Reading question

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Registered: 02-24-2004
Reading question
4
Sat, 09-03-2005 - 1:35pm

Lastnight, I sat down with the boys to do homework. Nathan read (still needing lots of help), I read to him, and we went over his list of words too. Then I pulled out a paper book sent home from school. It said to read aloud at home. He said that his teacher read the title of the book, but that they didn't read it in class, just colored the pictures. I asked him if he thought he could read it, and then....HE READ THE WHOLE THING WITHOUT STOPPING, AND WITHOUT MY HELP!!!

HELLO????? How did he do that? I starting to see that somethings are easy for him to read and others are not. Why is that????

Tyler was pretty consistent with his learning. Started out slow, worse on days he wasn't concentrating or interested, etc. But he was never able to do things like this.

What's going on?? How does he do this? I even watched his eyes...to see if he was looking at the pictures. He was actually reading the words. Didn't stop or even say a word wrong (which is very unusal). I'm thinking about asking the teacher on Tues....maybe she did read the book...hhmmm.

Michelle

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Registered: 03-31-2003
Sat, 09-03-2005 - 4:42pm

Just a stab in the dark, here: Could it have anything to do with the font? Maybe some fonts are confusing for him to read. I don't know. Or maybe it's something else. Maybe it takes something special to get his brain to click over into reading mode??? It sounds like he's getting there, though.

There are times when David seems to not know how to do something, but I *know* he can, because I've seen him. Reading isn't a good example for us because he's kind of hyperlexic. But he does something that I think is kind of odd. Before he started school, he could open a brand new bood, read aloud and sound like normal talking; questions sounded like questions, etc. In school, where most kids were struggling to sound out words one by one, they were taught to follow along with their finger. So, I began to notice that whenever David read something for school, he would read in a choppy, one-word-at-a-time way, like the other kids. It was like he thought that was the proper way to read at school. Kind of strange. I think I did something similar.

Evelyn

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Registered: 12-24-2004
Sun, 09-04-2005 - 12:35pm

Some ideas:

1) Font size, style, spacing, and/or number of words per page may affect his processing.
2) Teacher may have read the book in class, which helped him to sequence the words better. Cassian is hyperlexic, but he sometimes still has difficulty sequencing words (comes across as lack of fluency in reading).
3) Knowing the title may help him to grasp the concept of the book and therefore sequence words better.
4) Possibly having colored the pictures may have helped him understand the content of the book better and therefore helped him sequence the words better. Coloring the pages may have also given him additional exposure to the words he later had to read. In a sense, this helped him to attend to the words better in a sort of preview.
5) Some topics may be more motivating for him than others.

That's all I can think of now. I notice similar descrepancies in Cassian's reading. Sometimes he reads very small print with no pictures quite fluently, and I know he has never heard the material before. At other times, he is just not attentive to reading something that I pick out for him. Motivation and attention seem to have a great deal to do with his demonstration of reading capabilities. Reading individual words doesn't seem to be affected as much as whole stories (sequencing issue).

Suzi

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Registered: 02-24-2005
Sun, 09-04-2005 - 1:17pm

This is so interesting and Suzi your points make great sense. Chase is also hyperlexic and I've noticed that he doesn't break words down phonetically but just reads the whole word and I can't get how he does this without understanding the smaller units of sounds. I mean he reads huge words without effort but will stumble over the smaller words (and the ones that add meaning and context) such "is, was, and, of, in". It's almost as if he is moving so fast that he skips the "easier" words but as a result he misses content. Does Cassian do this?

Michelle, that's great that Nathan is getting it. I have a feeling his reading is going to take off. I think it was Luke Jackson, the 13 year old who wrote "Freaks, Geeks and Asperger's syndrome", that this happened to. He couldn't read at all and then suddenly it just clicked and his reading became quite advanced. It would be great if you could pinpoint what is contributing to his improvement and work on that. I think Suzi has some great thoughts on what those might be. BTW, congrats Suzi on your new addition!! Vicky

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Registered: 02-24-2004
Sun, 09-04-2005 - 1:32pm

I found out that his teacher DID read it to the class. But only once. I'm still surprised that he was able to remember it all, AND read it soooo fluently. Tyler even sat there with his mouth wide open in amazement!!!

I'm wondering if it has alot to do with "interest". And Nathan reads words without sounding out too. He also has a tendency to stumble and forget the easy words too.

It's hard to find books that he'll be interested in, mostly because his interests flop back and forth. I may just have to make him come with me to the library or even the book store to see if that's the case. Maybe if he's interested more, that would help.

Lastnight, he couldn't read AT ALL. Tyler was playing upstairs, and all he could think about was being with him. He couldn't concentrate for nothing. I thought I would try it this way, having Tyler out of the room, but it made things worse. I have to have Tyler sitting right there doing nothing, just so that Nathan is not concentrating on his brother.

It's so funny, because sometimes he seems intelligent and then other times, I haven't got a clue if anything is going on up there!!! LOL

Michelle