Let Your APD Kid Watch the Movie BEFORE Reading the Book

We had an interesting discussion today on our (Central) Auditory Processing Disorder Support Group about watching movies BEFORE reading the book.

Remember in school how the teachers always made you read the book first and then you got to see the movie; it was the prize after the book was read.  We were told how it was better that we use our own minds to visualize the characters and the scenes before some movie producer does it for us. Being a strong reader, I never questioned this and always did as I was told.  I visualized quite well in my head what I was reading and so didn't feel I needed the movie - it was just a simple pleasure at the end, like dessert after a good meal.

However, our kids with auditory processing disorder aren't usually what one would call a "strong" reader.  They struggle with language processing and often have more difficulty reading and comprehending larger pieces of fiction or non-fiction for that matter.  Their world often relies on visuals and experiences to make meaning.  That is why we give them multi-sensory learning experiences.  That is why we teach math visually.  That is why we incorporate kinesthetics into memorizing facts.

So it only makes sense that watching the movie BEFORE reading the book would aid tremendously in their comprehension and facility in reading the book.

I hadn't really thought enough about this before.  I just noticed anecdotally that my daughter enjoys and comprehends books better that she has previously watched the movie for.  Then when other parents were commenting on the same evidence in their own children, it clicked.

When I was a first grade teacher, I remember learning in my educator prep classes that the thought was children who don't have experiences with the subject matter have more difficulty comprehending the stories.  It has to do with what is called scaffolding and how the brain interprets and retains information. The more experience we have with a topic, the easier it is for our brains to understand and store new information related to that topic.  Think about it - the topics you know well you probably just breeze through learning more about while the ones you are unfamiliar with take a lot longer to read, figure out, and remember in the long run.

So keeping this in mind, we can utilize all we have to help our kids comprehend what they read better.  They can watch the movies.  They can watch documentaries on the topics like Ancient Egypt if that is what they are learning or The Great Depression if that is what the story in the novel is about. They can go to the beach and see tidal pools (if you live nearby) before studying about them in school.  All this multi-sensory exposure helps tremendously!

So to wrap up this rather longish post of me talking about the obvious of using visual and kinesthetic experiences and materials to help our children with auditory processing disorder learn best, I'll just say:

Let them watch the movie BEFORE reading the book!

(And if they are anything like my daughter, they'll watch the movie, watch it again, read the book, and then watch the movie again, and then want to discuss how the book and movie are different.  Along the way, they'll figure out how language and visuals connect, build their reading comprehension skills, understand how interpretation works, how time constraints play into productions, what is considered relevant to the plot and what is not  and therefore can be left out of the movie, etc.  All is good!)

Curriculum in the Homeschool: What We Have Used for Our APD Daughter for Language Arts

Curriculum is one of those hard questions for many homeschoolers.  Some choose not to use a curriculum, some choose to use a boxed set by one company for all the subjects, some choose different ones for each subjects, some pick and choose different resources as needed/desired, and some make up their own.

There are paper products like hardback books and workbooks and teacher's guides.  There are online products such as websites that have all the subjects or just one of the subjects.  There are hands-on materials such math manipulatives and art and science projects.  There are board games and videos and computer games.  There are real world resources like the grocery store, the animal shelter, and the local farm.  There are museums and re-enactment places and events.  So, the resources are there and homeschoolers are free to be as creative with them as we desire.

So when most people ask about curriculum, what they are wanting is usually the paper and pencil type workbooks or computer programs/websites for the skills such as reading, writing, and mathematics.

When people ask me for advice, I can tell them what I have used and why.  However, it might not be the best fit for their child.  So my first and foremost best advice is to get to know your child and what types of activities and presentation styles work best for him or her.  Some kids need to actually touch things like math manipulatives.  Some kids need a visual of the big picture while others want it step-by-step and don't confuse them with too much at once.  All kids with APD are going to need it to not be only auditory.

So here are some of the Language Arts materials/resources I have used with my sweet girl Hailey along the way:

Phonics and Early Readers:
We went to a reading specialist and Hailey was taught using the Lindamood Bell LiPS program* with a combined Orton/Gillingham approach.  There we were introduced to the Educators Publishing Service Primary Phonics readers.  They are interesting for readers (most are horribly boring and some don't even make sense) and they build on the skills very sequentially and with lots of repetition.  I actually used them for all three of my kids.

If you need direct instruction in how to teach phonics, I would look into a book that teaches you the parent how to teach phonics.  Also, there are websites that do a good job with teaching phonics such as Time 4 Learning; we did some Time 4 Learning and it presents phonics in a very easy to understand and fun way for younger kids.  There are also other great websites and programs out there for phonics, but I haven't personally used them.

There are also all sorts of phonemic awareness games you can play with your children.  Look for a book of suggestions geared toward the parent/teacher and you will soon realize how easy it is to incorporate these into everyday life.  An example would be going to the grocery store and looking for produce that start with /b/ sound or cutting out pictures from a magazine of /b/ sounds or rhyming words for the fun of it as a car game, etc.

