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?

Alphablocks games/videos are great if they still have them on the CBeebies website/YouTube. They teach the kids the letter sounds through songs in an engaging way. Get into the habit of watching the one that goes through the letter sounds daily and then when she has them you can try some of the games where they blend cvs words.
I’m not sure if you teach in early years/ks1 but when I did children generally get a few minutes a day exposure to the graphemes plus the letter sounds which is what they need to recognise them when reading. This is enough for a lot of children who pick it up quickly but for those who are maybe a little distracted on the carpet they aren’t even getting that few minutes. And often teachers are required to use phonics programmes and flash cards which are spectacularly dull which doesn’t really help.

She likes alpha locks. We do 5 min fun bursts of phonics (both taught eyfs and ks1). Probably way more informally (I spy, sound spotting in shops, checking whose post it is, can you find games, reading eggs...). It just has not moved forward.

She’s been known to SALT for years. It seems to result in yearly invites to poorly match groups at clinic (eg speech sounds or whatever the general need is but not hers). That’s the ks 1 provision it seems..

My ds1 is 6.2 (early sep baby, oldest in his year 1) and he can’t blend or get phonics at all. The school are doing interventions with him in the afternoon but he really is struggling. They told me to broach myself for him possibly not reading a word till yr2.

He has other ‘complex needs’ too, but the school are convinced he is dyslexic (just like she who cannot do phonics either).

Playing eye spy on the bus is painful!

The school say while that cannot assess for dyslexia at this stage they can start treating for it and get as best a head start as possible.

Do the school think it’s dyslexia and can they do some early interventions before testing at 7/8 years old?

She = dh

A few thoughts.

The reading area in the brain doesn’t develop fully on average until 6 - we start reading very early in the UK - often frustrating the kids who are later in their development in decoding.

Don’t throw phonics out - the research suggests for those who struggle to learn to read it’s the better option. I work with young adult learners - the current group have just missed out on the current push to go back to phonics - which started around 2007. Had many discussions that as the words being read become more complex in HE and less known, a good grounding in phonics would aid processing. And if she is dyslexic - she will always need extra time to learn and embed things and it could be that this is happening now and she does need longer.

Finally have the school definitely put her in their intervention groups and not just left her - I ask as girls can be left behind in these and boys picked out as the strugglers is reading and given support. Often there are bribes and games in these groups that can swing it ( my son admitted that he only did his reading as they gave him a biscuit...)

Of my 3, the 2 slowest to read we’re much more proficient at 11 than the one who seemed to ease through early reading. The younger one got the full on phonics approach and his reading and spelling is pretty secure and he rarely reads.

Given what you've said about word-finding, syntax etc alongside the phonology issues...

When was the last time SALT did a full assessment of her receptive and expressive language? Is she supposed to be under review with them?

My thinking is along the same line as Molly with DLD, hence all the questions about SALT input.

Have you looked into auditory processing disorder? My dd, now 11, has finally been diagnosed with this. Still doesn’t get phonics. Feel free to pm me if you like.