Phonics -grrrrr

[PrinceRogersNelson]

Sorry I really need to rant or else I am going to lose it with the wrong person!

My DS has just started reception last term and we are getting a box home each week with some simple words in; a, as, at, in etc.

I am trying to do it with him and help him and it is a f*king nightmare and it is my fault. I cannot bear it and I have ZERO patience.

He just cannot remember it and cannot engage with it. I am sitting with him and we work out that it is 'i' and 'n' and then he just cannot work out what word it can be. So I help and then literally 2 seconds later he has forgotten it and I want to scream at him.

I HATE that I am like this.
I tell myself he is young, that he will get it when he is ready etc, etc, but when I am trying to help him I turn in to this horrendous pushy Mother who is taking all fun out of anything.

Does anyone else find it this stressful?
Are there any fun ways of doing this?

I am turning in to my Mother and I hate it!

Perhaps we need Indigo over here

Interestingly ^Managing Central Auditory Processing
Disorders in Children and Youth^ (Gail D. Chermak
Washington State University, Pullman, Frank E. Musiek
Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, Hanover, NH)

recommend Phonemic analysis and segmentation as the best technique to support reading, spelling and listening problems

Just because you have never experienced it doesn't mean it doesnt exist. However, I doubt if that is OP's son's problem. I am not surprised he can't engage with the task. Words like a as at it in, are pretty meaningless on there own. Therefore, not something that anyone who can't already read can relate to in their written form. More motivating, would be to read simple words that are common nouns. The 'box' words could then read in the context of simple sentences - as in a basic reading book.

I currently have 2 children in school with auditory processing disorders both who have learnt to read using phonics so no one is saying it doesn't exist simply that dolfrog's post isn't completely accurate

Words like a as at it in, are pretty meaningless on there own.

Why would they be 'meaningless'? Do you think that the child doesn't have those words in his spoken vocabulary, or, if he does, that he doesn't know what they mean?

Did you mean to write 'there own' or is it a typo...?

Perhaps there are degrees of severity or perhaps their processing improved with maturity. Would you be able to say a little bit more about these children. What their difficulties were and what worked for them.

Both children have similar difficulties
trouble remembering information presented orally
problems carrying out multistep directions
need more time to process information in the case of one of the children extremely slow processing.
language difficulty in developing vocabulary, word finding skills, ordering words in sentences, comprehension.
Both learnt to decode words using phonics and can read text with appropriate levels of accuracy, both struggle to answer questions about what they have read, both can read sentences but are unable to sequence those sentences to make sense.

and yes there are varying degrees of difficulty which is why the 1-10 figure is misleading as for some children it will be a minor issue and for others it will be a huge obstacle.

Thanks mrz, that is intesting. I'm not sure that the one in ten figure even refers to APD. I think it may refer to hearing impairment.

Hearing difficulties are much higher roughly 1-6 between the ages of 4-7

The 10% figure from the Medical Research Council applies to Auditory Processing Disorder APS in their http://www.ihr.mrc.ac.uk/index.php/products/display/leaflets 2004 APD pamphlet, and is in no way related to hearing impairment. This includes children who can acquire APD due have had Otitis Media with Effusion (Glue Ear).
APD has only been officially recognised in the UK since 2004, and the technology to identify APD is still at the cutting edge of research.
So how anyone can claim over 40 years of experience of working with children who have APD is a complete nonsense.
Phonics is about being able to blend the sounds represented by graphic symbols, letters, which make up a word. In order to do that you have to be able to cognitively process the gaps between those sounds to learn new words using phonics.
One of the Battery of APD diagnostic tests attemtps to measure the ability to process the gaps between two sounds using sound frequencies. And those who have APD are not able to process the gaps between two sounds included in the tests, and this would also apply to the gaps between sounds that make up words.

So to claim that phonics works for all is unscientific and more about selling phonics based teaching programs.
If you bother to read the most recent research about how we learn to read then you find out about the Ventral and Dorsal streams of processing language.

Unfortunately most UK teachers are inadequately qualified with regard to this understanding of human neurology and only rely on the lobby groups who shouts loudest, currently the phonics lobby group. it will probably be the Whole Language lobby group next to improve their lagging program sales.