Oh yes, one last thing I do not want to forget.  With having APD (auditory processing disorder), it really helped Hailey early on to use a lot of tactile, movement, and visuals for learning.  So she had a baking sheet with sand in it to draw letters in and she would tap the letters to sight words on her arms and write in big letters in the air and walk out words by each step being a new letter.  She would write letters and draw them into pictures as ways to remember them like an M can become a mountain. These multi-sensory additions really made the learning stick in her memory much better. I've seen some books online that teach multi-sensory approaches to phonics and reading, so those would probably have a lot of good suggestions.  When I have time in the future, I will try to read some and see if I can make a suggestion of one in particular I like.

(Rhyming was always an impossibility for Hailey with her APD and she still struggles with it to some extent even though she reads very well now.  So don't worry if they can't do some particular skill; they may not need to.)

Just Past Early Readers: 
I gave Hailey a combination of the bookstore early readers like Step Into Reading and DK Readers. She loved being able to pick out her own books and there were a variety of levels and subjects.  As a foresight, the DK Readers are a little harder than the Step Into Reading, so your child may be at a level 4 Step Into Reading and only a level 3 in DK Readers.  Don't worry about the level written on the books and what grade they are supposed to be for; just look for ones that your child can read without too much difficulty.

If comprehension is proving to be difficult, check out my post about comprehension strategies here: http://apdhailey.blogspot.com/2013/06/some-reading-comprehension-strategies-i.html

More Reading and Comprehension:
Then Hailey moved into some comprehension workbooks called Early Reading Comprehension in Varied Subject Matter by Jane Ervin; these have passages to read and then questions about the passage such as main idea, details, vocabulary, and writing about it.  She loved these workbooks and felt a real sense of accomplishment from doing them.

From there, she moved to the Reading Comprehension in Varied Subject Matter by Jane Ervin which are a higher level of the same thing but with more in-depth questions like going beyond the facts, true/false, writer's style and techniques, etc.

Novels:
Novels have not been something Hailey has been able to accomplish on her own yet.  The length is just too long for her as she starts to feel overwhelmed and gets frustrated.  She has read entire series of graphic novels and we have read novels together - her and I - in which we take turns reading a chapter (or if she is feeling too overwhelmed to read, then I just read) and we stop and discuss them along the way.

I have also used a lot of movies as an introduction to great works of literature.  They don't build her reading skills, but they do build her literary base to some extent.  At least she knows the basic storylines and I think that will be helpful in her future.  Besides, she loves watching them.

Vocabulary:
Obviously a child's vocabulary is developing all the time and the influence comes in many, many ways: language used in the house, language on movies and television, language in the reading, language of friends, etc.  So I have always tried to just push the limits of Hailey's vocabulary by using a little more complicated vocabulary at home as fit the circumstances and she was able to understand.  With her APD (auditory processing disorder), I have to be careful to integrate the new vocabulary slowly and appropriately, or she would be overwhelmed.

Just recently, at Hailey's request, she started in a series called Wordly Wise 3000 by Educators Publishing Service to build her vocabulary and it also has reading comprehension passages as well as word study with the vocabulary and things like synonyms, antonyms, prefixes, suffixes, Latin roots, etc.  This work is to help prepare her for college and specifically the college placement exam, as she wants to attend community college as a high schooler.

Punctuation and Grammar:
With punctuation, I opted to teach it along with the reading and writing.  So when we came to a period in reading, I explained the use of it. Then when we came to an exclamation point or quotation marks, etc. we read the piece appropriately using those punctuation marks as our cues.  In her writing, when I edit it, I point out the need for or appropriate use of punctuation.

I've done grammar pretty much the same way for the basics: nouns, verbs, pronouns, adverbs, adjectives.  I have not taught her beyond those yet.  However, with her desire to attend college so soon, we have started to review the basics and learn the more advanced like prepositional phrases, etc.  I actually bought her Schoolhouse Rock  to watch and she is enjoying those.  I also have a workbook called Premium Education Series Language Arts which focuses on grammar and punctuation.

Writing:
For writing, I've always let Hailey write what she wants to write.  She also writes at the end of those reading comprehension books she likes to do.

When she was little, she mostly drew pictures as her way of "writing".  She made stories out of a series of pictures.  Then sometimes she would add words or sentences here and there and I would help her as needed.

Now when she writes, she asks me for help in spelling as needed and then to look it over and edit it for her; so we do that together and I am careful to not be too picky. I just basically  look for spelling, grammar, and punctuation mistakes. If she has none, then I might suggest ways to enhance it such as adding more descriptive words, etc. Just recently, she has started asking me to write things for her to correct; so I write things with incorrect spelling, punctuation, capitalization, etc and she finds my mistakes.  She loves doing this! It has become like a game for her.

*

With all that said, I do not make Hailey do work in her workbooks every day.  She is very self-motivated and wants to do them, but if she is having a tough day or we are having a lot to do that day, then I tell her that we should take a break.  She will get overwhelmed easily and she pushes herself way too hard sometimes. I am the one who keeps reminding her that there is no hurry and she needs to monitor her energy and stress levels, etc., because she will overdue it and wear herself out.  So you know your child with APD (auditory processing disorder) and you will have to figure out what he/she needs as far as motivation/limit setting.  Please do remember, though, that people with APD can get mentally fatigued very easily due to the auditory processing demands and so if your child needs a break, give it to her/him.  Keep the work down to a timeframe that is manageable for your child to not get stressed out and if you see her/him getting stressed out, then move to something comforting and destressing; there really is no hurry to learn any particular thing at any particular time.

