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Your daughter can talk your ear off, but you put a book in front of her and silence. Your son HATES reading and yet he loves the story lines and idea of a book…he just won’t read. Phonic are failing. It’s time to face it your child is struggling with reading.
Reading problems are the number one learning disability. Dyslexia is the term broadly used. Did you know that you can have a wide variety of problems and reasons for dyslexia. It is not just the brain eye connection is backwards.
LD online Reading & Dyslexia
Visual Problems-tracking, nystagmus, needing glasses, needing glare reduced
Here are some at home v
isual tracking skill I used with my daughter. She needed to learn how to look at each word smoothly from the left to the right. I had her put the point of the pen down and drag it smoothly across under the writing until she came to the letters I asked her to circle. I wrote more about this post… EASY Visual Exercises for home!
Visual problems may need the help of an opthmologist or developemental opthamologist. I have seen prism glasses, visual therapy, and colored paper make a tremendous difference in a child’s ability to read.
Processing Problems– Auditory Processing Disorder, slow learners, memory issues
Reading aloud clearly and slowly is one of the best things to do! Your child will learn the rhythm to sentence structure. The more you have your child following along interesting story lines the more flexible their thinking become in regards to reading. These are the kids that may need you to teach sight words along with your phonics approach.
Another way to help your child with memory issues or auditory processing disorder is to read books that you have in another media. A book that comes on tape. Or a book that has a cartoon that follows the same plot, Little Bear, or Redwall. Your child will have another way to understand and remember the material.
Finally as you are homeschooling keep in mind what you are working on. If you are working on reading skills than focus on that and have your child work at doing it to the very best of their ability. If you are focusing on Social Studies and reading a story of medieval times than don’t nit pick the reading. In fact if your child is struggling significantly with reading, you read! You don’t want reading to become an excuse or reason why your child is falling behind in everything.
“My teachers say I’m addled . . . my father thought I was stupid, and I almost decided I must be a dunce.” -Thomas Edison
Reading is an extremely important skill. It may take time, sometimes years for some child to master. Only in rare cases is a child’s dyslexia so severe that they are not able to functionally read. I urge patience. Dyslexia runs in my family and my husband’s. It took my husband until high school before he was able to read with some fluency and retention. He went on to get a college degree and have a successful career and family!
Here are some more article I I wrote for Heart of the Matter e-zine The Tools to Teaching Reading
I have used some of your suggestions with my own children. Also I think that reading take time. Eventually most will read in their own time.
Heather, you just continue to amaze me. God has given you fantastic abilities to help your children, and us as well.
I just decided to homeschool. In 2011, the private school i sent him to could barely eeek out anything at all positive about my son. In fact, retention is their only answer. It’s all bs. The kid has a brain, and they were trying to hammer a square peg into a round hole. I suppose having all your focus on the low lying fruit (easy to teach kids) may be a satisfying career choice. But to infer my kid is unteachable is your failure, not his. Every word and suggestion has been so valuable!