by Sarah Major, M.Ed
When I was a classroom teacher I had many very bright kindergarteners who struggled to sound out words and couldn’t remember from one moment to the next the word they had just labored to figure out. Reading was a chore and a real pain for them (and for me).
One word that stands out in my mind as an especially difficult word to remember is the word HELP. It is not a hard word, is not tricky, and is straightforward to sound out. My kindergarteners could sound it out, but if they saw the same word again on the next line of text, they didn’t remember ever seeing it. I was frustrated and so were they.
I came to realize several reasons why these children had difficulty with sounding out words and also struggled to recognize words on sight.
First, many children get stuck trying to sound everything out because that is how we traditionally teach reading. Children who struggle with holding individual sounds in their minds long enough to blend them into a word are considered to be at risk in reading. If a child believes that sounding out a word is reading, he or she will likely not move into the skill of reading a whole word all at once. HELP will always be H-E-L-P to them, no matter how often they see the word.
Second, many children don’t naturally think from part to whole, so for them, to have to retain four or five sounds in their minds in the correct sequence is just plain hard. These are the children who can far more easily learn to recognize whole words and then remember them easily.
Another problem for many children is learning sight words without any visual helps. Many children just don’t look and remember, even with many repetitions of the drill. There are simply too many words that look similar to each other for this to be effective.
So what can be done to help these children?
First, make sure they know their basic sounds. If they don’t know the sounds letters make, they really will be in trouble. But you can use visuals and body motion to teach this skill easily. If the child sees the letter in an image that is shaped just like the letter, learning will be easy. Then have them make the body motion that mimics the letter also.
Second, introduce sight words using the same approach: visuals and body motion. If you want to be sure the child can truly segment a word into its parts, just be sure he or she can read the whole word first. Also make sure that the meaning of the word is conveyed along with the word because in this way children will understand that reading is a process of recognizing groups of letters that convey a message. In this way, we go past word naming and into words that carry visual images of the meaning they convey.
These are two very common problems with learning to read. Inability to sound out words or to recognize them on sight is not a sign of looming learning disability; instead, let’s view them as signals that quite possibly the child is a visual or right-brained, or global learner who needs to learn words all at one time complete with meaning before she can hope to take the word apart into its components.
Sarah Major, CEO of Child1st Publications, grew up on the mission field with her four siblings, all of whom her mother homeschooled. As an adult, Sarah homeschooled a small group of children in collaboration with their parents, and has taught from preschool age to adult. Sarah has been the Title 1 director and program developer for grades K-7, an ESOL teacher, and a classroom teacher. As an undergraduate student, Sarah attended Wheaton College in Wheaton, Ill. and then received her M.Ed. from Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, MI. In 2006 Sarah resigned from fulltime teaching in order to devote more time to Child1st, publisher of the best-selling SnapWords™ stylized sight word cards. In her spare time Sarah enjoys gardening, cooking, pottery, quilting, and spending time with her family.
Child1st Publications, LLC
www.child-1st.com
704-879-4047
3302 S New Hope Rd
Suite 300B
Gastonia, NC 28056
When I was a classroom teacher I had many very bright kindergarteners who struggled to sound out words and couldn’t remember from one moment to the next the word they had just labored to figure out. Reading was a chore and a real pain for them (and for me).
One word that stands out in my mind as an especially difficult word to remember is the word HELP. It is not a hard word, is not tricky, and is straightforward to sound out. My kindergarteners could sound it out, but if they saw the same word again on the next line of text, they didn’t remember ever seeing it. I was frustrated and so were they.
I came to realize several reasons why these children had difficulty with sounding out words and also struggled to recognize words on sight.
First, many children get stuck trying to sound everything out because that is how we traditionally teach reading. Children who struggle with holding individual sounds in their minds long enough to blend them into a word are considered to be at risk in reading. If a child believes that sounding out a word is reading, he or she will likely not move into the skill of reading a whole word all at once. HELP will always be H-E-L-P to them, no matter how often they see the word.
Second, many children don’t naturally think from part to whole, so for them, to have to retain four or five sounds in their minds in the correct sequence is just plain hard. These are the children who can far more easily learn to recognize whole words and then remember them easily.
Another problem for many children is learning sight words without any visual helps. Many children just don’t look and remember, even with many repetitions of the drill. There are simply too many words that look similar to each other for this to be effective.
So what can be done to help these children?
First, make sure they know their basic sounds. If they don’t know the sounds letters make, they really will be in trouble. But you can use visuals and body motion to teach this skill easily. If the child sees the letter in an image that is shaped just like the letter, learning will be easy. Then have them make the body motion that mimics the letter also.
Second, introduce sight words using the same approach: visuals and body motion. If you want to be sure the child can truly segment a word into its parts, just be sure he or she can read the whole word first. Also make sure that the meaning of the word is conveyed along with the word because in this way children will understand that reading is a process of recognizing groups of letters that convey a message. In this way, we go past word naming and into words that carry visual images of the meaning they convey.
These are two very common problems with learning to read. Inability to sound out words or to recognize them on sight is not a sign of looming learning disability; instead, let’s view them as signals that quite possibly the child is a visual or right-brained, or global learner who needs to learn words all at one time complete with meaning before she can hope to take the word apart into its components.
Sarah Major, CEO of Child1st Publications, grew up on the mission field with her four siblings, all of whom her mother homeschooled. As an adult, Sarah homeschooled a small group of children in collaboration with their parents, and has taught from preschool age to adult. Sarah has been the Title 1 director and program developer for grades K-7, an ESOL teacher, and a classroom teacher. As an undergraduate student, Sarah attended Wheaton College in Wheaton, Ill. and then received her M.Ed. from Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, MI. In 2006 Sarah resigned from fulltime teaching in order to devote more time to Child1st, publisher of the best-selling SnapWords™ stylized sight word cards. In her spare time Sarah enjoys gardening, cooking, pottery, quilting, and spending time with her family.
Child1st Publications, LLC
www.child-1st.com
704-879-4047
3302 S New Hope Rd
Suite 300B
Gastonia, NC 28056
