Great Reader, horrible phonemic awareness

[drjuliadc]

This is my first grade girl. Technically she should only be in kindergarten because she is a twin who was born 3 weeks early.

I was poised for some/all, at least one of my kids to be dyslexic because of genetics, so I taught her to read very early.  I'm pretty sure this girl  would have been dyslexic if I hadn't.  Her reading level is 3rd grade.  She topped out the test at 6th grade for reading but her comprehension brought her down to 3rd grade level. So she is really a phenomenal reader.

They are pulling her out one on one for phonics, for spelling and for speech sounds at her public school and it is helping, but I want to get down to the bottom of it. She doesn't qualify for speech therapy because she is intelligible but they have someone to pull out each little kid one on one for each little problem in her phenomenal public school. She has a lip tie and tongue tie, but I think she is going to be OK with that. She can make the sounds after only two weeks of pull out for them.  Her older brother had the exact same letter sound problems with no ties and he just grew out of it. His phonemic awareness was and is very good.

Even though this is a phenomenal PS, I still see why people would homeschool because it is also rigorous and that only goes over so well with a barely 6 year old first grade boy. Her twin isn't too thrilled about the writing,

So back to her, she has the most completely absent phonemic awareness.

Anyway, I have these two phonemic awareness books. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1574712314/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1557663211/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I am sure someone here told me to buy them.  I have had them for a long time.  I didn't know I had a kid with a problem yet.

I haven't used either, but isn't there an underlying processing problem with having no phonemic awareness?  I would like to work on the underlying thing, not do the surface stuff.  Does anyone know what I mean? You know, kind of like how it is a mistake to do vision therapy before working on primitive reflexes?

I almost posted this in learning challenges but it didn't really fit there.

[forty-two]

When you say "completely absent phonemic awareness", what all can't she do?  I'm assuming she can't identify rhyme, can't reliably tell if sounds are the same or different, can't clap syllables, can't blend oral syllables or phonemes into a word, can't break an oral word into syllables or phonemes, can't add or delete sounds or syllables from oral words.  (Also, I'm assuming she's reading mostly by sight - with next to no phonemic awareness/processing, phonetic reading's just about impossible, no matter how much phonics instruction she's had.)

Back when I was looking into all this, LiPS (Lindamood Phoneme Sequencing Program) was the gold standard program for building up the missing connections.  Very good program, but a steep learning curve (here's the notes I wrote up when I was working to wrap my head around it).  Also pretty pricey, although I was able to buy used and make most of my own manipulatives and come in around $130.  Since then there's a still pricey but more user-friendly alternative, Foundations in Sound, that covers the beginning sections of LiPS, designed to give kids what they needed to start Barton.

WRT "surface stuff" vs "underlying problem", my experience was that it's wasn't so much a *mistake* to do surface stuff (by which I mean pre-school phonemic awareness activities), as it was that my kids simply couldn't *do* the surface stuff at all.  Really, it wasn't so much "surface stuff" as it was "stuff that assumed less of a problem/more developmental skills in place" than my kids had.  If they could have done it, it probably would have been helpful, but they just couldn't do it.  I have the second book you linked, but I never really used it, idk why - it looks good, though more of a first-level intervention, as opposed to LiPS's super hardcore intervention.  Since you have it, you might as well try it, see if your dd can do any of it.  If she can, you might as well move through it unless and until she hits a wall.

 

I will say, one thing about already-reading kids with phonemic processing deficits - they are usually really good at using non-phonemic clues to subvert the purpose of phonemic awareness activities, lol.  Something to watch out for.

[PeterPan]

2 hours ago, drjuliadc said:

I'm pretty sure this girl  would have been dyslexic if I hadn't. 

That statement makes no sense because you are dyslexic even if you can read and even if you're well taught. My ds was reading at a 6th gr level at the end of 1st, but he's still dyslexic.

2 hours ago, drjuliadc said:

I almost posted this in learning challenges but it didn't really fit there.

