Dear Ruth,

My first grade daughter is bright and very good at many things including phonics. Every week her spelling is perfect and her printing is excellent. I am mystified and concerned because she cannot read the words she knows how to spell and print. She is really struggling. Although she see the same word over and over again she has to slowly sound it out each time.

She’s beginning to shut down and is feeling bad about her reading as she is comparing herself to others around her in class. My strategy so far is to just read to her and tell her that reading is very difficult and some kids don’t learn to read until second grade. Her teacher and I also emphasize the many things she does well. Do you have any advice?

L.C.

Dear L.C.,

I am glad to hear that you are helping your daughter to feel 'normal' by pointing out that some children catch on a little later, and by emphasizing the positive. Another tip: Stay away from word lists for now, and let your beginner practice reading the same stories over and over again to build skills, confidence and fluency.

As for her struggle, I think it is wise to consider the simplest explanations first. One possibility: your daughter, who knows words sound-by-sound, may simply need to learn a new strategy for reading whole words. She could practice spotting and naming a word in a Search and Say exercise described at this web site--no sounding-out required. From there, you could make other opportunities for her to recognize her whole word. For example, you might have her try to point to her word in a sentence. Then you could read the sentence to her, pointing as you go and pausing so that she could fill in her word. In other words, you can help her practice recognizing familiar words by their 'look.'

Is your daughter using a phonic reading book? New readers need these to practice the phonic elements as they learn them. But there are not many non-phonic cues in the contrived language of this kind of material. To rehearse whole-word recognition, she might have more success with natural-sounding language--particularly if you print out something she has said herself, and help her to practice reading that. Find more on the Natural Language Story process at this web site.

Next, you can gradually isolate individual words of her dictated material by asking her to point to this or that word. (Expect her to recite the sentence word by word, until she reaches the one you asked for!) After she is more familiar with her material, you can point to one of the words and ask her to name it.

Rhyming books like Hop On Pop illustrate the idea of 'word families'--hop, pop, top; Dad, sad, bad--a short-cut to sound-by-sounding out, and a step toward reading by larger chunks.

Best Wishes,
Ruth Alice Jurey, M.S.
Speech/Language Pathologist