Phonics and visual learners

[fsmail]

Just been advised that my ds will never be able to learn through phonics as he is too much of a visual learner and this makes a lot of sense to me now. Therefore why do schools want to away with other forms of learning. He can pick up his spellings in next to no time with the look, cover, write method but phonetically no way. If I had have known this earlier I would have been able to help him quicker instead of wasting money on all the phonics books. Been advised to read a book by Ron Davies on dyslexia. Anyone else in the same situation?

Take it with a pinch of salt fsmail. Who advised you?

I was told that ds1 would not be able to do phonics (because of major articulation problems) and that he would be a late reader. It made sense to me at the time, and seems to make logical sense still now. However, it was actually completely wrong. He did learn to read using phonics, learned early, quickly, and thoroughly!

I agree with Roisin. It makes sense in theory but the reality can be very different. Ds1 is a very visual learner. He is autistic and, as a pre-schooler he was verging on hyperlexic. He could read words from memory but had no idea what the words meant. I felt, like you, that phonics would be pretty useless to him. Instead he surprised me by going back to the basics, learning all the sounds etc and is now able to read words that he has never seen before. He is now 5.5yrs old and in Yr1.

Hi Coppertop my ds is exactly the same age and can read but using words that he recognises and although he knows the sounds he cannot build words with the sounds if that makes sense, although he can write words such as dinosaur from memory. I would say he is slightly below average in the class in literacy, although one of the youngers ones so not disproportionately but seems to go a complete blank when we try and work out things out by their sounds. He can do words like into if I cover part of the word such as to and then uncover it. My friend who is a primary school teacher recommend the look. cover, write method of learning words and he can do those so well now whereas before he had no confidence. I do believe that whatever gives them confidence is great and cannot believe that just doing phonic learnings would give him this. Long-term maybe that will come.

fsmail - my son is deaf and we were told by a teacher of the deaf that deaf children can't learn with phonics. I found a great book, "Teach your child to read in 100 easy lesson" by S Engelman or Engelmann (£13 on Amazon), based on phonics. He can hear all sounds with hearing aids so I reckoned there's no reason why he wouldn't learn to read through phonics. He's reading Horrid Henry now (6). No need for any flashcards or any other additional material. It really worked for us. He has a sound basis now and can tackle everything.

Thanks Cristina

It must be very difficult to deal with phonics and a deaf child so if your son can do it there is certainly no reason why mine can't. Therefore I will not give up on the idea. Thank you.

That's the only kind of self-help book I bought that worked. The title sounds very...American, but it's good. We didn't finish all 100 lessons. They should take 20 minutes each, not more and are very gradual. Teaching Dominic to read is one of the things I'm most proud of, he gets so much language through reading which he wouldn't otherwise through (lack of) hearing. He loves Calvin & Hobbes.

I've just ordered this from Amazon - sounds exactly what I'm looking for. Thanks

Good luck with it. It's worth spending the time to read the long introduction. I didn't follow the plans exactly as DS was too young when we started, so instead of writing on paper I adapted it to large, sweeping movements with the arms in the shape of the letters or writing on a blackboard.

For letter/sound blending I used two train carriages, one e.g. with the sound MMMM and the other representing the sound AAA, then put them together to make MMMMAAA. Stop me, i can go on forever. Good luck.

This is interesting Alex is deaf too (we met at DELTA) he has had no trouble learning his phonics and uses them well to write but has a lot of trouble blending them to read, he too seems to be able to remember words but when it comes to sounding them out makes totally random suggestions.

Geogteach, I need to take out my photo album from last summer's DELTA now, although I think I remember talking to you on the first day and again at that evening do.

Re the bledning - it took Dominic quite a while before he got it, which is why I had to think of all sorts of ways of doing it (he was into trains at the time and that was the best way I could find into it). Once he got that the rest was more or less plain sailing.

How do you determine if your child is a visual learner? And, what is (are) the alternative(s) to phonics? My DD is almost 3 and we are teaching her the names of the letters of the alphabet. It never really occurred to me not to do this. But all her little friends who go to nursery have learned phonics. We are going to continue with the names of the letters of the alphabet as I expect she will know them all by the time she goes to nursery school in Sept., and then they can teach her phonics if they wish.

But, really, how do you know what method is best for YOUR child. I don't care what is good for whatever percentage of the population. I care what method would be best fro MY DD. And how might I figure out what is best for her?

uwila .. don't worry .. IME most kids pick up the names of letters from all the songs we do .. then they learn phonics at school .. it all complements each other

My ds who is approaching 6, still has trouble reading and spelling phonetically. It's only been obvious in the last few months, because before the words were so simple, like 'and' and 'can', that it seemed he was actually memorising the word, rather than working out the sounds. I would really love to know how to help him, I'm guessing that this is not dyslexia, because he knows all the names and sounds of the letters, but just can't put them all together to make a word. Is there a specific term for this difficulty?

