Struggling with reading

[MistyMountain]

My 5 year old dd really struggled with learning her letters. She went to preschool for 2 years and they did the letter of the week and she didn't pick up letters. I worked with her at home and she would learn one then promply forget. I tried starfall and that didn't work. She remembered what was coming up but not the letter or the sounds. She finally learned them when I got the meet the letters video and then she picked up letter sounds without much effort at all.

 

I have been working with her on phonics. We are doing starfall, and funnix the computer program that is based on 100 easy lessons. She did good until we got to words and she is struggling. I just got Bob books hoping they would help her gain confidence but she is even struggling through those. She can sound out some words but it takes a lot of effort and some words she just can't do. When she does a word she will forget it even if it comes up as the next word. Sometimes she just throws guesses out there that don't sound like the word at all. She is sounding out words more but it takes effort. Some words she will be close but get the last sound wrong and end up with the wrong word.

 

She is my oldest child and I am a worrier. I am not sure if I am worrying for nothing and she is still young or if it is a sign of a potential problem how she forgets something she just did. She seems to struggle more than other kids. She also was a little late with talking. She barely said a word before 2 and then had an explosion and caught up pretty fast. She writes a lot of her letters upside down still and is also struggling with writing. I had to help her do it from left to right. She is better with that now.

[Dahliarw]

She is young. I wouldn't push it. Take a break for a couple of months and come back and try again. In the meantime just do lots of read alouds with her. 5 is still on the young end to be reading. A lot of kids don't read until 6-7 years and it's not a big deal. She will get there when she is ready.

[Critterfixer]

If she is doing a lot of guessing at words, I'd not try to have her read even the Bob Books yet.

Aside from knowing the shapes of the letters, is she good with the sounds? Do you feel that she could tell you what sound she hears first in a word? How is she with rhyming things?

It might not hurt to back off on lessons, but I would not back away from increasing her awareness of the sounds of letters and blends. They say that reading poetry to children does help with phonemic awareness, and I believe it.

 

As far as it goes, trust your gut. If you think something isn't right, get it checked out. You might also post this over on the Special Needs Forum. Writing her letters upside down sounds interesting.

[merry gardens]

My 5 year old dd really struggled with learning her letters. She went to preschool for 2 years and they did the letter of the week and she didn't pick up letters. I worked with her at home and she would learn one then promply forget. I tried starfall and that didn't work. She remembered what was coming up but not the letter or the sounds. She finally learned them when I got the meet the letters video and then she picked up letter sounds without much effort at all.

 

I have been working with her on phonics. We are doing starfall, and funnix the computer program that is based on 100 easy lessons. She did good until we got to words and she is struggling. I just got Bob books hoping they would help her gain confidence but she is even struggling through those. She can sound out some words but it takes a lot of effort and some words she just can't do. When she does a word she will forget it even if it comes up as the next word. Sometimes she just throws guesses out there that don't sound like the word at all. She is sounding out words more but it takes effort. Some words she will be close but get the last sound wrong and end up with the wrong word.

 

She is my oldest child and I am a worrier. I am not sure if I am worrying for nothing and she is still young or if it is a sign of a potential problem how she forgets something she just did. She seems to struggle more than other kids. She also was a little late with talking. She barely said a word before 2 and then had an explosion and caught up pretty fast. She writes a lot of her letters upside down still and is also struggling with writing. I had to help her do it from left to right. She is better with that now.

You might want to consider an evaluation by a speech and language pathologist to test her phonemic awareness and memory skills. It might set your mind at ease, or it might help catch a problem early. You mentioned late talking. Talking and reading are both language skills. Trouble with speech often proceeds trouble with reading.

 

She is still quite young, and I wouldn't worry about writing letters upside down or struggling with writing yet, outside of doing things to develop her hand muscles and helping her form the letters correctly. Same with reading left to right--it's appropriate for you to teach her that at this age. But...that she had trouble learning her letters in the first place and that she had earlier problems with speech--those along with problems reading are things that I think are worth further evaluation.

[MistyMountain]

Aside from knowing the shapes of the letters, is she good with the sounds? Do you feel that she could tell you what sound she hears first in a word? How is she with rhyming things?

 

She is good with those skills. Once she learned her letters those skills came much easier. She seems to struggle more with seeing things in print then the concepts. She struggled through numbers too and only recently learned those but she was counting long before she knew her numbers.

[3peasinapod]

Our DD4, who is 5 in a couple of months doesn't know any of the letters or their sounds. This is not for lack of trying. We've worked on them, saw she wasn't retaining, took breaks, and trying again. If she is loving doing letter/reading activities with you, I would continue, but if she is frustrated, stop for a few months and try again. You may also get her eyes checked too. DD8 was reading better when she got glasses; she only needs them for reading. Does she rhyme and pick sounds out of words? Do you think she has good pre-reading skills? AAR level pre1 works on reading readiness. Just a thought; it seems from your posts that she does have these.

 

I freaked out with my first DD too when she hit a wall in 1st grade. I scrambled around for a while, not knowing where she was "supposed" to be, but in the end, now halfway through third grade, she is flourishing. Try to keep in mind that all kids develop differently! That's what I'm doing with our DD4 now! Sometimes I get to worrying, and then I know it's not time to worry yet. If she's 8 and not reading, then I can worry. :001_smile:

[merry gardens]

She is good with those skills. Once she learned her letters those skills came much easier. She seems to struggle more with seeing things in print then the concepts. She struggled through numbers too and only recently learned those but she was counting long before she knew her numbers.

