A: Basically, ALL children I have taught who struggled with reading also struggled with spelling, and phonics was unfortunately unusable for them. So we bypassed that entirely by focusing on the sounds in words. The Illustrated Book of Sounds & Their Spelling Patterns contains a list of keywords to help children with more advanced spelling patterns. However, you can’t start a child out with more advanced spelling patterns that require a keyword if they are still struggling with CVC words. Don’t even worry about keywords for beginners. Keywords are going to help out a lot with children who are reading but are challenged to read longer words that have various word chunks in them.
For beginners, use the very early lessons in the Sounds & Their Spelling Patterns book that teach short vowel sounds in 3 (or four) letter words. Children with dyslexia will be unable to look at a word and keep the letters in the correct sequence. However they can learn to read and write if you tie the sounds to something tangible and visible such as the fingers on your hand, teach them to rely on listening to the SOUNDS (not letter name) of each letter in the little word, and tie each sound to one finger. The scenario that completes this cycle for them, however, is to have them use whiteboards. See the sequence below.
How to teach:
1. Identify the word to be studied. Say, for example, FIT.
2. Hold up three fingers to be a visual, tangible, map for the sounds.
3. Sound out the word FIT, saying Ffff as you point to the first finger, Iiiii as you point to the next one, and Tttt as you point to the last one.
(The reason this practice is important is that it provides the children with a spatial, visual map that shows them the construction of the word. They can see how many sounds there are and where they fall in the word.)
4. Next, and this is super important, have your children sound the word with you as you point to the fingers for each sound.
5. Right away, then, they need to sound FIT again orally as they write each letter on their whiteboards, one sound per letter written.
This simple activity utilizes multiple pathways to the brain, essential for children who struggle to read when taught in traditional ways. Children use spatial / visual abilities as they see the word on your fingermap, they hear themselves sounding out the word as they see the visual map, and when they write as they are sound out the word, they are producing the word from inside their own brains with their mouth and ears directing what they write. It is a very simple activity, but very powerful. This system has worked with children who had not been able to learn to read after years of trying.
Once they learn to listen to sounds, they will be able to apply this skill to more difficult spellings, such as 2-4 letter sounds like the ones outlined in the Sounds Book. They will understand that one sound is sometimes written with multiple letters and that all letter symbols in a word are “used up” in making the sounds for the words.
This practice is one I did daily without fail with all my students, struggling or not. In addition, I used the SnapWords™ sight word cards to give them instant word recognition. They need to understand that the collection of sounds has a meaning, and that you can see the word and not have to sound it out. Put both SnapWords™ sight word cards and The Book of Sounds & Their Spelling Patterns together for a complete teaching cycle for these young children.
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