I'm angry with the school that my son can't read

[Teamumizumi]

my DS is 5 and has just finished reception. Reading has always been a struggle and he has "progressed" to level 1. I've been trying to get him to read appropriate level reading books over the summer and have now given up. He can only read basic words like "and" " to" "for" "at"..... I'mwondering what the school has been doing for 2 years -he started in their kindergarten so he has been "reading" for 2years. What he does is get the teacher/us to say the word out loud, then he memorises it. Now that he has read a couple of books cold i have discovered he cannot read at all. WHAT DO I DO???????

I mean the sounds in the words are represented by a letter or letters CecilyP. English has a complex phonics code because there are roughly 44 sounds in English but only 26 letters in the alphabet so sounds can be represented by one, two, three or four letters. It is further complicated by our history so how the sounds are represented can change depending on the root of the word. If you know the code you can work out how to read and write the word.

I mean the sounds in the words are represented by a letter or letters CecilyP. English has a complex phonics code because there are roughly 44 sounds in English but only 26 letters in the alphabet so sounds can be represented by one, two, three or four letters. It is further complicated by our history so how the sounds are represented can change depending on the root of the word. If you know the code you can work out how to read and write the word.

I see, so you can have up to ten possible pronunciations (some only represented by single word) but they are still all regular.

children are normally taught the alternative ways of writing a sound and the alternative sounds that can be represented by a letter/letters in Y1. they are taught the most common ways first

yes cecilyp they are still regular ...complex but regular.

Op do you live in uk?

is kindergarten basically nursery/preschool class?
has he just finished to reception going into year 1?
is it state or private as 16 per class seems small.
can understand if paying private fees you would expect better.

my dd hated hoemwork and reading at end of reception.
I was owrried but she improved throughout year 1.
they did smaller groups with ta on blending sounds.
I read with her at home.

shes still not top of class but not bottom we trying to help her get confident

shes very aware of whos on what level at reading in her class.
some of the other mums are overcomepetative.

she found reception to yera 1 quite a leap.
my one regret last year when she wa sin year 1 was not getting involved more shes going into year 2.

but pasts is past im moving on and this year will do my best to support at home and ensure she sgetting support she needs in school.

5is sstill young other parents tell me boys are trickier and sometimes it just clicks.

I cant remeber doing phonics as a kid in the 80,s think was mostly flash.

i can see why schools are all phonics but think using variety of ways can work.

hope next years better.

the website phonics play is good.

maybe phonic type computer games might be fun.

good luck.

for alls those who were harsh I think when you in the situation its more stressful tthan looking in .I stress all time i think its normal we all care but when we unhappy people want someones to blame.

Hello OP and other Mnetters. I think you need to think about your expectations and what is normal at his age. As mrz said, can he hear the sounds in words, repeat them after you and blend them?- eg " d-o-g" "dog" "b-u-g" "bug" etc? This is the first step and it all follows from here- sounds and then blending to make words. This stage can be encouraged, but not forced and this is probably what the teachers say when they say your son is "fine".

You can do your own writing down these easy words, sounding out blending. I don't know if your son has had good easy phonic based books from school. These are the best way to start- Songbirds series is good, or various others on the market (see Oxford Owl). Don't give up- well not in a negative way. Put it to bed for the Summer hols if it is all too much like hard work, or just take it slowly, do a little each day and see how it goes.

This whole thread has upset me as it brought back memories of my own DS. I felt so angry the flaming that the OP got - although AIBU is the place to go for a roasting!
I went into school so often to tell the teacher that I though there was something wrong, I was told it'll be fine, he's not that old. Then to be told at the end of Y1 that his reading and writing would get 'mopped up' by another teacher.
I seriously hope that some of the early posters on this thread realise it is their very attitude of 'just teach it yourself' is the same attitude that leads to the teacher bashing element on some threads. If we cannot rely on teachers to do their role in the partnership, why have the profession at all.
I got a bad apple in my DSs first school, I got a superstar in the school I moved him to.
The fact is at 5, I was told DS was fine, I did not believe this was right. A dx later of dyspraxia, with visual tracking problems etc, and DS is shining too, as the right strategies were put in place by the SENco.

