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Explore game-changing educational and homeschool ideas. Designed for intentional parents like you.
The statistics are daunting. I believe it's 80% of children who are not reading at a 4th grade level when they enter 4th grade will never read at grade level ever.
Christy-Faith:Welcome to the Christy-Faith Show, where we share game changing ideas with intentional parents like you. I'm your host, Christy Faith, experienced educational advisor and homeschool enthusiast. Together, we'll explore ways to enrich and transform both your life and the lives of your children. Hello. Hello, everybody.
Christy-Faith:I am thrilled to bring you today's episode that truly will no matter where you are in your homeschooling journey or how old your kids are will truly transform your journey. We are about to bring you so many truths about reading about dyslexia. I have an amazing specialist here. Sydney Baumann. I'm so excited that she is here.
Christy-Faith:She has her master's degree in special education. She's Orton Gillingham specialist and a certified structured literacy dyslexia specialist She diagnosis kids on a daily basis does interventions with children all of the time, has a company where she works with a speech pathologist where together they work to get kids where they need to be with their literacy. And if you guys have watched any of my content, you know that one thing that really gets under my skin is this topic of literacy, and we are here with Sydney today to set the record straight. If you are concerned about your kids reading, worried they might be behind, not sure if they need extra help, this will be the episode that will give you the answers that you need. Thank you so much for being here, Sydney.
Christy-Faith:First off, I would love to hear how you came into this space of being a reading specialist, reading interventionist.
Sydney Baumann:So we began because our my oldest began to struggle with reading, And I was already a special ed teacher, and so I started looking more and more into helping him. And then our daughter started to struggle as well. And so we have of all of our 3 children, all 3 of them have struggled with reading. At one point in time, our oldest 2 actually have diagnosis of dyslexia. And so as I searched and kind of went down that road of how do I best help my children, kinda led me through multiple trainings and multiple things within my the classroom because I was teaching in public schools at the time, but also with working with my children.
Sydney Baumann:And I stumbled upon Orton Gillingham, had done a lot of research. Orton Gillingham is one of the leading interventions for kids with dyslexia and has been for since 20th century. And so we looked more and more into that one. And I went ahead and did a training on it, started utilizing it with my children, and we saw a huge impact, not only in my classroom at the time, but just with our own children. And so we kind of did a deeper dive, and I went and got certified.
Sydney Baumann:And we just it it was one of those pieces where I really felt like it was a huge intervention that really was effective on all levels of reading.
Christy-Faith:And it truly is so effective that I feel like every program out there now calls themselves, Orton Gillingham, we can call it in this episode from here on out, we can just say, Oh geez, we're not fumbling over our words, but I want to talk about that. Are those programs out there say a homeschool mom is looking on the internet, she wants to find a reading program for her kid and it says Orton Gillingham or Orton Gillingham inspired, what does that mean? Can we trust that? Is just everyone throwing that on their websites and in their in their seminar talks? I would love to get to the bottom of why that word is really important and how we know if a program is actually following these protocols and and maybe we should even back up a little bit and talk about OG in general.
Christy-Faith:What is it and why is it so effective? I know that it was brought to well, actually, I'll let you go ahead and and share a little bit about how it even came into being.
Sydney Baumann:Yeah. So Orton Gillingham was a philosophy, I think that's the biggest thing that sets Orton Gillingham apart from a lot of the other curriculums or pieces is that Orton Gillingham developed a philosophy that worked really well with children with dyslexia. And so what they did, it was a speech pathologist and oncologist, and they got together and they saw this piece of these really bright children that were struggling with reading. And it didn't matter what they did, They continued to struggle, and so they started diving into this realm of literacy and helping children. And so they developed this multisensory approach to reading and phonics.
Sydney Baumann:And so Orton Gillingham when we hear Orton Gillingham based, it means that they're utilizing the Orton Gillingham philosophy. And so, Orton Gillingham does not have a set curriculum because, again, the reason why it became so effective is because all children are not the same. And when we set a curriculum, when we script things, it all of a sudden boxes children in, and they said that doesn't work. We've already tried that with these children. And so it became a philosophy.
Sydney Baumann:And it's based on this multisensory brain research that utilizes the left and right brain in order to teach children to store information differently. And so what we find with children with dyslexia or reading disabilities is their brains don't store information like a typical child, and so
Christy-Faith:we need to teach in a different way. So when we see when we're searching the internet and buying our curriculum, say we have a little kid who's entering kindergarten, 5 years old, and we want to make sure their literacy is on track. What should we look for when we're buying curriculum?
