Reading for Right Brainded Child. Sight words?

[Guest Mom2Skaters]

New here but not new to homeschooling.

 

My youngest is 5. She had a stroke in her left brain prior to birth and as a result is very right brained. She is on track with her peer group now... but she is very much a whole to part learner. Phonics is NOT clicking with her at all. She knows her letter, their sounds, and if I point to each letter individually, ask its sound, she will sometimes figure out the word....but more often its over her head.While I truly believe phonics is the bext approach I realize it may not work for her. Are there any curriculums out there that are sight word based? Or designed for whole to part learners?

[HS Mom in NC]

Google Diane Craft.  She lectures at homeschooling conventions all the time and has resources for right brained learners.

[maize]

Try Charlotte Mason's approach to reading. You can use familiar songs or nursery rhymes, write them or print them out in large type, and cut out the separate words. Lay out a line or two of words and read them with your child, let your child practice reading them, then mix up the words and let the child put them back in the proper order.

 

I'm sure there is more to it than that, it's been years since I studied this method.

[maize]

Here's a link, SCM also sells a CM inspired reading program. http://simplycharlottemason.com/2011/01/12/sight-words-and-sentences-teaching-reading-part-3/#more-4222

[Ellie]

New here but not new to homeschooling.

 

My youngest is 5. She had a stroke in her left brain prior to birth and as a result is very right brained. She is on track with her peer group now... but she is very much a whole to part learner. Phonics is NOT clicking with her at all. She knows her letter, their sounds, and if I point to each letter individually, ask its sound, she will sometimes figure out the word....but more often its over her head.While I truly believe phonics is the bext approach I realize it may not work for her. Are there any curriculums out there that are sight word based? Or designed for whole to part learners?

 

I would not necessarily expect phonics to "click" with a 5yo, with or without special issue.:-)

 

Also, I would want to know what you are using to teach phonics, as not all phonics instruction materials are created equal.

[jenbrdsly]

Have you tried building anything?  I'm curious if that would help.  Here's a picture from my blog with sand and rocks, but you could also use play-dough.  And yes, I'd say if phonics aren't sticking, try sight-words.  Have you heard of Balanced Literacy Instruction?  That might be a nice combo approach.

 

[Guest Mom2Skaters]

I would not necessarily expect phonics to "click" with a 5yo, with or without special issue.:-)

 

Also, I would want to know what you are using to teach phonics, as not all phonics instruction materials are created equal.

We used Veritas Press Phonics Museum K last year through the Summer. She grew to hate it so I got Explode the Code 1 for a change of pace. 

[Korrale]

I wouldn't give up on phonics. Perhaps try an online program like www.readingbear.org.

I love preschool Prep products. They have phonics and sight word videos.

[NASDAQ]

I'm not normally a delaying type, but . . .

 

the thing you often don't hear about phonics is that it does require children to be older/more mature/whathaveyou than sight words do. Children can pick up sight words as young as two (not my children. Other people's. Mine don't learn their letters until the last minute). It's rare to have a child younger than, say, 4.5 getting any traction with phonics.

 

Your daughter is on the young side. She knows the letters. She knows the sounds. She can't blend. That doesn't seem so terribly off-the-mark. I'd keep reviewing phonograms (might as well), and demonstrate blending a few words a day until she's ready to move ahead.

 

FWIW, I'm pretty sure "right brained" is a shorthand for a certain type of person and not a reference to the actual side of the brain used when processing thought. So a stroke in the left side of the brain would not cause someone to be more artistic/whole-to-parts.

[sbgrace]

I taught a strongly visual-spatial/whole to parts learner phonics. I had to fight a tendency to memorize words. I realized he could "read" our phonics based program because after we sounded out the word together he just memorized the look. A new or nonsense word using the same sounds was impossible.

 

I did delay until he was older. We began with I See Sam books. I hope you get some specific advice on blending. It wasn't automatic for my son, but came with time here. I see Sam helped, but I'm certain he couldn't have got there at 5.

[Embassy]

I like Getting Ready to Read for helping phonemic awareness.  It builds skills toward blending and beyond.  I've taught a highly visual-spatial reader and have avoided sight words until he was at least reading beginning readers and know how to sound out words.  My son did end up reading much better than his phonics skills, but we completed a full phonics program. I suspect my youngest is also a visual-spatial learner and I started with Getting Ready to Read before moving to early readers.  Now I am using a sight word reader, but she will sound out unfamiliar words.  

[Ellie]

We used Veritas Press Phonics Museum K last year through the Summer. She grew to hate it so I got Explode the Code 1 for a change of pace. 

 

Well, I'm not impressed with Phonics Museum. I can see why your dc grew to hate it.

 

And you're just in the first book of ETC.

 

So at this point, I think it's way too early to say that your dd doesn't do well with phonics. ETC is pretty decent, but she may need something more comprehensive (ETC is usually more of a supplement), such as Phonics Pathways or Alpha Phonics. And of course, there are the methods that involve more learning modalities, which would be Spalding and its spin-offs.

[Karen in CO]

I read Overcoming Dyslexia last year to help with my dd's reading.  She isn't dyslexic, but had visual development problems that interfered with learning to read.  One of the suggestions in the book was to make flashcards for words in multiple colors.  I took a chapter of a book she was reading and wrote out flashcards for most of the words using a different color for each syllable.  These were amazingly effective for her.  I think the book could be very helpful for many other parents whose kids have reading problems.   It really helped me to breakdown the steps involved in reading so I could find tools and strategies to help her get better.  We did lots of other things before this, and I found that ETC and Phonics Pathways were effective to help her decode and understand words, but the color-coding the words helped her the best to be able to see the parts of the words.  I think 5 is still young to quit phonics, but it is certainly a good time to start researching other methods.

[boscopup]

I would think Spalding would work very well for a whole to parts learner, since you take a whole word and analyze it, breaking it into its parts. The child also doesn't have to be blending in order to use the program. At the same time, it's excellent phonics instruction.

[SFM]

I would think Spalding would work very well for a whole to parts learner, since you take a whole word and analyze it, breaking it into its parts. The child also doesn't have to be blending in order to use the program. At the same time, it's excellent phonics instruction.

 

:iagree:

[silver]

It could be an age thing. My son knew letter sounds for a long time before he could blend them into words. One of his favorite learning games was one where I had lots of CVC pictures (so pictures of a cat, pot, rag, etc) and he would use the leap frog word builder fridge phonics set and make the words. He could figure out the letters, and the toy would "glue" it back together into the word.

 

I would either just stick with ETC and not worry right now since she's still young or switch to a teaching-reading-through-spelling program like Spalding.

[Karen in CO]

I read Overcoming Dyslexia last year to help with my dd's reading.  She isn't dyslexic, but had visual development problems that interfered with learning to read.  One of the suggestions in the book was to make flashcards for words in multiple colors.  I took a chapter of a book she was reading and wrote out flashcards for most of the words using a different color for each syllable.  These were amazingly effective for her.  I think the book could be very helpful for many other parents whose kids have reading problems.   It really helped me to breakdown the steps involved in reading so I could find tools and strategies to help her get better.  We did lots of other things before this, and I found that ETC and Phonics Pathways were effective to help her decode and understand words, but the color-coding the words helped her the best to be able to see the parts of the words.  I think 5 is still young to quit phonics, but it is certainly a good time to start researching other methods.

 

 

Quoting myself  :D

Perhaps the book I found the helpful teaching ideas in was Right-brained Child.