Name: Thrive! NCHE Homeschool Conference
Start: 2025-05-22T00:00:00-05:00
End: 2025-05-24T23:59:59-05:00
Location: Winston-Salem, NC

Tagged: reading

This topic has 8 replies, 5 voices, and was last updated 9 years, 6 months ago by ReneeS.

Viewing 9 posts - 1 through 9 (of 9 total)

Author
Posts
October 7, 2015 at 11:48 pm
ReneeS
Participant
DD6 knows her letter sounds. When she sounds things out she gets all the sounds correct then when it is time to go and say what the word is she completely changes the word to something with added letters. Example- she sounds out “kite,” she understands silent “e,” then says it as “hit.” Or the word is “jumps” she sounds it out fine then says it as something like “jam.”
I don’t know what to do with this. It is almost like she decides after sounding it out she just abandons ship and takes a guess. But then she totally gets words like “Christ” with the only help of “ch makes a /c/ sound” and “love” which could be really confusing.
Thoughts? Suggestions?
October 8, 2015 at 6:31 am
Karen
Participant
That’s something my dyslexic daughter used to do. In the Barton Reading and Spelling program, the student is to “touch-and-say” each sound in a word. (It’s the same as sounding out, but they also put their finger under each letter, then slide thie finger from beginning to end of the word as they blend the sounds together.) So you could have her do that when she gets a word wrong.
Another helpful thing the Barton program does is has the student spell words in this systematic way: 1. Repeat the word you have given her.
2. Repeat the word again, this time super-slowly, using her hand/finger to show in the air the blending of sounds from beginning to end.
3. Spell the word on her fingers – one finger per sound. So, “jump” would be four fingers. “Sock” would be 3 fingers. (Use the hand that she doesn’t write with to do all hand motions.)
4. Then, write down the word.
It really seems to help my daughter concentrate on the sounds to go through all this (we’re actually beyond all this now, but if she’s slipping up, I go back to this procedure until she’s back in gear.)
I hope this gives you some ideas…….if you notice that your daughter keeps missing words, I would encourage you to check out Susan Barton’s websites.
October 8, 2015 at 9:20 pm
ReneeS
Participant
I like those suggestions. I have been teaching her to use her finger under each letter but she resists it a lot. The finger per sound is interesting. I am going to do a mini trial of these over the next couple days to see if it helps a bit more. This afternoon she was reading a BOB book and switched the word as for is. I try so hard not to get frustrated about it because I really want her to like reading, I hated it when I was a kid all the way until my early thirties. I don’t want to push too hard and frustrate her or have a upset mommy discouraging her. It seems like a fine line to try to balance
October 12, 2015 at 7:08 am
Karen
Participant
Right. At her age, she is still young, and you do have time to let her mature some. But if this is a sign of dyslexia or other learning challnege, you don’t want to ignore it for long.
Have you looked thru Susan Barton’s websites? Bright Solutions and Barton Reading. She has a list of “symptoms” of dyslexia. She also has very helpful videos.
Another inexpensive help is Reading Reflex. It’s a book that walks you through helping your child hear the sounds that make up words. It uses lots of games (in the car-type games, not necessarily pen and paper or pieces and board type games). I found it helpful for getting my daughter to rhyme (dyslexics don’t rhyme easily), to hear how “cat” is really three sounds blended together.
Best wishes! Learning reading is so easy for some kids and so stressful for others!
October 12, 2015 at 9:29 am
HollyS
Participant
My DC have done this. I just tell them to look closely at the word again and sound it out, letter-by-letter. In their case it’s been caused by a hurry to say the word, and not any underlying causes. Eventually, they’d do it less and less with reading practice.
I’m working with my DD on reading (she turns 6 this month). It seems to help her when we build the words first. We use cardstock letter tiles or reading rods. Magnetic letters on a cookie sheet would work too. We also build similar words (for example cat, hat, sat, etc.)…I’ll get out the -a and -t cards/blocks, then add the beginning sounds one at a time for her to sound out.
October 12, 2015 at 9:26 pm
ReneeS
Participant
I’ve wondered if she is trying to hurry through. I will tell her to sound it out, or read what the letter is saying. She will do this then say it slow then turn it into a different word sometimes. I asked her if she didn’t want to read or if she didn’t understand what it was saying, she replied with, “It just gets hard for me.” The word “can”, in my opinion, shouldn’t be hard for a 6 year old with a good phonics foundation. We play games with letter sounds when out and she has even been helping her little sister, 3, learn the correct sounds of the letter and has been teaching them spot on. We are not currently using any specific curriculum for reading, she is working through a set of BOB books right now and enjoys them, the early ones she has issues with getting the words right but the higher each book goes she seems to not do as bad, not great but not horrible either. I do have the SCM Delightful reading though but have just failed to start it. Does anyone think that Delightful reading would help with this issue or should that be jumped over and try something else. I haven’t heard of Susan Barton or her method. I will have to look into it. I did look up “signs of dyslexia” and found dyslexia.com and she did fit about 80% of what I read. I hate to label anything so young but at the same time if it is really there then knowing will help her do better and me teach her better. I suppose I will not jump the gun, will keep reading and will try new techniques with her.
October 13, 2015 at 7:33 pm
Shannon
Participant
As you have said, it could be just bc she is young and she’ll grow out of it (my oldest grew out of his symptoms of dyslexia), or it could be that you’ll one day say she had dyslexia. My younger two sons most likely have dyslexia but I’m reluctant to label so just this fall did we do Vol 1 of Barton. (I do have it for sale, if you are interested.) They are now 9yo and while their reading has greatly improved (I thought they’d test at grade level), they still have struggles. It shows up more often in spelling than in reading now but the last time we tested it was clear they weren’t hearing all the separate sounds and though we had gone through 3 volumes of All About Reading very successfully, there were still skills they were missing. I wish now I had started working with Barton sooner but I have full confidence they will both get all the skills they need to be competent adult readers.
October 14, 2015 at 12:15 pm
jmac17
Participant
I’ve only skimmed the other responses, but here are my two suggestions from many years tutoring beginning readers.
First, practice the blending skill outside of reading. While eating lunch or doing dishes, or whenever, play this game. You say a word, sound by sound, and have her identify the word. Then have her say a word, sound by sound, for you to say the whole word. This helps solidify the concept of putting the pieces together to make a word. Challenge each other with longer and longer words as she is ready.
Second, try having her sound out the last part of the word first, from the vowel on. This is related to working with word families. So, for “Kite” have her figure out the “ite” part first, then add the k to blend “k-ite”. Or for jumps, do ‘umps’ first, then j-umps. Practice this with word families when appropriate such as kite, site, bite. Starting with the vowels helps get the tricky part of the word done first (figuring out whether the vowel is long or short), and also stops them from taking the initial consonant and just saying any word that starts with that letter.
October 16, 2015 at 6:10 pm
ReneeS
Participant
I haven’t been able to reply to this for the last couple of days for some reason. Thank all for your input. I watched a Susan Barton video on youtube last night and my kiddo hits the majority of the points. I think I will over the next weeks keep trying the suggestions here, which are great btw, and I will try to find the first step of figuring out if it is just being young or if it is something more. not sure where that start point would be, her physician? a speciality learning place?
Shanon can you email be at bunnybutt001 at yahoo dot com I would like to hear a bit more about the product you have from Barton. Thank you!