back from parents evening, need help sounding out 'sounds'

[kilmuir]

We started new schools at end of last term, DS is in year2.
his teacher says he has a reading age/level of a 5.4 year old ,he is 6.4.
She is putting him in a group that needs extra help and giving us flash cards. we are keen to help. Has anyone used the phonicsplay webpage?

Our old school used phonics play.
The children like the Alien game and the pirate one. (If I recall correctly the alien game had a sort of fart sound ?)

Not used Phonics Play before, but we do use the Jolly Phonics songs on You Tube quite a lot.

thanks.
will give those a try.
bit surprised he is nearly a year below his age. Can extra work really help him catch up

Yes it really does help

as does reading with him every night and reading stories to him at bedtime.

And doing things like writing shopping lists and postcards to family and things where he doesnt realise he is learning.

he loves books, we read together every night, may get some new books as tends to read same ones every night!
The teacher says she has identified a small group in class who would benefit from extra help to move them forward. Said he was 80 percent there, just needed the final piece slotting in .

A reading buddy from y6 helped my ds. Every day this boy would come down and listen to ds read for 10 mins. DS loved it.

Look up The Magic Treehouse books on Amazon.

Both of mine loved these books and it really got them reading avidly.

extra help really works because he needs to go back over the phonics that he hasn't got yet, and they aren't doing that in the same way in the classroom now.
he needs to read to you every night. also point out and get him to point out letters and words whereever you go.

flash cards help too because it is lots of repetition.

IMHO boys are often a bit behind with reading at this stage. It was a common thing I saw when teaching. Then they hit about 7 and the penny drops and they take off. very important that you keep up his confidence and he doesn't get the idea he is not good at it. Looking back my ds was one of these, we worked and worked and I started to wonder if there was a problem, and then, aged 7 he took off, and is now years ahead with reading.