silaom--Question about Seeing Stars

[Tabrett]

Hi silaom,

 

I was just wondering what type of activities Seeing Stars has a child do to learn to visualize words.

 

I don't see pictures or words. To me seeing a word in my head would be like seeing a picture. I am all auditory. I "hear" everything in my head and must see an actual picture to visualize. I must sound out a word to spell and thankfully, as a child, I "broke" the phonetic code after learning to read with Dick and Jane books. I was a very good reader, but below average in spelling. When I read, I hear my reading in my head just like it was being read aloud, with voices for each character and sometimes background music to go along.:D

 

This really confuses me: If you are a visual learner, how is reading hard since you look at images (letters) to read? Why wouldn't visual learners learn to read well with whole language since you are memorizing a "picture" of letters representing a word?

 

I'm confused how reading is "auditory" since you don't actually "hear" anything when you read unless you are reading out loud. When reading you are having to turn images into sounds not turn sound into images.

 

Anyway, back to my original question: what types of exercises does Seeing Stars have a dc do to learn to visualize words?

[wapiti]

This really confuses me: If you are a visual learner, how is reading hard since you look at images (letters) to read? Why wouldn't visual learners learn to read well with whole language since you are memorizing a "picture" of letters representing a word?

 

I'm confused how reading is "auditory" since you don't actually "hear" anything when you read unless you are reading out loud. When reading you are having to turn images into sounds not turn sound into images.

 

I'm not silaom and I don't know about Seeing Stars (my older kids are past that stage and my younger ones not yet at it), but I'll take a stab at these questions.

 

Letters on a page, particularly for a VSL who is just learning to read, are meaningless images. It's not just about learning visually, but about learning through actual meaningful information and connections to other pieces of information, i.e., where the new information fits in context of other information the person already knows.

 

You are correct that often a greater emphasis on whole language may make learning to read easier in the early stages for a VSL. The longer the word the better, since longer words are more unique-looking. (Of course this wouldn't be to the exclusion of phonics.) See, e.g., http://www.visualspatial.org/Articles/wholes.pdf . My dd could read unique things like "Dr. Suess", even in different fonts, at 3 y.o., but struggled, and I mean really struggled, with "cat" at 6 y.o. Ultimately, a combination of listening therapy with OT for sensory issues, and vision therapy for eye tracking issues, got her over the hump and she progressed a couple of grade levels in reading in about six months. But I'm not sure how to separate out her weaknesses with the general VSL stuff, and I can't tell for sure whether it was her vision issue by itself or the listening therapy having some sort of auditory effect (it was not for the purpose of auditory issues but may have helped anyway).

 

Many people do "hear" inside their head when they read, even though they're not reading aloud. People with auditory weaknesses tend to have a more difficult time blending phenomes when learning to read (honestly I'm still not sure I understand the reason why, except that I know this is often the case, as it was for my dd).

 

that's my two cents ;)