heartofdakota.com

I have a reading question concerning my dd who turned 5 in march. We are working our way through TRL and she is sounding out words, YAAAAY, but she sometimes gets stuck in the sounding out part and fails to hear the actual word. Does that make any sense? For example dad might sound like ddddd aaaaaa dddddd instead of dad. She will sound a word out over and over and often puts it together but sometimes..... she doesn't put the sounds together. Should I be concerned? What can I do to help her move past this? Thanks everyone for any advice.

I know the exact problem you mean! It's hard to explain that to a child, but I would start with words she already knows. So if she can read "dad" sound it out ddddaaaadddd with the sounds all running together. You can make it fun and silly by saying something like, "these letters are in a family and need their sounds to stick together" or you can be more literal and say something like "try not to leave a space in between the sounds in this word" then demonstrate for her and have her try to copy your example. I would do a lot of sample words she already can read well first and then move to new, but easy, words. Does that make sense? It seemed to me that when my daughter got the letters all strung together they can process the word quickly.

I had this problem with my oldest who is now 6 and an avid reader on a 3rd-4th grade level. I don't think you need to worry about it as it is a normal thing, just part of the learning to read process. For my girl it seemed to just click one day and there suddenly weren't any problems.

GinainMD wrote: Should I be concerned? What can I do to help her move past this?

I don't think you need to be concerned at this point at all. It takes a while for kiddos to get the hang of blending----some, of course, longer than others.

One fun way that we have worked on the modeling of this skill is with a phonemic awareness game. It does not have to be during the reading time, so it seems less daunting and school-like...more like a game. And can even be done in the car.....

Say some words (begin with very short words, like "dad"). But say them by sounds, "d---aaaa----d", and have the kiddo "guess" the word. It doesn't have to be words that they could read, and can even use sounds/vowel teams/diagraphs that they haven't learned yet. You are just focusing on the sounds, not the actual letters that make up the sounds. For example, you could do "shell", "sh....ee...ll". It doesn't matter that she doesn't know the sh diagraph yet. Just let her hear the individual sounds and learn to blend them. Once she starts to make a connection with the blending of sounds forming a spoken word, it can make the transition from seeing the same concept in written words a little easier to comprehend. Does that make sense?

It may not work for everyone, but mine have enjoyed the game---even the ones that blending came easily to.

But most of all, I'd say just give it time.

Thanks for the responses! Today my dd actually did a lot better with putting the sounds together even with some that she was sounding out for the first time! Thanks for the ideas we will try them and see if it helps.

we used wooden alphabet blocks to get through this. we set up the blocks for SAD, then changed it to MAD, and then BAD and so on. Then we tried SAT, MAT, BAT, etc... It really helped my kids with their blending. Don't know if would help yours but you could try it. She will eventually get it.

That"s another great idea to try thanks!

I did the same thing with the alphabet blocks, and I just left them sitting out on our buffet right next to our table. Also, if we were working on the "at" sounds, I would put all consonants in a bag that could possibly make a word (even if it wasn't really a word). Then, she would get to draw a new consonant every day or every meal to start the word such as "s" to add to the "at." If the letter drawn formed an actual word, we would display it. If not, we'd sound it out together and then discuss that it wasn't actually a word, so we'd move that consonant aside. This helped us get through all the "at" words. You can do the same with all the CVC words. It is a really fun way to teach CVC reading.

What has really helped my 6yo DS is me sounding out a lot of words for him, words of different lengths. His reading really improved when I started doing this. Before, he couldn't hardly sound out words.

the leapfrog word factory dvd teaches how to blend sounds. It's the most blending help my kids have had other than me telling the to put the sounds together.