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Struggling Reader in the 3rd Grade


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My second born is a younger 3rd grader. He turned 8 in July.  He was last in public school in 1st grade, and that was the year everything shut down due to Covid.  We began homeschooling him using Abeka last school year for 2nd grade.  Prior to Kindergarten, he had been released from his IEP. Some development and speech issues had been addressed.  He was lead poisoned in utero, and his teachers swore he was "quirky" and didn't have autism.  We've never had a formal evaluation or diagnosis beyond what was provided by the special education system.  

He was not taught phonics in public school, so his first taste of it was last year in 2nd grade.  It was a faster pace, and it assumed the child had studied phonics beginning in Kindergarten.

Fast forward, and he still struggles decoding words.  He can have okay handwriting I can decipher in print/cursive, but he struggles to copy words neatly, and they are unreadable a lot of the time. I suspected dysgraphia perhaps, but I am not sure.  He does spelling lessons and can do very well on spelling tests.  Reading is just so difficult for him, we think that he never really knows what he has even read.  I rarely send him to read on his own.  I read a lot to him, but for his literature studies, we take turns reading.  Even if he is listening, his comprehension is not very good.  One thing is very good at is memorization.  Math isn't too bad for him, either. 

My husband asked what would happen if we started over, using the slow phonics approach I have used from the start with my now 1st grader.  But that seems daunting to go that far back, and I am not even sure it's the best approach for him.

Any thoughts?  He will be 9 in July, so he is still very young.  Thanks!

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I don't know what the slow approach you used for the first grader looks like, but there are probably less intimidating ways of starting (or at least reviewing) phonics from the beginning with the third grader.

If it were me, I would take the third grader through a straight forward phonics book like Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons or The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading. Your library might have one of them.

I would start at the beginning and move as fast as he is able but also as slow as he needs. I would reassess the situation in 6 month. If he is making progress, then I would guess his reading difficulties are just a case of gaps in his phonics knowledge, but if he is really struggling, has hit a wall or is not retaining skills, then it might be time to consider an evaluation.

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13 hours ago, wendyroo said:

I don't know what the slow approach you used for the first grader looks like, but there are probably less intimidating ways of starting (or at least reviewing) phonics from the beginning with the third grader.

If it were me, I would take the third grader through a straight forward phonics book like Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons or The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading. Your library might have one of them.

I would start at the beginning and move as fast as he is able but also as slow as he needs. I would reassess the situation in 6 month. If he is making progress, then I would guess his reading difficulties are just a case of gaps in his phonics knowledge, but if he is really struggling, has hit a wall or is not retaining skills, then it might be time to consider an evaluation.

Well, she started with Abeka phonics in Kindergarten and is now doing Abeka 1st grade phonics.  We never pushed early reading, and she has really blossomed.  I just don't know if my son with these issues would benefit from more phonics training or if memorization is better for him---but that certainly didn't work in the public school for him.  2nd grade Abeka covers phonics again, but more as a review and at a quicker pace.

The Teach Your Child to Read is something I've heard about.  Maybe I will look into that?  I hate the thought of going so far backwards, but I am worried about next year.  

Thank you so much!

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12 hours ago, Lovinglife123 said:

I really like phonics pathways & reading pathways.  Many libraries have both.  It might help you find/ fill in his gaps.  I was able to do that for awhile until he was ready for AAR 2.  We still use it as a supplement.  It was the top recommendation from Well Trained Mind until they developed their own.

All about reading also doesn’t have to move slow, if that’s the one you are using.  You go at their pace (a lesson a day even) until they slow down.  There are not very many lessons in all about reading, some kids easily go through levels 1-3 in a year, especially if they are older.

Thank you!  I am going to look into those, too. I haven't heard of them.  I hate the idea of rewinding, but I am just wondering how much he is getting out of what we are doing now.  I started to wonder if we should have just done 1st grade with him last year instead of keeping him in his current grade.  I did start out this year with some Grade 2 Memoria Press Literature Studies, and we did some phonics, but we are reading Paddington now, and it is so hard for him.  Then on one of his assignments, he couldn't read the word "science."  I guess that isn't a word he sees a lot since he is doing Memoria Press Astronomy.  

