Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Reading, numbers and learning differences
Invent words together. Say a made up word, pull it apart into its sounds, put it back, then take one sound out and hear what is left. The nonsense is the point, because there is nothing for memory to fall back on.
With a real word, a child who cannot work with sounds can often get by on memory, and you learn nothing about what they can actually do. A made up word takes that route away, so what remains is the sound work itself. Families can do this in the car with daft nicknames and invented words, and children usually enjoy it because there is no right answer to get wrong.
Qur’an and Sunnah
He taught Adam all the names of things (Quran 2:31). Words are given and learned in that account, which makes taking them apart and playing with them a fair thing to do.
وَعَلَّمَ ءَادَمَ ٱلۡأَسۡمَآءَ كُلَّهَا ثُمَّ عَرَضَهُمۡ عَلَى ٱلۡمَلَٰٓئِكَةِ فَقَالَ أَنۢبِـُٔونِي بِأَسۡمَآءِ هَٰٓؤُلَآءِ إِن كُنتُمۡ صَٰدِقِينَ
He taught Adam all the names [of things], then He showed them to the angels and said, ‘Tell me the names of these if you truly [think you can].’
Qur’an 2:31read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
The field defines dyslexia as a difficulty in learning to decode and spell, which is why practice aimed straight at the sounds inside words is aimed at the right thing. The direct trial evidence here is for structured sound and rhythm training rather than for nonsense word games, and that trial was small. So this is a well aimed and cheap activity rather than a proven intervention.
Snowling MJ, Hulme C, Nation K. (2020). Defining and understanding dyslexia: past, present and future.. Oxford review of education doi
Flaugnacco E, Lopez L, Terribili C, Montico M, Zoia S, Schön D. (2015). Music Training Increases Phonological Awareness and Reading Skills in Developmental Dyslexia: A Randomized Control Trial.. PloS one doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
A word the child has never heard cannot be recalled, so they have to handle the sounds themselves.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.
Near this one
For a very able student, an average score can be the finding rather than proof there is nothing wrong. If everything else sits far above and the sound skills sit in the middle, the distance between them is the thing to report.
Before adding more content, look at what the child has to receive it with: attention, memory for what was just said, language. Two children given the same lesson do not take away the same amount, and that difference is usually where the real gap sits.
A child can be excellent at blending sounds you give them aloud and still not read a word on the page. Practising one part very hard does not mean the whole thing has arrived.