Need some advice on teaching my DD7 how to read.

[OleanderRain]

My daughter knows all of the letter sounds but not all the teams (i.e. iegh, ough, ing, dge, and others). She can sound out words and just not hear the word she is saying, it just doesn't click. That's when she'll just throw out a word that doesn't even sound close to what she's reading. Like earlier today, she was sounding out the word white and after 4 times of sounding it out slowly, and it not clicking, she blurted out SQUARE! Is there a reason she can sound out a word and not "get it"? It's been so frustrating. I keep calm and we just take a break when I feel that way but it make's me feel like I'm doing something wrong. Anyone have any helpful hints they could pass my way? TIA!

[AngieW in Texas]

Can she get it if you sound out the word? That was one of the clues for my dd that her issues were visual instead of auditory. She would sound words out perfectly, but then have no idea what she had sounded out when she was done. If I sounded out a word, even a longer word like s-t-r-o-n-g, she could always get it. She could also take any word and break it down into its component sounds.

 

Most kids who have issues with saying the word after sounding it out correctly have auditory issues. They will have difficulties segmenting words (breaking them down into their component sounds) and will have difficulty telling you what the word is even when YOU do the sounding for them.

 

If your dd is like mine (problems are more of a visual nature), you should get a developmental vision evaluation to see if she needs vision therapy. You would also need to make sure that you work on visual processing skills. My dd had to work so hard just to connect the letters to the sounds, that she couldn't remember what she had sounded out when she was done. If I did the sounding out for her, then she didn't have any problems with adding the sounds together.

 

If your dd's problems are more auditory in nature, then you need to look at programs that work on auditory processing skills like Lindamood-Bell LiPS (something or other Phonetic or Phonemic Sequencing).

[ABQmom]

You should get lots of replies from the hive on this one. Take it slow, and take a break. Sometimes a little growth and maturity makes a world of difference. You both sound frustrated.

 

What program are you using? Sometimes a program change can help--assuming she doesn't have a learning issue as PP suggested. I don't use 100 Easy Lessons as a complete phonics program, but it sure helps kids learn to blend sounds.

[OleanderRain]

Can she get it if you sound out the word? That was one of the clues for my dd that her issues were visual instead of auditory. She would sound words out perfectly, but then have no idea what she had sounded out when she was done. If I sounded out a word, even a longer word like s-t-r-o-n-g, she could always get it. She could also take any word and break it down into its component sounds.

 

Most kids who have issues with saying the word after sounding it out correctly have auditory issues. They will have difficulties segmenting words (breaking them down into their component sounds) and will have difficulty telling you what the word is even when YOU do the sounding for them.

 

If your dd is like mine (problems are more of a visual nature), you should get a developmental vision evaluation to see if she needs vision therapy. You would also need to make sure that you work on visual processing skills. My dd had to work so hard just to connect the letters to the sounds, that she couldn't remember what she had sounded out when she was done. If I did the sounding out for her, then she didn't have any problems with adding the sounds together.

 

If your dd's problems are more auditory in nature, then you need to look at programs that work on auditory processing skills like Lindamood-Bell LiPS (something or other Phonetic or Phonemic Sequencing).

 

This sounds just like my daughter! She gets the word if I sound it out, and she doesn't remember what she just sounded out. Say we break up the word "triangle", she'll sound out "tri-" and then "-angle" and when I tell her to put it together she has to sound out "tri-" again! She doesn't remember!

 

Can you give me more info on visual processing skills? I've never heard of this before. :o

[OleanderRain]

You should get lots of replies from the hive on this one. Take it slow, and take a break. Sometimes a little growth and maturity makes a world of difference. You both sound frustrated.

 

What program are you using? Sometimes a program change can help--assuming she doesn't have a learning issue as PP suggested. I don't use 100 Easy Lessons as a complete phonics program, but it sure helps kids learn to blend sounds.

 

Thanks for the encouragement! She's using 100 EZ Lessons. :)

[bairnmama]

My dd was like this, too. We worked on visual tracking/perceptual skills using different kinds of workbooks and games and on auditory/memory skills using Earobics and listening/repeating games. She is 9 now and is reading is finally starting to click. We've made great strides this past year! I still think she needs visual therapy, but we just can't afford it right now.

 

I think what has helped her the most was just backing off formal phonics lessons and having her read to me every single day. I would help her sound out any word she got stuck on and just not let her move on to the next word until she said it correctly. She is one who will completely shut down if she gets too frustrated and formal lessons were too much for her. To keep her learning up to "grade level", we listen to as many books on CD as we can and do much of our work orally.

[AngieW in Texas]

My dd's issues were caused by a combination of visual efficiency delays, visual processing delays, and dyseidetic dyslexia. Vision therapy corrected the visual efficiency delays. After VT, she could finally sound out a cvc word and actually know what she had sounded out. She couldn't remember more than one word though. She also couldn't recognize any words on sight (not even her own name at 7yo) and could not visually compare two words to see if they were the same or different. For instance, if you printed cat multiple times on a sheet of paper, she would sound it out and then say "cat". Then she'd sound out the next one and get mad when she said "cat" again because she was sure that it was a trick. Then she'd look at the next word and have no idea that it was the same word until she heard herself sound it out and then say it.

 

Headsprout is the program that helped her with visual processing. It wasn't cheap, but it did have a 30-day money-back guarantee. It was a little young, but it did what she needed. By the time she was at the end of the 30-day time-period, she was starting to be able to chunk sounds (sound out st-op instead of s-t-o-p) which doubled her reading speed. Believe me, going from 7-8 wpm to 15-20 wpm makes a huge difference. Even 20wpm is extremely painful to listen to. By the time she was halfway through Headsprout, she was starting to recognize some words on sight and could visually compare two words to tell whether they were the same or different. By the end of Headsprout, she was reading solidly on a 1st grade level.