You are right auntevil okay so the fact the OP's DS cannot read yet might just mean he isn't ready but it could also indicate other issues too. It has to be treated seriously and if he is not on par with most of his peers then it needs to be asked why.

The school might already be doing this - we don't know.

Certainly at 5 when my DS was not grasping reading in the same way as his peers the school expressed concerns too.

The OPs child may have problems but he may not so the first step to finding out is to check exactly what he knows and can do and what he has been taught

The vast majority of children can learn their letter sounds and a bit of blending by the end of reception. Sure, a five year old doesnt need to, but it is well within their capabilities. This means they will be able to do some form of reading by the summer of reception. If they are not reading anything like the OP's child there are two possibilities:

1. They have issues and will needs lots of extra practice ( a small minority)
2. They have been badly taught or more probably just not really taught.

In either case the OP is right to be concerned.

The vast majority of children can learn their letter sounds and a bit of blending by the end of reception not if they are being taught whole word recognition and it isn't clear from the OPs posts how her son is being taught

It's such a familiar story. Why are virtually all children in some schools (including in very deprived areas) 'developmentally ready' and in other schools, often in nice areas, many children don't make progress and finally 'click in yr 1/2 or not at all)?
Simple answer - its the way the children have been taught. My dd1 went to a mixed intake school where all children were underway with reading at the end of reception. Dd2 went to a very middle class reception where loads of parents were told their children just weren't ready yet. I was well aware of the differences in teaching that led to such different results but other parents just accepted it as they hadnt had the comparison.
OP ignore the nasty posts and explain exactly what your child can and can't do re letter recognition and blending. You'll get some great advice from some people of what you need to do next.

MRZ I agree and it sounds highly likely this child has been taught using whole words.

I agree it does seem that ay from the OPs posts. Unfortunately schools are still teaching sight words and letters in isolation and claiming or even worse believing they are teaching phonics.
It's no good teaching sounds and not teaching how they work in words

My ds5 is also unable to read at the end of foundation. Apart from his name he doesn't recognise any words by sight and isn't able to blend many words. He knows most of the letter sounds but I have spent a lot if time with him learning the jolly phonics songs (and actions) as he has a phonological speech disorder and it helps with his speech. When we sit to read a book he reels off all the letter sounds but doesn't seem to realise that they are words. I'm concerned more with the way he does things rather than he can't read. He is my youngest of 3 but the 2 older learned to read in a different way to phonics.

His school do the tricky words as learning whole words by sight (he knows none of them)! I totally understand our concern OP x

His school do the tricky words as learning whole words by sight (he knows none of them)!

This makes me so . If a child is having a problem with blending it hardly helps tp present them with some random words and tell them that they don't need to blend these, just learn what they look like (which is very difficult for some children) and read them straight off. How on earth is the child supposed to know which unfamiliar words they encounter need to be sounded out and blended and which ones are 'sight words'?

A child has no idiotic notions about words which 'can't be sounded out' and absolutely no way of knowing which ones this myth applies to.

I still get children to work with in Y7 who have wasted 6 years trying to learn 45 words 'by sight', whereas if they had been focussed on learning letter/sound correspondences and blending in that time they would be much further ahead with their reading and, probably, not dislike reading so much.

in dd schoo,l the sounds book included

single sounds but double sounds too

oo
ie
ey
ee

im guessing her flashword was words

we had flash book with pics
then the same word without pics.

we had words boxes ,sliding sounds.

blending phonics helped my dd devlop in year 1 but she still struggles with harder longer words and silent letters.

at end recpetion her reading wasent amazing

she did progress in year 1.

mam can I ask if those are the only sounds spelt with two or more letters that your daughter learnt in reception ?

sazale if you say the sounds can your son hear the words ... /c/- /a/ -/t/ would he know cat? If not I would firstly get a hearing check just to rule out simple hearing difficulties (more complex hearing issues won't be identified by normal hearing tests) If the hearing test is clear I would begin doing lots of aural blending you saying the sounds as you point to the letters and him blending.

im not sure will have to find her sounds book think there were few more mrz

we started with single sounds
double sounds
flash words with pics
flash words without
and word boxes

What did she have to do with the flash words? read them instantly or decode?