As this is so long already, I will write what materials we have used for mathematics in another post. My plan is to accomplish the mathematics post tomorrow.


*  The Lindamood Bell LiPS program is a program that incorporates the look and feel of the lips, tongue, and mouth when producing sounds.  This was the only way Hailey was able to differentiate between sounds such as /b/ and /p/ that sounds alike to her.  Here is a link to the post I wrote about her difficulties in phonemic awareness and how we found the LiPS program to be the only thing that helped her: http://apdhailey.blogspot.com/2013/01/phonemic-awareness-for-my-child-with.html

Perseverance, My Daughter with APD, and Her Latest Goal

"Perseverance: steady persistance in a course of action, a purpose, a state, etc., especially in spite of difficulties, obstacles, or discouragement." http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/perseverance

I love this definition of perseverance from FreeDictionary.com and it totally describes the go-getter, never-let-anything-get-in-the-way nature of my sweet Hailey.  I don't know if it is her auditory processing disorder which has made life so much more difficult for her or just her nature as she is, but Hailey has always persevered.

Recently Hailey (who is 12 1/2 years old at the moment) has decided that rather than being an artist for a living or opening a bakery or any of the other thoughts she has had about a future career, she will be an occupational therapist.  She wants to help children who have disabilities or special needs and she is particularly interested in working with sensory processing disorder.

If you knew Hailey, you would know that she doesn't just decide something, but she makes a commitment to her decisions!  She insisted that we immediately find out all we could about occupational therapists and exactly what she has to do to become one.  So we found out that one of our local community colleges has an associates program in occupational therapy and the college accepts students as young as 14 years old (although perhaps not in the associates program per se). Yup! You guessed it; Hailey wants to go when she is 14.

So she made the decision, found out the path is to go to the community college (and later to a university for her masters degree), and has decided her current plan of action.  She wants to take a few classes at a local homeschool co-op in order to get comfortable being in a class; put a large emphasis on improving her writing skills; learn higher level math (we're going to try pre-algebra); and learn sign language. These are all her goals that she came up with! She told me that she wants to be sure the community college will accept her at age 14 as someone capable of taking their classes.

She really does put a lot of pressure on herself and so I try to be supportive and yet help her to realize that she doesn't have to accomplish everything right away and she doesn't have to go to college at 14 years old. (My plan is for one class at a time at the community college, but she insists she will handle two at a time.) Yes, she is determined!  As she put it to me, "I want to DO something with my life and I'm tired of waiting!" (Hmm.... this makes me wonder about our society's lack of opportunities for teens to do more.)

Anyway, I have no idea if she will go to the community college at 14; we'll have to wait and see. What I do know is that she has perseverance and she will accomplish all she sets out to accomplish in life, or change her mind along the way and set her sights on new goals as she sees fit and then accomplish those.

So what do you think?  Has APD made you or your child more perseverant?

Some Reading Comprehension Strategies I Have Found Useful

Reading comprehension can be a problem for many children and adults, not just those with specific learning disabilities.  The process of reading written words and making meaning out of them is not something that just comes easily for everybody.  However, there are things that you as a parent or teacher can do to help your child, your student, or even yourself be a better comprehending reader.

The study of reading comprehension is complex and involves many areas of expertise.  There are beginning strategies and advanced strategies depending on the type of reading one is doing.  So for this post, which I’d like to keep simple, I’m just going to share some basic ideas and use the terms “your child” which you can substitute as your student or yourself as fits.

• Model reading comprehension to your child:  Regardless of what age your child is, read aloud something together.  As you read, stop to show your child your cognitive processes while reading. 

Example 1:

You read:  “Johnny ran down to the beach to retrieve the towel he left there.  On his way, he stumbled over a large rock and fell in the sand.  His wet body felt scratchy covered with the harsh sand.”

You stop and say aloud: “Oh poor Johnny.  That must have hurt.  Do you remember when we went to the beach and you fell in the sand?”  Allow for a small discussion if necessary, but not too long that you lose focus on the story.  The purpose of this dialogue is to show your child how you have pictured yourself in that situation and empathized with Johnny.  You asked the child to recall an instance from his/her past to help your child empathize with the character.  This is all you want and then direct the child back to reading the story by saying something like, “I wonder what Johnny is going to do now” and start reading again.

Example 2:

You read: “The thirty children were divided into three equal teams and told to work together on their scavenger hunt.  Maya found it difficult to concentrate on what her team speaker was saying to find as the other children were being too noisy.  She wished she could have been on a smaller team.”

You stop and say aloud: “Hmm, if there were thirty children divided into three teams, that meant Maya’s team had ten children on it. Wow!  That is a lot of children on one team.  What do you think?  Would you like to be on a scavenger hunt team with nine other children?” Then you can briefly discuss what some of the problems of being on such a large team might be.  This way you are showing how you are processing what you read, asking questions to yourself about what it means and what it would feel like, and predicting what might happen next by thinking about Maya’s dilemma. Again, keep it brief and move back to the reading as soon as possible so as not to lose focus on the reading itself.  You could segue back by saying something like, “Let’s see if Maya has some of those problems with her big team.”

