ok so I'm not being a tiger mom I promise!!! I have posted about this before and got some wonderful responses. This is kind of an update - still not working thingy...

DD4.5 has been trying to learn to read on her own with reading eggs for a year now and although she can sound out cvc words she really isn't progressing at all.

She seems to read the first few letters of a word then guess, she is very good at using the pictures to determine what she should say though and I think she relies on them rather than using the letters. Sometimes even without a picture she'll get the meaning right but the word wrong like saying pill instead of tablet. I know that this is developmentally appropriate but well, something just doesn't feel right knwim? She refuses to follow the words with her finger, even though when I do it for her she does do better.

She is very visual special - but she's also up there with everything else so she shouldn't be lacking the ability to learn. When she is on the computer she has no problem but put a book in her hands and everything grinds to a standstill.

I'm concerned about her being turned off reading because she is desperate to learn and her confidence is ebbing. I don't feel we are pushing her at all - we got the program on after she asked to learn and let her go at her own pace which at first was very slow because she just wanted to play on the computer - now though she wizzes through it so I know that she is capable of learning to read. She tries a few pages and complains her eyes are sore or that the book is boring or whatever - classic avoidance which is not getting better. I looked into arlin syndrome but it seems people here are extremely sceptical about it. We have seen an optometrist and she has no vision problems. We have no history of LD in our family and she shows no other markers anyway. She does complain of letters being wobbly sometimes.

We play a few literacy based games which she loves, she writes very well and can spell a few words. She is the type of learner (which I admit frustrates the hell out of me) that asks to be shown something, lets you get 2/3's through then stops you and says yep I've got it and refuses to listen anymore, then gets frustrated she can't do it. I'm really hoping that goes away with age as she does it with everything - normally she's fine but as things are getting harder she needs to actually listen and learn maybe even more than once god forbid. It just means when she struggles with more than a couple of words instead of accepting help she just refuses to go on.

Am I just being pushy? it's hard to get perspective, it just seems like she just can't do it and there's something holding her back. Anyone I've spoken to about it looks at me like I'm a monster so you guys are it!

I have tried daily reading which we stopped after a fortnight as it did more harm than good, she didn't touch a book for a month after that....

I apologize for not remembering anything about her reading progress in the past...so if I'm repeating myself or making you repeat yourself, sorry!

The foundation of effective reading for any learner of an alphabetic language (such as English) is phonological awareness. I am not familiar with the approach of Reading Eggs, and could not see this information on their website, but I would be concerned that PA skills are not being instructed. Something like 2/3 of kids figure them out without instruction, but another 1/3 (not necessarily LD kiddos, just not natural phonics kids) really need explicit instruction in phonological awareness from the ground up. Otherwise, they spend their time doing what your daughter appears to be doing, which is sounding out initial consonants, and then guessing at the rest based on context. This is so common that there is actually a term for it in the reading research literature ("the psycholinguistic guessing game"). Unfortunately, not all reading programs are based on the past 30 years of research, and continue to use more-or-less whole language approaches (aka, the PGG referenced above). These programs don't get weeded out by the market, because they work on the 2/3 of kids for whom repeated exposure to any literacy instruction at all (or none, but repeated exposure to reading in general) will result in reading mastery.

At age 4.5, she should have some PA skills. Here's one chart with some examples of the developmental sequence of PA:

http://www.readingrockets.org/article/development-phonological-skills

Try surveying some of her PA skills (sounds like it might take you a few sessions!), and see if there are gaps, or stuck places. You may also discover that the process of assessing her helps her to learn these skills, as they may never have been presented to her before.

How long are these books that you are using to read with her?

My son was much the same and finally learned in the first few months of kindergarten. In addition to what he was doing in school (basically, letter/sound recognition), we did Stepping Stones Together at home. (Disclosure: I received a free trial in a blog contest win and did write about my experience over several posts. It was not compensated, but just letting you know that I had gotten it free from a contest win.)

The take away was that I was trying to teach him in a way he wasn't going to learn. These "books" are interest based and very short, but with a lot of word repetition. You print it -- it's a little booklet. They can color them if they want.

http://www.steppingstonestogether.com/

Thanks so much for the thoughtful answers - aeh, reading eggs does some phoenetics, a lot of word families etc. I looked at the reading rockets list, to be honest she can do everything on that list! so I guess she has the PA going, just not able to put it into practise?

2Gifted kids, they are the bob style books, I'll look at stepping stones, colouring in is a big hit here so that might inspire her.

Neither of my kids read until 1st grade (so I think they were 6). Both took off like a house afire once they started. I did not push at all, but read to them a ton. They had very large vocabularies. We did a little with phonics in first grade to give them a push along (school was using silly "whole language" approach, did not help...). By end of 2nd grade, second kid was reading "The Lord of the Rings". She scored 800 on her SAT Critical Reading and 800 on her Lit SAT Subject test. Her sister graduated Phi Beta Kappa from college in a humanities subject. Don't stress her out any more on it, IMHO. Back off until she is in first grade, then see how she is doing. If she isn't reading by after winter break that year, consider having some testing done. For now, just read to her and help her build a big vocabulary.

