Phonics - reception year

[Mother990xxxx]

My son is 4 and in reception (August baby)

He has this week come home with his first book with words which he is very excited about . His teacher told me he is great with all the sounds / letters but it's struggling when it actually comes to blending

I have been going through his book with him, and he can do 'cat' 'on' and a few others but I can't think of them right now 🤦‍♀️

Is there anything I can do help him ? I get him to sound out each letter, and I try to blend it with him but he sometimes just can't quite get it!

Is this normal for his age? Should he be doing more ? I don't want to put to much pressure on him, but he's so excited when he does get it right!

He's very eager to learn, even when we are out and about he loves to point out letters, especially if it's a letter in his name!

I work in education, but in a high school so this is all new to me!

Thank you

You would think that it should but I'm afraid many parents think their child's progress is only down to natural aptitude or parental input and forget about the third component! It's great that your child has brilliant teachers. Skilled Reception teachers are absolutely incredible.

I am a primary school teacher. Blending can take a while to "click" so please don't worry too much.

There have been some good ideas on this thread already.

I'd also suggest blending using concrete materials. Use blocks (or similar) for each phoneme - so for the word cat, place a block while saying "c", a block while saying "a" then another while saying "t". Repeat c - a - t a little faster and move the blocks closer together as you do so. Then blend the word while pushing the blocks together so they touch. This is a way of visually demonstrating the concept of blending. I've found it can be a helpful. Best of luck

Do you get weekly recaps from the teachers put on the portal? We do and I usually go through the same things with my dc also a summer born so it drills in. We are also struggling with blending though and not sure when that's going to click.

Some advice.

Find out which phonics programme the school are using and stick to it with the support you provide, rather than picking bits randomly from other programmes which will confuse.

For blending, physical is good…”can you h-o-p/j-u-m-p ( other words to sound sit, stop, skip, sleep, run).
Provide individual letter cards to jump on when sounding out c-a-t etc; hide and seek with cards to find “find d-o-g” and lay out to make the word.

This is old advice but the guidance ‘Letters and Sounds - phase 1’ is excellent practice for building auditory discrimination. Keep repeating/providing these activities. The difference it makes to teaching reading, when children have already had a great grounding before learning phonics.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a7a10cfed915d6eaf15381b/Letters_and_Sounds_-_Phase_One.pdf

This is the latest guidance from the DfE which puts phonics into the context of reading. Support with a wide balance, phonics is the instructional part of learning to read, there is so much more.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/65830c10ed3c34000d3bfcad/The_reading_framework.pdf

If he can hear it when you say the sounds and can do it sometimes I doubt there’s any underlying issue so it’s just a matter of practice. Some children just need more practice than others before they can blend to automaticity.

I’d agree with the first poster about saying the sounds quicker and quicker. Some schools have got a bit over fixated on robot talk/fred talk and it can be a bit of a hindrance for some children. I’d get him to say the sounds quickly, repeating quicker if he doesn’t hear the word. Eventually the word will just pop out. Also worth practicing a lot with words that start with continuent sounds e.g. s, f, m, n. These are the ones you can stretch and can be much easier to blend than non continuents e.g. c, g, d