Has she had her eyes checked? Even if she sees 20/20 in both eyes individually, both her eyes need to work together for reading, otherwise it could cause problems. If a child is having double vision and/or her brain switches off and on which image it chooses to use, and/or the words appear to be "moving on the page", it causes problems with reading. You may want to take her to a COVD eye doctor for an evaluation of her eyes and visual processing. (Eye muscles do develop as children learn to read too, so there is some controversy regarding paying for expensive vision therapy to do what might come naturally with a little more time and experience; however, it's worth getting an evaluation. Depending on the results of the evaluation, you can take the severity of any problems into account if vision therapy is recommended.)

 

Basically, when there are reading problems, two of the first things to check out is to make sure the child's eyes and ears work properly. It's not only that they work but it's also that the brain processes what they see and hear properly. Without those skills, reading will be difficult.

Edited December 2, 2011 by merry gardens

[blondeviolin]

I agree with merry gardens. I will also say that is very typical to not remember a word they sounded out just a minute ago. There is a phase where they sound out every word, and on these boards we call it like it is: "being nibbled to death by ducks." BUT! It does end!

 

HOWEVER, her speech issues and then letters, and now reading? I'd be inclined to set up a check.

[MistyMountain]

Thank you everyone for your replies to this. Dd does have perfect vision and most likely will not have vision issues based on how she is presenting now but I never thought of having an issue with how her brain processes it or how the eyes work together.

 

Since I wrote this she actually has made a lot of improvement. My computer that had funnix on it had some issues and is being repaired for the next 2-4 weeks since it was under warrenty. I found a copy of teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons and started that with her from lesson 13 instead of 25 since it was similar to funnix but had different words. She is doing a little better now and can figure out the words easier. I think the pauses in the computer program where making it harder to blend the word and the book has you not pause between sounds. She is also getting better with the first few bob books. She struggles every time we get to a new book but then after doing it a few times she gets better. She is souding out more words now and seems to be doing a lot better but sometimes she will add sounds that aren't there like she turn me into meet.

 

She is sounding out every word still but she is becoming better at it. It doesn't quite sound like a sentence when she reads one but she can get the words pretty fast in the first 3 books and does't struggle reading the words as much now. She is still really working at it but I feel like she is making good progress and I feel better about where she is at now.

 

I guess it is normal for some to kids to really work on sounding out words? How long does it take to get through that stage into actually being able to pick up a book and read it without working at every word.

[MerryAtHope]

She is sounding out every word still but she is becoming better at it. It doesn't quite sound like a sentence when she reads one but she can get the words pretty fast in the first 3 books and does't struggle reading the words as much now. She is still really working at it but I feel like she is making good progress and I feel better about where she is at now.

 

I guess it is normal for some to kids to really work on sounding out words? How long does it take to get through that stage into actually being able to pick up a book and read it without working at every word.

 

This is very, very normal for her age. I wouldn't worry yet. If she's still sounding out every word when she's 7 I would be more concerned, but you should see gradual progress (or even a sudden jump in skills) by then.

 

As for the words not sounding like sentences--one thing you can do to help with fluency is to break it up into phrases, ie:

 

Bob sat

Bob sat on Tim

Bob sat on Tim and the cat.

 

Or whatever the sentences are! If they are shorter, work on just a word or two at a time, gradually add more, using a white board or letter tiles etc... Then when she reads it in the book she'll be familiar and might be a bit more fluent. But this does take practice over time.

 

Not sure if anyone posted about vision processing issues (completely different than regular vision issues), for that check www.covd.org. It's a bit early yet though.

 

Merry :-)

[TeaCookiesBears]

I agree with the posters who mention something about see a speech pathologist because dd5 did many of the things your dd did. However, if you do not think dd this is a problem then remember that kids learn on their own time as I have had to learn. My dd does have to go the see a speech pathologist because she did not say actual words until late among other things.

What is working for me at this time is a combination things. One thing I did was find out dd5 learning and thinking style and tailored everything around it. Right now I am using ElizabethB site to teach reading/spelling and things are going great. As a treat I use starfall and T4L since dd5 loves doing work on the pc. To fit her kinesthetic needs I use magnetic letters, the whiteboard and ETC. As one poster said it takes time and she will get there:)

[NASDAQ]

Mine has also been slow learning letters, and starfall.com was . . . well, none of it stuck. My middle one likes it though.

 

I am using Saxon Phonics K. It's a heavy time investment and very scripted, with a lot of little doo-dads to manage. It can be tough to keep the other ones amused and out of the way (HA). But she's on track to finish it by the New Year, she does well on the assessments, and she is reading words without the anxiety and upset she was starting to show before. So I'm pretty happy. IYH we will begin Phonics 1 in January, which would be January of her K year.

 

I don't know if I'd use it again if I had a child who was able to move along with something lower key. Before we were doing Saxon we were using Phonics Pathways. PP seems like a great program, but it just didn't stick for her. She never got past CVC words in the first section after they learn consonant-vowel blends, and she was having a lot of anxiety and a miserable time the last few times we tried it.