Do your DC with ASD read phonetically or sight read?

[chocjunkie]

DD (4, autism and s&l delay) will start reception in September. her speech is so very much behind (also her understanding) but I noticed recently that she can 'read' (recognise) quite a number of words. She is a visual learner and has a really good visual memory. I cannot really see her to learn to read phonetically iyswim.

just wondered how your DC read?

both!

dd1 learned al her phonics early (ish, for a child with severe ASD) and well. she knew them inside out and backwards.

but could not blend or decode.

she learned to 'read' by sight/rote learning, and that was enough to keep her interesyed.

she now (she has just turned 8) reads well, and can decode simple words - she still mostly relies on sight words/memory, but she can make a good stab at new words.

so, she can read a book like 'the tiger who came to tea' or a Winnie the Witch book, with occasional help for an unfamiliarword, but her decoding/blending is still very much at the CVC stage - she is working through Headsprout at school, to work on this.

Most kids with ASD learn to read via sight instead of phonetically.

That is because they normally have auditory problems and so struggle with phonics.

If your DD does struggle with phonics, you really should do one of the many listening therapies with her.

Not just because it'll improve her reading and spelling, but also because it'll improve her hearing and make life more comfortable for her.

My DS1 learnt to read via whole words instead of phonics - and I really regret not pushing phonics when he was small. But back then I didn't know what I know now.

Ds (15 asd/ dyspraxia) taught himself to read before he started school.
I'm not sure ... > I can remember him asking me letters at 2 or 3 and then it was like he could suddenly read . I think he probably sight read.He IS a big visual learner ... If I test him for a gcse exam now , I can tell he is visualising the page of notes he has made... And he quotes the sentences rather than saying them in a different way.

My DS reads from memory - so I guess in time that will become sight reading.

He is definitely a visual and kineasthetic learner, his best subjects being Art, IT, PE and science.

He is still reading books designed for reception and just going into Year 2 in September.
He has a book which was given to him in July from his teacher to read and she or the TA or even a parent helper must have read it to him because he can read it word for word but at no point does he look at the words or even sound them out.

Another book he has which is the same level and even a bit easier he has no clue what is written.

thank you! do you know if schools support sight reading? or do they try to teach reading phonetically regardless?

Was thinking about this today. Dd aged 7 learns the whole word and despite knowing all her letter sounds doesnt use phonics to decode. I have been wondering lately what is the best way forward. She is very strong visually and in some ways learning whole words really plays to her strengths.

Chocjunkie I have also considered discussing this with dd school. I have searched for any research or for about best practise for teaching reading to children with ASD and have not found anything.

cansu neither did I. Will keep digging up google scholar and let you know if I unearth anything useful.

Ds and dd both learned to read really early by memorising words. Ds was only 2 and dd was 3. Ds was before phonics was in vogue so never learnt blending etc.
Dd could read before nursery but was then taught phonics, she uses them as a new set of rules to learn but her default option is to memorise, then in phonics lessons fit the phonics in afterwards.
Dd can memorise anything though so copying the spellings off of the board into her book is all it takes for her to have another 15 words with perfect spelling she never looks at them again and reproduces them perfectly a week later.
At dd's school all children learn phonics but they recognise that dd and others like her don't use them as their primary method when reading and spelling.

It's a really bad idea to teach children to read via sight words rather than phonetically.

It's really worth teaching them phonetically even if they find it harder.

There are millions of words in the English language. They need to learn how to read words they haven't had read to them before. There is no way to do this if you only teach them sight words.

So at some stage they will come stuck if they just learn via sight words.

And if that stage is high school or university of at work you won't be able to help them.

Absolutely agree indigo but .. Dd is quite severely affected by her autism and has very poor language just. Single words expressively. Whilst I will continue to help her and push for her to achieve as much as she can I am realistic that she is not going to be studying for her GCSE and a levels and therefore maybe I should help her to make the most of her skills and learn as many sight words as she can?

Sorry

Is she going to a MS school?

You can get lists of the 45, 100, 200, 300 etc most frequently used words. I guess you could teach them to her.

The old Biff and Chip books were based around learning whole words rather than phonics. In fact all of the old reading schemes are. Ladbird Readers, Janet and John, New Way etc. So you could use them....

agree with Indigo.

dd1 can read more than enough for her general educational level (iyswim), but we are still plugging away on teaching her to decode and blend, as ultimately that is what she will need.