(As you can see, it helps if you have read the book ahead of time too so you can better help your child focus on the issues of that particular book, but it is okay if you don’t and you make mistakes such as focusing on something – like maybe Maya’s big team problem – and then finding out that really wasn’t that important in the story.  This just shows your child how these things happen and it is okay; you model how you refocus as the story shifts.)

Example 3:

Make mistakes and show your child how you correct them.  Read something too fast and then stop saying something like, “Wait a minute.  I just read that so fast that I don’t know what I read.  Let me slow down and read that again.” 

Read something and then stop and say, “I’m confused.  I thought Margaret and Dinah didn’t like each other but here they are being friends.  What just happened?” If your child knows the answer, let him/her tell you.  If not, suggest that you go back and reread the last paragraph or sentence or as much as you think you need to find the answer.  Show your child how you do this.

Model a distraction and how to deal with it.  While reading if some noise is made nearby or the dog comes and jumps in your lap, or anything that might be a distraction happens, keep reading and then stop and say, “You know, I was reading the words but I really wasn’t paying attention.  When Fido came and jumped up in my lap, my brain started to think about Fido and even though I was reading, I didn’t really pay attention to what I was reading.  Does that ever happen to you?” Then you show how you go back and reread what you didn’t pay attention to.

• Show your child how to use visualizing techniques while reading.  This can be picturing in your head the scene or event you are reading.  It can be drawing the scene or event. It can be acting out the scene or event.

Example 1:

You read a story about a little brown dog who got lost and then saw his family across the street but had to get across the street safely to get to them.   You and your child draw a picture of the street with the little brown dog on one side and his family on the other side.

Example 2:

You read the story of the three little pigs and the big bad wolf who blows their houses down.  You and your child take turns pretending to be the pig or the wolf and act out the drama.

Example 3:

You are reading a history textbook about a civil war battle.  You tell your child to stop and imagine what that might have been like.  You tell your child to close his/her eyes and you describe the scene: “Imagine you are in a field with your friends beside you.  There is so much smoke in the air from the guns firing that it is hard to see in front of you.  You hear someone crying, but you don’t know who it is.  What would that be like?  Tell me what you see? What you feel?  What you hear?”  Try to get your child to imagine and describe a scene to you.

Example 4:

If you are reading a story that has a movie to go with it, watch the movie first.  Most teachers do it the opposite way and watch the movie only after reading the story (which has its own value as the student can use more of his/her own imagination in picturing the events if she/he hasn’t watched the movie first) but for a child with comprehension issues, watching the story first can help give a frame of reference to the reading and make it more comprehensible.  Then while reading, have your child recall back to the movie what they remember seeing during that event.

• Show your child how to summarize and put into his/her own words what has been read. This can be either oral or written, depending on the needs or style of your child.  If memory recall is an issue, writing or recording the summary is important to have it to return to later when the recall is needed.

Example:

Your child is reading a chapter book.  Your child can comprehend a paragraph pretty well, but has trouble synthesizing the paragraphs in a chapter to form a complete summary or cannot recall the information gleaned from the earlier paragraphs by the time she/he has reached the end of the chapter.

After each paragraph read in the chapter, have your child say, dictate, or write one sentence summarizing what the paragraph is about:  Was a new character introduced? Did something happen to a character? Did it describe the scene? Was a solution to a problem found?  Was a new problem introduced? Etc. 

Then after the child has gotten to the end of the chapter, the child can look back over the sentences he/she has created for each of the paragraphs to remember what was important about each paragraph.  This should give a general outline of the important events of that chapter and the child can use that to write a short paragraph to summarize that entire chapter.

After each chapter read, the child can look back at the previous summaries of each chapter she/he has created before reading the next chapter to remember what has happened so far, recall important events and facts, make predictions of what might happen in the upcoming chapter, etc.

(If your child cannot summarize a paragraph, then go back to the sentence level.  Read one sentence and have the child put into his/her own words what that sentence was about.  I wouldn’t have the child write for each sentence as that will get frustrating, so just paraphrase it orally and write a sentence at the end of the paragraph.)

(If your child finds every paragraph to be too much writing and doesn’t need that for recall, just paraphrase and write at the end of each chapter.  If your child needs that for memory recall but can’t handle the writing, then let him/her dictate to you or record it.)

So as I look back over what I wrote here and how really long this post has become, I at the same time realize that this is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of strategies for reading comprehension.  There are so many more and some that are very good and specific to different genres of writing such as the structure of poems, the form of an argumentative article, the plot of a fictional story.  Still, they are a start and hopefully offer some help to others struggling with reading comprehension.

Also, one very important thing I want to add is that these strategies can be used for comprehending movies too.  This can be especially helpful for a child who really has anxiety about reading, as the comprehension of the movie can be a start to using those same strategies with reading too.

Oh and the big, number one, best thing to do ever is: Make it fun to read! Enjoy reading with your child and spread that enthusiasm to your child. (And from my own personal experience with my kids, I've found that my oldest son prefers non-fiction or  creepy stories and my youngest son prefers fiction - especially involving animals.  My daughter likes graphic novels best, and then anything with romance and happy endings.  So find what your child enjoys to read.)