Well post where you feel comfortable, but I think your confusion is more basic: how can a student be getting intervention without being them calling it RTI or evaling for disabilities. 😉  If EVERYONE gets pullouts, fine. But if she's receiving intervention services, push in services, whatever, then she is. And I can tell you it does happen that the $$ districts, the nice schools, the posh schools are the ones where parents DON'T WANT kids identified with disabilities. So they very quietly do the intervention and never call it anything. 😉😉😉 

So the first question you should be quietly checking is the qualification of the person doing the intervention and whether they are trained in some OG-type system. It can go by lots of names (Wilson, Spell Links, OG, LIPS, etc. etc.) but something in that vein. IF the person doing the intervention is using a strong system, I personally wouldn't even bother to do more as they're already doing what needs to be done.

1 hour ago, forty-two said:

LiPS (Lindamood Phoneme Sequencing Program)

Yup, very good stuff. 

https://bartonreading.com/students/#ss  Here's the Barton screening. You also need to do the parent screening. This will let you know if she *needs* LIPS or if she already has those skills. The screening takes maybe 10 minutes and is free. 

Did the school run ANY testing before deciding to do this itnervention? Do all kids get this? Is it with an interventionist or is it more like drill provided by an aide? If it's intervention, they should have done some testing, maybe a CTOPP. You can find out what was done. 

2 hours ago, drjuliadc said:

She doesn't qualify for speech therapy because she is intelligible

The ps is only going to provide the level of service necessary for her to "access her education." They are not going to provide a medical level of service or what a parent might deem necessary or what you would provide privately if you had private evals and realized the extent of the issues. Because you suspect tongue ties, you are *unwise* to rely on the limited evals the school SLP will provide and should instead seek out private evals. You can look for an SLP trained in myofunctional therapy. They an assess her oral function, palate development, etc. and head off a bunch of problems. If that SLP happens to have the testing, they could also look at that things that affect literacy, running a CTOPP, APD screenings, etc. etc. There are SLPs who specialize in literacy. There's a test (name slips my mind) that hits a bunch of areas with one test, and it's really the bomb, the new thing the SLPs will run. It can check narrative language, phonological processing, reading comprehension, etc. etc. with ONE TEST. Ok, it's the TILLS.

Here, this site loves to go overkill on testing. You can dive in. https://www.smartspeechtherapy.com/components-of-comprehensive-dyslexia-testing-part-i-introduction-and-language-testing/  Whatever you think is lurking, you find with tests. You won't get the tests till you get the practitioner who owns them, and the school typically doesn't own them or doesn't authorize the hours to run them. 😉 

2 hours ago, drjuliadc said:

So back to her, she has the most completely absent phonemic awareness.

Again, why is the school doing RTI with no evals? You have the LEGAL RIGHT as the parent to make a written request for evals and make them happen. If she has been enrolled at least 6 weeks and is in RTI, demand evals. RTI cannot be used to delay the eval process, and without proper evals (and independent evals when the ps evals are crappily done), you have no clue what is going on. And the smarter the kid, the more masking you're going to have. If you can make private evals happen, you'd be better off. 

It's way easier to do intervention when you know what the issues are. At least do the Barton screening and take her to an audiologist.

2 hours ago, drjuliadc said:

isn't there an underlying processing problem with having no phonemic awareness? 

Yes, if she has phonological processing problems, something is going on. If your GUT says something is going on, something is going on. If the school is doing RTI and intervention, something is going on. But you're shooting in the dark and guessing if you try to do intervention with no data to drive it. Get data. 

Has this child been to an audiologist? Is her prosody normal? How is she is noisy settings? How does she respond to her name and how is her joint attention? 

[BlsdMama]

I’m I haven’t read responses but I’ll say this:

 

 My second was a late but outstanding reader. He scored a 35 or 36 on the reading portion of the ACT. 
 

When we had him tested for dyslexia and he was tested on spelling phonemic nonsense words? He tested lower than fourth grade level, the lowest grade level equivalent the test covered. 
 

He was reading purely by memory. We did like six levels of Barton. Did it help? I don’t think so if I’m being honest. He was 14 and his reading levels were established. He is dyslexic and dysgraphic, although we had to have him UNdiagnosed for ROTC - can’t even make this stuff up. 
 

He reads beautifully. His comprehension is high. I’m beginning to believe I should have left well enough alone with that one. 

