Hi everyone,
I've been meaning to write about this for a while, but it's been tough to formulate the question. I'd like some input on 2E-ness.
My DS6 is an extremely sunny, happy kid who can be intense. He discovered dinosaurs when he was around 1 1/2 and had already shown high interest in animals by age ~5 months. By the time he was 2, we started to teach him about dinosaurs. He could identify many of them by 2 1/2, could say names like "parasauralophus" correctly, and distinguish very similar dinosaurs in the same family based on subtle differences in, for example, snout length.
He was able to learn from a BBC documentary series called "Walking with Dinosaurs" at age 3 years exactly. We had bought him the whole "Walking with..." series within 3 months or so of that birthday, and he was glued to them. He became worried about extinction when he was 3 or possibly early 4. He was very concerned about the whole idea of gone forever throughout age 4 and death and dying became a big concern at the time.
Over time, his interest has expanded from dinosaurs to all ancient reptilians and some interest in mammals. He's also a normal kid who likes Sponge Bob, playing DS games, soccer, etc.
NO WAY are my other two so intense like this, though they are obviously very bright.
At the same time, although he started to sound out words a couple months before he turned 4, he didn't really want to read until he was 5 or so. His kindergarten teachers refused to help him with his reading (one didn't believe that a five-year-old could actually read words), and so he got no help from them last year. This year, in a new school, he's struggled somewhat with reading. He mostly has trouble sounding out new words in grade-level books or even ones he's read before. In contrast, DD4 does this almost effortlessly and she seems to have what I'd call an innate understanding of when one syllable stops and the next one starts. DS6 fights his way through syllables.
So then one night last week when it was time to read, I picked up a chapter book (about dinosaurs) that said RL3 on the back (I think it's somewhere in grade 2, but whatever). I figured I'd be reading most of it. To my utter shock, he read the entire first chapter with relative ease. I mean, I know that kids can get things from context, but a whole chapter? He only needed help from me on words like "laughed" or "through." He laughs with delight when something silly happens and he actually said "How many MORE books are there in this series???" This from a kid who nearly had a meltdown over the idea of a chapter book a couple weeks ago.
But still ---back to the potential problem. He still has trouble remembering the sound the "ea" makes (meat, eat, etc.), yet he can sight-read words that don't seem guessable from contextual clues, like "tumbled" and "pointed." There are times when he seems to be able to look at words and just read them, yet at other times he really struggles. It's odd (for me, anyway).
Does this sound like some kind of 2E problem? Or is it just a typical course of development in reading? I read a bit about dyslexia, but it didn't seem to fit his problems --- yet I am no expert on the subject!
Sorry for the length, but I kind of wanted to describe him as best I could.
Any input is welcome!
Val
Last edited by Val; 02/08/09 11:33 PM.
