Astounding
Jason spent some time sounding out words the other night. The exchange went something like this:
J: What are these letters, Dani?
Dani: P -I-N
J: Good. What sounds do they make:
Dani: puh - ih-nnnn
J: Good! Do them again faster and faster and tell me what the word is.
Dani: p-i-n...p-i-n...p-i-n...p-i-n....... CAR!!!
J: No, try again
Dani: p-i-n...p-i-n...p-i-n...p-i-n....... SAT!
On and on for a good 20 min, until she, clearly accidentally, came upon the right word. It is so frustrating to work with her! I don't know if she's just not paying attention, or if she has some kind of brain disconnection, but sometimes I feel totally helpless! She's not behind or struggling enough to qualify for special reading programs at school, so we are left on our own to continue working with her, obviously not finding the way to make it make sense to her. So far, luckily, she thinks its a game and brings the cards to us sometimes to play. All we can do is keep trying and hope it will click eventually.
Not 5 minutes after the sounding out activity, we were all heading upstairs to put the kids to bed and Dani starting telling me about dimes. I discovered in this kid, who can't sound out a word to save her life, a fountain of knowlege about coins. Pennies, she told me, have Abraham Lincoln on the front and a tails on the back. Not to bad, I thought. Dimes, she said, have George Roosevelt on them (chuckle), and on the back, an oak branch. And a olive branch. And they stand for strength and peace. Huh? I sent Emily in search of some coins to verify Dani's claims. Sure enough, there were two branches on the back, and the symbolism makes sense. There was a torch too, so I asked her what that was for and she told me it was for knowledge. The nickel has Thomas Jefferson on the front and his house on the back. She can't correctly identify the coins consistently, and she can't remember the songs that her kindergarten teacher taught her about the coins, but she can spout of these random facts that I have never heard before! How do we tap into that part of her brain and help her use it for reading? We have a parent/teacher conference tomorrow... I'll be very interested to see what her teacher might have to say about her.
J: What are these letters, Dani?
Dani: P -I-N
J: Good. What sounds do they make:
Dani: puh - ih-nnnn
J: Good! Do them again faster and faster and tell me what the word is.
Dani: p-i-n...p-i-n...p-i-n...p-i-n....... CAR!!!
J: No, try again
Dani: p-i-n...p-i-n...p-i-n...p-i-n....... SAT!
On and on for a good 20 min, until she, clearly accidentally, came upon the right word. It is so frustrating to work with her! I don't know if she's just not paying attention, or if she has some kind of brain disconnection, but sometimes I feel totally helpless! She's not behind or struggling enough to qualify for special reading programs at school, so we are left on our own to continue working with her, obviously not finding the way to make it make sense to her. So far, luckily, she thinks its a game and brings the cards to us sometimes to play. All we can do is keep trying and hope it will click eventually.
Not 5 minutes after the sounding out activity, we were all heading upstairs to put the kids to bed and Dani starting telling me about dimes. I discovered in this kid, who can't sound out a word to save her life, a fountain of knowlege about coins. Pennies, she told me, have Abraham Lincoln on the front and a tails on the back. Not to bad, I thought. Dimes, she said, have George Roosevelt on them (chuckle), and on the back, an oak branch. And a olive branch. And they stand for strength and peace. Huh? I sent Emily in search of some coins to verify Dani's claims. Sure enough, there were two branches on the back, and the symbolism makes sense. There was a torch too, so I asked her what that was for and she told me it was for knowledge. The nickel has Thomas Jefferson on the front and his house on the back. She can't correctly identify the coins consistently, and she can't remember the songs that her kindergarten teacher taught her about the coins, but she can spout of these random facts that I have never heard before! How do we tap into that part of her brain and help her use it for reading? We have a parent/teacher conference tomorrow... I'll be very interested to see what her teacher might have to say about her.
posted by kim at
11:01 AM
2 Comments:
Ancient Chinese Proverb: "Different kind of fish might grow better in different kind of water."
Okay so I really made that up just now but Dani is amazing to capture and retain all of those facts. It does sound like she is wired differently - which we have seen in Hunter.
Since he latched onto numbers and math so young, we tried to foster growth in those areas. When he was 3 or 4, Shana started having him do strings of addition and subtraction in his head, and I gave him word problems about toy cars or GI Joes like "3 boxes of cars, with 4 in each box" - so he learned to multiply before he knew what to call it. He loved it all and begged for more.
Where did Dani learn all of those facts? She absorbed them from somewhere, like a sponge. If it was told to her verbally, she may learn better aurally, than visually.
That doesn't help her read, but perhaps there are available alternate approaches that can help her learn the way she learns best, not trying to squish her in the mold that "every other child" supposedly fits in.
Our teacher conference revealed that our teacher had seen Hunter's spark, and loved it. That makes me feel a lot better about trusting her to help him to grow and mature in other areas. (Keep up the good work and sorry for the long comment ...)
Is Dani dyslexic? Have you tried any tactile learning methods with her, like cutting letters out of different textured materials or writing words in the sand or on the carpet? Like Mark said, she's obviously bright. I'm sure you'll figure out what works best for her. :-)
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