Four-year-old can spell any 3 letter word but cannot blend any when reading

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Not 100% sure where to post this.

Basically practicing 4 and a half year old phonics, words and blending to keep up over summer holidays.

He started at a school nursery last year so has already been taught this in school.

Please can someone tell me what they think about this…

• He can read every single letter phonic sounds individually

• When I put the cards down next to each other in simple CVC and he has to read and blend them he cannot do it. He can only do cat and that’s because I think he has sight learned it.

• If I reverse it and give him 3 cards of any 3 letter word and say make ‘dog’, make ‘hip’, make ‘fig’ he can instantly spell out all the sounds and place the, down in the correct order. Ie. ‘F…I…g… FIG’

Is this normal. It’s like he can do it backwards in all circumstances but not forwards for the simplest words. So he does know how words and sounds are working.

Does this mean he could be dyslexic? His dad is severely dyslexic and it something I have been worried about hence working on the reading so early for him.

If so what does that mean? Do we have to teach in a different way?

He starts reception next week and they are brilliant, but he’s in a state school and he’s quiet so I do want to support in anyway I can so he doesn’t slip between the cracks.

Thank you

He's fine

When you say he can spell, is he using the phonetic sounds or the letter names to spell a word, or is he just recognising which graphemes go together to make a known word?

Reception class in school works on the assumption that they don't know any phonics when they start. My kids went to private nursery right up until school and didn't do any there. So your DC will be ahead if anything.

Have a blank card or piece of paper so he can sound out 1st, then 2nd, then blend the two, then the 3rd.

He's fine.

I wouldn’t worry too much about it at this stage. And it’s unlikely to be a sign of anything given he can spell them out.

if you want to make it easier for him use continuant sounds at the start - ssss, fffff, mmm etc not ones like t, c, p. Then you rubn your finger under the sounds as you say them. faster and faster until he can hear the word you are saying. Try not to separate the sounds too much. It can make the word harder to hear. You want to run them into each other.

Early reading/phonics specialist and Reception/Year 1 teacher here. Stop worrying. Blending sounds is a developmental leap, which happens at different ages for different children. Reception teachers and many phonics programmes aim for blending by Christmas of Reception Year, so he’s not behind. Most children start Reception unable to blend. I’d advise you play lots of oral blending games with him for now. Ignore the written letters and play games like - can you touch your l-e-g? Can you touch your b-a-ck? Lots of words containing 3 sounds. Go and put this in the b-i-n. What sound does a c-a-t make? Can you find the d-o-g? Point to the p-e-n. He needs to hear the sounds and begin to blend them together. If he can’t do it himself yet, model it for him. Repetition is key. But make it fun. Take the pressure off him. Also, it’s fine to leave him be and let Reception teachers work on it when he starts school. Don’t get hung up on it. He’ll be fine!

Just keep reading books he enjoys loads and loads! Get to the library, speak to the librarians. Be selective about reading schemes (quite dull!!)

We worked hard in phonics with one child and not at all with the other.

My oldest child read early and is still a bookworm (teen). She asked to be taught at (wait for it annoying mumsnetter thing to say coming up) 2 years old and was reading chapter books at 5.

My other child refused any phonics and all my tricks to get him to read. We just kept reading with him and finding books he enjoyed.

He resisted any and every prompting attempt to read anything, so stubborn!

However suddenly at age 4-5 he discovered Tom Gates and we realised he could read just as well as his sister had at this age. I suppose in his case it was more of a whole language approach. We didn’t do any phonics at all. He went into school a bit later for different reasons (year 2) and scored highly in SATS.

The main thing is to keep them enjoying reading. Sometimes I think phonics can kill that!

I will find the letter cards.

I then hand them to him and say make pig

He will say straight away in phonic sounds say puh, ih, guh while looking for the cards. Then placing P, then I, then G

So he can reverse blend almost instantly. But can’t read dog normally. I don’t know what to make of that

If a parent has dyslexia then there is a 50 per cent chance that a dc will have dyslexia. I would say you need to keep an eye on it. Your dc sounds like they are intelligent, so this may mask any issues they have in future. My experience of primary schools is that they don’t tend to take concerns seriously until a dc is maybe 2-3 years behind where they should be (so this can mean no diagnosis til end of primary). If it was me, I would highlight to the school (and repeat) that the father is dyslexic, if you have any concerns about your dc. Read up on early signs of dyslexia - do you recognise any? (Eg issues sequencing in early language: par cark, cooter pooter, efelunt etc etc). There are other early signs too.

If your dc is dyslexic, you will need to be a strong advocate for them during their whole education. So you need to become an expert. If there are problems at school, then you may need to get a private assessment done (wait until around age 7+).

(My dh is dyslexic, all 3 dc are dyslexic. I was told for many years at primary school that my eldest was ‘fine’ - he was ‘just in the lower part of the average band for achievement’. We paid privately for an EP assessment when he was around 7 (as he was struggling a lot in school, being kept in a lot to finish work and was essentially being bullied by the teacher - and was crying and distressed a lot of the time), and the EP tests showed he was at the top of the very high band for intelligence / achievement - and was also dyslexic. Many years later he has achieved a first from an RG uni in a stem subject)..

That's really good, OP. You have prepared him well for school and he will likely pick it up quickly.

That’s exactly what I want to avoid. His dad is so dyslexic he can’t write a birthday card correctly. And that held him back at school.

He’s fine now and has a masters, accredited professional career and runs his own practice. His life has been made much easier by technological advances like spell check and grammerly. But I realise that doesn’t help with actual learning.

