Reluctant 6 year old reading…

[IAmLadyWhistledown]

Hello,

I'm hoping this is the correct topic, my DS (6yo) is an August baby and in Year 2. We have had discussions around the possibility of an ADHD assessment and is on the waiting list for referral.

He is incredibly bright in inventing, thinking of Lego builds and being practical.

Academically he is great at Maths, however the likes of writing, reading, spellings he really lacks. My worry is that he is so reluctant to read that he just won’t do it, we always read to him but when he does eventually read, it’s very much spelling out, for instance, he will read habitat as H-A-B-I-T-A-T and then try to blend. He does this for every word. I just don’t know what to do as a parent how do I get him to read confidently. He is currently stage 5 on little wandle books at school if this helps.

Any advice, tips and guidance would be incredibly appreciated. I feel like such a failure as a parent!

Thank you

A lot of guided practice. If he can phonetically blend, but is still at the stage of sounding out.. then just practice practice practice. Get a huge set of early reading books suitable for his level, and start a simple bed time rule... He reads a book, you read books. 1 short reading book a night. In a few months he will have seen a massive improvement

Also for easily distracted boys. Keep a piece of paper when he reads, and hide the pictures. Allows him to focus on the words, plus adds positive reinforcement that when the picture is revealed after he has read it, he will already know what is coming and feel nice and smart about having read it.

How is he with shorter words? Would he read dog, jump, slip, steep, and so on in one step, or would he do s-l-i-p and then try to blend? Or the halfway option of s-l-ip and d-og?

I also think it's useful to have some easier books available for nights when they're tired – it all counts, and you can build fluency and hopefully enjoyment by including some easier stuff. Plus it can help them see progress, that stuff that felt hard when they were doing it at school is now much easier.

Hello,

Thank you for replying. He would recognise shorter words like dog, cat, park etc and a few longer but 90% of the time he would sound the letters and try to blend.

Do you have any suggestions? I have got a few quite a range I’d say we’re aimed at 4-6 years old, lots of Julia Donaldson or similar to what he’s brought home from school to read.

Thank you

It might be worth considering how much repetition there is in the school books - reading schemes vary & some will recycle a lot of words over books whereas others will introduce lots of new words (but made up of the same phonic sounds).

Also it might be worth checking the Little Wandle advice re chunking longer words into short sections - zo would blend habitat as h-a-b hab i i t-a-t tat habitat (but I don’t know LW).

Make sure that you can sound the phonemes correctly to model (its really easy to slip into putting a uh sound on the end).

LW is based on Letters and Sounds - the original L&S should be available & it might be worth reading to understand the program.

Easy Dr Seuss books are phonic so they might be a good place to start. Libraries also have phonic books & you can also get box sets.

As said previously, practice is key & you need to work out what works for your child. DS found reading difficult & the advice from kind MN experts was invaluable. What worked for him was the Jelly & Bean scheme (which we found via MN) - which was behind my point about repeated vocab as it recycled words a lot more then his school books which was what he needed.

Alphablocks is excellent. Do you already watch it?

The first word my son learned to spell was from Alphablocks.

ST - IN - K!

I’m a primary school teacher and I couldn’t get one of my dc to read. The thing that got her into it was The Beano. Delivered every Saturday. She just loved it and she ended up studying both English lit and language at a A level. I think j it was the gateway to understanding reading just for pleasure.

My daughter has enjoyed the Julia Donaldson Songbirds reading books, and there's a set that has longer words but simple graphemes, so that might suit to help with handling longer words. She also likes the Usborne early readers/first readers. There's a lot on Vinted, so you can pick them up cheaply.

Entirely agree. You could be describing my son - bright August bday boy. Hated reading. Now will read non fiction for please. Got great A level results in essay subjects as well as a science. Still loves lego.
Look for different ways - variety. Try not to turn him off. Mine didn't have great English teachers at secondary and still thinks fiction is pointless. I live in hope he'll catch my love of reading fiction for pleasure.

I’d break it into syllables - hab/it/at and then get him to say it again more quickly.

Also get a copy of Toe by Toe - ten minutes a day, no longer - and some simple picture books he enjoys.