Help!! Reading and my ds 7

[oliveview]

How do you know if you need to get your child tested or if there is some type of LD we are dealing with? Our oldest, ds 7, is making me question if there is an issue.

 

He is very bright and articulate. He is a strong chess player and plays the piano very well for his age. He seems to be rather "mathy" but he still needs to read.

 

He was very slow to start reading and is now coming along but it seems like he should be moving faster. He would rather guess at words than just actually read them. He is about 60 lessons into 100 EZ Lessons. Should I just say progress is progress and be happy with that??

 

We have been inconsistent with school in the past and I think this could be a lot of it, because he certainly does better with lots of structure (I see this now in hindsight). I just don't know at what point you say "we need to test". We are in a good routine now and are very consistent with our lessons.

 

We have had a rather difficult morning and I am very frustrated. I keep coming up against this wall in him. He was like this with every developmental milestone so far. I just don't know if this is one more case of him just not doing things until he wants to.

 

I am so frustrated!! Thank you for listening!!

[Pongo]

How do you know if you need to get your child tested or if there is some type of LD we are dealing with? Our oldest, ds 7, is making me question if there is an issue.

 

He is still so young, even though I have had early readers, I would not test until 3rd. An amazing amount of fluency happens between then, I'd wait:)

 

He would rather guess at words than just actually read them. He is about 60 lessons into 100 EZ Lessons.

 

Even for dd who, had always been a very strong reader I think it's quite common for them to try this and see if it works!..lol:D

 

We have been inconsistent with school in the past and I think this could be a lot of it, because he certainly does better with lots of structure (I see this now in hindsight

 

Looks like you already have your answer, I can say that of all my kiddos the one that I was the least consistent with in respect to reading has been the one with the least amount of fluency. I have started being more consistent and I can already see improvement. It sounds like your doing exactly what he needs, maybe doing 1 lesson of 100EZ over 2 sessions might help him to focus better...M&M's around here work wonders for reading rewards:rolleyes:

[Debra in CO]

Sherri,

 

Well, my take is that if he is making progress, you just work at being more consistent and see what happens. Unless you really have a feeling that something isn't right... in that case, run out and find something to do to test him.

 

But I think a lot of boys just don't have all those connections in their brains for the reading thing to truly click. I know my oldest was very late to get started, but once he got going, he sailed through learning his letter names, sounds, and blending short vowel words very rapidly. Then he kind of evened out, and made slow (VERY SLOW) progress for the next year and a half. But it was progress. And suddenly, he went from reading a book like Green Eggs and Ham over a week, in 20 minute sessions to sitting down with Nate the Great and completing it in maybe a 40 minute session. That was around March of his 2nd grade year, which would have made him, ummm, almost 8.

 

I'm praying for similar results with my 2nd son, actually. So I totally understand your feelings.

 

Debra

Mom of five, and who really needs to go create a signature line...

[Julie in PA]

I could have written your post about my son. He is 9 now and it is true that a light bulb seemed to go off around 8. He still is a little slower than most kids his age and has a few other issues, but we have made a lot of progress. You want him to love reading and not be frustrated. I have found that throwing in a few things below his reading level helps his confidence. I also read his readers to him so much that he memorized them and it was a huge boost for him. He thought he was reading and it helped him to not be frustrated and he tried harder.

[susie in tx]

Some kids just come along at a slower pace than others. I'm told this is more prevalent with boys and reading. My oldest dd did not read until she was almost 9. Maybe it was almost 8. I can't remember anymore. I know that I was pretty freaked out about it. However, once she started reading, it was all uphill from there.

 

Maybe a break for both of you would be good. I know that a lot of people recommend consistency. However, when I gave my dd a break, and then came back to it, she'd miraculously learned to read. Go figure.

[Adrianne]

Trying to guess words is quite common and the easy thing to do for them. (kids always want short cuts).

 

Just keep at it. My ds 9 HATED learning how to read at 5 but those are the rules of the house. Everyday was a fight. He tried everything, guessing words, crying etc, whatever he needed to do to get through it and not work. Well I kept at it and today he is a fabulous reader. He spends most of his time reading and he comprehends what he reads. It just takes time. ( he still tries to guess words!!!)

 

I think it is natural for boys (i do not have girls) to want to take the easiest route with the least amount of work. I see it in everything they do. I just keep correcting and overtime it helps.

 

Adrianne

[Kathy in MD]

but had you reported that you had worked hard for a year and your ds was so far behind, I'd be telling you to start looking for help right now! My ds hated reading and considered himself stupid by the time he was 7 yo. That's sad when a 7yo has given up on himself. But there was no way that he would have learned to read without a lot of intensive therapies.

 

However because the various therapies can take years to complete, I'll give you a couple of things to look for when I can get back to the boards, probably tomorrow. Or you can post on the Special Needs and the posters there can give you some clues on what to look for.

