Clpretzel Posted March 21, 2014 Share Posted March 21, 2014 Doing phonics with my ds6 is like pulling teeth. Any advice? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clpretzel Posted March 21, 2014 Author Share Posted March 21, 2014 He's only slightly above average in reading. His obsession is math. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tanikit Posted March 21, 2014 Share Posted March 21, 2014 Teach the phonics through word problems he needs to read to do the math - yes it would be a lot of work for you, but your child would probably learn easily that way. You don't need to do long formal phonics lessons - just short and sweet and with a point - and the point of reading is to derive meaning - when it comes to math problems there is even more meaning to be derived and reading carefully is paramount. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
73349 Posted March 21, 2014 Share Posted March 21, 2014 How about backward via spelling? Or through some kind of code? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sunnyday Posted March 21, 2014 Share Posted March 21, 2014 Were you able to use any of the advice from this thread? http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/501487-bright-1st-grader-who-doesnt-like-any-formal-homeschooling/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clpretzel Posted March 21, 2014 Author Share Posted March 21, 2014 Were you able to use any of the advice from this thread? http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/501487-bright-1st-grader-who-doesnt-like-any-formal-homeschooling/ This was helpful primarily for math advice. It seems like most parents on this board have really early readers. I guess I'm wondering what to do with a gifted child who is not yet an advanced reader and who despises any formal lessons. I have a dd that read chapter books at 4 and is super advanced now at 11. I barely taught her anything; life has been one big discussion with her. My challenge with ds6 is that he's not yet a voracious reader. I think I need to "teach" him, but he is not very teachable. I suspect he might have the highest IQ of my kids, but is the latest reader. I suspect one day it will just click, but how much do I push in the meantime? So does anyone else have a brilliantly mathy kid who has limited interest in reading? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clpretzel Posted March 21, 2014 Author Share Posted March 21, 2014 How about backward via spelling? Or through some kind of code? I don't know what this is :-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
73349 Posted March 21, 2014 Share Posted March 21, 2014 I don't know what this is :-) Okay, suppose you want him to learn -tion. You ask him if he can spell subtraction. He might or might not. You show him multiplication, addition, emotion, flotation, and ask him to notice the ending and what he can tell you about it. Can he tell you a rule for using it? And lo, he has derived a phonics rule for himself, or he is ready to find out from you what it is. You just need interesting words that connect to the principle you want to convey. Now, it may be that -tion is already easy for him; in that case you bring in -sion as well, or talk about what makes something a noun. I taught older (not necessarily gifted, but old enough to be tired of reading/spelling instruction) kids. When it was time for me to launch into the spelling unit, I asked them to think about the word privilege. That's a great word because kids know what it means--it's in their vocabulary, and they like what it means--but almost no one could spell it and be sure it was right. I elicited guesses and wrote them on the board and asked the class to vote. They usually couldn't even pick it out of a lineup. That opened their eyes to the fact that they needed a new way of learning hard words. Then I wrote on the board and asked them to sound out words that should rhyme but don't: tough, cough, through, though, etc. We talked about the way that English does not have a 1:1 letter:sound correspondence. They were ready to learn things my way (the 5-step spelling method--Look, Say, Cover, Write, Check--and remembering tricks for hard words). Then we went back to privilege. I called their attention to that fact that no one had, for example, guessed that it started with a w, nor thrown in an s by mistake. Everyone got pr right, a v and an l in the middle, and an e at the end. Then I taught them my trick for privilege: it has two mini-palindromes, the ivi and ege. The point is, drill gets old, especially if you already know (or think you know) a lot of it. Tricks are more fun. As far as codes--what if you gave the list of words in code? He could try to break the code on his own first. If he can't, you give him just the letters for the part/phoneme you're focusing on. Then if he still can't get it, you tell him one whole word. (Codes are easy to come by--signal flags, the numbers 1-26, etc.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blondeviolin Posted March 22, 2014 Share Posted March 22, 2014 My six-year-old also is this way. The difference is that he has been taught phonics rules and can tell me the rule (complete with eye-rolling), but can't or won't consistently apply them. He excels in math (he'd be much further ahead even if I let him or had more time). Because I've got a bunch of crazy going on, we just moved to ETC workbooks and I'm hoping he will enjoy being more self-directed. At the very least, he is practicing/reviewing, but I'm not teaching it (hoping for less eye-rolling here). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ocelotmom Posted March 22, 2014 Share Posted March 22, 2014 This was helpful primarily for math advice. It seems like most parents on this board have really early readers. I guess I'm wondering what to do with a gifted child who is not yet an advanced reader and who despises any formal lessons. I have a dd that read chapter books at 4 and is super advanced now at 11. I barely taught her anything; life has been one big discussion with her. My challenge with ds6 is that he's not yet a voracious reader. I think I need to "teach" him, but he is not very teachable. I suspect he might have the highest IQ of my kids, but is the latest reader. I suspect one day it will just click, but how much do I push in the meantime? So does anyone else have a brilliantly mathy kid who has limited interest in reading? DS didn't learn to read with any sort of fluency until 8.5, but then jumped quickly to above grade level. DD1 learned how to sound out basic words early, and is overall more of a natural at it than DS, but has been very uninterested in getting beyond that, though I'm seeing signs that she's likely to take off in the next few months (7.5). I don't really have a whole lot of advice, but did want to say that you're not the only one with a gifted late reader. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
