Feeling increasinghly confused about learning to read

[lecce]

Ds is starting to learn to read and I feel increasingly uncertain as to how best to help him. I have spent quite a bit of time lurking on this board since he started reception (probably too much ) and I feel more issues arise every week and in trying to resolve them I seem to unearth more.

Firstly, he is sounding out and can do so successfully with two letter words eg an am etc. However, where 3 letters are involved he can't seem to get it. Can was in his new book last night and we sounded it out so much we were practically saying it anyway but it just wouldn't come. I had a read a thread on here (I know, I know) about how this could be caused by hearing problems so later in the evening I sounded out some cvc words to see if he could blend them - no writing/reading involved, just me saying them. He blended them all without hesitation and was begging me to do more and more . I just don't understand how he can't do a simple word like 'can' from a book but could do such a huge variety just from me saying the sounded-out version.

Secondly, his school have given him some commonly occuring 'tricky', as they term them, words to learn by sight. They have also given us some other flash-cards with words to learn that don't seem to be that common, from what I can see. I have read several threads on here featuring posts from some very knowledgeable-sounding people about how this is undesirable and how every word in English can be sounded out if all 44 phonemes are learnt. I just don't understand this. Unless books are written using phonetic symbols instead of the alphabet how would learning the phonemes enable you to know whether the letters oo were supposed to sound like they do in boot or look? Am I being really thick here (probably )?

I'm sorry to waffle so but it's just that I had always kind of unthinkingly assumed that my dc would be suucessful readers because of their background , SEN notwithstanding, of course. I have read so many posts on here about people failing to learn to read I am now really scared of messing it up.

Thanks for reading

CecilyP by observing the brain activity using MRI scientists have concluded that good readers process written language a phoneme at a time but do so very rapidly .
Basically this research seems to be saying that the brain learns to read the same way it learns to talk, one sound at a time.

The point I was making was that even we, as experienced readers, when encountering new words for the first time would have to work them out in exactly the same way as young children, though possibly more quickly. The only difference is that children would be likely to know the spoken words they are trying to work out, whereas with adults any new words will be ones they have never even heard before.

I'm no scientist but I am unsure how an MRI scan can possibly show how the brain processes written language a phoneme at a time. Or how it can show if we process it a phoneme at at time not a letter at a time. And if it can process a 4 letter phoneme at a time, how it can process a 4 letter word differently. Does it process ough in though differently from ough in tough, and would this kind of minutiae show up on a brain scan.

CecilyP at the moment she goes totally blank when presented with any words, so I think over half term I will go back to basics and practice sounds with her and maybe blending a few simple words... (And there was me thinking she'd learn to read at school...)

The results are from a ten year study carried out by a dyslexia research team from Yale. They determined how the brain was processing written language by the areas that "light up" during a MRI examination and apparently this kind of minutiae do show up

dd is totally confused because one day she's meant to sound out all the letters, the next day she's meant to read 'sight' words, then another day she's looking at initial letters and guessing the word from picture clues. Is this really the best way to learn to read?

A huge hurrah for BabyGiraffes who has spotted the fatal flaw in 'mixed methods'

No, it is not the best way to learn to read and it keeps me in a job remediating KS3 struggling readers! A job which, much as I love it, I had rather there was no need for.

Thanks mrz, I will assume a research team at Yale have more scientific knowledge than I have and leave it at that.

BabyGiraffes, while sending a reading book home can provide a lot of useful practice - that is what it should be - practice. You should not be having to do it all yourself.

Jolly phonics great, and sound blending is a skill for reading and spelling and reading is surely about memory!! I remember feeling at a loss 2 years ago about phonics, but once you embrace them they're great, and my DD is a brilliant reader now. We read everyday, when she was starting out she read her school book everyday , couple of times a day sometimes, and then I would read it to her so she was obviously memorising words and with tricky words , I never told her, I would sound them out and let her find the word.
Her bedtime story is also really important to her and she told me the other night she loves learning to read new words when I'm reading to her, I didn't even realise she had been doing this!! she really loves reading now and looking back it really was simple, practise is the only way we get good at anything, nothing is easy...honestly stick with phonics they are great, it's very simple when you get to grips with it and don't overthink it...