Phonics with hearing loss

[souperb]

DD is in reception and has low frequency hearing loss. She can recognise and make the sounds but blending is a bit of a mission. We get words home to sound out and once she can do them, we get a new set. But, to be honest, she is generally remembering the whole word on the second round and then getting a new set. I have pointed this out to the teacher but the result was we now get a reading book as well. She enjoys the books, but again struggles to sound out new words but remembers ones she has encountered before. We have Jelly & Bean books with a word list at the back. If we look at the word list before reading the book, then she flies through the book with ease and intonation and enjoys the story. If we read the story first, she does ok, but we have to stop for any unfamiliar words to go through the blending dance and she doesn't enjoy the book and feeling of success so much.

We have parents evenings this week so I'd like to get my thoughts together beforehand if possible. Do we continue with our current "pseudo-phonics" approach, try harder or differently with phonics, or just give up and accept that she is currently learning by sight and hope that she gains phonic knowledge by osmosis? We have been allocated a "teacher of the deaf" and she will be going to visit DD at school next month, then doing a home visit a few weeks later. Hopefully this will be helpful, but again I'd like some ideas of what to aim for and what is feasible beforehand.

Sorry for essay. Any thoughts are much appreciated, but if the thread could avoid the usual phonics bunfight then that would be even more smashing. Thanks!

We did a combination of both. DS has a mild hearing loss which we did not know about during Reception, he took longer to grasp blending than his sister who has normal hearing, but learnt by word recognition. I think lack of phonic usage can be an issue as they start reading trickier books with more unfamilar words and also for spelling. My son did learn to blend it just took longer. He was fitted with a hearing aid in yr1 and passed the yr1 phonic test. The "teacher of the deaf" will be able to advise you and the class teacher, also the NDCS has some info on their website. Sorry I don't know how to link, but its in their education section.

The national deaf children society is brilliant. Do you have a copy of your child's audogram. The national deaf children's society has an excellent leaflet on understanding audiograms and it shows a "speech banana". It would give you an idea what sounds your daughter can and can't hear naturally. My son had mild hearing loss in reception and I found it helped with blending to get him to attempt to blend sounds that he can hear easily.

What kind of help is your daughter getting in the classroom. My son was greatly helped by his school buying a soundfield system. I suppose a lot depends on why your child cannot hear. My son's ears have different audiograms. The soundfield system meant that the teacher's voice reached both ears. I don't know if it still exists but my son's school borrowed equipment from Blue Peter (the children's programme raised money to set up an equipment library for hard of hearing/ deaf children) to see if it was useful before purchasing.

Blending is hard for hearing children to master. Lots of hearing children cannot blend at this point in reception.

www.ndcs.org.uk/family_support/how_ndcs_can_help/grants_and_equipment/technology_test_drive/

Blending can be tricky for many children, independent of status of hearing.

To me it sounds like you are doing all the right things, and hopefully a specialist would give you more tips.

Until blending clicks with her, and until she gets more confident, she would try to sound out new and tricky words. All kids do - it's part of learning to read.

Then at some point, they would not need to sound out many words - and read sort of like we do - by recognizing the words. Phonics and blending would then be used only when they encounter unfamiliar words. So, as long as you are continuing to explain/use phonics with her, it's OK that she remembers and recognises some of the easier words.

Ds has bad glue ear and phonics actually helped him.
There were a few times he came home saying something along the lines of "Did you know that sh and ch should be different sounds?"
He'd then accuse everyone of not saying them properly . But it helped his pronunciation, and he was very excited by the discovery.

We get words home to sound out and once she can do them, we get a new set. But, to be honest, she is generally remembering the whole word on the second round and then getting a new set.

Is she sounding out and blending the first time she tries new words? It is entirely possible that she is one of those children who only needs to sound out and blend a word once for it to get into long term memory. The test is whether she can read the same words 'at sight' after a few days have elapsed.

Do everything you can to keep her sounding out and blending new words; the mind's capacity for remembering words as 'wholes' is very limited, 2 - 3,000 words. Which sounds a lot until you realise that the English lexicon contains well over 250,000 words and that the reading vocabulary needed to read even a Red Top paper is (according to David Crystal) at least 9,000 words. 2 -3,000 won't get a child very far.

If she doesn't practise the sounding out & blending now she will struggle when vocabulary in books becomes more complex and words become longer and more difficult looking.