My brother has this problem. He couldn't spell a two syllable word to save his life, even in his thirties. He is a very smart chemical engineer. He has never been able to spell, but can read fine. He is dyslexic.

When he was a child he was put in remedial classes and treated like he was stupid. Some behavioural problems developed (probably partly as a result of this treatment at school), and they sent him to a child psychiatrist and treated him for manic depression. The real problem was he couldn't bloody spell. However, in math and science he was outsmarting the teachers before he left primary.

Long story, and I don't know if your son has the same thing, but could you get him assesed for dyslexia or some other learning disability?

Also, dyslexics tend to be very bright.

We told DD the letter sounds. She knows all of those and some blending sounds. She loves sounding out words, so this worked best for us. But she doesn't know the names of the letters. Have started telling her that Alphabet song. Similarly we only showed her lower case letters, and are now adding in capitals.

We did it this was what she enjoyed. I think, especially when at preschool age, you do what suits your child best. Trial and error is easiest way to determine that.

Uwila, what a sad way for your brother to be treated. My ds does have ASD, but spelling and reading has never even been a concern up till a few months ago when spelling was introduced at school, and his reading books became more difficult. I'd never even considered dyslexia before, but just looking at some dyslexia sites, it does seem a real possibility now.

One time he had to spell the word "period" on a spelling test when he was bout ten. He couldn't spell it, so he wrote a period (i.e. a small dot) in the blank. The teacher didn't see the homour.

I think these things weren't adequately addressed in the seventies. I doubt he would be treated that way today.

My dd is a visual learner. I found that the phonics they taught when she was little didn't mean a thing to her and just put her off. She learned totally by the look of the word. I do as well - visualise spelling of words in my mind. Think some young children find phinics difficult which is why they always started with look and say in the old days, or whatever the child responded to best. She is now 10 and has caught up, but is still not fond of phonics ! On the other hand some children probably love phonics. I feel it is dangerous to just concentrate on one method because it isn't going to suit every child. Also, government, children learn at their own pace not via targets SATS and league tables !!!

Reading IS a visual AND an auditory activity - this is fact and just because one aspect of this skill is a struggle for a child, doesn't mean it should be abandonned - it should be supported and reinforced! It is precisely this that CAUSES dyslexia in so many people - inadequate, ineffective teaching.

uwila - I suspect that your brother isn't dyslexic at all. He maybe had the visual skills to remember enough words but never the phonic ability to segment and spell.

Our language was created to represent the sounds of our spoken word. That means, in order to decode it, we have to be able to hear sounds and remember their spelliings.

I am a visual learner, and learnt most spellings and words that way - but no human mind has the capacity to rely totally on that for every word they will ever encounter or need to encounter. Be very wary of people that tell you a child is a visual learner and can't do phonics. It might sound sensible but is in fact quite dangerous.

ALL children have the capacity to hear sounds - it is ingrained in them from birth. How else would they learn to speak? However, after spoken language is learnt, the ability to discriminate sounds starts to become lost, unless practice of it is maintained. Adequate teaching of sounds HAS to continue for children who struggle with this.

I know some people may be sick of me saying it, but I really recommend Jolly Phonics for home reading teaching and I used its sound order introduction, pace and sound/picture references in schools for years. It's very multisensory, huge fun and produces great results very quickly which is enormously motivating for the child. It also has corresponding readers to practice these beginning skills which is crucial.

I am wary of teaching phonics from the letters of the alphabet - there are more speech sounds than letters of the alphabet and it can be quite limiting for a child to get too hung up on the 26 letters and 'their 26 sounds.' This belief makes fairly simple words become quite complex if all the sounds aren't explored from an early level.

Interesting post, Catflap. I assume you are a teacher.

As for my brother he was diagnosed by professionals in his teens as being dyslexic. Although, I must admit I don't know if I really have knowledge even to define what dylexia is. I've alwasy just accepted the dianosis of the professionals.

So, tell me more about Jolly Phonics (if you want to). Why is good? And how does it use multiple senses?

hi uwila - I would have got back to you sooner but this is the first chance I've had since posting last.

yes, definitions are very important and in some circles, dyslexia still hasn't got a unanimous definition. Of course your brother would have been diagnosed dyslexia according to the definitions held by the professionals that diagnosed him: I should have clarified my point a little.

