Should I give up teaching my child how to read ?

[stuckintheblastingsnow]

Just feel a bit down.

DS is 8 and even though his reading has improved, it’s getting there slowly. I’m having to put in the work !

Just to give a bit of a back story, DS has Autism plus language difficulties. He loves reading books, but learning to read was always difficult for him. They were teaching him at school, but it just wasn’t clicking. So I thought, all right, I’ll teach him how to read. I purchased the Jolly phonics handbook and started there... going through each letter sound one by one... I then used more structured reading schemes. His reading flew off but now he doesn’t like reading as much !

I then viewed a reading webinar about “shared reading”... making comments, talking about what’s happening in the story... this webinar was target for children with language difficulties. So I began using this shared reading approach etc.

I spoke to DS teacher about what I’m doing, but the teacher feels that I’m doing too much for DS, that I should leave the reading up to her and how she’s worried that DS is now seeing reading as “work” where it should be more fun. I agree with this, but I sort of feel a bit... meh... should I take a back seat in DS education and leave it up to the teacher ?

The thing is, I do love teaching and I like teaching my children. But DS is in year 3 and his reading is of a year 1 pupil. I’m worried if I don’t keep up at the reading and leave it up to the school, he would fall further behind and may struggle with literacy difficulties for when he gets older.

I have a child with a severe language delay and have found that the not liking it seems to be related realising that they are not good at it or that there is a big difference between them and their peers.

Phonics books and readers are however some of the most soul sucking ply boring books I have ever seen. Are you using those or doing your shared reading with books that are more in line with his interests?

Hmmm.

You say that "He loves reading books, but learning to read was always difficult for him. They were teaching him at school, but it just wasn’t clicking." So--he loved reading books, but you were getting the feeling that he wasn't actually reading?

Reading between the lines here (if you will pardon the pun), I suspect that what was going on here is that he was being given easy books with lots of pictures and predictable text, and was guessing/memorising his way thorough them? And that he was quite happy and motivated to sit there and do this, but that you sensed that he was not actually reading, which is why you took steps to teach him phonics using Jolly Phonics.

Is my understanding correct?

It sounds as though either the school did not teach phonics correctly, or that your son fell through the cracks and didn't get noticed until he was a couple of years into school and by that point the phonics teaching had already finished for all the other kids.

If this is the case, then you have absolutely done the right thing by getting the JP and actively teaching your child yourself.

Can you clarify how the school has been teaching him, and why/how/when you felt that things were not "clicking"?

It would be such a shame for your DS to miss out on developing a love for reading. You've done so much to help him. Both Jolly Phonics-type learning and shared book reading are complementary approaches but he needs to have solid phonics skills to really master reading.
You could try some more interesting phonics books, like these www.phonicbooks.co.uk/
There are a couple of different series that are popular with older struggling readers.

I'm a year 1 teacher and would love to have more parents as motivated as you are.

I'd spend 10 minutes a night getting your ds to read a phonics-based book to you (with your support when needed). And then let him choose a book that he's interested in for you to read to him, taking a shared reading approach.

btw don't get too downhearted if he doesn't enjoy reading. Some children just don't. I'm a complete bookworm and assumed my daughter would be the same. I read to her from when she was a baby, she loved listening to stories, but getting her to actually read herself was always a battle.

Is phonics the right approach for him? Many children with language needs and ASD are more receptive to a whole word approach. I would try to get back the love of reading, rather than tech him to read at this stage. (I'm a specialist teacher of children with speech and language needs).

When DS was in reception, he was given wordless reading books, he enjoys looking at the illustrations in a book. Sorry, I meant he enjoyed reading as in he likes looking at the pictures.

He was given these wordless book by the end of reception, I didn’t know at the time, I trusted the teacher but she told me that “When DS starts talking properly then we can start teaching how to read”. Spoke to some other parents who mentioned that was bollocks. Started noticing that DS was into letters, so I thought let me reach him.

grumpy DS round learning to read the phonics way much more easily than learning to read by sight.

If he's not enjoying it as much, I'd go back to reading to him, get some great age (not reading level) books for you to read to him. Engage him in the stories, maybe get him to read little bits but focus on the enjoyment not the phonics. It's a hard balance when they're struggling but look at the long game... If he ends up able to read but absolutely hating it then you won't have achieved much!

That's based on my experience of a late reader, it's paid off for us as now he's a bit older he's able to read and loves books. Took us a long time to get there though...