[Ann@thebeach]

I could have written your post about my son. He is 9 now and it is true that a light bulb seemed to go off around 8. He still is a little slower than most kids his age and has a few other issues, but we have made a lot of progress. You want him to love reading and not be frustrated. I have found that throwing in a few things below his reading level helps his confidence. I also read his readers to him so much that he memorized them and it was a huge boost for him. He thought he was reading and it helped him to not be frustrated and he tried harder.

 

This is exactly how it is for my son who's 9 now. Others wanted me to push him and use flash cards :rolleyes: when he was 7 and I said no way-he would hate reading if I did that. So we took things at his pace and now he picks up a book and reads on his own :eek: Who would've guessed :)

 

So I agree with the others, there's no need to have him tested now. Just keep working with him slowly.

And don't forget to read aloud. My son loved listening to me read longer books like Narnia and Farmer Boy and listening to books on CD in the car.

 

Good luck

[Kathy in MD]

Reading is a very complex skill and physical problems in unexpected areas can cause failure. The two major areas of break down are in vision and auditory processing.

 

The typical 20 min eye exam does not pick up all the possible vision problems that can interfer with reading. These problems include tracking, convergence and many others. To be tested for this type of reading problem, you need to see a Developmental Optometrist. The exam will typically take about 2 hours. I'll list a site for you to check for symptoms. However also ask your dc if the letters or lines move on the page. Too many children never complain about this because, as far as they know, letters jump around for everyone. http://http://www.childrensvision.com/symptoms.htm

 

Auditory skills play a much larger roll in reading problems than most people would think. And subtle problems can have a major impact. In many reading circles, the emphisis is on phonics, but there is a skill that underlies phonics that most people either aren't aware of or they just assume that the student has it. But before you can be successful in teaching phonics, the student needs to hear the difference between short I and short E or P and B or BR and BL. They need to understand phonemes(sp), the sound bits that build the language. This can be taught. There are many other language problems that can interfer with reading, such as receptive and expressive language problems. Unfortunately I don't know of a formal auditory check list to refer you to. But a few things to look for are late talking, poor diction, problems with answering questions, talking in stock phrases or was referred for speech therapy. Even if your dc has "successfully" completed speech therapy it doesn't mean that the therapist treated some of the problems I mentioned. My ds was "passed" from ST because he had beautiful diction. My concerns about his conversational skills were brushed off by the ST. We moved and my ds was sent back to ST because he couldn't read. The new ST was stunned that the previous therapist had treated only one symptom, diction, and not the underlying problems. Before I forget, one other resource for phoneme instruction is Reading Reflex. It's a reading program that starts with teaching phonemes. There are more intensive reading programs if RR isn't heavy duty enough.

 

There are other problems that can interfer with reading, however the ones I'm aware of generally hit comprehension. These would include visualization skills and memory.

 

But it doesn't matter if you start to teach your child to read when he's 4, 7 or 10. The problem comes in when you make a consistent, long term effort to teach him to read and your child fails time and time and time again. That's when your child starts calling himself dumb, stupid and hopeless. You don't want to let any problem reach that level, because having your child label himself stupid is far harder to remediate than the physical disabilities. I've learned that the hard way. So consider the possible physical problems I've mentioned.

 

If there is any thought in your mind that your dc might have one of those problems, get him tested now. Therapy can take a long time if there are several problems or if they're severe. If you pass on testing and and make a concentrated effort to teach him reading for one year and he's not progressing, get him tested.

 

Remember that if you test and there are no problems uncovered, then you're reassured. But if you test and find problems, you can start therapy immediately and save your child a lot of agony.

[Another Lynn]

I can't answer whether you should test or not, but I will say I can identify with what you're going through. My oldest ds was 7.5 - 8 before I felt like we began to make "steady" reading progress. (BTW, he also started losing baby teeth around 7.5 and I've heard there may be a hormonal connection there?) Anyway, he's 9 now and reading has really taken off. I've just increased his daily "free reading" time from 30 to 45 minutes and he's far exceeding that now because he's hooked on the Narnia series. (He tried Narnia a month or two back and thought it was too hard, now he's racing through them).

 

I will add that one of our frustrations was my own lack of experience at teaching (not saying this is *your* problem at all). I was using a phonics based program, but we kept running into "exceptions" My ds is also a pretty mathy/logical guy (a chess player too) and I think everytime he heard the word "exception" he thought "what's the point of figuring this stuff out?" During his 2nd grade year I found Spell to Write and Read and it made a huge difference to us. It helped me know how to explain sounds and rules in our language without always blaming little differences on "exceptions." It gave us a way of understanding it all much better.

 

Although I haven't used 100 Easy Lessons, I'm thinking it is a pretty structured program, so it may be all you need to take the "wishy-wash-iness" out of the process. I'm not advocating that you change curriculum, just wanted to share what helped us.

 

Just wanted to share our experience and encourage you to hang in there!