Reading Anxiety

[BW1426]

DD is 5.75. She desperately wants to learn how to read. What she really wants to read are chapter books. She was in Montessori so is used to the steps it takes to build up to doing something, though the process is something she struggles with in all things. She is much more a person that wants to immediately jump to the end. We've really worked on this, but for some reason she is especially struggling with it in reading.

 

She can sound out some words and knows probably 25 sight words. But, when it comes down to reading a book or sounding out a word she doesn't know she comes just short of a panic attack. I put the more difficult work away for about 2 months and just brought it out today. She starts to freak out so much about sounding out a word she doesn't know that she forgets the sounds that individual letters make.

 

It kills me that she is so upset by this. She is not a sensitive child, this is the only thing I can think of that she gets upset about like this. I am in no rush for her to read, but she keeps asking me to bring out the work. I dialed it back and brought out things that I knew she could easily do, hoping it would help her gain a better foundation of confidence. It didn't seem to give her more confidence, she frankly just seemed bored.

 

How do I quench her thirst for this knowledge without overwhelming her? How do I build her confidence so that she doesn't panic? Does anyone have any tips for calming her anxiety once she gets to that point?

[imagine.more]

Are you using a systematic phonics approach with her? What have you tried so far?

 

I was a late reader (age 7) and I had anxiety about it as well and it was because nobody had ever thought to systematically go through the phonics rules with me (back in the days of whole-language reading instruction, yuck!). What worked for me was a dual approach of systematic one-on-one phonics and my reading specialist taking the time to sit with me and let me read aloud to her, gently pushing me to sound out the words myself. By the end of the year I was reading chapter books and remained an above-average reader since then, even went to school on academic scholarship and was an English Ed. major.

[Cassy]

DS4 is a very able reader for his age, and, as the youngest of four boys, is quite ambitious about what he attempts to read. I mostly let him try reading whatever he wants to me, but as he's so young I've not wanted him to struggle too much with trying to sound out new or difficult words, so I've taken the approach of sounding them out for him quite quickly after he comes to them. I never did this with any of my other three, but this approach does seem to work well as he's never had to experience too much frustration when reading. He's still learning and improving at an astonishing rate, so my making it easy for him doesn't seem to be doing any harm. I imagine as he gets older I'll stop 'spoon feeding' him to such an extent and let him struggle a bit more.

 

Maybe it's worth a try, if you haven't already tried it?

 

Good luck and best wishes

 

Cassy