Something v odd about ds reading and worried

[alltheworld]

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?

[alltheworld]

Thanks wrinkle some really good pointers there....will work them in!

[mrz]

The Sounds Write app is for parents not teachers but is only available for iPads unfortunately

[BatSegundo]

Thanks mrz. Unfortunately, it's apple only. I'm trying to find one for parents to use so could do with one for apple and android. Most of the quality education apps are on Apple.

alltheworld that explains a lot! Glad you're feeling more chilled about it.

[wrinkleseverywhere]

DS is also in reception & suddenly "got" blending over half term. I was beginning to wonder if he was ever going to connect the phonics he was learning at school with words in books. Things which, I think, helped (although it may have all been co-incidence):

• he got to a stage where, other than p, b, d & q he can recognise all of the letters which has helped his confidence and means he isn't distracted by having individual sounds corrected
  
• going back to basic CVC books (Songbirds & the Biff, Chip & Kipper phonics) and, rather than reading them page by page, reading a word like "cat" and then getting DS to look for it elsewhere in the book. In the first Songbirds book, I think there are only four or five words in the whole book so we did a hunt for each of those in turn & then DS was able to read the whole book;
  
• played a lot with letters in the bath, in play dough etc focussing on doing a word like "cat" and swapping the "c" for a "s" and then a "b" and then a "hat" which helped him make the connection between changing one bit & the rest staying the same. DS also has some speech & hearing issues so I'd really focussed on what he could say easily. He can manage "at" words and "it" words but (ignoring it being a different phonics level) will still swap "and" and "ate" words;
  
• telling him that he knew some words e.g. "the" so he didn't need to sound it out every single time.
  
• pointing out words like "the", "and" & "is" when out & about - shop signs, menus, in stories we read to him etc - as I think he thought that words were new & different in every book.
  A lot of this has been done with us opposite each other so DS could see my mouth shape & with ridiculous over enunciation by me so he can hear the right sounds.

[alltheworld]

First of all, thanks so much for all the support and good advice. Secondly, it turns out that he was sent home with the wrong book for his level, a book that was several stages up! No wonder he was struggling with played and barked. He is now being sent home with books based on words like cat, mat, dig and is managing better.
Someone up thread mentioned phonological issues and that has been mentioned in the past.
He had a happy short session on teach monster tonight and was asking for his new school reading book so that is good.

[mrz]

Sounds~Write initial code app

[BatSegundo]

Each to their own mrz; I've found it useful. Not for everyone, but some kids really respond to it. As an aside, do you know any good UK phonics apps? Ladybird Phonics has good methodology and UK voice acting, but it's blotchy so I'm not recommending it anymore, but don't know of anything else that is accessible to parents.

[mrz]

[mrz]

I'm with Rafa robot talk is unnecessary and makes it more difficult to actually hear the word.
I'd also advice against Headsprout as it's an American program that doesn't follow the methods used in the UK

[BatSegundo]

If he missed out on rhymes, definitely revisit. But being a bit older, the traditional stuff may not appeal. Spike Milligan's Milliganimals, Colin McNaughton's There's an awful lot of weirdos in our neighbourhood and Roald Dahl's Dirty Beasts are funny ones for 5/6/7 year olds. There's also lots of great rhyming books out there like the Sir Scallywag series and Rascally Cake.

[BatSegundo]

robot talk

It's American, but shows what I mean. Some kids like it and it help them pick it up. Helps if he likes robots!

[lougle]

Have you heard of Headsprout? It's about £160 for a yearly licence (for 36 users), but you can get a 2 week free trial, so you could just use that and not bother with buying it. It's a computer based phonics programme. It is American, which some people find a little annoying, but it is fantastic.

It's based on error-less learning. In other words, it tracks your child's responses and adjusts the programme to speed up or slow down the lessons on the basis of whether they are 'getting' each stage of the learning. Everything is broken down into small bite-size chunks. They call lessons 'episodes', and an episode will deal with a particular sound or two sounds. The first episode deals with /s/ and the child helps an alien get to his spaceship by correctly clicking on the letter 's'.

