Helping my Yr 1 child to read

[Cappster]

Dd2 is not doing well at school; they're not worried but I am. She is in bottom groups and doesn't seem to be progressing in her reading etc much

She is very bright, very imaginative, and I guess as I was academic at school I having difficulty with this

dd1 is disabled; I wanted dd2 to just sail through. I don't think she likes learning at school - she's always moaning about how much hard work it is and how there's no time to play - and I know because of dd1's disabilities I haven't really got on with the whole learning the flashcards thing as I should have because I just thought she'd get it because she was bright

doh

anyway short of just dragging out the flashcards again and boring ourselves to tears is there anything you can suggest? I've googled and googled for computer games because she loves poisson rouge - if there was something fun and easy with letters in I could use that and she'd think she was getting a treat by having computer time

Her teacher is a bit meh, to be honest - thought she was quiet. Dd2 is NOT quiet.

[loosinas]

my son loves reading eggs

[ColdComfortFarm]

Where is she at the moment? Does she know her 'sounds' (phonics)? Can she sound out words? Does she recognise some common words - eg 'the' and 'said'? Is she five or six?

[cazzybabs]

Play eye-spy phonetically

Make sure you read to her

There is a jolly phonics DVD which looks a bit naff but my year 1s love it

Also try //www.starfall.com

Can you play games with her when getting things out for tea - can you get a f-or-k (phonics)?

Play hangman

[Cappster]

Great suggestions, thanks. Will try reading eggs.

ColdComfort she is nearly 6 - in year 1. She can't really sound out words, she's a bit sketchy about the whole deal really.

Cazzybabs is this the right DVD? www.amazon.co.uk/JOLLY-PHONICS-S/dp/1844140709/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1289221981&sr=8-1&tag=mumsnet&ascsubtag=mnforum-21

[cazzybabs]

opps I meant CD-Rom

www.amazon.co.uk/Jolly-Phonics-Single-Sara-Wernham/dp/1844140822/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1289222476&sr=8-1&tag=mumsnet&ascsubtag=mnforum-21

[cazzybabs]

Not sure I would pay £20 for though..has gone up in price! Might be worth a google to see if you can get it cheaper

[Hulababy]

I woukld forget he actually reading for now. Still shar ebooks and enjoy them together. Point to the words as you read and let DD spot letters and sounds she might now, and talk of the pictures, etc. But I wouldn't push the sounding out just yet.

Then go through the sounds.

You could buy the Jolly PHonics songs book with CD - about £6 on Amazon IIRR. There are short songs for each of the 48 ltter sounds, set to familiar tunes.

So you start with the individual letter sounds such as s, a, t, etc.

Practise recognising them and writing them - write them in glitter or sand to make it tactile and fun. learn the songs and the actions 9all in theook or poss online too)

Then move onto the longer phonemes such as sh, ch, th, ng, ee, etc - there are songs for all of these, and actions too, in the books and audio CD.

Once she knows some individual sounds you can practise segmenting - robot talk. We use stiff bent arms as robot arms. One arm goes up and then down for each sound, and then we clap them together to say the final word.

sat - s a t
shop - sh o p
soil - s oi l

etc.

For blending words when reading you could use sound buttons. A dot (.) represents asingle short sound and a dash (-) represents a longer sound made of more than one letter. Look at the word and togther put sound buttons beneath them:

sat
. . .

soil
. - . (dash goes under oi to show it is one sound)

Do this as you cover each sound, so they get used to looking for them in words.

[smee]

Cappster don't despair. My son's bright, articulate and didn't start reading properly until this term. He was six at the end of May and is now in Yr2. The school didn't push him, they just kept his love of books going and told me to do the same. They were right, as he's whizzing along now and all of a sudden can read really well.

[FreudianSlimmery]

You can get all 7 jolly phonics workbooks on amazon for under a tenner last time I checked - might be a good way of checking exactly where the gaps are in her phonics as they use a set progressive pattern.

[gabid]

To me it seems reading is started way too early in this country - they don't wait until all children are ready. In Europe they start at 6 and in Sweden at 7. I know several children now in Y1 who do not get it and they appear behind. One boy is actually getting extra support starting school 30 minutes early every day now - its mad - and both his parents and grandparents are very academic. I bet in a year or so he will be there with the rest of them if not overtake them.

Another friend's son just blocked the whole reading thing, while everyone was fussing over it - then in Y4 he started reading Harry Potter by himself - still has self confidence issues though.

Sorry, I can't offer any great advice but it doesn't seem uncommon and Dd2's teacher might be right not to be worried. On the other hand I am the same with DS I know it's nonsese but I don't want him to be behind.

[smee]

gabid's speaking a lot of sense, I think. Worst thing you can do is push her and put her off. We worried about DS, but thought so long as he didn't start thinking he was stupid or start hating reading, I'd only panic if he got to 7 and was showing no signs of getting it. Easy to say with hindsight, but it was definitely the right thing to do.

[IndigoBell]

Luckily you haven't done flashcards with her.

Flashcards are 'whole word learning' which a lot of experts think make learning to read phonetically harder.

She should be learning to read phonetically.

[Talkinpeace]

I posted on another thread about my DS reluctance to learn.
Have the maths champ trophy on the island in the kitchen this week.....

[blackeyedsusan]

read read read TO HER and enjoy books. point to the words as you read but don't make a big deal of it. look for letters from her name. jolly phonics is used in a lot of schools now. as you learn the sounds pick out words using the letters she knows. lots of mners say that all of a sudden something just clicks so don't worry too much.

play silly word games

changing letters at the beginning of her name, or mum, tum, bum etc. always good for a laugh.

[5ofus]

My DD enjoyed the CBeebies Alphablocks games in the CBeebies website. It gave her a boost just at the right time and now she's a fluent reader.

[Cappster]

oh thank you SO MUCH for this help and encouragement

sadly we are doing flash cards

but I shall go straight for that Jolly Phonics stuff

I got a bit alarmed after doing googling and reading that children with dyslexia often put their shoes on the wrong feet and got d and b mixed up - she does this and ALWAYS has her shoes on the wrong feet

thing is with dd1's disability (she has cerebral palsy - she's bright, above average in reading but there are lots of physical, visual and concentration blocks plus the accompanying behaviour borne of getting frustrated and CROSS at everyone - it's been a long battle to get her to start realising her potential) I just wanted to let dd2 get on with it. Lazy I guess. And certainly I could do without more IEP meetings and targets [sigh]

[becaroo]

Lots of 6 year olds write letters and numbers the wrong way round so please dont panic too much about that, ok?

There are 2 really good online programmes that you could try and I have used with good reuslts with my ds1 (7) who didnt get n with Jolly phonics at all;

Literacy; headsprout.com
Numeracy; Mathswhizz.com

Kids seem to love doing their work on the PC and and of course its a bit of ICT too! The above programmes cost money but you can pay in installments (which I did)

HTH x

[bobblehat]

I wouldn't worry too much about 'reading' and go back to letter sounds. Things like I-spy in the car, or the I went shopping and in my basket I put... Also keep reading to her and sharing books - read a page and then get her to point to a word begining with 'g', and then a word with 'a' in the middle etc. Once she's got the letter sounds you can then go on to put these into words.

The trick at this age is not to let it get too formal, try doing fun things where she's learning but not noticing she's learning!

Also don't forget to let her see you read. If she doesn't see it as a useful skill she may just think what's the point.

[bobblehat]

By the way my 8 year old still can't always remember b/d so I wouldn't worry too much yet!