When do you start worrying about phonemic awareness issues?

[forty-two]

My oldest dd is 4.75yo, and I've noticed for a while that her phonemic awareness is very low. I've been torn b/w "she's young, so don't worry - she'll get it sooner or later" and worrying that it's a sign of a real problem that will have to be dealt with at some point, so better to start now.

 

At 4yo her phonemic awareness was pretty much non-existent - she had no awareness of rhymes, and couldn't say what sound a word started/ended with no matter how exaggerated you said it. I tried to do more poetry reading and nursery rhymes, and though she still stares blankly whenever I try to do a rhyming game, she *does* seem to have an awareness of rhyme now - she likes to recite nursery rhymes, and she clearly uses rhyme to help her remember the order of the lines and keep each verse straight.

 

Also, she's gotten interested in writing and spelling in the past few months, and I model segmenting the word into syllables and phonemes as I help her spell it. She can usually identify which single-letter phonogram to use so long as I say the individual sound (no matter how much I exaggerate the specific sound we're on as I say the word, she can't separate it out on her own - I have to say it separately). She used to jump straight to saying the letter name in response to the sound, but I'm having some success in having her repeat the sound first. She does seem to have somewhat more awareness of sounds in words than she did when we started informal spelling, but I can't really quantify it. We also do some informal spelling/reading lessons (combo of SWR and Beechick - she writes it down as I help her spell it, and then I try to have her sound it out, as well as model the sounding out process), and she hasn't cracked blending yet (no real surprise). She can point to each letter and say the sound, as well as recognize that the entire written word represents the entire spoken word (the latter is fairly recent), but she can't blend the sounds to make the word. She has auditory discrimination issues as well - I have to really exaggerate some consonant sounds, and she flat out cannot discriminate b/w a short 'i' and a short 'e' (I just started trying to have her look at my mouth as a visual clue, but it hasn't helped yet).

 

I'm wondering if I should just kind of continue what we are doing, figure that it will click sooner or later, especially since she *is* improving, if slowly. Or, as she has an excellent visual memory and is overall a strong visual person, if I should maybe try to piggyback the auditory stuff on visual cues, use her strengths to bolster her weaknesses.

 

(I'm pretty sure I have undiagnosed CAPD, and that is basically what I did/do - it worked, in that I learned the basic phonemic awareness skills eventually (though not blending, which is slowly coming along as I'm trying to learn the Greek and Hebrew alphabets), read extremely well, and have no trouble with auditory comprehension in most environments - I rarely have to consciously use visual cues, and I only have real trouble understanding auditory input when I am in a noisy environment with *no* visual or contextual clues (say, on the phone with both dc going nuts in my ears :glare: and a completely new topic is introduced, or trying to learn a new language - I can't make heads or tails of a recording without a transcript (so Pimsleur is totally out ;)), or trying to listen to a sermon as I wrangle two littles :glare: - I need to be able to look at the pastor's mouth or take notes/somehow mentally interact with the material to comprehend it).)

 

Or should I get some dedicated phonemic awareness resources (b/c all the reading/spelling programs I have, including AAS, start off way beyond dd's abilities), and seriously work on it (thinking of Adam's Phonemic Awareness in Young Children: a Classroom Curriculum). I admit, I'm dragging my heels here b/c I have had zero luck interesting her in any pa activities to date (which could be b/c they are beyond her), and the whole thing is out of my comfort zone (I'm not *that* good at pa, just good enough that I'm way beyond all the CAPD therapy programs - I seem to be already at the level of a successful 'after' person) - I really want it to be a developmental thing, that she will get better naturally as she gets older. I don't really believe that, though <sigh>.

 

But how much effort should I put into it at 4.75yo? I mean, I'd hate to spend 100 hours now when I could have spent 20 hours a year from now, kwim? But likewise I'd rather spend 100 hours now than just wasting the next couple of years waiting for an improvement that will never come and *then* spending 100 hours, or even more.

[mrs.m]

But how much effort should I put into it at 4.75yo? I mean, I'd hate to spend 100 hours now when I could have spent 20 hours a year from now, kwim? But likewise I'd rather spend 100 hours now than just wasting the next couple of years waiting for an improvement that will never come and *then* spending 100 hours, or even more.

 

She sounds like a bright little girl. I wouldn't worry about it. Your above statement is very true when it comes to reading and spelling. Sometimes a 6 week break of just playing and read alouds can make all the difference in the world and for some reason it all just clicks in their brains. So much less frustation for both of us.