It builds on it gradually with 'speak out loud' exercises, where the child has to speak out loud, click on three different creatures and select the creature that said what they said. If they are getting things right, it moves on quite quickly. If they are getting it wrong, the lesson builds in extra practices and lessons. For instance, they help a dinosaur up a volcano. Each correct answer is a jump up the edge of the volcano. Too many wrong answers make the dinosaur fall down to the bottom and start again.

There are short 'books' to read at certain stages, to use the phonic knowledge taught so far, and a printable progress map to mark off the stickers.

Also, the £160 is a lot of money, but that gives 36 licences, so if you have more than one child, you can use it for all of your children.

[mrz]

Then dont do robot talk or phonics games neither are necessary to quality phonics instruction. However nothing puts children off more than trying to memorise thousands of words as wholes and not having an effective strategy for reading new words.

[HarveySchlumpfenburger]

I hate bloody robot talk. I don't think there's anything worse for children struggling with phonological processing issues than separating the sounds out so far you loose all sense of the word.

What was wrong with running your finger under the word and saying the sounds quickly/smudging them together so the word just sort of 'pops' out?

[Firefries]

Fair enough, but my 5 year old did the exact same thing as OP is describing and I had suspected dyslexia for many years - that's why I said test at 7/8 years. And nothing put my DC off reading more than sounding out words (robot talk) and phonic games - it still does today. It didn't work for mine so I'm merely passing on information - which is what mumsnet is about. Looking at books together and understanding stories as i mentioned totally works and is great for a 5 year old still. Learning common words by sight too is super helpful. But I'm just sharing from our experience here so the OP can take it or leave it. Hope that helps OP.

[mrz]

You're right Firefries there are effective ways and ineffective
However as Rafa says the recommended approach for dyslexic children is not whole words as you suggest but phonics.

OP blending through the word should help him remember the first sound (as you said he appears to forget) nothing you've said is unusual when children first begin learning to read so I wouldn't worry.

[HarveySchlumpfenburger]

The slight flaw in that argument is that the recommended method for children with dyslexia is phonics and phonics only.

Its more important for children with reading issues to be taught with good quality phonics teaching than for other children.

In any case it's far too early to suggest that the OP's child may be one of the

[BertrandRussell]

I'm no expert, but I would say back off! He's only 5 -and has recently caught up in other areas. Maybe he just needs a bit of time? And please don't sound out stuff like socks and cup in normal conversation- imagine how annoying and frustrating that would be for him!

Relax a bit. He's doing the same things that lots of 5 year olds do.He'll get there.

[Firefries]

Well there's certainly not one way to learn to read mrz.

[mrz]

Sorry but that is utter nonsense.

[Firefries]

Learning the sounds C A T to learn Cat is using phonics to learn to read. This is too hard for someone with dyslexia (which it sounds like your DC may have). Even seeing the word again C A T the child goes over the word sound and letter formation each time just to learn that word C AT again. Word recognition is probably better for your DC and reading practice. Even reading a book over and over, learning it by heart and looking at pictures. Or even a book without words. Just talking to your child about the pictures and learn how to talk about what's happening will help them. You could point out key words too. Practice and word recognition (looking at words individually and learning what word it is based on the pattern of letters) is the best thing for fluency if your DC has dyslexia. Phonics - the sounding out if words - is just too frustrating so try and see that learning to read might be different for this one. See if you can get your DC tested but they might say wait a while, as most kids catch up and get to the same reading level by about age 10. I'd test at least at 7 or 8. If it's dyslexia your DC will get it in the end, he will just have to learn a few techniques to do so. He'll manage.

[mrz]

Robot talk is h-a-t

[alltheworld]

Thanks so much that is really helpful. He never liked songs or rhymes as a toddler due to not hearing but I should revisit that. Will try h a t as h a is ha and then ha t and then hat. Also think he needs easier phonics. What is robot talk?

[mrz]

It's easier to start with a sound you can "hold onto" like s, m, n, r, f, l etc until he gets the hang of it

[mrz]

Try blending through the word so your example of hat /h/ /a/ ha + /t/ hat