If your child always read *was* as *saw* would you be concerned?

[Susie in MS]

She does have a tendency to occasionally read words backwards, but when I tell her she is doing so she corrects herself. But *was* she gets backwards almost without fail. She is 5yo. Is this common?

 

Also is there a mild form of dyslexia where it only happens when a person is tired? My 23 yo tells me that she sees words backwards when she is tired. I never knew this till a few weeks ago. She has always read wonderfully.

 

I do have some family members with dyslexia. My uncle never learned to read, and the others do, but struggle. If my dd does have it, how would I treat it myself?

[Kuovonne]

She's five? This is the only word that she consistantly gets backward? I wouldn't worry about it. Just gently correct when it occurs and work on left-to-write directionality, perhaps using a notched card. If she is reading full sentences, does she recognized that the backward word doesn't make sense?

 

My learning-to-read daughter used to consistantly read "egg" instead of "get." She learned the word "egg" first and when she sees the letters "g" and "e" in a word, she automatically thinks of the word "egg" instead of sounding out the word. Whenever she gets it wrong, I just remind her to read from left-to-right. She still gets them confused, but less and less so.

[Pata]

:iagree:, she's young, just keep working on reading left to right. The notched index card really helped my dd do this. If it doesn't straighten out in the next 6 months to a year, then I would begin to worry about it.

[EKS]

If you have several family members with dyslexia, then I would be alert for other signs of dyslexia in your daughter. By itself in a 5yo, it's no big deal. But if it is combined with other symptoms, and the fact that there is a family history of dyslexia, make it something to pay attention to.

 

The book Overcoming Dyslexia by Sally Shaywitz is a great place to start. It contains lists of symptoms of dyslexia (even in toddlers). She also explains how to treat it. But don't pay any attention to her statements that parents shouldn't try to treat their child's dyslexia. What she means is (at least this is my interpretation) that parents shouldn't *wing it* when helping their child.

 

My son has dyslexia. It wasn't diagnosed until he was in 5th grade and his reading was fairly well remediated (he was reading on a high school level). I taught him phonics and then had him practice by reading aloud daily for at least 20 minutes for *years*. In his case, he learned to read with standard methods, he just needed way more practice than a person without dyslexia.

 

The folks over at the Special Needs board are a wealth of information about remediating dyslexics. They are the reason my son is able to read so well today.

 

So, the point to this rambling post is that it may be nothing, but you are wise to be alert to the possibility of dyslexia.

Edited July 31, 2010 by EKS

[Violet Crown]

My non-dyslexic early reader consistently got "was" and "saw" confused for about a year. No other words, just those two. I think part of it is they're both verbs, so either would fit grammatically, and they're both sight words.

[kathkath]

I would be more concerned that she is focusing so much on the decoding or reading by sight, and not the meaning. You can tell her to look at the picture, talk first about what she thinks she is about to read, and then when she gets to the word you can help her pay attention to the first letter by telling her to get her mouth ready to say the word by forming the "w" sound with her mouth. I might also wonder if she is in the correct level of material. Was/saw are also sight words that are not decodable so I might also step back and primarily focus on meaning and decoding until she has a good handle on that. Then I would add in the trickier sight words like those.

[FO4UR]

In and of itself, no. I wouldn't be concerned. However, the family history of dyslexia plus any other symptoms would send up red flags.

 

To err on the safe side, I'd recommend teaching like she is very much at *risk* for dyslexia. There is no harm done to a non-dyslexic child to teach this way, and it prevents the dyslexic child from going through the awful experience of failure at school work.

 

fwiw - I bought Recipe for Reading to help my ds7 (who I'd bet my lunch IS dyslexic), and I like it so well (and it's so SIMPLE) that I'm using it for my 5yo (who shows NO signs of dyslexia thus far).

