Teaching to read, some questions:

[StarOfValkyrie]

DS is autistic. Ed Psych says that the school will teach him phonetically, so we need to teach him at home using whole words as he won't be able to do phonics.

So, any view on this particular piece of advice?

First, I am very willing to read with ds at hom, but I'm a bit that they won't teach him to read at school because the system does not suit his style of learning so I am expected to do their work at home.

Second, I'm not entirely convinced that ds cannot learn phonetically. Why ever not?

Third, Isn't it good practise to learn phonetically AND whole word, and other ways too?

Any views gratefully received.

tia

Very odd advice Star.

Is he going into reception? Does he know his alphabet?

I'd definately wait for a year or two and see how he gets on with the normal reading program. ( Although if he doesn't learn his letters / phonics in reception I'd start to worry then.)

Being autistic gives him (I believe) a higher chance of being dyslexic. But certainly would first wait to see if he is or not.

My autisitc son learnt to read using the easyread system. But he was in Year 2 at the time. He has dyslexia as well as dyspraxia and Aspergers.

Easyread was free - but is now very expensive. Anyway it's not at all appropriate for your son until he is a bit older.

He knows his letters already (3.5) but this is advice from the Ed Psych about going forward.

Not only that but he knows the sounds of letters, which is why I'm a bit that he can't learn phonetically.

I don't have an issue with whole word learning though. I can't imagine phonics is enough alone.

Honestly, this is most bizarre advice from the Ed Psych (which is why I've refused to get a private Ed Psych report)

If he's learnt his letters already there is no reason to assume he won't learn phonetically.

As we both know Ed Psych's vary in how good they are....

BTW do you even know which reading program your school use? Odds are, like you say, they teach both phonetically and 'tricky' high frequency words.

Also, when you ask, ask not only what reading scheme they use - but also which books your kid will take home. Often they use a synthetic phonics program at school, but then send home ORT books or whatever else they have lying around.

You have to remember that very often the only thing that Ed Psychs know about teaching reading is what they were trained in and practised when they were teachers (up until very recently you could only train as an Ed Psych if you had QTS and some teaching experience). So, some E Ps are still back in the whole languge/mixed methods Dark Ages. Our EP (now, thank heavens no longer dealing with our school) listened with a blank expression to my careful explanation of the precise difficulties a pupil was having and at the end of it said that perhaps he was bored with phonics and needed 'age appropriate' books.. And there I was expecting to get some good technical advice...

You cannot say with any certainty what a particular set of children with difficulties can or cannot do in regard to learning to read. The 'received wisdom' is that Down Syndrome children 'can't be taught with phonics' but, blow me, many of them are.

The main problem I can forsee, which might arise, is that the child may have difficulty in accepting the concept that one grapheme (sound spelling) may spell more than one sound. Having been taught that 'ea' spells /ee/ he might not accept that it can also spell /ae/ (great) or /e/ (head). But I have worked with mildly ASD children who haven't found it a problem.

I think that you always have to try the systematic phonics teaching first, because it is phonics which will produce the most effective and independent reader.

Whole word learning is a very poor second best as it offers no strategies for working out how to read unfamiliar words and, in all but the most exceptional cases, memory for retaining whole words is limited.

I would not mix the two at all. The two methods are contradictory and an autisic child is likely to be sensitive to the logic failure inherent in teaching the two side by side.

"Third, Isn't it good practise to learn phonetically AND whole word, and other ways too?"

Definitely not, unless you want to risk producing a 'dyslexic' child.

(I'm interested to know what 'other ways' there might be)

maizieD Thank you. Your post was very helpful until I read about creating a dyslexic child. You do know dyslexics are born, not made right?

"DS is autistic. Ed Psych says that the school will teach him phonetically, so we need to teach him at home using whole words as he won't be able to do phonics."

Many very severely autisic children do well with phonics. What they find harder is comprehension. Ie. they can bark at print surperbly, but struggle with the meaning of language.

The Ruth Miskin read write inc books are very good for developing both comprehension and decoding ablity. They have questions and exercises to test/ develop comprehension as well as decoding.

I think its best to start of simple with reading. Think of it like building a house, you decorate it once you built the walls. In the same way you can develop comprehension skills once the decoding ablity is in place.

Build confidence with phonics and decodable books. The problem with throwing a lot of strageries at a child is that they may get confused. Its enough to make many NT children kick off.

"Being autistic gives him (I believe) a higher chance of being dyslexic. But certainly would first wait to see if he is or not."

Many children with autism are hyperlexic. (Ie. they are exceptionally good at decoding, even if they haven't a clue what they are reading.)

Thanks Reallytired That's helpful.