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8 minutes ago, KrisTom said:

I just don't know if my son with these issues would benefit from more phonics training or if memorization is better for him

Just remember, memorizing all the words would be the same as not teaching kids how to add numbers but instead just having them memorize that 43 + 11 = 54 and every other math problem in existence. There are a lot of math problems, far too many to memorize...and there are a lot of words, far too many to memorize.

Kids who end up being good readers who did learn via whole word memorization, in actuality are just really good at intuiting phonics rules from examples. So when they memorize how to read scissors, and then later they come upon scent, they subconsciously form a hypothesis about how to handle words that start with s and then a soft c. And by the time they learn science and scene they are pretty confident about it. And way down the road, when they see the word scythe (when there will not be an illustration to help them and they won't be able to just figure it out from obvious context), they will be able to apply their hypothesis and make a good guess.

Kids who truly just learn to memorize words by sight are far more likely to struggle as they transition from learning to read to reading to learn. I am currently tutoring a 6th grader who reads at a second grade level, and I started him all the way back at the beginning. He has been sight reading words like my, by, sky, fly, try and the like for five years, and yet he has never formed a hypothesis about y saying long i at the end of words, so if you show him comply or identify he doesn't have a clue how to handle them. Any word he has not explicitly memorized is a jumble of nonsense to him...it is so sad...and would have been so preventable by actually teaching him the phonics instead of hoping he figured it out for himself.

But the good news is that many older kids will soak up the phonics rules very quickly once they are taught them. My 6th grade tutee is moving incredibly quickly. I expect to have him reading at grade level within a few months, and reading several years above grade level a few months after that. Obviously, there are kids with dyslexia and other innate reading difficulties; the sooner those are diagnosed the better because they take a lot of time and work to overcome. But you can't know if those will be struggles until you try just teaching the child phonics from the ground up. Truly, I would just try spending 10 minutes daily with your third grader working through a simply phonics book/program, and then another 10 minutes of him reading only the words he can sound out with the phonics rules he knows in a fun book (with you reading the rest). Do it consistently for a month and see where you are. You might be surprised how little instruction it actually takes to help him make big strides.

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1 hour ago, KrisTom said:

Well, she started with Abeka phonics in Kindergarten and is now doing Abeka 1st grade phonics.  We never pushed early reading, and she has really blossomed.  I just don't know if my son with these issues would benefit from more phonics training or if memorization is better for him---but that certainly didn't work in the public school for him.  2nd grade Abeka covers phonics again, but more as a review and at a quicker pace.

The Teach Your Child to Read is something I've heard about.  Maybe I will look into that?  I hate the thought of going so far backwards, but I am worried about next year.  

Thank you so much!

Whatever way you choose to go, it's been my experience that kids with learning issues need short lessons on the challenging stuff with time leftover for them to practice something easier for stamina/enjoyment. With that in mind, you might want to think about it as teaching in two different ways--it's like you split new information and practice into two different streams of thought/teaching as you go along. More on that later.

Do you improvise well, or do you like to follow set lessons?

If you do not improvise well, I agree with others that finding a straightforward, comprehensive book and going at his own pace would be the best.

That said, if you do improvise well, since you already have used A Beka, have the materials, and are likely familiar enough with them to be flexible, I would suggest going backward in A Beka concepts by using the supporting materials in your own way. Alternatively, maybe something like Spaulding would be a good fit? I have heard excellent things about it, but I was so familiar with A Beka that doing something else for my kids would've been a waste of my time (I learned to read with A Beka myself and had vivid, happy memories of exactly how that process unfolded). I would make it multi-sensory with a whiteboard, letter tiles, color-coding syllables/blends/special sounds with markers on a white , etc. With my kiddo (dyslexia, dysgraphia but undiagnosed at the time), I did a lot of activities where we sorted by sound. I also did the Explode the Code books that specifically worked on syllabication with him, but not the whole series (the idea of open and closed syllables is not in A Beka, but it was a big help to add it in). I didn't use the A Beka workbooks all that much--I was super familiar and wanted something less expensive and more flexible, honestly, but I used all the charts and The Handbook for Reading was my best friend. I found that MCP Plaid phonics was very compatible, and I modified their stuff as well--instead of having my son re-copy words that were sorted, he'd color-code them, etc. You could easily translate all that work to a whiteboard or to letter tiles. Because my son had so much difficulty with the physical aspect of writing (hypermobile hands, extra long fingers, etc.), the writing had to all be customized for him, so we just found other ways to do the workbook page activities so that we covered the same skills. 

