Nature Girl engrossed in a book
It does not mean a child can't decode the alphabet. It does not mean a child can't decode words.
It means reading is at times painstakingly slow. It means words are missed and text is jumped around in. It means decoding the same little words over and over again no matter how many times you've seen them. It means things that need to be decoded quickly are often missed. It means when text is out of context it can't be easily understood.
The side effect of this does not have to mean a child who doesn't read for pleasure.
Nature Girl reads to gather information and she reads for entertainment, but not if she feels under pressure. When her anxiety about reading mounts her ability to read drops even further. In the classroom she always feels under pressure. At home she doesn't have that pressure and there is a stack of about 20 books in her bed.
Remedial lessons are going to be a big part of our homeschooling, but providing that pressure free environment is the most important thing we can do for her.
She's reading a book on natural science above. I know her comprehension was excellent because she explained several animal behaviours to me afterwards. Yesterday she asked me what M-A-T spelt because it was seen out of context to her. We were at the carwash and a clip for mats was on the wall. I expect that my explanation of what the clip was for will provide enough context for her to remember the sign as well.
Our first set of sight words is "survival" words - things like EXIT, DANGER, HOT, WASHROOM. We have flashwords of them and are playing a kind of word bingo where she gets points for finding them in the environment. I think we'll photograph them in the environment next, so she recognizes the most common signs for them (like lighted EXIT signs).
Another big project is writing her name. She can spell her first name (actually her middle name) but not her last name, or her actual first name. She's quite resistant to this, no one at school has ever asked her to.
I considered asking her to write letters to people but she balks at it because the task seems so big every time I've tried. Maybe I'll transcribe the letter and she can JUST copy the address information on the envelopes.
It means reading is at times painstakingly slow. It means words are missed and text is jumped around in. It means decoding the same little words over and over again no matter how many times you've seen them. It means things that need to be decoded quickly are often missed. It means when text is out of context it can't be easily understood.
The side effect of this does not have to mean a child who doesn't read for pleasure.
Nature Girl reads to gather information and she reads for entertainment, but not if she feels under pressure. When her anxiety about reading mounts her ability to read drops even further. In the classroom she always feels under pressure. At home she doesn't have that pressure and there is a stack of about 20 books in her bed.
Remedial lessons are going to be a big part of our homeschooling, but providing that pressure free environment is the most important thing we can do for her.
She's reading a book on natural science above. I know her comprehension was excellent because she explained several animal behaviours to me afterwards. Yesterday she asked me what M-A-T spelt because it was seen out of context to her. We were at the carwash and a clip for mats was on the wall. I expect that my explanation of what the clip was for will provide enough context for her to remember the sign as well.
Our first set of sight words is "survival" words - things like EXIT, DANGER, HOT, WASHROOM. We have flashwords of them and are playing a kind of word bingo where she gets points for finding them in the environment. I think we'll photograph them in the environment next, so she recognizes the most common signs for them (like lighted EXIT signs).
Another big project is writing her name. She can spell her first name (actually her middle name) but not her last name, or her actual first name. She's quite resistant to this, no one at school has ever asked her to.
I considered asking her to write letters to people but she balks at it because the task seems so big every time I've tried. Maybe I'll transcribe the letter and she can JUST copy the address information on the envelopes.
1 comment:
Writing is always a challenge for us. We finally gave up on printing and went straight into learning cursive. I have used the Handwriting without tears workbook and it has worked wonders. Very quick lesson and I can make it as serious or humorous as I need with the use of my napkin rabbit puppet used and it has pretty good suggestions to keep writing multi-sensory.
Random suggestion:
You can use the same technique you use for following forms on the wall, with her name on the board to follow. Her whole body will learn the forms for her name and it can be therapeutic.
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