[bluemongoose]

I have 3 DC that are dyslexic. All are reading above grade level.  1 read late, 1 read right on time, and one was early like your DD. As other posters have said, they can do well at reading and still be dyslexic. Their dyslexia shows more in their writing mechanics and spelling. One also struggles with symbols and numbers but not enough to be considered to have dyscalculia. In your case, I would get her testing. 

[PeterPan]

19 hours ago, BlsdMama said:

He reads beautifully. His comprehension is high. I’m beginning to believe I should have left well enough alone with that one. 

Can I ask as an aside whether he reads for pleasure? 

Edited November 4, 2021 by PeterPan

[drjuliadc]

I am really glad I posted because you are all really helpful as usual.

I think I figured if you are dyslexic there would be some problem reading because everyone else in the family who is dyslexic has trouble reading.

That is helpful all of you telling me you have dyslexic kids who are really high readers.

My daughter loves to read and reads for pleasure all the time.

When you mention you think your son was just reading everything from memory, that might be what she is doing. Her father has the most amazing memory. I can’t figure out how she reads words like voyager that she has never seen before.

I wonder though if some people GET an amazing memory because they need it to read and learn when they can’t do phonics.

She is a terrible speller and if that is all the problem it causes, that wouldn’t bother me much. Causing writing problems is a concern but she might be too young to tell.

She seems to be good at math, but not nearly as good as the other three.

Yes, this school has someone work one on one with every kid with every little issue they notice. Other than the SLP, it is just a teacher’s aid or the teacher herself doing the one on one.

They have every child do a reading eval in the summer a few weeks before school starts. The SLP works with her 10 minutes once per week. She upped it to 10 minutes twice per week, when it was clear she wouldn’t qualify for speech therapy. She would have gotten a lot more time than that if she qualified for speech therapy.  It is already helping after two weeks. She can make an S sound and L sound.

I don’t suspect ties. She definitely has them. They are very obvious to look in her mouth.

The one on one work with spelling is already helping too.

I have to find those books. I remember now why I bought them. I thought I should work on those things just to make sure they were solid and never got around to it. I did know last year that phonics didn’t click for her, but I bought them long before that.

I even have some Lindamood Bell and Lips stuff you recommended here. My nanny’s daughter was having reading problems and I bought a lot of stuff to use for her. I ended up not using it because the same awesome school district brought her right up to grade level. I did do the Barton pretest on her, She passed, and I did the tutor testing on myself because her mother, my nanny, didn’t pass it. English is her second language, Arabic is her first, and that is why I think she didn’t pass it.

Her prosody is great, her joint attention is great. I need to check rhyming and syllabication. I’m pretty sure she can rhyme and discern syllables so maybe not as bad as I thought. I am just surprised how completely clueless she was on spelling and telling you what letter sound or letter a word started with, ended with, was in the middle, etc.

 

[drjuliadc]

https://www.smartspeechtherapy.com/components-of-comprehensive-dyslexia-testing-part-i-introduction-and-language-testing/

 

Oooh. Love this PeterPan, and all of your valuable insights.

[drjuliadc]

She’s good in noise, has always responded to her name. As a baby she seemed to have really good receptive language. When she was just starting crawling, I said to my husband, “where is E’s (her twin’s) other shoe?” She crawled over and got it for me.

After that, it was very obvious she new exactly what we were talking about all the time. About the same time as the crawling shoe retrieval, I said to the nanny, “I don’t like how those pants fit her.” She genuinely had an embarrassed look on her face after she heard me say that.

I never got that feeling from my 3 boys. They seemed pretty clueless.

[drjuliadc]

Another weird strength she has is remembering all the words to a song the first or second time she hears it, no matter how long the song is.

The smartspeechtherapy link peterpan posted said not remembering children’s songs could be one sign of a language deficit.

[Clarita]

38 minutes ago, drjuliadc said:

When you mention you think your son was just reading everything from memory, that might be what she is doing. Her father has the most amazing memory. I can’t figure out how she reads words like voyager that she has never seen before.

I wonder though if some people GET an amazing memory because they need it to read and learn when they can’t do phonics.

