How is it possible for her not to learn it? Letter sounds

[eastkygal]

DD1 is very bright. She loves homeschool. She is excited about learning. Letter sounds are kind of kicking my rear right now with her. We use the pre-school Rod and Staff (which is really K), Starfall phonics (free online), and KidsZone (free online). I have ACE letter posters. She has a letter place mat, and a Leap Frog bus that says the letters and their sounds when each letter is pressed. We are spending a week on each letter doing songs, recognition, letter sounds, beginning letter sounds recognition, and writing. So, for example...
C says "cuh", writing Cc, identifying words starting with C and those that do not (corn, cat, ball rock, cow).
We do various activities and worksheets all week with one letter.
Then, I ask her (for review). What sound does A make? What sound does B make? She always says, "I don't remember." Or she'll say everything says "buh". We've only made it as far as C right now. She doesn't eve readily identify the letters when I ask her - thought sometimes she seems too. It's only been 3 letters!
I don't see how she can't be learning them with all the repetition across the week and the review I do. I really can't afford another curriculum right now, and I honestly don't think that is the problem. I was hoping to get through all 26 letters by the end of this school year, so that she'll be ready for reading sometime in the 1st grade. Sometimes, I think she is just acting like she doesn't know, or understand me. Pretending so she doesn't have to say. If I give her a worksheet, she gets right to it, but when we do oral practice, she does the opposite. I can't really tell what is going well with her right now other than Math and Science. What if she is just putting on? What if it is the curriculum? I'm not sure what to do. Any suggestions?

[AAK]

Well, could be she isn't quite ready or that she has auditory processing issues or that she will eventually labled as dyslexic. Regardless, it seems that she will need a bit more time to master this skill.

Since she is struggling, you may wish to skip the letter names all together. There are many trains of thought on this, but lots of programs suggest to just refer to the shape of the letter by the sound it makes. Point to an A and say /a/. Make your sounds crisp. C doesn't say cuh (that is actually two sounds-- /k/ and /u/ sound). Get the book "Reading Reflex" from the library for lots of help with phonemic awareness skills and developing them in your child.

If you really want to do both letter names and sounds at the same time (or just to add an element of fun)--there are lots of songs that might help. Sing the song each morning and then continue teaching the letter/sound as planned for that day or week. Eventually, most kids can think through the song and say "I /i/ iguana" or whatever.

Here are some examples:
The one from starfall:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2N9bj...eature=related

And other songs--same idea:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DK9VP...eature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOASw...eature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJY8y...eature=related


Also, while I coundn't find online examples there is a Dr. Jean who is popular with learning style songs. One is called "I know an Old Man who swallowed a Letter". I can find lyrics online, but she has lots of CDs--you may want to check the library.


I hope that this helps you out a bit. I am not diagnosing your child at all, but I have found lots of help on the yahoo website for dyslexia support. http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/dyslexiasupport2/

Amy

[2xy]

YMMV, but it's been my experience that very bright children take offense to being quizzed and drilled, and most children find it tedious and boring. Yeah, I think it's entirely possible that she's pretending not to know so that you will stop asking her to prove she knows things.

Or, she's not ready for this task yet. That doesn't automatically = "learning disorder." Kids all learn to walk, talk, potty, and feed themselves at different ages. Five is not a magical age for phonics.

[Tjej]

I find my DD (4) is like that with almost any question "What is X?" BUT if I reframe the question and suggest she guess or I'd hold up and show the letter and ask her to make the sound for it she could. My DD tends to be a perfectionist. Is this perhaps part of it?

Tjej

ETA: And the PP has a good point - my DS is very against being quizzed and performing, but if I just observe what he knows it can be a a lot.

[sbgrace]

Well, I agree that there are three thoughts: she's just resistant to the instruction, she's not developmentally ready, or there is something bigger such as auditory issues or dyslexia.

Whatever it is I'd drop the lessons for now. You could just play the leapfrog letter factory video (your library probably has it, otherwise 100% worth the expense imo).

If it's a "don't push/quiz/etc. me" type resistance this overcomes that issue altogether because you're just enjoying a video. If she's not developmentally ready or there is a bigger issue no harm done by playing the video but you could do harm if you keep trying the lessons in my opinion (harm in attitude toward schooling/reading and/or views of self).

If she shows other signs of something like auditory issues or dyslexia you would pursue treating. Signs of dyslexia:
http://www.dys-add.com/symptoms.html I believe I remember the Barton Dyslexia screening having a section that looked at auditory issues. There are programs for that if that is the case. http://www.bartonreading.com/students_long.html

She may just not be ready. My son matured late in many of these areas and then it all came together. She's young.

