Learning to Read Issues

[Chloe]

What is it going to take for my 8yo ds to remember the "silent e" rule? It is so frustrating! We have been working at reading for a couple of years now. He's had vision therapy, which didn't seem to help much. His major reading problems are trouble breaking the words apart in order to sound them out (even though he knows the phonograms when we quiz with the flashcards), learning/remember the silent e rule and confusion with the or, er, ir, ur and ar phonograms. And, of course, fluency and speed. We've been completely through The Reading Lesson and Alpha Phonics, along with about three Explode the Code books and drilling with phonogram flashcards. What now?

[eloquacious]

If you go to OnTrackReading.com, you can find an alternative to the silent e rule. Rather than teaching different reasons for silent e, he advocates teaching several new "ending phonograms," like se which says "s" or "z" at the end of a word.

 

See here:

 

http://www.ontrackreading.com/spalding-method/phonogram-revisions

 

 

Perhaps teaching your child to recognize le, se, ge, etc. would help?

[KristenR]

What about trying to take a hands-on approach. I made this Word "Blender" for my young kids. My dd loves consonant teams. I only wish I had thought ahead and made it big enough for three or four letter words as well. I suppose I could make a new one with a different theme.

 

But maybe the physical act of putting the "e" on and taking the "e" off with help cement it for him. Oh!!!! if he likes trucks you can make a "cement truck" with 4 letter spots :tongue_smilie:

[kristinannie]

The way I taught silent e was Ruth Beechick's idea. I made cards for each letter. We would put the cards up to spell cap and then add an e and spell cape. We did this with several different words. I didn't think DS got it at all and then a couple of weeks later, he completely got it. It really worked for him, but I think he is a kinesthetic learner. It would also work with letter tiles.

[Mommee & Baba]

For us the rules of spelling from AAS is what has helped my children understand those blends.

 

My dd8 has a hard time with ar, ir, ur and such as well but we're approaching that set of steps in AAS. Now when dd8 approaches a word with ar in it I point to the word and say "Remember what a pirate says when reading this word"...now she knows as soon as she approaches the ar...she knows. hehe!

[Ellie]

But there's more than one silent e rule. Which one is he having trouble with?

 

Which is why I'm a Spalding geek :D and why I recommend Spalding so highly.

[GingerPoppy]

I've been a reading tutor for quite a few years. It sounds to me like he could use additional work in phonemic awareness (basically the ability to manipulate the sounds within words). This is often the missing link in kids who understand phonics, but can't put it all together.

 

You can play/practice even in the car, by simply making the individual sounds in a word (orally) and having him blend them together into a word (also orally). Start with 3-sound words. Move on to 4 sounds, and then 5 when he's confident. He should also do the reverse--you give a word, and he tells the individual sounds. Be sure you understand all of the different sounds--for example, the word "church" has only 3 sounds... /ch/ ... /ur/ ... and /ch/, despite the fact that it has 6 letters.

 

Then practice saying a sound, and asking if he hears it at the beginning of a certain word, or somewhere in the middle, or at the end.

 

When he's good at all of these, try this type of manipulation: "Let's start with the word cat. If you take away the /c/ sound and replace it with a /b/ sound, what word will you have? (bat) Now take away the /t/ sound, and replace it with a /g/ sound. Now what word do you have? (bag)"

 

I find the book Reading Reflex does an excellent job at helping parents teach reading while incorporating phonemic awareness with phonics in an effective way. I totally skip using their stories in the book, but I use all of the other stuff. I really recommend it.

 

As for silent/magic e, I agree that it shouldn't be "explained" as much as played around with. Use tiles or magnets as well as props. Let the e magnet wear a little piece of tissue as a cape. Give him a toothpick wand. When he comes across a CVC word like "can", have him do his magic... it's a magic that forces the vowel to say it's own name as you're blending the new word together. (While kids are first learning, I leave off the other silent e functions, as in se, ge, ve, and so on. It's too confusing all at once.)

 

Hope this helps!

[FO4UR]

Dancing Bears Fast Track is working well for my ds8.

 

It isn't that my ds8 doesn't *know* the phonograms/rules. We did SWR from kindy to 1/2 way through 2nd grade. He knows. His issue is making the leap to see-say...aka "reading."

 

The Fast Track book is a perfect fit (for my ds) b/c my ds doesn't need to relearn the phonograms. He just needs intensive practice *using* them in words.

 

For the silent "e," it starts with words that end in the "ake" or "ike" pattern...practicing just words with those two endings, then it spirals in review of everything covered so far, and on to the next pattern. Less thinking/more reading.

[FO4UR]

I've been a reading tutor for quite a few years. It sounds to me like he could use additional work in phonemic awareness (basically the ability to manipulate the sounds within words). This is often the missing link in kids who understand phonics, but can't put it all together.

 

 

 

My ds8 is very good at the phonemic awareness activities. We've done those since he was a tot. With some kids, it's a disconnect between eye-sound. It's taking what you see and associating it with a sound/meaning. Mine can do it backwards (take a sound and associate a phongram in order to spell) with more ease than he can read. His reading only improves with intensive practice with the see it-say it approach (decoding, NOT sight words).

 

Phonemic awareness is only one of the pieces to the puzzle, and since the OP stated that her ds already knows the phonograms, I assume the problem goes beyond basic phonemic awareness.

[Mandy in TN]

What is it going to take for my 8yo ds to remember the "silent e" rule? It is so frustrating! We have been working at reading for a couple of years now. He's had vision therapy, which didn't seem to help much. His major reading problems are trouble breaking the words apart in order to sound them out (even though he knows the phonograms when we quiz with the flashcards), learning/remember the silent e rule and confusion with the or, er, ir, ur and ar phonograms. And, of course, fluency and speed. We've been completely through The Reading Lesson and Alpha Phonics, along with about three Explode the Code books and drilling with phonogram flashcards. What now?

R-controlled vowels and long vowels with the CVC-e pattern seem to be what many children need to work on to remember. I just teach that -ir, -er, -ur all have the same sound shwa-r. -or sounds just like it is spelled unless it is w+or and then it also makes the shwa-r sound. I also use the -ar like a pirate thing.

 

It has been my experience that children who are ready to read, but are learning for the first time typically achieve proficiency this with about a month of daily work. (working with these sounds as phonograms and in reading and writing everyday of the week for 4 to 5 weeks) If you have been working on this for a couple years and made no progress, I would look into having an educational evaluation. If that is not possible, I would go ahead and use an Orton-Gillingham based product. (I would also be sure to include big-arming and textured phonograms for two-finger tracing.)

 

HTH-

Mandy

[jenbrdsly]

What about Leap Frog's Talking Words Factory #2: Code Word Capers? It makes a big deal about the Silent E machine. Your library might have it.

[Jane Elliot]

 

I find the book Reading Reflex does an excellent job at helping parents teach reading while incorporating phonemic awareness with phonics in an effective way. I totally skip using their stories in the book, but I use all of the other stuff. I really recommend it.

 

 

 

:iagree::iagree: I agree with everything GingerPoppy said. Excellent advice!

 

I could have written your post 13 years ago, Chloe, when my twins were 8 yo. They had a terrible time learning to read, and I dealt with exactly the issues you are dealing with, including vision therapy that did not help. Reading Reflex and daily (as in every single day, including weekends) practice finally worked. I did everything Ginger recommends in her post and it did work.

 

Take heart. You will get through this. With persistence he WILL learn to read well. Both those twins are now juniors at university with merit scholarships and 3.9 GPA's. They get good paying work on campus as tutors, and one of them is a teaching assistant and peer advisor. Hang in there.

Edited August 27, 2011 by Luann in ID