It sounds like she has the essential underlying skills to read, if she's made it through the whole PA ladder, and nothing else about her cognitive profile stands out to you...so maybe she's just not at that place yet, in terms of maturity/patience.

Do you feel like she is trying hard, not succeeding, and frustrated, or do you feel like she is having fun with the computer program, and just not ready to invest the time and attention into independent book reading? If, independent of any other person's involvement, she is unhappy with her reading progress, I would consider continuing to problem-solve obstacles to reading development. If she's happy with her reading skill as long as no one asks her to do a reading activity, then I would say keep an eye on it, but don't worry too much for another year or so.

In addition to phonological awareness, reading requires working memory, attention, sequencing, organization--executive functions that may not be all at the requisite level for reading in a perfectly normal four-year-old. Cognition, oral vocabulary, and even motivation may all be there, but if the frontal lobe isn't on board yet, you pretty much just have to be patient. (If you still have concerns in another one or two years, executive functions is where I would start looking.)

thanks all - I'll be a little more observant over the coming weeks and double check what the objections are and hopefully decide waiting is the best course.

It's very hard for me to tell what is normal, ahead and behind at times!

I get this! DS3 has been able to read for more than a year, but is only just starting to develop the maturity to focus on reading multiple words in sequence. (According to the link aeh provided, he has the phonological awareness sequence mastered.)

He is a subversive little guy. He will give me a knowing look and feign not being able to read a word--eyes roaming all over the page except toward the word, making obviously deliberate flubs (the words are invariably rhymes or puns), and leaking micro-expressions that scream, "I'm not going to cooperate and will make you regret trying to engage me" mixed with, "what can I get Mum to do if I do X?" This happens when I ask him to help me figure out 1 in 10,000 words we read in a no-pressure way. Then, at other times, he'll blurt out a title on an article in the newspaper while I'm preparing dinner and half paying attention.

I have no solution other than to turn everything reading related into a game, and to be seen as ambivalent over whether she reads during activities, but enthusiastic outside specific reading practice. We don't do any instructional activities other than reading books together and very occasionally spelling words out of magnetic letters. I recently bought a "We Both Read" book, which was met with interest. I explained that the book was designed to be read by two people, and DS seemed to like having his own dedicated pages to read. I've picked out a handful of high frequency words in new books from the library and prompt DS to read them by giving him a related puzzle (e.g. Find the opposite of this word; how would that word react in a silly situation...) , which he enjoys with one-off words or sentences, but he has said that breaks up the story. So my conclusion is that stories must not be fully engaging plot-wise, otherwise the prosody gets choppy and makes him impatient.

Is any of this helpful? I think it ultimately comes down to personality. DS is the sort who internally rehearses skills and then reveals them once he's achieved mastery, so I think his goofy/evasive front is his way of saying he isn't ready yet for independent reading on a maturity level. He's also very much a stubborn bull like his mother, and we see this "on my own schedule" autonomy echoed in everything he does.

We were relaxed homeschoolers and I provided very little explicit reading instruction to either of my kids. My daughter played on a website similar to Reading Eggs starting when she was five, and that was all the instruction she got. My daughter's VCI on the WISC was 166. She did not start to read until she was 7, between 1st and 2nd grade. She also took off quickly and now reads and comprehends on a very advanced level, DYS scores on Reading and English section of the Explore. She always loved books and before she was reading on her own, I read to her a lot and she also listened to tons and tons of audio books.

I taught my kids to read by just reading consistently together every tonight for 10-20 minutes. We started with Bob books and then climbed our way up the literacy chain of various easy reader books from the library. I'm curious how that compares to using a computer program.

Thanks for everyone's insights, DD is pretty subversive with her learning too so who knows what is going on there. She oftern practises alone then lets us know, I just haven't seen anything takes this long!


I imagine reading together would be ideal - and we do read lots of different types of books together - however DD will not co operate at all with reading herself unless it's her idea which is rare. So I get they beginning books from the library all the time and put them in our book box, they get ignored completely. The reading eggs is 100% driven by her - I stay out of it!

We got some sight words stickers (easy to make your own too I guess) and pasted them all over the all (DS put some up and supervised the placement of those more than 4' from the floor).

Then we would get a flashlight and play 'word power' - we would take turns illuminating a word in the dark and ID-ing it. I would let him quiz me a lot just so he did not feel like a little kid. Anyway, it is a fun and non-intimidating way to practice sight words (and you get to play with flashlights too).

We have an array of these (Post-It makes a set of 50 high-frequency words, as well as primary-lined blank sticky notes) on our kitchen wall, left over from when #1 was learning to read (tells you how often we clean off our walls!). Also (from the same era), various labeled objects all over the house. I've noticed the preschooler reading these for fun, too, just because they're there.

