1. My seven year old is still struggling with the basic vowel sounds. I don't think I should move on until she has learned them perfectly.

Move on and move on hard and fast. Keep practicing the level you're on for about 10 minutes a day, but move on at the same time. Remember - 'i' and 'e' don't disappear in the advanced code. You'll still have lots of basic code practice.

2. I think my child has a learning disability. Will Phono-Graphix help him?

Phono-Graphix has been used on every kind of learning disability I'm aware of. 44% of the children in our original research were LD.

3. I am homeshooling my four children and my step son. What materials do you suggest?

If you had one or two I would suggest the Parent Support Books, but with five I suggest Word Work instead. It has almost all the Support Book worksheets and they're copyable, which they are not in the Parent Support Book. It also has arts and crafts and other extensions to keep your kids busy in a productive way and pull in your literature as well. The other plus of Word Work is that it is a training programme of sorts. I strongly urge you to read the whole text - it's packed with important information about how children learn to read.

I also suggest our new book How to Raise Your Child's Verbal Intelligence--Read America's Language Wise Program. It's essentially a primer on how children learn everything associated with verbal intelligence--with a focus on comprehension, memory, expression, logical reasoning and creativity. Following the front section on verbal IQ is the back section with the 37 Language Wise lessons for improving verbal intelligence

The only other thing you might want would be the cardstock version of the manipulatives in Reading Reflex. This comes in a single set, or a set of six (maybe five?).

You can order all this from our office at 800-732-3868 (US) 352-735-9292 (CAN) or 0800-783-8824 (UK), or go to our catalogue pages.

4. I have been doing Phono-Graphix for many months in my Montessori School with the 6-9 year old group. Should we be doing it with the 3-5 children too? Is there a special curriculum for this age with more hands on activities?

YES, YES!! I suggest you get a Word Work kit. It will give you line time, arts and crafts, and individual hands on shelf work for the kids. It also has productive worksheets and you can cut them up to make manipulatives.

5. I'm working with a child with brain damage...

I just began work with a girl who was in a terrible car accident 4 years ago, and she suffered brain damage. She is now nine and a half and can speak fine. On the blending test she got 3 out of 15 right; on the other tests, including code knowledge, she couldn't get one right. She has been drilled on the letter names, but not their sounds.

When I attempted word construction and phoneme manipulation drills, she (I'll call her "G") couldn't understand that 'c' 'a' 't' and their corresponding sound pictures blend to "cat". (I tried this procedure with a few different words. 'Cat' is just an example.) I also told her the word and then its sounds and that didn't help. So I tried having her blend just 'c' and 'a'. G couldn't "hear" 'ca' unless I provided it to her. In addition, she didn't understand that the sounds we were making and the sound pictures we were pointing to correspond.

G seems to have auditory processing deficiencies much more profound than others I have worked with. However, her ability to get even 3 right on the blending test makes me think that she can learn to blend, segment, and manipulate phonemes.

I've had success with very low IQ students, but G has given me pause. Can she learn to read? If so, what are the best methods for getting her to blend and manipulate sound pictures?

I tried suggestions from every PG book, magazine, and manual I had. Nothing seemed to help so I didn't dwell on any one strategy for long; frustration was setting in. Perhaps if I had confidence that she could make the necessary progress then I would give her more time with one strategy. I would appreciate any advice. Thanks in advance!

I've worked with kids in the exact same situation, and others with brain damage from having had tumors removed. As I read your post I thought of my own fears in working with the first such client, Stephen age 12. I was relieved to see your post end... "Perhaps if I had confidence that she could make the necessary progress then I would give her more time with one strategy" ...because confidence is really what you need. I'm not sure how long you've been doing PG or with what kinds of kids or adults, or how many, but I do know that confidence in the method in general will help you here, a lot. The rest of your confidence will only come when you see that something you're doing is working. As you know, that requires doing something. I suggest you seriously consider this. This girl must be ABLE to segment or she wouldn't be able to tell the difference between words like pat and pot. This was a simple lesson that changed Geoff's and my entire clinical direction early on. She is more likely suffering from a lack of cognitive ability to allow her to understand what it is you want her to do. I would assume this if I were you as nothing will be harmed if you're wrong, she'll just get the extra therapy along the way. I would then proceed to teach her to read as if she were a four or five year old starting from scratch.

6. My six year old is forgetting previously learned sound pictures...

We have been using the program for 4 months and our son, who turned 6 in June, is progressing very well. We are about three quarters through chapter five. One concern that I have is while we are spending the requisite week per sound picture, he seems to forget some of the possibilities of previously taught sound pictures. An example is if we are working with the sound picture for 'ae', he appears to forget some of the variations for oe such as the oa but remembers others. When I review them with him he then appears to understand perfectly well. It seems that the sheer volume sound pictures is quite high and he needs some type of reinforcement of previous sounds while learning new ones. Is this a common problem? We spend 15 minutes per day,6 days per week, on reading reflex. Should I use a technique such as flash cards to reinforce previous sounds for a short part of each day to avoid this problem? Or should I just increase the amount of reading I do with him and point out the sound pictures we have previously done? Or am I advancing through the chapters too quickly, how can I be certain when to advance to the next chapter? Any comments germane to this issue are appreciated.

Answer by Wendell Hurst Phono-Graphix trainer, Salt Lake City, Utah, US

Please don't use the flash cards, or anything else that takes the learning out of meaningful contexts. The best practice you can give your son is to read with him. You should still continue to read to him - you may pause and let him read each word that has a sound picture he has just learned. My 6 year old daughter just read a book that was somewhat beyond her level, with me reading alternate pages. It really stretched her abilities. She wanted to read the book, and I didn't want to tell her it was too difficult.

Wendell Hurst confers with Sound Doggy, the Read America mascot, at the July 1999 trainer conference in Orlando, FL.

REALLY READING BOOKS!

7. My ten year old is having trouble remembering the advanced code...

We started off well with RR and he seems to be understanding the sound pictures, but he has trouble in the advanced code remembering which picture is correct. We have only covered o-e. Writing and spelling are where I see the most difficulty. His first spelling test was 15 of the 20 o-e words correct. (We followed all the lessons for that sound picture including finding words those words in his reading assignment and writing them on a paper.) He seemed happy with this result, however I feel a bit discouraged. Should I proceed to ow words and just review the o-e words? He has not been tested, but his memorized vocabulary is expansive and I can tell he is guessing unfamiliar words. By the way he also exchanges "the" and "a" quite often as well as confusing "where" and "there" because of word family instruction.

I would strongly recommend that you forge ahead, introducing other sounds, and particularly dealing with the overlap issue. Do not worry too much about his recall of sound pictures, his understanding of the nature of the code is more important. The actual sound picture memory will come with increased reading from real books. Also I would suggest you get on to the word analysis lesson, since this will help him understand how the words he can read are constructed, and give him a better understanding of reading and the code. Finally, when he does read to you, it is absolutely critical that you insist on 100% accuracy.

REALLY READING BOOKS!

8. We are using using the Super Speller in all of our 1st & 2nd grade classes. Since it is for both 1st & 2nd, any suggestions on dividing it up.

I would add to the lists with sound appropriate words from the children's literature. Also the kids can generate words to add.