Red flags in development?

[Jen654321]

My son is 4 almost 5 and wont officially be kindergarten age till next fall but I'm concerned that he's been unable to pick up some basic preschoolish concepts yet. We've gone through the alphabet twice now in formal lessons and he is not able to retain any of the letters. Like he can't even name them let alone learn the sounds. He does a bit better with numbers but still only consistently counts to 5 and isn't able to recognize written numbers. He has trouble with colors as well. I've basically backed off with any kind of teaching for the past 5 months to see if a bit of time would help but then he forgot the little bit that he did know in that time. I've tried playing simple board games with him but he doesn't really get them either. Rhyming was another thing I know is important for pre reading skills so we sing lots of rhymes and finger plays but he's been unable to memorize any of them. He just makes up his own words or kinda scrambles the order of them. I'm not sure if my expectations are too high and he's just too young or if these are signs of a learning disability. At this point I don't know if I should be continuing to teach him or wait until he is older and try again? 

[....]

My oldest son (currently 15) was very behind at that age and I'm trying to remember what he could/couldn't do.  I don't think he knew what the letters were called until K.  And he didn't know what the letters really sounded like until I pulled him out of ps at the end of K (which is basically why I pulled him out - the rest of the class was reading and he couldn't figure out what the letters sounded like).

He did know colors...he would've liked rhyming stuff...he played games.

Does your school district have an early childhood center where you can get an evaluation?  Our school in MO did.  And they were really helpful.  They were the ones who figured out that he had significant hearing loss.

Another idea...does he have a check-up with the pediatrician soon?  Not sure how helpful your pediatrician is...(ours isn't)

I hope you're able to find someone knowledgeable who can give you some help.

[lmrich]

Speak to your pediatrician. There are services in most counties that help preschool kids. 

[....]

21 minutes ago, lmrich said:

Speak to your pediatrician. There are services in most counties that help preschool kids. 

 

You just reminded me.  OP, do you have that Parents as Teachers organization where you live?  We used that in MO and they were very helpful.  They come out to your house once a week and spend time with you and your kid.  It was free.  Our teacher would bring toys every week and get on the floor and play with my dd.  They work with the school district and they can recommend evaluations and stuff, too.  I forgot about that.  They were very supportive and knowledgeable about child development.  I loved that lady!  

(Chuckling because I just remembered my neighbor thought this was a covert way for CPS to "check our houses".  Lol.)

[Jen654321]

I'm in Canada so it's a bit different. We have a child development centre that I've had him evaluated at a couple different times starting at age 2 when I noticed he wasn't doing things his peers were. The thing is with the evaluations they do it's an overall score and he excels socially and physically. Because he does so well socially they said this rules out many diagnoses. He picks up physical skills incredibly well. He rides a dirt bike when most kids his age still have training wheels on their pedal bikes, he can cast a fishing rod better then I can, actually the one "family game" hes great at is Jenga. The one thing the child development centre suggested was preschool so I've been sending him once a week. The teacher has actually requested a meeting with me to talk about his development so that will be happening next week and I'm excited to hear what she has to say. 

 

[Ellie]

16 hours ago, Jen654321 said:

My son is 4 almost 5 and wont officially be kindergarten age till next fall but I'm concerned that he's been unable to pick up some basic preschoolish concepts yet. We've gone through the alphabet twice now in formal lessons and he is not able to retain any of the letters. Like he can't even name them let alone learn the sounds. He does a bit better with numbers but still only consistently counts to 5 and isn't able to recognize written numbers. He has trouble with colors as well. I've basically backed off with any kind of teaching for the past 5 months to see if a bit of time would help but then he forgot the little bit that he did know in that time. I've tried playing simple board games with him but he doesn't really get them either. Rhyming was another thing I know is important for pre reading skills so we sing lots of rhymes and finger plays but he's been unable to memorize any of them. He just makes up his own words or kinda scrambles the order of them. I'm not sure if my expectations are too high and he's just too young or if these are signs of a learning disability. At this point I don't know if I should be continuing to teach him or wait until he is older and try again? 

I don't think you should "wait until he is older" to teach him, but possibly you are expecting too much for a young age. You've been working with him for some time but he isn't even five yet, so you started when he was quite young, IMHO. I think teaching colors and shapes and all that is often best done as part of life, rather than as actual lessons; for example, you ask him to get his red tennies, even if he only has one pair of tennies so it doesn't really matter what color they are. You count plates and knives and forks as you put them on the table. You talk about things being next to or on top of or inside while you're picking up toys or folding clothes. Mothers and children sing together and do finger plays just because they think it's fun, not because it's a pre-reading skill. IOW, so many things that are taught in "preschool" are naturally taught at home when the parents are actually home with the children.

BTW, I never knew that children were supposed to be able to rhyme by any certain age. In fact, I don't think I knew that until I joined this forum, and my dc are all grown up now. So I can't get worked up over his inability to do that.

Edited November 5, 2018 by Ellie

[....]