I would link the handwriting and the phonics, but it's okay if the handwriting is behind the phonics a bit--you want to spread out the difficulty and use one to reinforce the other vs. tackling two hard things at once. For handwriting, you want to do as much work on hand-strength and shoulder strength as you can in other areas of life to support it. Emphasize linking the handwriting to meaning. Emphasize correct formation over neatness--he needs to make the same motions and make efficient motions in order to build muscle memory. If cursive works better, do cursive. If printing is better, that's fine, but I highly recommend avoiding ball and stick in favor of something where printed letters are formed in continuous strokes. 

My son's writing had to be completely customized. He had visual processing issues, hypermobility, dyslexia, and retained primitive reflexes (all but the dyslexia part is often part of having a connective tissue disease). I made copywork sheets for him on the fly as phonics review. I would write on one line, skip a line for him to copy, then write on the next line, etc. He would trace my work and then copy it directly below.

Preview library readers to be sure they are on level, and use them as much as he will tolerate/enjoy. AAR has nice readers as well. They are somewhat compatible with A Beka, but their sequence is a bit different. He can read easier stuff for stamina and have shorter assignments for what is currently challenging. 

If he's inclined to write spontaneously, don't correct it like you would his copywork. Let him enjoy that. 

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Oh, does he hear the different phonics sounds correctly? If that is not the case, that can be hitching things up as well. Others are more qualified to chime in on that, but it can be dyslexia, or it can be auditory processing, or it can be both. My son had very specific auditory processing issues that led to him hearing some sounds differently, but the fix was to do therapy for auditory processing. Other kids have more of an issue from the dyslexia side and need something like LIPS. (From what I understand, there is bottom up and top down processing in the brain related to sound--glitches in one type create some of the phonological issues from dyslexia, and glitches in the other type of processing create some types of phonological issues from APD. This is a gross oversimplification, lol, but I have a good friend who is an audiologist with extra training in this.)

My son was able to use phonics + logic to help remediate some of his sound issues on his own, but some things persisted. For instance, his vowel sounds were not very distinct in how heard them or said them. He thought that thin/then/than were all the same word with different meanings in different contexts until we covered them in phonics. He thought I was playing a joke on him, but once he realized I was not, he could somewhat train himself to hear the differences, but he couldn't nail it entirely down until he had therapy for his auditory processing issues, which were not at all straightforward. 

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35 minutes ago, kbutton said:

Oh, does he hear the different phonics sounds correctly? If that is not the case, that can be hitching things up as well. Others are more qualified to chime in on that, but it can be dyslexia, or it can be auditory processing, or it can be both. My son had very specific auditory processing issues that led to him hearing some sounds differently, but the fix was to do therapy for auditory processing. Other kids have more of an issue from the dyslexia side and need something like LIPS. (From what I understand, there is bottom up and top down processing in the brain related to sound--glitches in one type create some of the phonological issues from dyslexia, and glitches in the other type of processing create some types of phonological issues from APD. This is a gross oversimplification, lol, but I have a good friend who is an audiologist with extra training in this.)

My son was able to use phonics + logic to help remediate some of his sound issues on his own, but some things persisted. For instance, his vowel sounds were not very distinct in how heard them or said them. He thought that thin/then/than were all the same word with different meanings in different contexts until we covered them in phonics. He thought I was playing a joke on him, but once he realized I was not, he could somewhat train himself to hear the differences, but he couldn't nail it entirely down until he had therapy for his auditory processing issues, which were not at all straightforward. 

Thank you so much for all of your insight and information. I appreciate you taking the time!   I personally prefer things to be planned out for me.  He was able to remember all the individual sounds and clue words when he was doing Abeka last year, but it seems he has struggled applying them and deciphering the words.  Last year I did a lot of the reading, and he still struggled with the comprehension end of things.  😞  I'm afraid to invest more time in something that might not be the right approach.  But I have thought about going back and using the materials with him.  I don't think it has to do with how he hears the words.  I just wonder if something else is going on.  😞  

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2 hours ago, KrisTom said:

memorization

Memorization is not the way to go. Our brains do not read that way. Without us realizing it, and at lightening-fast speed, our brains take note of every single letter/letter combination in a word, connect it to a sound, and that's how we read. As Wendyroo said, there are way too many words to memorize. 

