I have no idea even where to start with this. I have a 7yo son who has a phonological delay (meaning his speech problems cause reading delays.) We were doing speech therapy through the public schools until this year when I pulled him bc I was not seeing much improvement.

He still doesn't know all his letters. We have been working at this for YEARS now (like, since he was in preK at the church...) and he still thinks a t is a g or an h is a b. Sigh. I've tried just about everything, including nothing (aka sitting back and letting him take it easy until the lightbulb flashed.) I thought that light flashed for him earlier last fall...he made (what I thought) were some huge strides forward mostly on his own.

In no particular order, we've tried reading a ton of books, Reading Reflex, K12's PhonicsWorks (I spent $300 on that complete 2 year set), Explode the Code and Starfall.com...we've had mixed results from any of them. I don't think I know how to determine where he needs help at this point. I can hear him reading and he does well, but then sometimes he totally doesn't recognize a letter and it throws him. At this point it is holding him back in math bc he wants to read it himself, but he just cannot.

He has absolutely NO confidence in his reading ability (although I do not berate him in any way for not being able to read yet, nor do I make comments in front of him about it.) He CAN read some...but I just don't know where to start to fill in his gaps. We're plodding through Explode the Code (we just finished book 2.) I am not a reading teacher so I have no idea what he is lacking...but I feel he needs something more or different.

He's sitting beside me now and sounding things out that sound like gibberish. He's trying to do his math (singapore) and just can't read it. I am willing to read it for him (and I do sometimes) but then I feel that cements that he CAN'T read...yet if I don't he sits for an hour agonizing over what sounds like total gibberish to answer a series of questions that he completely knows the answers to, if only he could read them.

Many times he guesses instead of actually reading what is there so I really don't know half the time if he's guessing or actually reading. He also seems to be trying to remember every word and gets upset because he says he "forgets things really fast." I have no idea how to teach whole word reading and we're up against a wall.

I'm completely frustrated by this as is he. Leaving it alone is not an option at this point as his father is also getting more and more concerned. Do any of you have any ideas? Things I can try?

Hmmm because of the phonological delay it sounds like this may be a bigger problem than finding a new book or computer program to help him. Have you looked into professional help? Learning to read has a lot to do with a childs short term memory and how well they are able to auditorily process things.

My Bryce was having huge issues with school last year. We tried and tried everythingwe could think of and finally decided to go for professional help. I made him an appointment with a neurodevelopmentalist. She tested him and was able to exactly pinpoint where his trouble areas were and wrote a "program" just for him. So now instead of regular school work, we do this neuroprogram. He's made *huge* grade level leaps since last May and is now testing beyond his grade in some subjects. I'm seeing all sorts of growth in many other areas that were affected by his learrning issues too.

Anyway here's a really good article from Bryce's neuro's web site that might give you some insight.


Phonics vs Sight Reading: the most important piece of information you need to know
by Cyndi Ringoen, BA, BS Neurodevelopmentalist, copyright, 1999


The controversy between Phonics and sight reading has been a long standing argument. With phonics usually winning out in homeschool circles. But, despite a strong stance in favor of phonics, many parents find themselves at a standstill in terms of their child actually being able to learn the phonics and then read. It is fine to stand up for phonics, but if you can't make it work, then it is time to learn more in-depth about the brain that processes phonics.

The brain has two main pathways with which to process information. They are the visual and auditory systems. Each of these has both a long and short term memory capacity. It is the auditory short-term memory that I would like to address in this article.

When phonics was introduced many decades ago we lived in a different type of society. It was an auditory society. The children grew up with family dinners, listening to radio and listening to stories of the old days from their grandparents. Children in this rich auditory environment had the opportunity to develop excellent auditory processing ability (short-term memory). Today we live in a very visual society-the likes of Nintendo, VCR's, T.V., billboards etc. None of these things is necessarily negative, but it contributes to the development of children with stronger visual processing ability and reduced auditory processing ability.

Phonics is an auditory learning system, and it is imperative to have a sufficient auditory short-term memory in order to learn, utilize and understand reading using the phonics method. So , if a family is convicted that a child must learn reading by phonic, then they also must provide the opportunity for the child to develop a well functioning auditory short-term memory so that it can be utilized.

A two year old should have a short-term memory of 2, a three year old of 3 etc. up to seven years old. Average in our society for a 7 year old to adult is 7. In order to begin to utilize phonics beyond memorizing a few individual sounds, a child must have an auditory short term memory close to 6. If it is below this, you will see a child, depending on how much drill they have had- who can say all the sounds of the phonemes, and possibly put a few together into words, but at the end of the sentence or paragraph cannot understand what they have just read.