[Lillian J]

My guess would be that you could introduce letters or letter sounds when you get to 1st grade age, and she could learn it all a lot faster than if you keep all this up now. You could probably cut way back and simplify. And what 2XY said about certain children being resistant to quizzing and drilling is very common, but there's absolutely no need to do either. - Lillian

[The Amber Lily]

Just a quick thought: I read 'growing a reader from birth', and one thing that stuck out to me was the idea of teaching sounds to letters, instead of letters to sound.

Ex. When we say 'cat', these letters (c,a,t,) represent those sounds (k, ah, t).

It's a really great book, and provides much more detail on the idea and how to teach it.

[Savoir Faire]

We had issues similar to this last year. Might want to consider backing off...even until after Christmas....and trying again. A few months can make a huge difference.

[phathui5]

I have to say that I love the Leapfrog Letter Factory DVD for teaching letter sounds.

[lmonter]

Am I correct in seeing that she's only 5yo?

My oldest (7yo in a few weeks), didn't want anything to do with letters and sounding things out or anything before this last year. And even now... he focuses on it when he wants to know what the road construction signs say (he's since 'read' them to his daddy while they're out running errands on occasion, so funny) or wants to write something down. But it's only picked up speed in the last few months where wants to label everything.

He detests being quizzed, too. An acquaintance/friend who was a teacher before retirement and her daughter like trying to quiz him and he ignores them. MIL tried grilling him about the alphabet one day, and he ran off. Then 10 or so minutes later he comes back and shoves a piece of paper in her hands and plops back down with his triple decker train tracks made with blocks and track. Piece of paper had the whole alphabet written down, and MIL didn't say anything else that day apparently (I was hiding in the bedroom that day so I didn't have to deal with people). So, I don't press worksheets and stuff on this kiddo - he hates them, and remembers all kinds of crazy things. I just try to encourage him sound things out and ask me for clarification for words and call it good.

[eastkygal]

Thank you all so much. DD1 might just not like the "drilling" part of it. Like right now, she is making bubble letters in her sketch pad just for the fun of it. We are not even doing letters today - Fri. is art and music focused. She loves loves loves worksheets. She'd do as many as I set in front of her. She absolutely enjoys learning to write, and is doing great in her math. I hadn't planned to start reading until 6 with her, but she asked to learn reading, so I thought it couldn't hurt. I learned letters this way in K, and we were reading little books by the end of the year.
Rod and Staff doesn't really teach letter sounds but begins phonics with consonant sounds and letter combos. My teacher instructions said to do individual letters on our own. I'll definitely look into more reading on phonics. My teaching degree was for the middle and upper grades, and we didn't focus on phonics much at all. What are your thoughts on whole language? As a teacher I didn't care for it, because I saw 7th graders struggling with longer words not able to sound them out.
I do have a Waldorf background as well as traditional schooling, so I am fine with holding off on the phonics too. However, our parents are still unsure about homeschooling our girls, and they will be asking her what she knows. Right now, she doesn't ever seem to tell them anyway, but I wonder how to handle it if and when she isn't able to tell them these things at the age they think she should. How do you handle that?
Also, I think I might first try a different approach to figuring out how much of it she is actually comprehending. Any ideas of games? I bought some flash cards and can use those.
Also, if it is something more, would it present in other activities as well?
Thanks again. And any other advice or thoughts are appreciated. She is a headstrong little gal, and it's amazing. Her imagination is untamed and she is a talented artist and dancer. I'm so very proud of her and I want to only nurture her love of learning.

[laohaire]

No advice, but my DD is also an August 05 baby and I despaired of her ever learning phonics either. Only about last week did she start getting it enough to have a few right answers. And before that, she was very irritated if I tried to do anything of the sort.

Right now she has an ok chance of correctly identifying the initial sound of a word - like she will PROBABLY guess C for Cat. She has no idea on vowels whatsoever, it's a pure guess. Right now I'm just assuring her that "vowels are different" and I simply tell her what vowel to use. I just don't think she's up to them yet. So for cat, she'll probably guess C, then I'll tell her A, make the short A sound (ah) and mention it's the same sound as ahhligator or ahhpple, and then pronounce the T sound and ask her to guess (which, very recently, she'll probably get right). B is one of the letters she rarely gets, and D is pretty iffy. She's "just" getting C (hard sound only of course), F, L, M, N, P, R, S and T.

And she gets frustrated and mad if I push her too hard on any of it.

So I drop it unless I REALLY think she knows and is just too afraid to stick with it. I get mixed results on that, I just don't want to teach her to just not try a thing the instant she has the slightest amount of anxiety about it. On the other hand, if she really doesn't know, there's nothing to be gained by pushing.

