How do I help my daughter learn to read?

Question

She's in first grade and doesn't seem to be making any progress identifying letters by their sound. She seems to have inattentive ADD, a learning disability. She's in special ed but nobody knows what more can be done. Neither me nor her dad want to medicate her.

Answer 1

Hmm.. You can try looking up some books that specialize in this. I've heard that if you can know what your child's "learning style" is, then its a lot easier to help them learn. She could be visual, or hands on, auditory.. I think there's a few more. Don't give up on her. She's still young and you just have to figure out what works for her!

Answer 2

I have found a specific program by Scott Foresman called "ERI (Early Reading Intervention)" to be a great program for special education children who struggle with attention, motivation, and learning letter names & sounds.  When nothing else worked, this did.  

Note:  I believe the name of the program may have changed recently to "My Sidewalks" still by Scott Foresman.  Make sure it is the kindergarten level, because "My Sidewalks" has other programs for other grades that are not the same quality.  

You are more than within your legal rights as a parent to demand that the school stop what isn't working and try other approaches to help your daughter.  Sometimes special education teachers don't know what more can be done because they don't know what intervention programs are out there.

Answer 3

Get into it with her and make it as fun an adventure as possible by being enthusiastic and if she sees you are she'll be all 'hey, i want to do that too!'.  The ADD thing, whatever, no need to medicate because there's no such thing. All you have to do is spend some time training her to focus. Find some egghead on the interweb i bet has some exercises that teach a child to focus. i guess one might be do as many activities as you can with the child and coach them through every minute of everything until they get the hang of something and then it's on to the next thing.

Answer 4

I  taught at a pre-k only district school last year and the curriculum was language-based. During circle time every morning we used Dr. Jean's Alphardy song which is picture based. The children love it and repeat the words and sounds even when the song is not on. My students also learned the alphabet this way. (I teach this now to my K & 1st graders)

Also Starfall.com has an alphabet song where a man is demonstrating words, letter sounds and signing what he is talking about.

Express Train CD's are great as well and language based to focus on alphabet sounds.

Learning phonics and becoming phologically aware is the only way your daughter will learn to read.  I recommend starting off this way with the above information and take it from there.

KUDOS to you for being proactive about this situation!

Answer 5

Maybe she has dyslexia. It's a learning disability that affects reading and when caught early can save a lot of trouble. They thought my brother, who has dyslexia, had ADD at first and they wanted to put him on meds. However, we refused the meds. The next year (2nd grade) we actually discovered that he was having trouble reading because of dyslexia. Many schools wouldn't even think of checking a child for dyslexia if they think the problem is ADD. Look into it just in case.

Answer 6

Have you tried some of the computer based learning tools/ games available now? She is only in first grade though, also try sylvan learning centers. Even if it is dyslexia my roommate in college was dyslexic & a chemisty major with an A avg.

Answer 7

Hi Solana.

Try not to worry too much, many children experience difficulties when first learning to read.  the problem is that the development of literacy is not a natural developmental process, it must be learned!  In order to learn how to be literate, children need certain sub-skills to be in place.

The first of these is the exposure to and development of as wide a spoken vocabulary as possible.  This has been proven to be one of the most important determinants of later reading and writing ability.

Secondly, the development of appropriate attentional and memory processes is vital.  Someone who cannot pay attention to the text is not going to be successful at reading.  Similarly, someone who cannot retain word and letter information in the phonological store (short term memory), is going to lose the cohesion and coherence of text and is simply not going to undestand what they are reading.

The next determinant of reading ability is the child's sensitivity to rhyme and alliteration in addition to his / her overall phonological awareness.  This kind of fine discrimination of the sound system of spoken language is necessary if the child is going to be able to 'map' the sounds of the language onto the symbols (letters), which represent those sounds.

The next important points are sensitivity to the onset and rime of words, in addition to sensitivity to syllable stucture.  This has been shown in many studies to be an important factor in the development of reading ability.

Last but not least is the importance that the child is given time to develop 'inner speech.'  You will notice with a younger child that they verbalise everything they do. - It is like a running commentary and is used to exert a measure of control over what they are doing.  When children reach the age of seven to eight years of age, they internalise this commentary and it becomes inner speech.  

