I'm a little surprised you go to an ophthalmologist for a regular eye exam, instead of an optometrist, but not at all surprised that an ophthalmologist would react the way yours did. Here's a piece from my website that you might find interesting: Why Such a Secret? It explains why it's so difficult to get a diagnosis of a vision skills problem unless you see a developmental optometrist. In your case, the VT department appears to be a stand alone operation, probably to avoid some of the business complications I described in the link above. Or else they were just trying to save you the expense of an initial eye exam if you'd already had a recent one done.

Regarding your questions: Yes, it's similar to what is done in the VT practice I'm familiar with. The optometrist does an initial eye exam similar to one you'd get anywhere, but also tests for poor binocular vision skills. If problems are found, a full developmental vision exam is recommended. During that exam, usually administered by a vision therapist, various vision skills are tested and scored. Once that has been done, the child's various strengths and weaknesses are known and a therapy plan is proposed. Convergence excess is a tendency to over-converge. That would, as someone else said, be similar to crossing your eyes, but in this case your child might do that routinely and not even realize it. She has trouble relaxing her eyes and might see double as a result. Binocular vision problems are the result of poor convergence skill, so those two are related. Basically a binocular vision problem just means that both eyes aren't working well together. Tracking problems just mean that she has problems smoothing moving her eyes from left to right, as we do when we read. The developmental vision exam done later would reveal how significant those tracking problems are when reading. As for exercises that can be done at home, no, not if you're looking for a different route to go than vision therapy. First, you'd have to know what you're trying to accomplish and for that you need the assessment. Some exercises, for example, would aggravate a convergence issue if they were intended to address the more common issue of convergence insufficiency. Her eyes might get even tighter, instead of relaxing, as she needs to learn to do in her particular case. But, as someone else also pointed out, you do want to see the therapist assigning programmed homework because that's the most effective way to proceed. That is, they do some new exercises at the clinic, show you how to do them at home, and then you make additional progress at home, recheck at the clinic, etc. If they did all the exercises at the clinic, it would be much more expensive because you'd be paying a therapist to do what you can do at home. During VT, the therapist will measure progress and change exercises as needed to move your daughter along to new levels of any particular skill and then on to new skills that need work. That's what you'd be paying for, i.e., knowing what needs to be done next to build various vision skills to acceptable levels. Incidentally, the VT department here has an observation window where a parent can watch the developmental vision assessment (the next test being recommended). Doing so would give you a good idea as to the particular skills that VT is intended to address, and would also be a good way to better understand what your daughter can and can't do among the various vision skills addressed in therapy. Hope this helps...Rod

Thanks for linking to my article "Telling b from d" at OnTrack Reading Amy. I use that technique with every child I work with who has reversal issues and the problem disappears within a couple of lessons. I credit Romalda Spalding for the idea. I took it straight from her book, The Writing Road to Reading. I wish all the other methods would be discarded, frankly, because they just distract from the process of reading and writing. This one is completely tactile and doesn't have a child putting down their pencil to make a bed, or tossing a bed into the storyline, for that matter. I work with mostly 2nd to 5th graders and all of the kids who still reverse b/d have heard at least one, if not more, of the other methods and continue to reverse them. Spalding's method works consistently. I would just like to point out, though, that the circle on the letter "d" should be associated with the "circle" your tongue makes with the roof of your mouth when you say the /d/ sound. I tell a child to say /d/ and think about his tongue and how he could fit a gum ball in the space he was creating with his tongue and the roof of his mouth. As the article indicates, if the child is taught to form the letters correctly (line first for "b"; circle first for "d"), then the method has the advantage of working for both reading and writing.

