Phonics not working

Bobbi Jean - posted on 11/15/2012

ref: My last post: The word spelled as solderies should be soldiers. I apologize for flipping the order of the letters.



Bobbi Jean

Bobbi Jean - posted on 11/15/2012

If you google Bright Solutions by Barton or the Dyslexic Advantage, both sites have a lot of information on dyslexia.



I am a Literacy Specialist and a Dyslexic Reading tutor in Texas. I am also a dyslexic adult. I apologize in advance for te length of this post. I do hope the information helps. All the programs listed are excellent. Other good sites are Don Potter's site on reading and Reading Horizons,



Whole word reading instruction was actually started by Rev. Thomas Gallaudet in the mid 1800s. He pioneered this method as a way of teaching deaf children to read because they could not learn phonics. The US Army used it to teach a limited technical vocabulary to WW I solderies. (These men already knew how to read. They had been taught by phonics.) Whole word was gradually adopted by supposedly modern teaching colleges as a way of making reading instruction easy on teachers. (As a matter of fact, when I was going through my courses as a Reading Specialist, I was told not to bother with phonics since that was a skill needed only for Special Ed.)



Whole word instruction actually began a decline in the 1970s and transformed itself into a teaching method called Whole Language in the 1980s. In my opinion it is still essentially the same thing. Many supporters of this method claim to teach phonics. However, the type of phonics taught is embeded phonics. (I call it hit or miss phonics.) There is no clear sequencing of skills and the child becomes confused.



Before whole word began its decline in



This is a list of dyslexic characteristics for school age children which I have compiled for my clients. If your child is older--teenager or adult he or she may have displayed some of these characteristics when they were younger. Even though he or she may not display a certain characteristic most of the time, it may be displayed when a person is under stress or is tired. (How much depends upon the person.):



What is Dyslexia?

 Dyslexia is often found in families and may have many causes. Most individuals learn to read through proper teaching methods and practice.

 People with dyslexia make very specific mistakes in reading. Their problems are not random in either type or occurrence. The characteristics for older students may be different than those for younger children. This is because older students may have learned to deal with certain difficulties as they mature. For example--the first example on the list is that students will score at 73% on a state or grade level reading test. When the student has been taught to read correctly they can, and will, do as well as anyone else, often scoring above 90% if the or she is allowed extended time. If a dyslexic student is placed under a time constraint, the stress level skyrockets and performance plummets. Every dyslexic person reacts differently.



 The characteristics which follow are generally applicable.



Characteristics for Reading:

1. Score at 73% or below on a state reading test.

2. May understand grade level material in content courses when it is read to them, but not be to understand it when they read it.

3. Not able to sound out unknown words.

4. Read slowly and inaccurately.

5. Confuse words with the same first and last letters.

6. Mix up letters within a word or add or drop letters in a word.

7. Read in a choppy, slow fashion with frequent pauses and/or skip over punctuation.

8. Read two or more years below grade level and/or tire after reading for only 10-15 minutes.

9. Cannot understand what is read and/or remember what is read.

10. Flip, reverse, or read letters out of order.

11. Misread, omit, or add small words, such as: (a, an, from, the)

12. May omit, add, or change suffixes when reading.

13. Will often “guess” at a word using the beginning as a guide or substitute similar looking words.

14. Still confuse letter shapes and direction: b/d/p/q.

15. Adds or subtracts pieces of letters.

16. May have unusual problems with glare and lighting.

17. Often tries to shade part or whole page when reading.

18. Have trouble dealing with unpronounced letters in words, such as the p in pneumonia and the b in climb.

19. May complain that the print appears to be moving on the page.

20. May sound out the first syllable and then guess the rest.

21. May have trouble keeping the eye on one line of print at a time.

22. May lose place easily on the page.



Characteristics for Writing and Spelling

1. Spelling is often bad, even when copying something from the board or a book.

2. May show unusual difficulty when using punctuation and capitalization.

3. Written work often has:

4. numerous erasures,

5. cross-outs,

6. use of limited vocabulary,

7. writing that does not stay on the line

8. May have unusual trouble forming letters.

9. Handwriting may be difficult to read and/or student may take an unusually long time to write a short paragraph.

10. May not make good use of space on a page resulting in crammed writing or writing which is unevenly spaced.



Student As An Individual

1. May have extreme problems organizing:

2. tasks,

3. things,

4. time,

5. available space.

6. May have unusual difficulty keeping belongings put away.

7. May have extremely messy:

8. bedrooms,

9. lockers,

10. backpacks

11. May best be described as a “packrat.”

12. May have difficulty comparing new knowledge to what is already known.

13. May have “heaps” of things, rather than neat piles and files.

14. May often be late for class or appointments.

15. May have problems sequencing multi-step tasks.

16. May often arrive in class without needed supplies, operating in a constant state of confusion.



I honestly hope this helps someone.

