[lonestar]

"auditorially discriminate" sounds...)))

I was not a special ed teacher, but I am dubious of this distinction. If someone can understand the speech of others (ie--can hear and understand the teacher), there's no apparent reason, IMO, that they couldn't "sound out" words.

Did you ever teach a child with articulation problems? Not phonics, I hope.

If you have a kid with a chronilogical age of 6 and mental age of 8 years, that child should be reading above grade-level. But some can't read. Just as some people see things backwards, some don't distinguish sounds nor are they able to remember the sequencing of sounds. They are going to have a problem learning to read with the phonics method. They may learn all the auditory/visual symbols but they can't remember sounds in an order.

Sorry not to respond to you sooner but I was out of town for the weekend.

[Mamzelle]

As I said, I was not special-ed, nor a speech therapist. I do maintain that decoding skills, learning to associate symbols with sounds, is essential and not difficult for most kids if you just provide the resources and get out of the way. Tailoring a specialized reading program for particular disabilities was not my realm, nor should it have been. I didn't take it amiss that some kids had to "slog through" rather than sail through, and I didn't regard them as difficient. I have three of my own, all very different.