Thanks for linking to the code knowledge test on my website. Like a lot of other resources there, it's free. I just want to point out that there are also blending, segmenting, and auditory processing tests as part of the same test battery that can also be easily administered. Buried elsewhere on the site is a free exercise for practicing auditory processing titled Oral Auditory Processing that you'll find useful if your child does poorly on that test. Also, the entire multisyllable curriculum that I include in the advanced code workbook mentioned on the site is available free. It's very effective. I used it with nearly 200 kids in one-on-one tutoring and they really responded well to it, as I describe on the site. Frankly, most of the strategies for teaching multisyllable decoding don't make much sense to young kids. This one does because it's very simple and straightforward. It's covered on several pages starting with the Multisyllable Method Overview. Next, if your child has trouble with code knowledge, there's a free phonogram card set that's completely consistent with the code knowledge test, the multisyllable method (and the workbook program too, for that matter.) You need to go to lulu.com to download it and then print out the cards per the instructions. You can read about it on the Free Phonogram Flash Cards page. And finally, if your child continues to have trouble with longer passages, take a look at the vision information on my site. As many in this forum will attest, a visit to a developmental optometrist has often proven to be the most effective way to get a child reading comfortably. I hope you find some of the above resources useful. Rod Everson OnTrack Reading

Thanks for the mention of my workbook, SporkUK. Here's a link directly to the page describing the workbook, by the way: OnTrack Reading Advanced Code Workbook I have two comments for the the original poster, Tawlas. First, I wholeheartedly agree with your decision to have your daughter's vision assessed by a developmental optometrist. Over several years of working with struggling readers, "struggling" very much like your own daughter by the way, I developed a huge appreciation for what vision therapy can accomplish when it's indicated. I even have a page on my website that you might want to read that addresses some of the issues parents encounter when looking for a developmental optometrist: Find a Vision Therapy Provider Second, if you really think the main problem is with your daughter's reading of multisyllable words, especially if the developmental OD finds no problems, take a look at the free Multisyllable Method on my website. It's right out of the workbook and is free on the site. The workbook is needed for the complete program where a child has to learn about digraphs, vowel sounds, the advanced code spellings of both vowel and consonant sounds, and practice reading with stories based on the last lesson, etc., but the multisyllable method in the workbook is exactly the same as the one available free on my website. From long experience, it works exceptionally well to stop habitual guessers from guessing and get them decoding chunk by chunk, provided they already are reasonably comfortable with the advanced code spellings like ea, ie, ou, ough, etc. The multisyllable method actually reinforces the advanced code , because the focus is on stopping each chunk after the vowel sound, so they're always looking for vowel spellings. I hope this helps. Personally, I suspect that vision therapy is likely to be your answer, given the phonics you've already taught her.

In a post above this one I elaborated on Spork's advice to try my Advanced Code Workbook, but I would be remiss if I didn't also add my thoughts on a possible vision problem. A child in fourth grade who has had reasonable reading instruction should be taken to a developmental optometrist and have his or her vision skills assessed. It's reasonably likely that an undiagnosed vision issue is making it difficult to learn to read or to do the consistent reading necessary to become fluent. There's a lot of information regarding vision issues on my website because after working with enough challenged readers I gradually concluded that vision skills deficits were present in many cases. Here's a link to a good page to start: The Vision Piece of the Dyslexia Puzzle I'm not saying a child with a vision issue should necessarily be considered dyslexic, by the way, but I am convinced that many children diagnosed with dyslexia have undiagnosed issues with their vision skills. I've also learned from experience that a child with vision issues can learn to read using my workbook program, but it takes longer and can sometimes be a constant struggle to keep him on task. He will learn to read but simply won't like it and therefore won't do the independent reading necessary to becoming a fluent reader. A child who actually learns to read under such circumstances would still be better off in the long run having his vision needs attended to eventually.

I'm the author of the Advanced Code Workbook you cited in your post. Thanks for the mention, by the way. I just wanted to add that the workbook is a full spectrum reading curriculum. It contains basic and more advanced stories that incorporate each new sound's spellings after they're introduced. I use it with my grandchildren when they either start to show a strong interest in independent reading (to help them organize the advanced code in their minds) or when they resist reading somewhat (to get them started in understanding how reading works.) The four threads you mentioned are the key to making the curriculum palatable to a child. There's really a fifth thread that involves reading itself, but that's done separately as a child progresses. Incidentally, six weeks of daily instruction is an ideal time frame for getting through the entire workbook. When I work with a child (of almost any age once they know most of the basic code), I usually spend about 20-25 hours with them, with the parent spending about that much time doing homework review, so about 40-50 hours in all. A couple of 45-minute sessions each day would be 45 hours of instruction, some of it review of previous lessons. With my grandchildren, I don't even go through the entire curriculum, just enough so that they get the idea of how the code is structured, and so they understand how to chunk multisyllable words by the technique taught in the curriculum. That stops them from guessing at longer words and gets them decoding them. Incidentally, here's a link directly to the workbook page on my site, rather than the home page: OnTrack Reading Advanced Code Phonics Workbook I also strongly advise that a child learn to print lowercase letters per Romalda Spalding's advice in The Writing Road to Reading. That makes the lessons go much more smoothly because they're not struggling with letter formation throughout. The quality of her advice is reflected in the post Telling b from d on my website. Every child should be taught her method for distinguishing b and d, in my opinion. It's so effective and quick to teach that I often taught it to kids that I was just testing when I noticed they were having trouble telling them apart. And it works both ways, both when reading and writing them. Again, thanks for mentioning the workbook curriculum. It would be a very reasonable choice for the situation described.

