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Something v odd about ds reading and worried

57 replies

alltheworld · 05/03/2017 21:33

Dc, 5, had hearing problems as a toddler ands significant speech delay. At one point he was dx with verbal dyspraxia and then the therapist changed her mind. He started reception and his speech is slowly improving but his reading is odd and I am beginning to wonder, given the past indicators of verbal dyspracxia if there is some other issue or processing disorder going on.

He can sound out individual letters, though he gets d and b mixed up. He sometimes has mirror writing. What he cannot do is blend eg. H a t. Say together? Either total blank or he says at. Usually he loses the first sound although sometimes he says Hap. Which doesnt surprise me because when he couldn't hear, he couldn't distinguish between consonants.
But on top of that, he seems not to be recognising words he has just read eg. We struggled though a book tonight that had dad played or the band played on each page and it was as if he was seeing the words for the first time. There was even a sentenced which read, the dog barked and barked and he read barked the first time but couldn't seem to see it was the same word, even when prompted with the first sound.
I think he thinks reading is just sounding out letters, not blending them or making sense of words.
What is going on?

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alltheworld · 05/03/2017 21:34

His hearing is now normal, btw

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Stopyourhavering · 05/03/2017 21:36

Could be dyslexia.... short term memory problems. This is how my dd first presented with dyslexia- she's also dyspraxia and has dyscalculic
Can you ask the school for him to be assessed?

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Boiled7Up · 05/03/2017 21:38

Many, many children go through this. It's not uncommon. Blending is very difficult!

He should be doing lots of oral blending. All of the time. Tell him to put on his s-o-ck. Pass you the c-u-p.

Once he can instantly work out what word you're saying, he'll begin to read.

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Beelands · 05/03/2017 21:39

I'm absolutely no expert but I will say that the not recognising words that they've just bloody read is totally normal! It's a big moan at the school gate that they are all doing it. DSs reading is coming along great but yeah, he'll read a word then it's like he's never seen it a sentence later.

The not blending thing sounds normal too.... some of them are just starting to get the hang of it. What has his teacher said?

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BikeRunSki · 05/03/2017 21:45

Is he YR or Y1? A lot of that sounds very normal for 5!

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offblackeggshell · 05/03/2017 21:47

I don't think what you describe is all unusual.

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Notapissingcontest · 05/03/2017 21:48

I think that if you are worried you should talk to the school and doctor. Definitely.

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Sittinginthesun · 05/03/2017 21:49

I'm not an expert, but I listen to lots of children read at school as a parent helper. This is all very very normal!

My eldest just couldn't get the idea of blending at first. Then it just clicked, like a light switch.

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lljkk · 05/03/2017 21:52

Is he reception or yr1?
It reminds me of DS who reads well now (yr4). None of my other children learned to read like DS so it threw me a lot. DS also sight read a lot of words by shape & guessed at the rest. He also had speech therapy but not the other possible diagnoses.

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lifeisaconundrumattimes · 05/03/2017 21:55

This is not unusual. Blending is hard. If his speech is a little behind, chances are his reading will take a little longer too. But it will come. He's still young. He's had less time hearing sounds than other children his age, reading is as much about hearing sounds within words and identifying them this way as is it a out being able to look at them and recognise them visually.

Agree with the PP. Sound things out, model blending. He'll pick it up.

Letter reversals very common at this stage. I only see them as a concern if still doing them regularly at 6.5/7. Very common ground in reception and yr1.

I personally would suggest getting his eye tested, to rule out any visual problems.

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alltheworld · 05/03/2017 22:10

He is in reception. I will speak to the school. It took a long long time to get him the help he needed for his hearing and speech delay and I worry it is related. I will get his vision checked. A friends 9 yo was just dx with a visual processing disorder. For a long time it was thought his vision was fine because his eyes were fine but then they realised there was something wrong with his brain and he had double vision and his reading was affected.
With ds it is like he can't remember the first sound in a word or what he just said.

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alltheworld · 05/03/2017 22:10

Will also model blending

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SantasLittleMonkeyButler · 05/03/2017 22:20

I can't offer any advice, other than to say my DS2 was similar. He missed the first part off words until around age 6. Fruit Shoots are still known as "oot oots" in our family in memory of this. Throughout primary school we were told that he was "borderline dyslexic". As DS1 is definitely dyslexic, we accepted this as a distinct possibility.

Fast forward to today, DS2 is 16 & in Year 11. He has just got a level 9 in his English GCSE mock & has no issues whatsoever.

Honestly, I just think he was a slower learner than some.

