The Lizard of Poz or Reading Without Words

Tonight, Imma decided she wanted to read Lucy a bedtime story. Lucy was delighted and promptly climbed into Imma's bed, waved at me and said, "Night night, Mommy," as if I was going to let her sleep in her sister's bed! (I don't think we're quite ready for that!)  Imma picked up her favorite storybook and proclaimed, "Lucy, let me read you this story.  It's, The Lizard of Poz." She then preceded to tell Lucy the story of the Wizard of Oz, to the best of her ability, while flipping through the pages, using the pictures as her guide. Lucy was enthralled, hanging on her every word!  There's just one problem, Imma doesn't have that many words.
In fact, much of what Imma was saying wasn't really words.  It was intonation. It was speech-sounds.  It was phonemes, phonics, some syllables. Lots of rhythm and variance.  Very few words.  The only words I really understood were, "Dorothy," "Toto," "she said," and occasionally she would throw in something else that was recognizable to me.  The rest of it sounded kind of like a muffled conversation you might hear through the wall of a hotel room.  You can tell it's speech.  You can tell it's English.  But, you really have no idea what the person is saying.

Imma reading to Lucy

Lucy was ready for a sleep-over!

This is how Imma hears a lot of the conversation going on around her so it only makes sense that this is how she would tell a story.  She knows there are supposed to be lots of words. She knows her voice is supposed to go up and down and she's supposed to have different emotions.  But she really doesn't know what she's supposed to say.  So, she does the best she can and fills in the gaps with speech-sounds.
If one is simply reading a bedtime story to a two-year old sister, this is perfectly acceptable, wonderful and good.  When one is in kindergarten taking a state mandated assessment, however, that makes it a little more problematic.  Imma had her reading assessment today and she didn't do so well. She struggles with segmenting and blending words because she doesn't process sounds the same way most people do.  She struggles with comprehension and how to respond to verbal prompts because she doesn't understand what she is supposed to do.  When she listens to a story, there are more words that she doesn't understand than she does understand.  So, she has to try to infer meaning and fill in gaps in the story based on very little information.  The result?  Her teacher read her a story about some kids building a tree house. Imma thought the story was about kids climbing a tree to get apples.  There was no mention in the story about apples but she just assumed that, if there was a tree, there would be apples.  Needless to say, she didn't do so well on the test and that is unfortunate because it isn't through lack of intelligence or lack of effort.
It also isn't because of a lack of reading skills.  Imma has a lot of great pre-reading skills. She knows all of her letter names and sounds.  She  knows a lot of sight words.  She knows practically every animal name you can put in front of her. She can decode to a point but she doesn't always know how to put the words back together.  She does get frustrated easily when she's reading because she isn't sure what she's supposed to do and she doesn't take direction well in that type of situation.  She also doesn't always know the names of the objects in the pictures so that can't help her and she doesn't acquire new words easily so even if you tell her, "That's not a hat, it's a cap," she's probably not going to understand what you are telling her.
She also literally does not hear some sounds the same way we do and it's not because of a problem with her ears.  Some sounds she just doesn't process correctly.  She thinks she's saying the same thing you are. Take the word, "Wizard," for example.  She says, "Lizard."  And she thinks she is saying it the same way I am. I'll say, "It's Wizard, with a 'w', /w/."  And she'll say, "Lizard.  Yes, Mommy. Lizard."  She knows what a lizard is and she knows what a wizard is. And in other situations, I've heard her use the word wizard correctly.  But she just doesn't get that she isn't saying Wizard of Poz.  (Poz I think is coming from a blending of the last phoneme in of and the beginning sound in Oz. I mean, we are usually saying The Wizard of Foz, if you think about it.)
So, what's a mommy to do?  And, especially, what's a Reading Specialist Mommy who spends at least seven hours a day teaching other children how to read, to do? It's really difficult for me to teach Imma and most teacher will tell you, teaching your own child is always challenging.  It makes it even more frustrating and depressing when I know she's doing everything she can and she just cannot overcome this obstacle right now.
And I do think it is just for right now.  I know she'll learn to read. And I really hope it is before the big mandated state testing begins in third grade where it could potentially affect the rest of her life.  We have amazing teachers at my school who will do everything they can to help her but this is going to be a huge challenge for this little girl.
If you have been through a similar situation, I would love to hear about it!  What challenges have you and your child had to work through?