Amanda - posted on 01/31/2011

I love love love A beka's phonics program. The handbook for reading is a great tool. You can find used curriculum at http://www.curriculumexchange.com and a catalog for new books at http://www.abeka.com.

Tammy - posted on 12/28/2010

Hi Kelly, I saw your post and I think I may be able to help you. I know it may rub some people the wrong way but you describe all the symptoms of "whole word instruction". This is what most schools generally teach. It was introduced in the 70's I believe. Whole word instruction relys on the memorization of whole words. At first it gives the impression of quickly learning how to read. Every so often someone tries to reintroduce phonics but only some of it, plus phonics and whole word instruction are counter productive and can't work together. Many teachers don't even realize that what they are teaching is not phonics. So a teacher or school may say they are teaching phonics, but they're not.



The whole word instruction method breaks down around the 2nd-4th grade level when harder words begin to be introduced and the child simply cannot keep up with the memorization of the words. The human brain can generally only keep track of 1500-2000 abstract symbols at any given time. Whole word instruction makes each word an abstract symbol. The Websters Dictionary contains over 500,000 words. So you will usually notice the spelling faultering. Whole word instruction and manuscript print also create the illusion of dyslexia.



What she needs is "real" phonics. I highly suggest you check out the following website: http://www.bhibooks.net/f/Senate_Speech....



It really makes you stand up and take notice. They have a program called Spell to Write and Read. It teaches spelling, writing and reading the way it used to be taught back when our country had a 99% literacy rate. It's how we used to teach our language, it's how all other lanuages are taught. It's good not only for those just learning to read but for remedial, second language, adult illeracy and learning challanged. When taught this way our language actually makes sense.



Example- before I found this I drilled my son on the "When 2 vowels go walking the first does the talking" rule. Did you know it only works 27% of the time? And only on prescreened worksheets? Certianly not is real life in real books. How do you explain "have"?



Anyway, I hope this helps you, it sure did us!:)

Kelly - posted on 11/10/2010

I met with her speech teacher and homeroom teacher yesterday, and got the paperwork started for her to be tested. I also ordered Phonics Pathways from Amazon, so I can't wait to give that a try. Thank you all so much for the advice!

Deanna - posted on 11/08/2010

My husband had and has the same problem. He is dyslexic and he has problems to this day because not all the rules work for all the words and so on. I would have her tested to see if maybe she is seeing the words backwords or "different". Just because she is great at math doesn't mean she can't be dyslexic as well. IF she is or some other form of it then it just means she will be taught different and be able to excel in a different way.

Kelly - posted on 11/08/2010

Thank you Dorothy! I will check out Phonics Pathways. I did teach her cursive over the summer between first and second grades, because they seem to not be teaching it much anymore in school. Out of curiosity, I am going to encourage her to use cursive some now and see if that helps.

Dorothy - posted on 11/08/2010

I'm a former Special Education teacher who now homeschools and has a son with Aspergers. It sounds like she may have specific learning delay in the language area. There are several inexpensive items you could try at home. There may not be a miracle cure but she might need LOTS of repeations to get information into her long term memory. A weekly spelling test won't cut it for her. Try Phonics Pathways it will strenghten her reading and help with spelling. Sequencial Spelling is a great spelling program that was developed for children with various learning disablities including dyslexia. It teaches a base word with all the possible prefixes and suffixes for that word. Her teacher may really enjoy these resources and find them useful for her classroom use also.I would recommend starting with Phonics Pathways first since she is only in 3rd grade. If you introduce cursive to her tha tshould also help her feel the words and process the information into her long term. Good luck!

Kelly - posted on 11/07/2010

Sorry, I should have said, she is almost nine. She did fine last year in spelling, but the words were much easier. This year's words are things like "shower", "voyage", and "prowl". Thank you for the ideas. I have begun to wonder if she could be dyslexic. Do you think this is about the age that would be diagnosed? Maybe I should look into having her screened. How did you find out?

Zoe - posted on 11/07/2010

Hi kelly, sorry to here your littel one not haveing a good time, dont know how old 3rd gread is so what i say could be wrong for her, there is a chance she could be dislesic as am i so for give spelling. if you read to her every day, ther are some other things you can try, let her use all of her sences to rememberher letters, for exampel get some cookey cutters of the alpherbet make the cookeys together and decorat them then spell out words relating to your baking together or your family, as you bake talk about the letters make up words starting with each letter .decorat in ways like, a has to have a words on it like appel b could be blue c have currents on it, you get the idea.
also try tracing the letters in a tray of sand then water. making letters outof clay, salt dough ect.
good luck to you both.