Kanin Posted March 28, 2015 Share Posted March 28, 2015 Hi all, Just wondering what you make of a kid (10) that is a good speller, but poor reader? He can spell 3-5 letter words that follow spelling rules, and can manipulate sounds within the words (bat to bag, for example). His reading is so far behind his spelling though! He's working through an OG program and it seems to be working great for spelling, not for reading. Any ideas? Could it have to do with attention? Vision? Something else? Math manipulatives really helped things click for him. Maybe molding letters out of clay? Edited: Geodob suggested doing some rapid naming exercises, I will definitely try that. Thank you! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crimson Wife Posted March 28, 2015 Share Posted March 28, 2015 The molding letters out of clay thing is discussed in Ron Davis' book "The Gift of Dyslexia". A lot of the book strikes me as pseudoscientific, which is why it's taking me so long to finish it (I can only tolerate small doses of his writing before getting too annoyed to continue reading). However, he does has some good practical ideas for helping kids who are more visual learners. I wish he had included more practical advice and less of his (IMHO) "out there" theoretical speculation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OneStepAtATime Posted March 29, 2015 Share Posted March 29, 2015 Have you had any evaluations? I can't recall. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
displace Posted March 29, 2015 Share Posted March 29, 2015 My first thought is vision but IDK? When given words to read that he can spell, he can't read them? Maybe there's a disconnect and the process of spelling is cemented whereas reading seems different. Sometimes I pre discuss words: here comes a tricky letter (reversals), as an ex. But you could do that with anything: here comes a word with silent e and now the vowel will say it's name. Maybe just more guided practice reading out loud with you? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heathermomster Posted March 29, 2015 Share Posted March 29, 2015 Do you ever just examine a word, looking at the syllables and the spelling rules that it uses? When DD struggles with a word, we examine and mark it up, indicating syllables and phonograms. You could make a list of words that he stumbles on, discuss them, and mark them with a pencil. What reading program are you using? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heathermomster Posted March 29, 2015 Share Posted March 29, 2015 The molding letters out of clay thing is discussed in Ron Davis' book "The Gift of Dyslexia". A lot of the book strikes me as pseudoscientific, which is why it's taking me so long to finish it (I can only tolerate small doses of his writing before getting too annoyed to continue reading). However, he does has some good practical ideas for helping kids who are more visual learners. I wish he had included more practical advice and less of his (IMHO) "out there" theoretical speculation. I don't think that Davis is dyslexic. I know he has helped many, but his materials were useless for us, and his book made me cry because adults were so mean to him when he was a child. I was also left wondering where he went to engineering school, and I wanted to read his resume. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kanin Posted March 29, 2015 Author Share Posted March 29, 2015 Yeah, I have the same feeling with Davis... not sure what to think about them. This is one of my students - I'm sure he's had evals up the wazoo, but nobody knows what's going on with this particular issue. He can spell CVC words, but when he has to read them, he very often gets them wrong - like way more frequently than you would expect for how good his spelling is. He is doing OG every day, and has studied all the consonants and short vowels. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heathermomster Posted March 29, 2015 Share Posted March 29, 2015 My dyslexic regularly scored 100% on spelling exams. The question is, how does he score on the same words 2-3 weeks later? If he forgets the spelling, that shows he doesn't really know the words. Maybe take the spelling words from a month ago and see how well he does. Besides analyzing words, I have DD look at the word and read off the letters that she sees, particularly when she misses a sound. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kanin Posted March 29, 2015 Author Share Posted March 29, 2015 Well, he doesn't take spelling tests - he really can spell any regular CVC word, including sounds like 'ch,' 'th,' 'sh.' He's not memorizing the words, he knows and uses the sounds. The reading, however... the opposite. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heathermomster Posted March 29, 2015 Share Posted March 29, 2015 Well, that's interesting. DS sat in a nt classroom and started spelling tests in Kindie. Spelling didn't stop while he was in Wilson, but he was enrolled in a private school. Maybe ElizabethB will provide some insight. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kanin Posted March 29, 2015 Author Share Posted March 29, 2015 I know - it's definitely unusual, right? I've never heard of a good speller and poor reader. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ottakee Posted March 29, 2015 Share Posted March 29, 2015 My daughter was just like that. She could spell the words and write them down for me on a list but couldn't read the words. She is a really complex kid. She has an IQ that tests from 38-65 (so impaired to very impaired) yet some of her sub tests were highschool level while others were preschool level. We used the I See Sam program to teach reading www.iseesam.com or www.3rsplus.com We also used the Dancing Bears reading and Apples and Pears Spelling (which really reinforces reading skills). She can now read well at a 4th grade level (which is way beyond what her IQ would suggest she could do). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ElizabethB Posted March 30, 2015 Share Posted March 30, 2015 Screen for vision, COVD.org. When my son was first learning, he could spell better than he could read and he needed a lot of repetition to be a good reader. That being said, spelling generally has less choice in English--you know a letter and it makes he sound you are spelling for. When reading, unless it is a list of short vowel words and you know that in advance, the vowel can have several sounds, for example short, long, or schwa, some vowels have even more possibilities. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kanin Posted April 1, 2015 Author Share Posted April 1, 2015 Thanks guys. It sounds like a vision screen is in order. I was reading with him today and he just learned the "magic e" rule. When I asked him to laser focus on the word (his eyes were drifting off all over the place - at classmates, out the window, etc), he read each magic e word perfectly. Makes me wonder about attention. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ElizabethB Posted April 2, 2015 Share Posted April 2, 2015 Try 20 point font and 36 point font. If that works better, there may be vision things going on. That being said, I just saw that he was a student, not your child, so there may be some guessing problems. Try some nonsense words with my game and see how that goes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kanin Posted April 2, 2015 Author Share Posted April 2, 2015 Thanks ElizabethB, your game looks like the perfect thing! I'll print out some cards this weekend and we can play next week. Thank you! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Balla Posted October 1, 2023 Share Posted October 1, 2023 I'm a 10 year old, in 4th grade. I'm able to spell words like miscellaneous and not-words, like supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. But i'm in a 7th grade reading class. How does this not apply to me? I'm seeing the same theory all over the web, and it's confusing me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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