Reading anxiety and refusal

[Anonymous]

Hi all. My 6 yo DD has anxiety and a level 1 ASD dx. We’ve done parent coaching, therapy, and she takes guanfacine. She did great in the beginning of the year but the wheels fell off the bus in the back half. She refuses to engage in certain things at school (reading and writing) and melts down if we ask her to read at home. We think she might have a learning disorder but it’s also so early. She can decode and has phonemic awareness but has a hard time with sight words that break phonetic rules. She’s reading the Bob Book Kindergarten sight word books now, and after book 6 in that set she is really struggling (“do, it dot” or “she saw a hill.” - do and saw are hard).

We mostly haven’t pushed reading to us because we want reading to be fun/a lifelong skill, and we know that eventually she will learn. We read to her and she listens to audible. What we are noticing now is that she has major anxiety about “being dumb” and “being behind everyone” and “reading the baby books when every one thinks I’m stupid.” She is crazy observant and notices what everyone is doing and is correct, most are ahead of her. She throws a huge fit at the mention of a tutor, because “all my friends will make fun of me.”

We are revisiting treatment with her psych and starting CBT this summer. We asked her how she’d like to practice reading and she said in the morning, but even that is sometimes a struggle. We are trying to find that gentle balance of “practice and encouragement” + “I’m not worried, people learn when they learn.”

Have any of you been through this with your asd/adhd/anxiety kids? What worked for you? Charts? Bribes? Tutors? School accommodation?

Thank you.

[Anonymous]

I would consider a reading tutor who uses an evidence based approach to instruction (Orton- Gillingham / Phonographix). My child is dyslexic but also had the same anxiety at affecting 5-6 with reading. Providing your child the tools to read I think over time will help with the anxiety (it did with my child who at 12 can read relatively close to grade level and while anxious about books with a lot of text will now tackle them independently).

[Anonymous]

At age 6 in K or grade 1 that’s a lot of worry for her about her peers.

My asd I girl had the same reading issues (and math issues) but never noticed being behind in her progressive private.
She only noticed when her younger sister, who went to a traditional private, was getting ahead of her in reading and math. And then noticed other kids doing their math or projects faster.

Then the wheels fell off and anxiety started.

[Anonymous]

But that was 5th grade.

She didn’t notice before that.

I find it curious that your 6 to either keeps tabs or has that biased of perceptions. Is this a public school with lots of testing and check points?

[Anonymous]

This is OP. She is at a private school, with no testing or check points. The school takes a very “they are learning to be learners” approach and isn’t pushing us to explore tutoring at all, since she is still developmentally on track. They also have 2 teachers in her room and a dedicated learning specialist who facilitates small reading groups. I volunteer in the class and I’m confident the school is not creating a competitive environment.

she has shared that her group had just one other kid and they were the only ones still reading “baby” books. At graduation the kids got up to say a series of thank yous and most looked like they were reading. I know they had just memorized (because the parents are all friends too) but she assumed they were all reading and thus, she is stupid. But mostly, this is a kid who notices EVERYTHING, and then worries about it. I can’t breathe differently without her asking if everything is ok (truly, nothing goes unnoticed). So she’s seen her friends read, seen her friends write, and she can’t do it yet. She’s very emotionally mature but lacks the capacity to react appropriately in real time, if that makes sense.

99% of her anxiety in general is socially related.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would consider a reading tutor who uses an evidence based approach to instruction (Orton- Gillingham / Phonographix). My child is dyslexic but also had the same anxiety at affecting 5-6 with reading. Providing your child the tools to read I think over time will help with the anxiety (it did with my child who at 12 can read relatively close to grade level and while anxious about books with a lot of text will now tackle them independently).

Thank you. I have emails out to some OG tutors and also wired for reading. Did you do any thing at home? I’m worried about exacerbating the anxiety, so am mostly inclined to lean back, but it’s so hard because I see her struggling and want to help.

[Anonymous]

This sounds similar to my sons struggles. He is under 5 and while he hasn’t been formally diagnosed with adhd, he does have difficulty regulating himself to focus on things that don’t come easily to him or aren’t highly rewarding as well as auditory processing challenges.