Why I'm struggling is that DS has problems decoding language per se, - that's the disability pretty much so I can see why it would move over into reading, but I'm not sure that actually learning to read is all that different is it?

The comprehension isn't about method, but about disability surely? Not that I believe for a minute that work shouldn't be done to help him develop the skills TO comprehend.

It's one of the reasons we have held off teaching him, - because we want to get it right. When I say 'held off', he is only 3.6, but he's got brilliant retention and a facination with numbers, letters and writing (assessed at 5.4yr level) so he has the skills to learn how to 'say' written words, but I know that that isn't the same thing as understanding them and I am keen to move the two together.

Goodness knows his profile is spiky enough without feeding it.

This is why I am asking now I suppose. We need a strategy for teaching him, before he goes ahead and teaches himself wrongly.

Very odd advice from the Ed. Psych. Ds1 (ASD) was flagged early on as very likely to be hyperlexic. Ds2 (AS) learned to read at school using phonics with no problems.

As Reallytired says, the issue is usually one of comprehension rather than decoding. Both of mine needed easier books to start with so that they could build up their levels of comprehension.

3.5yrs is very young to decide that he won't be able to cope with phonics.

sorry, I meant that I can't see that his issues with comprehension in life wouldn't give him problems when reading.

Obviously it is going to. I'm not convinced that the problem is the reading method is what I meant. The problem, to me, is clearly the disability.

"You do know dyslexics are born, not made right?"

Don't let's start this again. If you don't believe me, try reading the conclusions of a number of researchers:

www.wce.wwu.edu/Depts/SPED/Forms/Kens%20Readings/LD/LD%20Specific%20reading%20disability-dyslexia%20 Vellutino%202004.pdf

Here's a taster:

". . . virtually all reading disability research has been compromised by the failure to control for the child's educational history, given that the adverse effects of inadequate pre-reading experience and/or inadequate instruction can often lead to reading skills deficiencies that mimic the effects of basic cognitive deficits. Consider, for example, that the acquisition of skills such as phonological awareness and letter sound decoding can be greatly influenced by the type of reading instruction to which a child has been exposed. Yet, it is commonly assumed that difficulties in acquiring one or both of these skills are a manifestation of basic deficits in phonological coding. Indeed, it is possible (and we think highly likely) that many of the children placed in single deficit (or even double deficit) sub-categories in recent studies evaluating the double deficit theory of reading disability (e.g., Wolf, Bower, & Biddle, 2000a) were children whose reading difficulties were caused primarily by inadequate instruction."

I think a lot depends on what your definition of dyslexia. There are children with struggle to learn to read inspite of the best possible learning. The Jolly Phonics manual refer to such children as having "weak memories".

There are otherwise intelligent children who have been badly taught reading, or children with really dire parenting backgrounds. These children can have similar problems accessing the curriculum to children with dyslexia.

Since the OP child is only three and half years old, surely she is best to read all the evidence about the best ways of teaching reading and make up her own mind. The OP might find these links interesting reading.

www.dyslexics.org.uk/index.htm
www.rrf.org.uk/
www.channel4.com/n ews/articles/dispatches/why+our+children+cant+read/937947
thatreadingthing.com/adult/phil-be adles-cant-read-cant-write-on-channel-4/

The OP son is a little boy. He needs to learn to play, develop language and social skills. It also has to be remembered that many people with autism do well in life.

Thank you reallytired. I will follow those links later.

'The OP son is a little boy. He needs to learn to play, develop language and social skills. It also has to be remembered that many people with autism do well in life.

Absolutely. We are using his interests to try to hinge the skills he is weak upon. I believe he could have learned to read a year ago, but we have been careful because we want to do it properly, but his interest in letters and how they go together is stronger than ever, so we are thinking of creating turn-taking games with older peers that include reading tasks.

MaiseD From what you have posted about that research it appears to have nothing to do with dyslexia. Dyslexia is not a reading disability. My Dad and brother both have severe dyslexia and they can both read fabulously.

Learning to read may help your son, provided it is driven by HIM. You can share social stories with him and help him. If he wants to learn to read, then I see no harm in introducing him to Jolly Phonics. Reading opens up doors to aquiring language.

Children are not as easily damaged as some people make out. You little boy has loving parents so I am sure he will be fine/

I am sorry, StarOfValkyrie, but whoever told you that dyslexia is not a reading disability is completely wrong. The very term means problems/trouble with words and, as far as I can make out, was coined to describe the inability of some brain damaged subjects to read (when they had been able to do so prior to brain damage). It seemed to come to the fore in the UK in the 1980s when children were failing to learn to read in droves. Sadly, the 'condition' has acquired all sorts of add ons over the years and is now used as a blanket description of just about anything you care to name.

