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Kristie 4
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| Posted: June 20 2007 at 2:26pm | IP Logged
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Hi,
I have posted about this already, but I am needing that community reassurance again.
My dd10, just turned ten two weeks ago, is not enjoying reading. She loooooves to be read to, but not to read. We have been doing her reading aloud to Dad etc. Tried to review some phonics in Alphaphonics etc (which she finds babyish) I strongly believe she is a sight reader, she is highly artistic and very bright and the sounding out never really clicks for her (her 6yo brother comes by it easily which is hard.
What I struggle with is that she always says she has nothing she wants to read (she began to read at 4, simple words, progressed still isn't really that fluent). She has been saying this all along, and it does fit to a point. She loves Anne of Green Gables, Tolkien, Little Women etc. but these are HARD books for her. She has no interest in the smaller easy chapter books. Lately I have been finding interesting folk tales and fairy tales and myths in picture book format which is less intimidating for her. But I would love any book ideas, any wisdom...
I hate to say this, as I like to think of myself as someone to whom this wouldn't matter, but I worry about her reading ability as she is 10 now. I so want her to enjoy books on her own as well.
Looking for ideas, support, or a shoulder 
Kristie
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Kristie in Canada
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A Walk in the Woods
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BrendaPeter
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Dear Kristie,
There is a fairly recent thread on this topic but I'm not sure where it is  . Maybe someone can help. Did you have her vision checked by a behavioral optometrist? I have 2 children with near-vision disabilities that has made it difficult for them to read. Fortunately they can usually be corrected!
HTH!
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Brenda (mom to 6)
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Kristie 4
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Hi Brenda,
I had her eyes checked by a regular optomotrist and he said everything was great... maybe I should look farther.
Kristie
A Walk in the Woods
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BrendaPeter
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Hi Kristie,
Yippee! I was able to dig up the thread I was looking for. There's tons of help there.
Someone can have perfect acuity but have difficulty in other areas like convergence or visual perception. Look for an optometrist that deals with learning disabilities as they we test for more than just acuity. Here's a good place to start: Pave Vision.
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Kristie 4
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Thank you so much Brenda. I'm off to run errands (have'nt had our car for all week) then I'll dig into the posts.
Have a Great Day,
Kristie
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Karen T
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Kristie, I have just started reading a very good book called Reading Rescue 1-2-3 by Peggy Wilber. I think I first heard about the book on her website Succeed to Read
A lot of the info in the book (so far - I haven't finished it) is on the website, too. She talks in the book about how to use books AT their current level to increase fluency while using harder books to challenge them and keep them interested. That sounds like it would help you.
I have 7.5 yo who can sound out 3 and 4 letter words but resists doing anything further and thinks he is stupid, though he also loves to be read to and we've read some much harder books that way but I want him to love reading so I haven't pushed him. I got the book to help me figure out the best ways to help him.
Karen T
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LaMere Academy
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I'm dealing with the same thing with my dd. She's always struggled with reading. I'm thinking of doing some side by side reading with her and see if I can help her. She does read at grade level, but she's much slower and struggles with reading aloud also.
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Cay Gibson
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Kristie 4 wrote:
| She loooooves to be read to, but not to read. |
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That's key, Kristie. Read to her. Read. Read. Read. Program it into your schedule that this year you will just read to her. Read to her, and see what happens at year's end.
Kristie 4 wrote:
| Tried to review some phonics in Alphaphonics etc (which she finds babyish) |
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Drop it. For some reason I don't think that's ever the solution. If you've already covered phonics in the past, just drop it.
Instead, as you read to her, simply use your finger as a pointer under the words as you read them. If she's as visual as it sounds she is, this could be a very simple, effective way.
Kristie 4 wrote:
| She loves Anne of Green Gables, Tolkien, Little Women etc. but these are HARD books for her. |
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Get the audio books to enforce literacy and auditory skills. Break out the movie DVDs if she's a visual learner.
Kristie 4 wrote:
| Lately I have been finding interesting folk tales and fairy tales and myths in picture book format which is less intimidating for her. But I would love any book ideas, any wisdom... |
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Exactly what I was going to recommend. I'm actually writing a self-help book concerning the use of picture books. I hope to have it finished this fall.
Picture books are not what they use to be. They are no longer just for little kids. A whole art form and emergence of learning is stemming from this new era of great picture books.