I agree with something basic for phonics, like 100 Easy Lessons, and then if he's not making progress after a month or two, consider that a learning disability may be impacting his reading. 

By the way, 9 is still very young. If he's not reading, there is no other way to do it than to go back to the beginning. He may catch up quickly, or not - no way to tell until you get going. Taking the time to teach him now will save him years of mediocre reading in middle school and beyond. 

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3 minutes ago, KrisTom said:

Thank you so much for all of your insight and information. I appreciate you taking the time!   I personally prefer things to be planned out for me.  He was able to remember all the individual sounds and clue words when he was doing Abeka last year, but it seems he has struggled applying them and deciphering the words.  Last year I did a lot of the reading, and he still struggled with the comprehension end of things.  😞  I'm afraid to invest more time in something that might not be the right approach.  But I have thought about going back and using the materials with him.  I don't think it has to do with how he hears the words.  I just wonder if something else is going on.  😞  

I think you can try some straightforward stuff like @wendyroo said. He's at risk for issues with his previous history, no doubt, but even if you need and evaluation, six months of sensible remediation will give you data the evaluator will want to hear. Keep track, including work samples. It doesn't have to be fancy--just describe your approach and describe where things go awry or don't progress as fast as you think. It can be as simple as pulling work samples and putting some post-it's on them with your thoughts as you go along. 

That said, evaluators are swamped right now. I think the pandemic created a both a backlog from when things were closed and a rush of parents seeing their kids work 1:1 via take home packets/Zoom and realizing that they might need support. It could take a year just to get into see someone, so if you have a sense that something is off, it's entirely appropriate to get on one or more waiting lists. You can always cancel, but in the meantime, you can track what you see happening.

If he does progress pretty well because you are using extra materials, and extra intervention, it's also fine to use that information as a basis for evals. Just because you can get somewhere with good materials doesn't mean you won't want it documented in case he needs additional support later. I live in a state with scholarships for IEP students, so it's common to get evals here, but as he reaches the upper grades, it can be easier to qualify him for what is needed if you have a paper trail even if services are less available in your state. Succeeding with help means they still need help

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3 hours ago, wendyroo said:

Kids who truly just learn to memorize words by sight are far more likely to struggle as they transition from learning to read to reading to learn. I am currently tutoring a 6th grader who reads at a second grade level, and I started him all the way back at the beginning. He has been sight reading words like my, by, sky, fly, try and the like for five years, and yet he has never formed a hypothesis about y saying long i at the end of words, so if you show him comply or identify he doesn't have a clue how to handle them. Any word he has not explicitly memorized is a jumble of nonsense to him...it is so sad...and would have been so preventable by actually teaching him the phonics instead of hoping he figured it out for himself.

 

It's so incredibly frustrating that nobody has taught him these rules until you came along. It's so obvious that many kids will not just intuit the phonics rules, and they just need someone to TELL THEM what's going on! Imagine if we just didn't teach kids other stuff, and assumed that they would just figure it out.... (*insert head exploding here***)

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Thank you all so much.  I decided to try the Pathways books and found them on Amazon, but maybe I can incorporate some of our Abeka materials, too.  I also considered the Touch Type Read and Spell program but am unsure if I should spend the money---though I do think typing should be a course all of my children take.

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6 hours ago, KrisTom said:

I just wonder if something else is going on.

I think you're at that point where you need some *information* about what is going on so you can choose your *instruction* more precisely. You do that by getting evals. You can talk with your pediatrician and get referrals for a psychological eval. Was his lead poisoning documented and treated? You might be able to get your insurance to cover full neuropsych evals (which spend more hours than a basic psych eval) for this reason. It's the vein of what you should be looking for.

If you do not have coverage to make evals happen privately, you can update his evals through the ps. Although they are not necessarily required to write you an IEP (that varies by state), they *are* required to do the evals as that is a federal right. Those evals will be multi-factored, looking at speech/language, OT issues, etc. If you are doing evals privately, honestly you need to make the same thing happen, getting him psych, SLP, OT, etc. evals.

