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CrunchyMom
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| Posted: April 09 2013 at 9:29am | IP Logged
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I know I'm a relatively young homeschooler with my oldest only in the third grade, but if I have an ounce of foresight, I think I can safely say that teaching reading is my least favorite thing. I just hate it.
I try very hard to be easy going and patient, but I'm not good at it. I know my oldest just did NOT get blending. And so I didn't push it. Then, one day, he did. It really was like a developmental milestone sort of thing. I truly believe that I could have pushed and pushed and made us both miserable, and he still would have started reading at about the same time that he did (6.5) regardless of any program or anything I could have done differently.
But, I do realize that they SOME practice with mom, sounding things out, etc... for it to all click. I've not been regular or diligent in doing this with my 1st grader. But, reading with him drives me nuts, and I remember this phase driving me nuts with my oldest, too.
Its the part where they are supposedly sounding something out and just keep making guesses, sounding the sounds completely wrong (like "eh" for an i) when you KNOW they know the letter sounds backwards and forwards. Oh, it makes me stressed and tense in every part of my body.
But what makes me LOSE IT and have to walk away is when they just look EVERYWHERE around them EXCEPT at the darn WORD when "reading" it.
It just makes me want to SCREAM "Well no wonder you can't read the word if you aren't even willing to LOOK AT IT!!!!!!!! 
In fact, I may have actually done just that on occasion 
And I'm almost positive my oldest did the exact same thing. So, I'm guessing its normal 
My own advice to another young mother is patience, don't push it, just try again tomorrow, they'll get it when they are ready, etc... So, I'm sure that is probably what I need to do.
But, gosh darn it, it is a painful experience, and I don't want to be guilty of neglecting his reading when he just needed practice with a patient, sane mother. 
And while I suppose I'm mostly looking for commiseration and reassurance at this point, the teensy bit of worry where I might need advice is anticipating a vision or learning disability. This guy is my "lefty." He has a quick mind, a remarkable memory, and he is immensely creative. He really thinks spacially and three dimensionally, and math is a piece of cake for him.
And he has some confusion knowing b from d, writes a lot of his numbers on his math sheets backwards, but not consistently, etc...
So, how do I know if I'm dealing with normal boyness or if it is something more?
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Lindsay
Five Boys(6/04) (6/06) (9/08)(3/11),(7/13), and 1 girl (5/16)
My Symphony
[URL=http://mysymphonygarden.blogspot.com/]Lost in the Cosmos[/UR
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Angi
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| Posted: April 09 2013 at 9:41am | IP Logged
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I have all girls (so far #5 is a boy), but I can help with the b/d issue. Have you child make a circle with all of his fingers on both hands, extend the pointer up, you now have a b and a d made with fingers. Put the hands together, and it looks like a bed. In the word bed, the b and d will be on the correct hand. I always tell mine to make the bed to figure out which way to make the b and d letters.
If that is totally unclear, let me know and I will try to post a pic on the blog.
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JodieLyn
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| Posted: April 09 2013 at 9:59am | IP Logged
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Well, for one thing, lefties will tend to look at the big picture and having to pinpoint each individual letter sound may be harder for him. Not that he can't do it nor that it's a learning disability. But I always like combining sight words because those who struggle with sounding out words will find progress by learning whole words.. and since there's words that don't follow the rules anyway..
Now I did have one child that needed to learn to read with sight reading. She could not combine sounds. Though she did manage to learn all the letter sounds. But she could sit there for hours (if it wasn't so frustrating) giving the individual sounds but never be able to combine them.
If you search on sight reading I know I've posted about it. For one thing there is approx. 10% of the population that can't learn to read with phonics.
The most successful programs as far as reaching the larger portion of the population combine phonics and sight reading.
With your leftie have you used strips of paper or something that would help you isolate the letters visually for him? Since lefties tend to see the big picture, he might benefit from help in isolating exactly what he's looking at.
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Jodie, wife to Dave
G-18, B-17, G-15, G-14, B-13, B-11, G-9, B-7, B-5, B-4
All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education.
-Sir Walter Scott
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Bridget
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| Posted: April 09 2013 at 10:34am | IP Logged
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It sounds as if you are doing very well!
I love, love, love teaching reading. All mine are usually reading for fluency by 3rd grade. They all pretty much went from Little Angel Readers to Tolkien. Till #6. He is 4th grade and still struggling. And he is still confusing b and d.
I am not worried though since we are diligently making forward progress, it is just much slower than the others so far. Also my husband did not read with fluency till he was 12. (Now he is a professional with nearly 2 masters degrees and graduated high school and college with honors.)
Unless there is some other problem, they all make the leap eventually. The fruits will ripen when they are ready! 
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Bridget, happily married to Kevin, mom to 8 on earth and a small army in heaven
Our Magnum Opus
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Bridget
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| Posted: April 09 2013 at 12:08pm | IP Logged
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One more thought. When the kids look around and are distracted I remind myself that my high school kids Latin teacher (with a PHD in Latin) says she can only translate for half an hour at a time because it is mentally exhausting. Our kids are translating the phonics sounds they have learned into meaningful language. That's hard mental work. It helps me be patient.