The main priority now is to get the real research based information to the parents of children who need it to help understand the real nature of their childrens issues and bypass the bodies of professional ignorance which confront us and our children in the UK and the UK Education system.
The problems is really worse than this because these issues are then further ignored when our children leave the education system, and the institutionalised
disability discrimination takes over due to the lack of education of the wider population has in relation to these complex problems.

allchildrenreading
I think you will find that those who do not have experience of living wit h APD will try to make wild and outlandish claims.
As you said the child was adopted and the parent had no life expeience of APD and was not in a position to tell which cognitive processes her adopted daughter used to learn to read. That particular mother has always been at odds with those who has been on any APD forum, and even those leading APD research.

I have APD so do all of my sons and may partner, and non of us can use phonics, there are different methods of developing reading skills, which have to use to work around our auditory processing disorders.

Some of the comments on this thread are nothing short of disability discrimination. Being blamed for my disability which means that for me and others like me i cognitively can not use a teaching program which others prefer to use.
I have been running the APDUK help line now for some years, and all the parents have said that their APD children are not able to use phonics. So the real problem is the unwillingness of those who have a product to sell that some who by reason of a cognitive disability are not able to use the product they wan to sell. So this is really a marketing war rather than trying to understand the learning needs of disabled group of children.

maizieD
the problem you have is a lack of real qualifications of the subject, and only having the second had information from the phonics lobby groups, who have ignored international research in preference to their own attempts at market research.
and providing full data regarding those who failed to complete various phonics programs. It is an old marketing technique used by many program providers only to publise the positive research evidence and to conceal less positive results.
As I have said before you have not been able to provide any peer reviewed and repeatable research to support your case over the years, only persona l research opinions, and a dubious research program with a six year gap in the middle of it.

mrz
do you have neuroimaging support for your claims of how these children actually learn because even a parrot can learn information if the information is repeated often enough.

Do you have neuroimaging proof that these children who APD were using phonics to learn to read or that they had developed alternative cognitive coping strategies to learn to read despite you insistance of using phonics.
This can lead to problems later in life especially if they get to university where they will have real problems not being able to learn the new terminology required at that level because they can not sound out new words.

So you could already be causing more damage than you know.

But they aren't learning like parrots dolfrog they are reading texts independently having never seen them before using phonics to decode words. Now that would be a really clever parrot!

mrz
unless you are an audiologist trained to diagnose APD, a Speech and Language Pathologist trained in providing support for those who have APD or a Psychologist qualified to understand the support needs of those who have APD, then you are not qualified to have much of an opinion regarding APD.

I founded APDUK in 2002 to lobby the Medical Research Council to carry out APD research, I had to provide all the information to help my children teachers understand with APD is, and how they could best help. I a family all of whom have varying degrees of APD, and i have been working closely with those who have been carrying out the UK APD research since 2004.
And other parents such as Indego are learning about APD mainly from the research and other information resources I have provided over recent years.

There are those who are born with APD, a listening disability, there are those who can acquire APD Otitis Media , Aphasia, and then there are the those who have professional APD, those choose not to listen because it conflicts with their personal agenda and sometimes ego.

Fortunately dolfrog there is something called multi agency working which brings together professionals from all areas to provide for the needs of children so I don't need to be trained in everything. Since you are going down the qualification route are you an audiologist, SaLT, EP, teacher...?

mrz

Again do you have neuroimaging support to demonstrate that they successfully using phonics or that they are using an alternative coping strategy to work around their lack of phonic processing abilities.

You may not have understood what i have said but about the scientific researc h regarding APD, but those who have APD have a cognitive barrier which prevents therm from using phonic based learning methods. This what the APD demonstrate.
So i would suggest you need learn the neurology with regard to how humans learn, and develop alternative compensating strengths to work around their natural weaknesses or disorders. And that running these coping strategies can be very tiring and stressful especially by those who refuse to want to understand the nature of our differences for their own mainly egocentric reasons

mrz
I am an adult who has APD who has been advising the UK Medical Research Council regarding APD, as mentioned in their 2004 pamphlet, and I founded APDUK wrote and designed most of the APDUK web site content which is UK APD profession approved.

I have lived with APD all of my life, so have my three sons and my partner. The lack of understanding of our disability by others has only contributed to magnify the problems.