Unless your DD is actually getting upset about her inability to read, I would back off completely and just concentrate on reading to her, to develop her listening comprehension and to foster a love of literature and knowledge. Based upon your particular description, I believe that her reading achievement will end up in the same place in a few years whether you interfere or not. There are so many separate abilities necessary for a child to ultimately read a chapter book with comprehension and enjoyment that it may be unwise to unduly focus on some of these early steps. I know of some parents who spent many months (sometimes years) pushing their child through the CVC stage, only to have their child stall for years before the ability to independently read with comprehension simple picture books with multi-syllabic words. It does not appear that you are pushing your DD, so I am simply advising that you don't start yet. My two younger children did not read until kindergarten but each jumped several grade levels within months. For example, the first book that DS read to me was a Maurice Sendak baby chapter book in the fall of K - we skipped over the CVC stage although I am sure that his K classroom provided phonics instruction. Anyhow, DS told me at the time that it was difficult to fully comprehend and think about the story while reading himself so working memory is certainly a factor. Reading a sentence is a far cry from reading a book, even an early reader book.

At three going on four, my DD, now 5.4 years old, was at a similar place in terms of reading as your DD. She knew all of the letter sounds, could sound out CVC words and was excellent with environmental print - she could "read" every store sign and knew what every logo meant. We hadn't given her any formal reading instruction at that point other than to let her play on Star fall site for a short time and read bed time stories.

Despite having all of these tools/knowledge at her disposal, she wasn't able to read a completely new book that was placed in front of her. She would "read" books to me all of the time that she must have memorized just from hearing me read them to her. I remember thinking, hmmm she's got all of the tools I wonder why she isn't making the leap to being able to decode words and read new books that contain the same vocab and are at the same level.

The turning point for her was when she started learning/figuring out sight/high frequency words. Her being able to read them gave her such a confidence boost. These words appear so often,(and are sometimes not pronounced in the most common phonetic way) that it made her feel like she could read fluently - she didn't have to try and sound out or ask for help with every word. This gave her the motivation to try sounding out the content words since reading every word didn't feel like such an up hill battle anymore.

I think I began by pointing out the word "the". Throughout the day whenever she saw that word she would say hey mom that says, "the". Sometimes if I was reading a novel and she was around I'd ask her to look at my book with me and point out the word "the" on the page. I did this with a couple of other high frequency words and she also started figuring out some of them herself. She started picking up these words more rapidly and after she'd mastered a good handful of them I noticed that her reading ability really took off.

I would try introducing some high frequency words to her, maybe one or two a day (I have a kid who only likes to listen to 2/3 of my instructions too) and see if that helps her. You can tell her to let you know whenever she see's those words during the day and make it into a game.

She sounds like she's almost there! Perhaps the high frequency words will help her reach that critical mass.

Good Luck!

ETA: I wanted to add, does she make up her own stories? DD used to tell me stories and I'd write them down for her, or she would make picture books/cards. We both had a lot of fun with those and I feel it helped her a lot with learning to read.

I don't think there is one right or wrong way to teach reading but I have seen some children get rather confused about reading when they start with a structured phonics program. They can read regular cvc words but they get frustrated when they start reading real books that they want to read but they do not have the tools to decode non-cvc words.

When this happens, I would suggest 1) do echo reading using Dr Seuss types of books for patterns recognition and high frequency words, 2) find a beginning reader series that the child is interested (I highly recommend the Piggie and Gerald series), and 3) read literature books to the child to develop vocabulary and literally analysis skills.

The problem with brighter (gifted) children is that they don't like repetition and often, they refuse to read the same thing over and over unless they really happen to love it. DD really loved Mo Willems' books.

I agree that with reading, earlier is not better. The only problem with waiting until the child is 7 or older is that many of them want to move to chapter books right away and when that doesn't happen immediately, they lose patience and want to give up. It can be a challenge to find beginning readers appropriate for gifted 7+ year olds.

I still think DD learned to read because she insisted on having subtitles every time she watched anything on screen.

I'm not sure if you can borrow read-aloud e-books for free somehow but those are helpful too as the red highlight moves along but it'd be expensive if you have to pay for each of them.

.

I really agree with this. I would let the topic totally alone for now and not bring it up or ask her to do anything. Just read TO her. If she asks to do the computer stuff, that's fine. If you can't read to her as much as she desires, books on tape!! They are a godsend.

My DD was seemingly ready to read in every way as an early 2, and COULD read many sight words, environmental print, sound CVC words out, etc. She did not actually learn to read till 5, at which point she took off like a rocket. DS was far less early with the "about to read" milestones--no baby sight words at all-- but approached words more phonetically, and suddenly started reading on his own as a young 4 (we did have Bob books around and he watched phonics shows sometimes).

We just used the "do nothing" method.

Hi all, just want to reiterate there is ZERO pressure from us for dd to read, we occasionally offer it as an activity (which I think would happen in most pre school homes) and it is rejected most of the time, when she does have a go she loses heart very quickly. She can read a bit on the computer - single words not putting it together. If she's not ready then that's fine, however as she is a perfectionist developing a pretty severe non growth mind set I find it worrying the speed with which she gives up.

I have left it alone completely, not even suggesting reading and will continue to do so.