avilma Posted March 22, 2014 Share Posted March 22, 2014 You should try the book Let's Read: A Linguistic Approach by Leonard Bloomfield. It is simply great. My dd6 finished all 245 lessons just before her 6th birthday and by that time she could read anything. She also had become a great speller. I think each lesson introduces a phonics rule. The beauty of the book is that no rules are ever mentioned. There is enough practice for the student to pick the rule based on the examples. My dd6 never volunteered to say any rule and I never bothered her. My dd5 has done only the first 30 lessons but she is almost starting to read. In contrast to dd6 she also likes to mention rules when she figures them out. You should read the reviews in Amazon. I am writing this in a tablet and not being able to add the link. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
a27mom Posted March 22, 2014 Share Posted March 22, 2014 I have similar issues with my mathy 6 y/o. I assumed teaching her to read would be easy since she self taught writing capital letters at 2. Not so much. First my daughter actually had some vision issues. Being mathy/visual spacial, not being able to coordinate her eye muscles was a problem. Second I discovered that not all phonics is the same. If you have a phonics program that allows for a lot of exceptions, your mathy kid might not do well with it, since it isn't logical. I had to find phonics that was more detailed, and turned English into an equation/science. That meant using a good spelling based program. (I love Logic of English, but I have heard good things about All About Spelling as well). My daughter still isn't exactly a fluent reader, but yesterday she told me English was her current favorite subject. She said she still likes math but right now English is more fun. I think that is because she was finally understanding it. Last night she was randomly reading the dishwasher buttons to me :D she has made so much progress in the past couple months. Third, I am trying to remember to be patient. Yes it would make my life much easier if she could read for herself. Especially since she loves word problems. But once she gets it, I am hoping she will take off because her comprehension is excellent. and I know that is how it works for a lot of kids. Also, while spontaneous early reading is a sign of giftedness, lack of early reading is not a sign of lack of giftedness. Hang in there :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tracy Posted March 22, 2014 Share Posted March 22, 2014 Phonics through spelling is truly the way to go. We use Spell to Write and Read. It allows you to place your child wherever he is at in spelling from K-12th. No worrying about which level to buy. Other programs in this category include Spalding, All about Spelling, Logic of English. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sunnyday Posted March 22, 2014 Share Posted March 22, 2014 DS learned to read at 6.5 near the end of kindergarten. We'd done a little bit of phonics since he was 4.5, but I was very sensitive to the possibility of turning him off completely with too much drill. Motivation trumped skill-building for me, and I put the phonics book away and emphasized reading aloud in order to encourage him to look for meaning in books and *want* to read them. It seems to have worked, since he's a strong fluent above-grade-level reader, though we're going to do a little remedial phonics work now (he's 7 and in first grade). The nice thing is that I know I can explain *why* he needs to learn this now that he's getting hung up on certain words. I'm looking at ElizabethB's materials from thephonicspage.org, or maybe jumping ship from AAS to LoE. I'll probably ask his opinion (we've had AAS2 for months but haven't cracked it open and he's probably quite beyond it now except those pesky syllabication rules.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Incognito Posted March 23, 2014 Share Posted March 23, 2014 Okay, suppose you want him to learn -tion. You ask him if he can spell subtraction. He might or might not. You show him multiplication, addition, emotion, flotation, and ask him to notice the ending and what he can tell you about it. Can he tell you a rule for using it? And lo, he has derived a phonics rule for himself, or he is ready to find out from you what it is. You just need interesting words that connect to the principle you want to convey. Now, it may be that -tion is already easy for him; in that case you bring in -sion as well, or talk about what makes something a noun. I taught older (not necessarily gifted, but old enough to be tired of reading/spelling instruction) kids. When it was time for me to launch into the spelling unit, I asked them to think about the word privilege. That's a great word because kids know what it means--it's in their vocabulary, and they like what it means--but almost no one could spell it and be sure it was right. I elicited guesses and wrote them on the board and asked the class to vote. They usually couldn't even pick it out of a lineup. That opened their eyes to the fact that they needed a new way of learning hard words. Then I wrote on the board and asked them to sound out words that should rhyme but don't: tough, cough, through, though, etc. We talked about the way that English does not have a 1:1 letter:sound correspondence. They were ready to learn things my way (the 5-step spelling method--Look, Say, Cover, Write, Check--and remembering tricks for hard words). Then we went back to privilege. I called their attention to that fact that no one had, for example, guessed that it started with a w, nor thrown in an s by mistake. Everyone got pr right, a v and an l in the middle, and an e at the end. Then I taught them my trick for privilege: it has two mini-palindromes, the ivi and ege. The point is, drill gets old, especially if you already know (or think you know) a lot of it. Tricks are more fun. As far as codes--what if you gave the list of words in code? He could try to break the code on his own first. If he can't, you give him just the letters for the part/phoneme you're focusing on. Then if he still can't get it, you tell him one whole word. (Codes are easy to come by--signal flags, the numbers 1-26, etc.) Great approach! Phonics through spelling is truly the way to go. We use Spell to Write and Read. It allows you to place your child wherever he is at in spelling from K-12th. No worrying about which level to buy. Other programs in this category include Spalding, All about Spelling, Logic of English. We have been using Sequential Spelling a bit, and this could work well. It is pretty much what whitehawk suggested, but it has word lists for you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
k8c Posted April 12, 2014 Share Posted April 12, 2014 We use All About Spelling for DD5 (almost 6), and supplement with Explode the Code, which is super easy for her, but at least not boring to her! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lewelma Posted April 12, 2014 Share Posted April 12, 2014 My younger was a sight-word reader and did very well with it from a very young age. I started spelling and phonics with him at 8, and it has gone well. Not all kids have to learn to read with phonics. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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