Oddly enough I had that experience reversed yesterday with her. I'm hearing impaired and get along fine. But DD likes to make up names in play, and since they are made up I have to hear the sound of it very well to repeat them accurately (unlike hearing common names like Sue and David and so on). So we were pretending we were on the phone together and she said "My name is Eri_"??? I said, "Hi Erit." She said, "No, it's ERI_????" Me: "Oh, it's Eric?" Anyway, she started flipping out about how I wasn't pronouncing the name right and I told her "look, I don't hear that well, there's no need to get upset." But she keep pushing me to say the name, and I really didn't want to because I knew I was not hearing it right, I would have felt stupid and she would have been badgering me bigtime about every wrong guess. OK, so I never badger her about wrong guesses but I sure do know how frustrating it is to be pushed to even GUESS something that is simply not in your capability.

[MJB]

My oldest was the same way. We were very relaxed homeschoolers for K and I didn't think he'd ever learn to read; around his 6th birthday (in January) he was finally able to start remembering the sounds and sounding out short words. We used "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons" although around #75 we switched to just reading Bob books. He was still a little behind in reading when he started 1st grade at 6.5 (went to public school) but caught up around January (those birthdays really make a difference!) and has stayed at or slightly ahead of grade level (we're now homeschooling for 2nd).

[AAK]

I still recommend that you read the book "Reading Reflex". It is meant for you, not her. There is a ton of information about how we teach reading to kids. And, then if you choose to do the games/activities in the book--that is up to you. It isn't done through drilling though. Most everything can be a game, especially in the beginning. For phonemic awareness type activities you don't ask the child to recall anything. You are usually just asking about what they hear. What sound do you hear first in cat . . . /k/ can we think of another word that begins with the same sound. . . car or kite will work. Then look for the last sound in a word. Then, what happens if we change sounds. Like if we take the /k/ off of cat and put a /p/ sound instead. . .how does that change the way the word sounds. etc. Segmenting words is a great skill, blending is too. So, instead of asking your child to sound out a word--play a game. You say the sounds of a word, like /k/ /a/ /t/ of cat. Say them individually and see if your dd can guess the word. My four year old thinks this is a great game. We take turns giving each other words. BTW I have not even though about teaching her to read yet--I consider these to be pre reading games to strengthen phonemic awareness skills. And, strong phonemic awareness skills are directly linked to ease of learning to read.

Amy

[PGTlatte]

I see from your signature she is only just turned 5. I would not push this at 5. Our just turned 5 yo is not very interested either.

[waiflywaif]

Some kids are more "whole language" learners and they learn to read without any particular emphasis on letter sounds. I wouldn't worry about this at age 5.

[One_Girl]

I suggest taking a break from the reading curriculum for a few weeks and trying again later. While you do that you can point out letters you see when walking or reading and informally and be really excited about seeing it and the sound it makes then move on without quizzing. I have found that backing off when my dd is deeply resistant to things and coming back to it later in a very fun way works very well for my dd.

[eastkygal]

The thing is is that she isn't at all resistant. She loves doing it. It is just that she doesn't seem to be absorbing it, or that she is hiding what she knows. She would have been in kindy this year if I had sent her to school, and would be being taught this. Not that I am all for following the school system's schedule for things. But, today, we didn't have letter time and she cried. So, I'm not sure what is not working.

[Fujiko]

I can sympathize. My dd hates being quizzed and will just not cooperate. Sometimes I just drop the issue (but my dd is only 3.5 and not needing to be in "school" yet). When she gets like that, sometimes I try to rephrase the question, or in other words, I try to see if she know it but not by asking it directly. Like, I'll point to a letter B and say, "Oh! Oh! I know that letter! It's...uh...what IS it? I can't remember!" and usually she'll shout "B! It's B!!!" But if I ask her outright, I just get a disgruntled stare down. There's lots of ways to test her knowledge without being overly teacher-y about it.

Although, it doesn't address the issue of her being just plain uncooperative, which is totally frustrating.

[Lisa1970]

I really thought last year, that my 6 yr old, who was 5 then, was going to be rejected from kindergarten. I sent him. When they did the kinder interview, they said he was exactly where he needed to be. I suspected maybe they were humoring me. But then, as the year went on, there were lots of kids just getting down the alphabet and very basic sounds. At the end of the year, I was so scared they were going to suggest repeating kinder. Instead, I was told he was above beginning 1st grade level and did better than much of the class. This is an exemplary school so not like he was being compared against a group of children who generally do poorly, this was a top school (by state standards of course, but a lot of people put a lot in to state ratings). All he could read until maybe a couple weeks ago, and this seemed as if he were struggling, is the first 4 BOB books of the very 1st set. This means stuff like Mat. Mat sat on Pat. See what I am saying? That is beginning 1st grade and he is above grade level!

I have my child watch Super Why and Word Word and Leap Frog videos. My 6 yr old is my 4th child so I actually already knew it was common to not read yet much at all at this age. As hard as it is, try to relax. Come up with all sorts of multisensory ideas and games. Like when you drive in the car, say find something that starts with an A, something that starts with a B. Have her collect things and fill up a shoe box or basket of things starting with the letter of the week (just do 1 letter each week and all sorts of activities). Sign on to starfall.com. I am certain she will come around.