We are both so frustrated with learning to read....

[Oakblossoms]

my poor 8 year old is son. He still cannot read. We have tried a bunch of things. I think everything is just too busy for him. He is easily distracted and does better with simple.

 

Any thoughts...commiseration?

 

We are towards the end of HOP yellow book. But, it just isn't sticking. We do a lesson and it is in one ear and out the other.

[texasmama]

In your position, with a child this age, I would be seeking testing to rule out/in issues such as dyslexia. I am not an expert by any means, but when I hit roadblocks such as this, I seek professional advice/evaluations.

[happyhappyjoyjoy]

I have a friend w/ a 7 1/2 yr old son that was in the same position. She tried AAS1 and he finally had a break through.

[boscopup]

In your position, with a child this age, I would be seeking testing to rule out/in issues such as dyslexia. I am not an expert by any means, but when I hit roadblocks such as this, I seek professional advice/evaluations.

 

:iagree:

[radiobrain]

I agree with the evaluation, but I had a late reader as well.

 

The Reading Lesson is a very simple, straightforward book that I think worked best, in our case. That is my personal suggestion if you are looking for a book.

[laundrycrisis]

my poor 8 year old is son. He still cannot read. We have tried a bunch of things. I think everything is just too busy for him. He is easily distracted and does better with simple.

 

Any thoughts...commiseration?

 

We are towards the end of HOP yellow book. But, it just isn't sticking. We do a lesson and it is in one ear and out the other.

 

Our DS1 was like this with needing pages that were visually very simple. It turned out that he had some major eye teaming and visual processing problems. These were identified by a COVD optometrist. He completed a year of vision therapy. Reading finally started to happen for him about halfway through that. Now he reads short books and even graphic novels, which at the beginning would have been too overwhelming for him to even look at, much less try to read.

[mom24boys]

:iagree: We really enjoyed The Reading Lesson. Large font. Lots of white space on the page. I was visually disturbed by 100 Easy Lessons (even though I'm sure the methodology is sound).

[Jackie in AR]

It turned out that he had some major eye teaming and visual processing problems. These were identified by a COVD optometrist. He completed a year of vision therapy.

 

Yes, I would have him examined by a developmental optometrist. We found ours through COVD.

 

Something just wasn't clicking with my older dd, and when I began investigating options this is where I started. Vision therapy made all the difference for her.

[Sue G in PA]

My ds8 is having problems with reading as well. It just doesn't "click" with him, either. He still has to "sound out" every.single.word. It is frustrating..for both of us. Even words he has JUST READ he must sound out. Thanks for the vision check suggestion. It scares me that he might need vision therapy b/c of the cost involved. Most insurance doesn't cover it. Does anyone do vision therapy at home and if so, how? On the other hand, some kids just take their time learning. We also use The Reading Lesson and I like the large print, plain pages. Another suggestion is something I read in Bravewriter's The Writing Jungle. Julie Bogart's own daughter didn't read until she was about 9 or so. She learned, however, to WRITE and SPELL before she could even read! And that seemed to help with the reading process. Perhaps something like PR might be helpful to you or as a pp suggested, AAS. My son does beautifully with his spelling using the AAS tiles (his writing is still a bit illegible as well). Eventually it will all come together. At least that is my prayer. :)

[Amy in CO]

My son didn't read until after he turned 8. A couple of months later it just clicked. At this time he was being tested for other issues and they found that he has serious short term memory issues. If it is something he is interested in, it goes straight to long term memory to never be forgotten. But if it is something he isn't as interested in, it has to be introduced repeatedly to get it from short term to long term. There is no magical number of times that it has to "learned" again, you just have to keep at it until it sticks. But now, one year later, he reads constantly. I tease him that he is making up for lost time.

[ChrissySC]

My girls loved the Bob books and Dick and Jane books and I used the BJU readers too.

 

Anyway, it sounds like an LD or phonics issue. I agree testing or AAS or ETC should help considerably. I would grab some dolche site words and start flashcards. Sight words simply must be memorized.

[woolybear]

Just another perspective......