Sydney Baumann:So one of the biggest things that you want to look for with curriculum as we look is does it have a phonics base? So we we really want to make sure that there's that phonics space. If it says that it's Orton Gillingham based, it means that there's there should be a multisensory component. So what that means is that you're not just using it's not a paper pencil piece. You're using your entire body to to learn.
Sydney Baumann:So there should be a tactile, something that and add and a whole gross motor type of components that get wrapped into that curriculum. And so it gives it that multisensory interaction with the material. The other thing that you wanna make sure that you're getting is there are 5 components of reading that, and they should all be incorporated in. And it's really, really important to ensure that you have all 5 because reading is not a 1 or a linear component. All 5 of these pieces, one of the things that we're seeing with research that's coming out or as we get to know more how the brain works with reading, is that they're all interconnected interconnected like a rope.
Sydney Baumann:And so you have when you have a rope of twine, if you are missing one of those twines, your rope gets weaker or if it starts to unravel. And so we see the same thing with reading is that each component is a piece of that twine, that inner ropes or inner links together to create this really strong foundation or this really strong and nice rope of reading. And so with that, we really want that phonemic awareness. So when you're looking for, especially early on, early curriculum should have a huge phonemic awareness component. And phonemic awareness is your brain's ability to move sounds around.
Sydney Baumann:So that's that idea of rhyming, a first sound, last sound. But it goes as deep as things like, okay. I'm gonna take this sound, and I'm gonna pull it out of the word. I'm gonna put a new sound in, or I'm just gonna delete the sound altogether. And so all of those pieces strengthen your reading ability.
Sydney Baumann:The stronger and research has shown the stronger your phonemic awareness, the better reader you become. And so, that phonemic awareness is a huge foundation for a strong reader. So, it should have a huge phonemic awareness component. The next piece is phonics. We all know phonics.
Sydney Baumann:That's a lot of curriculums. It's really easy to spot. Do are we teaching those basic letters and their sounds? And that's really important. Kids need to know all of those in order to read.
Sydney Baumann:But part of that phonics piece isn't just knowing the ability to or having that ability to have sounds, but it's also that ability to blend those sounds into a word. And if we don't have that piece or it doesn't incorporate that piece, we're missing a huge step of reading. Next piece is that fluency piece. Our kids need to practice and be able to read fluently, and fluently isn't just speed. I think we often mistake fluency for speed, and we're like, oh, my kid's not reading fast enough.
Sydney Baumann:Speed isn't necessarily the issue. Yes. We have to read at a certain speed in order to comprehend, but slower readers and faster readers don't always indicate true comprehension. So we wanna really watch that speed. And so and we also wanna make sure that our children are reading fluently so that we don't sound like robots.
Sydney Baumann:We have that the correct inflection and tone within our voice as we read. And so the idea behind fluency is that we are able to read like we talk. And some kids, reading out loud is really hard. They just their brains don't work like that. And so can they do it in their head?
Sydney Baumann:And that's okay, too. That's a lot harder to assess because you can't hear what's going on in their head. And so that's when the next piece comes in is that vocabulary and comprehension. Those are the last two pieces for comp or for reading. Vocabulary is really a huge piece, and I think we forget about it a lot.
Sydney Baumann:Mhmm. If our children are reading and they can decode all the words, but they don't understand the vocabulary or how to utilize how those words play in, we lose comprehension. And we read for comprehension. And so we're we are working on and we need to make sure that we're working on those comprehension skills. And, vocabulary plays a huge piece in that.
Sydney Baumann:And I think it's also that piece of we also need to remember that or research has shown with vocabulary is we remember vocabulary when we incorporate it into our language. And so the bigger words we as parents use and the more we speak, the more our children are exposed to that vocabulary, and then they understand how to utilize it or how pull it out. And so we work on strategies of utilizing context clues or just pulling out vocabulary. What does that mean? And we interact with that again, that multisensory approach to vocabulary.
Sydney Baumann:Interacting with that vocabulary gives it a foundation for remembering.
Christy-Faith:Well, and my mind is blown right now because in homeschool culture, read alouds are huge. We do them every day, we do them in morning time, we are constantly reading out loud to our kids, but I'm realizing that expands the vocabulary that a parent is speaking in the household. And I think that that is a vital piece to, you know, I've always valued the read alouds for the comprehension, the telling story, the bonding, the collective family memories piece to it but all of my children have beyond collegiate vocabularies even in elementary school and I think that part of this is because we are obsessive with reading out loud to our kids every single day and I'm realizing at hearing you say this that that is probably one of the reasons because our conversational language does not incorporate the vocabulary of even, you know, I read a lot of classics and great works and so I think that's a powerful message. You know, I want to talk to you a minute about when we and you and I have talked about this privately. We would often get kids in our center at around 3rd grade, and the parents would say, they did fine on all their reading tests.