 

I assure you that my DD11 had very little phonemic awareness at that age and can read and spell just fine. I can't say that about DS8 because his spelling is just starting to come up to speed but his reading level is fairly high. They all move at their own pace. :grouphug:

 

Do you have OPGTR? I really like it. I switch between it and LLATL Blue for my K'er.

[Amy Jo]

If she can produce the sounds I'd keep spelling. I wouldn't ask her to blend often, maybe just see if she can do it once in a while. If she needs help on individual sounds, show her how to make them (shape of the mouth, tongue position, etc.). I plan to take the spelling approach with my coming 5 year old, until he can blend.

[blondeviolin]

My soon-to-be-5-year-old is slowly moving into reading. We are nearly done with Funnix 1. For a long time she could spell CVC, but not read or blend them. When she slowly started to get it, we moved ahead with reading lessons. When it became apparent that her freaking out over it was too much, we backed off. She's just now to a point where she can remember to blend sounds, rules for certain phonics, etc. We did switch up her program, but not too much (100EL to Funnix) She also has a really difficult time differentiating between short e and short i.... I would definitely give it a few weeks/months.

[boscopup]

You said she would say the name of the letter instead of the sound at the beginning of a word? Is that because she knew how to spell it, or is it because she's hearing the sound (phonemic awareness) and converting it to the letter that makes that sound?

 

I think she's young and sounds pretty normal for her age. I would recommend taking a break from formal reading instruction. Read lots of good books, let her play starfall.com and watch the Leapfrog videos, then see if things have changed in a few months. If she's not blending yet, you're going to be waiting for that to click anyway.

[Spock]

For right now, occasionally play games with sounds. The two that I played with my children at that age were : "I'm going to say the sounds, and you guess the word they make. /c/, /a/, /t/. " and "I'm going to say a word, and you try to break it into its sounds. Cat."

 

My 3 boys (non-dyslexic) enjoyed these games and had very little trouble with them starting between 3-5 yo. They couldn't really rhyme until nearly 6, though.

 

My daughter (mild dyslexia) couldn't do either of these games very well until around 7. Even now (10.5yo, reads very well) she struggles with the advanced versions-- "Say frog. Now take off the /r/. What do you have?" She will say /og/ or /rog/ or "I don't know" as often as she says /fog/. She especially struggles with breaking words into sounds in order to spell them. She often has no idea what sounds there are, and especially what order they go in.

 

However, my daughter and the boys all benefited from these word games.

[EmilyGF]

I was really worried about ds wrt phonemic awareness at that age - he hadn't started talking til three and had been working with a speech therapist since 2.5. I had some long conversations with the therapist about whether he couldn't hear certain sounds and we both thought it was possible.

 

He is now 6. We've used really intensive phonics (Phonics Pathways and SWR). OPGTTR didn't work for us - he needed pictures he could connect sounds with. Saying "buh" or whatever for B didn't work unless he saw pictures of bumble bees or bears or buckles. The poem was a complete flop.

 

He was making up spellings and stuff at 4.75 but we waited another 6 months to start reading (even though we were already doing math) because I wanted him to get it quickly - and he didn't at 4.75. I wrote things and explained them if he asked, like your child is doing, but just laid low on other things.

 

DS is an excellent reader, beyond many peers. He still can't rhyme (his 4 year old sister plays rhyming games with him and he always loses). He still occasionally thinks "t" sounds like "ch", but he can read. You can do phonemic awareness if you want and have time, but I think it is overrated. Intensive phonics was necessary for my son, but that only when the child is ready.

 

Best, Emily

[MerryAtHope]

I think now is the perfect time to be focusing on phonemic awareness skills. When my kids were this age, I didn't realize just how important some things (like rhyming) were to future reading success. I wish I had spent more time then working on them. I did to some extent but not as much as would have helped them. I don't know if you've looked at something like All About Reading, but that puts a lot of focus on phonemic awareness skills--it's one of the "Big Five Skills" built into their pre-reading program. There's a description of the skills on page 10 if their Teacher's Manual & then you can see samples of the kinds of exercises covered. The "Language Exploration" part of each step is all about phonemic awareness.

 

Anyway, I think it's great that you are thinking about this and looking into it now, and that working on this area will be a great benefit to your daughter. Merry :-)