Reading Difficulties
May 30th, 2009
My daughter is 5 yo and just started preps. She is having reading difficulties she knows all her alphabet but does not get the sounds of letters and putting them together to pronounce the word therefore she is falling behind in the classroom we are doing extra work at home with her but she is having difficulties with her phonics. Do you have any suggestions for me or where can can get help.
Hi, It would very hard for someone to sure if she was dyslexic or not at her age. However its never too early to properly understand phonics. My phonics program Begins with basic letter sounds and colour in sheets for this. Then simple 3 letter regular words.
Make sure she is taught multi sensory. She should see the letter shape, hear the letter sound, say the sound and write the letter shape ALL AT THE SAME TIME. She could practice this with flour on a plate or in a sand tray, writing the letters with her finger or a paintbrush or pen or even a stick. She may need to practice each letter hundreds of times before she properly remembers it, but once she has properly learnt them she will never forget.
Schools tend to just show a kid the letters and if the child is distractible, like dyslexics are, they miss the connection between the shape of the letter and the sound.
Also letters are often varied in the way they are written and this confuses small children. Make sure the letter shapes are consistent, and I suggest keeping them as similar as possible to the letter in her reading books.
Hope this helps,
Cheers Dawn
3 Comments Add your own
1. jackie | July 13th, 2009 at 11:37 am
My daughter is 8 years old and currently in year 3. She has been struggling with reading for the past 3 years.She has been tutored for almost 2 years and has had a small amount of progress, she seems to go ahead in leaps and bounds and regresses again. The tutor is telling us that she needs to get the decoding down pat and then she will be fine, i just don’t know anymore, its like she’s hitting a brickwall.Her school teachers are not a lot of help, they say she is doing ok and making slow progress.Last year whilst she was in year 2 i had her independently asseced by the school and they said she was fine but there still seems that something is not right.She may be a slow learner, i don’t know but her progress is so slow and so up and down.I worry constantly about her and wonder am i doing all that i can to help her.Do you have any suggestions on what i can do or try .Thanks
2. Gail | July 19th, 2009 at 2:43 am
Hi,, to
jackie and the mum of the 5yr old daughter….and all you other parents out there trying to understand why your children don,t seem to be getting the help at school. Don,t worry,,there,s heaps of us out here who are or have been through the same hassles.
I really do recommend Dawn’s phonic book which will be a great help in teaching your kids. You can download it from this site. I even learnt a thing or two :] . The book will help you understand the concepts of teaching a child to read and Dawn explains everything so simply. She has even included chapters on the basic maths concepts that you can help your child to learn,,,cause alot of our kids just seem to not “get it” in the first years at school and of course then the struggle starts. Also Dawn’s book… Dyslexia-how to win [also down loadable]…may help you too.
Good luck and let us know how things go. :]
Let us know how it goes and good luck .
3. julie | July 29th, 2009 at 9:47 am
Hi, i have a daughter 9 years and is in year 3 she struggles every day ,i have started her with a tutor for her reading as she just hasnt been getting the right help at her school. her main troubles are with writting spelling and maths reading but their seems to be more imporvment with her reading then anything else but still not strong i have had assement after assement done and still just get told she has nothing wrong because she has great verbal understanding and can speak great . i notice their was problems when she started kinder as she was not getting anything but was told she will come along she just has anxity issues that she will get over and never did then came year 1 she had a great teacher that pick so much stuff up and thats when all the testing started ears eyes speech iq you name it we had it done but still no true dignosies their was a few words thrown around but know one seemed to want to give her a name but as we went through results of test you can clearly see that their were problems but because her verbal is so high or with in average range she is classed as been normal she had recvied help for two years at her school with phonics with the teacher that had pick the problems up then as she started year 3 their diddnt seem to be any more help thats why i started her with the tutor the only think she has been dignoised with i extream anxity which she is getting help with but i as her mother still know their is a under lying problem their and i just feel like i keep hitting brick walls because know one wants to call the dignoises which at the end of the day doesnt help her and living in a country area is not helping us either as i dont know if their is not enough training in this field or know one wants to know because its just another problem for another department to deal with all i want is for some help for this sweet little girl so she can feel the same as the next person and not worry wehter she is going to juged by the next her social skills have only just kick in in the last 2 years.
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