ugh. so sad about ds's reading struggles.

[jentancalann]

I'm testing my upcoming 4th grader using the Pass test now, as we speak. I'm realizing how very much he cannot read. I thought we were doing well, but it seems he has many more struggles than I even realized now that I cannot help him or coach him through words. Pink is punch, branch is bunch, during is bring, and so on. I'm just so very sad for him and need to reevaluate what we're doing. He's had no formal evaluation, but I'm sure he's dyslexic. His eyes have been tested and are fine. We've been doing All About Spelling and I thought he was progressing. This test is a big eye opener and I'm not sure which way to go. :sad:

[jentancalann]

Oh my word.

 

Here's his last question.

 

She likes people. She likes the dog. She likes the house. She likes big girls. She is a little girl.

 

What is she?

 

1. a dog

2. a big girl

3. a little girl

4 a little house

 

And the answer he gives?

An excited, "she's a dog!"

"why?", I ask

"because she likes to dig, didn't it say that?"

 

and yes, he did read all the answers.

 

totally gonna bomb this one.

[Laurie4b]

Can you describe the methods you've been using to teach him? Maybe we could help with suggestions.

[jentancalann]

Basically straight phonics. We've done several programs, MFW 1st, R&S, Phonics's Pathways and Reading Pathways. We've also gotten through 2 levels of Sam books (BRI), which I picked up again yesterday after the disaster we experienced with his first testing. We're on lvl 3 of AAS. At this year's convention I came across The Struggling Reader, which I purchased a portion of and started using the last few weeks of school. We've had to take about 4 weeks off to move and haven't been able to keep up the reading work. It seems he has regressed during this time. I suspect an auditory processing thing going on too, and have put a hold on When the Brain Can't Hear and The Gift of Dyslexia. I know AAS is OG based, but I am really unsure of the other approaches I hear about, how to implement them, etc.

[Ottakee]

I would certainly keep going with the I See Sam books---using the cursor to help him focus on any words he reads wrong. Honestly, with the I see Sam books, it is usually about the 4th set before they start doing OK with other reading materials.

 

I would also suggest that you check out Apples and Pears for spelling as it works very well with the BRI books and has no word lists but all applying the spelling.

 

Has he had his hearing checked? If not, I would suggest an audiologist to make sure there are no fine hearing issues going on. Some of his reading errors could be due to hearing issues.

[AngelaNYC]

You just described how my son was last year. Words look like other words and he won't even sound them out, he just says what it looks like. Small words don't exist (a, the, of) and when he reads them, "of" is "for" and "for" is "from". It's very sad and frustrating for him.

 

It was hard to understand this, as his 2 sisters were fluent readers at 4 and 3 years old.

 

Everything I've read about whole-language or whole-word readers fits him. He also has 25 out of the 26 dyslexia symptoms I've researched. I have gone through a couple of phonics programs with him, but the only thing that seems to help is constant repetition and lots of reading aloud. We've done flash cards of sight words, writing out sentences with the words, alphabetical order, 3x each, and a word wall. Everything was kept fun. Books he read aloud were purposefully below his grade level in order to build confidence. We used the Hooked on Phonics Master Reader program, which was ok, but I'm not sure how effective it was.

 

For a whole year, he read aloud to me every day. We started with just 2 sentences and built up to a paragraph. I couldn't overwhelm him with more than a paragraph at a time or he'd shut down. Then we'd do the rest of our lessons - I read aloud to him and he'd follow along. Sometimes we'd take turns reading sentences.

 

A year later, he still reads aloud to me every day. He does a whole page now. He's reading Abraham Lincoln by D'Aulaire to me. Ideally we should be doing a page (or at least a paragraph) 3 or 4 times a day spread out. He dislikes it, but I've been trying to get to that point. I've noticed that he slides backwards if we skip reading days.

 

He is also getting really good at proofreading - finding spelling mistakes, punctuation mistakes, and missing words. He never would have been able to do this last year. This is such a great exercise.

 

We're also going to start written narrations and dictation this year. He'll be in 4th grade and I think he's ready. I'm planning on taking it very slowly.

 

So even though I haven't had him formally evaluated, I have an idea as to what the problem is and have been diligently working with him to overcome it. He's come so far in a year. So, maybe you can try some of these things. Good luck.