Kids can figure out new words in reading without phonics, it's really boils down to guessing well. (I don't suggest it. How a flawed idea is teaching millions of kids to be poor readers | At a Loss for Words | APM Reports)

Not knowing a lot of phonics doesn't neccessarily mean you can't it could just be no one taught you. If she doesn't seem to have issues aside from telling you sounds of letters and sounds that make up a word you could start going over that stuff with her. See if she is able to grasp that after being explicitly taught the concept. 

Also, spend some time having her read things to you as you are reading along. I could/can alwasy read to myself and give you a summary of what I read, but what you couldn't tell from that is how many words I skipped and guessed close enough to get there. 

[drjuliadc]

Yeah, the cue thing sounds like a bad idea. I really didn’t want to leave my kids reading ability up to anyone else but me. I had heard too many horror stories like that.

I did “teach” my daughter phonics. The reason I put it in quotes is because when you teach someone very young to read it was all input, no output. You really have no idea what they can do or not. I over taught letter sounds. She does know them, but she can’t tell you which one a word starts with or ends with, or is in the middle.

My kids’ school uses ideas from Jan Richardson, janrichardsonguidedreading.com to organize the classroom to be able to offer so much one on one with each child who needs it.  I had never heard of her before my kids parent teacher conference last week that brought up all of this.

 

[GracieJane]

This is such a timely thread! I am so befuddled by this. My DS5 reads at a 2nd grade level. I have taught him phonics (daily!) since he was 3 years old. And he just…can’t do it. It‘s like nothing I’ve experienced with teaching other kids to read. I can only describe it as though he memorizes a word and applies the pronunciation to like words (e.g. he‘s memorized „right“ so can flawlessly read „might“, „tonight“, etc. but cannot pronounce „ight“ as a rule). I have no idea if this will become an issue in the future, but I am following this thread!

[Not_a_Number]

1 hour ago, GracieJane said:

This is such a timely thread! I am so befuddled by this. My DS5 reads at a 2nd grade level. I have taught him phonics (daily!) since he was 3 years old. And he just…can’t do it. It‘s like nothing I’ve experienced with teaching other kids to read. I can only describe it as though he memorizes a word and applies the pronunciation to like words (e.g. he‘s memorized „right“ so can flawlessly read „might“, „tonight“, etc. but cannot pronounce „ight“ as a rule). I have no idea if this will become an issue in the future, but I am following this thread!

I had to do nonsense words with DD5 to get her past this kind of hump. She would also read words in weird chunks, and no, it wouldn't help that I HAD taught her phonics. She's very bright and between the ability to guess from context and use similarities like the one above, she could absolutely read anything but nonsense words without using phonics much. 

We did nonsense words for a year. It was slow and onerous but it really, really helped. And I can see it paying off in her spelling, because she can sound out what she wrote down. 

[GracieJane]

16 hours ago, Not_a_Number said:

I had to do nonsense words with DD5 to get her past this kind of hump. She would also read words in weird chunks, and no, it wouldn't help that I HAD taught her phonics. She's very bright and between the ability to guess from context and use similarities like the one above, she could absolutely read anything but nonsense words without using phonics much. 

We did nonsense words for a year. It was slow and onerous but it really, really helped. And I can see it paying off in her spelling, because she can sound out what she wrote down. 

Which nonsense words did you use? I searched the forum and there aren’t many book recommendations.

[Not_a_Number]

9 hours ago, GracieJane said:

Which nonsense words did you use? I searched the forum and there aren’t many book recommendations.

I actually made up my own. We'd work on the letter combinations she'd mix up and I'd incorporate them into four "nonsense sentences." I don't think they were standard, but they worked for us. Like, here's one I made up: 

1.    Maloople frumpel smailing gloop bame.

2.    Choomy gly graiden pouten?

3.    Zeboost beezle glain rapoon?

4.    Strite droke flouzzy chippy clate!

Come to think of it, some of them mightn't be nonsense words, lol... but she definitely didn't know them by sight! I'd just make them up every week to tackle areas of weakness. 