You've put quite a few things on the table as questions and the way to sort that out is with evals. It doesn't seem like you've been describing a decoding problem but rather a language comprehension problem. I think look at what disabilities are common to prenatal lead exposure and emphasize that direction with your testing.

 

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55 minutes ago, PeterPan said:

I think you're at that point where you need some *information* about what is going on so you can choose your *instruction* more precisely. You do that by getting evals. You can talk with your pediatrician and get referrals for a psychological eval. Was his lead poisoning documented and treated? You might be able to get your insurance to cover full neuropsych evals (which spend more hours than a basic psych eval) for this reason. It's the vein of what you should be looking for.

If you do not have coverage to make evals happen privately, you can update his evals through the ps. Although they are not necessarily required to write you an IEP (that varies by state), they *are* required to do the evals as that is a federal right. Those evals will be multi-factored, looking at speech/language, OT issues, etc. If you are doing evals privately, honestly you need to make the same thing happen, getting him psych, SLP, OT, etc. evals.

You've put quite a few things on the table as questions and the way to sort that out is with evals. It doesn't seem like you've been describing a decoding problem but rather a language comprehension problem. I think look at what disabilities are common to prenatal lead exposure and emphasize that direction with your testing.

 

Thank you! Yes, that’s just it. I’m not sure what’s going on exactly. 😔 His blood lead level was a 4 at birth, but it would have matched my high level of 26 during pregnancy. His older brother was medically chelated. Our drinking water was sky high with lead we discovered too late— we left as soon as we found out. Anyway, it is documented, but there is such poor understanding of the problem. But you’ve given me some thoughts, and I thank you! 

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23 hours ago, Lovinglife123 said:

I really like phonics pathways & reading pathways.  Many libraries have both.  It might help you find/ fill in his gaps.  I was able to do that for awhile until he was ready for AAR 2.  We still use it as a supplement.  It was the top recommendation from Well Trained Mind until they developed their own.

All about reading also doesn’t have to move slow, if that’s the one you are using.  You go at their pace (a lesson a day even) until they slow down.  There are not very many lessons in all about reading, some kids easily go through levels 1-3 in a year, especially if they are older.

Is there an order for these books? Do you complete Phonics Pathways prior to Reading Pathways, or do you use both at the same time? Thanks! 

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20 hours ago, Lovinglife123 said:

I also just thought of something.. when you think of him not comprehending what’s been read to him, how are you gauging that?  Do you ask him open ended questions or specific questions? When I read to my 8 year old I just ask him what the story was about and he tells me in his own words what was most relevant to him in the story.  If I asked him specific questions he’d probably draw a blank at this age.

Thank you so much for sharing that picture and for explaining the Pathways duo---they are expected to be here today.  As for his comprehension, I have done both.  Sometimes I know he has zoned out, but sometimes it just seems like he had no clue what was going on with what we read.  I have tried to shorten some of the readings.  

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2 hours ago, KrisTom said:

sometimes it just seems like he had no clue what was going on with what we read.

This is really your sign that it's time to get thorough SLP evals. They can do detailed expressive language testing, screen for auditory processing issues, test his narrative language, etc. You can't intervene when you don't know where the breakdown is and the right SLP will have the detailed tests to do it. You would look for an SLP who specializes in expressive language.

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15 minutes ago, PeterPan said:

This is really your sign that it's time to get thorough SLP evals. They can do detailed expressive language testing, screen for auditory processing issues, test his narrative language, etc. You can't intervene when you don't know where the breakdown is and the right SLP will have the detailed tests to do it. You would look for an SLP who specializes in expressive language.

Thank you so much.  This was so long ago, but they had determined he no longer needed those services just prior to Kindergarten.  While it was nice to hear at the time, homeschooling him for almost two years has been telling. I was hoping last year's Abeka curriculum would have helped.  We see a little improvement, but not enough.  

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2 hours ago, Lovinglife123 said:

Not an expert,  but is he interested in the topics that you read?  Are they books he’s asked to listen to?  If my boys at that age aren’t interested, they aren’t listening…. My 8 year old boy likes picture books, “tales”, some nonfiction stories.  I’m still finding out his interests.

