Teaching reading before speech is clear.

[Btervet]

I'm trying to teach my 4 year old how to read using 100 EZ lessons. He is really enjoying it, and really wants to be able to read on his own. However, there are some sounds be still doesn't pronounce clearly, and it is making it difficult for him to sound out some words. For example, he has trouble with th s and z, t and d, and some sounds that I and a make sound the same to him. So if he is sounding out that, he will often say sat. He can hear the difference if I say the words, but not when he is sounding out the words.

 

Is this a sign that he just isn't ready to read yet? He is very driven, so I don't want to stop him. Is there some way to help him when he is mixing up letter sounds because he says them so similarly? I've tried showing him how to make the different sounds by showing him the proper tongue placement, and it's helped occasionally, but doesn't seem to stick. I believe his pronunciation is age appropriate, so I guess I'm wondering if it is possible to sound out words before pronunciation is perfected.

[Tanikit]

My 3 year old has the same problem - she is reading and blending and all I do is listen very carefully and I know what to expect - so if th sounds like "s" it does not matter - every single word she speaks sounds like that and my child has pronunciation problems with way more sounds than that - what I have listened for is consistency - I know she will never get a "l" pronounced correctly but every single time she says "y" - she knows it is "l" because I get "y" for lion and "y" for yoyo and she is perfectly aware that it is not the same thing or the same letter. However if she says "t" for "a" then I know she is not getting it as she can definitely pronounce both sounds and then I insist she says the correct sound and repeats it after me.

 

As for speech therapy we are working on the sounds she should be saying, but I do not think that should stop her reading them.

[Sarah0000]

Does he seem to know the difference in the words even if he pronounces them incorrectly? Does he know that the word that is not the word sat even though he pronounces it like that? As far as if it's possible to read before clear pronunciation, yes. My precocious two year old is reading a little and sounding out, even though he is a bit delayed in speaking. Like the PP, words he can't pronounce correctly he consistently says the same way, and he also uses ASL for words he can't say. He does, however, do better when he makes the sounds individually a few times first, before trying to blend them together.

[Mommy_of_4]

My 5yr old has speech problems. She messes up a lot if sounds. She can hear the difference just not say it. She is doing great with learning phonics. I think if I waited till her speech was intelligible 100% of the time she would be ten before she learned to read. My daughter is probably bout 50% intelligible right now but for some reason she speaks so much better when she is reading out loud from a book.

[MinivanMom]

I've found that phonics instruction actually helps children with mild enunciation to be more aware of the sounds they are making.

 

For my dd with severe speech issues, I waited until I thought we could tackle phonics instruction without undue frustration. That line will differ for every child. We waited during the period when she was still completely unintelligible to people outside our family. I went ahead and started phonics once she had moved into the intelligible zone, although she still couldn't clearly pronounce a whole slew of sounds. Phonics instruction for her meant a lot of instruction in tongue placement too. For a long time she would see "th" on the page - for example - and say to me, "Is that /th/ or /t/?" I wouldn't just answer the question, but would also show her where I was placing my tongue. Her speech improved dramatically as she learned to read.

[basketcase]

We only had occasional hiccoughs with this - the kids quickly figure it out, and as mentioned before, the reading can help them distinguish sounds. That's been our experience, at least, with kids who all had speech issues and read early. 

[genny]

ds was reading at 3 despite pronunciation of some letters being off.  He's now 5 and reading really well for his age although he still struggle's with pronouncing 'L' and a few others.  If your child is eager I wouldn't hold off.

[Kerileanne99]

Does he seem to know the difference in the words even if he pronounces them incorrectly? Does he know that the word that is not the word sat even though he pronounces it like that? As far as if it's possible to read before clear pronunciation, yes. My precocious two year old is reading a little and sounding out, even though he is a bit delayed in speaking. Like the PP, words he can't pronounce correctly he consistently says the same way, and he also uses ASL for words he can't say. He does, however, do better when he makes the sounds individually a few times first, before trying to blend them together.

This sounds a lot like mine at that age. She could read whole books, and if we couldn't understand her she would simply sign the word. It did not slow her down in the least! Last night I was actually watching a video of her reading a Hairy Maclary book at age 2 and was quite amazed at the baby-mis pronunciation...yet she had not trouble reading the book or answering questions. At 4 she can read pretty much anything you put in front of her

 

I once heard Rachel Coleman (from Signing Time, ASL) say that speaking is a skill, whilst Language is much more...as long as our child UNDERSTANDS properly, don't hold them back!

[Btervet]

Thank you all so much for the advice. We will keep working on it for now!

 

Does he seem to know the difference in the words even if he pronounces them incorrectly? Does he know that the word that is not the word sat even though he pronounces it like that?

This is the part that concerned me is that he didn't seem to get the difference. So if he was reading the word that, he'd say th/s sound, followed by aaa t. Then he'd try to blend and say "sat", and think it was sat even though he can see the th. So it isn't just mispronouncing, but his mispronouncing is causing him to decode the wrong words.

 

He can hear the differences when I say it though. If I ask him to find the word that vs sat he can do that correctly. Sorry I don't know all the correct symbols for the sounds.