Well unless you are trained to understand the problems that APD can cause then you are not adequately able to provide the support APD children may require in schools.

WE have come across too many teachers whose ignorance, and lack of willingness to learn about these issues have actually had a detrimental affect on our sons lives.

So yes you do need to be trained to understand the specific needs of APD children otherwise you are failing your duty of in loco parentis while our children are in school and supposedly in your care.

Of course I don't have have neuroimaging evidence so feel free to dismiss anything that goes against your opinion.

The problem dolfrog is that not every child with APD will present with the same difficulties so a blanket dismissal on your part is to say the least narrow minded.

mrz
APD is diagnosed using a multiples battery of Diagnostic tests, and one of these diagnostic tests measures the ability to processing the varying sizes of gap between two sounds. And for many who have APD the actual test does not have a sufficiently wide enough gap for them to process.
This is why most children who have APD learn to speak by only being able to reproduce the whole sound of a word, they are not able to blend the sounds which some describe as the sounds which make up a word.
So if you are only able produce the whole sound of a word then when using a man made communication system which is a visual notation of speech, then we are only able to match the whole sound of a word with the whole graphic chosen to represent the sound of a word. And so for us although we may understand the theories regarding phonics, there is a cognitive barrier which prevents us from using that form of learning.
Many who have APD are very good a developing coping strategies developing our alternative cognitive strengths, such as our visual and other sensory processing skills to work around our processing deficits. So we need all who have contaqct with us family, friends teacher, fellow workers to understand the nature of our information processing disability, and help by providing information which meets requirements of the cognitive information processing abilities that we can use to work around our deficits.

So most who have APD develop alternative visual coping skills, lip reading, reading body language to work around our poor auditory processing abilities such as having problems following verbal conversations, and following verbal instructions. APD is one of causes pf the auditory cognitive subtype of dyslexia This why the APDUK web site uses multi-colour text to be APD friendly, to help us best guess when a new sentence starts.
Unfortunately phonics does not educate children how to develop their abilities to best guess the meaning of information from their life experiences which is an important human skill, which all humans need to fill in a wide range of information processing gaps in life. Which is why police have developed the cognitive interview for eyewitnesses, so help them recall what really happened as opposed to what they assumed happened.
The narrow mindedness comes from those who are only willing to use phonics and are not willing to understand the needs of those who are different from them.
According to researchers it is statically impossible for one program best suite the needs of 90% of a population, which is underselling the claims of some of the phonics lobby, this goes against the laws of natural Distribution. The best match statistically is 65to 68% of a natural population distribution, and higher claims can only the as a result of some distortion of the research data. So it would appear that the phonics lobby have been distorting the data they have been using to support their cause.

I am quite open minded and still learning about APD, as are the international APD researchers, the narrow minded are those who refuse understand and listen to the needs of others to promote their own agendas. Like the UK phonics lobby who would prefer my disability not to exist.

This is why most children who have APD learn to speak by only being able to reproduce the whole sound of a word

mrz
the real problem is that you probably have not read much of the research whci has used neuroimaging to try to understand the mechanism of the brain and how we learn.
Which is why you appear to have a problems understanding the cognitive concepts of how we learn, and how specific cognitive disabilities can create barriers with regard to some types of teaching and learning.
Waht you are failing to understand is that one ofd the key factor of any APD diagnosis is the GAPS test which measures the ability to process the gap between two sounds. Those who have APD are not able to process the gaps between sounds, and especially the gaps between sounds that make up a word, and even the gap between words when we come across fast talkers. And it is this part of an APD diagnosis which cause us problems when expected to use phonics. This would appear to be your narrow mindedness barrier. Not wanting to understand that there are many who can not use your teaching program of choice, and possible reluctance for further training to be able all the reading teaching programs and be able to select the teaching that best matches each childs cognitive learning needs. Which only providing phonics fails to do.

Actually as the mum of a child diagnosed ASD/ADHD I have read quite a lot of brain research dolfrog

It seems your narrow mindedness barrier won't allow you to consider there may be children who do succeed with phonics.
As a matter of interest what are your thoughts on the Fast ForWord software as I was considering looking at it's usefulness?