Primary teachers, please: Early reading trouble with syllables

[LaBelleDameSansPatience]

DD and I are working on her reading over the summer holidays, mainly reading Songbirds.

The trouble we are having, is that she can't sound out words with more than one syllable ie she can read d-r-a-g and she can read o-n, but, faced with 'dragon', she ends up with attempts such as 'dron'. If I split the words into syllables for her, she can do it.

In a second hand bookshop today, I came across an old Chicks Annual from the 1950's where all the words were split into syllables eg 'Some-times the pix-ies ran a-round on the grass or jump-ed in-to the spark-ling stream.' (Very much a flavour of the content!)

This was obviously to help new readers and seems such a good idea! Why don't they do that now? How can I help DD? Obviously, she can't recognise a syllable yet on her own.

Not a teacher but my son went from
d-r-a-g-on
To sounding out
Dr-a-g-on
To
Dra-g-on
As his confidence increased.

Just do as you are doing and uncover one syllable at a time for her to read. Write some of the two syllable words down and get her to cut them up into syllables before putting them back together as a complete word.

So if I help her at the moment, she will gradually just 'get' the skill? I don't need to specifically teach it? (I am a primary teacher, but KS2, so no idea at this level!)

Toe by toe teaches syllable division by saying you divide at the first constanant after a vowel.... (but don't split doubled constanants)

And gets them to practice that with pen and paper and a list of words.

See if she can clap the syllables in words - most nursery classes do this so she may just need a gentle reminder