Why is DD6 struggling so much with Kriah?

balance

Fri, Sep 20 2024, 9:51 am

OP where are you if they don't teach English? If you are in Israel, I can get you help without it costing.

In the meantime, visual and auditory may not be her specific learning genre. Try rolling the letters from dough, writing them in cream, drawing them on her hands and back, licking them in honey, drawing them on sand, making them with body movements.

Don't get busy with the vowels until she has the letters down cold.

amother

↑ Amaranthus

Fri, Sep 20 2024, 10:12 am

amother OP wrote:

Insurance will probably cover an evaluation, but there are no frum specialists where I live (the kriah specialists would be worked with remotely) and I wonder how well it would work in this case. The school doesn't have facilities to work with an IEP so that would be a waste of time, although if they do a good job of clarifying the source of her challenges that would obviously be very beneficial in giving her targeted help.

I still think you should get an evaluation. I don’t know where you are, but things may start falling into place after you have more info

amother

Gray

Fri, Sep 20 2024, 10:35 am

amother OP wrote:

DD6 is having a very very hard time with reading.

Learning the letters was a big struggle and she still makes some mistakes (pey vs fey).

And os-nekudah she is really having a hard time with. After a lot of effort she learned komatz and patach mostly, tzeirei she sometimes is okay with, segol no matter how many times we review it seems to be hard for her, and although she is getting somewhat familiar with the rest every time it's like she's learning it for the first time.

I can't afford to pay for kriah teacher, but I make time to work with her myself. I've made her worksheets and practice with her regularly but I'm wondering what I'm missing.

It doesn't seem to be (only?) vision-related because even if I tell her the letter and nekudah she is still having a hard time telling me what it says. I hear her sometimes going through the Alef-Beis (segol alef Eh, segol beis Beh) to figure out what a given letter says.

I'd think it might be auditory, because she can't always seem to differentiate the sounds (I'll say Seeeeeeeegol Daled and she'll say Day), but her hearing seems perfectly fine otherwise, and she does a great job rhyming words.

I bought her the Seder Kriah series but it moves too fast through os-nekudah for her. She also didn't find the mouth shapes as helpful/distinct for many of the nekudos.

This is new to me, all of my other kids breezed through kriah without much practice with me. This DD (who happens to be very bright and with an excellent memory for stories her teacher tells) is basically banging her head against a brick wall to learn how to read. She's made a lot of progress, but I feel like there is some block I don't know about.

Hi OP.
You can call us at Torah for Children for free guidance at 347.743.6132.

amother

Blueberry

Fri, Sep 20 2024, 2:44 pm

OP your daughter sounds like she very possibly has dyslexia. I am an SLP specializing in this area and you are mentioning numerous red flags. It’s so hard when you don’t have $$ to pay…can you borrow or put on a credit card? Would any family member help? If you don’t get evaluated and get help now you could be paying for lots more expensive therapy later…this is an emergency.

mha3484 ↓

Fri, Sep 20 2024, 2:50 pm

OP this sounds a lot like my 10 year old when he was 6 in pre 1a. We got him a lot of help both in school and I paid for some out of school. It made a tremendous difference. He is in 4th grade now and his English reading is his strength and his kriah is also excellent. This was not something either my husband and I really could help with he needed a whole different approach to learning to read.

amother

↑ OP ↓

Sun, Sep 22 2024, 3:22 pm

Thank you for all the responses.

I can only do hearing/vision evaluations that will be covered by insurance. Is a standard optometry/hearing exam worth anything in this case?

I'm going to call what she has "dyslexia," with or without a diagnosis. Because that's basically what it is. I just don't know exactly which parts she is having a hard time with.

It may be very important or urgent to get her help, but when I say I have no money, I mean I have no money, not that I have a hidden savings account or credit cards I don't want to use.

If this was a one-time $200 expense I could possibly figure out a way to make it work. But endless hundreds of dollars is just not something I am going to be able to do at this point, as much as I agree that it would be the correct approach.

↑ mha3484

Sun, Sep 22 2024, 3:51 pm

OP I really understand where you’re coming from but what happens if she's in 4th grade and still can’t read? For this I’d embarrass myself and call my Shuls Rav or local chesed fund or even a go fund me. Please understand this without any tone I’m not judging you but a kid who can’t read faces so many social and emotional problems that will cost you a fortune to fix.

amother

↑ OP ↓

Sun, Sep 22 2024, 3:59 pm

mha3484 wrote:

She is making significant progress. Six months ago she barely knew the letters. After a lot of work, she is now 90% accurate with letters, and I'd say at least 70% accurate with komatz and patach. With some coaching she is able to read multi-syllable words.

She tells me that a number of girls in her class are behind in reading so we're not at the point of social problems just yet.

It would be helpful to know how much money I'd be expected to throw at this, because running a GoFundMe (not doing that but) for "as much as it costs to get DD to read" is not going to get much traction.

And as far as saving money for the future, that's not a calculation you can make in poverty, or I'd have stocked up on diapers when they were 40% off instead of paying full price now. When the money doesn't exist, it just doesn't exist.

amother

Oxfordblue

Sun, Sep 22 2024, 4:14 pm

Op at this age you dont need to panic yet. Some kids need some extra time.

