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Primary education

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Original poster

Another sight reading problem...

161 replies

SpiderManMum · 19/10/2011 23:53

Hi, I have read other threads with interest and didn't want to hijack so if anyone has any advice I'd be very grateful..

DS has just started Reception and knows all the letter sounds from following Jolly Phonics in nursery. They have now moved on to blending sounds and decoding words all of which DS is struggling with. The teacher even called me in to see her the other afternoon to ask if we could have a hearing test as she wasn't sure if he can actually hear the sounds that make up a word. For some reason he has no problem hearing the first sound in any word, but cannot get the others (or if he does, can't put them in the right order).

The hearing test results are all fine but I'm at a bit of a loss of how to help. He has a very good memory so can sight read quite well which isn't helping matters.

Is the Sound Reading Solutions the way to go? I see that it is a US product, is it available in the UK and are there any problems with children understanding the American accent?

I'm already starting to worry about dyslexia, which deep down I know is a bit silly at this stage but I can't for the life of me understand why he just isn't getting it! Sad

OP posts:
dolfrog · 26/11/2011 17:51

mrz
No i do not know any of the pupils at your school
my comments are not about your schools
2000+ sounds like a very large primary school.
How do you know that many children are achieving the maximum potential, unless you are teaching each one of them each day.
This a more general discussion, as it is not possible for you to comment about the performance of teachers my sons are or have attended, nor the teachers and schools of children whose parents have contacted me and others who run the many disability telephone and internet support lines.

So I am talking about teachers in the UK and not specifically those who work in the same school as you. You really do need to wake up.

mrz · 26/11/2011 17:54

but my question was about my school dolfrog

2000+ pupils over a period of 10+ years is a single form entry small primary school

snowball3 · 26/11/2011 17:57

So your comments refer to every teacher in every other school APART from mrz's!

dolfrog · 26/11/2011 18:01

Well that is a quite pointless question, for this type of forum.
You should be asking that question of all the 2000+ parents of those children, and not on a national forum.
So it would be more useful for you to find all of those parents and then ask them your question.
How would anyone on this forum know where your school is, or even if their children attend or go to your school.

So may be you should address the more general issues as everyone else has to and not ask them to do the impossible.

mrz · 26/11/2011 18:02

This a more general discussion, as it is not possible for you to comment about the performance of teachers my sons are or have attended, nor the teachers and schools of children whose parents have contacted me and others who run the many disability telephone and internet support lines.
just as it isn't possible for you to comment about the performance of every teacher in ever school across the UK

LondonMumsie · 26/11/2011 18:03

Masha - my son has had cause to use posada and lederhosen just this week!

mrz · 26/11/2011 18:11

dolfrog I asked you if you agreed that we (as a school) are meeting the needs of ALL our children since ALL those children are meeting at least age appropriate levels in reading ... Now you don't need to know each individual child or question every parent to answer that question. You answered NO so I'm asking in what ways do we not meet their needs

dolfrog · 26/11/2011 18:18

mrz
"just as it isn't possible for you to comment about the performance of every teacher in ever school across the UK"

Well i may have missed something but as I am aware I have not tried to comment about the performance of every teacher in every school across the UK.
When I joined this thread I tried to avoid being judgemental with regard to any individuals. And it was you who conjured up "the conspiracy theory" which is a red herring and lead to this rather silly side discussion.

dolfrog · 26/11/2011 18:22

mrz
"dolfrog I asked you if you agreed that we (as a school)"
you see probably due to my APD i was understanding that to be
"dolfrog I asked you if you agreed that we (the teaching profession in the UK)"
which as you mentioned i was loath to answer until you kept on pushing for an answer.

mrz · 26/11/2011 18:24

dolfrog Wed 23-Nov-11 03:33:37

I see that the usual protagonists are here the phonics industry, trying to sell various phonics programs,

dolfrog Sat 26-Nov-11 17:51:03
So I am talking about teachers in the UK and not specifically those who work in the same school as you. You really do need to wake up.
I hope you take your own advice

mrz · 26/11/2011 18:26

and you still haven't explained how we are not meeting the needs of our pupils

dolfrog · 26/11/2011 18:27

mrz
So may be you do not know how to communicate with an adult who has APD, and make it public knowledge that he has APD. So how do you identify and cope with the children who may have undiagnosed APD in your school which by Medical Research Council estimates would be 200+ and how do you know if you were able to provide the best education for them to enable them to maximise their full potential.

