6 year old having trouble with the alphabet?

Question

I am currently tutoring a 6 year old boy. After tutoring him for the first 2 sessions, I realize that he is unable to recognize numbers, and to put them in sequence. He cant name numbers 2, 6,7,8,9. I dare not move beyond 10. He also cant recognize some letters of the alphabet, for instance l, u, v, y, z, t, p. so i am now teaching him letter by letter, taking things really slowly and more intensively, through games and so on.

it also appears as if he has short term memory. he will forget a sound, for instance the sound of letter a, even after he had recited it for like the 100th time.

my question is, what could be going on with this child?

Answer 1

Tell the Parents to teach his boy. tell that he only recognize few numbers and letters. tell parents if they can turm off the TV. or have to trade if he can recognized and count number he have a reward can watch TV for 15 min. or he can have a DQ , if he did good or having candy bars if he did good .But Parents have to spend time to Teach 1 hour is recomend, But myself i went to 3 hours to teach recognize numbers.

Example recognized Number try this one: because i did try it myself my Son have troubling Counting and recognized numbers i just gave him 5 times and explained to him.

wrote numbers like this: I can't draw here... you have to make a line like on paper for those numbers.

               Box line of number 1 . .next  box number 2  box two etch..

            

                 1      2      3      4     5     6     7     8     9  

10   11    12    13    14   15  16   17   18   19

20   21    22     23    24   25  26   27   28   29

30   31    32     33    34   35  36   37   38   39

40   41    42     43    44  45   46   47   48   49

50

Write it down the paper all the 10  20 30 40 50 out side on the left of the paper  after writing down the 1 to 9 mubers , then all the  1 -11-21-31-41-51 all in the same box line of number 1

50 only for the first day the next day.

Continue to number  110 , then all number he still have to count.  10  20 30 40 50 60 70 etch.. so all number you said he will recognized easy all is in the box is the same. I think you get what i mean to you..  and when you teach him always asked if he know what you mean so your in the same page. That is for the slow kids learner. try to have some high five  when he did one correct that to show you are very proud of him.

ABC's that take time tell parents he only recognized few abc's too.... Before watch TV have to count numbers and letters then after watching TV count again numbers and few  abc's untill the child will learn. Good luck to you... be patient he will learn..

Answer 2

Maybe he just a slow learner or maybe partial brain damage. To make him learn more, try telling the mother to practice with him more.

Answer 3

try giving this child a small reward everytime they permanently learn a new number or word  be patient with him.  but there might be something really wrong with his brain.  Have you talked to the parents?

Answer 4

It sounds like he might learn better with a multi-sensory approach.  He clearly has some type of learning disability.  Have the parents mentioned anything at all as a clue?  If I were you I would suggest some type of Central Auditory Processing Test.  If that doesn't work, does he have some form of ADD?

Answer 5

Boys generally have trouble up to the age of seven and eight. It is very likely that left to his own, he'll click some day and catch up rapidly to what his peers are doing.

My son is almost seven and had similar issues. He learns much better through applicable tactile activities. Numbers were learned (eventually) through getting his own money and shopping (numbers everywhere!) and by using the timer to figure out when his activities were. He asked a lot the first six months or so after he showed interest in learning, but then just one day knew the time and the numbers.

Letter by letter has got to be hard. Have you looked into Edmark systems? It's a very effective teaching tool. We used it for our disable daughter.

Answer 6

Let me suggest a different approach.

You mentioned "taking things really slowly and more intensively."  

I'm not saying speed up.  I'm going to suggest a very broad education for this child, however.  He's at the age where he should know this stuff and to teach it to him now will take more time.  However, continuing to focus on just some things is going to make it much harder for him to learn those things.  Games may actually be a distraction to his learning of these things.

Start by making what he does know relevant.  If the letter sounds he doesn't know are l, p, t, u, v,  y, and z, then start having him spell out words with the letter sounds he DOES know.  There are many 3 letter words he can begin to sound out and spell out at this point.  Once he sees an application to these words, he will want to learn the rest of the letter sounds.  That's the indirect aim of that.

He will also learn it through the course of this.  If he has tan, and he doesn't know what makes the /t/ sound, you will help him with that.  Give him a few more words with 't' in it and he may catch on.  That's a lot easier than trying to just memorize sounds.

As far as the numbers go, take a step back.  Learn 0-4 first and make sure he has those mastered.  Then introduce 5-9.  Don't go to 10 yet...it's a different concept entirely.

Get sandpaper and cut the numbers out.  Paste them on a board.  Have the child trace the numbers and say the name.  Can he rote count from 0-9?  If so, just leave him with a paper somewhere that has 0-9 on it that looks nice.  Hang it up somewhere in his house.  Every time he doesn't know what number that is, he can go to that paper and count to see.  Make sure he always starts at 0.

A good activity at home would be cooking.  Make up a recipe for something that involves the numbers he's having trouble with.  (2 pieces of celery, 6 carrots, 7 teaspoons of salad dressing....etc.)  He has to help you with the ingredients.  You'll read off what they are (I'm assuming he's not reading yet), but he has to tell you how many.  Again, don't give him any other hint but to look at the chart and count to that number.

There may be other problems as well.  I would begin by making sure he can distinguish between different shapes.  Not just the obvious ones like triangle vs. circle.  See if he can distinguish between a pentagon and an octagon.  If he has trouble there, there may be an issue with him understanding the difference between shapes and, as a result, the difference between letters and numbers.

