5 year old struggling

[sb1201]

I was wondering if any one has had experience using the reading reflex program?

http://www.readamerica.net/

They actually call their method Phono-Graphix. My 5-year-old is struggling with reading. She knows the letters and their sounds. She can also sound out some CVC words but nothing really beyond that. She is frustrated because several children in her Kindergarten class are fluent readers already.

I read her books everyday, she plays on Starfall, I help her sound words out. I have also tried showing her LR at times but she feels this is for babies, since I mostly show this to her baby brother. I am having a difficult time knowing what to do to help her. I guess I got comfortable thinking that she would learn reading in Kinder with no problem because that is what her brothers did. They were both fluent readers by this level of Kinder. I know every child is different though. I didn't know about teaching children at a younger age so I didn't really worry about it with her. I figured all would fall into place in Kinder. But now that it's not really happening for her, I know I need to work with her more.

Any suggestions?? I ordered the Reading Reflex book, so I'm hoping this will help us.

[meteorix]

Not sure if you tried getting her to master/memorise the reading and spelling of the 100 most frequently used words in English like in the LadyBird Peter and Jane series books. The stories are just repeating these words over and over.

Would need to be able to spell these words too. You find that most of the words do not follow the phonics words so the kid just have to memorise the spellling of words.

Eg. in http://www.nald.ca/library/research/100most/100most.pdf - they have a list of 100 most frequent words

[GloriaD]

Thanks rainmatrix great resource; a lot of info about math and how to make it fun

thanks

Gloria

[puzzlemelody]

What about using books-on-tape with the books?  She would be able to see and hear the words and not have to struggle to sound out every word. 

www.readplease.com is another good resource I found - copy text from a favorite website and then the software reads and highlights each word. 

Playing Baroque music in the background while working on reading helps make more neural connections and might help integrate the sounds she knows into words.  www.monroeinstitute.com has a CD for attention and Baroque Garden which I found helpful.  Hemi-sync music is unique in that it alternates between the left and right ear creating a third tone.  It is a bit complicated, but basically tricks the brain into various states to optimize learning, attention, rest, etc. 

[Tanikit]

No experience with the programme you are using - let us know how it goes when you have used it please.

I would also suggest some work with memorising the key words.

As far as phonics goes, I know my mother had more success with older children (from 8 - 13 years old) using the "building game" form of phonics rather than them just sounding out the words. This form of phonics is described in a book called: Reading and Writing before School by Felicity Hughes (its out of print now) and was what she used to supplement Doman's methods in a two year old.

Here are the basic steps:

1. Teach your child the phonetic alphabet - all sounds should be taught initially as though they are followed by an "a" - eg ba, ca, da, fa (the vowels remain the short vowel sound)
2. Show your child the two letter words: in, if, it, is, of, on, at, as, an and sound them out as for normal phonics (i n = in) etc
3. Start 3 letter words that the child already knows how to read (eg cat, man, wet) - there are tons of these words.
     On a card write the word in full (eg cat) and on the back write the following:
       "c - ca - cat" then get them to read each part.
4. Turn the word back over and show them the whole word again this time showing them how to uncover the word from left to right again reading c- ca-cat.
5. For words with combinations you would then uncover the whole combination at once (train is then read t - tr -trai - train) You will need to have taught the combination sounds separately but in words your child already knows.

The technique works because the child is never confronted with stringing together more than two sounds at once (if you told me b - a - tt - e -r, I wouldn't know to say batter, but if you has me say b- ba - batt - batter) I'd get it more easily.

Again at 5 years you need to move fairly fast to get her reading books and that is why the Ladybird Key Words works well in this age group - she only has to know 16 words by sight to read the first book and the confidence they get doing this does them good. Basically though try to find books with a very small vocabulary and teach those words first.

If you are teaching her younger brother with Little Reader, why not try to get her to tell you a story and make her Little Reader experience different to his - use hers to read her stories rather than just individual words (again keep the vocabulary to few words)

[sb1201]

Thanks guys for the suggestions. I should be getting the book next week and I will give a review of the program as we go.

I like your ideas tanikit I will try this and see how she responds to this method of stringing sounds together. It makes sense to me

I also printed out the list from rainmatrix (thanks) and will make some flash cards from those.

Puzzlemelody, we do have the Tag Reader System that she uses to help her read but doesn't stay interested in that for to long. And with four kids in the house we rarely have enough quite time to play background music that anyone could actually hear!

I think I might also try making flash cards out of the words from one of the books I know she likes me to read to her and once she is comfortable with the words let her have a go at reading the book on her own. Anything to boost her confidence will help her launch forward I think.

Thanks again!

[puzzlemelody]

Maybe try and let your daughter create mini books using little reader.  Let her create the sound files and type the words.  Start maybe with a favorite book - and do a page or two a day.  Then maybe create a reward system - earn stars and trade those in for something she likes.  She would be creating playlists for her siblings and working on her reading and typing at the same time. 

Another thought I had - maybe let her listen to music using headphones.  If her attention span is small and there are lots of distractions, headphones help.  My oldest son had auditory processing difficulties (background noise was really loud to him)  He couldn't focus at all with the littles distractions.  Earobics helped with that - that program is phonics based as well. 

Does she flip bpqd?  Visual spatial kids have a harder time because of their flexibility in thinking - letters and words jump all over the page.  I have some resources for visual spatial learners (ie Upside Down Brilliance http://www.visualspatial.org/udb.htm)  if you think that might be helpful. 

[Nikolett]

Hi sb1201,
My third child is 4 now and I have similar difficulties with her. I tried teaching her sight reading two years and then a year ago for a short while without visible results. She played star fall and learned her letters at 2.5, but she still couldn't read. About 2months ago I pulled out my Peter and Jane Ladybird books and decided to persevere this time. I have a feeling she memorized what the page said, though. Later I put the words from first two into LR and she "helps to teach it to Niki (my youngest)". Today, putting Playback to Random, I could figure that she learned 26 words! For me, it's an achievement! For the other words she just says smth starting with the first letter - too lazy to sound  them/build them on. Oh,well...
All that to say, patience and keep at it  I am sure she will catch up

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