In my book I will have a whole list of biographies in picture book form. And I'm talking "fun", "insightful", "worthwhile" picture books. Not the dowdy, colorless ones you might be thinking of. You can see a partial list here. I'm revamping the list now...adding on, reorganizing it.
Kristie 4 wrote:
| I so want her to enjoy books on her own as well. |
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A beautiful picture book a day, Kristie. I really believe this could give your daughter a new lease on reading. For the past 10 years, I have allowed picture books to be a constant staple in my home. We have not been disappointed.
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"There are 49 states, then there is Louisiana." ~ Chef Emeril
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melanie
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Wow, this sounds just exactly like my 10yo. She additionally has a terrible, terrible time with spelling, absolutely no memory for even the simplest words. And she still has some letter reversals when she writes. We did actually take her for testing a few months ago, and she was diagnosed with an expressive language disorder...but knowing that doesn't help a whole heck of a lot. There was a huge range in her skills, from a 7th grade reading comprehension level to a 2nd grade spelling level! We have used Writing Road to Reading for Spelling the last couple of years after realizing that spelling workbooks were getting her nowhere, and that has helped some,but it's slow.
But she has been the same way, loves to be read to, loves audiobooks, has the *ability* to read but detests doing it. And it's only been in the last couple of years that she had the ability. Before that, she wasn't able to read much at all either. So, for us it's been a fine line of pushing her a bit to do something that's difficult and then backing off before burning her out. When my daughter was reading on about the level it sounds like your daughter is on, we started with 10 minutes a day of reading in easy readers. Then I would read aloud to her from much more advanced books. She hated easy readers too. They are boring! lol... So she would read from Henry and Mudge on her own, and then I would read aloud from The Secret Garden. :) This past school year was the first year that she did more than half of the needed for-school reading on her own and we did the rest as read aloud. I plan to ooch her up more this next year.
Also, we had her tested by an optometrist to see if she needed vision therapy, and no, they don't all do it so you need to look for one that does. She did diagnose a need. But treatment costs about $2600 and is not covered by insurance....and there's no way we can pay out of pocket for it. They do have payment plans, but my dh is not wanting to do that because we have heard mixed reviews from people about how much help it actually was, and plus we really can't afford the payments either, because those are $200/mo! Some school districts do the therapy, and they are required to offer special services to homeschoolers. So you might want to call your local school district office and see. But our school district doesn't offer it at this time. They said it is a newer therapy and that they may in the future though. The optometrist gave us reading glasses even though she didn't test that she needed them. She said that the glasses seem to help some kids that need the vision therapy, kind of a crutch. So, we use the glasses, and she does say they help some, and we will keep calling the school district every year to see if they are offering the vision therapy yet, and wait for a $2600 check to come in the mail.
Sorry this got so long. If it helps, the lady at the school district special ed office said that homeschooling was the best thing for her, that all they could do in the school would be to send her out for special tutoring in the subjects she was having trouble in. The therapist did voice her opinion that I should put my 2 year old in preschool though, since I surely wouldn't be able to meet the needs of "all these children". (We have three.)  She said that what usually happens with these kids is that they fall further and further behind, because they have to be in at least 3rd grade to be tested for reading disabilities, and by 3rd grade they are failing everything due to their reading/spelling problems and never really seem to catch back up. We saw this starting first hand. We started homeschooling this child halfway through first grade. We saw the writing on the wall when she brought home two failed tests because she couldn't read the directions on the test. She was failing most subjects and her confidence was in the toilet. Now, her problems with spelling affect spelling...that's all. She knows she has trouble in that area. But she also is a math and science whiz and very artistic, and she has a lot of confidence in these strengths. She also does love picture books, and I like Cay's recommendation to look for some good picture books. Even a book that has a few good pictures in it seems to go over better with her.
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lapazfarm
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What I always recommend in cases like this is what has worked very well for us.
Where the Sidewalk Ends
Honestly, I handed my reluctant readers a Shel Silverstein poetry book and it was if a light turned on!
Similar to picture books, poetry is less intimidating because it is small chunks. With poetry you read one page and you get instant gratification, which is very encouraging.
Plus, Shel Silverstein is just irresitable to that age group! And from there the lesson that reading is fun and rewarding carries over into longer and longer books. I find it to be a great transition tool.
