[Pinky Tuscadero]

My oldest is an 8 yr old boy. He wants to be able to read without having to go through the whole learning-to-read process. I'm sure this is a dumb question but I'm wondering if anyone's child had an "Aha!" moment with reading and maybe I could guide him towards that and help shorten the process for him. He's a smart kid, knows all the letters and basic sounds. He just hates the slowness of it right now. I think he wants it to come easily, like so many other things have.
Anyone have any thoughts?

 

[4evermom]

My guy refuses any type of teaching. He is learning to read by memorizing, Accumulates a ton of sight words through playing computer games. He asks me what things say and is willing to guess more and more, We tend to keep PBS on as background noise so I'm sure shows like Between the Lions help cement his knowledge. I can't elaborate more right now (gotta get back to playing w/ ds) but I'll check in tomorrow and see if I have anything else to add.

 

[doublyblessed]

Quote:

Originally Posted by 4evermom My guy refuses any type of teaching. He is learning to read by memorizing, Accumulates a ton of sight words through playing computer games. He asks me what things say and is willing to guess more and more, We tend to keep PBS on as background noise so I'm sure shows like Between the Lions help cement his knowledge. I can't elaborate more right now (gotta get back to playing w/ ds) but I'll check in tomorrow and see if I have anything else to add.

we love between the lions, sesame street...those are the best! i also found ZOOM (for us old schoolers...remember zoom?!) back on PBS on saturday mornings...i love how the older kids are on the show 'teaching' the younger viewers...way cool.

my dd is 6.5yo and she sounds letters out...she even (on her own) has started writing 'words'...they look so funny to me...but i can often figure out what they are intended to say...she is so cute how she's doing this!

i think they will pick it up on their own as they do various activities, etc. in regards to letters, sounds, words...

 

[kwg]

Is he interested in comic books at all? My ds really took off with his reading with them. We get the ones from Marvel that are rated "all ages".

It was really interesting. He had one that he poured over, reading some looking at the pictures some, and each time he went through it he asked what different words spelled. We got another and he did the same thing until he was reading them.

He liked other ones too but superheros are his favorite.

 

[umami_mommy]

one of the things that really helped us was a tip from a friend who's a reading teacher...

look at the word, get your mouth ready to say the sound of the first letter of the word and then look at the picture for clues. this really helped DS. as did memorizing small words like "it" "the" "and." another tip was using your finger to underline where you are reading when you are reading to your DS. this helped with the learning to move your eyes along the page...

 

[Whistler]

So far DD is just like me. We resist any "teaching" because the perfectionist streak in us is so afraid of doing it wrong in front of a parent. We'd far rather do it on our own.

Perhaps the OP's DS finds it slow to read out loud. I remember learning a lot from context when I did not know words. But to do that aloud feels so shameful because you have to stop on every. single. word. you. don't. know.

If I could offer some advice, I'd say take a break from making him read to you and focus on reading to him and getting him books he is interested in reading to himself.

 

[Serendipity]

We really enjoy magnetic poetry on the fridge, reading pokemon cards, bakugan cards, gormiti cards, and notes that we write to each other. Calvin and Hobbes was the first (big, long) book Nic ever sat down to read on his own.

 

[Pinky Tuscadero]

Oh, I don't make him read to me. I don't do any "teaching" type activities. He is asking to learn to read but doesn't seem to enjoy it because it's so slow. I was hoping someone would have some magical way of learning to read that doesn't involve actually "learning". I think he just wants to "know how to read", if that makes sense.
I know this is dumb. I'm just trying to find a way to help him do it himself. I guess we'll just plug along as we are. I'm sure he'll get it eventually. Maybe if he looks at those Superman comic books long enough it will suddenly all make sense!

 

[Pinky Tuscadero]

Ooh, notes to him. That sounds like fun. I'll try that, too.

 

[4evermom]

Yeah, no magic.

I'm glad ds isn't bothered that he "can't" read (the parenthesis are because I think he really can. He just isn't interested in reading the easy readers. The things he IS interested in have a pretty high level so he thinks he "can't" read.)

 

[umami_mommy]

yeah, no magic. i always remember reading once i started school. sometimes while i was in "nursery school" (yeah that's what they used to call it) i just learned without anyone teaching me. i just knew how to do it. my DSD struggled. i remember helping her. it was torturous... so slow and she would lose the meaning and sometimes she would just sob and scream. and then one day, it wasn't hard anymore. one day it just came easy and she started tearing through books and loving reading and became a bookworm. (like me, neither of her parents read books)

so, sometimes it's easy and sometimes it's hard. depends on a lot of factors i think.

 

[scoobymummy]

My guy resists any type of teaching as well and is also a perfectionist. Try reading the book 'Right Brained child in a left brained world by jeffrey Freed'. My guy is 'add' and this book described him to a 't'. He is learning to read by memorizing the words, so it just takes a lot longer. I'm expecting that writing will take longer as well. Comics was the best teacher. My son loves TinTin and Asterix, and has been poring over them for years - he was really working hard to pick out text. Then he discovered Garfield. I seriously think Garfield comics are the best readers going. 3 box comics, simple short sentences and pictures that support the text --- and fun of course. He's now graduated to Calvin and Hobbes. Remember - if your son is this type of reader, he may be reading silently, but unable to read out loud. My ds really struggles with reading out loud - it involves multiple skills that he can't do all at one time. I don't make my son read aloud, I just ask him questions to gauge cmprehension.