31 minutes ago, Jen654321 said:

I'm in Canada so it's a bit different. We have a child development centre that I've had him evaluated at a couple different times starting at age 2 when I noticed he wasn't doing things his peers were. The thing is with the evaluations they do it's an overall score and he excels socially and physically. Because he does so well socially they said this rules out many diagnoses. He picks up physical skills incredibly well. He rides a dirt bike when most kids his age still have training wheels on their pedal bikes, he can cast a fishing rod better then I can, actually the one "family game" hes great at is Jenga. The one thing the child development centre suggested was preschool so I've been sending him once a week. The teacher has actually requested a meeting with me to talk about his development so that will be happening next week and I'm excited to hear what she has to say. 

 

 

Wow, I wonder if he isn't a visual-spatial learner or a right-brained thinker.  They seem like they have learning delays sometimes.  What you are describing sounds like my oldest son when he was little.  My son was also able to ride a bike without training wheels at 4 and hit a baseball with a bat at 3, but (like I stated earlier) he couldn't recognize the letters until he was actually in Kindergarten.  And he never was really able to memorize all of his multiplication facts.  Those aren't the only things we've struggled with over the years.  He is very difficult to teach.  He's actually the reason I pulled my kids out of school ten years ago.  He was getting left behind in school.  Not just left behind - left in the dust.  It was bad.  It ruined his self-esteem for a long time.  I took him to get tested for learning disabilities and they couldn't find anything, either.

He's also left-handed (they're finding out there are weird links between left-handedness, dyslexia, etc).  You could do some googling on visual-spatial learners, maybe...  My youngest son (age 3) is also exactly like my oldest son: left-handed...he also can hit a ball with a bat at age 3....flies around obstacles on his balance bike with no training wheels...loves music....very good visual-spatial skills. 

From what I remember when I was doing all that reading on it, they're supposed to be incredibly good at things like music, physics, art, sports, etc.  Which describes my sons to the letter.

[8filltheheart]

My 13 yod didn't know her colors until she was already 4.  I have no idea if she would have struggled with letters or sounds bc I do not teach my kids any preschool academics. 

She is also happens to be dyslexic. (Glad I didn't try to teach her to read young.) She will never be a superstar academic but she can function on a solidly avg level. She has strengths that are outside of a classroom. She is very "entrepreneurial." She keeps coming up with all sorts of career goals that won't require her to go to college.  ? We'll see. 

[maize]

Advanced social and physical skills...what I have observed with young children is that development can be uneven as they seem to specialize in particular areas for awhile but for most they sort of even out eventually. One kid may be verbally advanced at a young age but slow to develop gross motor skills, another may be up and running at nine months and riding a bike at age 3 but slower with some sit-and-pay-attention skills.

Five is young for academics for many kids, I find six or seven to be a more appropriate time to teach reading as the readiness skills are starting to even out by then.

[sweet2ndchance]

Some boys are just not wired to learn academic things at a young age. Their strengths lie else where such as physical prowess or engineering thinking. Girls can be this way too but it is very common in boys.

There is nothing wrong with them; they do not have any kind of learning disability. They just think and learn a bit differently than what is the accepted norm.

A 4 year old who struggles with letter learning is not at all unusual. I would skip learning letter names and just work on letter sounds, as a part of life not as a formal lesson. He doesn't need to know letter names to learn to read but he does need to know letter sounds. Take out the extra step for now. He will know his letter names eventually but they are not terribly important for a 4 year old. My current 5yo (my 6th child that I have taught to read) still confuses or plain doesn't know letter names but he does know the sounds. But even that has only gotten consistent in the last 6 months or so. He will be 6 in January.

I agree with the others, shapes and colors can be just a part of life and he will likely still confuse them  or "forget" them for a few more years. If half way through first grade he still doesn't get circle, square and triangle fairly consistently, then I would worry. Until then, point out shapes and colors in everyday life. Play games... board games, playground games and just made up games, that involve colors. He will get it eventually. Some great games for preschool are Hi Ho Cherry-O, Candy Land, Cootie, Memory Match games and Count Your Chickens.

The skills needed to think of a rhyming word is beyond most preschoolers. Lots of kindergartners can't do it either. Some first and second graders can't do it but can read and spell just fine. Rhyming is a phonemic awareness skill, not necessarily a pre-reading skill. That is not to say it is not a skill worth knowing, I just wouldn't stress over a preschooler not being able to do it. Expose him to lots of rhyme. Make up silly rhymes. Sing the banana fana song with his name. Read books in rhyme and once you have read it enough times for him to know the story fairly well pause for the rhyming word and let him try to supply it. Don't stress over him supplying the "correct word" . Accept any answer he gives and discuss with him whether or not it rhymes in a lighthearted and silly way. If he supplies dog as a rhyme for cat, read it again and laugh at how silly it sounds. Then read it correctly and act relieved that it sounds better that way.

I would work with him on phonemic awareness rather than reading with him right now. Listen for beginning sounds, regardless of the letters used to produce the sound in that word. Phone and farm for example both start with the /f/ sound. Don't discuss with him yet the letters needed, just identify the sounds in words. Glue and unglue the sounds in words orally... Fluffy is a /c/-/a/-/t/, cat!... Let's /g/-/o/, GO! Phonemic awareness is only concerned with sounds in words, not the visual representation of them. A child who is well grounded in phonemic awareness has a much easier time making the jump to visual representations of words than a child that does not understand the sound to word relationship.