 

 

My older ds could not read at age 8. By age 9 he could manage simple words. Finally at age 9 1/2 he was struggling through Magic Tree House books. It was not fun reading for him. Sometimes he forgot the idea of what he was reading by the end of the sentence. By age 10 he could really read. I mean it finally just clicked for him. He is 10 1/2 now. Sometimes we read Shakespeare aloud together each taking different parts. He reads Time magazine. He learned to juggle by reading books on it. He is not a voracious reader. He does not willingly read books just because I say "read this" or "read something for school time". Nor does he have a book going all the time. I guess I thought he would eventually be a reader like me. Maybe he will, maybe not.

 

My point, in this long ramble, is simply that he wasn't ready at age 8. He was ready older than that and now he reads just fine. Yes, I had him tested for dyslexia and vision problems. There was nothing wrong. He just needed more time. One thing that did help when he was finally ready for it was The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching REading. It didn't help a year or two earlier. But at age 9 we sat down and I verbally went over 3-4 lessons at a time. We skipped all the games and hands on stuff. That gave him an enormous boost. That is when he jumped from very simple reading to Magic Tree House in about a month.

 

My younger ds is 8 1/2 now. He is not really reading yet. He is struggling through Days Go By, a Pathway Reader. I am not worried, as I expect his path to be similar to his older brother's.

[Dobela]

At 8 my son was still not reading either. I had tried so many different programs. Every day reading was leaving me and him in tears. And let's even consider how reading effected all of the other subjects - like math ands science... Someone here told me to go to www.covd.org and read the signs and symtoms page of a visual processing problem. I cried when I realized that my son had almost every single one. Please take time to check out that page. Take your child for a qualified eval. I had been taking my son for eye checkups for a long time and kept being told that his vision had nothing to do with his reading until we found our behavioral optometrist. It was expensive, and worth every single penny. It doesn't matter how great a program is, if the brain is not correctly processing what it sees, the program isn't going to work well.

 

Another great place to find resources is the Special Needs forum on this board.

 

I believe that there are truly some late learners. But not as many as we would hope. They are quite rare. By age 8 most kids are reading. Of those that are not, most have something that is adversely effecting their reading. It could be dyslexia, vision problems, a language processing disability, or something else. By age 8 the frustration and struggle of learning to read had taken a huge emotional toll on my son. He had decided he was stupid. At church, and in other classes I signed him up in, he was becoming a behavior problem, the class clown, so that he could distract others from his lack of skills in reading. Now, after vision therapy and my hiring a reading tutor because teaching him reading was causing too much stress between us, he is reading above grade level and his confidence has soared.

 

:grouphug::grouphug:

[Copswife]

Some children are not ready at eight. I had one of those and it just clicked one day. If you don't feel there are any issues (sometimes there are and sometimes there are not) then put the books away and step away. Something that helped my late bloomer was following along with audio books in the actual book as it was being read. She knew the phonics and sounds, but it wasn't clicking and one day it did! I hate the pressure that is out there that says children need to read at younger and younger ages. It doesn't work like that for every child. :)

[sixtimemomma]

Do not be discouraged. One of my sons and daughters did not learn to read until late. Sometimes they just "ain't ready".

 

Yes, they are both dyslexic, but in addition to that they just were not ready until eight.

 

My son (now 13) reads better than anyone in the house! He is constantly messing up my lesson planning because he reads and comprehends so fast. He normally completes assigned novels in 2-3 days, when I have planned them over a month.....and he can pass any knowledge test on them. He is an insatiable reader!

 

My advice to you would be to continue to drill phonics! Do daily phonics drills. I also would recommend Phonics Pathways for reading. I switched to this this year and my 8 year old daughter is now reading. I have tried every "Learn to Read" book out there ( maybe not all but to many to list) and this one works!

 

Lastly, read with him daily and encourage him to begin reading along with you. Use very easy BIG PRINT books with 3 letter words to encourage him. Daily reading and read along is a must.

 

One more thing.....I was able to self diagnosis the dyslexic (my hubby has this). I was also very obvious with both of them. If you know you have tried some of the steps I have mentioned and they don't work you may want to have him checked for vision or a learning disability.

[LizzyBee]

Look at this website to see if the signs of dyslexia ring true: http://www.dys-add.com

 

If so, the site has information about how to remediate dyslexia. If the site brings up more questions about dyslexia and other learning disabilities, post on the special needs board.

