For the Love of Phonics!

I am a firm believer of phonics versus sight words.  My general theory is phonics is a superior form of reading.  That was what I once believed and thought to be true.  Today, a new thought came to mind.  Some kids just can’t blend.

My dear son, is struggling and I am aware and assessing what can be done better. For background, the kid is a logical thinker with the ability to solve any puzzle.  Unfortunately, I think his speech is part of our problem.

Here we go, daughter number one took a month or two to understand how to bring the letter sounds together to make a word.  Since then, she has become a great reader and attempts to sound out most everything.

My son is not.  We are doing the Bob book methods and are at a snails pace.  I am very aware that we will be slow, slow for a while; then all of a sudden one day it will all just click.

Using the teaching with bob method, we have introduced a, m, t, and s.  We built at, mat, and sat. We read pages 1 and 2.  Mat. Mat sat.  Those three words were a chore.  So I set it all aside, keeping these little exercises to 10 minutes. 

Today, I was hoping for a little more.  We used the same letters, reviewed our at based words and built am and Sam. We reread pages 1 and 2, then added 3 and 4.  Sam. Sam sat. He was frustrated.

From these 2 days, this is what I now understand. My son cannot blend the sounds past 2 letters.  Hurray, he can read at, but that is it. It seems like he can’t hear the sounds to register the word that he is saying.  Now I really think this goes back to his speech. 

His articulation has more to do with knowing when to breath when he says each word, or he is taking breathes during the words.  So as he sounds the letters out, he takes breathes that then confuses his listening for the word.  Of course, this is my unprofessional, but practical assessment.

What’s a mom to do? Well, my first instinct is to throw this plan out the door and search the shelves for something new, but that would be ineffective.  I would spend every week and a half looking for something new.  My best bet is to tweak our method to teach phonics.  So this is what I am going to try:

1. I am throwing out the notion that we must sound out these words to read them and replacing it with a sight word memorizing method. yikes!

2. Introduce the root phonically.  Teach the word by sight and review the sounds in the word. So at, is sounded out.  Mat is sight with review of m-at. Do this for all the words, move on once all words in the book are known by sight. Mat, sat, Sam, and on.

Here is my hope, once we are a few books in, the sounding out notion will start to click in his mind.  Then once it clicks, we can go back and review the phonic structure of the word.

I also plan to use the tools by www.1plus1plus1equals1.com for learning sight words.  She has a great sight word program called You Can Read with printables (FOR FREE) that gives the kids a hands on approach to learning 4 sight words at a time. So I have them printed and will be introducing the 4 words from the Bob book and the words in set 1 (a, and, see, the).

I sure hope this works.  I just don’t want to burn him out on 4 words, just because he cannot blend or hear the sounds correctly. Please if you have any advise, I am all ears.  I truly think he will just be a slow to read kid like his parents, but I do not want him to lose his love of books because of it.  I also noticed, he does not have a good reading comprehension to retell a story after hearing it.  It seems as though he is a visual and hands on learner.

By the way, 1st grade daughter #1 is doing awesome.  I should do a post on how amazing she is doing.

~trish

Needing Speech.

My son was about 3 1/2 years.  Every day was a melt down. Let me repeat that, every day, every hour, every moment.  I could not figure out how a precious little perfect baby boy had turned into a melt down machine waiting to explode. 

It was a couple months before he turned 2 and a month before #3 was born that he morphed into this child.  I figured it was the terrible twos, but we were a year and a half later and it was just uglier.  Thankfully, I was on the phone with a high school friend telling her about my precious son and my trials (clearer picture, I was cringing with complete frustration that I had an out of control kid with obvious behavior problems.)

The light was turned on.  She told me, she had the same problems with her son and then he got speech therapy and transformed back to his preciousness. I had never considered that he needed speech, he was just slow to talk. And then the light came on, at 3 1/2 years old, I only understood about 20% of what he said. What that is not normal?!

By the time we went through all the hoops to get him into the public school therapy, he was 4 and I could already understand about 50%.  Well in that next year in the VPK program with speech therapy, he is 100% understandable.  He is also a happier kid.

I absolutely had no idea how frustrated the little guy was.  Now that I look back, I feel like a horrible mom.  I was so frustrated with him too.  I mean, I was buying into the bad mommy phsyco-ness of maybe he did not spend enough time with his dad. (I was seriously thinking of packing a briefcase for the little guy and sending him to work, it would have made my day so much easier).

Now that my son is not frustrated and can communicate, you have got to see the wide eyes of shock when I tell them that I am keeping him home.  Gasp! I here all kinds of responses.  The speech therapist convinced my husband that my son will digress. I have been told his behavior improvements is the result of structured environment with socialization. I was also told he needs to be challenged.  

At all of these accusations, I laugh in the face of controversy.  So really, I scratch my head at friends and family that have such good intentions, but no idea what my reality is really like.

1. So will my son digress in his speech? Umm, I don’t think so.  Now that the kid can be understood he never STOPS talking.  Trust me, there are days that his lack of articulation would be welcomed so the girls have no idea the names he is calling them or the sing song taunting he is so good at. The reality is, this child has now learned how to use his mouth correctly and a mom to gently remind him when he forget to.  Backsliding will not be a problem.

There are programs available to do speech at home and then there are also private speech therapist that will do all the speech therapy you need or guide you and evaluate your needs and progress to stay the course. so we will not be dropping out of a speech program.

2. Is my kid more socially adapted because of school? Uh, no.  When I hear of comments that school has done so good for him, well sure it has, because speech was part of it.  On a side note, I do not think that public education is a waste, I believe it is what you make of it.  And for me and my house it is just not for this momma. 

If my kid ends up being a weird homeschooler, trust me they would be a weird public schooler too.  In fact, if they are one of those kids, they are better off being with their own kind. At least until the self confidence is obnoxiously good, that they would never know a difference and the rest of us can be the weird ones.  It is all about perception.

3. Will the boy will be challenged?  Are you kidding, if anyone can challenge him, it is his momma.  How in the heck can a teach be focused on him, when they have a classroom of kids.  If he needs anymore challenging, I can challenge him to pick up his room until he is good at it and then we can move on.

Ha! Showed you, didn’t I?  An answer for everything, trust me I have them.  So we are working on making it all work.  I will promise you, I do not have it all figured out.  In fact I had to quit homeschooling after 2 months last year, so my husband is a little untrusting of me. 

My only theory is, I have to homeschool them, it is a desire that burns in me, long before having kids. I cannot make it go away and I will never be satisfied until I am just doing it.  My other thought is, if this desire that God has put in me than He will provide.  So I am winging it and I will not get over ran in the desire to be perfect, just done.

So with that note, I guess I will take these hoodlums to the library.  Isn’t that where weird homeschool kids go to hang out, that and the local riff-raff. And trust me, we are the local riff-raff.

~trish