learning to read

[mamaofthree]

my 8 year old really wants to learn to read. i am thinking he might have some learning issues, as nothing comes easy for him. dd and ds#1 were reading well before 8 and had an easy handle on math. ds#3 who is 5, is doing math that is at least as advanced as my 8 year old and is getting into reading. i know it is upsetting to ds#2 that he can't get it. he can't seem to grasp any of the rules of reading (like silent "e" that sort of stuff, or he can't remember a word he read a page ago). we have been trying many methods to help it click, even not using books. i am not sure what to do to help him, because they other kids just sort of picked it up, i never felt like i had to help them at all.
he comes across as lazy, or unmotivated because it all seems like it is difficult for him. he won't try for more then a few minutes before he is done, which i try and honor, but honestly it is a bit frustrating for me. he has such questioning mind. he wants to know so much, he is so interested in so many things, and i try to encourage that, even find stuff that is with in that subject to motivate him to read some. he loves to hear books, we all read to him. he just doesn't seem to want to do or try anything that he might not do well at. even him games, or computer things, if he might not get 100% he won't even try. and we don't do grades, so i don't know what that is from.
any resources you have used? thanks

h

[PGTlatte]

I would get his eyes checked by a pediatric optometry practice that offeres vision therapy. Even if he has previously tested at 20/20 vision, he could still have an eye-teaming or focus-changing problem.

Our 6.5 yo has been struggling with reading, and remembering words, rules, and avoiding anything written. I switched him to a pediatric optometrist and we discovered that in addition to his amblyopia, which we knew about, (one eye need significant correction but the other doesn't), his eyes do not work together as a team. At all. We've done six months of daily patching which has improved the corrected vision in the lazy eye from 20/100 to 20/20. But his brain still does not use his eyes together. They are each their own separate thing. Now he will start vision therapy to get his eyes to work together as a team.

They had me fill out a questionnaire about symptoms of eye problems. I wish I had an online copy of it to post. But here is a similar one:

http://www.childrensvision.com/symptoms.htm

He had about 1/3 of the symptoms. He avoids reading and writing, tires of it quickly, rubs his eyes, plays with his glasses, gazes off into space, loses his place frequently, and doesn't remember words, even those he just sounded out a minute ago.

For now they advised me to switch to only large, dark print, assist him with keeping his place, and keep reading sessions very short. Just since I have made these changes, only about a week, he is already improving.

[One_Girl]

How long do you wait between teaching one strategy and then introducing another? My dd was having a lot of trouble doing math at school last in the fall and the trouble stopped when I started homeschooling her and realized that she was trying to use four different strategies but didn't really understand any of them. I taught her one strategy and have had her stick with that one and it is working wonderfully. I suggest going back to the begining of phonics and sticking with easy things that he can do for a while before pushing him ahead. An eye screening and a screening by a reading specialist may also yield a lot of good information.

[mamaofthree]

thanks for the link. i think i will go over that with him. i hadn't thought about his vision. good idea.

i have used each thing we have tried fro weeks at a time. maybe that hasn't been long enough. my dad and i both have dyslexia, i am wondering if he might also. my father's is much worse then mine.

h

[domesticidyll]

My son sounds like your son in his needing everything to be systematic--wanting to know rules, but getting frustrated when he doesn't know everything yet.

It was a hard balance, because he did better if he had language in context--something real that he wanted to read (not Bob books)--but he also needed a very systematic approach. What worked for us, really, was three things: focusing mainly on *words* and underlying principles, instead of having him plow through paragraphs and books. Also using a standard order (first short vowels, then blends, then long vowels, then compound words, then open vs closed syllables, then other vowel sounds), but creating reading material in context (treasure hunts: the red cap is in the bed; sorting games: grass, grape, drill). Also just trusting that it was okay that he wanted to accumulate more than he was willing to produce for a long time--he just had a very high saturation point he needed to hit to feel comfortable. As you said, definitely the opposite of just picking it up--he needs everything broken down into small steps.

Maybe also read some about the history of language? There are some great books about early alphabets, codes, Braille, that present a number of different ideas about how to encode and transmit meaning that might be interesting...?

Heather

[chfriend]

A systematic approach that's not babyish or boring is www.progressivephonics.com .

It's explicit phonics, but without the boring drills. (And it's free)

Can he decode? Does he know all the phonographs?
How is his awareness of sounds? Do you know his reading level? How does he learn best?

It doesn't sound like a motivation problem. Has he had any sort of evaluation?

If he's bummed about it, teasing apart what's in his way makes sense to me.

[jessicaSAR]

Your ds sounds very much like my dd. She was at that stage on her eighth birthday, and I decided I needed to get much more serious about finding the right way to teach her. Combining programs is what worked for us. We used Hooked on Phonics, Explode the Code, All About Spelling and Cursive First. All these programs use systematic phonics, and I think it was the combination that did the trick. We did a little bit of each program every day and I really began to see the difference. She was hearing the phonograms on the HOP CDs, seeing and writing them in ETC, writing the phonograms again in the cursive program, and hearing the sounds again in the spelling program. Now at age nine, dd is easily reading on grade level or slightly above. I don't know if there is anything magic about these particular programs. You could probably combine any number of programs. But, I think the constant reinforcement is what did the trick.

I also did a ton of research on learning to read. The Children of the Code website is a great place to start. The interviews section has a ton of great information and links for further reading.

www.childrenofthecode.org

[mamaofthree]

thank you all so much. i have alot more work to do! lol

h

[Kerimommyof2]

my dd had issues as well..but thats because she was more of a visual learner..if its not on tv or a computer screen it can be very aggervating for her to learn it...last yr we switched to Time4Learning since then her reading has improved tremendously she is only 8 but just now able to sound out small books..she couldnt do that prior
hth