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Bridget, happily married to Kevin, mom to 8 on earth and a small army in heaven
Our Magnum Opus
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lapazfarm
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| Posted: April 09 2013 at 1:53pm | IP Logged
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I hate teaching reading. Very frustrating. Fortunately I only had to teach one of my kids to read, the others picked it up all on their own, with just a little occasional help from me.
But this last one, what a doozy! Of course her dyslexia makes it doubly difficult and frustrating (for both of us) but I think you are spot-on when you say patience (waiting for developmental stages to kick in) along with calm consistency (with both phonics and sight words) are key. For me it has been a lesson in discerning when to step back, and when to push ahead. It's been a long and frustrating road, but the reward for my patience and consistency (and her hard work)is that I now have a happy girl who devours books for pleasure.
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Theresa
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Bridget
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| Posted: April 09 2013 at 4:58pm | IP Logged
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lapazfarm wrote:
Fortunately I only had to teach one of my kids to read, the others picked it up all on their own, with just a little occasional help from me.
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I was always a little envious of those unschooling-ish moms whose kids picked things up on their own, mine don't even pick up their clothes without help from me.  Our only hope is to plod away daily.
It is encouraging to know that your more challenging reader now enjoys reading!
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Bridget, happily married to Kevin, mom to 8 on earth and a small army in heaven
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lapazfarm
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| Posted: April 09 2013 at 5:18pm | IP Logged
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Bridget wrote:
| mine don't even pick up their clothes without help from me. |
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Now that is another matter entirely!
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Theresa
us-schooling in beautiful Fairbanks, Alaska.
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JodieLyn
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| Posted: April 09 2013 at 5:20pm | IP Logged
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yes keep doing things that make you love reading... whether it's books on tape, reading aloud or just looking through pictures in a book.. keep the enjoyment of books alive.. and the reading will work itself out because they'll WANT to read.
I've had a sight only reader, plodders that have enough success to keep them going, ones that "magically" are reading, ones that struggle no matter what you do, but they all still love books and that gives them the internal motivation to continue the struggle.
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Jodie, wife to Dave
G-18, B-17, G-15, G-14, B-13, B-11, G-9, B-7, B-5, B-4
All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education.
-Sir Walter Scott
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JodieLyn
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| Posted: April 09 2013 at 5:22pm | IP Logged
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Oh there's also two different ways to build words..
fan
fat
far
or
hat
cat
rat
for some kids one will work better than the other.
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Jodie, wife to Dave
G-18, B-17, G-15, G-14, B-13, B-11, G-9, B-7, B-5, B-4
All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education.
-Sir Walter Scott
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CrunchyMom
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| Posted: April 10 2013 at 7:42am | IP Logged
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lapazfarm wrote:
| the others picked it up all on their own, with just a little occasional help from me. |
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I taught myself to read, too, and I really had high hopes that would be the case for this one. He picked up the letter sounds much earlier than my oldest did, mostly on his own, and he gave every indication, it seemed,of being an earlier reader. He's been sounding out simple words from refrigerator letters, etc... for a good while.
JodieLyn wrote:
| yes keep doing things that make you love reading... whether it's books on tape, reading aloud or just looking through pictures in a book.. keep the enjoyment of books alive.. and the reading will work itself out because they'll WANT to read. |
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He loves books, and I know he wants to read, so fortunately that isn't a barrier!
And he also writes letters, notes, and signs all the time, so I know he wants to be able to do this independently as well.
I think it is the consistency that I missed and need to be more diligent about. My oldest plodded through the first Explode the Code books on his own at his own pace and didn't really want my help. He was able to encode much more easily than decoding for a good while, and he was very self-motivated. DS2 is just less methodical and driven than DS1, and I think he just needed/needs me to build a more routine approach. Without biting his head off
JodieLyn wrote:
Oh there's also two different ways to build words..
fan
fat
far
or
hat
cat
rat
for some kids one will work better than the other. |
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I do have a phonics book that has lists of words and uses this approach. It was not all that helpful for DS1, but I should pull it out and try it again with this one, I think.
Thanks everyone for support and commiseration alike! I don't know why this process stresses me out so much, but the pep talk is helping me feel better about trying again today! 
__________________
Lindsay
Five Boys(6/04) (6/06) (9/08)(3/11),(7/13), and 1 girl (5/16)
My Symphony
[URL=http://mysymphonygarden.blogspot.com/]Lost in the Cosmos[/UR
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JennGM
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| Posted: April 23 2013 at 10:42am | IP Logged
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Bridget wrote:
lapazfarm wrote:
Fortunately I only had to teach one of my kids to read, the others picked it up all on their own, with just a little occasional help from me.
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I was always a little envious of those unschooling-ish moms whose kids picked things up on their own, mine don't even pick up their clothes without help from me. Our only hope is to plod away daily. |
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I only have two, but my youngest is picking up reading on his own, too. This poses other problems, so it's not all daisies. I'll start a new thread.
But while they can read with little prodding, I need a cattle prod to get them to do anything else.
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Jennifer G. Miller
Wife to  & ds1  '03 & ds2  '07
Family in Feast and Feria
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4Real Forums : Language Arts Come Alive
Topic: Teaching Blending
