Sounding Out Longer Words!
Kids with Dyslexia Struggle to Sound Out Words
If your child has dyslexia, then you know how hard it is to sound out longer words. That’s because a child with dyslexia usually has a weak decoding foundation.
Decoding is the backbone of reading.
But, what exactly is decoding?
According to dictionary.com, decoding is defined as knowing how to pronounce letters or combinations of letters that symbolize specific sounds.
Decoding is hard for kids with dyslexia for a lot of different reasons. To begin with, kids with dyslexia learn differently than other children. That doesn’t mean they aren’t smart! One of the symptoms of dyslexia is average or above average intelligence.
Kids with dyslexia usually have a difficult time processing visual and auditory information. Because of this, they are hands-on or tactile learners. That means they learn by doing, not by seeing or hearing. In order to learn how to decode words, kids with dyslexia need movement!
Not just any movement will do, though. If your child has dyslexia, then gross motor movement is needed. These are large muscle movements. Traditional reading programs fail dyslexic learners by not allowing large movement with learning.
Traditional Reading Programs and Methods Don’t Work for Kids with Dyslexia!
Traditional reading programs rely heavily on phonics, flash cards, and “drill and kill” methods of teaching decoding to children. This works for most children, but for kids with dyslexia, it’s a decoding death sentence.
The other key ingredient for decoding success that kids with dyslexia need is a multi-sensory approach to decoding. This means your child learns to decode through visual, auditory, and kinesthetic activities. Since the visual and auditory senses are weak in children with dyslexia, this gives them a triple whammy of learning! It’s a way of learning that resonates with them because they have three senses involved instead of just two.
These two methods alone make a huge difference in the dyslexic child’s ability to decode words with success!
Phonemic Awareness – the Next Missing Piece to Decoding Success
Research tells us that kids with dyslexia do best with decoding when they are strong in phonemic awareness. Phonemic awareness is the ability to recognize and manipulate spoken parts of words, including initial letters, syllables, and phonemes.
Phonemes are small units of sound that make up our language. They are perceptually distinct sound units that distinguish one word from another. Examples of phonemes are “at”, “ib”, “ub”, “ex”, and “op”. There are forty-four phonemes that make up our language.
Phonemic Awareness is the Foundation of Decoding
If a child with dyslexia has a solid foundation with phonemes and phonemic awareness, then decoding is easier. This is because our words are built out from these forty-four sound units. As your child becomes more and more familiar with phonemes, it’s not so scary to add onto these small units of sound and decode multi-syllable words.
Kids with dyslexia usually do well decoding the first syllable of a word. It’s the second and third syllables that get to them. There are a lot of different reasons for this. They fatigue due to poor sensory processing skills. They panic because there are just too many letters in big words. They don’t think they can sound out a multi-syllable word, so they resort to guessing at the word, and bad habit are developed.
The Three Pillars of Poor Reading
When your child’s decoding and phonemic awareness skills are weak, then bad habits set in. There are Three Pillars of Poor Reading that kids with dyslexia resort to when these skills are weak.
Guessing at Words – the Worst Decoding Culprit
The first Pillar of Poor Reading is guessing at words. Kids with dyslexia are masters at this, but it only serves to hurt them in the long run. Guessing at words isn’t a decoding strategy. It’s simply a bad habit.
At some point, your child came across a new or unfamiliar word while reading. It was too daunting to decode, so your child took a wild stab at it. Either the word was read incorrectly or correctly.
If it was read correctly, then a sense of satisfaction develops and guessing becomes the new “decoding strategy”. If the word was read incorrectly, then bad feelings and fear set in. The next time it happens, more guessing occurs. Bad habits rule instead of sound decoding strategies.
Out of all three Pillars of Poor Reading, guessing at words is the most common, and the most harmful.
Memorizing Words is Too Laborious and Slow!
The second Pillar of Poor Reading is memorizing words. At first, this seems like a sound strategy, because at least there is a bit of strategy involved. But memorizing words is lethal for decoding words. The problem is that there are one million words in the English language.
That’s a lot of words to memorize.
Usually, kids with dyslexia have weak visual and auditory memory skills, so memorizing words isn’t the best route for them. When memorization is the key decoding “strategy” children use, they will resort to guessing at words again, because the words can’t always be pulled successfully from memory banks.
Your child is left with guessing…once more.
Trial and Error Reading is too Random
Finally, the last Pillar of Poor Reading is trial and error reading. This is when your child randomly applies reading and spelling rules while decoding. The key word here is random. Because there is a huge lack of strategy, then decoding of words is sporadic.