'Sounds' don't have to be 'heard'; they can be learned by the 'feel' & mouth shapes needed to produce them. Which is what programmes designed for children with impaired hearing should do.

www.ndcs.org.uk/family_support/education_for_deaf_children/education_during_school_years/teaching_phonics_to.html www.ssc.education.ed.ac.uk/courses/deaf/doct06b.html

Thank you so much for all your responses!

Mumof3 I'm glad your DS has managed to pick it up. We have stopped using the aids at the moment. We got them in November, but neither we nor the teacher noticed much improvement and there was some unpleasantness with a few of the other children (and she wears glasses too...). So the benefit did not appear to outweigh the disadvantages. As long as we ensure we have her attention, she seems to manage. We are hoping to try a different sort, but are waiting for input from school/ToD before our next appointment.

Reallytired She has nothing in the classroom at present (apart from a vague plan to sit her on the righthand side of the classroom), and are awaiting a classroom assessment from the Teacher of the Deaf. Unfortunately the visit has been postponed twice already. Now we are due to be visited in April, but to be honest part of the reason I want to press ahead with some sort of plan is I don't have 100% faith that it will happen.

I had heard of NCDS, but had mistakenly thought they only dealt with properly deaf children, not those with partial hearing loss. I have found lots of good info there, so thanks for that.

I found the audiology chart. DD has 60 for the first three columns which then slopes up to 20 in the right ear and 40 in the left ear. So, from the NCDS chart it looks like she may be missing all the vowels? Is there another more in depth speech chart that you know of, which may be able to point us to enough sounds that we can make words out of?

DeWe Her speech is pretty good, mainly because we paid for a lot of private SALT two years ago. We have been using the exagerated mouth shapes to learn the phonics and this has been fairly succesful. But blending them together is where we are failing.

maizieD I am aware that learning sight words is not going to get us too far, which is why I'm uneasy with our current situation. She can sound out words and takes sounds made out of 2/3 letters into account (eg c - oa - t and not c - o - a - t). But having read out the sounds in a word, she is unable to blend them together to make the word. At the moment she sounds out a new word several times, I encourage her to repeat it several times more a bit faster (with an emphasis on the first sound), then I repeat it until I am saying the word in a drawn out fashion while she looks at my face and when I finally say the word like a normal person she repeats it and usually just reads it straight out next time we encounter it. I'd love to be told I'm doing it like an idiot, so if you have any suggestions I would truly be grateful!

mrz Those are very interesting links - thank you. Do you happen to know how that scheme teaches the blending aspect? In any event, knowing there are schemes out there means I have something to ask about on parents evening. I've seen it mentioned on here before that you are/were a SENCO - at what point would it be reasonable for DD to get some sort of focused support? At the moment I would imagine there are a large number of children of haven't got the hang of reading - so at what point would not being able to blend flag up some intervention (whether hearing normally or not)?

Sorry again for epic post.

Does your daughter have hearing aids? I use radio aids in class to filter out background noises and try to ensure child is looking at me when talking.
I would also expect some one to one input outside normal lessons.
It may be the teacher if the deaf will also provide a block of classroom support for your child we have just organised this for a child in my school.

The problem with learning words as wholes is that if you learn a word by sight all you can read is that word but if you learn the sounds you can read any word containing those sounds. Whole word learning is limiting I'm afraid.

Thanks for the posts, my DD who has dyslexic traits (she's 9) and has always struggled with phonics is awaiting further hearing tests as an initial screening has shown some low frequency loss.

mrs Thanks, that's really helpful. Knowing what your "best practice" is makes me more confident to make requests for the school to do more. She doesn't have aids at the moment. She had them at the start of the academic year, but they didn't appear make any difference and children were being silly, so we have "paused" them. We are waiting for the teacher of the deaf to come in and assess for radio aids/classroom strategies etc., but she has had to cancel her first two arranged visits. Now waiting for a visit in April. But DD seems to cope apart from the blending issue. Reading around the NCDS website, I am encouraged that she can read the sounds out and will persist with the blending as well as pushing for some targeted help at school. Thanks again.

Soz "mrZ*...

@souperb,

Sorry if I sounded a bit preachy.

Re the blending. Can she make out what word you are saying when you say its sounds separately; before you get to the saying the whole word stage?