At one point I didn't think she would ever 'get it', but it took less than a minute for someone who knew what they were doing to 'prove' me wrong. and so the effort now goes into working on getting dd1 to read properly.

she still gets to read/learn the books she loves - just a couple of read throughs with someone means she knows it off by heart, and she then works out which word is which from her memory of the story, and we are working on her typing too (and handwriting, but she finds this much harder) - all things which keep her interest in reading while the basic skills she finds so difficult are mastered.

dh and I were amazed to find the other week that she can spell and write simple words (cat, dog, family names, in fact just about any 3 letter word we could come up with, she could identify the correct letters and write them down, so it is obviously working )

No problem I do agree with you in principle indigo and I will not give up on phonics but just perhaps change the emphasis to pushing her sight word recognition. We are using the jelly and bean scheme and it is going really well. I was reading with her today and it's lovely to hear her read! tbh I am really pleased she can read at all and I just want to go as far as she can with it. She is in mainstream but has 1:1 support.

My four oldest learnt to read before phonics was in fashion and sight reading was encouraged so never had any formal phonics teaching. I think though that most people will subconsciously pick up phonics rules anyway even if never taught so they might memorise night but then recognise igh in another word. That appears to be what has happened anyway because I've never had to help mine read once they got past the early learning stage and they can decode unseen words even without any formal phonics teaching under their belt.
Dd knows all phonics rules because they are something else for her to memorise but they are not her first choice when faced with an unknown word first she'd search her memory, then she'd partition the word down (not into phonics but into parts of words that she already knows) and then I suppose she'd resort to phonics but tbh I've never known her get past stage two and resort to phonics tbh. She is very able academically her HT says exceptional and so her methods don't seem to hinder her at all.

DS1 (AS) learnt to read by blending phonics when he was 3, but now he is 10 he seems to sight read and his phonic knowledge is rubbish (although his overall reading age is about 4years ahead). i.e. he is terrible at working out new words and working out how to spell things. The school have started doing phonics work right through the school and it has made a big difference to him, especially his spelling.
DS2 (HFA) had no interest in phonics until just before his 5th birthday. Suddenly he became interested and he worked out how to read. He is taught phonics very well at school (DS1 had little to no formal phonics teaching) and is doing very well with it. He loves learning all the little patterns.

I think ds uses the same method as insanitys dc. Yes there are lots of words in the English language... But lots are similar. I think he could recognise a similarity and, because his vocab was good he could guess the word. I never knew him to break down a word. His reading was always fine.
However... His spelling is apalling!!I do think phonics would have really helped him in this area. Conjuring up a word? I reckon you need phonics for that . That's a whole different thing isn't it.
At 13 his reading and comprehension was on the level of a 17 1/2 year old. His spelling was a 9 year old.
I also wonder if it would have helped his writing too.

Dd though memorises spellings, if she can read it she can spell it, when they were shorter words she'd make patterns using her fingers and they'd represent the outline of the word as a whole and from there she'd spell. Everything she writes has perfect spelling, she corrects her teachers when they make a mistake even before she started nursery she could reproduce spellings of words from memory and had no phonics knowledge then.

Aah oh well then ... I'll go with my other theory about spelling and writing then. That he just doesn't CARE enough to get it right

We are in a similar situation and the school have agreed to sight reading first, and then go back later to see if she can grasp phonetics.

Hi Indigo,

please could you list the listening therapies. Please could you let me know if you have tried any of them.

My ds is a sight reader too. Although he knows his phonics he still prefers the sight reading way!

My 3 kids have all done Auditory Integration Training at the Sound Learning Centre in London.

It was very good - and very expensive. It cured most of their hyper sensitive hearing, which was causing them a lot of distress.

It also was the first breakthrough we made with DDs dyslexia. Before that she couldn't learn to read at all - after that she was able to start to learn to read.

I highly recommend it - if you can afford it.

Other therapies range in price from very cheap (£15 per month) to equally expensive ( £1,000 ):

• Johansson method
• Therapeutic listening
• Listening program
• Tomatis method

Plus I'm sure there's more. Almost all of them are based on Tomatis, and then refined from there....

If you're in Hillingdon then you can get the listening program through the NHS OT - if you've got a year or so to wait.....

If you're on a budget I know that Leap Children's Therapy in High Wycombe does one of them for £15 per month. I don't know if it's any good or not. I suspect it will help, but not as much as a more expensive therapy.

Lots of private OTs offer these listening therapies.

DS1 started off sight reading at 2 but discovered phonics at 4 which enabled him to decode words he hadn't learnt yet. I think most children learn by a combination of methods, depending on how their brains work.

DD (Aspergers/ADHD) is in MS school and learned to read phonetically with her class. In fact, she is in the top reading group and reading things like Roald Dahl/Enid Blyton/Beatrix Potter herself for the past year (age 6.9). It might not be passages of great length at times, but she'll happily read a page (and now maybe 4/5 pages) at bedtime before letting DH or I take over (whoever is on bedtime duty). The school uses the Oxford Reading Tree.

I don't know if that helps though - just our experience.

Dd2 was reading at the age of 3 through sight/memory rather than phonics, i think she was probably reading before she could talk. Once she started school they tried to teach her phonics, she can do phonics now and can read using phonics or memory. Her understanding has improved so much now she's reading more.