What I meant was, in the reading debate (how best to teach reading e.g. phonics only or mixed methods, as are generally the two sides these days) there are two 'sorts' of dyslexia - that which is caused by some sort of physical neaurological disorder in the brain, and then the difficulties will be manifested in all sorts of different learning areas, and that which has resulted from ineffective teaching, where phonic (usually) knowledge has not been properly understood and taught and inferior methods have been used to supplement and leave the person with gaping holes in their knowledge and skills that leave them forever struggling. The latter is not considered 'true' dyslexia as it can be easily avoided with effective teaching in the outset. It is this which I was thinking of when I made the comments regarding your brother - he probably is truly dyslexic NOW, as difficulties not overcome in childhood are very hard to rectify in adulthood and leave the person with all the symptoms of dyslexia, as in, struggling with elements of reading and writing, to be general.

I will gladly talk about Jolly Phonics - I will try to keep it brief! It has a few main strengths for me, some because it is a synethic phonics scheme and some particular to itself. I'll outline those that i especially like, and for additional information, if it's a synthetic phonics characteristic I'll close the point with (sp) and (jp) if it's a feature particular to Jolly Phonics as a resource.

These are why I like it:

It deals with all the speech SOUNDS rather that approach from introductions of the letters of the alphabet. (mostly sp)

It has a fast pace and letter introduction order that means children can start to make words straight away from the letters learnt, rather than just being limited to words that begin with the sound. Reading happens after the first week and children can see the purpose behind all the letters and sounds in a word - it's incredibly rewarding and motivating (sp)

The sounds are represented by a story, action and picture. This is what I meant by multisensory - to learn a sound, the children hear a story, say the sound and do an action to accompany it. They also write the corresponding letters andmanipulate them with cards, tiles, magnets etc. it employs their visual and auditory skills which is necessary for learning a visual and auditory process and has them doing things as well, which we all know, helps learning more when we DO. (sp)

The sound pictures are an excellent representation for the speech sounds without the need to attach a letter for recognition, which can be confusing as so many letters are used for different sounds. There is no initial sound to work out for reference e.g. sun, first sound = s, therefore sound must be 's' - but what happens when you see 's' in sheep?? confusion! With the JP pictures, although some (unfortunately, I feel, but I am yet to come up with alternatives!) do refer to initial sounds in some cases, all pictures are DIRECTLY related to the story and action, so to remember the 'n' sound, the children see a picture of an aeroplane and remember rushing round the classroom making a 'nnnnn' sound of the aeroplane engine. Nothing to do with the letter 'n' - it's just a visual representation of the SOUND 'n' which means instant recall through a relevant medium and the pictures can then be used to display the spelings for the 'n' sound e.g. n, kn and gn (jp)

I must just make one final point and I'm going to 'pick on' whitecloud's comment, just because it's here in this thread, but something i hear all the time:

"I feel it is dangerous to just concentrate on one method because it isn't going to suit every child."

This is such a common belief and shows such misunderstanding of the whole process of teaching and learning reading - mainly because it is such a complex issue and no one tells anyone how to truly do it!

The comment about finding different methods to suit each child sounds perfectly valid in that no child possibly learns identically and of course teachers have differentiation and different approaches to suit this.

HOWEVER, with the issue of reading, it seems to mutate not into HOW reading should be taught to different children but WHAT should be taught and it is THIS that is dangerous.

It usually manifests itself as 'phonics is too hard, child can't manage it, so we must employ whole word strategies to compensate.'

However, reading IS a phonic based activity and is it this that has to be taught effectively and thoroughly to work - choosing a substandard method to shortcut the real skills behind reading fails so many children each year.

This is not done with any other subject - but then, none other is quite so complex and misunderstood.

Incidences of dyslexia only really exist amongst English speaking nations. European countries have hardly heard of it because their languages are more sensible than ours.

Wow! catflap! I couldn't agree with you more. Jolly phonics is absolutely brill.
One little thing -IMO there is only one kind of dyslexia (I know this will cause sharp intakes of breath in the dyslexia community) and that is caused by whole-word /mixed methods. The 'phonological deficit'theory is just that, a theory, and a close look shows that it is invalid.

I think the problem has been that the research on phonological awareness (PA) has been done in the US where children are almost always taught letter NAMES pre-school, which will develop PA in SOME children, and then they go on to be taught with 'mixed-methods'(whole-word mostly) which causes problems for a large percentage of children (dyslexia).

When children from a continental European country were tested on starting school (several countries strongly discourage any alphabet teaching pre-school)they had zero PA. These lucky children then went on to be taught with the synthetic phonics methods usual in that country and in a short while they all tested well for PA. It was the synthetic phonic method which created the PA in the children -and , as you say, many countries do not have any 'dyslexia'. Dyslexia is created by poor teaching methods combined with an opaque alphabet code, and English has perhaps the most opaque writing code in the world.