My feed
Premium

Please
or
to access all these features

Talk to others about child development and behaviour stages here. You can find more information on our development calendar.

Behaviour/development

5 yr old, reading/concentration/memory issue, any thoughts??

6 replies

Doubletroublemummy2 · 03/02/2014 23:22

My 5yr old is in yr one and we are really struggling with her reading and I am starting to get quite worried.

Tonight went like this.
Her twin sister(DD2) finished reading and DD1 eagerly comes over with her book ready to read. 20 mins earlier we had been looking at b & d and remembering which one is which. I have used a large mirror as a black board and it's all still up there. She looks to read Dinosaur and starts with "B". Ok fine, I help her right and we move on. Then she is almost contorting with effort just to get herself to focus on the book and because she seemingly can't, starts guessing at the word. each guess is wrong and we have tears before we even start. we start to slowly build up the word, "di" , "din", "Dino". I ask her, "ok, so what have we got so far? " she says "driont!" and we start all over again. When she eventually gets it, two words later we have dinosaur again and it is as if she is seeing the word for the first time. She is in a phonics intervention group at school but I feel as if she has gone backwards since probably november and she was behind to start with. Her sight seems fine and she was tested at school and passed. She is really clever in surprising ways and she can tell you a great story but reading & therefore writting is just not happening, she is also behind in numeracy.

Am worried over nothing or is there something I should be looking into?

OP posts:
Report
Jinty64 · 04/02/2014 07:57

I would be concerned, especially as she is finding the whole thing upsetting. That said ds2 was very slow to get everything but is doing fine now. I would start by making an appointment with her teacher and raising your concerns.

Report
Phantomteadrinker · 04/02/2014 08:19

My ds is the same age, in the top group for literacy and reads well but still gets highly confused with b and d and often gets then the wrong way round so is say that's fairly common! With regards concentration, I think young children find it hard at night, we struggle to get him to sit still and focus on nighttime reading unless he's in the mood as I think their brains need a break as school is much more full on these days. I think it can take a while for reading to click but it eventually does and she's still really young. Maybe a quiet word with her teacher will probably put your mind at rest.

Report
sbm78 · 04/02/2014 11:06

Hi doubletrouble,
My daughter is in yr 1 and we are in the same boat. She gets her b's an dd's muddled. She can read the phonic sounds but can't blend the words back together. Her school are seeing how much progress she makes this term and then we will see what additional help she needs.

Have you talked to her teacher?

We are now putting a few words on the fridge each week and trying to learn them but it's a battle.

Report
mummyxtwo · 05/02/2014 11:43

My 5yo is at the top end of his class for reading but still gets b and d confused, that is clearly a hard concept for most of them. It is also a big jump from short words with one or two syllables to a word like 'dinosaur', which not many of them would be able to work out. It's not good that she is getting stressed by it, I wonder if you could have a word with the teacher about her sticking to simpler books with easier words until she has built up confidence and mastered those. They pick up reading skills at different rates and it is better to go slowly and master the easier letters and sounds first rather than rushing them into words they don't understand and are too hard for them. Hope your school are helpful.

Report
ladyquinoa · 06/02/2014 21:49

I think it's normal for a 5 year old to get b's and D's mixed up. It's also too early to worry about dyslexia just yet.

I would have explained dinosaur like this ...corrected the d sound.
The o changes the I so it makes an eye sound. Got her to say the first half of the word. Next explained about the a and the u making an au sound. Got her to link the second half of the word. No idea if that's the correct way though.

Maybe she needs easier books though?

Report
Cherrypie32 · 08/02/2014 10:30

My 6yo DS struggles with reading too and longer words and words that aren't phonetically straight forward. He also Gets b and d muddled (he writes bab for dad) and sometimes reads words backwards. I've gone back to basics a bit at home and got some of the Usbourne phonics books out of the library 'the Fat Cat On The Mat', 'cow takes a bow' etc, they are fun stories that reinforce the same letter sounds over and over. Also, I honestly think they are very tired at that time of day and time in the term so ideally would read earlier but not always possible Grin

Report
Please create an account

To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.