to be concerned about dd's reading?

[watchoutforthatsnail]

Shes 6 next week, and in yr 1.

Shes been on the same reading level since may last year ( when she was in reception) she seems to be getting worse, not better. last night she was struggling with ' was' fgs, which she knew by sight only a few weeks ago.

Shes doing well in all other areas, but her reading is rubbish, shes on otr level 4.
I know shes not the worse in her class... but just the lack of improvment for coming up to a year, and the suddenly seeming to get worse.

Ive written a short note in her book bag book, i dont know if im BU and should just not worry and it will click when it clicks... or if i should go and see the teacher, who will probably roll her eyes and tell me that yes, dd hasnt got it yet and i should just get a grip and let her be?

we have the apple tree farm ones. she can mostly read the top, bigger text already. ( or could last time i did them with her)

Ok - so maybe the school book once a week, first night she gets it, and then something with the apple tree farm ones, and some from the lib, or just ones we have at home ( because we have 100's)

crazy - yes, its the words like that that stump her, she will sound it all out fine, no problem, but it doesnt ' sound' like a word.. its almost too long to sound out - she needs to blend really...

and i think shes actually lost confidence from this, and because she keeps getting that bit wrong. She will read 90% of the book fine then just trip up on that or ' weathervane' or something equally crap.

i think im going to tackle it at home for a bit, see what happens.

If she's reading the top bit of the Apple Tree farm books, I wouldn't say that she's doing too badly. I would certainly read widely with her and not just concentrate on school book, particularly if she's only getting one. Based on the way that some schools seem to use the bandings (ie you're not allowed off it until you've read every one of the books on that band) you might find that its not necessarily the right band for her anyway. Ds had the attitude that school books were work and boring, but home books were different, not a chore, and fun to read. Try to bring the fun back in, and the wish to read it so that the story progresses...

Ex teacher here personally I'm not surprised some kids struggle with ORT in the early days-I mean Balloon for goodness sake.I don't think ORT is ideal tbh as it can have a huge impact on confidence.

Ask how is she doing with her phonics.Do they do letters and sounds?Have you had phonics brought home to learn and the tricky sight words(was being one of them)?

If it was me I'd get some easy phonic books from the library(most have a section) to get her confidence up.Also read loads of picture books with easy cvc words(eg cat, etc)don't know her level re phonics but point out words that have the phonics she knows eg ee,oo etc.Picture books are important to keep her motivated in reading.The Dr Seuss books have a lot of easy phonetic words in and will give her confidence that she can read a real book.

You're doing all the right things btw.Sorry I think the school have more of a responsibility than you,many parents work and mopping up for schools when there is a problem isn't always possible.Go in and keep going in until you're happy.

her phonics is good. and she can spell. and even spell tricky words like ' the' she had five spellings this week, all short , two letter words, and one tricky word.and she didnt even need to learn them, she laughed and said they werent really spellings.
she writes notes to family and sounds out the spellings... ( and can read them back... i write her notes and she can read them. Just the ort books and she seems to struggle, with the words like balloon or weathervane some other such random word.
her sight words are fine ( usually) we had a spate of ORT play books, she could recognise and read when it said narrator after id told her a few times. She picks things up quickly normally.

she can do words that rhyme and all that sort of thing.

I also wouldn't get too hung up on her forgetting an 'easy' word like 'was'.

I don't know about you, but even as an adult who loves reading I can sometimes get confused about simple words. It often happens when I'm working on a graphic design project, and I'm really looking at the shape of the letters, then I find that I struggle over spelling something because it doesn't look right. My brain is just overthinking the shapes of the letters.

She may just have had an off day and wasn't concentrating. Or was over-thinking it. It doesn't mean she's getting worse.

Build in plenty of reading experiences where there isn't a pressure to perform. I know I struggle to do something when I'm preoccupied with getting it 'right'. Some children (I was one of them) get really anxious about making mistakes, especially in front of other people. I'd really concentrate on building up her general confidence so that being 'wrong' isn't a disaster and have fun with words and reading.

