How did your child learn to read?

[LizK]

Adam (5.5yrs old) is a sight reader like many autistic children I think. He has a good visual memory and good pattern recognition skills. Phonics though remains a mystery to him, sounding out words he just doesn't get . This week he astounded his teacher by pointing out the word 'Beethoven' on a book in the school library (he's been watching his Baby Beethoven DVD is his current obsession he's not being hothoused ) but still struggles reading more basic words like 'the' 'on' 'hat'.

 

School started him off on the ORT but that really didn't do anything for him. he found having characters named aftrer food (chip kipper!) very confusing. School have changed him to phonics reading books eac h one concentrating on a different letter of the alphabet. He enjoys these and it's helping him with his sounds recognition but not with his reading as the words are too hard. He got really upset last week because he couldn't read the words.

 

School have put him under absolutely no pressure to learn to read. They want him to hold a book the right way, point to the words and understand the story as I understand sight readers often don't comprehend what they are reading. However there seems little impetus on the aprt of his school to teach him to read by sight and I fear if ORT and phonics readign schemes are pushed in a one-size fits all approach he will struggle to learn to read. Before he started school last year he had picked up an odd variety of words he could read from things around him but that has really slowed down. I think he could do it if encouraged in the right way and think reading would open up lots of new things for him. I think he needs a really basic 'cat sat on mat' type reading scheme of times gone by with lots of repetition and easy words he can read, not blooming ORT . I bought him a couple of Ladybird Peter and Jane keywords books that I remember from my childhood and he's loved them and been happily reading to me because he can do it!

 

So wondering how your child learned to read? Any tips for teaching a sight reader to read? What reading scheme did your school use and did it work? Any recommendations for reading schemes more suitable for an autistic sight reader?

 

Thanks

 

Liz x

[julieann]

Adam (5.5yrs old) is a sight reader like many autistic children I think. He has a good visual memory and good pattern recognition skills. Phonics though remains a mystery to him, sounding out words he just doesn't get . This week he astounded his teacher by pointing out the word 'Beethoven' on a book in the school library (he's been watching his Baby Beethoven DVD is his current obsession he's not being hothoused ) but still struggles reading more basic words like 'the' 'on' 'hat'.

 

School started him off on the ORT but that really didn't do anything for him. he found having characters named aftrer food (chip kipper!) very confusing. School have changed him to phonics reading books eac h one concentrating on a different letter of the alphabet. He enjoys these and it's helping him with his sounds recognition but not with his reading as the words are too hard. He got really upset last week because he couldn't read the words.

 

School have put him under absolutely no pressure to learn to read. They want him to hold a book the right way, point to the words and understand the story as I understand sight readers often don't comprehend what they are reading. However there seems little impetus on the aprt of his school to teach him to read by sight and I fear if ORT and phonics readign schemes are pushed in a one-size fits all approach he will struggle to learn to read. Before he started school last year he had picked up an odd variety of words he could read from things around him but that has really slowed down. I think he could do it if encouraged in the right way and think reading would open up lots of new things for him. I think he needs a really basic 'cat sat on mat' type reading scheme of times gone by with lots of repetition and easy words he can read, not blooming ORT . I bought him a couple of Ladybird Peter and Jane keywords books that I remember from my childhood and he's loved them and been happily reading to me because he can do it!

 

So wondering how your child learned to read? Any tips for teaching a sight reader to read? What reading scheme did your school use and did it work? Any recommendations for reading schemes more suitable for an autistic sight reader?

 

Thanks

 

Liz x

Hi Liz,

At the age of 9 my son's obsession was fishing and we bought him a fishing encyclopedia with lots of pictures. He started by asking the names of the fish and fishing equipment in the book. He just seemed to start reading bits of the book. He had an understanding teacher who let him take his book into school to read. This was 4 years before his diagnosis of ASD. The down side was all he would ever talk or write about was fishing. Still you can't have it all.

He is know 17 and his reading and spelling are very good.

I thought that I was good at spelling and he had a go at beat the nation spelling test and ran rings around me.

 

 

re: Any recommendations for reading schemes more suitable for an autistic sight reader?

How about books that are of a particular interest to him. Start by picking out just one word and gradually adding to it.

Julieann

Edited March 26, 2007 by julieann

[smiley]

My son memorised the words - his rote memory is amazing. I spent two terms trying to explain to his teacher (this was pre-dx), that he had simply memorised his little stack of words, and him asking them to read his book first - wasn't 'cute' - it was so he could memorise the words!!!

(He first used this 'method' at 15 months - 'reading' Peace At Last to me.)

Eventually, i asked him to read them, without looking at them....... he got all 49 correct - without seeing them!

 

Anyhow - strop over......

 

What eventually worked for my son was something that was already used in school - but just hadn't been directed at my son as they assumed he could read....... Each letter of the (phonetic) alphabet is introduced with a hand movement - 's' with a wiggling hand for 'snake' for example. This worked for my son - as he is a very visual learner.

 

[LittleRae]

DS learned to read at 4 and a half. One day he asked me to teach him to read, which I did, using Letterland (they had been introduced to the characters at Montessori). 3 weeks later he was reading phonetically and could pronounce most of the names in his dinosaur Encyclopaedia..... Haven't looked back since.

[hedders]

My dd whos 6 cant read and did take her a yr to learn 7 keywords from reception yr, the senco quickly removed her iep which was her target and she is now under the pressure of learning the next set which have 3-4 letters.

