:( He has mastered the appropriate letter, sound skills. His math skills are excellent but its the reading and the numbers that he has issue with. He knows him numbers but when it comes time to write them, the double digits are still backwards- 64 is 46. He reads them that way, too. Reading, the letters are jumbled. He says he has a hard time getting the letters to stay put.. I don't fully understand but..
For the numbers thing, we have a Kumon Numbers workbook my grandparents sent him for Christmas. We do two pages a night now working on the numbers he has issue with. And reading, we read the baggie book 2-3 times over the night to get the practice in.
I just don't know where to go from there. I don't want this one difficult time to stiffle his love of books. He loves school and I don't ever want that to dampen because he has difficulty. We're going to schedule a time to meet with the teacher and discuss what we can do to help him, etc.
Did his teacher say these were issues? I'm not a teacher but I don't think this is a major issue at this point. I think you are right to keep working with him and schedule an appt and discuss if there are some techniques that can be used to help him learn these numbers easier. Teachers have a way of teaching that we would never think of!
I agree with Michele and Megan. I've heard mixing up letters and numbers is normal at this point. Ethan sometimes does that too and his teacher said he is right on track.
Mark still has trouble with some of his letters--especially writing them--and numbers. He says them backwards pretty often too, like he'll see a "10" and insist that it's only a "1" because it is "0", "1" according to him. He also doesn't like to practice reading. He'll always say "They" for "that" because they both start with the same letter plus when he's sounding out short words, he'll get tired of sounding out once he gets to the middle so he'll say "hot" is "hop" or "log" is "lot".
I figure he's still on the young end of Kindergarten, and it will click sometime before first grade.
Like you said, I don't want to force him to keep working on stuff so that it becomes something he hates. Or something that is too frustrating.
That said, you might want to consider having him evaluated by a vision therapist. Victoria has strabismus, which is what caused us to become familiar with vision therapy (performed by a specially trained optometrist, not an ophthalmologist (MD)); however, DH went to her for his routine eyeglasses exam and learned that he has a vision problem called convergence insufficiency that has forever caused him to be a very slow/pained reader. (At one point, they wanted to label him "special needs" because his reading was so slow... which is kind of funny, because he has an off-the-charts IQ. It never occurred to anyone back then that he might not be able to see.)
Here's the website of Vic's therapist in Austin, so you can see what the credentials are: http://ocvt.info/
That said, you might want to consider having him evaluated by a vision therapist. Victoria has strabismus, which is what caused us to become familiar with vision therapy (performed by a specially trained optometrist, not an ophthalmologist (MD)); however, DH went to her for his routine eyeglasses exam and learned that he has a vision problem called convergence insufficiency that has forever caused him to be a very slow/pained reader. (At one point, they wanted to label him "special needs" because his reading was so slow... which is kind of funny, because he has an off-the-charts IQ. It never occurred to anyone back then that he might not be able to see.)
Here's the website of Vic's therapist in Austin, so you can see what the credentials are: http://ocvt.info/
HTH!
Ah! That never crossed my mind. I really do appreciate that.
It would make sense. Thank you, Tex.
And thank you ladies. Its hard to tell what's normal and what isn't. She writes he's at a beginning K level for reading and that she wants us to come in. I'm game. I want him to not get so frustrated, which he does.
