Phonics/fluency--and opposition from family

[jenrebow]

Hi all!

 

This post will be somewhat unfocused. I need some advice.

 

My 9-year old dd (who is in private school) is reading just slightly below grade level--in terms of fluency. She admits that she guesses at big words by looking at the first and final letters and choosing a word that will make sense. She doesn't want to sound out words because the strong readers in her class don't have to sound anything out.

 

The school has actually been working on her reading deficits, using reading a to z, but as far as I can tell, they're primarily working on fluency via repeated readings. DD is an EXCELLENT sigh reader (in addition to making generally good guesses when she reads).

 

Here are my questions:

 

1) Will repeated readings simply reinforce a tendency to sight read? If she gets a word wrong once and is told the correct word, she'll remember it for the next time without trying to sound anything out.

 

2) Any suggestions on a program that I can use with her after school? I need something that won't require a lot of my involvement (she doesn't tolerate me as her "teacher"--one reason I haven't homeschooled her), and that won't take a lot of extra time--she's already doing about an hour a day of homework in math, history, etc. What are your opinions about the relative merits of the following programs:

 

• How to Teach Spelling. DD is a poor speller and agrees that she needs extra help on spelling. This would allow me to work on phonics without her knowing that we're doing phonics. A plus is that I have the teacher's manual and the workbooks are inexpensive. There is some teacher involvement as far as I can tell, but not tons.
  
• Megawords. I know this is for fourth grade and up, but I THINK DD would do OK with this. For one thing, DD recognizes the patterns of most single-syllable words, both from her limited exposure to phonics and from exposure to the patterns. Megawords seems more "grown up" and doesn't require a lot of teaching from me. I can also "sell" this to her as a "spelling" program.
  
• She enjoys online learning programs. If you have suggestions for an online learning program that might work for her, please feel free to suggest it. She has done "Read, Write, and Type." I've thought about Wordy Qwerty, but fear it doesn't go far enough.
  

 

3) This is more a vent, though perhaps you can offer suggestions for talking to family and others about phonics. When I told DH that K. can't sound out words, his response was, "Who cares?" And my mother-in-law, who has studied Neuro-Linguistic Programming, insists that most people read and spell by sight anyway, which I believe is EVENTUALLY true of proficient readers. What can I tell them? My DH doesn't care much for research, especially not statistical research. His opposition hasn't helped my previous attempts to teach phonics; he thinks I'm trying to fit DD into a "one-size fits all" approach and not appreciating her individual gifts.

 

Sorry for the vent. I'd appreciate any suggestions you have--especially about programs.

[HejKatt]

:grouphug: about the conflicting opinions, I hope you will find a resolution.

 

I hope ElizabethB, a Hive member and creator of the Phonics Page, will see this and chime in. If not, you can search for her posts.

 

IIRC, she suggests to practice reading 'nonsense' words for guessers. Here is a game she made to create your own nonsense words:

http://www.thephonic...trationgam.html

[LaughingCat]

Once they start working on fluency they are working on the ability to sight read. Fluency is mainly about speed, therefore it is sight reading. From my research, repeated readings are considered the number one way to work on fluency. My question about her recognizing the word after being told would be - does she recognize it in a different context too?

.

However stopping a habit of guessing and teaching how to sound out harder words are completely different skills from fluency IMO.

 

Whats worked for us best for guessing is to read lots of unknown words - generally this is presented as lists of words. We use Dancing Bears (working on C now but started with Fast Track) because I like that they use real less common words. However starting with Elizabeth B's nonsense words would be the way to start IMO - to test and see how much this is truly an issue for her.

 

As far as sounding out the harder unknown words, we are mixing Dancing Bears C with Abecedarian C (mostly because I already had it). Another program is Rewards Intermediate. And of course Megawords

 

FWIW, research does show that working on phonics is not as helpful for older struggling readers.