If only they learn from her she taught herself to recongise cat in a day as it had a picture above it, she taught herself to write and understand a few childrens names in class as she memorises pictures, which makes it easier for her.

Words which dont have pictures she does find it very diffcult so i understand that most of the keywords is : the, in, when, is, a etc...

She has poor visual awareness and SID so trying to teach her to read from books is diffcult for her, but none of them will listen to me !!!

They have no training in special needs even the senco comments are apalling

Children with Dypraxia make me laugh when they run

Children with ADHD need medication as there nothing else you can do for them

My dd has speech diffculties most prob (dypraxia of speech) and she said she is just copying her dad

And poor visual awareness she would only be concerned if a child scored 1-2 (which is known to downs)

Also dypraxia of speech is poor muscle tone

I dont know how she is allowed to be a senco!!!!!!!!!!!

[krystaltps]

I would try to go down the line of flash-cards prior to starting the book. It sounds to me as if your son is actually being put off by these reading schemes (although I love ORT, but I have P5s, which is year 4 down your way). Phonics is great for the average learner, but does not suit all. If he can put his good visual memory to use learning the words prior to reading the book, that would mean that when he comes to read the story he will be able to devote all his higher processing skills to understanding the story (comprehension). The phonics will come as he gradually learns more words and sees the similarities between them (although this may need some encouragement).

How is phonics taught? Ideally, it should be interactive as much as possible. Magnetic whiteboards, ordinary whiteboards and markers to draw the letters, tapping out the sounds while saying them, writing the letters in the air, making them with clay - cater to all the senses at the same time.

The Wolfhill scheme is very popular with children who learn like this, and doesn't have characters named after food! (I have also seen Ginn 360 used successfully at early stages, like this). Flash-cards don't have to be boring, either. They can be made into a game.

Also you're doing the right thing by encouraging him to read non-scheme material - he will receive a richer experience of text.

I'm not sure if this will be much help, I teach juniors, not infants, but I would try to go down these lines. Also, it's worth remembering that many children are simply not developmentally reading to start phonics at such a young age. They need to be able to identify the differences in sounds aurally first. My DD only really started reading this year (P.3, or year 2). Things just needed to "click into place" first.

[Diamondmask]

My son learnt to read by the whole word sight method. Thats not to say that the school didnt try phonetics. Personally I think phonetics is overrated. Many, many ASD kids have trouble with phonetics. My son was reading by the age of 4, he only started talking at 3. His then mainstream school kept trying to push phonics on him but he didnt get it at all, but if you showed him a word then told him what is said, his photographic memory would kick in and he would remember it. The school kept saying that he had to learn to read by phonics or when he was older he would have problems working out new words if there was no-one around to tell him what it said. Absolute bull **** as far as I am concerned. He is now 12 and his reading age is off the scale. He never learned to read by phonics, in the end the school gave up and let him go his own way, shortly after that he transferred to and ASD school which use many different methods for learning to read. The trouble is the government is pushing phonics as a one size fits all method of teaching reading. Well as we all know one size doesnt fit all. A good school will look at your child as an individual and look at their learning styles.

 

I wish the whole word sight method would work for my daughter. Phonics means nothing to her either but she is also partially sighted (and today I have been told that the VI team are finally coming out after a year of waiting - halleluya!) so cant use the whole word method either. She is very tactile so I am hoping that the VI team can help her.

 

Sarah

[frazzled]

Hi Everyone

 

I have just gone through this situation with my dd aged 5. Specialists had said she was a very visual learner and likely to learn to read through a whole word approach rather than phonics. Despite this the school have been insisting on phonics - I suspect as it's easier to teach the whole class by one method.

 

My dd had learnt letter sounds through Letterland some 18 months ago, and has made no reading progress in the reception year - not a single word as she was unable to progress from letter sounds to words.

 

A few weeks ago I started working with her using an American system called Picture Me Reading - www.picturemereading.com is the website. Basically it uses pictograms of the most used 220 words in a whole word approach. It is difficult for me to describe, but my dd has made huge strides and was reading short sentences within days. What is really good is that the words aren't the easy ones to picture like cat and dog, but the more abstract ones like 'them', 'he', 'can' etc which are all required sight reading words for the UK. The people who have designed the material are really knowledgeable about teaching reading to any child who is struggling.

 

Also, you can build the package around any suitable book - my dd is using a Dr Seuss one - which is a whole lot better for her than the Oxford Reading Tree (some of these are almost an insult to her intelligence, and nearly caused her to reject the whole idea of reading for herself). She is much happier working with a 'real' book than a school reader.

 

I know I have totally pi**ed off the class teacher by doing this, but I stopped caring when I realised that all it wanted was for her to conform rather than achieve! Does anyone else have this problem in mainstream??

 

Frazzled

[jen]

My child is aged 9 years with a reading age of 6.5 years. They have tried all sorts of reading schemes and none of them to seem to make a difference.

 

Spellings are another problem. He learns his five spellings every week and get all five right. Yet two weeks later he has not retained them.

 

We thought he may have dyslexia because he constantly has problems remembering B and D. Also reads them the wrong way round. We have found out he does have dysgraphia which explains the reasons why he finds it so difficult to write.

 

Our son goes to a wonderful school and they have tried all sorts with no results so I decided I would complete a reading scheme with him. We started the reading scheme last month and I have been surprised at the results. My child even breaks down the words to read, something he has never done before. This reading scheme is called toe to toe.

 

Jen