Is it just recognizing them that he has trouble with?  Or is he having trouble associating, say the numeral with the actual quantity?

See if he can match up 2 number that are the same.  Get a deck of cards and just see if he can put the "2"s together, the "3"s together, etc.  He may really not see the difference at this point.  If he doesn't, those sandpaper numbers will be very helpful.  Have him trace them with his index and middle finger.  Then he simply says the name.  

Demonstrate it for him, then let him do it.  

Another step to this would be to get a tray of sand and let him trace it in that afterwards, again saying the name.

Remember the 3 steps to learning:

1)  Say the name of the number.

2)  Give him a choice of some numbers, reminding him of the name, then saying, "which one is ____?"  (Start with the last one you told him.  Then come back to it when you are done)

3)  Say to him, "which one is this?"  (If he can provide you with the information, he has it mastered...at least for now).

Don't keep going if he's not understanding it, but remember where he is.  Is he on step 1, 2, or 3?  Next time you do the exercise, did he move a step up?  If he was on step 3 last time, did he remember it this time?

Don't go for rewards.  Don't make him feel bad because he didn't learn anything.  He's probably trying and the reward will be an empty substitute for learning.  

Also, one person suggested not teaching lower case letters until upper case are mastered.  I challenge this idea whole-heartedly.  If you think she is right, count the number of upper case vs. lower case letters in any of our posts (that do not have caps lock on) and you will see which is more important.

These can be learned as well with the sandpaper letters, but unless you buy them, you are looking at a LOT of work.

Good luck!

Matt

Answer 7

Has he had some sort of brain injury?  I would talk to his parents about the short term memory problem and see if it has been a problem at home.  Maybe he is just not wanting to do it and pretending he doesn't remember.

Answer 8

Before he gets tutored he needs to be seen first by a doctor to make sure his vision and hearing are ok and that there is not a physical brain issue that is causing this. he may need to also be evaluated by the school and tested for mental disabilities.

Answer 9

Well it is obvious his parents have concerns about him also are they would not have gotten him a tutor. His teacher should also have recognized is learning disability. I would ask for a conference between you his teacher and parents with out the child to compare each others concerns as soon as possible so he does not get any further behind. You were put in his life for a reson. It could be something very easy to fix like an attention problem or something major. The point is he is only a child  who is counting on the adults in life. You could be this young boys angel.

Answer 10

Well I recieved a nasty shock when i stuck a key in an eletrical socket and ever since then i had short term memory loss (which is bad for grocery shopping) but i was incredably smart (i could do some multiplication and count to 100 by age 6) and this child could have the same thing or some brain troubles or even (god forbide) brain damage or mental retardation or perhaps just craving attention and acting dumb to recieve more care

Answer 11

o maybe is parents dint teach him so that is maybe why he does not  no it and u should try putting him in extra classes it will help him a lot maybe and try talking to the parents. and he might have a disability

Answer 12

wow. my 3 year old nephew knows his alphabet and can count to 20. I would definitely recommend to the parents to take him to a doctor. That's not normal.

Answer 13

If you thing this child is having more problems than otehr child of the same age, look for problems, like lead in the home, pre-natal drinking, drug use, birthing issues like anoxia etc. Vision check for dyslexia is advisable.

Use songs to teach numbers and letters - One, Two pick up sticks...

ABC DEF ... what do think of me.

Associate letters with pictures, A for Apple etc.

Turn off TV and read to the child and have them follow along and try to read the material.

Set up coloring pages with the letters and pictures.

Get a SEE and SAY game.

Get plastic letters that the the child can hold in his/her hand.

Do nto mix upper and lower until the child has master UPPER.

Make up a game like candy land. The child picks a card and move the token to the next square witht he matching letter or number. Draw an A card move to the next A. etc.

Flash cards with pics on one side and letters on back. Use with either showing picture and asking letter or show letter and ask for name (allow some lee way here if answer for A is alligator).

Answer 14

Try using various different sources  to teach him his letters and numbers.

So as not to overwhelm him you can offer him breaks where he can play some good online kids games site along with some other regular day to day activities and games.

here are a few activities that you can do with him -

1. Letter Learning -

Have an ongoing game of alphabet of the day. Have a letter for the day or even week. Hang a cutout of your letter, point objects beginning with your letter or even go all out and have stickers around the house of objects beginning with your letter for the day. End of this fun educational game your little one is sure to have learnt his letters.

You can also try games like scavenger hunt as he is having difficulty with learning few letters.

2. Sing the Letter Order -

Teach your young one their letter order with the all time favourite preschool ABC song.Sing along or listen to the fun online versions on some good online games sites available on the internet and watch them pick up the letter order.

3. Learning Numbers - Have you tried numbering the chairs in your Diner? Well, it can work brilliantly. Don't restrict to chairs, go all out and number the whole household up and see the result.

Such simple games can be very effective indeed.

Try those and I am sure you will have some luck.

All the best.

Answer 15

he could have mental issues. this may be rude, but if his family is poor, he may have left school to support his family.

Answer 16

This is a very difficult question. But I would think the public school would have testing facilities and specialist who could help diagnose what is going on with this little boy. This little guy should have his hearing and eyes checked. Plus it could even have something to do with depression. I knew an adult who was diagnosed with clinical depression and from her history probably had been since she was six. Once on medication and therapy she enjoyed college classes and did well on the tests. I am not saying any of these things is this boys problems but I would certainly want them checked out if he was my child.