If you are really interested in learning more about reading comprehension, here are some books you might be interested in:

Mosaic of Thought, Second Edition: The Power of Comprehension Strategy Instruction

Strategies That Work: Teaching Comprehension for Understanding and Engagement

Reading with Meaning: Teaching Comprehension in the Primary Grades 

Reading Parents Influence Children to Read

Yesterday, my sweet 12 year old was talking to me about reading.  She told me that reading was very hard for her to learn and it still takes a lot of work, even though she enjoys it and finds it valuable.

Then she thought for a while and told me that she desperately had wanted to learn to read when she was little because I am her mommy and I love to write and read all the time.  She wanted to be like me.

I'm not sure what to think of that.  I am flattered that she wanted to do something that I really enjoy, but I hope that I haven't influenced her in ways to be someone different than whom she is.

-----So I read this post to her and she smiled and laughed.  Then she told me that she wants to be an artist - not a writer - and so that is nothing like me. "Don't you know little girls want to be like their moms until they get older!" she added.

(I suppose I have learned to do a lot more arts and crafts due to her, too.  So maybe children influence their parents as well.)

Reading with a Toddler who Only Likes the Pictures (APD and the small child)

When my sweet Hailey was a toddler, she hated for me to read books to her.  Her twin brother absolutely loved it and would crawl in my lap for me to read to him as much as possible.  She, on the other hand, would crawl into my lap and put her hands on my lips to signal me to stop talking!  She just wanted to sit in my lap and look at the pictures in the books.

So I let her take the lead on these book experiences for us.  She would point to something in the book and give me that longing look of "What is that?" and I would use a one-word answer, "Train". Together we would go through the books with her pointing and either telling me or asking me what each thing was.  This was how Hailey enjoyed books for many years, and I'm sure it aided in her vocabulary development.

Phonemic Awareness for my Child with Auditory Processing Disorder and Dyslexia

I wanted to touch on reading skills again and the immense troubles Hailey had learning how to read.  You see, I was a first grade teacher for years before I decided to stay home with my own children and I had been trained in teaching children phonemic awareness, phonics, and various approaches to reading and comprehension skills.  I used these same techniques on my own children from the beginning as I was reading to them as infants.

The trouble for Hailey started very young.  When she was just a toddler, she would get angry at me for reading to her.  She wanted to look at the pictures, but when I read the words, she would get mad and put her hand on my mouth to let me know she wanted me to be quiet.

As for phonemic awareness, she could not understand what I was asking her to do at all.  We played with sounds like identifying the beginning sounds of word: bananas, babies, bottles, etc.  I had toys to go with them; I had plastic letters; we played scavenger hunt games for them; and much more, but she just could NEVER do it.  Her twin brother loved it and picked it up like it was second nature.

No matter what I tried, Hailey just had no phonemic awareness.  To her, many letter sounds sounded all the same.  She could not tell the difference between sounds like /b/, /p/, /d/, /t/.  I was dumbfounded and had no idea what to do.  

I managed to locate a reading specialist about 40 minutes drive from our house who was a retired reading specialist from the public school system and now was offering private tutoring.  I made an appointment for her to see Hailey and give her some testing.  She had been trained in using The Lindamood Phoneme Sequencing® (LiPS®) Program for Reading, Spelling, and Speech and believed it would be the best solution for Hailey.

So Hailey and I started going to her once a week for an hour long lesson.  She would send home homework for us to do during the week.  The real key to this program which made everything finally make sense to Hailey was the way she taught Hailey to identify letter sounds by their oral motor sensations and the visual look when seeing someone make those sounds.  She could identify /p/ by the way the lips go together and a breath is formed at the front of the mouth and blown through the lips.  /b/ on the other hand, has a sound created in the throat that goes through closed lips and /t/ has the sound formed in the front of the mouth like /p/ but it goes through the teeth and the tongue goes up behind the teeth in front.  It sounds complicated, but for Hailey this made absolute sense and she picked it up incredibly quick.

This way of identifying sounds by their oral motor sensations and the way they look on others when being made brought Hailey the phonemic awareness she needed.  She finally could identify the different phonemes in words, rhyme words, and read words!

Not every child  with Auditory Processing Disorder has this same problem with phonemic awareness or the inability to hear the distinct letter sounds.  But if your child cannot rhyme, identify the beginning sound in words, or otherwise seems to think you are crazy when trying to teach them these things, it might be worth looking into.


-----I just wanted to add a link to the reading specialist we used in case anyone lives in the Detroit Metropolitan Area: Macomb Tutoring, LLC.

Larger, Darker Font Makes Reading with Visual Processing Disorder Easier

Good News!  

Hailey has discovered the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books and is devouring them as fast as she did the graphic novels.  She said the letters don't jump around on the pages and it's interesting and fun to read.  I think the fact that the letters are of a darker and larger font on slightly yellowed paper makes a big difference for her visual processing.

(The Diary of a Wimpy Kid books by Jeff Kinney are in the fifth grade reading level range.  So the fact that she is a sixth grader reading them fluently - yes she is reading them at a fluent speed and not slightly slower - is wonderful!)

