Come and talk to me if your child REALLY isn't getting phonics

[SloeBerri]

DS wasn’t the best at phonics, but I saw progress and he got there. Reading quite well by the end of yr 1 as a summer born. (The older ds and dd read before school)

Dd2 though is yr 1 and is already 6. Her phonics lack of progress is starting to be extreme. She doesn’t consistently remember letter sounds, I’d say maybe 6 she mostly knows, but she may confuse or guess them. Say she sees ‘r’ and guesses ‘guh’. Sometimes she even sees a number and tries to guess the sound incorrectly. She can’t aurally identify initial sounds at all, or blend or segment even with a lot of prompting (basically just elongating the sounds confuses her) Nothing is sticking. She can sort of write her name with incorrectly formed letters, normally in reverse or with something missing.

It’s not for want of exposure to books or learning (we’re both primary teachers!). I’m not sure I’ve taught children without EHCPs tbh who are so resistant to progress, those slow to learn still seem to progress in some ways.

Her language technically is fairly good, she ha learnt to read a book aloud to her sister and make up lovely coherent stories by following the pictures.

Is anyone else here and fancy a chat?

I think you need to see if the school can get her seen by the ed psych.

Might be worth having a look at bear necessities or probably ‘bearing away’ by sound foundations. It’s a scheme designed for children with dyslexia / retention issues. Might work better for her than 100 lessons.

I wouldn't wait. Get her hearing and eyesight checked to start with. And then get her reading assessed by a tutor who specializes in systematic synthetic phonics. Try talking to these people--they should be able to find someone in your area who can help you.
iferi.org/contact/

I think I would ask for her to be seen my an ed Psych. It sounds like perhaps there might be something else going on, and that if you focus in too much on just the reading then the bigger picture might be missed.

We found the Peter and Jane books useful for learning to read via sight words, might be worth a look.

Site words tend to more a problem for dyslexics than phonics.
The remedial way of teaching dyslexics to read is phonics

It helped my dyslexic son who was not getting on with phonics, and with the OP describing her DD's extreme lack of progress with phonics I thought it was worth a mention.

At this stage, I really would push for the SENCO to do some assessment. It's very unusual after a year or more of phonics teaching to not retain any sounds.

Are there any speech problems? The pupils I've taught that found phonics most difficult were those who had speech difficulties. Also get her vision checked in case there are any processing issues.

Given the retention issues the OP describes, I don’t think introducing sight words will help.

A standard hearing test is not enough. DS has normal threashold hearing but has problems distinguishing individual sounds when there is a lot of background noise.
Ed Psych testing found that DS has very poor phonic awareness.

Lack of reading progress could be a number of problems. An Ed Psych will do the standard tests for dyslexia which will include phonic awareness. They should also advise on a specialist hearing and sight tests.

We changed schools at the end of year 1 - the school would not use other reading/teaching methods other then (not so) Jolly Phonics. The next school used the ‘old fashioned’ rote learn words/endings/beginnings etc... which worked well for him.

Testing via an Ed Psych / Clinical Psych with dyslexia (SpLD) specialism will be the only way to assess what’s going on and how best to treat.

babo.co.uk
www.chears.co.uk

DS didn’t get phonics, finally learned to read mainly by sight recognition at the age of 7. Never “got” spelling. I should have argued more at that point for help from school, but didn’t.

At 11 he was diagnosed with auditory and visual processing disorders. Roughly every 1 in 10 letters moves when he reads as his tracking isn’t strong, so he loses his place. The sounds can’t be retained so he forgets the order of sounds he’s already worked out, meaning the word has to be started again. It’s quite painful and lead to many tears- from both of us.

At her age, a diagnosis is difficult as (I’m sure you know) reading is a developmental thing and she could still suddenly get tge whole process. Usually 7 is the earliest point for diagnosis with a specific learning difficulty (which is the area DS’s diagnosis falls into).

As a suggestion for home based support, you could try Nessy (online, subscription, fun with printouts you can do together) or look at WordWasp- needs to be done with an adult, relies on over learning of sight words and letter strings (cheaper, 10-15 mins at least 3 times a week- more is better, needs 1:1 adult). I also use Word Shark, but an older version so not sure how the current one works. All of these are suggested interventions for children with reading difficulties and have some level of approval from the British Dyslexia Association (or have in the past).

I'm another one who would say look at auditory processing, and visual processing. Ds is disabled (cerebral palsy) but he never got phonics, but reads well. I now know it is because of auditory processing he cannot process the sounds. He can hear them, but that is useless he can't blend he can't break up and can't process. That is really common with auditory processing. He can however read and spell well (now). We just had to ditch phonics to get him there as we needed to let him see the whole word so the sounds and shape of the word gave clues. It does mean now ds is older his comprehension is better as he has always had to understand words and context to read them, rather than just sound them out. Ds failed his phonics check every year! He still wouldn't pass and he's 8 but it doesn't matter now.

No phonological awareness. She can’t join in games like ‘think of a word beginning with...’, she can’t say a word slower and use the same sounds (I say sssssaaaaa, she says ja) or just if I ask for slower she just looks at me. She changes syllables if you try games around that. More, less syllables or totally different sounds. No developmental move towards reading readiness.

DH and I have reasonable experience teaching synthetic phonics (a good friend worked closely on Read Write Inc so I’m confident we know how to teach it).

I’m asking really for other experience as even as teachers we don’t really know others as a reference point for this kind of progress.

Realistically Ed Psych etc would be costly private, schools have no hours here and aren’t funding. Also, as a teacher, there’s some very poor quality reports being produced. Basically records of teacher/ parent comments and generic steps we know about to be used in the EHCP process as a pass to be ‘allowed’ to apply.