To test the auditory processing ability of your children, say slowly in one second intervals, in a monotone either numbers or objects. You say 5-8-1-7 and have the child repeat it back, if they can then say 8-4-3-9-6. The child must be able to say a 4 digit sequence back correctly 75% of the time on the first try to be considered at a short-term memory of 4, and it is the same for each higher digit.

Children who have an auditory digit span of 4 may (with drill) learn all the sounds of the letters, but they will not be able to efficiently utilize phonics to sound out words. The reason for this is that the short-term memory is a reflection of holding pieces together. For phonics to work you must be able to hold individual auditory pieces (sounds) together and then transform them into a word. When a child gets to a digit span of 5 they will begin to be able to sound out words more efficiently, but by the time they get to the end of a sentence and/or paragraph the comprehension will be lost. It is not until a child has an auditory digit span of 6 that all of the phonics starts being utilized in an easier manner. So if you are convicted to teach your child phonics, you must first exercise their brain and build good auditory processing ability. Do the above exercise several times a day for a few minutes, you will gradually improve the brain's ability to process. Each gain of one digit is equal to a developmental year, so it is an activity which will take consistency for improvement to happen.

To insist on teaching a child phonics before they are developmentally ready is to set the child and parent up for a lot of frustration and laborious struggle. Focus instead on using your time and energy on expanding the child's auditory short-term memory. And some parents, once they understand the brain's role in learning phonics, decide to utilize flashcards for sight words while they are building the processing ability. This enables the child to view reading as pleasurable, and then later adding the phonics to build the reading skill.

http://www.help-with-learning.com/

fascinating. he is 7 years and 3 months old and could only recite back 3 digits.

ding ding ding....wow. thank you.

(((hugs))) I totally undersand where you are.

Granted dd is almos 6 and the one with speech delays (that the PS speech classed did nothing to help but the ST we have through our charter is *amazing*!) and ds is almost 8 but is just *now* clicking on reading.

It has taken us 11 months to make it through 80 pages in Phonics Pathways with ds. We did what we could as he understood it, then took a break when he hit a learning wall, then tried back again. DD has only had enough acurate verbal skills in the last month to even start attempting to learn to read (not being able to say R's, S's, or L's among others made it impossible prior to this)

One thing that was painless and helped them both was the LeapFrog DVD. It was reccomended by a friend who had it work wonders with her younger (4?) kid that I just had to try something because I had reached my limits with J not being ready to read @ 7.5 yo. It was a fun way that got exposed to the correct way of saying the sounds along with visual reminders of the letters themselves. They actually *loved* to watch it. We've had it for about 9 months and even today they dont' balk if I put it on.

:hugs: I hope you find something that works for you both.

Have you tried "D!ck and Jane" books with him yet? My dd (she's 6.5) had a horrible time with every phonics reading program we tried. She seems to have memory issues (it took forever for her to learn all her letters and sounds), and phonics just didn't click. The "D!ck and Jane" books are so repetitious that when we started reading them and she would see the same words over and over again, she started remembering them. We checked them out at our local library. The one she liked the best was "Storybook Treasury of D!ck and Jane", a large hardcover book with multiple story collections, starting easy and moving harder. We've checked that one out a number of times. She started to feel so proud of herself it was just so amazing. There's also another author named "Margaret Hillert" who has books using all of the same words you'd find in a D!ck and Jane book. We've been getting those from our library to review and give her fresh stories. She is doing amazing now. She is even now picking up on basic phonics which is helping us to move past D!ck and Jane books and into some other easy readers.

That article was pretty neat. I tested my kids, and my 6.5 yr old can only do 5 numbers. That probably explains why she is functioning below where I think she should be in reading.
We definitely knew she had memory issues though. We bought her a "simon says" game just to help her build that part of her brain and help her memorize better.

Bryce was a 5/6 last May when he was tested. He could read, but not terribly well. After working on digits 4 times a day, every stinkin day (and working on lots of other things too) he's now working on 8's. It's a huge jump, and he's now reading at a 7th grade level, it's simply amazing.

The neurodveleopmenal route hasn't been easy, or cheap. But we decided that things were only getting worse, not better for him with regards to school, and we needed to do something. It's been a huge sacrifice but worth it in every way. After several years of struggling with school we are finally getting positive results with Bryce.

There are more ND's listed here at

http://www.icando.org/evaluation_site_map.htm if you are intrested...