UPDATE: I was told the Kindle Fire enables you to change the font size and color of the text as well as the background "paper" color.  I want to find out more about people's results with using this feature, especially if you have a visual processing disorder or dyslexia.  So if you can tell me anything that might help, I'm ready to listen!

Why Auditory Processing Disorder Makes Reading Difficult

Guest post by Bonnie Landau

Auditory Processing Disorder (APD) is not an issue with hearing sounds, but an issue with how the brain interprets the sounds that are heard. The challenges most often arise with spoken speech since the differences between sounds can be subtle and therefore more difficult for an individual with APD to detect. The presence of background noise can make this even more difficult.

But even without background noise, people with APD are often have difficulty distinguishing differences between similar parts of speech.  For example, you can say “Please go to your room and get your red coat,” and the person may hear “Please go on your broom and get your bed note.”

Research has shown that APD effects the ability to distinguish specific sounds, or phonemes, within speech. This causes speech to be perceived as “muddied” or “blending all together.”  As a result, when children with APD begin to read, they have difficulty learning the distinct sounds that are used to make words.

Muddied sounds makes for inconsistent learning
When a child is learning to read, the first part of that process is teaching the sounds (phonemes), and how they relate to the letters (graphemes). This is known as the alphabetic principal. In addition, the child must master phonologic awareness, or the ability to break words apart (decoding) into their phonemes and put them together (blending) to make the word.

Since children with APD often perceive similar sounds as the same, this can make it very difficult for them to learn the specific phoneme pronunciations. As a result it is very difficult for them to learn how to decode the sounds in a word.

Environment contributes to the inconsistency
Because environment effects how a child with APD interprets sounds, the classroom environment can further hamper the learning process. What they learn one day with a quiet room can sound very different the next day when the air conditioning has been turned on. When you read to your child at home it sounds very different than in a classroom of 30 kids all rustling and making noise. This inconsistenct input makes learning a struggle.

A child without APD is presented with phonics and reading exercises which are the same day-to-day. A child with APD is faced with exercises that can sound very different day-to-day. This clearly causes confusion, frustration and an extreme slowing of the learning process.

Kids with APD compensate with sight reading
Kids with APD are often very bright, and to bypass this inconsistent learning situation, they will often rely on their visual strengths to help them learn to read. As a result, they will not bother with the breaking apart (or decoding) of the words, but instead learn the word in its entirety, like memorizing a picture. The child may still struggle to hear the different words, but there is less confusion than breaking the word into specific phonemes.

At first this technique is an effective coping strategy, but as the volume of words turns into 1,000’s of words, reading becomes cumbersome and slow as they continually have to access this visual memory bank. In addition, when faced when an unknown word, the child has no tools for deciphering the word and must rely on others to teach new words.

Around a third of children try to read by sight recognition of the words and we call that pattern Optilexia. Some of them have auditory weaknesses, like APD, while others just have great visual memories and so memorizing words seems the easiest way to deal with inconsistent English spelling.

57% of kids with APD have reading difficulties
A lot of research has been done to identify causes of reading difficulties in children. Recent studies have identified a causal relationship between APD and problems learning to read (Sharma et al., 2009; Watson et al., 1993; Wright et al., 2000). In 2009 Sharma et al. did a study of 68 children diagnosed with APD. 57% of these children were found to have a reading disorder. 47% of these children were found to have a language disorder in addition to the reading difficulties.

Helping a child with APD learn to read
Clearly the auditory-only approach taken by most schools is not the optimum learning environment for a child with APD. It is best to supplement their reading instruction with a modality that engages the visual and/or kinesthetic approaches in order to expand ways the child can learn phonemes and decoding. By engaging the other senses the child has a way to verify decoding, and they can progress more rapidly in learning to read.

It is important to not use reading programs that involve a lot of language or word-structure rules which require even more auditory memory for the children. For example, having to remember a silent ‘e’ at the end of the word makes the vowel say its name.  Modalities that layer language rules on top of reading rules requires more short-term memory processing,  which children with APD often struggle with.

It would be optimum to understand the child’s strongest learning style, and choose a program that fits this strength. Then the child can have a structure that will be engaging as well as assisting in learning to read.

Bonnie is a mom to 2 boys, one of whom was diagnosed with APD. She manages the USA office for the Easyread System, a new approach to providing reading help and spelling help for children who have dyslexia, reading problems or are visual learners.

A Love of Reading Spurs Reading, Writing, and Spelling Skills

Recently I wrote about how my daughter has found graphic novels, particularly what is referred to as manga, and she has become a huge fan of reading.  She absolutely devours the books!

Well, all this reading is paying off in not only her reading skills, but her spelling is suddenly just clicking. I find her playing with words all the time; she'll just out of the blue tell me how the sound of long e at the end of a word can be spelled with a y, an ie, or sometimes just i.  Then she'll speak about scooping parts of words from one word to put into another word because those words share that part in common.  It is as if the whole puzzle of how the written language works is finally apparent to her and it all just makes sense.

I know this is directly related to all the reading she is doing because I homeschool her.  I have never used the term "scooping" in terms of language before, and we have not talked about the phonics rules in quite a long time.  In fact, she's been enjoying reading and writing on her own so much, the only input I have been giving is when she asks me to listen to her read, look over her writing for spelling or grammar issues, or we talk about what her book is about, where sometimes other comprehension topics might come up like foreshadowing and protagonist.