[MomatHWTK]

I used word searches to "force" my Ds to look at the whole word and each letter in a block of letters. Reading Rescue 1-2-3 has some good tips for developing reading skills. I like http://donpotter.net...ring_sequen.pdf and http://www.lewrockwe...r/taylor79.html .

 

I'm a sight reader, btw. It is possible to memorize a lot of words and be OK. But, I'm still getting a little phonics into my kids. ;)

[TeachingMyTwo]

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[Clarkd]

The How To Teach Spelling book does use the nonsense word strategy. This way you could use it while telling dh you are working on spelling!

[jenrebow]

Thanks for the advice. DD has been pretty resistant to nonsense words from the start, but maybe just having her read words out of context might force her to look at the words. I'm not sure that she is able to recognize the same word in a different context; I haven't paid enough attention.

 

I'm still torn about programs. I think I do too much research! I should just pick a program and stick with it. I'm still seriously considering How to Teach Spelling, but am now also intrigued by M.K. Henry's Words program. That looks like it has some of the same benefits of Megawords without tons of workbook writing (though it does require more "teacher" work). It's one book for $42.00 that will cover a lot of material--a review of phonics in a non "babyish" way, syllabication rules. And I really like the morpheme approach.

 

Oh, and what is Master Reader? Teaching My Two mentioned it, but a google search brings up all kinds of results, nothing that seems like what the poster was asking about.

 

Jen

[TeachingMyTwo]

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[Rod Everson]

I worked with kids who were struggling with reading and many of them were guessers/sight-word-readers. The problem with sight-word reading is many fold. As you've seen, it leads to guessing. Spelling is usually horrible. And as the memory load grows, it becomes more or less impossible to memorize every word you'll run into in, for example, college. Yes, most of us appear to be sight word readers as adults, but most proficient adults learned their vocabulary by understanding the phonic structure of the word as they were exposed to it the first few times. Once learned, automatic recall occurs after sufficient exposures.

 

Another problem with memorizing your entire reading vocabulary (without having first analyzed the phonic content) is that people build various mnemonic devices to keep words straight from one another. If a child is confusing "what" and "that", he clearly doesn't appreciate the phonic structure of either word, so how does he eventually keep them straight? Possibly by some shorthand mnemonic of his/her own devising, and very possibly one that gets in the way of comprehension while it's being dredged up.

 

So, I agree completely with you about the need to get your daughter to appreciate the phonic structure of the words she learns. And if she is already a decent reader of one-syllable words, you might find the Junior High Phonics Course that I put together of some interest. It's a multisyllable decoding program structured to be presented as ten 15-minute lessons. The program teaches the chunking method that I taught for ten years, a method that works exceptionally well, and nearly always succeeded in breaking a guessing habit because the kids soon figure out that it works a lot better than guessing. In the sense that I used it with nearly 200 kids, one on one, it's been tested, although I never did test it as a ten-lesson format. If you do decide to try it, I'd like to hear how it goes. I'd also be happy to answer any questions as you go along.

 

Rod Everson

OnTrack Reading

 

P.S. You might also consider telling your daughter (and your husband) that those "good readers" in her class sound out new, unfamiliar, words when they encounter them, because they probably do. And the more words they sound out, the more they are able to commit to memory, and the better they read. It's the memorizers who eventually run into trouble and fall back of the pack, exactly as it sounds your daughter is in danger of doing. For that matter, pick a really long drug name that none of her "good readers" would have heard of and tell her to ask them how they would approach reading it. They will read it chunk by chunk, sounding it out all the way, and if they run into it a few more times in the near future they'll have committed it to memory, and will likely even be able to spell it. The rote-memorizers will have no idea how to read it at first, might be able to memorize it if they see it enough times, and will likely never be able to spell it. And, worse, if they're in the medical profession someday, they just might confuse it with a similar-appearing drug name and do considerable damage in the process.