When rules are applied sporadically or randomly, then answers arrive in the same way. For reading, it’s crucial that your child has decoding skills to sound out words so words aren’t read randomly. If a word is read one way one day and another way another day, then comprehension and fluency are both affected in a negative way.
Here’s the good news. The Three Pillars of Poor Reading are nothing more than bad habits that can be corrected. Results are usually seen in as little as three weeks!
Dyslexia and Decoding
Kids with dysexia don’t learn like other children. That’s already been established. Decoding is difficult for them because of this. Traditional reading programs fail kids with dyslexia. They speak the wrong “learning language”, and chaos ensues.
But when taught with the right methods, when the correct “learning language” is spoken, kids with dyslexia can learn to decode, and to do it well.
Did you know that twenty percent of all school children have dyslexia? It’s a common problem that just isn’t being dealt with. But dealing with dyslexia isn’t that hard.
Kids with Dyslexia Learn Differently than Others
To begin with, we have enough research to know how kids with dyslexia learn. They learn through gross motor movement, color, pictures, rhythm, and in a tactile manner. They are usually right-brain dominant children who are extremely creative.
But schools these days cater to left-brain dominant children. Phonics, flashcards, and “drill and kill” worksheets are all geared toward the left-brain dominant child. If you’ve ever tried these methods with your child and they didn’t work, then you weren’t speaking the right “learning language” with your child.
And that’s simply because you used a tool that might have worked for you but simply won’t work for your dyslexic child.
Right-brain Dominant Activities Helps Kids with Dyslexia Decode Words
Kids with dyslexia soar when they’re allowed to use their right-brain dominant tendencies for sounding out words. When teaching uses movement, kids with dyslexia get it! When brain-based methodologies are used, they start connecting dots. When they receive a multi-sensory way to learn, they get to rely on their tactile sense of learning while putting their weaker visual and auditory skills on the back burner.
The Decoding Foundation
If listening to your child read makes you cringe, then your child probably has poor decoding skills. This is because some skills weren’t learned or picked up along the way. Of course, poor decoding skills directly affect reading fluency and comprehension scores.
The real problem happens when your child isn’t taught to skills mastery. This means your child was given a more difficult set of decoding skills to perform before lower-level skills were mastered. Decoding skills become a big mystery when this happens.
Knowing All Letter Sounds – the First Step of Strong Decoding Skills
The first step to strong decoding skills is to know letter sounds, including all long and short vowels, with automaticity. This means your child knows letter sounds automatically without having to use conscious thought. Typing, riding a bike, and driving are examples of things you do that require automaticity. Reading requires it as well.
When your child doesn’t know letter sounds with automaticity and is then asked to go straight to sounding out three-syllable words, then there are gaps in your child’s reading foundation. Your child needs practice time with sounding out two-syllable words before attempting three-letter words. Even worse, your child shouldn’t be asked to blend any letters together until all letter sounds are known with automaticity.
This is like asking you to drive a car without wheels!
If your child struggles with learning letter sounds, check out the Bravo! Beginner. The Bravo! Beginner uses brain-based learning, color, pictures, gross-motor movements, predictability, and a multi-sensory approach to help your child learn letter sounds quickly and easily. This is the fastest way for your child to learn letter sounds – including difficult long and short vowels. The Bravo! Beginner is tailored to teach your child letter sounds in a way that works for kids who struggle to learn – not for mainstream society.
If your child is having a hard time blending letters together, check out the FREE Bravo! Punch Pack. It gives your child solid multi-sensory practice in decoding two-letter words so that sounding out three-letter words can be a breeze!
Make Reading an Easy Process for Your Child!
Help your child overcome reading problems and save money with the Complete Bravo! Reading System! The Complete Bravo! Reading System includes all Bravo! Reading materials for a fraction of the cost of buying them individually.
For just $399.99, you’ll receive all eleven levels of the Bravo! Reading System, the Bravo! Beginner, and all Bravo! Reading Expansion Packs.
The expansion packs you’ll receive are the Bravo! Booster Pack, the Bravo! Super Booster Pack, the Bravo! Decoder Pack, the Bravo! Race from Reversals Pack, and the Bravo “Seeing” for Reading Pack.
A value of $1969.83! for only $399.99!
The Bravo! Reading System Gives Your Child Decoding Skills that Make Reading Easy
The Bravo! Beginner and the Bravo! Expansion Pack are Icing on the Cake!
