Please help me interpret these reading errors

[mamato3 all-boy boys]

These are mistakes my 9yo (late birthday, so he's a 3rd grader) made today while reading the *very* short sentences in our FLL-3 lesson today. They are fairly typical of the sorts of mistakes he makes when he reads aloud to me:

 

Mistake -> Correct Word

 

early -> yearly

clips -> chips

bug -> bud

quietly -> quickly

early -> earlier

tiptoed -> tiptoe

 

*lunge -> lounge

 

From my observation, only the last one (*) was really a phonetic error -- what I mean from that is he had forgotten the 'ou' sound.

 

The other mistakes -- well, I'd love some advice. Oh, and when we get to multi-syllable words (2-3 syllables) the mistakes are similar -- I call them guessing mistakes, because he just seems to read the first part of the word, then say whatever makes sense within the context (which on occasion is right, but usually not).

 

FWIW, we tested in the spring with the Stanford Achieve Test, and his reading comp score was in the 60%ile. So, he's getting the gist of what we're reading, but it isn't pretty to listen to.

 

Thanks. You can sign me,

 

Wishing-I-Had-The-Answers-To-Help-My-Son

[Grover]

have you had his vision checked?

[mamato3 all-boy boys]

Yes, I'm sorry I forgot that. Yes, he wears glasses. His prescription is about 6 months old. That said, we do have another appointment with a pediatric ophthalmologist Dec. 1.

[wapiti]

The two possible issues that come to mind are vision and dyslexia. By vision, I mean not only 20/20 (which you are addressing with glasses) but also how the eyes work together - convergence, tracking, etc. The testing for these issues is more extensive than what is included in a regular eye exam (with either an opthamologist or an optometrist). For this sort of testing, you'd need to see a developmental optometrist. (FWIW, our ped opthamologist missed dd's tracking problem; our neuropsych referred us to a developmental optometrist shortly after that, who found the tracking problem; vision therapy fixed it.) For more discussion of VT, see a recent thread on this board or the numerous threads on the SN board.

 

A neuropsych or similar would be the type of professional to diagnose dyslexia.

[Murmer]

To me it looks like he is trying to use his phonics skills but 1st isn't reading carefully enough completely through the word....2nd he needs to start monitoring his reading and if the word does not make complete sense he needs to notice and stop reading go back and look at the word again. You could stop him after an error (right after or at the end of the sentence) and ask if that made sense, would you say it that way and he should say no, if he says yes you read it the way he did and say no that doesn't make sense. Then tell him to go back and reread it looking carefully at all the letters in all the words. Doing this a few times should help him start to realize that he needs to be noticing for himself if what he is reading is right.

[jplain]

What phonics instruction did he have? How well do you think that instruction has "stuck"?

 

He's making a lot of the same kind of mistakes my younger daughter is making. She's a self-taught sight reader. No known vision issues, though we've been alert to that possibility because of her older sister's vision problems. Right now I'm having her work through ETC even though she's far beyond that level of reading.

 

She's busy by nature, and when she reads out loud, she's in such a hurry that her mouth can hardly keep up. Along with phonics I'm focusing on having her slow down and actually sound out words, instead of guessing.

At bedtime she reads a chapter of a book to me, instead of the other way 'round. :) If she misreads a word, I stop her and have her re-read the sentence until she reads it correctly.

 

If her misreading persists, I'll begin having her read nonsense words, which will force her to use decoding skills instead of guessing.

Edited November 15, 2011 by jplain

[LMD]

guessing mistakes! My DH still does this all the time! My DD does it too, but she is still young and I'm trying to teach her to be more careful. My DH explains it as he sees the 'shape' of the word and sees the first word that fits, he doesn't look at the letters individually...

 

I don't know how to fix it, except to slow down and be careful!

[Bula Mama]

guessing mistakes! My DH still does this all the time! My DD does it too, but she is still young and I'm trying to teach her to be more careful. My DH explains it as he sees the 'shape' of the word and sees the first word that fits, he doesn't look at the letters individually...

 

I don't know how to fix it, except to slow down and be careful!

 

If this is something new and not his consistent way of reading I would think that he's at the between stage of needing to sound everything out and beginning to sight read. I'm no expert but I have a dyslexic son and with him there are patterns to the things he struggles with and I'm not seeing that at least in the list you posted. And there's nooo way my ds could have read some of those words at 9. Maybe just to put your mind at ease. :001_smile:

[MerryAtHope]

guessing mistakes! My DH still does this all the time! My DD does it too, but she is still young and I'm trying to teach her to be more careful. My DH explains it as he sees the 'shape' of the word and sees the first word that fits, he doesn't look at the letters individually...

 

I don't know how to fix it, except to slow down and be careful!

 

That's very common with dyslexia (to see the shape of the word and guess). Working through an Orton-Gillingham based program can really help your daughter. Going slowly, focusing on segmenting every sound (which someone who struggles won't want to do but in the end it's really critical--and will eventually become more normal).

[MerryAtHope]

Seconding the developmental optometrist thought, and also encourage getting something Orton Gillingham based that will teach him to look at every sound, will walk him through the phonograms incrementally and make sure he has no gaps in his knowledge.

 

Some kids are amazing at guessing from context. If you give him a list of unrelated words (no physical pattern and no content pattern), that will give you a real picture of his phonics skills and just how hard he has to work to read.

 

Merry :-)

[PeterPan]

Yes, you want a developmental optometrist, not the opthamalogist. And while I agree that he's guessing, that doesn't mean you can tell why. You eliminate the eyes first and working memory issues, then look at dyslexia. And no, you can't exclude dyslexia just because a dc does or does not look exactly like the pattern you had. There's way too much variety to it. For instance, before we did VT (vision therapy), my dd couldn't sound out at all. So when you asked her to sound out or read words she didn't know, she would guess much like you're saying (read first, read end, guess the middle). It just happened that she was more "stealth" about it and didn't have it show until it was longer words. We've done VT (vision therapy) to correct what could be corrected that way, and now we're waiting for the results from the neuropsych to see what remains.

 

So definitely get his vision checked by a developmental optometrist. Then see what you're left with.

 

BTW, I taught her to read with SWR, which is a spinoff of WRTR and OG. She still couldn't sound out till we did VT. I think it had to do with tracking and how her eyes were processing, not sure.