[jenrebow]

Thanks both of you. Master Reader is a bit expensive, but DD might like it better than other approaches.

 

Rod, thanks for the links to your chunking rules. I actually sold my husband on more instruction for DD by not describing "sounding out," but rather effective segmenting of words. In my obsessive research, I found an online program that sounded out the word "beginning" phoneme-by-phoneme, rather than chunk by chunk--which is not what good readers do after a certain point. I'll try out your lessons. As a linguist myself (though admittedly my focus is SLAVIC linguistics, not English--very useful :laugh: ), I agree that we tend to segment words after the vowel sound.

[Rod Everson]

 

Rod, thanks for the links to your chunking rules.... I'll try out your lessons. As a linguist myself (though admittedly my focus is SLAVIC linguistics, not English--very useful :laugh: ), I agree that we tend to segment words after the vowel sound.

 

If you use the method, one thing I don't emphasize on the website is how the Exceptions to the Main Rule can be used as spelling tips. In the case of the First Exception, adding a doubled consonant to the chunk results in an unnatural break (rabb-it is awkward to say compared to ra-bbit) and that unnatural break can be used as a mnemonic device to recall the doubled consonant. The syllable division way is to split the /b/ sound into two sounds and recall the word as "rab-bit", which is the way most of us learned it if we had traditional phonics instruction in school at one point or another.

 

Similarly, the Second Exception (adding one of the markers x, ck, dg, or tch) to the preceding chunk also results in a more awkward pronunciations (rock-et is awkward compared to ro-cket) and that can again be used as a mnemonic to recall the presence of the marker ck. (If there wasn't a marker spelling, she'd be saying ro-ket.)

 

The Third Exception just addresses the words where the natural break is not after the vowel sound (words like con-stant, or mon-ster, for example.) That's the more complicated one to explain, but the easiest for a child to apply, because they'd never dream of chunking, monster as mo-nster, for example. The spelling tip there is that when you don't feel any awkwardness in the way it's chunked, don't bother with a doubled consonant.

 

Rod

[RootAnn]

In regard to your #3:

 

Denise Eide, in her Uncovering the Logic of English book (pg 30), quotes

recent research using functional MRI [that] has shown that good readers are actually processing the sounds one at [a] time, even though they perceive it as a whole word. It is just that the brain is so fast, it appears they are reading whole words. In reality, though, they are converting the letters on the page to sounds.

with a footnote to this link: 10 Years of Brain Imaging Research Shows the Brain Reads Sound by Sound

 

 

------------

Perhaps some ammo for your MIL (and maybe DH, since this isn't statistical at all, but scientific!).

[Momof2littles]

What about a hands on book like Making Words or Making Big Words by Dorothy Hall and Patricia Cunningham? They manipulate letters and look at the words to sort for patterns. They also relate it to writing. I love these books! I used Making Words all the time when I taught public school 1st and 3rd grade (I never had to use Making Big Words). You can make it fun like you're playing a game together.

 

http://www.amazon.co...s/dp/0866538062

 

http://www.amazon.co...d_bxgy_b_text_y

 

 

ETA: I forgot I wanted to add above that you could teach her the syllable types. It makes so much more sense to follow the syllable types when figuring out words!! Love that strategy, too!

[TeachingMyTwo]

.

[Ellie]

Thanks for the advice. DD has been pretty resistant to nonsense words from the start, but maybe just having her read words out of context might force her to look at the words. I'm not sure that she is able to recognize the same word in a different context; I haven't paid enough attention.

 

I'm still torn about programs. I think I do too much research! I should just pick a program and stick with it. I'm still seriously considering How to Teach Spelling, but am now also intrigued by M.K. Henry's Words program. That looks like it has some of the same benefits of Megawords without tons of workbook writing (though it does require more "teacher" work). It's one book for $42.00 that will cover a lot of material--a review of phonics in a non "babyish" way, syllabication rules. And I really like the morpheme approach.

