Any ideas on how to encourage a reluctant learner?

[BrightonMama]

My DS is in reception and doesn't mind school. He's doing OKish - he has some ongoing speech problems which are gradually improving but it has affected his learning to read. Having said that, he can now sound out all his individual letter sounds but still struggles with blending. His maths isn't too bad. His handwriting is terrible and he has a terrible memory for things like days of the week etc

I'd love to help him more at home. And not just with phonics and writing (although that would be a start). But the minute I try to do something vaguely educational, even if it's just baking a cake, or drawing or colouring, he completely turns off.

I know I should be trying to get him to learn through play, or find something he's really into and build on that so he doesn't notice he's learning. But how do you do that when the only thing he loves and is passionate about are role playing games with action figures/ben 10 toys?? He'd happily do that all day. I do join in with him, which gives us a great bond and I find out more about what he's done all day as a lot of it is acted out with spidermen and pirates!

Has anyone got any ideas on how I could help him? Not just with phonics - I'd really like to instil a love of learning things generally. Any suggestions gratefully received!

I found the novelty of doing activities on the laptop or iPad enough to get my sons interested. Doesn't help their actual handwriting formation but good for everything else.

blending can take a long time for some kids to 'get' but when they do then everything falls into place and they normally progress pretty quickly.

If he doesn't want to do it however then I think you have to be careful. forcing him could put him off even more.

I would do lots of reading to him, when playing with his toys perhaps you can introduce things like what day it is etc. We have a magnetic wall calendar where you change the day, date, month, season and weather. It is a fun way to mention days and months and numbers and the order they go in but without it seeming obvious you are doing it.

what about getting some non fiction childrens books to look at, it is all expanding his knowledge of the world. My 2 love their globe and are often asking where countries are, which are warm ones, cold ones, where do penguins live etc. books on weather, vehicles, animals, different festivals, volcanoes, mountains etc. It might grab his attention in a different way.

If he's into BEn 10, pirates, otehr action figures how about books on them? OK they may not be literary classics but they may encourage your DC to try and read, especially if you read them together.
You don't say how old he is, but I am assuming he is still pretty young. Don't try and force anything. Encourage him to look at writing wherever it is - in the supermarket, road signs, back of the cereal box - even if it's just recognising eg the letter his name begins with. In a Ben 10 book - spot Ben's name each time it appears.
If he is interested in science/space etc - a trip to a museum and help him read the information signs. Most museums do kiddies trails that he could do with help.
At this stage it really is about having fun, and encouragement.

You can get some lovely spiderman colouring sets and colouring books. Lots of fine motor control practice which will help writing! You can also find lots of stuff online to colour in which is good for boys. Google "coloring in Spiderman" for example. American spelling will get you more results! We also search and print colouring in star wars, aero (or air)planes, spaceships etc... and of course pirates.

You can also get triangular pencils, which encourage correct hand positions. Tesco do them for about a quid. You might need a larger diameter pencil sharpener though.

Have a pirate treasure hunt in the garden or your home, with simple word clues that can be worked out phonically. Or a treasure map! If you can use some of the high frequency words that might also help. Variation on the easter egg hunt!

The other one is Lego. Best thing for fine motor practice and beloved of small persons. Lego pirate ship? He would learn how to follow sequential picture instructions, correspondance of pictures and pieces, and have something to play with afterwards.

We got DS interested in learning more when we pointed out that pilots and spacemen need to be able to read and write before they can learn to fly their aeroplanes/helicopters/shuttles!

My dd was much the same in reception, not interested and not really trying and I tried lots of ways to engage her which didn't work. But she has really improved as time has gone by, she is now in yr 2. She is now keen to do homework and has started reading for pleasure. I haven't pushed her. Most evenings we do 20 minutes homework , this was started for the benefit of her older brother and she has joined in. Other than that, we don't do things that are directly educational, and she tells me not to try to teach! She reads her book, practices her spellings, or does a few sums from a workbook ( this last has given her much more self confidence with maths). Sometimes she chooses to write a story, or her favourite, which is writing a silly recipe with daft ingredients and then reading it to her brother who pretends to be horrified that she will cook it and make him eat it. I let her choose what she wants to do, though Thursday is spelling day for a test on Friday.

In reception she didn't learn to read. She had all her individual letter sounds by Christmas but then made zero progress for the rest of the year, which worried me. She was deeply afraid that she was stupid and so didn't try. Her teacher was not helpful. During the summer holidays we did no school work at all for nearly 3 weeks, then I suggested a few minutes reading and had bought some level 1 floppy phonics books. With a little encouragement, she rapidly got blending and was reading level 4 books by the time she went back to school to start year 1 with a much more sympathetic teacher, and has progressed well with her reading ever since. Most likely the phonic lessons she did in yr r helped her make rapid progress once she decided she wanted to learn.

Have you tried ABA?

Every day my kids ask 'Can we do home-school now?', and so we do!

Thanks so much everyone for all your great advice, especially the tip about the triangle shape pens - his grip is atrocious and could see that would really help. And very heartening to hear about your daughter, Milk.

What's ABA? Going to look it up now!

Starlight - is it applied behavioural analysis? Any books you recommend?

Yes. That's it. I discovered it when my ds got his dx of asd as children with ASD can be incredibly difficult to motivate off of their own agenda. I learned how to apply it and now do so with my other children.

Just imagine this scenario:

Ask the child to come to the table to do x (make up your own word) and tell them it is to count 2 sweets. They'll come. It's sweets. They count then eat sweets. Loads of praise. Lesson over.

Next day tell them to come to the table to do x. Get them to count 10 raisins, then eat them. Loads of praise. Lesson over.

Next day get them to come to the table to do x. Start off raisin, button, raisin, button pattern that they have to finish (up to 10 so 5 raisins). eat them., loads of praise. lesson over.

Next day get them to come to the table to do x. Time them doing pattern of day before. Loads of praise about how fast - what a fun game. Eat raisins. Lesson over.

Next day get them to come to the table to try and beat the time of the previous day. But first get them to draw a circle, then pattern 'game'. Loads of praise etc.

Next day, same again but substitute raisins for cars/other object of interest. Timed pattern. Loads of praise.

Next day introduce something else as well/instead/more beneficial than drawing a circle but still do the other things. Total demand time of the child still no more than about 4 minutes. But the child knows that it's good fun, it's rewarding, it's short, it's every day no arguments.

Decide what the skills are that are going to be learned. Always finish each skill on a positive even if that means introducing an easy request. i.e. dd is learning to tell the time. She is struggling a bit with half pasts so I interchange them with o'clocks and make sure the last 3 she answers are easy o'clocks so I can tell her how brilliant and clever she is despite having got a few half-pasts wrong.

Once decided on the skill, do it regularly and stick with it. Don't chop and change all over the place. Keep the skill lessons really short. Just a few minutes. Keep the pace fast. Change to new skill whilst the child is engaged not fatigued and absolutely keep your patience it it appears to be going no-where. Be cool. Offer praise. Keep it short and try again the next day.

This above isn't ABA btw. ABA is a lot broader. However, this is how I USE ABA for a bit of additional work after school.