Christy-Faith:I don't know what's wrong. This is so strange. And it was that massive transition between learning to read to reading to learn. And in around 3rd grade, depending where you are, what school you are in, how you homeschool, that is generally what happens. Can we talk a minute about why kids can't make that leap and maybe when intervention is necessary?
Christy-Faith:We did a ton of comprehension intervention so these kids could read fluently, read out loud, read conversationally, they were not conceptualizing anything that they were reading.
Sydney Baumann:Yeah. So a lot of kids in that when we move from that piece learning to read to reading to learn is now we're taking what we're reading and we're putting into context. We're now having to apply that. There's a lot of things that could break down. Have we masked?
Sydney Baumann:Are we really reading to the level we think they are? Have they masked their ability? Are we still at that decoding stage? If a child is spending all of their energy decoding the words that they're reading, they're not comprehending because all of their energy, their brain is going towards just sounding out those words to create the word. And a lot of times, especially when we get to 2nd 3rd grade, if we've noticed that our kids are doing that in their head.
Sydney Baumann:They're not doing it out loud. So but we see those pauses afterwards. They're losing that comprehension when they are decoding. And so it's that piece of their energy is spent on just figuring out the word, and then they've lost the context that that word was put into, and we lose that comprehension. So there's some we also have kids.
Sydney Baumann:I've known multiple. They're not super common, but there are our kids that have figured out the code. They can read Yeah. Efficiently. They're called hyperlexic.
Sydney Baumann:And what it is is that they have figured out the code. They can read anything you put in front of them, but they have not connected vocabulary or concept to word. And that is really detrimental to reading because they are not comprehending. All they're doing is word reciting. And so that becomes really, really and it's that one's a very tough piece to overcome because now you have to go back and connect those pieces.
Sydney Baumann:What are some lies parents are told about reading? So I think one of the biggest things, especially in the homeschool community that we've heard over and over is that it's okay to wait. And that one's the biggest one. And I I look at that and go, yes. There's some truth and some not truth to that statement.
Sydney Baumann:We say, okay. It's okay to wait when your kid is 4, and they're not knowing their their sounds or they're they're not connecting. Yeah. Absolutely. They might not be ready.
Sydney Baumann:If your kid is 6 or 7 and they are still struggling with the basic alphabet, don't wait. There is something going on. There's an underlying component that needs to be looked at. Now there might not be a reading disability, but they're not connecting with the the concepts, and waiting isn't going to strengthen that. There needs to be we need to go back and look.
Sydney Baumann:And so I kind of refer this back to when your child is learning how to go through the milestones of walking. If your child is in doesn't begin to crawl, they're really gonna struggle to walk, and we see that. And so and it's because that crawling stage develops those muscles in order to walk. So early phonemic activities, those pieces, if they really struggle with those, if rhyming is hard, if some of those pieces are hard, reading is going to be hard because they haven't developed the muscles in their brain in order to support reading. And so it's that piece of early intervention is really key because then we can go back or we can go in and we can start targeting those muscles in essence that are weak so that reading then can be strong.
Sydney Baumann:And so that, again, that phonemic awareness becomes that foundation that reading is built upon.
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Christy-Faith:What is some misused vocabulary surrounding reading, and how do some of these these words and these terms that are thrown about, how do they cause confusion for us?
Sydney Baumann:I think the biggest one that I see with this is we have different words or we have different, meanings for words. So when we say things like, well, my child isn't you know, or your child will be reading or they should be reading, We need to define what reading is. And I think it's that piece when we sit here and go, well, just wait. They'll, you know, they'll be able to read. Well, what is reading?
Sydney Baumann:And I think it's that piece of when we hear, well, my child was reading at 1. Well, what do you define as reading? Is reading being able to sound out words and blend them together? Is reading picking up a book and reading, you know, independently can read all the words? Is it comprehending?
Sydney Baumann:There's so many different pieces that go into reading, and so we need to define what it constitutes. So when I see curriculums and supplementary activities in terms of computer and programs that sit there and say, we'll have your child reading. Define reading. And and so I think it's that piece as parents as we look at that, we need to then, again, define or figure out what their definition of reading is so that we make sure that our expectations match what they're telling us we're gonna do or what should be met. And I I personally constitute reading as a child who can pick up a book at their age level or at their grade level and read it independently.