 

 

I believe in phonics. *some* children learn to read well with sight-reading, but you can see that apparently your dd is not one of them. If you are unsure about this, read "Why Johnny Still Can't Read." Depending on context is a really not a good thing.

 

Is your dd still in the private school? If so, you'll want to choose something for phonics that you can easily do at home. Explode the Code would be good; another is the Victory Drill Book.

 

This is an interesting article on the downside of sight-reading.

[blondeviolin]

To be honest, once they get to a certain level, they are reading in chunks anyway. The important part is that they are segmenting words the proper way. Elizabeth B's How to Tutor page has a quick run-through of phonics rules and syllabication that you could do. That's free.

 

If you're looking to do spelling, How to Teach Spelling also covers breaking words into syllables. If that seems overwhelming, All About Spelling is very similar to HTTS and holds your hand very nicely.

[MomatHWTK]

I think these resources look fun and helpful:

http://www.primaryco...-Syll-Tiles.asp

 

Wanted to add- I did learn basic phonics in grade school. I am almost certain we never did the vowel sets, stopping at consonant blends. The rest we learned through spelling (memorization). I would agree that it is probably true that my brain is still decoding as brains tend to work that way. I would guess the difference between whole word and sound by sound reading is where in the brain the decoding takes place or where the person perceives it taking place. I look at whole words and even phrases and pass them quickly out of short term memory and really only bounce them back when I have a whole phrase or sentence. I've noticed that my children do not, nor does my DH.

 

I would guess that testing would show that it is very hard for me to quickly read a random list of items over reading a full paragraph. I have to stop and think to read short unrealted words as opposed to shipping the whole lot back to some inner brain part for processing. LOL

 

That was one reason I think the word searches worked for us. You actually have to look at each word and each letter in that word. Then, eye scanning is reinforced because you have to scan along a whole row or column of unrelated letters and compare it to the letters you are holding in short term memory. Drove my DS nuts to have to do this- but his reading speed really improved. ;) Guess I should be doing some word searches.

[jenrebow]

In regard to your #3:

 

Denise Eide, in her Uncovering the Logic of English book (pg 30), quotes

 

with a footnote to this link: 10 Years of Brain Imaging Research Shows the Brain Reads Sound by Sound

 

 

------------

Perhaps some ammo for your MIL (and maybe DH, since this isn't statistical at all, but scientific!).

 

Thanks for that! Fascinating.

 

What about a hands on book like Making Words or Making Big Words by Dorothy Hall and Patricia Cunningham? They manipulate letters and look at the words to sort for patterns. They also relate it to writing. I love these books! I used Making Words all the time when I taught public school 1st and 3rd grade (I never had to use Making Big Words). You can make it fun like you're playing a game together.

 

http://www.amazon.co...s/dp/0866538062

 

http://www.amazon.co...d_bxgy_b_text_y

 

 

ETA: I forgot I wanted to add above that you could teach her the syllable types. It makes so much more sense to follow the syllable types when figuring out words!! Love that strategy, too!

 

I've never heard of those books, but they look good. Wish they had samples.

I believe in phonics. *some* children learn to read well with sight-reading, but you can see that apparently your dd is not one of them. If you are unsure about this, read "Why Johnny Still Can't Read." Depending on context is a really not a good thing.

 

Is your dd still in the private school? If so, you'll want to choose something for phonics that you can easily do at home. Explode the Code would be good; another is the Victory Drill Book.

 

This is an interesting article on the downside of sight-reading.

 

Ellie, thanks for the suggestions. Yes, I'm keeping her in the private school. DH and I both work full time, so homeschooling isn't really an option. Moreover, the times I have tried to teach DD spelling or anything, she's not reacted well. I admire those of you who can fill both roles!