[jentancalann]

Thank you. It was you who turned me on to them in the first place. Thanks for the motivation to keep going. We had quit last year and went on to SL's readers and he was doing pretty well there for a while. I just can't figure out when to move on to the next book. He can't ever read the whole book w/out stumbling, so do we just move through them after a couple of readings? It just seemed as if they weren't helping anything in particular. He's fine when I'm reading with him, but if I'm not there to tell him to say the sounds, read the word, then he doesn't even notice that he's made a mistake. Will he eventually figure that out? He seems to know most of the code, but doesn't always see it. I don't like asking the yahoo group because so many of them don't believe dyslexia exists.

 

I would certainly keep going with the I See Sam books---using the cursor to help him focus on any words he reads wrong. Honestly, with the I see Sam books, it is usually about the 4th set before they start doing OK with other reading materials.

 

I would also suggest that you check out Apples and Pears for spelling as it works very well with the BRI books and has no word lists but all applying the spelling.

 

Has he had his hearing checked? If not, I would suggest an audiologist to make sure there are no fine hearing issues going on. Some of his reading errors could be due to hearing issues.

[merry gardens]

... I just can't figure out when to move on to the next book. He can't ever read the whole book w/out stumbling, so do we just move through them after a couple of readings? It just seemed as if they weren't helping anything in particular. He's fine when I'm reading with him, but if I'm not there to tell him to say the sounds, read the word, then he doesn't even notice that he's made a mistake. Will he eventually figure that out? He seems to know most of the code, but doesn't always see it. ...

Teach to the point of "mastery" before moving along. Help him find his own mistakes. He probably not figure out his mistakes on his own--instead he'll think he gets it when he's really doing things like reading "dig" for "dog" and other simple mistakes that can change the entire meaning of the story.

 

Several of the mistakes, like "dig/dog", showed he switched vowel sounds, (among others). Check out his phonemic awareness. Some children have a very hard time hearing the difference between the various vowels sounds. The O-G program we work with (Barton's) first introduces one short sounds at a time with tap, touch and say. I've been working with the program for several months and my son still needs to tap the vowel from time to time, otherwise he still confuses two sounds. The switching sounds happens less frequently now, and he's able to catch his mistakes quicker.

 

Switching the consonent or missing sounds in words works the same way. Check phonemic awareness. Teach to mastery. That might mean you have to go and "clean up" old reading habits or do further work with phonemic awareness. (My son with dyslexia and I had to work on LiPS before he could pass Barton's screening.) Since I have the Barton's program, I'm doing it with his older brother too, to help "clean up" his spelling. Just yesterday my older son read "split" as "spilt". It didn't change the entire meaning of the story, so he was able to answer comprehension questions okay. But I caught the error and asked him to re-read the sentance. He made that mistake over and over and over--until I told him to touch and say each sound on each word. Finally, he caught his mistake.

 

Be there to read with him when he reads. The habits of making mistake can amplify the longer the child mis-reads words. As long as he's stumbling with the material, he still needs you to be there to read with him.

Edited July 7, 2010 by merry gardens

[jentancalann]

Teach to the point of "mastery" before moving along. Help him find his own mistakes. He probably not figure out his mistakes on his own--instead he'll think he gets it when he's really doing things like reading "dig" for "dog" and other simple mistakes that can change the entire meaning of the story.

 

This is the problem that I can't figure out how to fix. Every since he was little and learning letters he would have an issue with recalling information. One day he would know the letter perfectly fine, the next it was as if he'd never seen it before. Some days he will read a book with just a missed word or two, others he's stumbling all over the place with the same book. There is never any mastery, 95% of the time some letters are reversed or he's saying different letters. He knows the letters, he knows the sounds, but they don't come out of his mouth right and half the time he doesn't realize it. If I taught for complete mastery, we would never, ever move out of one sam book.

 

Several of the mistakes, like "dig/dog", (actually he read big as dig and somehow got that the dog like to dig) showed he switched vowel sounds, (among others). Check out his phonemic awareness. Some children have a very hard time hearing the difference between the various vowels sounds. The O-G program we work with (Barton's) first introduces one short sounds at a time with tap, touch and say. I've been working with the program for several months and my son still needs to tap the vowel from time to time, otherwise he still confuses two sounds. The switching sounds happens less frequently now, and he's able to catch his mistakes quicker.

 

Phonemic awareness doesn't seem to be a problem. He can hear sounds and identify them/speak them back.