Have you tried getting her to blend the word progressively? Just blend the first two sounds until absolutely secure, then add the next one and practise until secure, and so on. This is often easier for children who find blending difficult and is a perfectly valid method for learning.

maizieD Not preachy at all! I'm really grateful for your input. She can't make out the words if I blend slowly. She doesn't grasp it until I say it normally. There seems to be no connection between succesfully sounding out the letters/sounds and saying the whole word. And I've tried using elongated-sounding out for words in general about the house as well (eg "Let's get in the c-ar" or "would you like some mm-i-l-k") as that was a suggestion I read on here some time ago, but she doesn't seem to get the elongated word except through context (eg I am holding car keys or bottle of milk at the same time). She can manage i-spy though (by initial sound, not name of letter). It seems to be joining the sounds up that is the trouble. I will try the progressive blending you mentioned, but she struggles with two sound words anyway (i-n, c-ar, a-t etc.). We will persist and hope it clicks. Thanks!

One of the problems we have is sound is absorbed by carpets and curtains which the radio aids have improved greatly

Can she blend compound words "foot" (pause) "ball" and syllables "dis"(pause) "app"(pause) "ear" ...

In DDs case, it appears to me that soft-furnished rooms are easier for her than hard surfaces. But it's one of the things we are waiting for the Teacher of the Deaf to assess in the classroom. We do seem to be on hold waiting for this visit - the school are reluctant to commit to anything without the visit, especially as DD appears to manage ok. I don't think she is their biggest issue. They acknowledge that they need to get her attention before giving her instructions and talk about sitting on the righthand side of the classroom - but it's mostly freeflow so not that relevant in reception I suppose.

She can't blend compound words because she can't blend the components! So she can't blend "foot" or "ball". When we get multi-syllable words on the cards, I break them up and cover half to sound out. So, she sounds out f-oo-t, we do our blending dance until I say "foot". Then we do the same with "ball". She gets that foot and ball go together to make football, in the same way that train and station make train station. But getting to the foot and ball appears to be the trouble.

DD doesn't have a statement or anything like that. Do you know if there is any requirement for the school to crack on with or without the Teacher of the Deaf visit? I would like to get firm at parents evening tomorrow!

I'm not suggesting she blend f-oo-t I'm asking if you say foot (pause) then ball can she hear the word football?

School should be meeting her needs regardless of external support.

You could ask for her to go on school action plus, specifically for dealing with phonics and reading. My ds is in year 1 and has a 45db loss in the mid and very high frequencies, he is aided and has radio aids, the radio aids help tremendously. He also struggled with phonics and reading and lost confidence in his ability but since starting year 1 this has vastly improved and he is now at an age appropriate reading level, it's just the spellings tests now........I would also ask for the unpleasantness from other children regarding her aids to be addressed quickly, my ds also wears glasses and has not encountered a problem to my knowledge. Good luck at parents evening tomorrow!

School action plus no longer exists I'm afraid. The new SEND code of practice has school support and EHCP only

I've been reading this thread with interest. My DS has similar profile of hearing loss to cathpip's DS: Mild loss at low frequencies and moderate loss at the higher frequencies. He has worn hearing aids since loss was diagnosed at around 2.5, and his speech has so far been within the normal range for his age. It is only now he is learning to read that we are actually finding out which sounds he can and cannot distinguish. For example, he was taught "th". At a later date, when asked how he would write "th" his answer was that it is sometimes written "th" and sometimes written "v",which made me realise that even with hearing aids he is unable to distinguish between the two sounds. I would be interested in Mrz views on how you teach phonics in this situation where the child cannot hear the difference between the sounds? Do we have to introduce some sort of visual cueing system and if so, which one and how given that it has not been used to date?

It isn't unusual for children this age (with "normal" hearing) to struggle to hear some sounds or to be unable to distinguish between two similar sounds. The problem quite often resolves (never had a child where more action was required) but for profoundly deaf children the visual phonics programme seems to offer additional cues to help. Sorry can't be more helpful.

Thanks Mrz, that is actually really helpful. I had not realised it was not unusual for children with "normal" hearing not to be able to distinguish some sounds at this age. My older DCs had no problems with it, so I assumed DS's problem was hearing related, not developmental.

It's estimated that on any day in reception/KS1 there will be 3-5 children suffering from some degree of hearing loss.