skipping words | comicphonics for early readers

Category Archives: skipping words

Help! My daughter reads words backwards

Posted on November 19, 2017 | Leave a comment

My daughter was reading, “The cat saw catnip,” and she read, “The cat was catpin.” She does this all the time, and she can’t tell the difference between “b” and “d” no matter how many times I teach her. What’s going on?

Young child writing C-A-T.

There could be many causes.

Vision problems. Some children have subtle vision problems not detected by distance charts. You might have her vision tested by an eye doctor.

Directional confusion. This is a particular vision problem. Can your child mimic your arm movements when she stands facing you? Does she mix up down and up, and top and bottom? Does she mirror write letters and numbers—writing a “b” for a “d”? Two fists with thumbs up and knuckles touching make letter "b" and "d" with a BeD visualized between the two thumbs.

Sequencing problems. Does she say “felt” when she reads “left” or “form” when she means “from”? (I still do that when I am stressed.)

When a word ends with an “s,” does she say the word as if it begins with an “s,” such as saying “slow” when she reads “lows”? Does she move words around in sentences, changing the word order?

Mixing up little words. Does she stick in articles (a, an, and the) where they don’t belong, or omit them entirely? Does she substitute one small word for another, such as “and” for “a” or “for” for “from”?

Maturity. How old is your daughter? Every youngster I have taught reading to has had the problems you mention. I gently correct the child when she makes a mistake, or I say “d” or “b” before she can read a word to help her. Usually by the age of seven, these problems disappear. If your child is four or five, these reversals are probably developmental. However if your child is in first or second grade, you should ask to have your child tested for dyslexia. Most public schools have reading experts who are trained to deal with these problems.

Eye tracking problems can lead to poor comprehension

Posted on February 19, 2016 | Leave a comment

I worked with a third grader recently whose Iowa scores indicate she is low for reading comprehension.

While she read for me, she skipped little words, like “a” or “in.” She also changed the pronunciation of some small words, saying “shine” when the text said “shin.”

girl in chair reading

Most importantly, she would skip whole lines of text without realizing she had done so. As the lesson continued, she skipped more and more lines of text until she was skipping almost every other line.

What gives?

This child is showing weak eye tracking, sometimes called jumpy eyes. Eye tracking is the ability of both eyes to work together, almost like a single eye, as they read across a line of text.

One symptom of weak eye tracking is skipping over tiny words, especially high frequency words such as articles (a, an, the) and prepositions (in, on, of, for). This does not usually interfere with comprehension. After all, some Asian languages lack articles completely, and the meaning of many prepositions can be inferred from the rest of the phrase. Shorter words and predictable words are likely to be skipped. Longer words, or words that are not high frequency words, are more likely to be read.

Another symptom of weak eye tracking is reading the first few letters of a word correctly, and then guessing at the ending. This impacts comprehension more. If a child reads “read” and then guesses at the rest of the word, she might say “reading” or “ready,” words with different meanings.

But skipping whole lines of text is a serious concern and impacts reading comprehension the most. We all skip lines from time to time, but when we realize that what we are reading makes no sense, we go back and pick up the missing line. Poor readers who are not picking up meaning from the words don’t notice that they have skipped a line. If the paragraphs are long, or the type face is small, this tendency to skip lines increases.

Sometimes eye tracking problems manifest themselves as blurry or shadowy text. It can be hard for the child to “see” the word within the blur. Or sometimes the first letter of one word can seem to be connected to the last letter of the word before, such as, “Th elittl egir lslep t.

Some other signs of eye tracking problems include

An aversion to reading

Losing your place while reading

Guessing at words, especially longer words

Poor fluency

Tiring after a few minutes of reading

What can you do to help your child with eye tracking problems?

First, have his eyes checked to be sure he can see properly.

Check with your school district to see if there is a specialist in eye tracking who can test your child and work with him.

When he reads for you, instruct him to move his finger under every single word as he reads. Stop him if he skips any words or mispronounces them.

If the child is somewhat hyperactive or easily distracted, you might create a book mark with a cut out the size of a line of type. The book mark will block the distracting words while helping the child to focus on the single line of text he is reading.

Frequently stop the child to ask what the words mean. If he can’t explain, go back and read again, perhaps slower, and ask after each sentence what that sentence means.