 

Switching the consonent or missing sounds in words works the same way. Check phonemic awareness. Teach to mastery. That might mean you have to go and "clean up" old reading habits or do further work with phonemic awareness. (My son with dyslexia and I had to work on LiPS before he could pass Barton's screening.) Since I have the Barton's program, I'm doing it with his older brother too, to help "clean up" his spelling. Just yesterday my older son read "split" as "spilt". It didn't change the entire meaning of the story, so he was able to answer comprehension questions okay. But I caught the error and asked him to re-read the sentance. He made that mistake over and over and over--until I told him to touch and say each sound on each word. Finally, he caught his mistake.

 

This is what I do as well. Say the sounds, read the word. He will eventually catch his mistake if told there is one.

 

Be there to read with him when he reads. The habits of making mistake can amplify the longer the child mis-reads words. As long as he's stumbling with the material, he still needs you to be there to read with him.

 

Always. Every time.

 

 

I certainly don't mean to discredit what you've written as I am very thankful for you taking the time to reply. I'm just showing how frustrated I am with what's going on. I seem to be doing all of the right things and yet, things aren't clicking. Some days he reads smooth, others, especially on the standardized test, he can't make sense of any of it. There were whole questions he had to skip because he couldn't read the story. Last year he read aloud to me books like Little Bear, Frog and Toad, The Fire Cat, and A Big Ball of String. We could do about 4-5 pages in one sitting that would take about 20 minutes. I knew testing wouldn't be fun. Thank goodness the Pass test is not timed or we would really be hitting a brick wall. Thank you for your reply, really.

[jentancalann]

You just described how my son was last year. Words look like other words and he won't even sound them out, he just says what it looks like. Small words don't exist (a, the, of) and when he reads them, "of" is "for" and "for" is "from". It's very sad and frustrating for him.

 

It was hard to understand this, as his 2 sisters were fluent readers at 4 and 3 years old.

 

Everything I've read about whole-language or whole-word readers fits him. He also has 25 out of the 26 dyslexia symptoms I've researched. I have gone through a couple of phonics programs with him, but the only thing that seems to help is constant repetition and lots of reading aloud. We've done flash cards of sight words, writing out sentences with the words, alphabetical order, 3x each, and a word wall. Everything was kept fun. Books he read aloud were purposefully below his grade level in order to build confidence. We used the Hooked on Phonics Master Reader program, which was ok, but I'm not sure how effective it was.

 

For a whole year, he read aloud to me every day. We started with just 2 sentences and built up to a paragraph. I couldn't overwhelm him with more than a paragraph at a time or he'd shut down. Then we'd do the rest of our lessons - I read aloud to him and he'd follow along. Sometimes we'd take turns reading sentences.

 

A year later, he still reads aloud to me every day. He does a whole page now. He's reading Abraham Lincoln by D'Aulaire to me. Ideally we should be doing a page (or at least a paragraph) 3 or 4 times a day spread out. He dislikes it, but I've been trying to get to that point. I've noticed that he slides backwards if we skip reading days.

 

He is also getting really good at proofreading - finding spelling mistakes, punctuation mistakes, and missing words. He never would have been able to do this last year. This is such a great exercise.

 

We're also going to start written narrations and dictation this year. He'll be in 4th grade and I think he's ready. I'm planning on taking it very slowly.

 

So even though I haven't had him formally evaluated, I have an idea as to what the problem is and have been diligently working with him to overcome it. He's come so far in a year. So, maybe you can try some of these things. Good luck.

 

Thanks so much. It sounds like you're doing an excellent job with him. To go from what you described to reading a page of Abe Lincoln in a year sounds like major progress to me!

[RamonaQ]

One of the most important things that I heard from our recent neuropsych eval of my ds, and have now incorporated into my "mantra", is that these kids are going to be late bloomers. They WILL learn to read, with appropriate and consistent support, however, the pathway will just be slow. Likewise, there are two notable "leaps"-- early middle-school and again in mid-high school.

 

So, what is appropriate and consistent, you have heard some things here already. In our family what has helped the most has been a very structured phonics program which happened to be incorporated with a vision therapy program. However, it was incredibly explicit-- each sound, vowel combination and consonant combination, is carefully taught and practiced. Likewise, sight words-- such as then, when, than-- need to be also taught in some sort of multisensory way (either creating pictures, modeling out of clay, or using color combinations). Furthermore, as others have suggested, using paired reading-- daily read alouds with your child then re-reading what you just read.

 

It will be slow going. However, your ds WILL get it. Focus on things he IS good at. Listen to books on tape, watch educational videos, do work orally. And, get support when YOU need it.