He usually says he enjoys our literature.  Christian Studies (using the Golden Children's Bible) and Greek Myths are where he struggles most.  I'd have stopped having him do them long ago if it wouldn't hurt his feelings.  (We're using Memoria Press as our main curriculum.)  Last year, it was more of less the same, though.  I think we may need to back up with the level of difficulty.  

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6 hours ago, KrisTom said:

This was so long ago, but they had determined he no longer needed those services just prior to Kindergarten. 

It sounds like it's time to update his SLP testing. My ds has an IEP btw. I can tell you that for his testing they tend to run a language screener like the CELF and take some samples, etc. to assess narrative, etc. dynamically. If you get a private SLP, they can do the TAPS (an auditory processing screening) and more detailed expressive and narrative language testing like the TNL (test of narrative language), etc. He may have been fine when he was 5 and released from services, but some of the holes are now becoming obvious. Sometimes they aren't discrepant enough to flag because he's still blending in, still masking using his strengths. The weaknesses become more apparent over time, so we need to repeat the testing and do targeted intervention.

If your question is phonological processing or reading in general, there are SLPs who specialize in literacy. If you google "SLP literacy" and your state you'll find some. They'll be able to do detailed testing on the reading as well as language issues to see where the glitch is.

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31 minutes ago, PeterPan said:

It sounds like it's time to update his SLP testing. My ds has an IEP btw. I can tell you that for his testing they tend to run a language screener like the CELF and take some samples, etc. to assess narrative, etc. dynamically. If you get a private SLP, they can do the TAPS (an auditory processing screening) and more detailed expressive and narrative language testing like the TNL (test of narrative language), etc. He may have been fine when he was 5 and released from services, but some of the holes are now becoming obvious. Sometimes they aren't discrepant enough to flag because he's still blending in, still masking using his strengths. The weaknesses become more apparent over time, so we need to repeat the testing and do targeted intervention.

If your question is phonological processing or reading in general, there are SLPs who specialize in literacy. If you google "SLP literacy" and your state you'll find some. They'll be able to do detailed testing on the reading as well as language issues to see where the glitch is.

Thank you so much.  I think we will have to go the private route if we do any evaluations. I started to write the special education office, but I don't want to be dragged back into the public school system for any reason right now.  These are good points.  I admit, I am very overwhelmed right now.  😞

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You guys may do well with a little bit of Heggerty. I started off just using the samples. They are quite robust. Heggerty is all oral, no workbooks or anything. It takes us about 5-8 minutes daily. I’ve seen a lot of improvement in reading and speech with my almost 7.  
 

Phonological and phonemic awareness sometimes needs to be focused on just as much as phonics instruction. 

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3 hours ago, Lovinglife123 said:

One step at a time 🙂   Until they learn to read they cannot read to learn.  What are his strengths?  What does he enjoy?

I need to remember this because right now everything we do is basically "read to learn" with Memoria Press.  He seems to enjoy listening to books about early America and animal stories.  

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  • 1 month later...

It sounds like you've already decided on a direction to take.  I just have a few quick things to add.

You might want to keep a notebook with words that he struggles with.   Check your notes every now and then to see if there's a pattern (is he missing a lot of ar word, or words with an f blend, etc.)  Then you can rewind and just go back and work on those phonics skills.

Or you could try giving him a phonics assessment (I've linked to a couple below).  I don't suggest doing this in one sitting (maybe one section a day), and then find the section in your curriculum that addresses that skill and go over it some more.   If it's ahead of you (something covered later in the curriculum), don't worry about it...you'll get there.  

In addition to this, it might be helpful to test skills your working on with nonsense words before moving on to the next session.   While it's not bad for him to memorize some of the words you've been working on, this will test if he's also really internalized the phonics skills that will allow him to read unfamiliar words later.  Adding this in, and regular practice with nonsense words in addition to his regular phonics based curriculum, really helped my son (who was about your son's age and experiencing some of the same issues).

Phonics Assessments (both of these overlap a lot so you don't want to do both...but there are some skills each of them has that the other doesn't.  

https://bridgettenygard.weebly.com/uploads/2/1/4/2/21421624/core_phonics_surveys_2.pdf

https://www.buffaloschools.org/cms/lib/NY01913551/Centricity/Domain/9149/U3_S3_F06_PhonicsWordSurvey.pdf

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