without diluting it with ten other approaches — no it isn’t instant overnight, but you’ll see a difference within a month and a huge difference by the end of the school year.

Thanks so much for the reply. Makes sense. I guess i have been a bit of a stumbling block there… when i hear phonics, I automatically think of Kinder and 1st grade phonics… this kid had been “phonicsed” to death… he knows that “Apple is ah”… but i had not really thought of a higher level of phonics maybe being the problem. Not thought about long vowels, diphthongs and digraphs. What would you recommend that i use with him? Any particular program or method? Anything in particular? What about software? My principal and supervisor want me to put him on the computer for some added support and are willing to buy whatever I want or think would work with him. While I am all for computer time, I don’t want to just put him on there to “play” or waste the time on some program that does not attend to what he specifically needs. I am going to go pull out all my phonics stuff and see what I have to pull from.

On the phonics, there are several choices. No one method has all the answers, despite the hard sell advertising.

Personally, I use a set of tried-and-true workbooks. My reasons for choosing them are that they are (a) very complete, all the important info (b) not too deathly dull, a lot of variety in the exercises (c) continuously repeating, reviewing, and spiraling, so you teach each concept thoroughly (d) very inexpensive, and (e) readily available. These workbooks are called *Check and Double Check* Phonics, available at scholarschoice.ca (note the .ca, not .com) They deliver quickly all over the US and Canada.
The basic phonics which your guy has done, single letters, is Book 1. The digraphs/vowel pairs etc. which he almost certainly needs are in Book 2. Then Book 3 does multisyllables and Book 4 does longer multisyllables and spelling variants and other good stuff.
When I first start a student on this, I make a point that (a) we are not going to redo Book 1, he has already done that basic stuff (especially important if he has been phonics’ed to death, to understand he is not going to go over the same old same old for another full year) (b) if he finds Book 2 easy, especially the first review part, we will run very fast through the review (c) This series gets *quite* advanced, I show examples from the end of Book 2, from Book 3 and Book 4, and we will *gradually work up* to the harder stuff. Knowing that he is not stuck with the same **&^^%% worksheets while not getting anywhere with what he needs to know, but rather on a program that makes fast and visible progress, the student is a lot more motivated. I do have him do the review work for warmup, but stress that we run through it fast.
The one warning on this workbook method: phonics is *oral* concerned with sounds. You get success out of it by doing it *out loud*. Silent seat work in phonics is a contradiction in terms. It is far too easy, a common teacher habit, to just give the kid the book and if he is filling in blanks in the corner to assume that he is learning. Actually, once he gets the point and gets into it he can do some of the practices on his own, but you should actively teach the new concepts orally before he does the practices. In the recalcitrant cases that I work with, I do each and every question orally to try to break the guess-and-copy habit.

Along with *any* program, there is an excellent chart of sounds and spelling patterns from a company called Phonovisual. Their workbooks are rather dull (but OK as a backup) but the sound chart — wall size and packets of student binder or desk size — is a really great reference. Each of the common sounds in English is listed along with its common spellings. What is especially nice is that the sounds are arranged on the chart linguistically, in the order and pattern that they are formed in the mouth. Worth the small price for a good reference. Very slow delivery, one-person company, but worth it at phonovisual.com

Other parents and teachers on this board have had success with Phonographix. The manual for this program, called Reading Reflex, is readily available from bookstores and Amazon at a reasonable price. You want to do the second part, what PG calls the “advanced code”. (although again, a *quick* treview of the beginning may not hurt) I have heard from others on this board that a fellow member, Rod, has made up a new and improved workbook to go with the advanced code — someone has posted the address here and you can search for the posting or ask for a repost.

As far as software, I have heard of one called Lexia. It is Orton-Gillingham based and pretty respectable. The International Dyslexis Association’s monthly magazine has ads for this and other well-accepted programs. These CD’s, being actual teaching programs and not commercial junk food for the mind, take work just the same as the paper-and-pen ones. It is important to supervise and to make sure the student is working ahead inthe program.

Thank You Thank You! Will look into what you have given me and get them ordered… will use what i can come up with until they come… and yes, we work orally… i agree with the silent paper and pen comment… counteractive…. Thanks! again!

Just to chime in and agree with what Victoria said — I”ve seen sticking to what works work very well, just not quickly.

IT is, of course, a valid dilemma — if you *could* find something that worked quickly, it would mean the false starts weren’t really a waste of time. However, you often end up with a not-too-firm foundation in anything, and without finding the magic bullet, either.

Keep us posted :)

This may sound so stupid but what exactly is “word attack”? My son has just had some testing done and his lowest score was on word attack (10%) but I have no clue as to what that means.

Kristen

Kristen — it’s a very intelligent question, and one which a number of teachers would do well to ask.

The question is what you do when faced with a word that is *unfamiliar* to you. Do you fold up in a ball and refuse to read, do you depend on somebody else to tell you every time, do you make a wild guess at anything that seems to complete the sentence, do you stare at the picture until you guess something, or do you actually read the new word? If you do actually read, it, how do you do that and do you have effective techniques that get the right word with 90% correct pronunciation, and that avoid errors on similar-looking words?

And it’s really common in very bright dyslexics for comprehension to be above grade level and word recognition (often by guessing from context, because they’re bright enough to do that, especially with the insipid stuff of school), but word attack be very low.
This is something to deal with … but generally, unfortunately, schools can’t see the trees for the forest. If the child is getting along okay, then why should we do anythign?
BEcause the guessing skills that work *fine* for lower grades don’t work well at all when you take away the pictures, shrink the print, and make the content challenging.
THis kiddo may be struggling much more in reading than teachers know (or are willing to believe :-() — it’s probably a *huge* factor in those assignments he’s not finishing. See how much better a homework assignment goes if you read with/to him. That could provide a major grade boost. When you’re thinking “but he has to learn to read” — okay, he should learn to read, but he hasn’t. THe question is: is that homework to teach him reading, or to teach him content area? If it’s content area, don’t let the reading slow down what he’s learning — it’s the only way he has a chance to also learn to make those connecitons and organize thoughts and all that good stuff.
ON THE OTHER HAND :-) the word attack may be low because of visual issues (tho’ auditory is more common). IT’s usually tested with nonsense syllables — bright kiddos often just substitute familiar words that look similar… and are wrong. So it could be his skills for attacking real words are much better… but the vision issues are *still* going to make reading a struggle. How were his other reading scores?