 

The progression that worked for my dd was:

Headsprout with I See Sam readers

Funnix level 2 with Phonics for Reading level 2

Phonics for Reading level 3

lots of work with nonsense words

timed repeated readings of DIBELS Oral Reading Fluency passages starting with 1st grade level and working up to 3rd grade level

Rewards Reading Secondary

 

She is reading at grade level now.

 

Here is the best description I have ever seen of dyseidetic dyslexia:

 

The terms dysphonetic and dyseidetic are words used to describe types of dyslexia.

 

Dysphonetic dyslexia, also called auditory dyslexia, refers to a difficulty connecting sounds to symbols. The child might have a hard time sounding out words, and spelling mistakes would show a very poor grasp of phonics.

 

The dyseidetic child, on the other hand, generally has a good grasp of phonetic concepts. The prominent characteristic of the dyseidetic is the inability to revisualize the gestalt of the word. Usually, the child has little difficulty spelling words which may be long but are phonetically regular. It is the small but irregular nonphonetic words, such as what, the, talk, does, that create the greatest difficulty for this child.

 

Author Corinne Roth Smith lists the reading and spelling patterns of children with dyseidetic dyslexia (also called visual dyslexia):

 

* Confusion with letters that differ in orientation (b-d, p-q).

 

* Confusion with words that can be dynamically reversed (was-saw).

 

* Very limited sight vocabulary; few words are instantly recognized from their whole configuration — they need to be sounded out laboriously, as though being seen for the first time.

 

* Losing the place because one doesn’t instantly recognize what had already been read, as when switching one’s gaze from the right side of one line to the left side of the next line.

 

* Omitting letters and words because they weren’t visually noted.

 

* Masking the image of one letter, by moving the eye too rapidly to the subsequent letter, may result in omission of the first letter.

 

* Difficulty learning irregular words that can’t be sounded out (for example, sight).

 

* Difficulty with rapid retrieval of words due to visual retrieval weaknesses.

 

* Visual stimuli in reading prove so confusing that it is easier for the child to learn to read by first spelling the words orally and then putting them in print.

 

* Insertions, omissions, and substitutions, if the meaning of the passage is guiding reading.

 

* Strengths in left hemisphere language-processing, analytical and sequential abilities, and detail analysis; can laboriously sound out phonetically regular words even up to grade level.

 

* Difficulty recalling the shape of a letter when writing.

 

* Spells phonetically but not bizarrely (laf-laugh; bisnis-business).

 

* Can spell difficult phonetic words but not simple irregular words.

[siloam]

My daughter knows all of the letter sounds but not all the teams (i.e. iegh, ough, ing, dge, and others). She can sound out words and just not hear the word she is saying, it just doesn't click. That's when she'll just throw out a word that doesn't even sound close to what she's reading. Like earlier today, she was sounding out the word white and after 4 times of sounding it out slowly, and it not clicking, she blurted out SQUARE! Is there a reason she can sound out a word and not "get it"? It's been so frustrating. I keep calm and we just take a break when I feel that way but it make's me feel like I'm doing something wrong. Anyone have any helpful hints they could pass my way? TIA!

 

That could be one of three problems, in my book.

 

First it could be visual, like Angie said. Which could mean a teaming or tracking problem, which would be corrected by vision therapy or a precessing problem which can be corrected by filters. I an a visual dyslexic and do use filters. When I look at a white page with writing on it the white is very bright, creating a halo effect around the letters, and at times this gives the letters a sense of shaking. On a really bad day the page will look like a bad copy where they print it doubled. This is a processing issue I have not a vision problem. One example I can give is I recently looked at a computer program that had a black background with white letters. The writing was washing out, and moving so I couldn't read it, except for one word that was in red, which I could read without any difficulty. It wasn't moving or washing out. The theory behind the processing problem I have is that some people don't see all the colors at the same speed. They see some colors faster than other colors. My filters are pink and blue and together they make a lavender, which is in the same red family that I could read on the screen. My filters allow me to see the whole page at the same speed, one that I process correctly.

 

The second issue could be an auditory processing problem. Their is a delay in them saying the sounds and them hearing the sounds, so they just aren't processing them quickly enough to put them together. There are programs that deal with auditory processing issues, the first of which is LiPS. LiPS teaches a child how sounds feel and look, so they are using multiple senses to help them process the information, bridging the gap in their weak areas.

 

The third possibility is that it is just developmental. Just like many kids struggle to hear a story, think of an answer and write it out, so SWB separates out the skills and masters them separately before bringing them together, some kids need to develop an automatic recall of the letter to sounds correlation before they can sound words out well. In other words they are so focused on remembering what the letter or letter group says that they do not hear themselves say the sounds. This will take care of itself in time.

 

BTW my 2nd dd is mildly dyslexic and could spell for a whole year before she could blend words for reading. She had good recall of sound to letter but almost no recall of letter to sound. I worked with her in sand (multi-sensory), drilling the phonograms daily till she did have automatic recall. She now reads on grade level, though is a little slow, not terribly so. She is just very exacting in personality so when she reads she makes sure she gets every word correct, given her mild dyslexic that means it slows her down a little.

 

At age 7 I would begin working with playdoh, and with sand working through the phonograms daily, while you do small chunks of what you have been working on, and see if he doesn't start to improve. Even if there is an LD at play this should help, except for vision issues. Those need either therapy or time, though if it is sever only therapy will help it. I recommend multi-sensory work because the brain stores each sense in a different place, so the more senses you use the more places the information is stored the better the odds of getting around a processing problem.

 

Heather