Sydney Baumann:That's reading. And so if I say my child is a fluent reader, they can pick up a book at a 4th or 5th grade level and read it. Decoding a word is not that's pre stages of reading, but it's not a solid reading. And so, again, it's that when we start when we are not speaking in the same terms or language, it it becomes confusing. Another one that in in our field or in my field that gets oftentimes confused or as we look at different things is sight words.
Sydney Baumann:There's a huge debate in what is a sight word and how do we use them. We often use sight words as, all of those kind of the fry words or those commonly seen words. However, the definite true definition of a sight is any word that you can read upon sight. Your brain automatically sees it. It doesn't have to think about it.
Sydney Baumann:It just reads it. That's different than your fry words. Now do we want all of those fry words to be automatic? Absolutely. But some of the words on our fry words have to be explicitly taught.
Sydney Baumann:And so I define sight words as words that you can read automatically, and until it's read automatically, it's not a sight word yet. We then really practice, and our practice, and with the kids that I work with, is irregular words. Irregular words are words that don't follow the rules such as and, the, if, is, of, do. Those are just some basics on that sight word. A lot of times, though, kids, we have to memorize them.
Sydney Baumann:They don't follow the rules. They don't follow phonetic rules. They can't be sounded out. We have to be able to look at them and just read them. We have to be able to know how to spell them to spell them.
Sydney Baumann:And so we tend to treat those or we look at those words differently because they are now utilizing a different part of our brain than, say, if we're sounding out a word.
Christy-Faith:And you used the word fry word. Was that f r y? What does that mean?
Sydney Baumann:So fry, Dolch are they're a series of lists that have been put out. Schools use them. Curriculums use them. And they're I think it's, like, the 100 or 200 most commonly used words in early readers and readers that you should know by sight. And a lot of times, schools will use those, as spelling words or as read words that they send home with children.
Sydney Baumann:We focused on those. When I was teaching early on in my career, we would make flashcards with them, and we've really focused on those words. And those still tend to be the focus of those early words, especially in kindergarten, 1st, and second grade.
Christy-Faith:And while you were speaking to that and I wanna circle back to early intervention because I have read the studies, and there are numerous that if a child is not reading at grade level by 4th grade, when the child is in the system, this has been studies of children that are in the system, that they will start to go downhill in the subsequent years. And now we are in a state in our country where I think it's upwards of between 30 40% of high school seniors are graduating high school, not reading proficiently. And I think that there is a major problem. I know that a lot of mamas listening right now who are homeschooling, probably part of the reason why they pulled their kids out of school was because of the failure of the interventions, and they saw that this was not working. Can you speak a little bit to why that 4th grade benchmark, and I believe I will correct it in the show notes if I'm wrong, but I believe one of the studies is called the Matthew effect, and you can look it up regarding if they are not reading by 4th grade, outcomes start to decline tremendously.
Christy-Faith:And it's to the point where if you're listening, you're not going to see this visual, but kids who are reading in 4th at grade level, they continue to excel academically in all areas. And if they are not, they decline. So it's like this v chart. It's like neither one go is, like, kind of in the middle. It's, like, one goes up, one goes down.
Christy-Faith:And I find that extremely frightening. Can you speak to that a little bit and explain what's going on there?
Sydney Baumann:Yes. So the reason why is because, again, it's that idea within schools. We get to 3rd grade, and that that begins to switch. And even in, homeschooling curriculums, if you look at that 3rd grade level, we go from reading or learning to read, and so all of that instruction is focused on that reading to learn to learning or learning to read to reading to learn. And so all of that instruction is focused on that reading to learn.
Sydney Baumann:We do that flip. And when we flip, the issue is is then our focus is no longer on our ability or those teaching the sounds. Now we've made the assumption. We've made the jump that all we're gonna do is strengthen, and we're gonna really focus on vocabulary and comprehension. And we're gonna leave phonics, phonemic awareness, and fluency behind, and so that the focus shifts.
Sydney Baumann:In the school system, you had mentioned the latest statistic that just came out is 66% of our 4th graders in the school system in the United States are reading below grade level. The statistics are daunting. I believe it's 80% of children who are not reading at a 4th grade level when they enter 4th grade will never read at grade level ever. Yes. And without extreme intervention.
Sydney Baumann:And and even in what I found is those kids, even with intervention, are still gonna lag behind
Christy-Faith:all
Sydney Baumann:the way. And so it's this huge push to get them to grade level by 4th. Now in a homeschool environment, we can supplement and do that. However, the material all of a sudden also starts to shift, and your 4th grader starts to realize, I don't want to read books that are babyish. And that material or that content that what they're reading does feel very little and young.