[mom31257]

I have a friend whose daughter was still having trouble at 8. She was considering professional help, then a lot of people told her to wait until 9 years old. They said for some kids turning 9 is a developmental stage that reading clicks. Her daugther turned 9 and did start reading and is now pretty much on grade level.

 

It takes 17 different parts of the brain working together in order to read. If one of those parts is not as developed as others then it would be difficult.

[Mom in High Heels]

I had a nice long reply typed out and our internet went down. Curses. Indy (7 at the time) was struggling so badly with reading and we were both at our wits end. I started really watching what he was doing with regards to writing, reading, etc. I started noticing patterns (like adding an extra letter or leaving them out) and researching. I suspected dyslexia (he hit all the signs) and went to see his ped. She had some tests done and he was dyslexic. I read The Gift of Dyslexia and we decided to get him professional therapy (the Davis Method). It made a HUGE difference in his reading. He's 8 (9 in July) and reads as much as he can now. He still struggles with some things (especially words that don't follow "the rules"), but is so much better and so much happier. The best thing that came out of the therapy was confidence. He just thought he couldn't do it and accepted it. After the therapy, he had gained confidence in himself.

 

I would suggest you start really paying close attention to any patterns in his work/behavior and read up on the signs of LD. If you haven't, I would also suggest getting his vision tested. This was mu first thought with Indy, but it turns out he has perfect vision. This led me to checking for LD.

HTH! Good luck to you both.

[laundrycrisis]

My ds8 is having problems with reading as well. It just doesn't "click" with him, either. He still has to "sound out" every.single.word. It is frustrating..for both of us. Even words he has JUST READ he must sound out.

 

Our son was doing this exact same thing. He could read a Bob book, the same one, every day for a week, or even twice in a row one right after the other and every single word was laboriously decoded as if he was encountering it for the first time. Even the simplest CVC words - each was a brand new project, every time. :banghead: The same thing was happening with addition facts. No memorization happening, no building of fluency based on sequential memory and sight. Literally, truly, none. It was so frustrating and sad.

 

This turned out to be related to his visual processing problems. He tested at the very bottom of the scale for visual sequential memory. His form constancy was also very low. With this combination, he did not remember the correct images of written characters or words in his head; and he has great difficulty remembering anything in the proper sequence. So every time he saw the word and, or hat, or sit, etc. it was like the very first time.

 

After his eye teaming issues had been addressed, going through the therapy for these specific problems made a huge difference for him. I was give exercises each week to do at home but I never could have figured out what to be doing without the therapist. She literally trained his brain to remember images and sequences. He can see things in his head now, something he literally could not do before. Amazing. She taught me how to continue with the sequential difficulties at home after the therapy was done.

 

We did get insurance to cover some of the testing, but none of the therapy. It was very expensive but considering the difference it has made it was very much worth it. This could have been something he struggled with his entire life.

[mcconnellboys]

Neither of my boys were really reading until their seventh year. I thought with the older that he had just been in school and hadn't had enough practice. I did add in a phonics program for him because I didn't know how much phonics he'd had in school.

 

My younger son came home in first and really needed to still be taught to read. I used Phonics Pathways with him and it is a completely no-frills program, because it's meant to be used with adults, etc. It worked well for him. I only worked through it with him orally; we did no writing.

 

I rewarded him at the end of working through a page of it by letting him read a Bob book, then moved into graded readers (started those after he'd done about 20 pages of PP). I also read aloud to him as a reward right after completing his phonics work each day.

 

I didn't really read until my seventh year, either. Now, I'm not saying you shouldn't seek a diagnosis just to rule out a possible dyslexia related problem, I'm just saying that I think some people do read later than others and still do just fine (we're all readers)....

[Oakblossoms]

Thank you for all the suggestions. He has had his vision and hearing checked by a special clinic. One of his brothers took awhile, as well. He is a lot like his father who has ADHD and a ton of problems in school.

 

I really think it is the memory issue. He just recently started doing his math by himself, except the word problems. So, maybe he is hitting a milestone. I used to have to go over every problem and he just could not remember what he did. Last week he got out his book and started a lesson without me.

[johnandtinagilbert]

Just popping in with some consolation: mine didn't take off until his 8yo year! He was sooooo slow and I was getting stressed. We started PR and POOF! He was reading. Now, at nearly 9, he loves reading and whizzes through a lot of books. He just needed a little bit of time. *I* would wait until 9 before the testing, but I'm all about trying to iron out by the end of 3rd grade. If there's a problem then, we'll jump right in!

