ok.. I am not sure who I should be more upset with...
Myself for not having sat down with him sooner or his past dozen teachers for not realising they had failed him on the most basic level!
Chilly is illiterate. Its been breaking my heart for a long time. I will confess that I have tried to sit with him to read a book before, but I am not really a teacher so I really had no idea where to start or how to approach it and became frustrated. More with myself than him because I just couldn't fix it.
Today after dinner and waiting on dessert I sat down with him and Angels year 7&8 spelling list. As he is in year 7 I wanted to see what words he could spell and some of them are rather freakishly easy. It was after the second word where he said I for the R sound that it occurred to me.
We revisited the alphabet. We wrote down every letter, enunciated every sound. Then with the alphabet in front of him to 'remind' him of the sounds, I wrote down phonetical words. He read every single one. With every word he read I gave him praise. I worked with him on contractions and showed him syllables to break the word down and make reading it easier. And he read. Unassisted, unaided, unprompted.
Now he wants books, world lists, anything with words. All of a sudden a light went on and he has realised he can read and he wants to.
Surely it cant have been this simple all along???? I cannot really have just fixed 6 years of trouble in 15 minutes?? WTF?
Obviously we shall continue working. We need to broach silent letters and non-phonetical words next, but for now we are just utterly thrilled to have him starting out with reading words confidently!
Illiterate DS.... epiphany moment!
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