Edited November 6, 2021 by Not_a_Number

[drjuliadc]

Thank you for reminding me of this, notanumber. I remember you mentioning this before but I didn’t know you worked on it for a year. I have some nonsense words from elizabethB. Your examples are helpful too.

I did check her for rhyming and syllabication and she is good there.

[PeterPan]

On 11/4/2021 at 1:06 PM, drjuliadc said:

The smartspeechtherapy link peterpan posted said not remembering children’s songs could be one sign of a language deficit.

There are some things like this they look for informally. They're not guaranteed certain things, but there's a usual pattern. Mean length utterance, vocabulary, etc. are things that, if age appropriate, *usually* mean the rest of the language development is fine. I think on the songs I would go the direction that *not* doing age typical activities (learning and singing children's songs) would be a tell, but I would *not* go the other direction and say that singing songs clears things. The person could just have a phenomenal memory, like my ds. 😄 

On 11/4/2021 at 4:03 PM, drjuliadc said:

She does know them, but she can’t tell you which one a word starts with or ends with, or is in the middle.

The CTOPP will have tasks like asking them to change a letter in the word and tell what the new word is. (cat, change the /k/ to /b/) Can she do this? Interestingly, these tasks are also in the APD workbooks like https://www.therapro.com/Differential-Processing-Training-Program-Acoustic-Tasks.html  There's a three book series and you can see the toc at ProEdInc probably. 

Really, at this point a print driven "phonics" is not what you need. What you're saying is she's struggling with the auditory processing of the phonemes, spelling, etc. so you want auditory work. Now that's *included* to some degree in OG programs, but I'm saying be really obvious, basic about this, kwim? If you point to a word and ask her to read through the sounds slowly, can she? So she can go print to sound tolerably. But when you ask her to put up 3 fingers for the 3 letter word and say the sounds she struggles, yes? So you're wanting something that focuses on the SOUNDS.

https://www.therapro.com/Differential-Processing-Training-Program-Acoustic-Linguistic-Tasks.html  Here, green book is what has those tasks. Look at the list. It's the stuff she's struggling with. 

Fwiw, I wouldn't have said my ds had significant issues understanding speech in background noise, but the SLP has honed in on it anyway. She is finding that he had *just a couple* specific sounds that are causing him problems. So on my dd it was glaringly obvious because it was seemingly everything. With him, just specific high frequency consonants. Interestingly, he was hypersensitive to high frequencies on his threshold testing with the audiologist. So I wouldn't *assume* but would consider some carefully administered evals to start to get some information here. You never know what will turn up. It doesn't have to be this big WOW but can just be odd pieces like that.

Edited November 6, 2021 by PeterPan

[PeterPan]

3 hours ago, drjuliadc said:

I did check her for rhyming and syllabication and she is good there.

That's when given print or orally?

The other piece that affects someone's ability to break down the components of a word, hold them, and spit them back out, is working memory. If someone's working memory is too low, they don't have the mental RAM to hold the sounds and process them and spit them back out. You can see this if you shorten the task or change the content. If you give her a number (321) and ask her what digit is in the 10s place (if that task is age appropriate, I didn't catch her age), can she do it? Or if you shorten the word to two letters, can she break down the sounds more easily? If you use LIPS style supports with tokens/squares or use fingers (a la SWR), can she hold the sounds? 

If you think it's working memory, you can do gross motor activities and games to build working memory and then return to your phonological processing tasks to see what happens.

What happens if she tries to clap to a metronome set at 54 bpm?

[PeterPan]

On 11/4/2021 at 4:03 PM, drjuliadc said:

My kids’ school uses ideas from Jan Richardson, janrichardsonguidedreading.com to organize the classroom to be able to offer so much one on one with each child who needs it.  I had never heard of her before my kids parent teacher conference last week that brought up all of this.

 

Well you aren't gonna like what you see when you learn about JR's stuff. 😉 Some of it is fine. I have 3 of her books I think, and there are loads of totally normal guided reading strategies, comprehension strategies, etc. that are great. But for your purposes all you need to know is THIS IDIOT THINKS IT'S OK TO TELL KIDS TO LOOK AT THE BEGINNING AND END AND GUESS. 