Edited November 4, 2018 by sweet2ndchance
correcting the auto correct

[Tanaqui]

You know, until relatively recently it wasn't expected that children would know their letters and numbers BEFORE entering kindergarten. Nor was it expected that they'd already know how to rhyme and such. This is what kindergarten is for, to teach these things. It's developmentally appropriate to learn these things at five instead of at three or four. It's the same with board games (and what board games are you thinking of, btw?) - some are appropriate for the under-5 crowd, but even playing a simple game requires a complex grasp of a lot of rules of behavior and a good attention-span.

With that said, it is a little surprising to me that he hasn't memorized any nursery rhymes or songs that you frequently sing with him, nor any parts of favorite books. It's also a little surprising that he doesn't know his colors.  But I don't know how much work you've done on this or anything about what he CAN do. Children do tend to focus a lot on one area at that age while everything else slides or even goes backwards!

But let's see what the teachers say at preschool.

[maize]

It is worth noting that boys lag behind girls generally in reading and language arts, many studies show what appears to be a developmental gap of a year or more. Also, this gap is not country or language specific--it seems to show up everywhere research is done.

This is a concern for me as our school system has pushed literacy skills into lower and lower grades. Kindergarten now is more like first grade from a few decades ago, and yesterday's kindergarten skills are now taught in preschool. I believe this is setting many boys up for early academic failure.

My response has been to wait until my own boys were six before enrolling them in kindergarten (for those I have enrolled in school; when I am homeschooling I just match my teaching to the readiness level and needs I perceive.)

 

[Jen654321]

6 hours ago, Evanthe said:

 

Wow, I wonder if he isn't a visual-spatial learner or a right-brained thinker.  They seem like they have learning delays sometimes.  What you are describing sounds like my oldest son when he was little.  My son was also able to ride a bike without training wheels at 4 and hit a baseball with a bat at 3, but (like I stated earlier) he couldn't recognize the letters until he was actually in Kindergarten.  And he never was really able to memorize all of his multiplication facts.  Those aren't the only things we've struggled with over the years.  He is very difficult to teach.  He's actually the reason I pulled my kids out of school ten years ago.  He was getting left behind in school.  Not just left behind - left in the dust.  It was bad.  It ruined his self-esteem for a long time.  I took him to get tested for learning disabilities and they couldn't find anything, either.

He's also left-handed (they're finding out there are weird links between left-handedness, dyslexia, etc).  You could do some googling on visual-spatial learners, maybe...  My youngest son (age 3) is also exactly like my oldest son: left-handed...he also can hit a ball with a bat at age 3....flies around obstacles on his balance bike with no training wheels...loves music....very good visual-spatial skills. 

From what I remember when I was doing all that reading on it, they're supposed to be incredibly good at things like music, physics, art, sports, etc.  Which describes my sons to the letter.

That's very interesting my son is also left-handed! I'll have to do some research on that, thanks. 

[...................]

Not being able to recognize letters and numbers is pretty normal, depending how much time you taught it, and how you taught it. Most preschool programs take at least an entire week per letter, and include two or even three different sensory letter experiences each day.  A week would include for example on day one, coloring the letter, reading a story about letter A, and also making play doh A.  The next A day might inlude two or three A activities.  During that week, A will be displayed prominently in your living room, very large....then A will be reviewed while B is taught. 

A normally developing child should be able to pick up and retain this at age 4 from the method described above.  (A bright or gifted child usually will have learned and retained many of the letters and even their sounds just through the usual story times, videos, story books, leap frog video etc. and won't need any direct instruction at all except how to write them.) 

What is of much more concern to me is that he cannot retain colors.  First of all, many boys are color blind.  He definitely needs to be tested for that! And, if that comes out normal, there is something not developmentally normal about a four year old not knowing colors. 

I have so many friends and so much experience with how truly amazing and necessary it is for youngsters to have early diagnosis and intervention for learning disabilities and it's all free through your county at age four (in almost every state that I know of).  You definitely need to call your local PS, and get him in there and be a squeaky wheel.  Usually there are several phone calls, one lengthy meeting, a comprehensive test, another meeting to sign your IEP, and then they recommend what programs are available for your child and you get started with the therapy needed.  The programs are extremely age appropriate (all the ones both in FL and here in CA include games, group play, board games, songs, etc.) and if group learning is not enough the school district will usually pay for private therapy, even in your home if necessary.  The reason the school district is so willing to pay for all of this, is that if learning disabilities or differences (even autism) is diagnosed early, it makes all the difference in the world.  Rather than a very confusing and frustrating Kindergarten experience, and losing ground, the student can start out with services needed to be on the right track.  

🙂

 

[EKS]

He's still really young, but I will say that what you're describing sounds a lot like how my older son was at that age.  He has dyslexia.  

If you're concerned, you might want to take a look at the book Overcoming Dyslexia.  It includes lists of behaviors for the preschool set (and olders as well).