Second what grumpypug says- often children with autism work better with a memory based approach than phonics. I think the idea of blending and segmenting can be a bit hazy for them, not concrete enough. Obviously all children are different but this is what I’ve found.
I do like phonics but it doesn’t work for every child.

Make sure he is still getting access to books he likes to read.

Not every book needs to be challenging or educational, he should get to read some below his level and let him read those with lots of praise. And read some on his own that he chooses.

Comics and graphic novels are great for this.

If he has autism and language difficulties, but his reading is just two years behind age-expected... then it may be working, surely?
Reading is work when we're learning it, but with practice it just becomes a tool to access fun. Just get him to choose things he fancies from the library- there are lots and lots of books that are illustrated these days, so they don't have to be word-heavy even if they're age-appropriate. Choose things he'd enjoy if you were reading them- I know they won't be strictly phonetic, but if you're there to help out with trickier words, that won't matter. If he likes non-fiction, the usborne 'lift the flaps' type books were hugely popular with my children at his age- they have a wife variety of subjects such as space, castles, inventions etc.

As long as you are making it a bit fun, I’d go on with reading. My now 12 yr old ASD DS was behind in reception with reading. I basically taught him using Peter and Jane ladybird books, with the whole word approach, as phonics just didn’t cut it with him. By year 1, he was ahead of his age, and by the age of about 9 he was reading Lord of the Rings. The value of one to one cannot be overestimated. Any time you put in WILL be worth it. If your DS loves reading, you will be enabling him to access the sorts of books he loves. Peter and Jane IS dull, but after a couple of series of these my DS was up and running and able to choose other books.

@grumpypug do you have more info on your whole word approach? My DC is also in year 3 and the phonics method is really not working. We have an IEP meeting soon and I would love to have solid info to suggest they try a different approach without her and also so I can support this at home.

Ha- that would be a "wide" variety, of course!

Geronimo Stilton are fun, or The Jolly Rogers series. I also found that books with lots of rhymes (like the Julia Donaldson books etc) really helped reinforce their learning, because they come across words which sound the same but are spelled/formed differently.

^ with her

Thank you everyone ! Uglicat we do structured phonics work for 10 mins, then we read one of his reading schemes book (which he does like reading but not so much). I’m wondering if we can skip the read schemes (to reading them 2X a week) and reading one of his more fun books... his very into manga and we have a few manga books, though he reads them in his own time. But I’m thinking of reading the books he really enjoys rather than reading one of those reading schemes book as part of his phonics, we touch on blending words etc.

Yes Haba my DS likes Julia Donaldson’s books !

Have you tried reading eggs? It’s computer/iPad based and very interactive and encouraging. I use it with my son and he really enjoys it.

Reading is hard work when you read at the level of a Y1 child! And getting further and further behind your peers is no fun at all, esp as the work will increasingly be geared towards children who can read and write more.

I suggest you keep going. And also find time just to let your ds pick books for you to read to him for pleasure.

My daughter is a bit behind in reading by UK standards (because we live in a non-English-speaking country and she goes to school in another language).

We have recently got to the stage where we can start to use "real books" with a bit of adjustment.

I look for books where the print size is not too small, and we do "I read--you read" in chunks. I try to pick out sections which will not be too difficult for her. If there are just one or two words which I know will be hard for her to decode, I circle them lightly in pencil and read them for her, showing her how the sounds are spelt. Then she reads the section for me.

This allows you to share books that your child is actually interested in, not just confining yourself to the graded readers.

I also plonk a pile of easy decodable graded readers on her bed when I leave her room in the evening and ask her to read some by herself. They are easier, it's motivating for her and she gets extra fluency practice.

It's hard work, but you just have to keep plugging away, bit by bit. I am very surprised that the teacher is trying to persuade you not to work with your child--frankly, the school doesn't seem to have done a very good job so far, do they?

stuck yes my dd is ASD too, and Because she has receptive language issues/auditory processing I wanted to make damn sure she could read.

I flat out told the teacher that if the books she was bringing home weren't making her want to read, we'd be reading our own books.
Wanting to read is critical.

The 13 storey tree house books are fantastic getting reluctant readers into reading. If you don't like fart jokes you may struggle tho.

My DS also loves Captain underpants- you'll have to read them to him for now, but they're actually v funny.

@Deshasafraisy we use / have used the Down syndrome information for look and say reading strategies. It works successfully for children with a wide range of needs and is not exclusively for children with Down syndrome. It's worth looking into