Sydney Baumann:And so we see they begin to hear to feel that difference. They begin to see that it's harder. And so we see that that pushback or that resistance with kids, become more detrimental. And so that's when parents often say, well, my kid you know, it's really hard to get them to read. It's and so that's when a lot of times parents start seeking out help because all of a sudden, they're feeling that resistance within their children.
Christy-Faith:You heard it here first. That was worth the price for admission right there. Why early intervention is so key? Because when we stop doing reading instruction around that grade level, 3rd, 4th grade, we are now assuming that the children read the textbooks that they are given, the materials that they are given are making that assumption, and these kids are not reading. And so they are not novels that they are given, and they fall further and further behind.
Christy-Faith:And we also know studies on when kids fall through the cracks, that also affects mental health, emotional health, and not in good ways. There have also been lots of studies that talk about this as well. There are even schools that have opened up for kids who have dyslexia to try to circumvent this, what can happen to them emotionally. So, Sydney, I know that I've shared this with you, but my sister has profound dyslexia. Several of the disses.
Christy-Faith:And it was very unusual for her to get diagnosed. This was in the early 1980s. I mean, this was on the cusp. It was so bad that my sister actually got diagnosed with something. Back then, they were only diagnosing boys with stuff.
Christy-Faith:This is true. Her growing up in the special education system was not a positive experience for her. And I know that there's been a lot of progress made in this area, but the shaming that she went through and really never actually getting the help that she needed. She's now homeschooling her son and redeeming her own education now, which is a really beautiful thing, and I know a lot of us moms are in that case as well. I never enjoyed reading all the way through 12th grade.
Christy-Faith:It was a task. It was a chore, and I have been able to retrain myself. And luckily, my kids now do love learning as well. And we talked about why early intervention is key. If anything comes to mind regarding that, we can circle back to that.
Christy-Faith:I wanna ask you, what is a reading disability? What is dyslexia? What is dis, dysgraphia? What is apraxia of speech? All of those terms are very confusing.
Christy-Faith:We often see kids who need reading intervention also are in speech therapies and see speech pathologists. These things are interconnected in the brain. I would love for you to suss this out and make some clarity and make some sense of all of that for us.
Sydney Baumann:Yeah. So a reading disability so you can have a reading disability, which means that you struggle with reading, and it doesn't always equal out to be dyslexia. I think that the big thing is is with dyslexia is it's the most common reading disability. So about 20% of our population has some kind of reading disability, and about 5th 10 to 15% of those 20, so half to 75% of those are dyslexia. And so, basically, what dyslexia is is that it's a neurological learning disability or is characterized with difficulty accurately, and fluently recognizing words, encoding, which is spelling, and decoding, which is that reading piece, ability.
Sydney Baumann:So that's what it's impacting. And I think the big thing is is there's a lot of things that dyslexia masks itself or symptoms of it, but they are not. So the biggest common piece with dyslexia is well, it's letter reversals. No. It's not.
Sydney Baumann:We often see letter reversals for children that have dyslexia, but that isn't necessarily what it was. Truly speaking, I think the biggest piece with letter reversals because I able to talk to a lot of mommies about that letter reversal. I'm really concerned. And it's it's kind of hard because letter reversals are actually developmentally appropriate or developmentally part of where we are up until 3rd grade, which seems really late to me as a mom because I have a I have my youngest really struggles with reversals. However, if you think about it I'm gonna grab a pen.
Sydney Baumann:So this is a pen, and then this is a pen, and this is a pen, and this is a pen. And no matter which way I turn it, it stays a pen. And it's called object permanence. So then you get letters, and you tell me that a d goes this way, a b goes this way, a p goes backwards, and a q goes the other way. And now you've just taken object permanence, and you've thrown it out the window.
Sydney Baumann:And and you expect a child to shift their brain to shift, some kids' brains don't shift like that. And so we have to explicitly teach. Now there are some issues with that that, yes, there are some pieces with dyslexia that, pull in. There also is some pieces with eyes, how our eyes track. And so we did with our daughter, our youngest, really struggled with with reversals, and we went through eye therapy with her, and it made a significant difference.
Sydney Baumann:Now that was our story and it didn't get rid of them altogether. However, she was reversing everything. It was and it really did make a difference for us. So her issue with the reversals was more related to how her eyes tracked versus that dyslexia. Now, again, oftentimes, we see those as comorbid or they're together, and so we often contribute it to that.