I agree. The fact that a parent had an obvious reading problem should be considered. The blending issue is developmental though, and the way to accelerate it is to just play oral blending games as others have suggested until he catches on. If he's obviously struggling once he can blend, and especially if he gets to age six or so and is really resisting learning to read, or clearly doesn't want to read, then at that point I'd get his eyes checked by a developmental optometrist just to rule out the existence of a problem with his vision skills. For now though, it's early, and he might easily learn to blend, and read, in time.

I'm the developer of the curriculum that SporkUK mentions above and I thought I'd elaborate a bit. First, if you have her for 2 days per week for 3 months, that is enough time to finish the entire program as long as you have a couple of hours per day with her. If she's now living with a responsible adult who could attend a few lessons and oversee homework assignments, that would be even better. Otherwise, one day you'd be wearing the "teacher" hat, and the next session you'd be wearing the "parent" hat and overseeing what is essentially a review of the previous day's lesson. Second, regarding handwriting, I don't include any handwriting work in the program, but I'd suggest that you spend some time in the early going (regardless what method you use) teaching her to form lowercase letters exactly as Romalda Spalding teaches in her book The Writing Road to Reading. I did this with a grandson recently and it didn't take much time but it really paid off when mapping words. It's important that she print because you want to ensure that she's associating each separate sound with a specific letter or digraph. The workbook itself is very easy from the student's point of view, and it's appropriate for her age as well...any age, actually...I use it with my six-year-old grandson in kindergarten. However, as SporkUK said in her post, it takes some time to get the hang of teaching it because, especially in the early going, there are issues that need to be presented clearly. I believe the instructions are quite clear, but there's a lot to explain. Once you've taught one child carefully, however, you should feel very comfortable taking on more if you decided to do so. From the standpoint of an older child, the existence of the four threads is important because it will allow you to get into multisyllable work as soon as she's ready. For all ages, the four thread approach, combined with independent reading, allows you to vary the lesson plans so that they don't get bored. Mapping can be tedious, but it's essential, so it's interlaced with other types of lessons and reading, to break things up and keep the child moving forward. Back to spelling to close this out: Spalding combines the teaching of the printing of the letters c, o, a, d, g, and q by teaching c first (starting at 2 on the clock face and going around to 4). Then o is just a continuation of c, a is a continuation of o, just finishing with by continuing up a bit then back down to the line. d is just an extension of the a upward further, then down to the line, and g and q are also continuations of a. The tall letters, h, k, l, t, and especially b, all start at the top of the vertical line. (There is a good explanation of b/d differentiation in the instructions that relies upon making the b line first and the d circle first, by the way.) The last six letters, u, v, w, x, y, and z, all start in the same spot, the upper left corner, picking up the pencil only on x and y to make the second line. (This prevents reversing z later.) That leaves e, f, i, j, m, n, p, r, and s. The letters i, j, m, n, p, and r all start with the line coming down from the top (the same starting spot as the last six letters.) And I'll leave e, f, and s out of this as each is a separate case. All of these can be fairly quickly taught and doing so pays big dividends if you insist upon it being done consistently. A lot of poor spellers will switch to capital letters because they're confused about how to form the lowercase ones. One last thing concerning the vision advice. I'm a big advocate of having a child's vision skills checked if they're struggling with reading. In this case, however, it's not clear whether she actually struggles, or if she's just never been taught. In that case, you could try a curriculum first and if she resists the instruction and clearly struggles with the reading process, consider vision at that time. Addressing a vision issue is both time consuming and expensive but often it's what a struggling reader requires to become comfortable with both learning to read, and with reading itself. All the best, Rod

