5 year old can’t read

[Jammydodged]

My 5 year old is in reception. She still can’t read short 3 letter words like cat, dog, hat etc
She knows all the sounds individually but when it comes to blending them together it’s like she can’t hear the sounds. School seem unconcerned but we’re about to go into the summer term and I’m worried she’s going to be behind in year 1. When we practice at home she gets very frustrated and just guesses the word.

What can I do to help?
I signed up to reading eggs already.

Additional info which not sure if relevant
Under speech and language as late talker
Can’t rhyme which I’ve seen can be a sign of dyslexia?

I would move this over to Primary Education where there are experts.

DS is in year 1 and in the same situation, can’t grasp blending at all. He is in a monitoring group so gets extra support but won’t be referred for a dyslexia assessment until year 2 (policy). School have said they want him to have external assessment so in September I will be pushing for it to happen ASAP. We have dyslexia on both sides of the family so strongly suspect it is that.

Songs and nursery rhymes definitely help in acquiring the skills. My now 6.5yo was last year where yours is now. Speech therapy, OT and lots and lots of the above has him reading now. Every fun thing you can think of to at least try and cement the letter sounds. There's no blending possible until they have that nailed.

She iS just 5 and a late talker
May learn by whole word recognition
(I know is frowned on )
Kids with SEN may need different appriach
But she uis just 5
My ds doesn't have any verbal speech but learned whole word recognition and first letter sounds etc

My DS had massive issues with phonological awareness. When he was in reception, he couldn't blend or hear rhymes, and the patterns and rhythms of nursery rhymes were totally beyond him - he used to paraphrase them. He was very speech delayed (although he is also autistic).

Look up phonological awareness and see if any of it rings a bell.

Speech therapy and lots of phonics practice helped my DS, but it was slow progress. He failed the Y1 phonics screen spectacularly twice, but that did mean he gots tonnes of phonics interventions at school. But it did come eventually, and he was reading by Y2. We used to play lots of games like I Spy, and I read to him loads. Dr Suess books were especially good for this, as I could really emphasise the rhymes.

He does have ongoing problems with spelling as a result of this, and we do label it "dyslexia" now. He's in Y8 now, and does all his work on a laptop where he can use the spell check. He reads very well now though!

It’s probably the delayed speech, which is often linked to hearing. Which makes sense, they need to hear the sounds properly to say them properly! So step one should be a hearing check, which I’d imagine S&l have already done.

Aside from that, read to her as much as you can, get her to join in with sight-recognition words (gruffallo/tiger/caterpillar) and encourage her to join in with the bits she knows. Keep it light.

My eldest dd couldn't blend. It took her much longer to learn to read and it was practice practice with a few tears and tantrums thrown in. She's almost 9 and has just about caught up now. She's finally starting to read for pleasure now. School just said she would get there eventually and go at her pace. Note our school is very laid back.

@Pumperthepumper
She’s had a hearing test and all fine. So her delayed speech isn’t to do with hearing in that sense although she definitely struggles to hear the sounds so who knows.

@villainousbroodmare

What did the OT do and how did you get a referral for them? Thank you

Teach your monster to read is a great & fun app, and the Orchard match and spell games are good too.

Can she blend if you sound it out for her? DDs in reception and at her parents evening they said she can blend if sounded out for her but struggles about half of the time when the word is written and she has to do it (also knows the sounds individually but struggles to blend them). They’ve said handwriting practice as the teacher thinks that once she’s cracked writing the letters she will be able to blend easier (her handwriting is awful, she wouldn’t pick up a pen until December). I’m doing this with her with the Collins wipe clean books but I’ve also made flash cards of words and segmented them into the different sounds (I included some with digraphs so she could see the difference) and practicing those with her but trying to make it into a ‘game’ so it’s fun, otherwise she’s not interested.

I’m not too worried as she’s still so young (not 5 until august) and all we can really do is practice anyway. I really do think they expect too much at this age, especially compared to other countries school systems.