I truly think inspiring a love of reading has made my daughter with severe Auditory Processing Disorder and Dyslexia not only read better, but write better, and to all of our surprise, become a pretty good speller.

So when those busy bodies who insist that "a child should only read classic literature" and other such nonsense start talking, just ignore them.  A love of reading will outshine anything else when it comes to literacy development, and whatever your child likes to read is perfect!



(I put a list of the graphic novels she has been loving in the list at the right.  It does link to Amazon, but if you want the books, check out your library too.  Ours has a very large selection!  Also, remember my daughter is an almost 12 year old girl, so some of the books are more appropriate for teens and pre-teens rather than younger kids.  I also put a few that were recommended by others.  If there are any your child likes, let me know and I will add them to the list.)

Graphic Novels Have Made My Pre-Teen a Book Lover

I absolutely cannot say enough great things about graphic novels (anime/manga/etc).  My daughter who has auditory processing disorder and mild visual processing disorder which both contribute to her dyslexia, has found them to be an amazing avenue into the world of fiction.

You see, unlike traditional novels, graphic novels have pictures that tell the majority of the story, with the words being there to aid the pictures as needed. Being a visual thinker, pictures are her natural way of processing the world.  Pictures are how her memory best retains information.  So a story told through pictures is ideal for her.  She can process it quickly and easily.  So she gets to enjoy the story rather than struggling through processing all those words that are in traditional novels.

Along the way, she is reading the words that go along with the pictures.  This is building her sight vocabulary, her fluency, and more importantly, her confidence in reading!

I have a daughter who adores reading now!  She consumes her graphic novels from the library and begs to go back for more each and every week.


(UPDATE:  My daughter Hailey told me that if you read just the words, you'll only get part of the story, and if you just look at the pictures, you'll only get part of the story.  She says you have to do both.)

It Shouldn't Be This Hard: How One Girl with APD Learned to Read

“If I didn’t have Auditory Processing Disorder, I bet I would be able to read college level books by now.  I wish I didn’t have Auditory Processing Disorder.  It makes things so hard.  It’s not supposed to be this hard.”  Tear paths slowly appear on her cheeks as she lets out a barely auditable sigh.

Reading has been a horrendously difficult hurdle for my daughter with Auditory Processing Disorder (ADP).  You see one aspect of APD is auditory discrimination problems.  Auditory discrimination is the ability to detect the distinct and separate sounds in words.  Teachers call this phonemic awareness, and preschoolers and kindergarteners play games to identify the first consonant sound in a word or to rhyme small, one syllable words.  This, sensibly, leads to the skills needed to learn phonics.  Phonics is the method of teaching people to read through the recognition of letter patterns and the sounds they represent.  It is the most prevalent method to teach reading as it is highly effective.  With the knowledge of phonics, a person can read just about anything without having to have seen a particular word written before.

So with my daughter Hailey’s very real problems with auditory discrimination, she could not identify onset consonants, rhymes, or even hear the differences in many letter sounds.  For instance, /p/,/b/, /d/, /t/ and /g/ all sound the same to her.  As well as /nk/ and /ng/,  / f/, /s/, /v/, /sh/and /th/,  /a/, /e/ and /o/.  So no matter how many games we played, and no matter how much her private speech therapist worked with her on phonemic awareness, she could never distinguish the letter sounds.

Having more in my arsenal of techniques for teaching reading by having been a first grade teacher for many years, I decided to try the sight word approach.  So Hailey and I started playing games with flashcards.  We acted out words; traced words; made words with playdough; wrote words in the air; played memory with the cards; made stories with the cards; and similar type activities.  This was loads of fun, but it didn’t transfer over into reading.  Sure she could memorize a few words, but it took months to memorize just a few words.  Learning to read like this would be completely impractical.  You see, Auditory Processing Disorder (ADP) has another aspect: short term/working memory problems.  So Hailey has to repeat something, particularly something to do with auditory input, over and again until it finally is locked comfortably into her long term memory and the path to retrieving it is well defined.

So my spouse and I took her to see a neuro-psychologist.  We wanted to know what she could determine to help us teach Hailey to read.  Well, sadly we paid this woman way too much money for her to tell us that Hailey would probably never learn to read and we should focus on “life skills” instead.  Of course, we didn’t listen to her, and I started researching all I could find on reading.

I came upon a program called The Lindamood Phoneme Sequencing® (LiPS®) Program.  This program teaches children to learn the specific feeling of their lips, teeth, mouth, and breath when making each particular letter sound.  They also learn to identify the sound by “reading” other people’s mouths when they make the sound.  It seemed like it might work.   However, the program done at the Lindamood Bell Centers was extremely costly, and we really couldn’t afford it.  Knowing we would find the money some way if we had to, I started to look into private reading specialists first.

After scouring the Internet, I found a few people in my area who operate as private reading specialists and/or tutors.  I interviewed three and found the one I wanted to try.  She had been a reading specialist for the schools and was now retired.  She had been trained in the LiPS program and would love to work with Hailey.  So off we went to start the process.  It was amazing!  This program was the magic pill that enabled Hailey to read.  She took to it immediately and voila!  Her problem with auditory discrimination was not going to hold her back from reading.

