Learning about Dyslexia with my Preschooler

[Jenn in CA]

Hello. I am new to this board. We adopted two girls from the Congo one year ago. I am looking into dyslexia and pre-reading skills for Jamie (she will be 5 in Dec). Jordan will be 4 in Oct.

 

On one hand, they are young, and they came from a life of little to no stimulation, literacy, etc. On the other, Jamie has always seemed to have difficulty processing and makes mistakes that I'm now reading could be related to phonemic awareness, or at the minimum lack of pre-reading skills.

 

I'm still learning about all this. Where could I start with for these two? For ex., rhyming. I'm trying to point out rhymes, we read rhyming books, and they only "get it" about half the time. I know that with a 2yo, for ex., you don't explain what rhyming is, you just do it; so that's where they're at.

 

Some examples of Jamie's things that have me wondering:

* Mixes up consonants (today she said JOFESS for JOSEPH); the more I try to emphasize and help her, the more she gets it mixed up, such as CUPCAKE she can only say PUPCAKE, or KISSUE for TISSUE

* Singing songs which she knows, after a while, she starts substituting easier consonants. Today she was singing "we just got a letter" from Blues Clues, then she suddenly switched to "Jesus got a letter." "Wonder who its from" turns to "munder moo its fum"

 

Both girls have only been speaking English for one year, so I'm sure that is a factor. Both have trouble with the abstract level of words, ie. their sounds as opposed to the meanings. If I say "name a word that starts with T like Tiger" they say "lion".

 

Today they had a worksheet that said "color the circles red". Well, they couldn't see the bee's head was a circle, all they could see was a bee, know what I mean?

 

I hope I don't come across as whining or criticizing. I just don't know how to help them, and I feel like I should. I would like to give them a really strong pre-reading base. This is new to me because I skipped all this pre-reading stuff with the other 4 kids; they just absorbed it. [Hooray for growing up in America!]

[TippyCanoe]

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Edited November 21, 2012 by Doodler

[Mandamom]

You might want to start with a speech-language evaluation to see if you can figure out what is going on. Many public schools will do them for free but if that's not a good option for you you can check out a private SLP.

 

Second you can work on phonemic awareness to help improve that. Make it fun and game like and do it for short periods of time throughout the day rather than focused sessions. (Look for recent posts by me)

 

Otherwise, play with them. Build, color, role play, read aloud stories, make up stories (can they make some up?), I Spy, describe something and see if they can figure out what it is, board games, card games. See if you can pick up some little science kits -- make playdough on the stove, talk about what happens when you..... and then do a science experiment.

 

Pick up some craft materials from Michael's or Walmart and have them create. As they make a face talk about the circle, as they make a house out of Popsicle sticks talk about the shapes of the windows. Nature walks -- draw or take pictures of what they see and name them. This is the absorption that your older kids went through without direct instruction from birth till 5 years. Your youngest need time to go through that process, too, and 1 year might not be enough.

 

You probably do these things anyway but given that they weren't exposed to our language and ways of doing things until recently this will do a lot toward improving their language ability which will make reading and learning easier.

 

They are still very young and given their lack of experience it is way too early to decide if they are going to have reading problems. Build their language as best you can, see about a SLP eval and in time you can start doing some more activities that resemble school.

 

In a couple of years when they are reading a story they might say "hey, mom, I remember that time when we saw that ...... and it is just like the story that we are reading now". That's learning at it's best.

 

Sorry this got so long. :)

Edited August 24, 2012 by Mandamom

[Lecka]

I agree on checking to see if they can get speech therapy.

 

If you search "phonemic awareness" on Amazon some pre-school books come up. It is a developing skill in pre-school and they start at a lower level than rhymes or first letters... I think they start with saying pil low and seeing if kids can say pillow. Stuff like that -- I haven't looked in a while, but I will be pursuing that with my littles sometime next year (they are almost 4).

 

If you try the activities in these books and they are too had or not picked up on, then I would say to move up to dyslexia-specific materials or look again at speech therapy or something, at some point.

 

I haven't picked a specific book yet (so haven't actually done this, lol) but they do look cute to me, and are not too pricy.

 

I agree with pp not to make it too stressful or anything. Overall language development is more important than phonemic awareness, really, and the bigger priority. But it is not hard to sneak in some fun games, either.

Edited August 24, 2012 by Lecka

[PeterPan]

Yes, I'd pursue a speech eval, because it sounds like the one with those errors could use a little help. Personally, I thought the tasks you described (name another animal starting with T, like a lion, blah blah) was just way hard and not something my ds (4 in October) could do. He has NO rhyming either. So I don't know if that makes you feel any better, but your two have way more skill than mine it sounds like. At least they're rhyming 50% of the time.

 

It may be a combo of things. It may be that some of the phonemic awareness really takes time to develop, considering the language change, possible malnutrition or developmental delays, etc. You might find this link helpful. http://phonologicalawareness.org/ I would also continue to think in terms of language acquisition. Read lots of good picture books and do projects and talk together.

[Stacy in NJ]

While these things might be a bit concerning, considering their background and recent language development, it really sounds developmentally normal to me.

 

I'd continue to play word games, sing, read, color, count.

 

Here's a fun and easy workbook that works on phonemic skills.http://www.amazon.com/Phonemic-Awareness-Activities-Reading-Success/dp/0590372319/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1345861411&sr=1-4&keywords=phonemic+awareness#_

[Jenn in CA]

All your replies were very encouraging. Thanks for the links and book suggestions too. I have looked at them and will continue to think about and digest them.