*Another* question about boys' reading abilities

[Wordsmith]

Sorry if this is flogging a dead horse but DH I I had quite a heated debate, as Mrs Merton would have said, about this last night.

DS1 is 5.6 and is in yr 1 at school. He started school in Jan 05 so only did about 7 months in reception as opposed to a full academic year (they have a staged intake system around here - the younger ones start after Christmas).

He couldn't read at all before starting school and showed no interest in it at all, although he loves being read to and has a story book every night at bedtime.

During his time in reception he did quite well at learning his letters, can write his name (although his handwriting's appalling - but that's another matter), recognise a few words etc, but I wouldn't say he learned to read as such.

Now in Year 1, it almost seems as though he has regressed. We tried to keep up his reading during the holidays but the school didn't send home any books from the reading scheme and I couldn't find anything similar at the library, so we stuck mainly to learning the 45 words he was supposed to know by the end of reception year. But I'm not sure he's actually learning them - his home reader last night had 'Dad and Tom' on page one, which he struggled with but eventually got, and then 'Dad and Tom' was over the page again and it was as though he'd never seen the words before, although he'd only read them 30 secs previously!

Now I know boys learn differently to girls and I have been told by teacher friends not to worry too much before age 7, but my DH is getting annoyed that DS1 seems not to be progressing, and his anxiety is affecting me (and worse, DS1, I think).

What are other parents' experiences of teaching boys to read? Does it just suddenly 'click' with them one day? What can I/we do to make it easier?

He's learning to read using Jolly Phonics by the way, which seems fine for learning his letters but not for recognising words, IMO.

'Scuse spelling, it's typing errors and I should have previewed. I can spell, honest!

Personally, though I think phonics is great, I wouldn't cover up the pictures as pictures are so much of a young child's enjoyment of books and I think there is little motivation to read if books aren't seen as fun. But I wouldn't encourage guessing based on pictures either. Does he have a interest like Spiderman or anything where you could use that to show him that if he reads he can find out more about his favourite subject? Or just try randomly reading words as they pop up in your/his life, not just books eg 'bus' and 'milk' etc.
I think that reading can only be seen as the adventure it is if it is associated with pleasure, not work, school and grumpy parents (and I speak as an extremely grumpy parent today, hence presence on Mumsnet, decompressing!)

And yes, never ever try to do something with a kid who is tired, under or overfed or busy with something else. Recipe for disaster.

Hello Wordsworth, In answer to your questions: a) It is definitely OK to cover up the pictures, that way he will, as you say, focus on the words and not the pictures. Obviously you want him to read books for enjoyment and wouldn?t ban the pictures altogether, but it is OK to do this to focus on the words and ?no guessing?. With regard to the note that his teacher wrote, think about the following as a method of reading. If he is shown a picture of a shop counter with a car on it, and a sentence underneath that said ?I went to the shop to get a c?? Do you think he would look at the picture and guess at the last word beginning with ?c? or would he read it. Similarly, if given a picture of a shop counter with the following objects on it: cat, can, car, cake, candle, chalk, and a castle; what do you think he would read? Do you think he would be able to work out the correct word, or make a guess at one of the objects. I know this isn?t a brilliant example, as he would obviously need to be able to read the other words in the sentence but this is an example of how children end up guessing instead of reading. People who have learned to read by memorising whole words guess all the time and consistently get it wrong. Someone on the RRF gave a really good example of this, if I can find it I will post it later.

In answer to your second query b) The word ?should? is a little tricky but can be sounded out once you have learned how to read the sounds. I would teach children that the ?u? sound can be written in a different way ?ou? as in would, could, should, and would explain about the selent ?l?. Once you begin to learn more of the phonemes and the alternative spellings you will be surprised at how much can be read phonetically.

Woops, wordsmith, not wordsworth!!! obeviously not reading the word!

I have put a note in DS1's reading record asking about using the pics as clues. I can see from looking at his eyes when he reads that he's not looking at the words and the amount of guessing is too much IMO. When I do cover up the pics, he has to try and read the words. If he reads it by looking at the pics, then I ask him to point out which word is 'cup' and which word is 'paint' and so on - he normally manages them. I guess we'll get there eventually and I certainly don't want to make reading a chore - I agree with Aloha and Nelly on that. I was one of those bookworms as a child who read with a torch under the bedcover! (A bit older than DS1 is now though)

He's been learning his spellings for the spelling test (it, is. and, an, and so on....) and he's fine at that - he is working out the letters by breaking the word up into its component parts. I think the other class's parents were annoyed because some of the words they were given last week, ie should, couldn't be worked out like this, and as they have been learning through phonics and this is the first instance of formal spelling they have been given, to ask them to spell a difficult word which isn't one of the tricky words they have learned to date, was asking a bit much.

I think we need to look at some of the tricky words and concentrate on learning those by rote.

I agree though, I want DS1 to learn to love reading. He already loves having a bedtime story and likes the whole storymaking/telling process - he's really quite imaginative. But I know if he feels he's not keeping up with the rest of the kids at school he will get demoralised, and that's what I'm keen to avoid.