Her speech was late, has good technical vocabulary but poor word finding on demand, not much grammatical awareness (no changing suffixes for example). It’s also poorly used other than for expressing her statements, it’s weak in back and forth.

She makes very little eye contact with her work, she looks quiet and focused enough but if you check her eyes are elsewhere. She doesn’t really follow a point either when working, you need to tap a sound with your nail to get focus

Sight word wise I chose three (and, the, said) and displayed them on the wall. Every morning we tried to spot them in books, read the lm on the wall, played games etc with them. In 3 months she has not learnt them and does not spot them. Her name is the only word she knows by sight, and she is supported often by context (eg find your name in the list)

My DS2 was similar at the same age. Could not read or write a word until well into Year 1, failed phonics screening miserably. Now, in Year 3, age 7.7, he has just been tested & has a reading age of 8.9. Sometimes it just clicks for them & that won't happen until they're ready, ime.

In case it's relevant, he does have an EHCP for suspected autism, but is academically fairly capable.

Have you looked at dancing bears? Their "cursor" idea works wonders for DD2 who is the same age - her phonics is good, but I think she's got some form of visual tracking issue (and a bone idle streak that tries to guess her way through everything for an easy life) and it really helps her focus on the part of the text she's working with.

We have grammatical wonkiness and late speech - some of it is verbal dyspraxia with DD2 but the syntax stuff is more just characteristics her speech therapist has seen fairly generally in dyspraxic speech and we're working on lots of things like tense changes, pronoun use with her.

She's also just on the borderline for inattentive ADHD and like you describe her eyes will be anywhere but where she's meant to be looking. I've taken to pointing to text with a pen and really hamming it up when she pinches the pen to do it herself to get her to track text well.

I think bearing away might be a better fit than dancing bears. The issues the OP’s daughter has sound quite extreme and bearing away goes at a slower pace with much more overlearning.

If you have experience in RWI, there’s a couple of things that might be worth thinking about. I wouldn’t do robot talk if she’s struggling. It’ll be much easier for her to hear the word if the sounds are blended smoothly. If you blend the words more than once, saying the sounds quicker each time, you might find the word just ‘pops out’. Also, use words with a ‘continuent’ or ‘stretchy’ sounds at the beginning.

It might be worth considering staggered blending as well if she’s having difficulty remembering the bits she’s already sounded out. So if you were reading the word ‘sat’, blend the s and the a to get sa and then blend sa-t to make sat.

My son just didnt get Phonics at all by year 3 he could barely read a word even words like the , and etc he struggled with , it eventually clicked in about year 4 and hes just started year 7 and hes a fluent reader although he didnt come off the schoolreading scheme until year 6 , i dont think reading will ever be his passion but he reads well enough

Sorry she’s had a few hearing and eye sight tests at the child development centre (she’s now discharged, it was for a muscle stiffness that slowly resolved. On tests there she was generally younger than her age in all test, eg language receptive was 12m at 36m, but she was discharged as developing normally and we’ve had no contact since 3.5)

www.helenarkell.org.uk

Excellent help and resource centre.

DS3 is nearly 6, in Yr1 and reading (and writing) have been a huge struggle. He does also have a dx of ASD. Attempts to read is his last resort. He looks for picture clues, guesses and relies on memory if he's seen the book before.

His school aren't great for a lot of reasons. I've requested an EHC which i know he won't get, but it has resulted in the school at least acknowledging he's behind and now he's doing extra phonics etc.

I contacted a few places about getting a private assessment done. One has come back suggesting a KS1 assessment by a specialist teacher. Not a formal diagnostic but will highlight areas indicating dyslexia with recommendations.

Quotes for full assessment were eye watering so I'm considering that for now.

What does the school say? She's v behind and you've provided amazing support. Are they having her assessed? Sounds like she may have a DLD. She may need to go to a speech and language unit for intervention and support.

Well in short, our LA has no such unit (a neighbouring one does but only for nursery).

It’s a bit of a shit show really. I kind of know what would be nice for them to do. But I’m also of the mindset that putting all my energy into helping her, as opposed to tribunals, fights and revising crap EHCPs may be best, for now at least. I have sat on the SEN panel myself, and the quality is so so poor.

My other big worry for private assessment is I really don’t have the money, and then certainly not for fights or buying tutors. The SLT she saw last in nursery was beyond awful, missing such big issues, eg recording she could remember three items in a direction, when dd could see the things. She’d not remember two without the visual clue (can you give me the teapot, cup and spoon when they was almost nothing else around and the woman was eyeballing the items...).

My eldest is 13, he also has ASD and was statemented (as it was then) from starting primary.

I really do understand where you're coming from about concentrated your efforts on helping DD yourself, especially as both you and your DH are primary teachers. My son's EHCP, is quite frankly, a load of crap, but it got him into the ASD base I wanted so that was enough. In primary school it pretty much paid for an LSA but I can't say how much DS1 really benefited from having it.

But I really don't think it's wise not to push a bit more with school to get DD more suitable support there. Even if it's just to see if they will refer to SALT. I know your previous experience was poor so that may seem an odd suggestion! But in my area, there are preschool and then school age SALTs, so you'd be unlucky to get the same one again.

I didn't get phonics until I was in year 2. I memorised words easily though.
I remember the moment that it suddenly clicked with me. I was half way through reading the second book in Lord of the Rings, and the names were getting me-every time I found a new one I had to go and ask Dm.
Once I'd got the idea I was immediately fine with them.