DS has never made those mistakes with speech. Or if he has I corrected them once and haven’t realised as he hasn’t repeated them.

I need to read more about signs. He can write letters backwards and only just got his name in full correct direction which I has taken a year.

I didn’t think he had it when we started the phonics stuff (and assumed the reverse letter thing was normal). It’s when we start to put the letters together (and that’s the starting point) that I am now questioning.

There are lots of different signs - with my youngest, we found that they could sound out and then read properly a word in one line, ( eg: c-a-t…cat) but then in the line immediately below would not recognise ‘cat’ and woukd have to sound it all out individually again. Also the lines and words move around for my youngest. With my eldest, we found that he could really articulate things (in speech), but would really struggle to write it all down (it was too many different types / phases of processing, and trying to remember how to form the letters with a pencil, and which way round they face, so would forget what he was trying to write down whilst struggling to actually write it down).

If I could go back in time!… I would get special pencils with the grips (that help you to hold a pencil correctly), i would encourage lots and lots of colouring in activities (to reinforce the correct way to hold a pencil, which will make the writing process a bit smoother/ easier / a bit more natural), and I would get a touch typing programme for children (very gamified, and fun), and encourage them to use it most days and become competent at touch typing by the time they are 10-11 (as it massively helps with spelling / producing written work). I did all of these things (with all 3 dc), but didnt do it religiously enough for it to make as much difference as it could have done…!

Honestly if he can use the phonics to spell I wouldn’t worry too much about dyslexia at this point. I’d expect him to have a much bigger problem with that both in hearing the sounds and sequencing them.

If you were to sound out a 3 sound word and ask him to point to the correct picture or object would he be able to do that?

Your first paragraph really resonates.

We have done a few times reading sight words in bedtime stories.

Ie. Today we will do ‘and’ & ‘the’. When I get to the word in the book I wait and he says it.

Show the words individually he will be able to name them.
But in the reading it’s like he has to process and think every single time we get to a word. Even if we said ‘and’ 2 seconds before on the line above.

I think a lot of people think that dyslexia is simply that you ‘can’t read’ or ‘can’t write’ but it is so much more complicated than that. It is essentially difficulties with processing speed and working memory. My dh and dc have what is known as a ‘spiky profile’ in EP testing - exceptionally high performance in things that are not dyslexia sensitive, and exceptionally poor performance in things that are dyslexia sensitive (eg processing speed and working memory).

One thing to watch out for is if their confidence and self-esteem (and engagement with learning) starts to massively suffer - this happened with all of ours, and is what prompted us getting private EP assessments.

I have a lot of friends who are teachers, and they have all told me that dyslexia (and other SEN) is not really covered much in teacher training (maybe a 30 minute session, something like that).

It is worth keeping an eye on things, over the next couple of years, and maybe check in with the school SENDCo, and read up all you can about dyslexia in the meantime.

That’s very normal in young children in the early stages of learning to read.

But also stop teaching sight words as sight words. That actually can hinder the process of learning to read in some children.

That’s reassuring thank you!

Why not teach sight words as sight words? What do you mean sorry

Honestly I really do not know much about it. Is there any resources or organisations you recommend?

You are worrying about nothing.

I work in a reception class, next week we will start on letter S with them all and build up from there. The blending will come much later with some still not being confident at the end of the year.

Even the early years learning goals only expect a basic level of blending by the end of reception.

I remember that absolute nightmare of reading with DD1 when she started reception. Once she got the stage of being sent home with CVC books, I would try to blend the sounds together a bit to help her get them and she was just not getting it at all. She’d know the sounds individually, just couldn’t put them together.

me “cccc aaaaaaaa ttttt” “caaaaaaaaaaat”
her “umm…. does it say balloon?”
me (wondering whether she was even listening) “good guess! It actually says cat, just like the picture!!”

Anyway she’s 7 now and reads independently for an hour before bed, and any time she wakes up before she needs to get up for school - absolutely voracious reader.

Letter sounds: Say a sound for each letter in the alphabet.
Digraphs: Say a sound for at least 10 digraphs (two letters making one sound).
Sound-blending: Read words consistent with phonic knowledge by blending sounds.
Simple texts: Read aloud simple sentences and books matching their phonic stage, including common exception words

that’s what is expected to meet good level of development on the early learning goals at the end of reception. Nationally around 65-70% will meet it. It sounds like he is more than on track

He’s 4, he’s fine!

British Dyslexia Association, and there may be a local branch near you. Also any online resources, or books - you can find if you Google.

It sounds like your dc is doing well at the moment, so don’t worry about it, but just keep it in mind as they get older, and if problems persist. As a pp says, issues can be common when learning to read (and things like letter reversals etc) - ultimately most dc do grow out of these, it is when issues persist that teaching professionals will accept that there is a problem (this usually happens after the age of 7 or 8 (or even older) in my experience). Up to that point (if you suspect your dc has learning differences but has developed some limited ways of coping) it is very much like shouting into the wind!

It does not matter that he hasn't twigged this yet. Letters have sounds, sounds joined together make words, words have meanings and then all those meanings put together make stories. That is a fairly big jump.

If you want to teach him anything, then he can learn the actual words by sight. There is nothing wrong with doing that. It doesn't matter if he can't blend stuff yet. Besides, try explaining to a kid of 4 the difference between the sound of the 'a' in 'cat' and in 'car'. Far better to recognise the words by sight.