OT is helpful for him at school, and this summer we are getting him private OT sessions with a therapist who specializes in sensory integration. He will also be doing Tomatis - an integrated listening therapy. It’s sort of a two pronged approach to help him build confidence in his motor skills so that basic school tasks and body functions come easier, and the listening training if successful helps improve language processing and learning accessibility, thereby reducing anxiety.

Obviously none of this is specific to reading, we’re very early on in the process, and some people might scoff at trying auditory therapy. But yes, in a nutshell, in a similar place and these are some of the interventions we’re trying at this point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This sounds similar to my sons struggles. He is under 5 and while he hasn’t been formally diagnosed with adhd, he does have difficulty regulating himself to focus on things that don’t come easily to him or aren’t highly rewarding as well as auditory processing challenges.

OT is helpful for him at school, and this summer we are getting him private OT sessions with a therapist who specializes in sensory integration. He will also be doing Tomatis - an integrated listening therapy. It’s sort of a two pronged approach to help him build confidence in his motor skills so that basic school tasks and body functions come easier, and the listening training if successful helps improve language processing and learning accessibility, thereby reducing anxiety.

Obviously none of this is specific to reading, we’re very early on in the process, and some people might scoff at trying auditory therapy. But yes, in a nutshell, in a similar place and these are some of the interventions we’re trying at this point.

And we’re also looking into speech therapy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This sounds similar to my sons struggles. He is under 5 and while he hasn’t been formally diagnosed with adhd, he does have difficulty regulating himself to focus on things that don’t come easily to him or aren’t highly rewarding as well as auditory processing challenges.

OT is helpful for him at school, and this summer we are getting him private OT sessions with a therapist who specializes in sensory integration. He will also be doing Tomatis - an integrated listening therapy. It’s sort of a two pronged approach to help him build confidence in his motor skills so that basic school tasks and body functions come easier, and the listening training if successful helps improve language processing and learning accessibility, thereby reducing anxiety.

Obviously none of this is specific to reading, we’re very early on in the process, and some people might scoff at trying auditory therapy. But yes, in a nutshell, in a similar place and these are some of the interventions we’re trying at this point.

Thanks PP. we did OT for a long time but stopped this spring, around the same time her struggles with anxiety and meltdowns at school started surfacing (before it was only at home). I’ll look at restarting this summer. Good luck with your kiddo too! - OP

[Anonymous]

Sounds similar to my son. We ditched those "Bob" books and went with the level 1, level 2, etc, books and let him choose the ones that interested him but didn't pressure him to fully read them. We'd read and/or alternate with him reading as little as a sentence and us finishing the page. We also bought sight word cards through "level 4" and would practice once a day. He's 7 now and it just clicked last week. It also doesn't surprise me that your child is concerned about being behind their peers. Ours called himself the dumbest kid in his class and we don't say a thing about peers, grades, etc (EXCEPT in this instance when we decided to use logic to help-if the highest you can get is a 4 and the lowest is 1 AND you earned 3/4's...) Just keep affirming your kid, OP and even if it's still mostly you reading to them, the goal is as you said-to encourage a lifelong love of reading.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sounds similar to my son. We ditched those "Bob" books and went with the level 1, level 2, etc, books and let him choose the ones that interested him but didn't pressure him to fully read them. We'd read and/or alternate with him reading as little as a sentence and us finishing the page. We also bought sight word cards through "level 4" and would practice once a day. He's 7 now and it just clicked last week. It also doesn't surprise me that your child is concerned about being behind their peers. Ours called himself the dumbest kid in his class and we don't say a thing about peers, grades, etc (EXCEPT in this instance when we decided to use logic to help-if the highest you can get is a 4 and the lowest is 1 AND you earned 3/4's...) Just keep affirming your kid, OP and even if it's still mostly you reading to them, the goal is as you said-to encourage a lifelong love of reading.

Thank you! I will pick up some more fun books and will definitely try the “I read a page you read a page” approach. I’m so glad it finally clicked for your son! - OP

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would consider a reading tutor who uses an evidence based approach to instruction (Orton- Gillingham / Phonographix). My child is dyslexic but also had the same anxiety at affecting 5-6 with reading. Providing your child the tools to read I think over time will help with the anxiety (it did with my child who at 12 can read relatively close to grade level and while anxious about books with a lot of text will now tackle them independently).

