Some history. It took us weeks in year 1 to teach him the alphabet and simple words like 'the'. In year 2 he still couldn't read at all. The G.O. did a full assessment (which was very interesting - (97th percentile for higher order stuff, 16th percentile for processing speed)). She said that a kid with his profile would learn to read when he wanted it badly enough. He would have to learn in his own way. Even though the G.O. suggested it would be a waste of time, he was withdrawn from classes for lessons in how to sound out words. [Basically, Joel reads with his right brain. The left side is the side that sounds out. The right brain cannot sound out.] He hated it and still cannot sound out words. But he's taught himself to read anyway. He's getting the meaning of the stories completely correct, and most of the words right - except proper nouns. These are consistently wrong - but who cares?
He's reading. I'm now looking forward to year 7 naplan. In year 3, Joel did the comprehension task without reading the text at all. In year 5, he looked in the text for the answers. Perhaps in year 7 he'll start by reading the text! [But maybe not. I was a good reader and never ever wanted to read the boring text on a comprehension task.]
Hurrah for kids lit that works for boys!
ReplyDeleteYep. Even if it's about pagan gods.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing this. A great story.
ReplyDeleteI like when you said "I wish I could give 2008 me...". I need to remember that more with my kids. Great to hear he's enjoying reading!
ReplyDeleteSo how does a right brained kid learn to read? Whole word shapes or something? Or is it a mystery?
ReplyDeleteBasically whole word. Apparently, it's like he has a little picture card in his head for each word. He sees the word 'ship' and a picture for a ship comes into his mind. When he was younger he'd often read 'ship' as 'boat' or something like that.
ReplyDeleteAfter he's been told what a word is a couple of times, he generally remembers it. One of his teachers in year three had a very large pack of sight word cards that she would go through with him every day. That helped.
For completely unknown words, he guesses based on the first letter and the context. For unknown proper nouns (where context won't help much) he makes something up based on the first letter.
So exciting that he has learned to read in such a way that it works for him! I'm wondering how he writes? Does he remember the pattern of the whole words he knows, or is writing /spelling still difficult. Have you learnt anything special that works for him? (though my guess is that the way things are going with Siri and dictation computer programs, he may never need to worry about writing and spelling a whole lot!)
ReplyDeleteWriting and spelling still matters heaps in school. It has been a real problem. Joel's spelling is starting to improve (he's still below national average) but is significantly better than it was. He used to have every word completely wrong. He also used to miss out small words altogether so his writing made very little sense. Because his reading was so bad, he couldn't read it back to himself to see the errors. It's less of a problem now. He wrote a poem for assessment in school the other day. It was short (this is normal) but good- except for the spelling, which was atrocious. But it's no longer so bad that you can't work out what he's trying to say. So he goes well on all the criteria except spelling.
ReplyDeleteI don't have much advice re. spelling. Last year he had a great teacher who would make up little stories about why words were spelled particular ways. This helped. (But don't ever tell a kid that if they read more their spelling would improve. I read heaps and my spelling was always pretty shocking. Still is.)