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Need advice on how to help my dd6 stop memorizing words when reading


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She has just begun to learn to read.  In the past we did a lot of work on learning the sounds of the letters instead of there names, and did a lot of phonemic awareness activities. If I give her a cvc with the vowel a in it she can usually spell it and will say the sounds to herself as she spells.  However when we read a Bob book or the Progressive phonics books I've noticed that she really isn't sounding the words out, she either guesses, and is usually right, or if she doesn't guess she already has the word memorized and gets it right.  Sometimes I will use a notched card with her and uncover a letter at a time.  When I do this sometimes she gets confused, for examples if the word is pat, she'll say tap.  I'm not sure if this is something I should worry about or not.  She is my first since my dd15 who hasn't really struggled with learning how to read.  My ds10 is still on cvc words, and my ds13, although he didn't struggle as bad as my ds10, he really wasn't able to read by himself until about age 11 or 12.  So I really don't know when I should start worrying.  

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She has just begun to learn to read.  In the past we did a lot of work on learning the sounds of the letters instead of there names, and did a lot of phonemic awareness activities. If I give her a cvc with the vowel a in it she can usually spell it and will say the sounds to herself as she spells.  However when we read a Bob book or the Progressive phonics books I've noticed that she really isn't sounding the words out, she either guesses, and is usually right, or if she doesn't guess she already has the word memorized and gets it right.  Sometimes I will use a notched card with her and uncover a letter at a time.  When I do this sometimes she gets confused, for examples if the word is pat, she'll say tap.  I'm not sure if this is something I should worry about or not.  She is my first since my dd15 who hasn't really struggled with learning how to read.  My ds10 is still on cvc words, and my ds13, although he didn't struggle as bad as my ds10, he really wasn't able to read by himself until about age 11 or 12.  So I really don't know when I should start worrying.  

 

 

Spalding for her *and* for your 10yo. Don't give her any vocabulary-controlled readers (such as Bob or the Progressive phonics books).

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Try the two week free trial from Headsprout. Just a couple of weeks in that program has helped two of my kids to stop guessing and really pick up on the concept of blending. It seems to do a good job teaching them to look at and sound out all the letters in a word.

 

Is there is discount for homeschoolers?  I only see a classrom licence

 

Spalding for her *and* for your 10yo. Don't give her any vocabulary-controlled readers (such as Bob or the Progressive phonics books).

I know you would recommend spalding Ellie!

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Is there is discount for homeschoolers? I only see a classrom licence

 

I know you would recommend spalding Ellie!

I'm not aware of a discount, though you could contact them and ask. HSBC has run group deals for them in the past. I have found that just two weeks of using the program intensively was enough to get my kids over a hump and help them approach reading with better strategies, so the trial is all I have done. If you want to purchase maybe you could go in together with some other families to get a classroom license, that could make it quite affordable and each child can have their own login.

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Honestly it sounds perfectly normal. How much reading would you do if you had to sound out every word every time? If she can remember that c a t is cat why does she need to sound it out? The important thing is she can sound out words she doesn't know/remember.

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Sight-word guessing was very common here in the early stages of reading.  In my experience some kids move through that phase fast, others take a little longer to move past this. For my kids was the only thing that kept them interested in reading. (Sounding out every single word is incredibly slow and tedious when starting to read. Doing all that work interferes with comprehension and doesn't make for good story reading!)

 

Mine all grew out of it once they were better able to decode. My eldest (dyslexic) took a lot longer than the others, so it might be worth keeping an eye out for other signs of possible problems (e,g, persistent letter or number reversal, difficulty tracking between lines, starting words in the middle or reversing them when reading etc). He was a sight-word reader right up until he was 9 or 10, possibly still is predominantly a sight-word reader, but with support it hasn't held him back. There are a lot of words that don't fit phonics rules, so sight-word reading is also important.

 

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Honestly it sounds perfectly normal. How much reading would you do if you had to sound out every word every time? If she can remember that c a t is cat why does she need to sound it out? The important thing is she can sound out words she doesn't know/remember.

 

I don't mind if she reads by sight if she has already mastered the word. What concerns me is when she starts guessing instead of trying to sound out an unfamiliar word.  An example of this would be, we were reading one of the progressive phonics books (for those that don't know what these are, they are books that are read together by parent and child, the child only reads the larger in size words while the parent reads the harder words to make for a nice story)  when she came to the word 'cat', a word that she does know and has memorized, she guessed and said mouse!  

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I don't see anything wring with that as long as she knows how to decode, too. Memorizing words is part of becoming an efficient reader. But you also have to know what to do with a word you haven't memorized. Phonics is a tool, reading is the goal. Not the other way around.

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My 6 year old does the same thing.  There is no reason to stop it.  She is sounding it out the first time which shows she definitely knows phonics and how to sound out words.  Ultimately, we all "sight" read most words.  There comes a point when sounding out every word is no longer needed.  Your daughter and my son just are doing it earlier than we expected.  I would not do the uncovering one letter at a time.  That is kind of confusing and one of the goals of reading is to recognize words quickly and part of that is done through the shape of the words (ever seen those things where you can read words with numbers and letters instead of the correct letters in the correct order? we read those easily because we recognize the shape and what makes sense in the sentence).

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My 6 year old does the same thing.  There is no reason to stop it.  She is sounding it out the first time which shows she definitely knows phonics and how to sound out words.  Ultimately, we all "sight" read most words.  There comes a point when sounding out every word is no longer needed.  Your daughter and my son just are doing it earlier than we expected.  I would not do the uncovering one letter at a time.  That is kind of confusing and one of the goals of reading is to recognize words quickly and part of that is done through the shape of the words (ever seen those things where you can read words with numbers and letters instead of the correct letters in the correct order? we read those easily because we recognize the shape and what makes sense in the sentence).

