help! my son fails to recognize words

hi there,
i have been showing my child words since last 6 months. i show him the flash cards & also LR but whenever i ask him to tell the word (by showing him) he generally tells some other word.
he love to see the words along with the pictures. he recognizes a lot of pictures & tell the right name for them but when it comes to words its all messed up.
i sometimes get very upset & don’t know what to do :closedeyes:
please help!!

We are not supposed to test our children. A lot of children do not like to be tested, and they will respond with the wrong answer, even if they know the right one. I suggest that you continue what you are doing without any stress or testing. Some children need more time than others. Your child is only 2 and you have only been doing a program for 6 months.

If you are getting upset or stressed when your child does not recognize a word, then you could be part of the problem. You need to be joyful and have fun no matter what. If you are not, then your child will pick up on it and think that learning is a time for stress or for mommy/daddy to get angry. I would not want to learn in that atmosphere, would you?

thanks nhockaday,
I’ll be patient with him & change my pattern of showing him words so that it is more enjoyable for both of us.

Yes Piyu don’t try testing the baby. Sometimes I will try to make it like a game to ask him to pick the pic of which I named to me and I will say " hey gal, mama wants “apple” please pick apple to ma ma" then usually she will pick the right one to me.

yes, there is something strange about the testing. When I ask my doughter to name a colour, she usually says wrong. When she is playing with herself, she says the right words of colours.

Plyu, You’re not alone in wondering if the work and effort is paying off. Sometimes I get discouraged with my program when I don’t see my son interested or the evidence that he’s learning the material.

One thing that has really worked with us is that I tape some of our flashcards on the walls. I show him the cards and tell him what they say, then later in that day we’ll make a game “Let’s show Teddy-Bear the word xxxx” or “Can you help Mommy find the word xxx?” I give him a minute to do it (if he needs that long), if he still is looking around or has selected the wrong word, I cheerfully say “that’s yyy, here’s xxx” and show him xxx word. We do this several times per day during our play sessions. Then every-other day, I move the cards around. This is more like a game!

There’s a line in the Doman Reading book that we’re doing this program to teach our children to read - not to speak. I’ve held onto that and try to not ask my son “what does this say?” But to offer choices where he can point or match pictures to flashcards.

Sometimes my son will say he is cold when he means hot or that he wants in when he wants out. While he has a great vocabulary and has been speaking for sometime, he still gets words confused. Sometimes its easier to ask the question in a way that doesn’t require them to tell us the word. You might try showing him two different words and asking him which one says “xxxx” instead of asking him to speak the word. Playing a matching game with the words and pictures and your son can match the two.

Hopefully some of these ideas were helpful. Either way, you’re not alone in feeling frustrated and disappointed sometimes. A big supportive hug to you!

Hi piyu

You are not alone in feeling dissappointed, you can count on me too. Check this thread, thats me… :frowning:

http://forum.brillkids.com/teaching-your-child-to-read/help!!!my-kid-fails-to-recognize-words/

After this I tried the following.

Never test the child. We all do this just to make sure they are getting it. From what I could gather you don’t have to do it. Your child will get it as long as you are consistent and keep the program fun. Have faith that the child will learn.

Like norcalmommy I too started taping the words that he know. I tell him this says " xxxx" and later says, Oh…mamma can’t find “xxxx” can you help me find it? Well sometimes he says it correctly. Or else, if I see he is not getting it, I say ooh…there it is… and we clap our hands. I change one word every alternate days and change their order.

I started matching games. I wrote the names of toy animals that he has, on pieces of hard paper and then said this says " tiger" “lion” and so on. I then told him the paper is a bed where each animal can sleep. This caught his attention. Now he asks for “mamma, animals sleeping bed”. I give each animal’s paper, he matches it with corresponding animal and says like " tiger is sleeping". I progressed this to his toy cars, trains, and so on. I wrote " red car", " yellow train", “blue bus” and he matches the words with the toys. Here too at times he mismatches them…

I write some common words, one each day and we match it with words in newspaper and magazines.

This has been going on fine till now…more because of the change in my attitude and because of keeping it fun. I ignore his mistakes and don’t say its wrong, instead says this is “xxxx”. At times he doesn’t say correctly because he can’t say… So I ask him to point…

So piyu…hold on and keep the faith.

anjie.

thanks a lot norcalmommy & anjie… your ideas are really very nice.
I’ll definitely implement them. :slight_smile:

My 20 month old does the same thing, so now he is asked to point to… or match the picture to picture or picture to word. Sometimes kids have a hard time with expressing themselves anyway so I try to relieve the stress of him getting embarassed or whatever. I myself have test anxiety, I know the content but when it comes to getting it down on paper or showing someone I am overwhelmed. Also to think about creating a flip book and a word flashcard worked for me. Have the alphabet a set of 3 or 4 and allow him/her to turn the pages to spell the word, or have color flashcard flip book and have him/her to match the flip book with the pattern of the flashcard. Just a thought. It has worked for me with other children. Somtimes the silent way of ‘pretent’ testing works, turn it into a game.