Review the letters and nekudos separately. Until she knows them really well. Also do it in all different formats let her write the letter nekuda/letter with different markers, shape it out of clay, write in sand...

When you're doing letter and nekuda she should first say the nekuda sound and then the 'whole' sound so "ei- mei" "ah- tah, ah- yah". There is no need to say the names of the letters or nekudos.

Some kids like building sounds. I have 2 boxes of lego one has letters the other nekudos take one from each box say the sound and then stack it and say the combined sound...

Another thing that for some kids helps even though it seems above their level is to write it out so you would sat 'leah' and then help her break it down 'lei uh' it does not need to be spelled correctly just phonemically make sense

Hatzlacha rabbah!

amother

Magnolia ↓

Sun, Sep 22 2024, 4:22 pm

Dear OP,
My heart hurts for you.
I was where you are two years ago.
My son has since been diagnosed with a learning disability. You are unfortunately not equipped to teach her to read. Your good will cannot replace education and experience. You don’t have the money. I completely understand. There is going to be a place of vulnerability where you are going to have to beg the school to help you. You simply can’t pay for it. I don’t know how you can get the help without money, BUT It WON’T get better without HELP. students who cannot read and are falling more and more behind DAILY. The gap opens very very quickly. Beg, borrow, steal…but you must understand what the specific problem is. Your daughter has either auditory processing disorder, or dyslexia, or a phonemic awareness issue or all plus more. It’s clear to anyone who has a child with this that you are dealing with something that is beyond your skill set.
Don’t try to solve this on your own.
Hatzlacha. Stay strong and positive.

amother

↑ OP ↓

Sun, Sep 22 2024, 4:34 pm

The school will not help. There is no point of me even trying to beg.

For all of those who are trying to impress upon me the urgency of the situation, can you please answer these questions:

1) How much money are we talking about?

2) Who exactly am I getting this money from?

3) If she is making progress, why should I assume that she will stop making progress?

amother

↑ Magnolia

Sun, Sep 22 2024, 4:42 pm

amother OP wrote:

I don’t have the answers about money.
see if perhaps one of your local universities has graduate students who do evaluations on a sliding scale.
I don’t know where you can get the money.

The URGENCY is because she is not really making enough process and definitely not quickly enough.

the urgency is because parents and educators who have been through this know very very well that it is beyond your scope. you can be a backup plan, but you can’t be a primary solution. you just don’t have the skills and knowledge.
you need to know what the problem is to know how to go about helping her.
helping someone by repetition isn’t going to address an underlying issue of dyslexia or auditory processing. You need more info or you will be wasting your time.
The urgency is to impress upon you to get help while she is 6 and not when she is 10.
She is going to go from kriah to chumash very quickly and unless she had a PHENOMENAL memory, she is going to fall behind.

amother

Bone

Sun, Sep 22 2024, 4:58 pm

The one thing that sticks out to me is that she's still making mistakes with the letters and you're trying to move on to the next level. I believe that children should have automatic perfect instant recall of the letter sounds before you move on to the next step.

You can play lots of games involving flashcards and even moving a little car around a page to practice the letters until she's completely fluent.

Even her class has already moved on to the next step, this is the foundation. I would not focus on both other names at this point though I would do just letter sounds.

amother

↑ Raspberry

Sun, Sep 22 2024, 5:07 pm

amother OP wrote:

1) you will only know aftter the evaluation because it depends what the problem is
2) I would swallow my pride and ask for help from anywhere possible, if you have to open a gofundme page at least for the evaluation, do it.
3) very often when there is an underlying issue, they can make progress - up to a point. And then you hit a brick wall. Again. And again. And again. You MUST understand what the underlying problem is.

amother

↑ Bubblegum

Sun, Sep 22 2024, 5:08 pm

Trust me, professional help can cost hundreds of thousands over the course of schooling. So get the free evaluations at the doctors first.

Then if nothing turns up there, get a sliding scale income need based educational evaluation at a university graduate program near you.

There is for sure content online that can teach you which methods work for dyslexia or get a part time job in a reading place so you can learn which methods apply and convert it for Hebrew. With the dedication and understanding that you are showing I believe you can be successful doing it yourself.

amother

↑ OP ↓

Sun, Sep 22 2024, 5:33 pm

amother Raspberry wrote:

Please clarify. This thread mentions multiple evaluations. Vision (presumably not standard vision test), auditory (also presumably not standard), and dyslexia (With who? We're OOT and no local place is capable of evaluating based on Hebrew literacy).

What is this one "evaluation" that you are referring to, and what is the estimated cost of such an evaluation?

amother

Blush

Sun, Sep 22 2024, 5:38 pm

OP, you are AMAZING!! The time you have given your daughter has clearly paid off and you aren’t a trained specialist. Seriously amazing! You probably do this already but in case not, make sure to give your daughter something to hold onto when teaching the osios and nekudos. I’d she’s struggling with pey and phey introduce her to penny pay (place a real penny in a large pey) and then have her tilt the page so the penny falls out and she sees “fell out fay”. You’re reinforcing letter recognition and the sound by giving her a story and visual to hold onto. Same with the nekudos. Her teacher may have told her these stories last year but perhaps didn’t spend enough time referencing them for her to use them. It makes the learning fun and gives her something to grasp into when she needs to recall the information.
You’re an incredible mother!