Thank you. I have emails out to some OG tutors and also wired for reading. Did you do any thing at home? I’m worried about exacerbating the anxiety, so am mostly inclined to lean back, but it’s so hard because I see her struggling and want to help.

Our approach at home changed over time. At first, we primarily just keep reading to our child. Once our child stated with phonographix (and later OG), we began asking our child to read some to us (buddy reading) but we would help our child sound out words / praise him if he chose a possible correct sound even if it was the wrong one for the word.

For our child, the big jump was in the second half of second grade when we were able to arrange for tutoring 3 hours a week and our child would read with us regularly for 20 minutes.


We were lucky that our child had strong comprehension skills so he made a big jump once he could decode. Our child developed a very good relationship with his OG tutor which helps greatly since tutoring is not always the most fun thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would consider a reading tutor who uses an evidence based approach to instruction (Orton- Gillingham / Phonographix). My child is dyslexic but also had the same anxiety at affecting 5-6 with reading. Providing your child the tools to read I think over time will help with the anxiety (it did with my child who at 12 can read relatively close to grade level and while anxious about books with a lot of text will now tackle them independently).

Thank you. I have emails out to some OG tutors and also wired for reading. Did you do any thing at home? I’m worried about exacerbating the anxiety, so am mostly inclined to lean back, but it’s so hard because I see her struggling and want to help.

Our approach at home changed over time. At first, we primarily just keep reading to our child. Once our child stated with phonographix (and later OG), we began asking our child to read some to us (buddy reading) but we would help our child sound out words / praise him if he chose a possible correct sound even if it was the wrong one for the word.

For our child, the big jump was in the second half of second grade when we were able to arrange for tutoring 3 hours a week and our child would read with us regularly for 20 minutes.


We were lucky that our child had strong comprehension skills so he made a big jump once he could decode. Our child developed a very good relationship with his OG tutor which helps greatly since tutoring is not always the most fun thing.

Also, to be clear on the buddy reading, we did not worry about what exact level reader it was and had our child choose fun (but relativelyeasy) books to read for buddy reading. In buddy reading, we had our child tried to decode what he could decode and stepped in when we knew it would a sound not covered yet etc.

[Anonymous]

I would tell your daughter that there is no need to worry any longer, because you have talked to some people who have kids just like her, and they all recommended a fantastic coaching system called “O-G” and it always works! It is best for smart kids whose brains work very quickly. You want her to pick up on your sense of surety about this and that the specially trained coaches had to go to extra school to learn to teach this scientific approach. Then just read to her until the “coaching” starts and keep saying that you have a plan.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would consider a reading tutor who uses an evidence based approach to instruction (Orton- Gillingham / Phonographix). My child is dyslexic but also had the same anxiety at affecting 5-6 with reading. Providing your child the tools to read I think over time will help with the anxiety (it did with my child who at 12 can read relatively close to grade level and while anxious about books with a lot of text will now tackle them independently).

Thank you. I have emails out to some OG tutors and also wired for reading. Did you do any thing at home? I’m worried about exacerbating the anxiety, so am mostly inclined to lean back, but it’s so hard because I see her struggling and want to help.

NP. I second the OG recommendation. Sight words are not helpful. I would stop pushing Bob books. I would focus simply on letter sounds (not names but the sound a letter makes). Play games - can she think of a word that starts with a “buh” sound? Etc. Ends with a “puh”? Can she play rhyming with you - bat, cat, etc.? Can you play blending games - she makes an initial sound “buh” and you give her “at” and then she blends to say “bat”?

My DC struggled to read and honestly, one of the worst parenting choices I made was to try to teach him myself. It was very frustrating for him because he felt like a failure to his mother (even tho I was trying to be supportive) every time he couldn’t answer or struggled. It really wrecked our parent/child relationship for many years. If I could go back and change things, I would have made my role that of cheerleader and focused on the fun parts of reading - games and reading to him. And, I would have paid for as much OG as early as I could, even to the point of pulling him out of school for “therapy” several times a week.

YMMV of course.