She does use reading eggs as well, which helped but she’s lost interest now.

Dc1 is now in yr2 but couldn’t put together simple CVC words and rhyming words baffled him and still do he couldn’t grasp them. His teacher suggested dyslexia very early on in reception but lockdown happened. However not now as he has sort of found his feet with support, and developing. He improved at the start of yr1 but only in yr2 has he grasped blending and reading is coming along now. He was reluctant and the upset we had as he could not blend words was at times frustrating and upsetting which shattered his confidence and he would not want to try or even look at a book. I had to back off and go back to just reading to him and after a while we started again and simple repetition books were great. Have you had her eyesight tested? Dc had his tested and it did flag up a few issues that would not have helped. His school and teachers were great, encouraged and offered a good amount of extra reading and phonics support daily with a ta and volunteer. ( very lucky there). I know it sounds patronising but try not to worry if you have or are exploring speech therapy etc they do get there albeit a while later than some of their classmates.

Jammydodged preschool teacher recommended it and we go privately.

@villainousbroodmare what was the referral for the OT actually for if you don’t mind me asking? What did they help with?

@Owwlie if I blend the words she still can’t hear the word.

Jammydodged handedness, sequencing of movement, it sort of joined up with speech therapy.

This is not actual advice, and I don’t know how popular this opinion will be here—but children in the UK are expected to read really young. In the US, while many children can and do read at age 5–your DD’s skills wouldn’t be considered an issue, and she wouldn’t be considered behind at all. I am not in the UK, but where I am, reading is considered to be very developmental, and it just clicks for children, around the age of 5,6, even 7. I understand that in parts of Scandinavia, they don’t even begin to teach children to read until age 6, because it’s thought to be developmentally inappropriate. While reading is being taught younger and younger in the US as well, this is a relatively new thing, and many experts still consider it to be developmentally inappropriate.

All that is to say, maybe there is an issue, but I think the pressure on many five year olds to read so soon is a lot—and that most are very young for the type of structured learning that reading requires.

Finally, I’m not sure if the push for phonics is as big in the UK, but for whatever reason, and I know from a skills standpoint this is the best way to learn—but my own DD became frustrated very easily with all the sounding it out, etc, and when she didn’t make much progress in a story, it was dull and tedious. She is great at memorizing. I had her (over the course of some time) learn to memorize the top 100 high frequency words, and then moves to phonics. That boosted her confidence and made the “click” happen. She now reads well above her grade-level.

Jolly phonics has some great sticker and colouring books that help practice. I agree about posting in primary education - one of mine needed a lot of at home repetition in a quiet environment but for her it was about focus so couldn't advise further except that I would be a little concerned. Songbirds are great first books if you can find them.

An optometrist is worth visiting to make sure eyes are working together as convergence issues are quite common. OT are helpful for so many things.

My ds couldn't do this at 5 or at the beginning of year. He's now year 2 and is at the expected level for reading and can do nearly words indepedently so all my worrying was for no reason.

Rhythm and rhymes, singing, making up silly rhyming words. Or changing one letter of a word, especially with playing around with their name.

(Poems and rhyming books, songs and nursery rhymes )

@MrsJemimaDuck, phonics is the only game in town in the UK.

It's attained cult belief status among several posters who frequent reading threads here.

The idea of learning high frequency words (Dolch) is heresy to their ears.

My DS struggled with learning to read in Year R too. Lots of other red flags for dyslexia in his case - late talker, late to "get" rhyme, poor memory for sequences, family history of dyslexia. We had him assessed at 7, and he is dyslexic. He's also now a pretty decent reader at age 8, with the right help (spelling is tough, though).
Reading Eggs didn't hit the spot for him in Year R but the Nessy letters and Nessy phonics apps were great. And lots and lots of multi-sensory practice and phonological awareness games. And when the reading scheme books came out, we did a lot of paired reading to take the pressure off, as well as lots of reading great stories to him to keep reading and books enjoyable and positive.

*late talker with no underlying hearing issue