There are very few phonics "rules" that work anywhere near 100% of the time unless you're really talking about patterns, such as ack, eck, ax, ex, atch, etch, adge, edge, wor, war, etc. Kids really don't need to be able to express a "rule" in those cases such as, for example: "When the letters a, e, i, o, or u, are followed by "ck" they represent the short sound." All they really need to do is learn that ack is always pronounced the same wherever they see it. Ditto for the other patterns. Most of the phonics elements themselves can be taught incidentally to a child who's easily learning to read. If they try the /ee/ sound for the digraph "ea" in "break" it's helpful to tell them that it's /ee/ in a lot of words, but in some it's the /ae/ sound. Knowing that, they'll easily read "break" and will be prepared to read "great" and "steak" when they run into them. The first time they run into the digraph "oy" it's helpful to tell them that /oy/ is a sound and it's spelled "oy" in some words and "oi" in others. They'll probably figure it out fairly quickly even if you don't tell them, but if they're struggling with it, why not clear it up for them? What I'd be most alert for in the case of good readers are two things: Guessing at longer words, and trying unrealistic options. If they're guessing whenever they run into an unfamiliar long word, I'd spend some time getting them to figure out the phonics of the word. And if they're trying unrealistic sounds for a letter or digraph, then maybe some more organized phonics instruction is called for. That's my two cents worth anyway....

Today I've decided to make the PDF of the OnTrack Reading Phonogram Flash Cards a free download, in case anyone is interested. They can be downloaded from this page of my site. Happy Holidays!

I suspect the issue is that he's trying to get his face close enough to the book or computer so that he's effectively reading with only one eye. If his eyes aren't working well together, moving close to the page can have the effect of parking one eye off target far enough that he's just using one eye to read. If he tries tracking with his eyes, instead of his head, that can increase his confusion because the "parked" eye might end up fixating close to the eye he's using, giving him double vision again. I fully agree that your next stop should be a developmental optometrist. You've already gotten some good advice on locating one, but here's a page on my site that you might also find useful: Find a Vision Therapy Provider. By the way, the symptoms of some vision issues overlap significantly with the symptoms of ADHD, so it's possible that addressing any vision issues he has could also positively affect some of his ADHD behaviors. If he is moving his face close to print to get down to using one eye, it would be interesting to see how he reacts if you tell him to sit up straight, track with his eyes, but cover one eye as he reads. If you ask him to cover one eye with his hand, the eye he covers is probably the one he's trying to cut out of the action. And if he can actually track with the uncovered eye, and read at normal distance, you'd have a pretty good indication that his problem involves both eyes not working well together. (This last bit shouldn't be considered any sort of diagnostic test, by the way. I'd just be curious how he reacts.)

In the first studies done to determine whether symptoms of convergence insufficiency would be alleviated best by in-office VT, something like 90% of the parents couldn't determine that their child was in the placebo group, so I think they've got that part figured out. As for this being some "program" that's being tested, the program is in-office vision therapy, the same VT that people have found success with (often anyway) in here. This is the sort of research that needs to be done to get others outside of COVD circles to accept VT as a valid treatment for reading issues. The very fact that it's being done under the auspices of the National Institute of Health is huge. If you go into a school and speak to the LD coordinator and ask if VT is an accepted research-based treatment for reading problems, you'll likely be told that it isn't, and therefore the school won't feel responsible for offering it. This is exactly the sort of study that needs to be done to break down that sort of resistance and I, for one, am delighted to see it being carried out. If it shows what I suspect it will, hundreds of thousands of struggling readers could finally someday be offered the help they need instead of being pigeon-holed by teachers and administrators into resource rooms where they're asked to do what they're physically incapable of doing day after day after day, i.e., learn to read. As I said at the outset, the initial studies have already been done. The current study is aimed at more directly linking VT and reading, rather than just linking VT and symptoms of convergence insufficiency (many of which look a lot like reading issues.) If VT improves reading levels, as it will in many cases in my opinion, that will open a lot of doors. The only caveat I would offer the researchers is to not overlook the role that phonics instruction plays in learning to read. VT doesn't teach reading. VT makes it easier to learn to read but someone still needs to teach reading. Some kids have internalized enough phonics before VT that they blossom during therapy, leading parents to believe that VT teaches reading, but it doesn't; it enables it. If a child is hopelessly confused about how print works, VT won't necessarily create a better reader on its own. Were I to design a study following up the one under discussion here I would do a pre-VT phonics course and compare it to a post-VT phonics course. Over the years I've taught my phonics course, those who've already had VT have always been the easier of the two groups to teach, but someone eventually should do a gold standard study and prove it.