When you read, notice how you use this inner speech in order to control your own reading.  This inner speech enables the reader to keep the information being read in the phonological store, which enables you to control your own reading and to understand what is being read.

It may be that your daughter simply needs a little more time in order for some of these developmental processes to develop and mature, but if you are worried, there is a really good developmental stimulation programme, which you can carry out at home at http://www.snowdrop.cc

There is also a good book there.  It's title is misleading, giving the impression it is just about 'cerebral palsy,' but there is actually a great deal of information in there about the development of literacy too.

Hope this helps.

Answer 8

ADD is not a learning disability. It is a medical diagnosis which may not allow her to focus on a task long enough to learn it.

However, Tee's answer is a perfect place to start. The Starfall website is pretty engaging even for the most distractible student.

Also, we have discovered that some of the older Autistic students (high school) love Baby Einstein videos. It may be that there is a pre-reading video from that company that will capture her attention.

Answer 9

If she is in special ed her teachers should be able to give you specific ideas for helping her learn to read.  They are many approaches to dealing with ADD that do not involve medication.  I would talk to her doctor about what is available.  For general help in reading, read to her.  Talk to her about the story and have her make predictions.  As you are reading point to each word.  Always discuss the title and author.  Make reading fun.  ADD shouldn't affect reading, but if she is dyslexic she will need special help.

Answer 10

I teach special education students ages 5 to 8.  Often my students have a difficult time, at least initially, with a phonetic approach to reading.  It's really a pretty complicated process - not only do you have to recognize that a letter has a specific sound (sound-symbol association), you also have to be able to blend those sounds together in order to read a word.  For a child whose level of distractibility is quite high, even if she does have good sound-symbol association (which your daughter does not), she may lose her focus before she has succeeded in blending the individual sounds together to form a word.

I have found that many of my students do better with a whole word approach, at least initially.  In a whole word (also called a sight word) reading program, children are taught to recognize a word as a whole, not to "sound it out" as we do in phonics.  I use a program called The Edmark Reading Program, and it has been very successful for many of my students.  When I was first exposed to it over 12 years ago, I was very skeptical - the first word the child learns to read is "horse"!  How functional is that?  But very quickly the child learns words such as see, I, a, yellow, car, etc., and then they are reading short sentences such as "I see a horse," and "I see a yellow car."  I can't tell you how many times kids have said, in great excitement, "I'm reading!  Listen, I'm reading!"  It gets them to think of themselves as readers, and as successful students.  The program is very systematic, and it teaches meaning and comprehension as well as the sight word vocabulary.  I have a first grader this year who has a sight word reading vocabulary of almost 100 words, and he reads paragraphs and short stories made up of these words.  He is now beginning to associate consonants with their sounds, so I am beginning to include phonics in his reading, too.  But if he had not begun to believe in himself as a reader, I am not sure he would have gotten excited about adding the phonetic approach.

The truth is that a truly fluent reader needs to be able to read phonetically as well as by sight vocabulary;  there is no way to memorize all the words that you will encounter.  But you can go far with just sight vocabulary, and it is a simpler way to get started, especially with kids who are struggling.  It absolutely will NOT keep a child from learning phonetically in the future if they have the ability to do so.

So I would strongly urge you to ask your child's teacher if they have ever tried a sight word vocabulary  (whole word) approach.  If not, I would suggest that you bring this up at your next IEP meeting (and as a parent, you have the right to request that the IEP team meet when you have a concern that needs to be addressed;  you don't have to wait for the annual meeting.)  You can google "Edmark reading program" and get some information that you can take to the meeting.  You should not have to purchase the program yourself;  it is quite expensive for a family purchase, although really very reasonable for a school district to purchase.  I send "homework" with my Edmark kids so they can continue to practice at home, and it's been very successful for a large number of my students.

Answer 11

is there a particular game she finds interesting? u could try and get some flash cards, or make some and make two of each letter.... play games like snap or pairs with her. even if it is just u reading the letters. If she finds this intresting she will take it in. I agree with u not medicating her If she has a favourite tv show, see if u can get something in that show that will help her learn.. for example my son has a Thomas the tank laptop, and he plays letter games on it.... how old is your daughter?  also try alphabet jigsaws and things... even if she just plays them for a few mins, sit with her and as she pics up the letters say the sound.