snowball3 · 26/11/2011 18:28

You are the one who said "Most teachers are not competent to be teachers, they are purely rote instructors, who have little or no understanding how children actually learn and are therefore not able to teach" and "Teachers tend to think that "they know it all" and do not like to listen to others "
How is that NOT commenting on teachers you don't know!

mrz · 26/11/2011 18:35

dolfrog I know I can communicate with at least one adult with APD on a daily basis so I'm afraid your attempts to insult me are wasted

dolfrog · 26/11/2011 18:40

mrz
"I see that the usual protagonists are here the phonics industry, trying to sell various phonics programs,"
So you again are not understanding someone who has APD.
You seem to have included yourself as part of the phonics industry side of the debate, and as you are well are there are protagonists on all side of a debate.
I may be at a disadvantage, everyone knows that I have APD which is part of my families genetic make up, I was wondering if you may have some form of communication issues which i am not aware of which I may need to take into consideration. This is only a polite inquiry.

mrz · 26/11/2011 18:45

I did ask who you were referring to dolfrog as no one on the thread has any commercial interest in any phonic programmes but you failed to answer that question too

Karoleann · 26/11/2011 18:53

I've not heard of any if these Reading
systems, but my son was very similar last
year. He just couldn't grasp the concept
that c a t was cat.
He got it the second week back after
Christmas.
I wouldn't do anything, just keep sounding
out stuff with him.
By the way my son is now in the top
Reading group in year 1.

dolfrog · 26/11/2011 18:56

mrz

You may not be aware of the interests of all the contributors.
There are some who are part of a clique hell bent on promoting phonics, for some it is the basis of their lively hood, or the lively hood of their friends, colleagues, and mentors.
And some of this clique have in years gone bye been a source of stress to me when they prefer to ignore the nature of my disability, and more importantly the children who share my disability, because it conflicts with the program they are promoting to increase the sales of phonics programs.
Their behavior over the years can only be described as disability discrimination. and i hate being discriminated against because of my disability and the disability of my children.

mrz · 26/11/2011 19:00

As far as I know only masha has a commercial motive for posting but perhaps you know better which is why I asked you who you were referring to.

snowball3 · 26/11/2011 19:06

The rest of us just teach children to read, day in, day out.

dolfrog · 26/11/2011 19:11

mrz

The problem with us APDs is that there are at least 5 subtypes of APD, and then there are varying degrees of severity of each subtype.
The next complication is to understand how we are best able to try to work around these various problems.
In the UK the first target was and still is to gain a wider awareness of APD, before we can begin to go into the greater detail of the various subtypes etc. So although currently most who have APD know how it may affect them personally, it can take a while to understand all the implications of a diagnosis of APD, and as I have found out from the Help line over the years, it affects people in so many different ways.
Hopefully the adult APD you know is not one of the more severe cases. And if they are not already a member they could join the Yahoo Adult APD group which started in 2000 and now has some 500+ members

MigratingCoconuts · 26/11/2011 19:11

what percentage of all teachers across the UK make up those teachers who have ignored your disability?

because you did imply that based on your experience every teacher is disregarding SEN.

mrz · 26/11/2011 19:12

exactly!

LondonMumsie · 26/11/2011 19:31

By the way, to the OP. Your son is very young. They worried about my son in reception, he was on a "watch" list. We just kept doing the phonics, reading books to him, keeping it fun.

I found he enjoyed Slug in the Jug (spotting literacy patterns), making words out of puzzles and me writing ends of words in bath crayons for him to change and finish. I would write, say "at" and he'd write b, c, m, s, p, etc, in turn to see all the different words.

He is now reading / comprehending just fine. (Year 4, 4C and a real bookworm).

dolfrog · 26/11/2011 19:40

MigratingCoconuts

Things are improving, but there is still a great deal of resistance.
I have tried not to imply that every teacher is disregarding SEN, but I am aware that SEN is no longer a core part of the teacher training corriculum since 1984, and that many teachers who would like to study SEN as part of their training have mentioned that SEN is not covered in any great depth to provide the training the were looking for the support SEN children. So it is not the individual teachers fault that the national Teacher Training corriculum is not up to an adequate standard regarding SEN which should be a basic part of all teachers qualifications. And the pace of research regarding these issues in recent years means that it is almost impossible to play catch up.

Having been a member of the Senco (was run by becta) forum for some years now, I am alarmed by the lack of in depth understanding of so many SEN issues demonstrated by many of the contributors of that forum.