[Abecedarianmama]

we saw the developmental eye doctor and she knew we couldn't afford the therapy, so she gave us homework assignments.

 

I am curious about your comment "in one ear and out the other." Does he forget what the first letter is by the time you get to the end of the word? My son has suspected auditory processing disorder, where he can't hold and remember more than 2 things at a time. At a speech therapists reccomendation we bought Earrobics ($30 on ebay) and it is helping his listening memory to encourage reading later.

[texasmama]

Thank you for all the suggestions. He has had his vision and hearing checked by a special clinic. One of his brothers took awhile, as well. He is a lot like his father who has ADHD and a ton of problems in school.

 

I really think it is the memory issue. He just recently started doing his math by himself, except the word problems. So, maybe he is hitting a milestone. I used to have to go over every problem and he just could not remember what he did. Last week he got out his book and started a lesson without me.

 

Kids with ADHD typically have issues with working memory. This may or may not be tied to reading difficulties, but it is something to be aware of if you decide to get testing.

[kristinannie]

I know this is expensive, but this is what we are using to teach reading:

 

The Struggling Reader

 

 

It was made by reading specialists and includes tests that would be given by a reading specialist to determine problem areas. That way you don't have to waste time doing things your child has mastered. The program is game based (you get kinesthetic, visual and verbal in almost every game). My DS5 LOVES the activities and games and is picking things up really quickly. I love not having to sit down and do another workbook with a bored child. HTH.

[momto2Cs]

I agree with the evaluation, but I had a late reader as well.

 

The Reading Lesson is a very simple, straightforward book that I think worked best, in our case. That is my personal suggestion if you are looking for a book.

:iagree: Great book, and easy to use. My late reading dd actually cheers at the sight of this book!

[wy_kid_wrangler04]

I have not read through the replies, but do you own magnetic letters? If no pic a few sets up (or make some) and use the refrigerator as your magnet board if you do not have one and start slowly with blends that way (use 2 letters far apart and have him say each sound as you slowly move them together) do that until he blends well, then work on CVC words that way. That would (should) take distractions away so he can focus on the task at hand. Start slow. 10-15 minutes at a time 3-4 times a day then increase from there :001_smile:

[ABQmom]

Some children are not ready at eight. I had one of those and it just clicked one day. If you don't feel there are any issues (sometimes there are and sometimes there are not) then put the books away and step away. Something that helped my late bloomer was following along with audio books in the actual book as it was being read. She knew the phonics and sounds, but it wasn't clicking and one day it did! I hate the pressure that is out there that says children need to read at younger and younger ages. It doesn't work like that for every child. :)

 

:iagree::iagree:

 

Too many people expect their children to be reading chapter books by age 6 or 7, and think they need testing if they aren't fluent readers before third grade. None of my children have read that early. My 1st grader is just now able to remember the sounds letters and phonograms make after 2 years of working on it. She still sounds out every single word--even if she just read that same word. I'm not worried because I've been through this before with my oldest who loves to read now. Don't push, and don't get impatient. Read words, and work on sounds. Eventually it will click. Try a new program, and in the meantime, Dianne Craft has some wonderful materials to help those kids who are bright, but seem to have difficulty learning to read.

[TXMary2]

my poor 8 year old is son. He still cannot read. We have tried a bunch of things. I think everything is just too busy for him. He is easily distracted and does better with simple.

 

Any thoughts...commiseration?

 

We are towards the end of HOP yellow book. But, it just isn't sticking. We do a lesson and it is in one ear and out the other.

 

Is HOP the only thing you have tried? Have you tried The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading?

[Hedgehogs4]

I'm going to plug Phonics Road here. Check it out, it might be what you need. We like it. It works.

[Oakblossoms]

Thanks for all the replies.

 

We have tried HOP and the OPGTR. I ordered some other kind of phonics stuff that was a bunch of games you cut out. But, It overwhelmed me. We tries a ETC workbook and it was too much writing/tedious.

 

He has had testing. He has had Speech Therapy.

 

He probably does have ADHD. His father has it. We aren't willing to medicate for it.

 

This week I let him play with the Bob Book download, then we read some Bob Books. I found some Word Family cards in my supplies and he liked those.