Adults sign up for trials all the time, knowing that they might get the placebo instead of what they hope will be a potentially life saving drug or procedure. Why? Because they're dying. If the trial proves a drug/procedure has benefit, logically they'll get it later if they only got the placebo at first. Similarly, adults make decisions about their kids everyday, decisions that often affect their kids' lives over the long term. One such decision is obviously, to homeschool, or not to homeschool? Another is whether or not to try vision therapy. What if, as i often the case, money is a huge obstacle? So, they enroll their child in a trial hoping for a good result but their child ends up in a placebo treatment. If the trial is wildly successful, what parent wouldn't then switch to the effective treatment if given the chance? Two points: The placebo treatment should obviously come with an offer of a free course of the effective treatment, should it be shown to be effective. Also, the placebo should be "harmless." Those of you arguing that the child won't later undergo VT are implying that the placebo isn't harmless because a child won't go through VT later having undergone the stress of the placebo treatment. You're therefore assuming that the placebo will be as stressful as VT. That need not be the case. In some studies, for example, the child just does another constructive activity involving reading, writing, or skills development. In the case of the study that's already been done on convergence insufficiency the in-office treatment involved doing vision work that was not intended to improve convergence ability, but that looked like vision work nonetheless. The NIH has already overseen significant studies on the effectiveness of in-office VT as compared to the traditional pencil pushups often prescribed by optometrists and also as compared to a placebo treatment. The page Convergence Insufficiency Study on my site has links to those studies. (The links used to go to JAMA archives but it appears they now charge for viewing anything but the abstract so today I located online pdf's of the studies and now link to them instead.) Incidentally, these were very powerful, "gold standard" studies that should convince a lot of eye care professionals, including some who have been critical in the past, that vision therapy is a valid procedure for addressing issues related to learning to read, and to reading comfortably. In fact, my first reaction to seeing this posting was that it's already been done.

Actually, Ellie, it's much simpler and I never had a parent, or child for that matter, who couldn't easily follow the /err/ lesson in the workbook. Now, I'll admit that the discussion as to why something is done can get both complicated and contentious, but the end result, once decided upon, is quite straightforward. If you had been sitting in with Spalding as she was making decisions how to encode various words before she'd come up with her system, you'd have witnessed some pretty complex discussions going on, I suspect. After all, it's English we're dealing with here, with it's very complicated orthography. Besides, it's Spalding that generates all the debate among parents as to how to encode certain words, because she unfortunately used the single-underline for multiple purposes, and numbering for multiple purposes as well, plus trying to explain five different ending-e situations. The only time I use a single underline is to indicate a phonogram of two letters or more, and the only time a number appears is when it's used to indicate a second, third, or fourth sound for a phonogram. And the ending-e issue doesn't occur at all because most of them can be incorporated into phonograms instead. As a result, it's quite easy to understand the coding process I use. I'm quite familiar with Spalding. I'm not sure if you've acquainted yourself with my workbook, but it would seem that you should do so before drawing any conclusion as to which is simpler to implement.

The reason it's confusing for the adult brain is because we're discussing curriculum design, a process entirely different than curriculum instruction. All the child ends up with is the knowledge that, in my area at least, there are several ways to spell the /err/ sound. He has to learn them and he usually easily does. But he doesn't have to know all the ins and outs as to why various decisions were made.

Yes, you're right. I was trying to indicate the two sounds I teach for the digraph "er", those being /er/ (her) and /err/ very. Sorry for the confusion. The same thing applies to the discussion of "ar" that you questioned. Those are the four different sounds I teach for the digraph "ar" /ar/, /or/, /er/ and /err/.