At least one of the co-authors of the paper I linked to is a very well known dyslexia expert/researcher in the UK. You and I might not agree with her definition (for entirely different reasons) but she does represent the mainstream understanding of the term.

reading problems are a symptom of the disability, and not all dyslexics have them. It is an organisational issue, and often that means organising letters and words, but not always.

my DS does read write inc at school (good programme imo) and reads well but stuggles with using phonic knowledge to write.

He found the alphablocks on cbeebies website and watching the characters make words using their sounds has really helped.

Perhaps watching with ds and seeing if and what he understands from this will help YOU decide what way is best for him. My DS does not memorise whole words easily as has poor spacial memory so phonics is best for him. Does EP report say anything about DS spacial memory as this could be a clue to EP's recommendations???

Best of luck your ds is lucky to have a mum whos so involved and level headed

Thanks Reallytired We are not pushy parents at all, except for wrt behavioural issues and demanding that ds is prevented from withdrawing into his autism for long periods of time. He had fine motor problems and refused to draw, so we developed his obsession with shapes and showed him how to draw them, and now he is producing works of art akin to a 5yr old.

We see that kind of potential in letters and words, but don't want to do it wrong. I think he'll prefer the decoding aspect much more than the whole world thing. But we will abolutely insist that the comprehension goes alongside. In fact, I guess that is the condition (weak skill) that we can tie onto it.

mumbar, DS is 'supposed to' have good visual skills. I reckon he does actually, but I'm not particularly fussed. People keep banging on about visual support, but honestly, if those skills are good then surely he needs audio support.

"reading problems are a symptom of the disability, and not all dyslexics have them. It is an organisational issue, and often that means organising letters and words, but not always. "

Please SOV, please tell me where this 'definition' came from.

It came from my Dad who is an obsessive researcher and was diagnosed at the age of 59 as severely dyslexic as he was at risk of a disciplinary at work. He was referred to Occupational Health and then to various EPs and finally he referred himself to a specialist in dyslexia who confirmed what the others were saying.

He didn't believe it at first. His 'work' was a Senior Lecturer in a Teacher Training college after 30 years in the classroom. His 'specialism' was English.

SoV:
"Isn't it good practise to learn phonetically AND whole word, and other ways too? "....errr no! The vast majority of evidence supports synthetic phonics as the best way of teaching reading.

SOV:

"You do know dyslexics are born, not made right?"

Some are, some aren't. The evidence suggests that there are some people with some sort of brain glitch that predisposes them to slower learning of reading. However, and what I think Maisie was getting at, is that many children are simply not taught properly and get a "dyslexic" label stuck on them(it makes the parents feel better and lets the school off the hook...). It makes no difference either way as the best way to teach both types of children is identical.

SOV:"We see that kind of potential in letters and words, but don't want to do it wrong. I think he'll prefer the decoding aspect much more than the whole world thing. But we will abolutely insist that the comprehension goes alongside."

Comprehension and decoding are very different skills. I can read French perfectly, as I have learnt the French alphabetic code. I could not tell you what I was reading as I have long-since forgotten what most of the words mean.

MaizieD, I agree with almost everything you have said. I will be looking into the dylexia research as I have my own concerns about how reading is being taught in my sons school.

His teacher seems to have a poor grasp of phonics and she keeps reiterating to me how important it is to mix and match various strategies. This is not helping my son. I have taken eldest from school and the reading issue with the youngest has made me consider HEd for him too. Its very worrying.

Star, my DS1 is mildly AS and very bright, he learnt to read using phonics, he had no problems, reads very well for age, fluently and quickly, he can decode any new words put in front of him. His comprehension of facts is brilliant but he struggles with fiction because he can not understand people! Creative writing can be an issue for children with AS or ASDs.

Sorry, I don't have dyslexia but was taught reading at home by my mum in the days before anyone knew what synthetic phonics was (or quite possibly before it had been invented). I learnt by a combination of sounding out words letter by letter and also recognising whole words. I am one of the quickest readers and the most accurate speller I've ever met. My OH, who was taught by what would now be called synthetic phonics is a far slower reader and can't spell for toffee.

I taught my DD as I was taught and she is now an even quicker reader than me.

Speaking as an EFL teacher, who regularly has to explain the illogicality of English spelling to non-English speakers, I would seriously question any method of teaching reading that does not allow pupils to use whole word strategies. It may work brilliantly in a language like Spanish, which is said as it is written, but is never ever going to succeed in a language like English.

Sometimes a good dose of common sense needs to be injected into these debates.