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Mary G
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I second the recommendation about Reading Rescue -- she's got a very intuitive approach to helping reluctant readers and uses all different types of tools like phonics, sight words, oral expression, games, etc. With Thomas, it was enough to get him started reading more on this own; with Maggie, being able to create her own short books works well. Also, Wilber helped "calm me down" that there are LOTS of kids who don't fluently read till 8 or 9 or even 10 years old. Also, now I'm jazzed to work on reading with them every day for 30 minutes -- in addition to our read alouds and other fun stuff.
Theresa (Miss NC and Alaska -- how cool is that!), that is a great suggestion about Shel Silverstein! We have all his books as my oldest son really liked his poetry -- I never even thought to use it with the littles! THANKS!
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BrendaPeter
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I'm sorry that the vision therapy hasn't worked out Melanie. I wish the doctor would be willing to give you a few exercises just to try. Most of them are surprisingly simply - having them track an eraser on a pencil with each eye, then both eyes, - reading 2 rows of letters (vertical) to a metronome, etc. Maybe there are some activities on line?
Not that I disagree with Cay at all as I'm working with a younger ds, but I can't say enough about Phonics Pathways (anything similar would work well, I'm sure). I have my ds read a page, then write out the words until he can spell them well before we move on. We've also had alot of success with AVKO's Spelling Program "If it is to be, it is up to me". That really solved alot of my older son's spelling issues so that we've been able to move on to Spelling Workout (from Rainbow Resources) books. My kids all love them & comment that the activities are so neat because they teach you to spell without your knowing it. Anyway we're a few grades behind on the workbooks with my older son but before using AVKO, we were off the map!
My heart goes out to all these children struggling to read. Thank God for homeschooling.
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donnalynn
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[QUOTE=Mary G] I second the recommendation about Reading Rescue -- she's got a very intuitive approach to helping reluctant readers and uses all different types of tools like phonics, sight words, oral expression, games, etc.
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I also had a late a reader - who literally took off with reading after I applied some of the suggestions in Reading Rescue. I also really appreciated this book because it pointed out the things that *I* was doing wrong. 
What worked for us was the To-With-By method or something like that - where you choose a passage that is not too long to be overwhelming but not so short that it could be easily memorized. First you read the passage to the child - then you read the passage out loud together and then you have the child read it on her own.
For my daughter this helped her read fluently and although she really didn't start reading until 10 - now at 13 - I have a hard time keeping up with her!
I also think in many ways it was a blessing to be a late reader - she is very observant of the world around her and has great listening skills (as long as it's not me asking her do something she doesn't want to do )
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Mary G
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Donna -- I agreed with you re the "to with by" method ... that seems to help "calm" them over having to read aloud!
This is such a relatively inexpensive book that seems to really fit my kids! I'm going to try her suggestions with my youngest who is just starting out ... I'm thinking it should work as an overall program!
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Angie Mc
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Hi Kristie,
I'm out the door to pick up my karate kid, but read your post and thought you might find my experience with modified choral reading reassuring and possibly helpful. My ds will be 12 at the end of the summer and he reads very well and sees himself as a reader - happy day. A few interesting things since my original post. I find that doing things in threes really helps (read a paragraph three times, write a sentence three times.) Also, I have found that my ds reads aloud exactly like my dh! They both slide over little words and puctuation. Since ds has advanced degrees, I'm not all that worried that my ds son doesn't have picture-perfect read aloud skills. He gets the big picture/comprehension. Good enough!
Love,
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LLMom
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My 2nd child was like this and even my third child to a point but not as late. My 2nd child did not catch on to reading until he was 12. He could read easy readers before that but struggled with chapter books. I worried, I fretted and in the end by 12 he was reading small chapter books. Now at 14, he has just started reading the books he is reading the books he wants like Redwall, Narnia.
I agree with the reading to her a lot and the audio books. I really think time is the best thing for this problem. It is not easy to trust because we have been trained to think they all need to read at 5 or 6.
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Mary G
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LLMom wrote:
| I really think time is the best thing for this problem. It is not easy to trust because we have been trained to think they all need to read at 5 or 6. |
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The funny thing is, if you read the "reading experts" (and I've read many of them !), they all say reading "catches on" somewhere (anywhere!) between 5 and 10 years old .... and that's average so you know the range can be wider either way. The "experts" also mention that usually by the teenage years, those who were "slow readers" have caught up with the early bloomers and may even get past them if they have a positive attitude about reading.....
