6yr old DD can spell better than read?

[redtexas]

My 6yo has really been struggling to learn to read for a long time now and I have been real patient not making a big deal about it because I always have heard some children just take longer. The one thing that I notice from her is that she can spell and hear the letters really well, but reading them, not so much.

 

We are doing AAS and I just gave her words to spell on the whiteboard and she got everyone of them correct. The words were all short vowel 'a' sound and three letters long. Then I asked her to read those same words in the AAS book and she made it through the list, but with difficulty or correction.

 

She does a lot of automatic assumptions, like if she just read the word tan and the word tab was a couple of words down the line, she would most likely say tan and not really look at the whole word.

 

So, I am not sure what to do or if I should even be worrying about this, just looking for an advice :)

Thanks

[LauraKay28]

:bigear:

This sounds like my ds7! So I will be listening in....

[MeganW]

She does a lot of automatic assumptions, like if she just read the word tan and the word tab was a couple of words down the line, she would most likely say tan and not really look at the whole word.

 

I have been fighting this exact same battle ever since the preschool teacher introduced sight words (wall / well / will and so on). As soon as they memorized (or thought they memorized) the word, they no longer bothered sounding it out. And it's a horrible habit that has spilled over into everything we do at home like the plague.

 

They will sound it out once, and everything else that looks halfway similar is assumed to be that word for the rest of the day. And they are REEEALLY resistant to sounding out now if they have a guess. It's so frustrating.

 

"Sound it out." "Cat." "No, I didn't say 'read it', I said 'sound it out'." "MOOOOMM, I know it - cat." "I am going to tell you again what I want you to do, and if you don't, the reading lesson is over for the day. Sound out this word." "Cuh, ah, nnnn." "So what word is that?" "I already told you, cat." GRRRRR!!!

[MerryAtHope]

It sounds like she is wanting to guess based on the beginning part of the word. My son did all kinds of guessing early on. One thing you can do is to use your AAS tiles to create real and made-up words by changing out one letter. Start with "tan" and change out the N for a B, then have her read the new word, and so on. Sometimes you can change a middle or beginning letter as well. You can also let her change a letter and make you read it. Model segmenting and blending for her.

 

You can also do this with oral blending and segmenting--say sounds for her to blend, or say a word for her to segment. Let her do the same for you (my dd used to love to just say a bunch of sounds that didn't make a word and hear me try to blend them, LOL!). All of these help kids pay more attention to the sounds in words and help them to realize that every sound in the word is important, not just the first one.

 

You can also say, if she reads the wrong ending, "Oh, that's very close. What sound is this?" pointing to the last sound. See if she can say that sound in isolation, then see if she can use that in the word. If she still says the wrong word, go to the tiles and show her the two words and how to change from one to the other.

 

HTH some! Merry :-)

[kalanamak]

Kiddo did the same thing. We did SWR and it was just some time before his eyes and brain got up to smooth, even scan and decoding. Then it "clicked". He still goes through phases of sudden leaps and long stalls. He was 6.75 years when he "blasted off", and blasted off again at 8.25 years.

[blondeviolin]

I don't know if it helps, but my emergent reader did the same thing. I didn't do anything special, just reminded her to do it a "sound at a time" and she'd realize the difference. I couldn't say "sound it out" because she would instantly whine, "I can't do it!" (Yes, she could. She just is quick to give up.)

[Ellie]

I'm trying to imagine a 6yo child "struggling" to learn to read "for a long time." :confused:

 

I don't think you need to worry about it as much as just continue working with AAS and reminding your dd not to guess.

[redtexas]

I'm trying to imagine a 6yo child "struggling" to learn to read "for a long time."

 

I guess that came across the wrong way. So not a long time but you have to understand she is my 2nd child of 5 children and my first ds picked up reading so easily, but then he has trouble with spelling.

 

She is 6.75 and we have gently been working on learning to read since she was 5.5. Since she is my second child I obviously haven't come across her learning style yet and she is learning to read very different than my first, so it's all a new experience for me. She does seem to have a hard time tracking and she also sometimes has a hard time talking grammatical correct, so much so that my oldest son asks me why she speaks that way. It's like she can't find the words to describe what she is thinking. Also, while reading if she reads the word "the" in the beginning of the sentence, she will not recognize it a few words down even though she has seen it many times.

 

So I am guessing this is all normal, I just wanted to make sure because I have yet to have one of my children take this path towards reading. She really wants to read too and she can tell her friends know how to read, so we are trying to help her best we can, but again I promise it is all very gently.

[redtexas]

bump

[3peasinapod]

My 6-1/2yo DD does this too. She is doing AAS and speeding through it (much faster than her 8yo sister), but sometimes as she reads she reads the first part or (gulp) even the last part first and then guesses. I think she is competing slightly with her older sister, who is reading fluently at grade level. She also writes sloppy, and she told me she wants to write as fast as I do! She is on the verge of fluent, but not quite there yet, so I just keep reminding her to try the word again, and if she keeps at it, I just tell her the word and move on. I think it will start clicking, and if I keep hounding her about a single word here and there, it will make it much less enjoyable for her. HTH!

[Alyeska]

My ds does the exact.same.thing.

 

He wrote two beautiful sentences today with nearly every word spelled correctly. And yet he has to sound out words in his reader and gets teary eyed when he gets tripped up. He will be 7 next week.

 

:grouphug: I understand, but have no answer. So we do what Dory says in Finding Nemo... Just keep swimming, just keep swimming...

[Critterfixer]

I don't know if this will be any help, but perhaps you could use her great spelling abilities to help her really look at the word. Many times, if my ds7 jumps ahead and says the word he thinks before actually looking at the word I will actually say, "spell it." Then he knows that he got it wrong, so I usually get a dirty look, then " d--o--t--oh, dot."

"That's right, not dog. How do you spell dog?"

"D--o--g, dog."

Moving on.

 

My other ds7 has the habit of not actually being able to sound out unfamiliar words unless he spells them. When he spells the word he actually can handle words that we have not even got to yet-multiple syllable things. I haven't figured that one out yet, but I go with it.

[redtexas]

Great idea critterfixer. I will try making her spell it. I think that will be a big help.