Has she had a dyslexia test? I don't know if that's commonplace or not.

My DS was very similar, doing the memorising, guessing, recently has improved & it just seems he wasn't ready, have also tried to not stress too much (not easy).

Might be worthwhile posting in primary education, quite a few of the regulars are teachers & have good advice.

Dancing Bears is an excellent program you do with her at home 10 minutes a day.

She shouldn't be looking at the pictures and guessing. She should be looking at the words and reading.

Don't leave it.

First of all I would say try not to worry too much - she will get there eventually. My DD is now aged 6 (nearly 7) and in yr 2. She is a voracious reader, proper chapter books with a reading age well above her own age (her teacher now lets her take out school library books from the yr 3 & 4 classrooms as she has progressed beyond the yr 2 selection).

This time last year we were still at the c - a - t spells 'dog??' stage (as the picture shows a cat and a dog and she was guessing) and I was despairing - all the other children in her class seemed to be able to read but not her. Then it suddenly 'clicked'. It felt like one minute she couldn't read - and then she could, no real in between stage. Having floundered for months she suddenly progressed up about 5 reading levels in a few weeks and then the teacher stopped bothering with the stages altogether and put her onto free reading.

I worked at it with her quite hard around this time last year. Got a different set of early reader books from the library and also used some CVC (i.e. consonant vowel consonant) word flash cards with her (which didn't have pictures) to help her sound out. Bizarrely what really cracked it was those ghastly rainbow fairy books. All her friends at school were reading them but she couldn't obviously. I got some and started reading her a couple of pages before bed and then asking her to read me a sentence, after a week or so I would ask her to read a paragraph to me - with help, then it became me asking her to read another paragraph on her own and I would read from there the next night and then suddenly I came in the next night and she said 'oh i finished that book last night mummy, please can we start another one' - and she was off. It was a bit odd as we basically dived in the deep end - she couldn't read at all really and I was asking her to read from what is effectively a proper book (albeit with v simple words), but she had the motivation and that seemed to be what made it happen.

ok - so she came home with a new book today.
We read is as soon as we got in. It was a rosie and sam one. not ort. We talked about the pictures first, and what we thought might happen.
she read wonderfully. brilliant sounding out, only a little guessing ( maybe two words in the whole book)

thanks for all the helpful advice, im def going to follow some of it up.
( have purchased fairy books off amazon, its her birthday next week...)

Hi I had this problem when my DD was in year 1. Even the teacher agreed. Always a surprise when that happens.

I vividly remember her struggling with "in a dark, dark house, lived a...... In the end I came to the conclusion she was so concerned about getting it wrong that she just didn't want to give it a go.

I tried two different tactics: During reading keep so calm and deadpan and even if the word was "the" act like it was like any other word and help her sound it out and move on with no adverse comment. Lots of positive and keep exasperation right out of the room.

Secondly, mess about and get her to deliberately say the wrong word - and guess what? the world doesn't end. This works with my daughter who so much wants to be right she doesnt want to appear foolish in front of anyone!

DD is so the same.
She hates being wrong - cant think where she gets it. so she just stops.
She also told me she is sounding out in her head, which is good i supose, but when it looks like she is just blankly staring at a word, it lookds like she isnt doing anything.
She sounded out abotu 5 new words today,and got them right, and she did them in her head.

So she can do it, i just need to get her confidence up.

Twenty years ago my son had the same problem and at the end of his first year at school he could not read at all, but he had memorized the book!
Do not worry, he managed to read the next year and now is a voracious reader, got an A in higher English and a first in his degree. just plod on with the reading and try not to get too worried. I think that they can stagnate if they keep looking at the same book and can seem to go backwards.