 

 

I think these resources look fun and helpful:

http://www.primaryco...-Syll-Tiles.asp

 

 

That was one reason I think the word searches worked for us. You actually have to look at each word and each letter in that word. Then, eye scanning is reinforced because you have to scan along a whole row or column of unrelated letters and compare it to the letters you are holding in short term memory. Drove my DS nuts to have to do this- but his reading speed really improved. ;) Guess I should be doing some word searches.

 

The syllable tiles do look like fun. And word searches sound like a great idea. I enjoy them myself, but never thought about the value of looking for the whole word.

 

I appreciate everyone's support and advice here. I'll consider all of the resources you've suggested, and take heart knowing that she should work on her decoding skills.

[jenrebow]

What about a hands on book like Making Words or Making Big Words by Dorothy Hall and Patricia Cunningham? They manipulate letters and look at the words to sort for patterns. They also relate it to writing. I love these books! I used Making Words all the time when I taught public school 1st and 3rd grade (I never had to use Making Big Words). You can make it fun like you're playing a game together.

 

http://www.amazon.co...s/dp/0866538062

 

http://www.amazon.co...d_bxgy_b_text_y

 

 

ETA: I forgot I wanted to add above that you could teach her the syllable types. It makes so much more sense to follow the syllable types when figuring out words!! Love that strategy, too!

 

 

I found a good sample on Carson Dellosa's website of a similar product by Patricia Cunningham. It looks very good. It reminds me a bit of Sequential Spelling, and, sure enough, it turns out that Tim Rasinski, the creator, developed Sequential Spelling based on Cunningham's Making Words curricula. He found keeping up with all of the manipulatives daunting, so developed a system using writing. In fact, he's got a more expensive product Making and Writing Words.

 

Making Words would be more fun, but I wonder if writing the words wouldn't be a bit better for DD?

 

Thanks for the recommendation. Making Words is new to me.

[Momof2littles]

 

 

I found a good sample on Carson Dellosa's website of a similar product by Patricia Cunningham. It looks very good. It reminds me a bit of Sequential Spelling, and, sure enough, it turns out that Tim Rasinski, the creator, developed Sequential Spelling based on Cunningham's Making Words curricula. He found keeping up with all of the manipulatives daunting, so developed a system using writing. In fact, he's got a more expensive product Making and Writing Words.

 

Making Words would be more fun, but I wonder if writing the words wouldn't be a bit better for DD?

 

Thanks for the recommendation. Making Words is new to me.

 

I would start with hands on first. Physically manipulating the letters will definitely help. I have seen huge strides in struggling readers using this book! And like I was saying, you can make it like a game with magnetic letters or letter tiles or letters written on index cards so it won't seem so "schoolish." You'll probably get less resistance from her. :)

 

The last step in the lesson is transferring the learning to writing. So, (let's say you just did the lesson and a few of the words have the -ash chunk, you've manipulated letters, sorted the words [you write all the words she will make on index cards so she can see them written] and looked at patterns.) the book might say, "you're writing about swimming. Which of the words we've made could help you write splash?" she looks at the index cards, picks a word that ends in -ash and writes splash...it's genius! Haha! That's always the last component of the lesson.

[Momof2littles]

 

 

I found a good sample on Carson Dellosa's website of a similar product by Patricia Cunningham. It looks very good. It reminds me a bit of Sequential Spelling, and, sure enough, it turns out that Tim Rasinski, the creator, developed Sequential Spelling based on Cunningham's Making Words curricula. He found keeping up with all of the manipulatives daunting, so developed a system using writing. In fact, he's got a more expensive product Making and Writing Words.

 

Making Words would be more fun, but I wonder if writing the words wouldn't be a bit better for DD?

 

Thanks for the recommendation. Making Words is new to me.

 

Here are two good links. Hope they help. The video shows whole group instruction but making words is great one-on-one because you can see exactly what that student is thinking as they move the letters around. You can catch mistakes in thinking right away and teach what is needed!

 

http://www.mrsruss.com/Parents/mkwrd.htm