[MinivanMom]

Thank you all so much for the advice. We will keep working on it for now!

 

 

This is the part that concerned me is that he didn't seem to get the difference. So if he was reading the word that, he'd say th/s sound, followed by aaa t. Then he'd try to blend and say "sat", and think it was sat even though he can see the th. So it isn't just mispronouncing, but his mispronouncing is causing him to decode the wrong words.

 

He can hear the differences when I say it though. If I ask him to find the word that vs sat he can do that correctly. Sorry I don't know all the correct symbols for the sounds.

 

Okay, my dd with severe speech issues did this with several sounds as she was learning to read. The one that was the worst was /m/ and /n/. She just could not seem to hear the difference. I would consistently stop and correct her, but she still just couldn't hear the difference. She had the ability to make each sound (they were some of the first consonants she mastered with therapy), but something just wasn't connecting with the reading.

 

What finally worked for us was to give her a visual aid for remembering which one is which. I pointed out that an "n" looks likes a tongue, so she should place her tongue on the roof of her mouth to make the sound /n/. The "m" looks like lips on a cartoon character, so she should press her lips together to make the sound /m/. This visual connection with the shape of her mouth helped her to get it. I still had to occasionally remind her, "Wait, what sound does that letter represent? Does it look like a tongue or like lips? That's right. It looks like a tongue; you need to place your tongue on the roof of your mouth to say /n/." Within a few weeks she had it.

 

I'm not sure if this example helps, but I know my daughter really benefited from phonics being taught within the context of instruction in enunciation. I'm not sure if I'm even saying that in a way that would make sense to a speech therapist (I think I'm messing up the correct terminology), but maybe it will give you some ideas of how to tackle the problem.

[Korrale]

My son learnt to read whole language before he was talking clearly. His speech came in strongly with phonics instruction when he was about 3. If the phonics is too difficult and you are intent of teaching him to read, as opposed to waiting, I would look into a whole language method and then reinforce with phonics when his speech is clearer.

[MistyMountain]

I did lessons before my ds was speaking clearly. He actually was in speech therapy for articulation so his speech was really off. He couldn't say a bunch of sounds but he knew them and I just counted his attempt to say it. He did have a hard time with sounding out certain words but he could hear the differences. My ds actually is struggling learning to read but I see signs of dyslexia in him. I don't regret trying early or not waiting until his speech was clearer to try because there is more time to work on it and try to find ways to fix it. If he is enjoying it then I would keep going.

[Spring Flower]

My two oldest both learned to talk at the same time that they learned to read. If your son is driven then I would go with it!

[boscopup]

My middle son learned to sound out words while still in speech therapy. For a sound he simply cannot say, if I knew out was how he would pronounce it in a sentence, I'd take it. For example, he's 7.5 now and still struggles with /th/ in the middle of a word. When reading his reader, he will say something like "mudwer" or "fahdwer". I know what he is trying to say, and he knows what he is reading. He just can't physically make that sound there very easily.

 

There were letters he confused. Like MinivanMom's DD, we had issues with m/n. He had had problems with those sounds in speech the previous year, and he could hear both sounds, but when he started reading, he confused those letters. Again, like MM's DD. giving him a picture helped. My friend had PAL Reading, and they have little pictures for each letter. I copied the page with m/n and taught my son that m is the mountain letter, and you can drive your car through the mountains. And n is the nose letter - it looks like it has a big nose. Once we did that, the issue cleared up. I can't remember the last time he mixed up m/n. He still mixes b/d/p/q sometimes, buy since he thinks in pictures, I expect that to still happen. I correct him and we move on.

 

Try using sat and that in sentences and point to the words or draw pictures illustrating the words. That might help your child to connect the word with the sound.

[Sarah0000]

Thank you all so much for the advice. We will keep working on it for now!

 

 

This is the part that concerned me is that he didn't seem to get the difference. So if he was reading the word that, he'd say th/s sound, followed by aaa t. Then he'd try to blend and say "sat", and think it was sat even though he can see the th. So it isn't just mispronouncing, but his mispronouncing is causing him to decode the wrong words.

 

He can hear the differences when I say it though. If I ask him to find the word that vs sat he can do that correctly. Sorry I don't know all the correct symbols for the sounds.

 

I would get magnetic letters and have him spell out the word that you say. It would force him to focus on the letters that make the sounds. For a short time my son was mixing letters up in words, like spelling hat as either hat or tah. When I dictated the word slowly while he picked the letters it helped him realize the difference.

 

[happycc]

My son is five years old and has speech articulation issues so we use LOE Foundations which even has you take out a mirror to show them where to put their tongue. So it is much like speech therapy. So my son is getting extra therapy sessions just by doing Foundations. 

 

LOE Foundations-graphically designed drives me crazy. Almost like a very busy annoying blog website . I like stuff black and white and top to bottom. It has stuff on the margins etc. For me that is just annoying to me and makes me feel disjointed but others may say the materials are beautiful colorful, saves paper etc. 

 

The materials themselves good.