The Bravo! Snap Pack
An Amazing Free Resource for Decoding
The Bravo! Reading Snap Pack is an awesome FREE resource to help your child blend three-letter words together – quick as a snap! This is the third step to building a strong decoding foundation.
The first skill your child needs is the ability to sound out letters with automaticity. From there, your child must be able to sound out two-letter words. Only then is it time for three-letter words.
Three letter words are especially problematic to kids with dyslexia. This is because they are usually weak in visual memory skills. Three-letter words have three symbols.
Visual Memory Affects Decoding Abilities
Most kids with dyslexia can only retain two or three symbols in visual memory. This means it’s a challenge to sound out three-letter words.
Unless they’re taught in ways that resonate with them!
The Bravo! Reading Snap Pack uses a multi-sensory approach along with gross motor movements to help drive in three-letter word decoding. These words are in the traditional consonant-vowel-consonant lineup.
Traditional Methods Don’t Work for Kids with Dyslexia
Traditional methods of teaching consonant-vowel-consonant words won’t work with a child who has dyslexia. There are many reasons for this. For starters, traditional methods are weak in large motor movement. They also rely heavily on left-brain dominant methodologies. And of course, phonemic awareness isn’t addressed well enough, sometimes not at all.
The biggest problem, though is that lower-level skills are still too weak for the dyslexic reader to have strong decoding skills. Letter sounds and blending of two-letter words is still too weak. They aren’t equipped to sound out three-letter words until their decoding foundation is strong!
How the Bravo! Snap Pack Works
Your child will love using dot dabbers or bingo markers on extra-large print to sound out three-letter words! The first step is to pound the small target (Bravo! Bullseye) beneath the letter tile with a dot dabber while at the same time saying the sound of the letter out loud.
This gross motor movement meets the dyslexic child’s need for movement to learn. The added multi-sensory component of auditory and visual cues help set in the skill.
Next, your child pounds on the Bravo! Bullseye beneath the second letter tile, which is the vowel. All vowel sounds are short so your child isn’t overloaded with exceptions to rules. Like before your child dabs the target while saying the sound of the letter out loud at the same time.
The third tile is repeated in the same way. Your child pounds on the Bravo! Bullsey beneath the last letter tile while saying the sound of the letter out loud at the same time.
Chunking of Words is Just Breaking them Apart then Building them Back Up
This breaking apart of the word is called chunking. Your child reads small chunks of the word instead of the entire word while engaging in large motor movement and an auditory cue. This is how kids with dyslexia learn best, and it sets in decoding skills better than any other method. As a bonus, by chunking, your child doesn’t get overwhelmed with too many letters at once.
Finally, your child gets the chance to blend the same three letters together. Your child slides the dot dabber over the Bravo! Bolt (a large arrow with a target on it) while saying the sound of the letters together out loud at the same time.
It’s that simple!
By using gross motor movement, dyslexic readers shine! This is because most dyslexic learners are kinesthetic or hands-on learners. Movement is their jam! It’s their road to reading success! Add in color, pictures, predictability, brain-based learning, and a multi-sensory approach, and your dyslexic reader will be decoding three-letter words in no time!
A Sample Page from the Bravo! Snap Pack
- The Bravo! Snap Pack is a shorter snapshot of Level 2 of the Bravo! Reading System. Once readers master two-letter words (in the Bravo! Punch Pack and Level 1 of the Bravo! Reading System), they are ready to sound out three-letter words in the consonant/vowel/consonant pattern.
- This easy to use decoding system was designed for children with dyslexia, but it works for anyone. Even better, it’s the perfect, FREE solution to help your child increase decoding skills
- Before using the Snap Pack, readers need to know letter sounds and have the ability to blend two letters together. If your reader doesn’t automatically have this skill-set, we highly recommend using the Bravo! Beginner for letter sounds and Level 1 of the Bravo! Reading System for complete two-letter word mastery or at least an introduction of two-letter words with the Bravo! Punch Pack.
- When your learner masters three-letter words in the Bravo! Snap Pack, a reading and decoding foundation is built! Your child is now ready to start building on that strong foundation!
- You will receive the Bravo! Snap Pack immediately as a digital file. We highly recommend printing it off and using it with dot dabbers and bingo markers. However, you can use the Bravo! Snap Pack on a tablet or a computer.
- Download the FREE Bravo! Snap Pack to help your child learn to blend three-letter words together. It’s a crucial stepping stone to help your child strengthen decoding skills, which translates to higher levels of reading comprehension and fluency! And even better, it works like a snap!
Just fill out the form below, and you’ll have instant access to the Bravo! Snap Pack!
