Smart Child, Bad Grades: Answers about Struggling Children

Why do children struggle in school?

When my parents and I first opened our learning center in 1997, I thought we would encounter a large variety of problems. In order to “diagnose” these problems, we used thorough, nationally recognized achievement tests in multiple subjects, putting children through hours of testing. The results usually showed that the child was operating below par in several areas, if not all. Were these poor kids just cursed with low IQ?

No. Aside from the children who had serious learning disabilities (who also had normal IQs - see below), we quickly learned that the only thing a majority of the students were cursed with was a poor knowledge of phonics. Because the “Whole Language Approach” to reading swept the country in the late 80s/early 90s, many educators have not been trained in, or encouraged to use, an organized phonics system. Therefore, their students are not being given the “key” to the reading “code.”

While some children will notice the phonetic patterns themselves and use them to help sound out words, or learn it in a less organized way from spelling test groupings, most will resort to memorization learning. I’ve come to believe that, without phonics, most students will not realize their potential in reading and are less likely to become habitual readers. Habitual or “pleasure” readers have a higher vocabulary and the opportunity to gain greater knowledge in general. And, unfortunately, some students will remain very poor readers without phonics.

My child can read many words without phonics, he just misreads a few. How is he doing this?

Children who read by memorization seem to be taking a picture of the word and matching it up to the closest word in their memory banks. This would not be a problem if these were actual pictures. For instance, if you see a picture of an elephant, as long as he’s got a trunk, he’s still an elephant, whether he has all four legs or not. However, if a memorization reader is reading a passage about a “plant” on a comprehension test, she may read it as “play,” a word that’s more familiar to her and has the same “trunk” (starts with the same 3 letters). At the end of the passage, she tries to answer the questions but gets most of them wrong because the passage didn’t make any sense. At this point, the teacher may tell you the child has a comprehension problem, based on the outcome of the test. The truth is, I’ve seen very few children with comprehension problems. Once you fix them phonetically, enabling them to read the words, they can comprehend just fine.

What about children with learning disabilities?

The majority of children I’ve seen with learning disabilities have an ocular motor problem in which their eye muscles do not work as a team. These students still need phonics training if they haven’t had it, but they will benefit (often drastically) from eye muscle training. I will let you know right away if I suspect this common problem and we’ll discuss the options for dealing with this.

Occasionally, I’ve seen children with true neurological dyslexia or auditory processing problems. If I suspect these issues with your child, I will refer you to the appropriate professionals for diagnosis.

What happens on an initial consultation?

I have a simple oral phonics test that your child and I do together in a very casual, non-threatening way. This shows me exactly where your child is in his or reading development. I may also have a good idea at this time whether there is a learning disability involved, but if not, I usually know within a few instructional sessions. I do not charge for consulting with parents or initial testing.