We are in Scotland so ds3 started school at 5.1 last summer. From the Easter before I had taught him, using the Jolly Phonics books and DVD that I had bought for his (much older) brother, all the single sounds. I tried to teach him to blend cvc words but he just couldn't get it. I had his hearing checked - fine. I began to wonder if there was a problem as ds1 has sn's. At school he was one of the first to come home with a reading book, he finished P1 on stage 5/6 ORT and was described by the teacher as being well ahead in literacy.

Whilst I'm sure the teaching he received in school was better than mine I feel that had we been in England and gone to school a year earlier he would not have been reading at the end of reception. I do think, for some, it does just click. By the same token if he is not being taught correctly that needs to be remedied.

i assume she had to read them and recognition.

as was concerened as sooke to recetion teacher

as she recognised the word by the picture.

I said hows that reading
she said its how kids learn.
they tehn brought out flashwords books minus the pics and she struggled they were the same words

examples of flash words were

he
she
going
into

we practiced them every week basically homework in rception was

2sounds a week
1reading book
2-4flashwords.

must try hunt them down as shes going into year 2 they must be lurking in house somewhere.

I was really concerned about reading at end of receptiona d raised concerns with teacher then.

It did improve in r1 with blending.

buts shes still at lower end of class but we keep practicing.

shes talks about decoding so they must teach them to decode.
as if at home shes stuck on a word

I say decode split the word up inti 23sounds im welsh so hubby jokes we naturally drag out words into as many syllables.

We liked the Apple Tree Farm books at home, although we didn't use them quite the way they were intended (big text for child at top then more smaller text for adult at the bottom). DS liked the stories - so that was a good thing - and he wanted to hear them to the end. When we started, I would read all of it, with my finger following the words when I read. First he learned the text on the first page (same each book) and could say it at the same time. When he knew the phonic sounds of letters I would get him to read just a word here or there - normally associated with that page of the story (cat, tractor) but what made him really look at the word was when I read the comment from one of the characters, 'said ......' with my finger under the name. To start with he had to work out whether it was 'Poppy' or 'Sam' but he actually needed to look at the word not guess - then we added in some of the other characters. I'm sure that this helped connect the story to the written word on the page without making it a chore.

I now (DS is 7) have a boy who got into trouble last night because he rushed into bed to read his book without remembering to do his teeth and clearly was intending to read it after lights out.....

Jubilee although I have no reason to doubt your personal experience it is true that in many schools all or virtually all children learn to blend sounds into words, year in and year out, during the reception year. This is why one can say with some certainty that if a child can't blend at the end of reception the fault almost certainly lies with the teaching and not the child. It's just not that hard for most children to grasp if taught with opportunity for practice.
The problem is that many schools emphasise whole word recognition, sometimes not even ensuring children continue to recognise all letter sounds. These schools actively discourage blending when reading a reading book. These schools tend to have some children at the end of reception that still can't read.
It's simple really. If you teach children to read in a way that is very difficult some won't manage till they are a bit older. If you teach in an easier way they all get it.
Often those that find whole word recognition easier come to school already quite familiar with individual letters as shapes and know some sounds. This means there is not the same burden on their memory to recognise words as shapes as there is for those for whom all the squiggles have only just become familiar. Research shows it is not really about age and being developmentally ready age wise, it's about exposure. You become 'developmentally ready'' when you have been exposed to the skills necessary to learn the next thing. Age is not the most relevant factor. A seven year old that is unfamiliar with what a book is, has never really been shown print and has no idea about what a letter is, will find reading much harder than a 4 year old ( or even a three year old...) who has been immersed in books, shown letters,knows the mnames of some and that they represent sounds in speech. Research is emphatic that the strongest predictor of reading success is whether a child already recognises some letters when they start school. The advantage of familiarity is enormous. Older children learn faster but age is a bit of a red herring.