almost 6 yr old does not want to learn phonics and is just memorising sentences

[lovebooks999]

as my name suggests, i love reading and believe i read easily and enjoyed it as a child.

so i looked forward to teaching my own children to read. i am not a teacher and clearly I have done a bad job. My almost 6 yr old has never shown much interest in books and does not seem to understand the concept of phonics. in the last week or so she has been reading the ladybird first books and on the face of it doing very well. But she is memorising the words, so give her a new book and she cannot read the words or even make a stab at them and then just wants to go back to the ones she knows. She is telling us she can read. We had a file from school and it had simple words in it and she again I think had memorised them but only the first 10 or so. So nip she knew but would not even attempt nap.

I have got annoyed with her this evening and said she is not trying and just memorising words. I know completely the wrong thing to do. i have got frustrated in the past, so hardly surprising there is a problem.

can anyone give me some advice please?

Certain words can't be decoded. That is probably what the school sent home ( red words). She does need to memorise them. To help with phonics you could do a little at home. Go on amazon and buy a pack of read write inc speed sounds set 1&2. Give her a sound a week and if necessary blu tack the card next to her bed . If she hasn't/ doesn't know her phonics, books and trying to read will be painful for her. Small chunks of phonics might help. Good luck

What have school said? How is she coping with her reading books?

Thank you, The school sent home the simplest three letter words, sat, cat, nip, nap etc. She couldn't decode nap and would not even try.

i am going to talk to school in January.

Ask the school for word wheels.

How is her writing?

My DD2 did this - she turned out to have a hearing problem that meant she couldn't do phonics. She was referred to the ed psych, who said learning whole words is a perfectly valid way of learning to read (it's what my generation did at school), just not the fashion now.
IME although it is frustrating for everyone, at that age teachers are far more worried about poor comprehension, not using picture clues etc than struggles with decoding.
DD2 was behind in year 1 then made a massive leap forward in Y2 and ended the year as one of the best readers in the class - she was ready and found a way of learning that worked for her. She loves reading now

Does she know any phonics sounds? Is she Yr 1 now? What was she doing in Reception, and is it a state school, or private?

I've used a kit called 'SoundWorks' with Yr2 children who were behind in reading, but their website has changed and it now seems tied in with dyslexia support (which isn't what we want).

If you answer my queries, I can give you the basics of SoundWorks from memory, if you wish.

I was twenty years a TA and voluntary helper in primary schools, so I've seen most of it before!