"They learnt their phonics from alpha blocks'

[letdownalittle]

Aibu to get a little tired of hearing this? That letter sounds are just so easy to pick up that a bit of exposure to alpha locks or another program is enough to learn them at 3?

Does anyone else have little ones who do not follow the approach that seeing/ hearing a letter sound= knowing it. It seems be an approach where children are meant to be little jugs of knowledge where you put in a little bit of knowledge each day and they will be a little full jig soon. Mine forget half of what they hear at least, progress in fits and bursts and in the case of dd, nearly 5, haven't picked the sound or name of a single letter.

Does this resound with anyone else? Dd has watched alphablocks, looked at many a jolly phonic book, flash card etc but nowt. Writes her name and friends name and the odd word, but doesn't pick up sounds?

She is hearing impaired to a moderate level, hf autism but is otherwise fairly able. No other signs of learning needs, good vocabulary, can add single digits mentally...

What's your AIBU?

By 5, I'd expect most children to know sounds and letters. Most should be blending and reading to a certain extent.

Lots of children can't just see and hear something once and learn it. I remember being told years ago that children forget things 3 times before remembering on the fourth.

Thinks like Alphablocks can have its place for some children who can learn the basic graphemes and phonemes but I wouldn't expect much more than that.

Frequent exposure for brief periods is important. That why I can usually tell the children who read with their parents vs those who don't within a few minutes.

Have you spoken to your children's teachers?

At 5 they are only just in reception - my daughter who is an avid reader reading at aged over 17 aged 11, didn't really "get" phonics till early yr 2 (Aug baby though) so a yr later than you are talking here.

Having said that keep going with little and often - eventually they will get it - it just clicks its like the mind has to be ready to do it. With a strong base board of knowledge they will fly when it clicks. Do the same for maths too, although be aware that they teach it very differently these days - core thing is number bonds so numbers that add up to 10.

Def second the reading with parents thing though - read and read and read - I used to play tricks and change the words and she would always catch me out but it meant she was following and watching the written word and matching to the spoken word. She was also learning key words by sight which also helps

I think watching a TV programme like Alphablovks is too passive an activity to result in real learning. My four year old has however loved playing the games on the Reading Eggs website. Because he is to complete tasks he has learnt while playing and he now knows all his phonic sounds and can read cvc words and some common sight words.

I live with my toddler GC, but I was surprised when at a pub lunch she named all the numbers/sounds/fruits whilst pointing to the Slot Machine.

I knew she could name colours and what was expected.

She either picked this up from Paw Patrol or Baby TV

She'll except things as gospel from Peppa Pig.

Children want to learn and take what they need from what they are exposed to.

The exposure is very high here. The amount of books is huge. Reading is very frequent.

However, despite sight words appearing whilst reading for fun not letters sounds have been absorbed despite all the phonics. We've done enough. Really... is dd the only one? All I hear is magic magic phonic it feels

Are you certain it's not related to her hearing difficulties? That would seem the most obvious explanation. Is she at school, and has her teacher raised any concerns?

I guess I have frustration at yet another child of mine having a rough time with it all. DS got sounds, never blended yet started reading with great fluency at he 2 when he was deemed to have finally got phonics- but he doesn't still. Dd1 doesn't get phonics, very very able yet had a rough start to school with it all. It's a crap start to school as it's all they focus on, and if you don't get it it's a bit soul destroying.

DS had every intervention going with reading, constantly sat with children who also struggled with speech/ most the curriculum and going a bit off the rails with boredom. Until the ks2 says when he got a level 3 in reading, despite never really progressing on the phonics beyond yr 1 entry. He quietly learned to read in other ways, but missed a hell of a lot of lesson time in ks1 in withdrawal groups

Shashuka

He knows all the phonic sounds but can only read some CVC words?

She has a teacher of the deaf half termly visit, but this seems mainly to be reminding strategies that slowly drift between visits. Like sitting in a chair centrally etc. The only phonics has been a note that it needs to be small group or 1;1, which I've seen in numerous times with the adult sitting NEXT to dd instead of across a table so she can't see their face. I'm dubious that such an auditory way of learning can work for her, her letter sounds are good in speech only when she's learnt a word and practised it. When she hears new words in speech it shows how she often misses word endings and consonants.

DS isn't hi but still struggled beyond early learning if sounds, just didn't blend and stalled on digraphs forever more.

It depends on the child.

One of mine taught himself to read by 4. The first I knew was when a little voice over my shoulder told me that murder was bad, and I shouldn't read things like that.

We hadn't pushed reading at all with him, and he'd shown no particular interest. He aced the 'nonsense words' phonics sheets that we tried him on after we'd picked ourselves back up off the floor, so some children do have a bent for it.

My youngest wasn't bothered until about 6, but then set off running.

We always use subtitles on the tv and tablets, so they are recognising whole words too.

I think phonics teaching is very laboured in schools though. Most children seem bored silly by the amount of time devoted to it.