 

And, PS, I still sometimes get sad, too.

[jentancalann]

One of the most important things that I heard from our recent neuropsych eval of my ds, and have now incorporated into my "mantra", is that these kids are going to be late bloomers. They WILL learn to read, with appropriate and consistent support, however, the pathway will just be slow. Likewise, there are two notable "leaps"-- early middle-school and again in mid-high school.

 

So, what is appropriate and consistent, you have heard some things here already. In our family what has helped the most has been a very structured phonics program which happened to be incorporated with a vision therapy program. However, it was incredibly explicit-- each sound, vowel combination and consonant combination, is carefully taught and practiced. Likewise, sight words-- such as then, when, than-- need to be also taught in some sort of multisensory way (either creating pictures, modeling out of clay, or using color combinations). Furthermore, as others have suggested, using paired reading-- daily read alouds with your child then re-reading what you just read.

 

It will be slow going. However, your ds WILL get it. Focus on things he IS good at. Listen to books on tape, watch educational videos, do work orally. And, get support when YOU need it.

 

And, PS, I still sometimes get sad, too.

 

Thank you- very encouraging.

[JessieKat]

Children have good and bad days. It seems like you're making some form of progress -- even if it isn't the progress you're looking for precisely. You also appear to be doing all the right things. One thing that's especially crucial is your involvement in their education! So far, so good!

 

I also agree with Merry Garden's comment. When a child has mastered a book, those words transfer over to the next piece of literature and his issues with reading words as he sees them will (hopefully) become somewhat of an advantage.

 

Just keep trying and I know you'll accomplish your goals. It takes time. I, myself, was in a reading comprehension program. It's not that I wasn't trying or that I was slow -- it's just that being forced to read something over and over again can be a HUGE task to ask of someone who's around the ages of 5-10. Most children are "A.D.D" because, you guessed it, they're kids! :)

 

Good luck with everything! I know you can do it!

[merry gardens]

This is the problem that I can't figure out how to fix. Every since he was little and learning letters he would have an issue with recalling information. One day he would know the letter perfectly fine, the next it was as if he'd never seen it before. Some days he will read a book with just a missed word or two, others he's stumbling all over the place with the same book. There is never any mastery, 95% of the time some letters are reversed or he's saying different letters. He knows the letters, he knows the sounds, but they don't come out of his mouth right and half the time he doesn't realize it. If I taught for complete mastery, we would never, ever move out of one sam book.

 

...

I certainly don't mean to discredit what you've written as I am very thankful for you taking the time to reply. I'm just showing how frustrated I am with what's going on. I seem to be doing all of the right things and yet, things aren't clicking. Some days he reads smooth, others, especially on the standardized test, he can't make sense of any of it. There were whole questions he had to skip because he couldn't read the story. ...

I understand the frustration. :grouphug: Believe me, I understand.

 

Standardized testing serves the purpose of helping to identify problems. If you already know there's a problem, don't get too stressed over how your child reads and performs on the test. (I know, I know, that's easier said than done.) Children with dyslexia benefit from controlled texts--and standardized tests usually exposes them to words that they have not yet learned how to read or more than they can do in one sitting. (My son couldn't do much of the reading on the standardized tests either--but he still had a one in four chance of answering the questions right.:tongue_smilie: )

 

You are doing many of the things people have suggested and things that are appropriate for children with reading problems...except...you say are not teaching to mastery. If that means the child still needs to work on the first story or spelling simple CVC words with letter tiles or whatever, then that's what we do here. I am hesitant to give my child anything to read that is not highly controlled because he guesses (usually wrong) at words he doesn't know.

 

Believe me, I know how frustrating it is to go so very slow and watch such little progress. That is one reason why I chose an expensive system developed for people with dyslexia. I was frustrated. I was trying things recommended for children with dyslexia and it still wasn't working. But I wasn't teaching to mastery. I wanted to see progress and so we progressed too soon. I overloaded him with more than he could do successfully. Plus, even though we had worked on my son's phonemic awareness the previous year and I thought he got it, he could not pass the Barton's screening. (It might be worth checking their free screening on the websight just to double or triple check.)