Sydney Baumann:The other piece that we often hear with dyslexia is the words move on the page or we see whole words inverted. Again, those are not that's more of a tracking issue more than a dyslexia issue. And a lot of times our kids with dyslexia have those because it's all interconnected within your brain. Again, dyslexia is a brain disorder, not but it's not an eye disorder, and so it has nothing to do with how you see it. It's how the brain is interpreting it.
Christy-Faith:Mhmm. So You know, that's why when you go to an educational psychologist and your child goes through testing, we we used to call it you you check the hardware and the software. Right? We check the eyes as well, and Yes. I can't tell you how many kids.
Christy-Faith:They struggled so much, and they discovered this was one of my own children. We discovered that, they needed vision therapy, and the gains that were made after not a long time in vision therapy. I often recommend parents, like, if they don't know what to do to start there, just get an evaluation to know because whether you have dyslexia or not or another learning disability, if you also have something going on with eye tracking, and that's gonna you're gonna need it anyway. So Yep. You might as well try and get you know, because you can go they're not.
Christy-Faith:Most of those places aren't greedy. If you go for an evaluation and your kid doesn't need it, they will tell you. There's enough kids that do need this. And adults, half the time, I wonder if I still need it.
Sydney Baumann:Yeah. So dysgraphia is a disability within writing, and so this is where your ability at any stage of writing, so holding a pencil all the way to writing. It's that idea of getting ideas done on paper. So there's that whole and and an occupational therapist is the best one to work through with dysgraphia. And then there's dyscalculia, which is math, that piece where you really struggle with numbers and understanding number sense and all that.
Sydney Baumann:It's a very abstract piece. Some kids really struggle with that. And then there's the biggest one with speech. Yes. There's all kinds of different speech disorders.
Sydney Baumann:The biggest one is that has become we're seeing more and more cases of it is apraxia of speech. Apraxia of of speech is actually a motor planning disorder where your ability to formulate and speak becomes impacted. And so the child will know what they want to say, but they can't word retrieve or their motor planning can't make that sound. And so we see a lot of times with kids with apraxia, they're after a lot a lot of practice, we still aren't able to get the our mouth into the right position. We're not able to compare.
Sydney Baumann:Sometimes we'll see reversals instead of, like, l p, they'll read pull, so it reads backwards. And so, again, those are pieces and things where you wanna seek out and talk with a speech pathologist. But, again, a lot of these these pieces, the disorders can be interrelated. And so going to that and getting that early intervention when if you feel like there's something going on with your child are key. And, again, I think I always tell the moms that I talk to about this.
Sydney Baumann:Trust your mom gut. If something's telling you that something's not quite right, go go ask or talk with your your pediatrician or
Christy-Faith:a specialist about those different pieces. Important is it in a program the I'm gonna change subjects a little bit. Yeah. This oral language piece where the you because you've mentioned something about how the sound is in your mouth, where your tongue is. How important is that to learning to read?
Sydney Baumann:It actually is really important. So there are 8 sounds in the English language that the only difference between sound is whether we turn on our voice box or we make it vibrate, if you will. It's called unvoiced and voiced.
Christy-Faith:Yes.
Sydney Baumann:We make it voiced or unvoiced. And so the the biggest one that we really have to pay attention to is the ta to v. And because the and v, it's a simple mouth placement, but if you close your eyes, it's really hard for your mouth or your ears to pick up on those pieces. We also teach certain kids or some kids, especially with that early phonemic awareness, one of the things that we teach or we really practice is being able to hear all the sounds. There are kids where hearing all the sounds is really hard.
Sydney Baumann:They blend together or even breaking apart words. If you've ever listened to somebody who speaks a foreign language, our brain isn't able to separate out even the words because we're unfamiliar. And so one of the things we really wanna check is are our kids, as we speak, are they able to differentiate every word that is being said, or are they pushing it all together in this string of pieces? And so it's that the piece of training kids that there's a difference. And then some kids need that to be explicitly taught.
Sydney Baumann:We need to be able to tell. We need to really work on what is my mouth doing when I make this sound. What do I hear? And then that helps the brain to differentiate between these sounds, and that will help with spelling, reading, and all of those pieces.
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Christy-Faith:Homeschool Rising is available wherever books are sold. And connecting those sounds with the symbols, because really letters are symbols, connecting those what they hear with what their mouth does, the sound they are making with the symbols on the paper. People you know, we think reading is so easy. It involves so much. So much.
Christy-Faith:I know there's a mama here who is listening, who is using the best homeschool curriculum out there on the market. It is OG. She knows that it is reputable, and her kid is still struggling. I wanna ask you, why is using an OG based curriculum different than working with an OG specialist? And when do we know if we need it?
