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Primary education

Join our Primary Education forum to discuss starting school and helping your child get the most out of it.

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Original poster

Reception Reading

10 replies

ItsSnowDarling · 12/01/2012 10:11

DS2 is in a small reception class, May Birthday and one of the younger ones. He has settled in well, loves school and has many friends. He also has a degree of speech delay and attends a group session with a SALT once a week.

So, the problem is that although he knows all his phonic sounds and recognises all the alphabet he just doesn't seem to be progressing with reading and is on very basic books. (one sentance a page "I am running" "I am sleeping" etc).

I had a very quick chat with his teacher this morning who said that he is memorising the books rather than learning the words, which I agree with and she said not to worry.

But worrying is what I do best and I have a nagging feeling that I should be doing more than just his reading book at night.

Any suggestions of what I should be doing would be appreciated.

OP posts:

PavlovtheCat · 12/01/2012 10:17

he is doing great! i was expecting you to say he was not reading! putting several words together at this stage is fine. DD was around this stage this time last year. She read very simple words awkwardly. 'running' would be difficult for her.

She is now in yr 1. july born. she can read. technically she is on blue, but only as she is not 'tested' regularly at school, the reality is she reads now. she reads lots of her own books, and tries to read books without pictures. She is past phonetics now, and when she struggles with a word she applies logic and figures it out as she understands the story she is reading, not just words. She also wants to read everything, all the time.

We read to her every night, and she read her school book probably 3 times a week? as she started to show more interest in reading herself, she would have a go at a page of her own story books that we read to her. We encouraged, but did not force. She read her school books when not too tired.

Sounds like he is doing fine and you are doing everything right. At some stage this year, or early next. something will 'click' and he will speed along.

PavlovtheCat · 12/01/2012 10:19

meant to add. Now, she reads at least one book a night, but not always her school books, which she often finds easy and boring (she reads them in the car on the way home!), she often reads her 2yo brother his bedtime story, and we still read her one book a night (or, a chapter of a 'big' book, DH is currently reading George's Marvelous Medicine).

OffDownTheGardenToEatWorms · 12/01/2012 10:20

My DSs both memorised words and books when they began to read, I thought this was part of how they learn. They would look at the pictures and part guess the words, part know some of the letter sounds, after a while they knew the whole words without prompting - I think this is all normal.

At DSs school as well as a book they would have a sheet with about 9 words in a grid and we would look at each word breaking it down, and learning it - and then part of this was memorising too. So I would point to the words and get them to say them, as well as say the word I wanted them to find and point to.

DS2 is 4.5 in Reception and only literally this week he is suddenly getting it all, - instead of the shrugging and 'dunno' which he has done since September

AngryFeet · 12/01/2012 10:23

I wouldn't worry. DS can't read words yet. They are still learning letters/sounds and haven't progressed to blending them. They do take it slowly in my DC school but many of them don't start to get it until Y1 tbh.

Original poster

ItsSnowDarling · 12/01/2012 10:30

Thank you for the reassurance.

I'll add in that I don't think he can read "running", but gets the right word by looking at the pictures.

They bring a book home every day and the teacher or assistant will listen to them everyday in class - From the October half-term onwards DS was bringing a new book home most nights, but this week it has been the same book every night, which is what has set me off!

OP posts:

Original poster

ItsSnowDarling · 12/01/2012 10:31

Sorry, I also remember DS1 memorising books in reception, but he did seem to progress a lot faster.

OP posts:

PavlovtheCat · 12/01/2012 11:58

guessing a word based on what is going on in the pictures is an important way of learning, and if he is already doing that, he is further ahead than a lot of children, even if reading seems 'slow'. DD only started that process relatively recently, of making the word fit what is going on. She used to either be able to read words, or look at the story in the pictures, but not together.

MoaningMinnieWhingesAgain · 12/01/2012 12:46

DD gets one book a week and reads to someone, the TA I think, once a week. After a couple of days my 3yo is reciting the book with her. I have already asked the teacher about having a bit more as she is very keen and has taken to phonic really well, but I have just been told she is on the 'top table' for reading (so activities are differentiated a bit) and they can't give her differentiated work for letters/sounds as it is done as a whole group

That old struggle between trying to help her progress without coming across as - please teach my G&T offspring properly DD is not G&T, just keen and impatient.

flakey · 12/01/2012 14:56

My son was exactly at this stage in Reception (also a May birthday) and I was a bit concerned as some of the others in the class seemed miles ahead. I was convinced that he couldn't actually read at all but was just memorising the words. He made fairly steady progress throughout the year (speeded up a bit in the summer term) and was on Stage 5 ORT books at the end of the summer term. Now in Year 2 he absolutely loves reading, and is storming through the Beast Quest books.

My daughter, in Reception, has picked it all up much more quickly and is way ahead of where my son was at this stage. I am pleased, but really am just hoping that she will turn out to be just as enthusiastic a reader as my son.

So, really don't worry, just keep imparting a love of books and reading and it will come.

maizieD · 12/01/2012 16:45

'knowing' all the 'phonic sounds' isn't very difficult at this stage as there are only about 44 of them!

However, has he been taught all the 160 - 180 common ways that the sounds are represented by a letter or group of letters? I would be extremely surprised if he has by the end of the first term in Reception!

It sounds to me as though the school, although it might be teaching phonics, is not reinforcing the teaching by giving him books which contain only the code that he has been taught, but is giving him old 'look and say' scheme books (ORT, by any chance?)

Children do NOT learn to read by memorising whole words, nor by looking at the pictures. They learn to read by learning letter sound correspondences and how to sound out and blend words using that knowledge. Some children are lucky enough to be able to work out the phonic knowledge required with minimal help from their school (those will be the ones who appeared to struggle but then had a 'eureka' moment). A significant number of children will always struggle. You won't know which your child is until they really do struggle The memorising and picture clue technique can take them quite a long way, but it usually fails in the end if the phonic knowledge isn't there.

I suggest that the OP reads this current thread (just so the basic message doesn't have to be repeated yet again)

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/primary/1380167-Kind-well-meaning-relative-bought-the-Oxford-Reading-Tree-box-setfor-DD-Aged-5-1-but-I-am-unsure-how-to-sync-this-ox-in-with-Jolly-Phonics

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