 

The titles you mentions may be appropriate for most early readers, but my son would have trouble keeping all those vowel sounds straight. Just look at what the various vowels in the book titles alone do: Little Bear, Frog and Toad, The Fire Cat, and A Big Ball of String. Short i then the e in "little" works with the L. Short o in "frog" different from long o in "toad". E in "the" sounds like uh. I'm not sure yet how exactly to explain the "r" influenced and controlled vowels in "fire". "A" is a sight word often pronounced "uh". The "i" in big performs as expected (short), but that's followed by the L controlled vowel "a" in "all". Then it ends with the very nasal "ing" sound, which makes neither a short nor long i sound. Yes, those books seem very easy to those of us who have mastered reading, but my son is not ready for some of the books you mentioned. He will get there, but he's not there yet.

[merry gardens]

Jentancalann--

Since you haven't responded to my last post, I want to make sure it's clear that I wasn't blaming you (or your teaching methods) for your son's struggles with reading. With all that you write, it does sound like he may have dyslexia, and it's not because of something that you did or did not do.

 

The title of your thread is an excellant title. Ugh. I am also so sad about my son's reading struggles.

[jentancalann]

No, I know you weren't. I just have been thinking and trying to figure out what my next move is. I've requested testers from the Barton site before (a year ago) and never did anything about it, and now I'm having trouble getting that list from them again! It just doesn't seem to take my info. Do you have the link for the free screening? I didn't see it. Thanks for your help!

[merry gardens]

No, I know you weren't. I just have been thinking and trying to figure out what my next move is. I've requested testers from the Barton site before (a year ago) and never did anything about it, and now I'm having trouble getting that list from them again! It just doesn't seem to take my info. Do you have the link for the free screening? I didn't see it. Thanks for your help!

It's a sheet you can download from on this webpage. There's a tutor screening first, and it explains more on how to administer the student screening. http://www.bartonreading.com/students_long.html#screen

 

(My son wasn't able to pass part C of the Barton's screening, which is why we did the LiPS program first. He could say the sounds correctly, but he didn't detect the differences. Vowels were the hardest for him, but there were others. The first level of Barton's works on phonemic awareness, but my son didn't even have enough phonemic awareness to begin their program without extra help.)

[LizzyBee]

No, I know you weren't. I just have been thinking and trying to figure out what my next move is. I've requested testers from the Barton site before (a year ago) and never did anything about it, and now I'm having trouble getting that list from them again! It just doesn't seem to take my info. Do you have the link for the free screening? I didn't see it. Thanks for your help!

 

The student screening is on this page. http://www.bartonreading.com/students_long.html

 

We use Barton Reading, too, and my dd is doing great with it. She also was one of those kids that could read a word one time and not recognize it at all a minute later, let alone the next day or next week. Even with Barton, it's slow going, but at least we can see steady progress forward. We had tried AAS at some point, but it wasn't a good fit at all.

[jentancalann]

Thanks guys, I'll take a look...

[Renee in NC]

One of the most important things that I heard from our recent neuropsych eval of my ds, and have now incorporated into my "mantra", is that these kids are going to be late bloomers. They WILL learn to read, with appropriate and consistent support, however, the pathway will just be slow. Likewise, there are two notable "leaps"-- early middle-school and again in mid-high school.

 

 

 

This was true for my oldest ds - both the early middle school and mid-high school.

 

It was also true for my 12yo - the early middle school jump happened this year.

[Guest Debismomto6]

I am a mom who has had very fluent readers and kids with no problems with spelling or phonics. I have 6 kids (one is only 2 so exclude her from this) and they all read early...BUT...the reason I'm writing is that I discovered later that 3 of them have vision problems that will be undiagnosed by a simple eye exam. It affected their reading comprehension, ability to focus, do long division tasks, or to even do standardized testing etc.

 

I encourage you, before changing your methods and curriculum and beating yourself up, to take a look at the covd.org website. There are checklists and things that explain what you might be seeing with your child to determine if there is a vision problem. You can see 20/20 and still not see correctly, because a vision problem has more to do with how your brain interprets what your eyes see. There are 12 vision processes, and sight in only one of those 12 processes. Two of my children have successfully finished vision therapy, and one is about to start. We have eye muscle weaknesses, convergence excess (eye crossing problems--imagine trying to do school when the words on teh page double!), letter flipping problems (not to be confused with dyslexia...a completely different problem...), sequencing problems, eye hand coordination problems, motor skills problems, etc. All this affects a child's performance academically.

 

Even though therapy is expensive, and often not covered by insurance, it is a short term, simple, and effective therapy that makes a world of difference in an otherwise struggling child. I would encourage you to have your child/ren evaluated by a vision doc specializing in vision development. Vision therapy is similar to occupational therapy for a kid's eye/brain.