So your ps has deprogrammed all the instruction you did. Start over, remind her how to work through a word, beginning to end. No back to forward, no guessing. Yes, nonsense words will be essential at this point. 

Fwiw, I would also do auditory spelling, manipulating those phonemes. It can be a program like the green book I linked or just working on it. And work on the working memory with some games. The games can be brief and be warmups or breaks in your sessions.

Edited November 6, 2021 by PeterPan

[PeterPan]

https://www.amazon.com/Next-Step-Forward-Study-Phonics/dp/1338562592/ref=sr_1_7?keywords=jan+richardson+next+step+forward+in+guided+reading&qid=1636206058&sprefix=jan+rich%2Caps%2C151&sr=8-7

Here, you can see samples. One of the user pictures shows the list of what they're teaching, all kinds of blends and junk. It's not what you're wanting and it's no wonder we have such terrible literacy rates. So much singing and dancing to avoid actually teaching phonemes. And they'll have 20 excuses about why it's not necessary, blah blah. Whatever. You just have to realize where that teacher is coming from and what she's being fed. These teachers are being told NOT to do what we're trying to do and what good interventionists do.

[Not_a_Number]

33 minutes ago, PeterPan said:

Well you aren't gonna like what you see when you learn about JR's stuff. 😉 Some of it is fine. I have 3 of her books I think, and there are loads of totally normal guided reading strategies, comprehension strategies, etc. that are great. But for your purposes all you need to know is THIS IDIOT THINKS IT'S OK TO TELL KIDS TO LOOK AT THE BEGINNING AND END AND GUESS. 

So your ps has deprogrammed all the instruction you did. Start over, remind her how to work through a word, beginning to end. No back to forward, no guessing. Yes, nonsense words will be essential at this point. 

 

Ugh, that's terrible. DD5 had enough trouble with that WITHOUT someone telling her to do that!! 

[drjuliadc]

Peterpan, the green book looks exactly like what I need for her. I will ask her teacher if they do the cueing thing. She seems pretty phonics oriented. She has only had two months of public school. She just turned 6, is in first grade and went to a private school last year 3 days a week that did explode the code. 
 

I am going to talk to her teacher from last year too to see just how much phonics they did.

Edited November 6, 2021 by drjuliadc

[PeterPan]

On 11/6/2021 at 5:40 PM, drjuliadc said:

phonics

I wouldn't bug her too much. Phonics is not the same as a phoneme driven approach (ETC, OG, SWR, WRTR, etc.). Phonics can be word families, onset/rime approaches, etc. etc.  and it can be *implicit*. Yes, for real. So yes she's doing "phonics" but that doesn't mean "phonics" is as explicit as what a person with challenges needs. Implicit phonics means they literally don't teach explicitly the sound written correlation. So they might show a *picture* to cue the sound. 

They only know what they've been taught. I wouldn't give them a hard time. You can get the Richardson materials from the library and see them for yourself. You can see her teaching in videos on youtube. Now her phonics book is new, and she *seems* to be taking it farther than what I saw demonstrated in the videos on youtube. I just don't think it's helpful to debate with a paid teacher who knows what they know. They aren't being trained to do anything more explicit; that is left up to the interventionists. 

And you probably know this, but "structured literacy" is all the rage now. It will be some combination of "phonics" plus some kind of big picture comprehension focus. You'll probably be seeing influences of this too. This is stuff reading geeks sit around and debate, and it's just not that interesting to me. I see their debates and just move on, lol. But they do debate it. (how much to emphasize explicit instruction, how much to focus on comprehension, etc.) In the end, you only have *one dc* you're advocating for, not the classroom. So the question is only whether what is being provided meets the needs of your dc. School also works, basically, on a failure model, where you fail to progress so we do intervention, fail to score so we begin RTI, whatever. So they'll use these more general methods that statistically ARE going to fail some kids (rather than teaching everyone with explicit programs from the beginning), with the plan that some kids will get more explicit instruction tacked on as RTI/intervention later. It's just how the system works, sigh. We're the freaks coming along saying we want to be proactive, want to head off problems, and asking why all kids aren't taught this explicitly from the beginning. 😉 

Edited November 8, 2021 by PeterPan

[PeterPan]

On 11/6/2021 at 10:16 AM, Not_a_Number said:

Ugh, that's terrible. DD5 had enough trouble with that WITHOUT someone telling her to do that!! 