Sydney Baumann:Yeah. So that's a really great question. I've heard this multiple times, and I think the thing is is so an OG curriculum is is just that. It's a scripted curriculum, and they're great. They have all the the pieces.
Sydney Baumann:But the difference between a scripted curriculum and an OG specialist is that as an OG specialist, I am trained to look for all of those little pieces. Not only am I trained to look for all the little pieces of what's going wrong, but then I have that toolbox to go, this is what's wrong and this is how we need to supplement or this is how we need to strengthen that piece. So it's the difference between working out on your own and going to the gym and working out with a trainer. You're going to get a lot more out of working with a trainer because that trainer knows exactly what to target, when to target it, and how to target it. Same thing with a reading specialist.
Sydney Baumann:And so it's that piece of not all people need a trainer, not all people need a specialist. But when you are struggling, that gives you that extra boost. It gives you that piece so that you can give your child that boost. And so as a specialist, knowing all those pieces, knowing when to push, knowing when not to. And when I work with my families, it's that piece of trying giving you materials, telling you how to do things, or setting you up for success.
Sydney Baumann:I had a conversation with the mom the other day, and she's like, I don't understand why he's doing this. And I'm like, he's really struggling with this. He can't read it. He does great with you. I listen.
Sydney Baumann:And then then he melts down with me. And so I kinda asked her what she was doing or what sentence she wanted him to read. And the sentence she wanted him to read had 7 words in it with concepts we had not taught yet and he did not know. And so it's that it was best intent on mom's part, but she's asking him to do something that he doesn't have the skills to do yet. And so it's that piece of knowing when or those pieces to set your child up for success.
Sydney Baumann:And so I often said when I work with my families, I send them the little readers that go with the concept that we have. And one of the things about the readers that I use is that in that reader, it only has the sounds, the letters, the words that we have mastered those concepts. There's nothing else in there. And so I think it's one of those things that's one of the hardest things about pulling, like, a Bob book or a reader off of here is that there is no set sequence, especially early phonics, and so you have to be really mindful. Are you asking your child to read something that they are fully capable of reading and without even realizing it.
Sydney Baumann:And so I think in some cases, in that sense, mom was setting him up for failure inadvertently, and then she gets frustration. And then he then gets frustrated with her because now, see, I'm just I can't. And so it's that piece of when you are struggling, working with a professional to look at some of those pieces through that lens and understand really can be helpful not only for to help improve work with your child, but also to help you understand what it is that you are setting up within your home.
Christy-Faith:If you're enjoying the show and you don't wanna miss out on future episodes, hit that like and subscribe button and show us some love with your comments. Those 5 star reviews really do make a difference. Yeah. And I love that so much. And, you know, I gotta say that in Thrive Homeschool community, when I'm advising the mamas and a mama is maybe new, I don't know her or her kid quite yet, and maybe she joined because of reading struggles.
Christy-Faith:What I'll what I wanna know what curriculum she has been using first. But number 2, I always tell her I recommend several, and I say, try this and let's revisit in a couple of months because I feel like when I feel like a lot can be caught, and then there is that population of student after the fact once they have actually had some because I do consider some of the better OG homeschool curriculum out there to actually, I consider it very close to interventions. It is scripted beautifully. It catches almost everything. So if a kid is still struggling after one of those, after being in one of those, then I know for sure, okay, we need to stop.
Christy-Faith:We need a specialist. And I wanna also say that not all specialists are the same. At our center, we had a a reading division. And one of the characteristics of every reading specialist that I hired was, are they intuitive? We don't want someone who just you send your kid and they start a program from the very, very beginning and just it's it's a rote thing.
Christy-Faith:They need to be an investigator for your child. Can you speak a little bit about what that means? Because you could say, well, they're following the program to make sure there aren't any gaps. Yes. You do need that, but why do you also need an interventionist that is an intuitive tutor?
Sydney Baumann:So an intuitive tutor is gonna know when to push a child and when to back off. Mhmm. I think that's the biggest thing. There is a breaking point, and we see it with our children. You can push, and then where and then we hit that frustration level.
Sydney Baumann:So brain research tells us when we hit frustration level, our IQ drops 40 points. 40. So if you look at that as a child, they're not at a point at that point where there is any learning going on if we get to that frustration point on a regular basis. And so it's being intuitive enough to be able to push where I know I need to push, back off when I know I need to back off, and also have those conversations. I think it's that piece of understanding and being connected with that child enough to go, look, look at what you've done.
