Emphasis on wrong syllable

[Mom-ninja.]

My oldest is dyslexic, and we are working on multi-syllable words right now. He can sound out each syllable, but when he puts the syllables together he puts the emphasis in the wrong places. Then he doesn't recognize what the word is. I have no idea how to help him fix this.

[OrganicAnn]

Does he always emphasize the first syllable? If so, when he doesn't recognize the word have him then move on to try the second or the last syllable.

[Renee in NC]

REWARDS works on this by having the student correct words that have the wrong syllable accented and/or the wrong vowel sound. It works well there because of the context in a sentence.

 

Are you using REWARDS? If not, I can give you an overview of how it teaches decoding multisyllable words.

 

My 11yo's biggest problem comes with words he hasn't heard before - he doesn't know *how* they should sound, so he couldn't even begin to guess whether his pronunciation is off or not.

[lissijane]

REWARDS works on this by having the student correct words that have the wrong syllable accented and/or the wrong vowel sound. It works well there because of the context in a sentence.

 

Are you using REWARDS? If not, I can give you an overview of how it teaches decoding multisyllable words.

 

My 11yo's biggest problem comes with words he hasn't heard before - he doesn't know *how* they should sound, so he couldn't even begin to guess whether his pronunciation is off or not.

 

Sorry to hijack this but I would love to know more about rewards.

[AngelaNYC]

My 8yo ds just started doing the same thing. He was reading an I Spy book and he came over to ask what the word "eleven" was - emphasizing the first syllable (he was to look for "eleven spiders". I think he thought "ELeven" was some sort of physical trait or something). I wouldn't tell him, but had him clap out the syllables in the word, putting emphasis on each one. We did that a few times. The next 2 words were "lobster" and "guitar". Clapping out syllables and overemphasizing them seemed to work that day.

 

I think they do that because they're expecting it to be another word they know. Ds knows "elephant" and he might have been thinking of that. Once he has a wrong word in his head, it's hard to turn it around.

 

Also, I want to know if your son does this: He sees a word that's fairly easy to read, but says a completely different word, because it has the same first and last letters (and maybe one in the middle). The other day ds saw something on tv that said "Jimmy Buffet" and he read "Jimmy Breakfast". If I tell him to sound it out, he'll have no problem reading it correctly. My ds does this a lot.

[ElizabethB]

Webster's Speller marks the accented syllable and groups words by accent pattern, that might be helpful practice.

 

I think there are patterns for how they generally work in Latin words and separate patterns for words of Anglo-Saxon origin--but, most Anglo-Saxon words aren't that long. I don't know about Greek. These are the 3 main sources of words in English (French is also sometimes listed, but most words that come from French also have a Latin background.)

 

If you start a new thread with a title like "Latin/Greek accent rules?" someone who has studied those languages might be able to help. I probably have this info somewhere it some of my more technical reference materials but I don't know the answer off the top of my head and will be busy this Thanksgiving break.

[Mom-ninja.]

Also, I want to know if your son does this: He sees a word that's fairly easy to read, but says a completely different word, because it has the same first and last letters (and maybe one in the middle). The other day ds saw something on tv that said "Jimmy Buffet" and he read "Jimmy Breakfast". If I tell him to sound it out, he'll have no problem reading it correctly. My ds does this a lot.

 

Oh yes. He does this. He'll also reverse letters as well. For example yesterday he said, "been" when he was trying to read the word "need."

 

For 15 minutes he struggled with the word "envelope." He kept saying "enVElope" and he just couldn't get it. He had him repeat it slowly syllable by syllable hoping he'd catch the word. He never did.

 

I can try the clapping.

 

We're using ABeCeDarian right now, and I'm trying to decide if I should use REWARDS or Great Leaps after. REWARDS has very good reviews.

 

Thanks for all the suggestions. I'll print out some Webster for him as well.

[AngelaNYC]

He'll also reverse letters as well. For example yesterday he said, "been" when he was trying to read the word "need."

 

My ds does that, too. On is No, Wants is Wasn't, For is Of, and b and d are still hard to remember. Today he read "glibe" instead of "glide", but quickly corrected himself. He also will read just the first 3 letters of a long word and guess the rest. (e.g. Today he read Invention as Investing). It tends to drive me crazy, lol. Patience patience patience.