I know and it's flabbergasting to me that she now has a phonics manual at all. Change of heart? New enlightenment? Or is she literally codifying what she was demonstrating? Boggles the mind. 

That's the thing. In the 80s and 90s it seemed like "phonics" was this moral virtue signaling and "phonics" was touted as the cure all. But really "phonics" has become polluted by all kinds of stupidity to the point where all you know is what's being one in front of you. 

[BlsdMama]

On 11/4/2021 at 6:11 AM, PeterPan said:

Can I ask as an aside whether he reads for pleasure? 

Legit question - he used to... He's a fifth year college student, shift manager at CFA working more hours than he ought, and an ROTC kid.  He isn't doing anything that involves any books for pleasure in his "spare" time, iykwim.

That said, DH is dyslexic and DH's parents are dyslexic.  His father *does* read for pleasure.  My kiddos are dyslexic - about half, right in line with scientific percentages of families with one dyslexic parent.  I have two known dyslexics who read for pleasure.  One is moderate and was remediated to Level 5/6.  The other is mild and I didn't bother to remediate because it is mild.  She reads for pleasure often.

I think part of the problem is that I had solid readers before remediation? I pieced together "helps" - such as teaching reading with plastic letters and "squishing" them together and breaking them apart, much like one does with tiles.  They read well, but didn't incorporate the spelling rules well.  They learned to read well enough and then used visual memory.  For those with strong memory function, they read extraordinarily well, though you can find errors in their spelling occasionally.  For those without strong memory function, I'm wondering if we had started with Barton from the beginning if they would have internalized more and applied the tools to how they read.  However, for those with strong working memories, I suspect they eventually would transition to utilizing reading by memory.  Because, if you think about it, it is now rare for anyone who is a phonetic reader to use phonics or sounds to read.  Most words are familiar in the average high school fiction and it is expedient for the brain to use a recall of sorts so it doesn't revert to phonetic sounds and rules.  Or do you instinctively revert? Or you do as a tool when a word is new?  These are the questions I torture myself with as I force myself through FIVE more kids in Barton.  I love Barton.  I HATE Barton.  

All this to say:

When you say phonemic awareness, *I* would say "intuitive phonemic awareness."  And I would say that many children need repetitive phonemic instruction that is specific in order to *foster* phonemic awareness.  Because of this, I think there is value in OG programs from the get go.  However, I am not sure that if my child was older and reading well from memory, that I would go back and reinvent the wheel, i.e., reteach "how to read" with an OG program.  I'm skeptical that an older and reading child would use the tools for reading... for *spelling* yes but not for reading.  Just random thoughts that might be beyond the scope of what you're asking.

[PeterPan]

13 hours ago, BlsdMama said:

Most words are familiar in the average high school fiction

Thanks for explaining all that. I've gone in circles over the years on the why doesn't my ds enjoy reading thing. He's proficient, adequate, and will say he doesn't enjoy it. I keep thinking through the strands of the reading rope (comprehension, prior knowledge, vocabulary, syntactical complexity, social thinking, etc) and I never quite figure out what the issue is. It probably is everything for him, that language in general is challenging and every single strand was a mess with him. So he can read but isn't going to choose to read. He has a lot of don'ts in his life that I haven't seem to overcome, sigh. I've read book whisperer, things on hyperlexia, on and on but I never really win. 

So that's a ramble. I was basically just interested in the stats, and you're right that with that many dyslexics who *aren't* on the spectrum with language delays etc. etc. they get the intervention and they read and it's fine. So what's going on with him is not specifically the dyslexia so much as how it comes together as a whole. His behaviorist had said behavior (besides language) was always the limiting factor, just that ability to stay calm and tell yourself to do it. 

Adding: I do have things that work, haha. I have his SLPs incorporate reading into their sessions and I'm getting ready to hire some academic tutors, have feelers out to several providers. I think for him maybe that structure of doing it with someone could help. 

Edited November 11, 2021 by PeterPan