So now Hailey has been reading for about two years.  She can decode absolutely any word and she loves to work in phonics based multisyllabic word workbooks.  As a bonus, her spelling is actually quite good due to her strong phonics skills, and she spends a great deal of time writing.  Of course, she still has the short term/working memory issues associated with Auditory Processing Disorder, so she spends a large amount of time phonetically spelling words and/or looking them up in the dictionary. 

So why is Hailey still crying about reading?  Simply this: she reads multiple times every day and yet it is still difficult.  As she puts it, “I see the word people and I have to sound it out every single time.  It just doesn’t stick in my head like it should.  I have to read a word hundreds of times to remember it.  My brother, he reads a word once and he remembers it.  He reads less than half the amount of time I read and he can read bigger words and faster.  It’s not fair.  It shouldn’t be this hard!”  This, again, is that short term/working memory problem that is a part of APD.

A third problem with Auditory Processing Disorder is filtering out background noise.  Hailey hears all those little sounds that are around us all the time: the furnace kicking in, the dog licking her paw, someone in the next room talking, a neighbor mowing his lawn,etc.  She finds it incredibly difficult to have to concentrate on reading when all those other sounds keep bombarding her.  So I finally broke down and bought her noise reduction ear muffs.  I was worried about her getting dependent on them and I wanted her to strengthen her ability to filter out background noises.  However, she wanted to focus on reading and she felt this would make a big difference to her.  They do help and she is much happier with them.

Surprisingly with all the intense work that it takes to read, Hailey still thoroughly enjoys reading.  She loves fiction and she finds that she remembers better the non-fiction that she reads versus what she has heard.  She has perseverance greater than I have ever witnessed in anyone before or since.  She is determined to not let her Auditory Processing Disorder stop her from doing all that she wants to do – including one day reading college level books.  For this, I admire her. 

So she says if she didn’t have Auditory Processing Disorder, she would already be reading college level books.  I say if we all worked half as hard as she does, it’d be amazing the things we could accomplish.  

Reading While Others are Talking Nearby: By Hailey

"I cannot read with people talking.  All I hear in my head while I am trying to read is blah, blah, blah....Okay, Mom, you write the rest." - Hailey

Hailey (10) wants to express that when she is busy trying really hard to read by decoding new words and recalling old words, all the while making her eyes focus properly on the words and not skip any (she has mild Visual Processing Disorder as well), she cannot drown out any auditory background noise.  The only way she can read is to be somewhere quiet.  Maybe with time and practice she will get to the point where she can, or maybe not.  Whichever is the case, she loves to read and so treasures her ability to read without people talking nearby.  She felt this was important for people to understand about Auditory Processing Disorder and how it affects her ability to read.

Coping with our Children's Distress

Hailey went to an audition today for a homeschooling play.  She did really well, but she felt that she didn't and so she started crying quietly in the audition room.  We went to the restroom so she could collect herself, but she ended up only feeling worse and didn't want to return to the room.  However, she desperately wants to be in the play and so I convinced her to go back and give it a chance.  Once in the room, she was asked if she wanted to come up on stage and read again, but she started to break down.  So, I quickly went up to the director to explain that she has Auditory Processing Disorder which is something like Dyslexia (I know there is so much more to it, but people tend to understand Dyslexia and not APD) and that she felt she didn't do well before and is now feeling rather scared, but wants to be in the play if at all possible.  Luckily, the director of this play is super understanding and told me that she thought Hailey did fine, that Hailey didn't need to read again, and that she would definitely receive a part in the play.  Whew!

So, I went back to Hailey who was doing everything in her power to not absolutely break down in hysterics while tears were quietly slipping from her eyes.  We walked out of the room and she let it all go, crumpling in my arms, repeating "I was so scared".  My wife and I managed to somehow get her to the car where she sobbed uncontrollably and informed us how we simply just do not understand.  After much reassurance and some really spicy peppermints to distract her (she gets comfort from extreme tastes), we managed to get home, convince her she did a good job, assure her that she would have a part in the play, and that it would get less scary with time.

Now she is out in the back yard jumping on the trampoline with her best friend while I am still trying to recover from the ordeal myself.  It is so difficult to see your child in so much distress.  I watch the other mothers sit in the back room chatting aimlessly while their children with no special needs just get up on a stage and read easily from a play they have never seen before.  They know their children will handle it.  With auditory processing disorder, a cold reading in front of a large group of strangers all the while trying to keep track of who is speaking when and trying to process not only what to say when but what it means and therefore how to express it appropriately is simply a nightmare.  Yet, this is the way it is done.

I am extremely proud of Hailey for even attempting such a difficult task.  Despite all the difficulties, she really didn't do all that bad.  Still, I can't help but feel how scary that whole situation really was for her.  I wish there would have been a different way of doing it all.

In the end, due to an understanding director, Hailey will be able to have the experience of acting in a play - an experience she really wants to have.  We will practice her lines and I'll be there to support her every step of the way.  Now I just need to find the calm down solution for me - the mommy who will handle all the emotions and keep everything running as smoothly as can possible be expected.


-originally written September 8, 2011 in my personal blog