 

[UUMom]

He made need a bit of assitance to crack the code, although not necessarily with direct instruction that looks traditional.

Does he like to do art at all? Would he think making funny posters is interesting. Wanted signs and such? Would he like to make lables with you for his lego bins (or whatnot). What about a family word wall? A giant white board where you leave notes to each other, plans for the day, and make marketing lists etc? WOuld he like to help you make 'to do' lists or a shopping list...not in a osund it out way, but you just tell him how to spell stuff. "We are need apples..A P P L E S". etc My kids also like making books-- lots of paper staples together, and they would dictate the stories to me. We'd read them often and eventually they started writing short words on pages themselves.

I agree about comic books too, reading Callvin & Hobbes, Garfield, Peanuts etc together (even if you do all the reding right now) can be helpful

I would also point out to him that he can read. Knowing Logos is a type of reading, fi.

Magnetic letters or stickers can be fun for some kids. I dont mean the big colorful ones for littles, but more like those larger sized poetry ones.

 

[Whistler]

One thing that people have pointed out on other threads but it has not been mentioned on this one... have you had his eyes checked? Sometimes it's harder if the eyes don't track properly or of there is farsightedness involved. It may manifest as "slowness". It might be another possiblity. My sister had this problem. It took her forever to "crack the code" and didn't enjoy reading until after she had some vision therapy and got glasses. All of a sudden she took off!

 

[Pinky Tuscadero]

Great ideas, everyone. Thanks!

 

[eclipse]

I'll preface this by saying that my son was a lot younger than yours when he had his "ah hah!" moment and is one of those kids who seemed to learn to read by osmosis. Still, his ah hah moment could be helpful. His was suddenly recognizing word families. One day he asked me to write the word cat for him. The he asked for hat. It suddenly clicked for him that the only part of the word that changed was the first letter. He figured that since he knew all the sounds that all the letters made, he could now read any word that ended in -at - because now he knew what sound -at made. So we spent a couple of hours brainstorming lists of words that had the same ending sounds. He suddenly had hundreds of words he could read easily and it just kept expanding from there. Sounding out each individual letter didn't work for him - it slowed him down. Recognizing that groups of letters consistantly made the same sounds and could be treated sort of as a letter was very helpful to him.

 

[4evermom]

Quote:

Originally Posted by eclipse I'll preface this by saying that my son was a lot younger than yours when he had his "ah hah!" moment and is one of those kids who seemed to learn to read by osmosis. Still, his ah hah moment could be helpful. His was suddenly recognizing word families. One day he asked me to write the word cat for him. The he asked for hat. It suddenly clicked for him that the only part of the word that changed was the first letter. He figured that since he knew all the sounds that all the letters made, he could now read any word that ended in -at - because now he knew what sound -at made. So we spent a couple of hours brainstorming lists of words that had the same ending sounds. He suddenly had hundreds of words he could read easily and it just kept expanding from there. Sounding out each individual letter didn't work for him - it slowed him down. Recognizing that groups of letters consistantly made the same sounds and could be treated sort of as a letter was very helpful to him.

I think that would be great for a kid who wants to be taught, like the OP's ds, especially if he's visual spatial/right brained. It would really help my ds except he'd yell at me for "teaching" him.

But it's the kind of thing some of the PBS show do. One of the new Electric Company episodes was doing it with all the "ight" words (night, light, sight, etc).

 

[Pinky Tuscadero]

Tonight we sat down to play hangman which quickly turned into lists of easy words. We did the -at, -ad, -ap, -an and -ike words. He had a great time, laughing and giggling as he figured them out. Sometimes he likes doing these games, sometimes not. Tonight was a good night, though, in that I think he gained a lot of confidence. Even though we have done these before, tonight it seemed to sink in more.
We'll see how it goes.
OT- my little one took his first steps tonight. I'm both happy and sad, as he will be my last baby to take first steps. *happy tears*

 

[Whistler]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pinky Tuscadero OT- my little one took his first steps tonight. I'm both happy and sad, as he will be my last baby to take first steps. *happy tears*

Aww, congrats, mama! I understand the tears, both happy and sad!

 

[sapphire_chan]

Books on tape? So he can do lots of reading-along practice and get to enjoy all the fun of books without the slowness of his current reading speed?

Funny story about a friend of a friend. She heard about kids learning to read without instruction, only exposure to reading and thought "why not knitting, too?"

So she put yarn and needles in all their rooms and knit in front of them whenever she wasn't reading to them (she thought illiterate knitters would be a bit sad.

)

One day her oldest dd came to her "mommy can I have more yarn?"
"of course, but what happened to your other yarn"
"I used it all up and I want to knit another blanket for my doll"

Apparently all her kids learned to knit about the same time they learned to read--no explicit instruction for either.