OP, your DD could be my DS. Pre-Christmas I was having a meltdown over it all. Writing, check. Pen grip, check. Spellings, mostly check. Reading, no. It turned out my DS was memorising the book during reading with the teacher and repeating verbatim to me in the evening. I was thinking everything was hunky dory. This was only found out due to a change in class teacher.

What helped me was talking it through with an early years teacher friend of mine who said, children don't learn in a linear pattern. They can skip about picking thing up (or not) seemingly randomly, then it can all come together later.

We've gone back to the basics with my DS; stories are simple sentences and words, building up his confidence. Extra workbooks from school going through the phonics system. It is getting better. I will no longer worry about the other children in his class and what supposed level he should be at. I will not worry at all because he will get there at his own pace and so will your DD.

Hi I had this problem when my DD was in year 1. Even the teacher agreed. Always a surprise when that happens.

I vividly remember her struggling with "in a dark, dark house, lived a...... In the end I came to the conclusion she was so concerned about getting it wrong that she just didn't want to give it a go.

I tried two different tactics: During reading keep so calm and deadpan and even if the word was "the" act like it was like any other word and help her sound it out and move on with no adverse comment. Lots of positive and keep exasperation right out of the room.

Secondly, mess about and get her to deliberately say the wrong word - and guess what? the world doesn't end. This works with my daughter who so much wants to be right she doesnt want to appear foolish in front of anyone!

oops have i posted this twice - sorry

watchoutforthatsnail in several years time you will be the one responding to posts of this type
'my daughter was slow to read but went on to get an A* in English/degree in such and such/ has decided to become a teacher' etc etc

At 6 it is such early days and in some countries they don't even start school till 7 so am sure DD will catch up soon.

in yr 2 my dd was on the same level for the whole year and also had trouble with words like was, there, then, but see could read other words whic to me seemed a lot more ifficult such as dinosaur, the teacher explained that words we think are easier like was, childen find harder as there is now image in thier heads for these words, which make it more difficult to remember, but words like dinosuar when they seethe word they piture it in thier heads making it easier to remeber. since going up a year she has come on great, i try t get her to do her school book, then she picks a book to read and we take it in turns to read pages, also going to the librart helps and reward charts

I would go back to school and discuss her lack of progress with her class teacher. I kept being fobbed off by daughters teachers, oh dont worry she will catch up etc, by Feb of yr2 I was told she was behind and needed an IEP - DUH I could have told them that but they wouldnt listen. Dont let them fob you off if you feel it needs addressing challenge it. My daughter still struggles now and it is down to the teachers ignoring me!!

Oh that's great news that you had a happier reading time together today, sounds as though you are helping a lot with her confidence.

Could also be a confidence issue. My yr 1 DD is on ort level 5 and she was complaining that the stories have become 'very long', which seems to have knocked her back a little, she sounded out "us" yesterday!

DD is well ahead in her reading but every now and again she will look to me for a word like 'I' or 'the' and I think it's just a bit of brain freeze so I wouldn't worry too much about that.
Is she being regularly benchmarked at school? That could be why she isn't being moved up. Can she answer questions about the text? Predict what might happen next etc?
DD changes her book 3 times a week at school so once a week doesn't sound like very much at all. I second what people have said about getting books out from the library so she gets to look at a lot of new books rather than just memorising. DD also likes it when I read more difficult books but point to the words as I read so she can learn new words. It also breaks it up rather than her reading all the time.

On a specific point about the balloon/hot air balloon, if one of my class add extra words to the text I will praise them for what they have read, repeat what they said and ask if they're sure, then if they don't self correct at that stage (many do, they can see the mistake better when they're not the ones reading) then I would ask them to either count the words on the page and the words that they said, agree there were too many and get them to have another go, or simply ask them "so which word says hot then?" and of course they can't point to it. (you can extend this game by asking them to point to other words that really are there.) That way you're not telling her she's wrong, but giving her the opportunity to discover a mistake for herself and correct it without embarrassment.