More on reading
As I mentioned earlier, Kyle wants to learn to read, so we have started using 100EZ lessons. I wasn’t 100% sure that he was quite ready yet but I figured that it couldn’t hurt to give it a try. We are on lesson 19 and I am amazed at how well he is doing! And I am also amazed at how differently he is learning when compared to Jason. It is obvious that they really do process things differently (Jason is a more right brained, big picture kind of kid where Kyle is more left brained, sequential kind of kid). Really neat to see…
With Kyle, I can see how he really does see each individual letter…sounding out words makes total sense to him. He sits there and sounds out each letter, blends them and gets the word. Jason, on the other hand, takes in the whole word and has to work at breaking it down into letter sounds. He does a lot more “guessing”, using the context and beginning sounds as a clue to figuring it out. I can tell that Kyle is totally focused on each letter and does not realize exactly what he is reading until he sounds it out and puts it together. He needs all the pieces before he can figure out the word.
The other interesting difference is that Jason seems to learn words faster…it takes him fewer times before a word is “his”, stored in his sight word memory. Most likely because he stores words as pictures, making it easier to recognize. Kyle will come upon the same word and not recognize it until he sounds it out. And often even immediately after he has read it, he will not remember it and needs to sound it out again (I have noticed this with myself as well with words that I do not know). Kyle stores words as groups of individual letters and as he gets more practice with translating the letters to sounds he will get faster at recognizing words.
The neat thing is that neither way is right or wrong…they are just different. And a reminder of how critical it is to work *with* the strengths of each.