I agree with you. Around here "there" and "they're" are homonyms. The person raising the question initially raised the short-e possibility. I just accepted it as what they do. Again, around here, "marry," "marry," and "Mary" all sound the same, so I find it useful to teach an /err/ sound (sounds like "air").

I'm reasonably sure that if you try this method you'll see results quickly: Telling b from d I borrowed it from Spalding's Writing Road to Reading and it usually works well, plus it's fast and easy to teach. If you teach him to form the b "line first" and the d "circle first" when writing it will work for both writing and reading. And as long as he's going left to right when reading and writing, right/left confusion shouldn't make a difference. By the way, I'm glad you're seeing some good results from VT. You're right, it's a confusing issue all around and most people aren't really convinced until they see what it can do for a child. This is why I advocate tackling the vision side first, before getting too nervous about all the other issues. They might exist, but it's surprising how many behaviors change once vision skills are in place. Rod Everson OnTrack Reading

Here's my personal test for whether or not to include an /err/ sound in a local curriculum: "Marry merry Mary." If your local dialect clearly differentiates all three words (by using a short-a for "marry", a short-e for "merry" and a long-a for "Mary" then those spellings are unlikely to cause a lot of confusion. In that case, "where" and "there" are likely to be sounded with a short-e sound. However, you're claiming there has a long-a sound, so I suspect that you, like in my case, hear "marry merry Mary" as homonyms, all sounding the same. If that's the case, I recommend teaching an /err/ sound (pronounced "air") for the following spellings: ere, there, where, and derivatives of the last two like somewhere, therefore, etc. Words with "err" like cherry, merry, terrible, etc. Words with the digraph "er" like very, merit, and perish (the /err/ sound becomes the second sound for the digraph "er" as in her, very) Words with the digraph "ar" like vary, Mary, and parent (the /err/ sound becomes the fourth sound for the digraph "ar" as in car, war, collar, parent) Words with "arr" like marry, Larry, and arrow. Thus, ere, err, and arr are all pronounced /err/ on the first attempt and the digraphs "er" and "ar" have the /err/ options added to them. However, I found it unnecessary to teach ear (bear), air (chair), eir (their) and are (share) as spellings of the /err/ sound because I've never had a child who couldn't decode these by trying the long-a sound for ea, ai, ei, and a_e respectively, as they are taught to do. In the case of "ea" it's the 3rd option after trying /ee/ (teach) and /e/ (head) first and second respectively. Similarly, "ei" is taught as having a 1st option of /ee/ (receive) and a 2nd option of /ae/ (vein). I would add that the /err/ sound is the last sound that is covered in my workbook. It's there for use where it works, as in our area.

The headaches you mention make me wonder if the optometrist missed something. Does he/she oversee a vision therapy center and are there several satisfied parents that willingly serve as references? I would suspect a vision problem even before the headaches, but toss them in and I'm really surprised nothing of significance was found in the exam. If you are going ahead with vision therapy anyway, before spending the money I'd want to meet a few satisfied parents. Any reputable VT center should be able to refer you to several parents more than willing to share their experience with you. That said, I'll assume no major vision issues for the rest of this. Regarding letter formation, I'd recommend getting a library copy (or a used copy of an older edition) of Spalding's Writing Road to Reading and teaching the exact letter formation technique she describes in her book for lower case letters. The reason I'm saying that is so that she is prepared for the next step which is to learn to associate one sound with one symbol. Cursive writing isn't ideal for that since you glide from letter to letter without a pause between symbols. For example, you can't tell if she's thinking /sh/ while writing "sh", etc. I'm also assuming she knows most of the one-to-one letter/sound relationships and is ready for the advanced phonics code. After teaching her the letter formation from Spalding, take a look at the advanced code phonics workbook on my site. If you go to this page at Lulu.com you can read some of the reviews to see if they sound like your daughter's situation. (I know I'm probably not supposed to refer to my own product here, and I normally don't, but I do think there's an excellent chance you'd find it helpful. What I'm thinking is that your daughter's strong memory combined with early public school teaching has created a predominantly sight word reader and that can be a tough situation to address without a very systematic, and multi-sensory, approach to phonics instruction with lots of repetition.) All the best, Rod Everson OnTrack Reading

I've seen kids like that who seem to understand but have trouble linking what they've learned from explanations and exercises with what they're seeing on the page. In many cases the trouble is that they're just not seeing what we think they should be seeing, but are visually confused instead. Have you had him to a developmental optometrist for a check on his vision skills yet? If not, you should consider doing so because there's a decent chance that vision therapy could help him. Granted, he's still pretty young and could be doing just fine inside of a year, but if he continues to struggle with print I'd next rule out vision issues as the source of his reading problem.

