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lapazfarm
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Posted: Aug 15 2006 at 9:36am \| IP Logged

Ok, dd is nearly 5 and she has been learning her letters and their sounds. She is very good at it now after an initial period of frustration on both our parts. But we have hit another stumbling block.
She absolutely cannot get the concept of initial sounds in words.
She knows all the letter sounds, so if we are reading a word, for example "big," and I ask her what sound each letter makes she can do that.
But if I were to say a word out loud and ask her to identify the letter or sound it starts with. Forget it, She doesn't even understand what I'm asking. Even if I sound it out really slowly. I am not sure how to get her to "listen" for the initial sound. Until she gets this concept, phonics instruction is at a standstill. Any ideas?
(This is the first child I've had with this issue, so I'm a little baffled right now.)

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julia s.
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Posted: Aug 15 2006 at 10:10am \| IP Logged

I'm not sure I can help exactly, but my five year old is in speach therapy and one of the ways they "mark" sounds is to break the word into syllables and use poker chips or some kind of visual reference for each sound. Now a word like -big- is one syllable, but you could break the word up into three sounds and have three poker chips on the table that you point too. The target sound is usually a different color chip that they have chosen. You could do this without the written words in front of you and then bring the written words in after she is comfortable with the game.
Also you could say three or five words -- some have the same initial sound and some don't and have her tell you which words have the same sound (and conversely which don't).
My oldest had this trouble too. He also has trouble with phonics style reading. Readers that are too contrived to get the sound of the word over the meaning just made reading difficult (Sonlight's I Can Read series probably set him back a year as we tried to slug through it). We did have luck with Clifford Phonics fun Reading program from Schoolastic. Also, books like Little Bear, Dr. Seus books, some Mudge books by Cynthia Rylant. It had to be a gentle balance of some phonics with lots of cues from context of the words and pictures in the book.
And finally if she's really having trouble back off for a couple of months and let her mature a little more. Play word games, read books and don't sweat it. My oldest is now 9 and is finally picking up momentum. One thing I would have done more with my oldest is read more nursery rhymnes. I think this would have helped him down the road a lot.
Hope this helps and hopefully someone who has done this a few times can offer some good advice too.

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Bridget
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Posted: Aug 15 2006 at 10:26am \| IP Logged

Use letter tiles, just giving her the ones for each sound in the word. Have her push them into place as you and she say each sound slowly together. Then she has a visual, audio and gross motor to help make the connection. Then you could ask her to point and say the sound as you call out first, middle, last.

Another idea would be to teach the letter signs (a whole other project, I know) and have her finger spell the words.

Using fine and gross motor really helps make connections in the brain.

You could also just back off. She'll probably be ready on her own soon.

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