First Paying Student - Kasser

Kasser is an almost 8yo, currently in Primary Two. A church counsellor, who had been visiting the family to provide support and advice and follow-up approached me and asked if I would take a look to see if I could help this young man.

Although his mother is a very conscientious lady, reading to him and trying her best to raise a reader, helping him in schoolwork and basically guiding him closely, he has failed to learn to read fluently and at his level.

From the little that I understood, the family had tried to get him help, asking the school for a referral to an Educational Psychologist, yet, the school was unwilling, saying that Kasser was only slow, not learning disabled. They felt that all he needed was time to catch up with his peers.

On my first visit, I found a young man, very much alert and alive, yet shy and introverted at first. His father was quick to call him lazy, lamenting that he would not try and learn independently, saying that he wouldn't learn rather than couldn't learn.

I spent about an hour with him that morning, doing an informal assessment. I found a young man who, despite phonics instructions from young, still did not know his sounds. He knew only one of the 5 short vowel sounds, and many consonants were also unfamiliar to him. Like Donny, he found some sounds difficult to produce, possibly having learnt them wrong all his life. Writing was also a slight problem... formation of letters were odd, made worse by his left-handedness. When asked to write the alphabet in only uppercase, he got confused... he showed problems with sequencing.

Blending was easy for him if the single consonant was placed in front... but too many single consonants and he got confused. This was especially so if he was unfamiliar with the word. He had no reversals though, so that was a good thing, but he had little idea how to use the "head-line", "belt-line" and "foot-line" to help him in forming his letters. Like Zach and Stacey, his "j" stood up on the footline and extended all the way to the headline, instead of starting from the beltline and extending below the footline.

We've had 3 lessons so far and he is moving nicely along. With skywriting, fingerspelling and tracing under his belt, he is quickly picking up the sounds and keywords. He still struggles with the short vowel sounds a, u and i... and often confuses them when he is in a rush to finish forming the word... but he is better able now to self-correct... a wonderful thing. He's also had the rush of being able to spell 5-letter words entirely by sounding them out... an achievement that impressed his mother. Previously, all spelling words had to be drilled, letter by letter tediously, and caused parent and child much grief.

I hope to complete the Baby Deck real soon... by the next lesson if possible, although he still has two short vowels to contend with - "o" and the dreaded "e". Singaporean children seem to have a major problem with the short vowel sounds "a" and "e", simply because in Singlish, the two sounds are rather similar, if at all different. In relaxed conversation, even when I say "pat" and "pet", they sound the same... so it's difficult for them to hear and produce the two different sounds easily.

It's only been 2 weeks since I first met him, but already, the child is blossoming with a newfound confidence in himself. So wonderful to see.