I'm pretty sure it's pronounced sweet in French. But in some parts of the U.S. people pronounce it like our "suit." I've always heard it pronounced "sweet" in the north and used in terms of furniture, like a bedroom suite, for example. As for it being recently borrowed, it's been used in English for decades at least, and probably much longer. It's true though that a lot of the words where the letter "i" represents the /ee/ sound were borrowed from other languages, like confetti and spaghetti.

If it's done by a developmental optometrist, or possibly an orthoptist in your country, I would say yes. If the OD finds problems, however, the followup testing is likely to be considerably longer (an hour or two.) The purpose of the additional testing would be to indicate areas that need therapy and to establish baselines in various vision skills including visual perceptual skills. They might do things differently there, however.

Some suggestions that you can take or leave: 1. As you can see there's a debate about the letter "y". I've covered in in depth at The Easiest Change if you want to read it. 2. There are no true sight words. Virtually every word has some phonics content. However, as your examples illustrate, some words also include some letters that add nothing to the phonic content, or more likely, confuse the phonics. My suggestion is to use the double-underline to mark the confusing content and to add, under the double-underline, any explanation that might be useful. Thus, "two" has the "w" double-underlined with nothing under the lines, indicating that it is not pronounced and that it's also not part of a phonogram that is pronounced. The words "sword" and "answer" are treated similarly, by the way. incidentally, any letter double-underlined with nothing noted under the lines has to be remembered for spelling because there's no phonics cue present. The word "of" has the "f" double-underlined, but in addition it has a "v" written under the "f" indicating that it's a letter that represents an unusual sound for that letter, i.e., a sound that should not normally be associated with that letter (or digraph.) Another example would be a word like "height" where the "eigh" is double-underlined and an "ie" written under it to show that it's pronounced with an /ie/ sound instead of the normal /ae/ sound for that phonogram. 3. Some of the trickier ones: "one": I treat the "ne" in none and done (and a lot of longer words, like "vaccine" for example, as a digraph (phonogram) for the /n/ sound at the end of words. Ditto for the "me" in some and come, etc., and the "te" in waste and suite. Now, "one" is composed of /w/o/n/, so what about the /w/ sound. My approach is to draw a double-underline under the space before the word and put a "w" under the double-underline. Ditto for "once". Having done that, you can compare "one" with "none" and "done". "One" and "once" are the only words I'm aware of where we pronounce a sound in a word, but there is no phonogram appearing there. "suite": If you pronounce it "suit" as some do, it's easy because "ui" is the /oo/ sound in other words (fruit juice) and the "te" is the /t/ sound in many words as well. So just underline "ui" as a phonogram for /oo/ and "te" as an ending phonogram for /t/. However, if you pronounce it "sweet" it's more complicated. I can't come up with more examples at the moment, but the letter "u" has, as one pronunciation, the /oo/ sound. This happens to also be the pronunciation of the letter "w" if you try it out. Read "sweet" out loud and you'll be saying /s/oo/ee/t/, but you're saying the /oo/ quickly as a consonant, rather than loudly as a vowel (compare "suet" where you say two syllables, accenting the /oo/.) My choice is to double-underline the "u" in "suite" and place a "w" under it, then wait until much later (if at all) to explain the similarity between /w/ and /oo/, maybe after the situation has come up a couple of times in multisyllable words. This is getting way too long because it's an area of interest of mine. The main point is to be consistent and to figure out an easy way to indicate the phonograms that are not pronounced normally in a particular word. I reserve the double-underline exclusively for that purpose and the single underline exclusively for phonograms with more than one letter. If I find I've double underlined the same phonogram more than two or three times, placing the same correction under it each time, I then reconsider whether it should be taught as an accepted sound for that phonogram instead of an exception.