OnTrack Reading

This section of the Guide will cover the auditory issues that might be causing your child to struggle with reading. It is also the section where I am the least certain of the issues involved and of how to address them, just so you know. In time, I hope to remedy that, but thus far my primary experience has been with phonics training and vision training. Nevertheless, it’s quite likely that further auditory training beyond the exercises described here is necessary for certain children.

If your child has difficulty with the Auditory Processing Test described under the Phonics section of this Guide, then you will find the next two pages useful. Just be sure to read the part of the test details that discuss the expected performance by younger children. Developmentally, they need to reach about third grade before they can perform at all levels on the test.

If you follow the procedures described on the Pages Auditory Processing with Tiles and Oral Auditory Processing, then your child should eventually be able to achieve a perfect score on the Auditory Processing Test. However, I have worked with clients who have obviously had other auditory processing issues, or at least processing issues generally, that interfere with their ability to read well even after they have 100% scores on blending, segmenting and auditory processing and code knowledge scores above 90%. In one particular case, it always took an exceptionally long time to retrieve each word, even though he could decode it properly and was pronouncing the individual sounds correctly. As I said at the outset, this is an area I have the least experience.

It is also the area where programs such as Fast Forward, Earobics and PACE might have a significant effect on processing speed, and some claim that this is the case. I just can’t make any personal recommendations in this regard due to my lack of experience.

There’s also an auditory disorder, referred to by the medical community as Central Auditory Processing Disorder, or CAPD, which many seem to feel causes children to struggle with reading. Again, I have had no experience with it beyond noticing that the diagnosis rarely comes with treatment recommendations that turn out to solve the problem. I’ve also noticed that the professional educators who resist vision therapy as a treatment are those most likely to fall back on CAPD, or various, often undiagnosed, auditory processing issues as likely reasons for reading failure. This doesn’t mean they’re wrong, but from personal experience I’m certain they’re missing the boat on vision therapy. And if they’re missing that, I tend to question whether they’re grasping at auditory straws to explain the unexplainable.

However, as I keep reminding you, this is an area in which I have the little experience, so there could be a great deal of merit in some of these auditory processing approaches. In any case, the exercises on the next to Guide Pages are effective in improving one’s ability to manipulate phonemes within a word, and that is an essential reading skill, at least when the language being read is English.

For younger children or for those who tested very poorly on the Auditory Processing Test, start with Auditory Processing with Tiles.

For those children who tested reasonably well, but not 100%, on the Auditory Processing Test, you can skip that Page and start at Oral Auditory Processing.

Next: Auditory Processing with Tiles, or return to the OnTrack Home Page