Sydney Baumann:Look how far you've come. Look at where we're gonna go. Our kids are not unaware. They know this is hard. They know they're behind.
Sydney Baumann:They know where they're supposed to be or where they want to be. And they know when they come to work with me that that is because they're struggling. So it's that piece of knowing and creating that bond. If a kid doesn't connect with the person they're working with, then you're not gonna get the learning. You're not gonna get the buy in, and our kids need to buy into this is gonna be successful because that's where we get that effort, and that's where we get that work.
Sydney Baumann:I think it's also understanding where the child is coming from and how to pull them in. So it's taking on those things where they're high interest, making jokes, where they need to be laughing, and be able to take something that's really hard and make it not feel so hard for the child. And that is that intuition that the therapist needs to have in order to help that or make that be successful.
Christy-Faith:I ask you, why are group interventions for reading, like what you see in the schools, why are they so ineffective? And why is 1 on 1 so effective? And we see results so much faster. We only did 1 on 1 interventions at our center. And and it's it's interesting because in the school system, you see almost everything now is group intervention, even speech therapy, which that boggles my mind as well.
Christy-Faith:Tell me a little bit about group intervention and why it's so ineffective.
Sydney Baumann:Yeah. So, unfortunately, the schools are working within the system that they've been given, and so group therapy is really all they have available. They there just isn't enough time in a day for them to do more. I found that group intervention isn't effective. I don't do group intervention for that very reason.
Sydney Baumann:You can't ever get a homogeneous group when you do group work. So that basically means that I cannot get 2 children who are at the exact same level and are missing the same concepts within it. So especially in an intervention type of group. And so most of the time, by the time we get them, we have holes to fill. And so all the holes are different with children.
Sydney Baumann:And so then you always have one child who's learning, and then you have one child who might be reviewing. Now there might be some overlap. You get that. But the other piece and so that's not necessarily a bad thing. So the other piece that's really huge is the fact that no two children are ever gonna move or learn on the same pace.
Christy-Faith:Mhmm.
Sydney Baumann:And so what happens then is that you are you are either going to be too fast for 1 child or too slow for another. So and so then you are are working on that tug and pull of, okay, this child needs this much repetition, but this child's ready to move on. And so that makes it really hard in terms of how how you pace. The other piece with that is that we do a lot everything that we do is out loud. So we talk about the sounds.
Sydney Baumann:We review the sounds, everything. We use our voice a lot. And with that, those children who struggle most learn very, very quickly how to mask and how to fall in with the other children. And so it's kind of like that idea of when I get into my car and a song that I know comes on the radio, I can sing a lot. Ask me to sing that song on my own, it isn't gonna happen.
Sydney Baumann:I won't remember the words. Same thing with our children. And so what happens is then they might not remember it in isolation or on their own, but they remember it when their friend says it and they can mask and go right along. But, ultimately, when we read, we need to do it independently and all by ourselves. And so in 1 on 1, I know as a as an interventionist exactly what sounds I need to review because they don't have them.
Sydney Baumann:And versus that it's masking and our brain doesn't. And, again, when I if I have to sing a song and I have the words, my brain is gonna be in a different place than it is when it just has to mimic what's on the radio.
Christy-Faith:Wow. Well, this has been an incredibly packed episode with amazing knowledge. You did not gatekeep at all, girl. I appreciate you so much. I know that you actually have the credentials to test kids yourself, and you do a lot of interventions as well, and you do them over Zoom.
Christy-Faith:That is exciting. I know many moms who work with you, and the results have been absolutely phenomenal. Where can the mamas listening find you, Sydney?
Sydney Baumann:Yeah. So my email is www.parentpartner education@gmail.com. Www.parentpartnereducation.com. We have a website that's actually under construction and should be up soon. It'll be www.partnereducation.org.
Sydney Baumann:So same beginning part.
Christy-Faith:Yes. And we will put the contact information in the show notes, so don't worry about that. If you were frantically writing down her email or her website, we will put it in the show notes so you can click right there to find it. Sydney, I know this is the first of many times you will be on our show. I want an entire show just on spelling, girl.
Christy-Faith:I do. And so it's been exciting and so inspirational and empowering to be able to talk to you today because I know that there are mamas who are gonna have clarity now on what they need to do to move forward to make sure that one of the biggest, most important building blocks of their child's education, which is literacy, is on track. Thank you so much for being here.
Sydney Baumann:Thanks for having me.
Christy-Faith:We run till we wee bit bit long, I told you. You are the one. You're my saddle. I