My son is five in October and cannot read at all. He has been read to since day one but he has struggled with a speech delay and is awaiting a possible ASD diagnosis. I'm sad to read that some would assume he's never read to. He tries his best with the books he gets from school and we continue to read to him for enjoyment. He enjoys alpha blocks but doesn't seem to retain any of it so its not ideal for us.

They all do it their own way. Dd is four and can read well for her age, but phonics doesn't work for her. She learns by sight and memory, nothing I've done just how she is. I fully expect her to struggle with phonics at school as it's just not her way. It doesn't work for all children. But with 30 children in a class, sadly it becomes one size fits all.

Just a thought but due to the ASD, has she been assessed for auditory processing difficulties?

Ok so it sounds like your dcs have difficulty learning to read using the phonics method or have a rubbish teacher.

That doesn't mean phonics is rubbish nor Alphablocks.

My DD picked up her letter sounds watching that show and being taught it at preschool/at home/at school. I doubt she'd have learnt them just from the show though because she watched it in random order.

My ds learnt at school because he wasn't interested before he went to school.

@invistusGames - sorry, I wrote that in a sloppy fashion. I didn't mean he knows all his phonic sounds at all. I meant he knows the phonic sounds made by all the letters.

I don't think they are rubbish- but I do think it isn't a magic bullet and I'm getting fed up with the just do more of approach to reading. I think some space in school for provision of another method wouldn't go amiss. The interventions are more and more phonics until her soul is getting sapped. She misses lessons and things in class she's really good at to sit through even more of what she doesn't get. I worry she'll fall behind in or lose confidence in her areas of strength.

She hasn't been assessed for auditory processing.she hasn't even seen speech and language since being diagnosed at 3. There is just nothing. SLT say she can see a hi therapist, hi team don't even employ one. The few she has seen have been in groups and with totally unsuitable strategies for her. I just hear funding, funding, funding. The small groups in class when they happen are inappropriate l. She is hi and sensitive and there are two noisy fast talking boys and a girl with behaviour needs she is withdrawn with. I doubt she hears and follows much at all with them, she's probably better off with the rest of the class but they feel they need to do something....

Actually, there is a series of Alpahblocks books that some schools use along-side the series. The series itself is a perfectly crafted piece of phonics edutainment, and if children are being read to whilst the adult reader points-and-reads, there is absolutely no reason why a child couldn't pick up reading and phonics from the Alphablocks series. (But probably Not in a vacuum where no additional reading was n=being done).

But the phonics system is only one way that children learn to read (albeit the favourite in schools atm). Other children who learn in different ways may learn by looking for the "shape" of the word or by the hard graft of learning each word as a separate entity for example.

Some children learn to read "by themselves" before school (Like my Big Son) and some don't get it until later (Small Son didn't read for himself until the end of Reception) Both children were given the same out-of-school literacy opportunities, both are equally intelligent, but they have different learning strategies that work for them.

It doesn't matter how they learn, as long as they learn and that any "difficulties" are noticed and supported. After all, some country's formal education doesn't start until 7, and it doesn't retard the overall outcome of learning.

My two sons with very different start ages for reading were absolutely equal with reading ages of 10 at the end of yr3. It's just a matter of finding the right strategy for each child.

@Shashuka

That makes less sense. All the sounds made by the letters are all the sounds.

Invictus- you are being a pedant. She clearly means the sounds made by individual letters, as opposed to split digraphs, double vowels etc. You couldn't sounds out time only being aware of individual letters sounds

@invictusGames

Not being pedantic. Genuinely confused.

My DS knew his alphabet forward and backwards by the time he went to school he could count he could add small numbers could recognise a few words. We read 3 books a day to him from newborn. So they put him in with the smaller (higher) class which had started in Sept (this was when they had two intakes).

From then on disaster, he couldn't get on with phonics at all really struggled to learn to read, he didn't read fluently until he was 8, the problem was he is dyslexic and dyspraxic so he had a lower processing speed than other children we didn't know this when he was first learning it became apparent in the first two years of school. He is also very able so it took a while before it was apparent that he was struggling. I didn't know that they taught the alphabet phonically when he went to school; it was 16 years ago.

He has since finished school and is at Uni doing a science degree.

Could dyslexia or dyspraxia be your DD's issue. We were very surprised with my son because he had always been way ahead of other children with his memory and numbers etc. He learned lots of words, with no problems but he couldn't put them together to make any sense when reading for a long time. Even now he has to read really slowly and sometimes read the same page two or three times to really understand it. But he is in the top 5% for IQ for his age in the UK. He can understand and work out everything spoken much quicker than lots of people it is just the written word that takes a lot more processing. He also can't spell at all.

my ds is in y8 and still doesn't get phonics. he has learning difficulties, and dyslexia and it just doesn't work for him.
I feel your pain on the whole shit show of kids with SN. I really really do.

In english we have 5 vowels.. We have somewhere between 14-21 vowel phonemes in English depending on accent. knowing the sound of a letter is clearly NOT the same as knowing all the sounds.