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Tomorrowillbeachicken · 05/03/2017 23:08

all of this sounds very normal tbh.
We've had all that this year and my son is a good reader and still has incidences of not remembering a word he had on previous page. And still have b,d,p,q confusion.

For blending with DS I got a pack of the phonic cards from read write inc and used them by laying one down at a time to spell out words one letter at a time.

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jamdonut · 06/03/2017 07:37

D and b mixed up and mirror writing is quite common, we still have a few who do it ,from time to time , in year 2.
Most children grow out of it, but teachers will keep an eye on it. It's worth mentioning your worries, though.

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HarveySchlumpfenburger · 06/03/2017 07:59

Can he hear a word if you sound it out? So if you asked him to put on his c-oa-t would he know what you meant?

It does take some children a lot longer to learn to blend than others because they need huge amounts of practise before they can manage it. But they do get there in the end.

It does sound like the school are sending home non-decodeable books though. You might need to keep an eye on this especially if he starting to use strategies other than phonics. This might hinder the development of his blending skills.

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Ginmummy1 · 06/03/2017 08:53

I would agree that it sounds normal for this age. However, I'd be worried that the books are unsuitable. If he can't decode 'hat', surely 'played' and 'barked' are too hard for him.

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Wallywobbles · 06/03/2017 08:58

Dysorthographie at a guess or it's precursor. It'll be a dys something.

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GrassWillBeGreener · 06/03/2017 09:08

My son had a lot of trouble with blending at first too. But took off very very suddenly and IIRC had read all of Roald Dahl by the end of year 1.

Don't worry, but keep helping him with blending as per the great advice above. Yes consider getting him checked over again in future if problems persist.

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AntiQuitted · 06/03/2017 10:09

ds1 was like that but it was resolved by the end of the year he learnt to read and he's almost 13 and does very very well in English and with reading.

ds2 has ASD with a speech delay and he cannot blend so far. If he's told a word he can remember it and use it again. If he's tried to blend a word and then comes across the same word he has the same difficulty, like it didn't fix itself in his brain as understanding the world as a whole. This is not uncommon with autism.

So, yes, it may be nothing or may be indicative of a wider issue. Seems like just one of those work on it and wait and see issues.

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TeenAndTween · 06/03/2017 10:23

If he can't blend hat why is he being given books to read that have words like played and barked ?

Is the school actually teaching phonics properly with level appropriate phonics books sent home to read, or are they mixing things up (and thus being more confusing)?

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villainousbroodmare · 06/03/2017 10:32

I remember as a kid helping my mother who was teaching a computer course for 8-12 yo children, ordinary kids with no SNs. We were working on an adventure game (called Dragon World) and I knew it so well that I could help troubleshoot and make sure nobody was floundering too badly.
Anyway I recall that lots and lots of the kids would reread text from the top every time a new line was added to the bottom, mostly with little recognition that they had read it a minute before.

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lougle · 06/03/2017 10:52

Please try not to worry. He's so young. My DD3 is 7 now. She is a really very bright child but took ages to read - she just wouldn't do it if she wasn't perfect, so she'd rather not read at all if she might get it wrong. She spent most of year 1 on stage 2 books (dark pink book band) and started year 2 on stage 4 books (blue book band).

It has been agonising to try and get her to read. But last night, at the age of 7 and in year 3, she finished her first ever book from cover to cover: David Walliams 'Demon Dentist'. 440 pages. She clicked with the mechanics of reading about half way through year 2, then she just hated reading because she couldn't find any books she liked. She'd tried to read all the girly animal rescue type books and they weren't her kind of thing at all. Then I took her to Waterstones and she saw Demon Dentist. It's taken her a while to get through it, but she's stuck with it.

Give him time. He's so little.

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KittiesInsane · 06/03/2017 11:03

DS (autistic) never, ever learned to blend words. He's now a young adult and has compared it to trying to learn by sounding out when you are profoundly deaf. He couldn't do it.

He could, however, look at a word (or a car, or a scene) and reproduce it by drawing it from memory, so he learned to 'read' and 'write' that way. (Somewhere, I have an infant picture he did of a schoolfriend called Alex, or as DS wrote it, ^_le*, with about six points to the star.)

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KingLooieCatz · 06/03/2017 14:15

I remember well the guessing from the picture:

"R-A-T...mouse?"

It's very hard as an adult to understand what is so difficult about putting the blasted sounds together. We did loads of spelling out loud and blending familiar words as mentioned by a pp. DS is 8 and still does a bit of reversal every now and again. Great wee reader though. Fell asleep on a book again the other night. It might well just click in the coming days or weeks. Worth talking to the school to see if they're concerned if it's troubling you though.

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