 

This makes total sense.  The main reason it scares me is because the last 2 children I have taught to read have had a lot of trouble learning.  My 10 year old still isn't reading.  So it scares me when I see things going on that goes against most orton-gillingham methods.  I fear that she'll too start struggling and just allowing her to guess at words she doesn't know will start us down a path I do not want to go.

 

On a side note, I just hopped over to your blog and I'm curious how you make the 3-part Montessori cards.  I love the dictionary you created!  What a great idea!

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My kids all did that too during the phase where reading is still hard work. They could decode and sound it out but if there was a visual cue from a picture they would sometimes guess or they would guess by first letter saying "cat" for "can" for example. 

 

The most effective thing I've done is play what we call the "guessing" game. At the beginning of the lesson I put out 10 M&Ms or other small treat. I then say that for every word they guess that I will eat one of the treats. If they get to the end with no guessing then they get all the treats. I make it clear that they can ask for help with no penalty (no Mommy eating the treat) and they can sound it out and get it wrong and it's ok. So if they are reading and see cat and say "c-a-t" and then say cad I just correct them and point to the last letter and tell them to try again. But no taking a treat. But if they see cat and quickly say "can" or "mouse" (because there is a picture of a mouse) I eat the treat. Or if they just say "I'm not sure, what sound does "a" make?" I'll tell them with no penalty. 

 

Usually we play one or two times where I get to eat 2 or 3 treats. Then they get it and get excited about keeping all the treats for themselves. It helps in our house if I act sad when they don't mess up, like I'm really sad that I don't get any treats. They find that really funny at that age. :) 

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Try the I See Sam books.  The pictures "carry" the story line but the kids can't "read" the pictures.  The book also strategically use very similar words so that they student must read them left to right and not just guess by the first letter.   www.iseesam.com and www.3rsplus.com  You can also google them for free PDF files you can print out for the first 2 sets.

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Try the I See Sam books.  The pictures "carry" the story line but the kids can't "read" the pictures.  The book also strategically use very similar words so that they student must read them left to right and not just guess by the first letter.   www.iseesam.com and www.3rsplus.com  You can also google them for free PDF files you can print out for the first 2 sets.

 

We have the I See Sam books, I think that is where her guessing started.  The first few books have so few words that she was able to 'memorize' them and then she stopped really looking at the words and would just say what she thought the sentence was going to be.  I had a really hard time getting her to look at the words so we stopped using those. 

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So it scares me when I see things going on that goes against most orton-gillingham methods.  I fear that she'll too start struggling and just allowing her to guess at words she doesn't know will start us down a path I do not want to go.

 

 

 

 

O-G is not the only way to go for dyslexics. Dancing Bears works well for kids who struggle to decode and do not improve with O-G methods.

 

O-G does many things superbly well, but the one thing it lacks is explicit teaching in visual tracking & decoding. It comes from the philosophy that teaching the child to spell will result in children who read. That just isn't the way it works for some. Doing O-G more, with a different program, with more intensity, with different readers, etc....is NOT going to result in better results for kids who need that explicit visual training.

 

That said, if she has memorized certain words, that is a good thing! Memorizing words is at the heart of reading and spelling. It's just that FIRSTLY we need to be able to decode.  Guessing (without seeing the full word!) is not good, and that does need to be nipped in the bud. Again, that's a visual tracking & decoding issue and not a lack of phonics instruction.

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I think that's a normal developmental phase in learning to read.  It's relatively common for a kid to occasionally read pam when attempting the word map.  Likewise, it's common to try to just guess. Watch your child's eyes and make sure that she is actually looking at the word and tracking left to right.  It's a fair amount of work to get eyes to stay at a task like that.

 

In our house, we just got some letter tiles and spent a ton of time building words.  Today I had my dd(age 5) build map and change it to mat and then to pat and so forth for a while. Once she had her confidence, we started changing the middle vowels as well. (Children typically learn end consonants first, then first consonants, and the middle sound is the hardest to identify.).  We took a break, did some other stuff, and then I built make pretend words for her (random cvc combinations), and then I had her build "make pretend" words....kov, mip, taz, etc.  If you buy the AAS/AAR tiles, you can continue the work as you introduce digraphs, blends, etc. I like that the tiles are one piece showing that that combination of words makes one sound.   The K12 K and 1 phonics program has a similar set of tiles if it's easier to pick up that set at a second-hand store like Half-Price Books.  Also, you can make your own, but my kids find it much easier to manipulate magnet tiles than index cards...

 

I've had three normal readers and one dyslexic reader so far....I totally understand the freak out, but I don't think I'd be concerned if it were my child. (In fact, my current new reader did all of the things you mentioned today....)

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One thing I noticed her doing today was she would look at the word, say the sounds, then look away as she tried to blend then sounds together.  She usually got the word right, but I don't know if I should be concerned about her looking away.  I kept telling her to look at the word while she was reading it, but she kept looking away after she said all the sounds.  Sometimes she would look away after each sound.  

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One thing I noticed her doing today was she would look at the word, say the sounds, then look away as she tried to blend then sounds together.  She usually got the word right, but I don't know if I should be concerned about her looking away.  I kept telling her to look at the word while she was reading it, but she kept looking away after she said all the sounds.  Sometimes she would look away after each sound.  

 

 

I'm not sure about the significance of that, but my dyslexic did that too. It's difficult for him to focus on print even though his vision is 20/20. This issue still shows up for him. He tires of reading easily though he can read anything. Lord of the Rings is buddy read here. Asynchronous! :lol:

 

Consider getting her eyes checked by a COVD. Vision therapy might be a help.  Meanwhile, use a notched 3x5 card for a cursor to uncover one sounds at a time.

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