 

"The Gift of Dyslexia" is an interesting read, especially if she reverses/inverts other letters and/or words. This fits my ds7 fairly well...he *knows* that "saw" is spelled s-a-w (and he knows that the "aw" phonogram says /ah/), but he doesn't always know if what he sees is really s-a-w or w-a-s. He'll do other funny things like spell "that" h-t-a-t....he inverts the individual phonograms:001_huh: He's a VERY bright boy, mathy-thinker...we had to back up, slow down and REALLY go for the multi-sensory Orton-Gillingham approach.

[kalanamak]

In and of itself, no. I wouldn't be concerned. However, the family history of dyslexia plus any other symptoms would send up red flags.

 

To err on the safe side, I'd recommend teaching like she is very much at *risk* for dyslexia. There is no harm done to a non-dyslexic child to teach this way, and it prevents the dyslexic child from going through the awful experience of failure at school work.

 

 

At 5 my son wasn't reading either word.:) Even I wouldn't not lose sleep over this at 5.:D

 

My son has an extremely dyslexic father. I assumed he would be, and taught as if he was. I don't think he is, but he was not an early reader (I was late, too), and I didn't push it in any way. I used the SWR way, just shored up everything else in language I could (vocab, grammar, spelling, rhyme, alliteration, etc) until his eyes were mature enough to blast off in reading. Once he had the physical ability, his fully-stocked brain embraced reading with a gusto. Kiddo wanted a dictionary for his 8th birthday, and lingered over them longingly at the store for weeks prior.

 

Somethings I did to ease my concern: I always sat on his left and passed my hand from left to right under the words as he was getting ready to try a line.

 

I had little drawing up, like the famous b-e-d one where the b and d make the head and feet of a bed. I saw him look over at these cards MANY times before trying a word like dog.

 

Phonics. We knew all the SWR cards and most of the spelling rules before he was reading the Bob books.

 

Very little video and no Saturday morning type cartoons with fast flashing images.

 

HTH. I found the hardest part was my anxiety. I am not a worrier by nature, but my severe inexperience with children, never having taught anything, and not having learned to read via phonics, plus kiddo's genetic heritage, I felt, right or wrong, I had only one shot at this. But I found "preparing for the worst while hoping for the best" was an acceptable way to cope. For me. YMMV.

[Susie in MS]

Thanks everyone!

 

I will keep an eye out for symptoms and not worry just yet.

 

I will also check out the books mentioned in this thread.

 

As far as her being ahead of the game by covering was/saw, I really doubt that. She is halfway thru Phonics Pathways and is reading through McGuffey Primer among other more controlled readers. She knows most of the phonics blends, etc even though we are only 1/2 thru PP. The word was is introduced very early in Alpha Phonics.

 

Thank you all very much!

[Snowfall]

I think that's normal for a 5yo. My dd still sometimes confuses d and b, and she's six. :)

 

I would be more concerned that she is focusing so much on the decoding or reading by sight, and not the meaning. You can tell her to look at the picture, talk first about what she thinks she is about to read, and then when she gets to the word you can help her pay attention to the first letter by telling her to get her mouth ready to say the word by forming the "w" sound with her mouth. I might also wonder if she is in the correct level of material. Was/saw are also sight words that are not decodable so I might also step back and primarily focus on meaning and decoding until she has a good handle on that. Then I would add in the trickier sight words like those.

 

:confused: Saw is totally decodable. Aw is a phonogram that makes the second sound in saw, paw, guffaw, and other words. Was is also decodable. The letter s can also make the zzz sound and the letter a can also make the short o sound. In some parts of the country, people still pronounce it as "woz" instead of "wuz". Sight words don't get much simpler than saw and was, if you know the phonograms. Either way, if you just explain it to the child, it's totally decodable.

 

I also completely, totally and utterly disagree that children should rely on picture clues to read words. In fact, when my daughter is practicing in a book where the pictures give it away, I cover up the pictures to prevent her from guessing. Guessing isn't a good strategy for reading. Hopefully one day my child will progress past books with pictures in them, and where will all that guessing based on the pictures help her then? And at 5 years old, I would expect a child to still be focusing on decoding. She's FIVE! :001_huh: