by PRIDE Reading Program Admin | Mar 18, 2014 | A PRIDE Post, Reading Disability
Intervene early! Reading disabilities are considered to be the most common learning disability and are often not diagnosed or treated until it is too late for easy recovery. A child with a reading disability that is not identified until the third grade or later is already years behind his or her classmates. This is a gap that must be closed if the child is ever to catch up with his or her peers. The best intervention is in kindergarten or remediation beginning in the first grade.
Teach phonics. Through phonics, children learn to associate sounds and form connections to word recognition and decoding skills needed for reading. Research clearly proves that phoneme awareness performance is a major predictor of long- term reading and spelling success. In fact, according to the International Reading Association, phonemic awareness skills in kindergarten and first grade appear to be the most important predictor of successful reading acquisition.
Teach spelling. Spelling and reading rely on the same mental representations of a word. The correlation between spelling and reading comprehension is high because both depend on proficiency with language. The more profoundly and methodically a student knows a word, the more likely he or she is to recognize it, read it, spell it, write it, and use it appropriately in speech and writing.
Teach writing. Start teaching writing in preschool and kindergarten. Learning to write engages the brain in repetition and memory on how letters and sounds reflect meaning, addresses numerous reading and cognitive skills, and helps activate both reading and spelling areas of the brain.
Teach handwriting. Technology is a fun writing tool for kids but it doesn’t engage the early reading brain in the same helpful way as learning to move the pencil across the page to use letters as images of sound. Brain scan studies show that early lessons in letter formation help activate and coordinate reading connections in the brain.
Repetition, repetition, repetition. The brain of a child feeds on repetition to make doing things such as reading automatic and fluent. Use repetition in the early grades for reading aloud, for rhyming, for matching letters with sounds, for writing alphabet letters, for spelling, for sounding out words, for automatic reading of sight words, for making meaning in print. Children thrive on it. So make it fun!
Don’t ever give up on your child. Keep the expectations of your child and their reading future high. We owe it to our children to show our support, give them every resource possible to help them and give them the skills necessary for learning and communicating throughout their education and their lives.
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Karina Richland, M.A. is the Founder and Director of PRIDE Learning Centers, located in Los Angeles and Orange County. Ms. Richland is a certified reading and learning disability specialist. Ms. Richland speaks frequently to parents, teachers, and professionals on learning differences, and writes for several journals and publications. You can visit the PRIDE Learning Center website at: www.pridelearningcenter.com
by PRIDE Reading Program Admin | Feb 18, 2014 | A PRIDE Post, Dyslexia
Because dyslexia is primarily associated with difficulty in learning to read, it cannot be reliably diagnosed until your child is the age at which reading typically begins. For most children this happens around the age of six. The following are some common characteristics that may be signs of dyslexia in preschool-age children:
- Jumbling sounds of words in speech, such as saying “pasgetti” for spaghetti” or “mawn lower” for lawn mover.”
- Confusing words signifying direction in space or time, such as “up” and “down,” “in” and “out,” “yesterday” and “tomorrow.”
- Forgetting or confusing the word for known objects, such as “table” or “chair.”
- Delayed speech development.
- Unusual speech patterns, such as frequent hesitations or stammering.
- Difficulty with learning.
- Difficulty remembering and following directions.
- Difficulty learning nursery rhymes and rhyming words.
- Difficulty in learning (and remembering) names of letters.
- Enjoys being read to but shows no interest in letters or words.
- Difficulty with clapping a simple rhythm.
In most cases you will probably not be aware that your child has dyslexia until he is in first or second grade. When reading instruction begins in earnest, your child is likely to lag behind and will begin to show signs of frustration at school. After several months, you may realize that your child simply hasn’t caught on to reading in the same way as his peers. He may still have difficulty recognizing letters of the alphabet, or he may know the letters and their sounds but seem unable to put them together to form even simple words. You may notice that he seems unable to remember words that he has seen before and struggles to sound out every word he sees.
The surest sign of dyslexia is simply the fact that your child seems bright and capable at home and at play, yet he struggles with reading, writing, and spelling. School-aged children with dyslexia will exhibit many of the following symptoms:
- Confusing letters with similar appearances, such as “b” and “d” or “e” and “c.”
- Writing that contains frequent reversals, transpositions, or inversions.
- Difficult remembering common sight words, even after repeated practice.
- Stumbling, hesitating, or making mistakes or omissions when reading small, easy words like “and” or “from.”
- Spelling phonetically and inconsistently such as writing “foniks” for “phonics” or “skul” for “school.”
- Complaining of dizziness, headaches, or stomachaches while reading.
Your first indication that something is wrong may be complaints from your child’s teacher about his behavior and problems he is experiencing at school. Many behavior problems stem from the dyslexia itself; your child’s teacher may complain that he doesn’t pay attention or follow directions, or that he is slow to complete class work. These issues may be the direct result of your child’s confusion and inability to understand much of what is going on around him. Other behavior problems may be deliberate and could be an expression of his frustration and anger; he may intentionally try to disrupt the class to create distractions so as to avoid having to complete his work. He would rather be known as the class clown than the class “dummy.” He may even want to incur punishment, if punishment means being sent to sit in the hallway or principal’s office. To a child with dyslexia, such punishment can be a welcome reprieve from the torture of the classroom. Some common behavior problems that your child’s teacher may report are:
- Laziness, carelessness, or immaturity
- Daydreaming
- Disruptive behavior
- Being easily distracted
- Resistance to following directions
- Reluctance to work on assignments
If you suspect that your child has dyslexia, you will want to seek testing and a diagnosis. Diagnostic testing will help you better understand your child and may guide you to make better choices. Ideally, testing should give you a map of your child’s strong and weak points, and a set of recommendations as to how best to meet his educational needs.
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Karina Richland, M.A. is the Founder of PRIDE Learning Centers, located in Los Angeles and Orange County. Ms. Richland is a Certified reading and learning disability specialist. Ms. Richland speaks frequently to parents, teachers, and professionals on learning differences, and writes for several journals and publications. You can visit the PRIDE Learning Center website at: www.pridelearningcenter.com
by PRIDE Reading Program Admin | Nov 5, 2013 | A PRIDE Post, Autistic Spectrum
Autism Spectrum Disorders include difficulties with nonverbal communication, socialization, and empathy. Children diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder have difficulty understanding what other people are saying, need help playing with other children, thrive on routines, and find unfamiliar situations difficult. Symptoms in these children can range from very mild to severe social and cognitive delays. This disorder is not necessarily associated with any reading disabilities, but many children with autism struggle with reading difficulties due to language delays.
Autism is a complex developmental disability that typically appears during the first three years of a child’s life. A child with autism will process and respond to information in interesting ways. Although some children can function at a relatively high level, many children with autism have serious cognitive impairments or intellectual disabilities, and some never gain the capability to speak. A child with autism may seem closed off and shut down or locked into repetitive behaviors and rigid patterns of thinking. They might avoid eye contact and resist physical contact, such as hugging, or may have frequent temper tantrums or remain fixated on a single item or activity such as spinning objects. Also, sensitivity to pain could be higher or lower than typical.
The severity of autism can vary, ranging from mild to severe. Children with mild to moderate symptoms are considered “high-functioning.” Two children may share the diagnosis of autism, but behave very differently and have very different skill sets as well as abilities.
Children diagnosed with Autism often struggle in reading and writing skills. These children might have poor phonemic awareness abilities due to the auditory processing problems, which are common in children with ASD. Receptive language problems may also be present in these children. If you can’t hear the sounds, you can’t say the sounds and finally, you can’t read the sounds!
Hyperlexia is a condition where a child demonstrates an early and intense fascination with letters, numbers, patterns and logos, and a self-taught gifted ability to read, spell, write, or calculate, usually before the age of five. At the same time, these children have major difficulty understanding and using oral language skills, as well as socializing and interacting appropriately with people.
Although the early achievement of reading ability makes hyperlexia seem very different than a reading disability, both conditions are rooted in difficulties with understanding and using language. A child diagnosed with hyperlexia is often highly intelligent, learning best from visually presented information. This child can easily manipulate and understand written symbols for language and concepts, and decodes and encodes quite well. They also can read very fluently. Children diagnosed with hyperlexia usually read well but struggle considerable in the area of reading comprehension. Specific comprehension strategies need to be taught to these children including summarizing, making inferences, finding the main ideas, visualizing while reading and understanding and learning new vocabulary.
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Karina Richland, M.A. is the Founder and Director of PRIDE Learning Centers, located in Los Angeles and Orange County. Ms. Richland is a certified reading and learning disability specialist. Ms. Richland speaks frequently to parents, teachers, and professionals on learning differences, and writes for several journals and publications. You can visit the PRIDE Learning Center website at: www.pridelearningcenter.com
by PRIDE Reading Program Admin | Oct 18, 2013 | Dyslexia
October is National Dyslexia Awareness Month and a local dyslexia-tutoring center in San Clemente, California is offering free reading assessments.
Owner of PRIDE Learning Center in San Clemente, Karina Richland, reports, “Dyslexia is a learning disability that affects about 20% of the nation. That means that one out of every five children in the San Clemente classroom struggles with dyslexia.” Richland, a dyslexia specialist and owner of 5 dyslexia-tutoring centers throughout Los Angeles and Orange County says “Most children with dyslexia in this area go undiagnosed for years. With early detection, proper intervention, and certain accommodations in school, dyslexics can actually improve their reading skills dramatically.”
Warning Signs in School-Age Children
• Child uses memory skills in reading not decoding strategies
• Reads a word on one page but doesn’t recognize it on the next page
• Confuses look alike letters like b and d, b and p, n and u, or m and w
• Makes many reversals
• Substitutes a word while reading that means the same thing
• When reading leaves out or adds small words like “a, the, to, are, of”
• Reading fluency is poor
• Avoids reading as much as possible
• Misspells many words
• Writes illegibly
• Appears lazy, unmotivated, or frustrated
“The sooner a child with dyslexia is given proper instruction, particularly in the very early grades, the more likely it is that they will have fewer or milder difficulties later in life” states Richland.
PRIDE Learning Center provides one-on-one reading help for students with learning differences, including dyslexia, auditory and or visual processing disorder and ADHD. PRIDE specializes in an Orton-Gillingham reading approach for students struggling with dyslexia.
Parents or grandparents can bring their child in October 21st – October 25th for a free assessment that will measure their reading abilities. To schedule an appointment contact the San Clemente PRIDE Learning Center at 949-284-8015 or visit the website at www.pridelearningcenter.com
by PRIDE Reading Program Admin | Oct 14, 2013 | Dyslexia, Pride Newport Beach
October is National Dyslexia Month and a local tutoring center in Newport Beach is helping spread awareness by offering free assessments, resources and special events throughout the month of October.
Owner of PRIDE Learning Center in Newport Beach, Karina Richland, reports, “Dyslexia is a learning disability that affects about 20% of the nation. That means that one out of every five children in the Newport Beach classroom struggles with dyslexia.” Richland, a dyslexia specialist and owner of 5 dyslexia-tutoring centers throughout Los Angeles and Orange County says “Most children with dyslexia in this area go undiagnosed for years. With early detection, proper intervention, and certain accommodations in school, dyslexics can actually improve their reading skills dramatically.”
Warning Signs in School-Age Children
• Child uses memory skills in reading not decoding strategies
• Reads a word on one page but doesn’t recognize it on the next page
• Confuses look alike letters like b and d, b and p, n and u, or m and w
• Makes many reversals
• Substitutes a word while reading that means the same thing
• When reading leaves out or adds small words like “a, the, to, are, of”
• Reading fluency is poor
• Avoids reading as much as possible
• Misspells many words
• Writes illegibly
• Appears lazy, unmotivated, or frustrated
“The sooner a child with dyslexia is given proper instruction, particularly in the very early grades, the more likely it is that they will have fewer or milder difficulties later in life” states Richland.
PRIDE Learning Center provides one-on-one reading help for students with learning differences, including dyslexia, auditory and or visual processing disorder and ADHD. PRIDE specializes in an Orton-Gillingham reading approach for students struggling with dyslexia.
Throughout the month of October, parents or grandparents can bring their child in for a free assessment that will measure their reading abilities. To schedule an appointment contact the Newport Beach PRIDE Learning Center at 949-891-0125 or visit the website at www.pridelearningcenter.com