Hmmmm, yet ANOTHER argument to homeschool, huh?
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Kristie 4
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WOW...I don't know how I missed all these posts on my original post!!! (I've been checking posts daily but this one slipped  )
Sorry, I hope you don't feel like I asked a question, got GREAT responses, then left the thread stranded!!
Cay, yes we love picture books. I must say that Diane Stanley, Demi, ad infinitum do an excellent job on history to a level I never recieved anywhere in my 'school' career. Thanks for the encouragement!!
I haven't seen Reading Rescue, but it sounds very effective.
I actually got on here tonight to let you know that (drum roll please) , dd has been reading longer than the quota and even for pleasure!!! I had started another thread about possible books for my 6yos and had a few references to the Magic Treehouse books. I looked them over and brought a few home for him- but it was his sister who sunk into them first. She just finished her second one this week  .
I must admit I had to get over the quality- they aren't what I consider 'great' literature. There are things I would rather she read, but for this season we will enjoy those ones outloud!
Thanks for all the encouragement and Happy 4th of July to all of you Americans 
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melanie
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A homeschooling mom I know that used to be a public school teacher also told me that many kids need to be reading well for a couple of years before spelling really starts catching on. So if your child is 8 before they have moved past the "Bob book" stage like my daughter was, you might not be too surprised if they are still having spelling difficulties at 10.
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ALmom
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Sometimes it is the print size that is the problem. Our dd got sick to her stomach after 20 minutes of close work prior to vision therapy. She read Shakespeare but we got a larger print version - so that may also be a temporary solution at least some of the time. I am very, very particular about print size especially for young readers. Unfortunately, most of the things being printed now are using smaller print size, less contrast, etc. and for young children whose eyes are unprepared for this, it can cause some of these very problems in my opinion - and my therapist agreed.
Our experience with vision therapy has been 100% positive. We've had 5 of our 6 children go through it and all have gotten huge benefits. One is still struggling some but we suspect there is another issue involved and he still got tremendous benefit from the eye therapy - it just didn't fix everything for him. We depleted all our savings and the children's education funds (granparents have been contributing to this for them since birth) but it was worth every penny we spent. The vision therapy has been around for a long, long time. My fil did this kind of thing back in the late 1940s and 1950s and beyond. It is a little trick that insurance has pulled - they don't like to pay for therapy of any kind because therapy is expensive - so they reclassify something as experimental and no longer have to pay. Our therapist told us that insurance paid for about 10 years and then reclassified as experimental.
It is expensive! Our optometrist had in-house vision therapy but there is also an $80 computer program that can be done - the work your dc do can be automatically downloaded to the doc and he can then adjust the program. Perhaps your doc would be willing to let you do something like this as it does not involve the regular therapy fees. We went about once per month to the doc for reevaluation, at which time the therapist would show us some more exercises and/or adjust what we needed to do on the computer. Progress is slower this way, but still doable. It saves considerable money. Be honest and let them know your financial situation. I do know that sometimes the docs want the investment because it makes the parents more faithful in doing the exercises and sticking with the program (by golly we paid this much, we are doing this exactly as instructed)to the end. Our therapist indicated that they tried to work with people paying a small bit at a time and then as soon as they saw significant improvement, they were done, but you have to keep going or you can lose what skills you've gained and then people would say it didn't work. If they'd kept at it just a few months longer, the skills would have become automatic and there would have been no back sliding or recurring problems most of the time. But they never finished. Our therapist said they stopped letting people only commit to a month at a time because of that - now you are committed for the duration of the estimated time needed, but they work out plans and do find ways to help with financial struggles. One of our children was actually released by the doc a bit sooner than the estimate. Another had to work longer. Both were very, very close to the estimate (within a few appointments).
I am happy to answer any questions about our experience if you PM me. We cerainly have spent a long amount of time in vision therapy. I can describe some of the exercises we did, etc. but the exercises are taylored to the particular problems detected and some parts most be supervised by an experienced optometrist for sure (especiall the work on focusing that used lenses). We were still able to do this at home, by putting down a deposit on the lenses the doc recommended and then trading them in for others as we moved through therapy, until we were finally complete. Once you see what the doc is working on, you also find sneaky ways to naturally include some of this in your home.
Janet
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4Real Forums : Language Arts Come Alive
Topic: 'Late' reader
