DS is struggling - how can I help him?

[LucyLastik]

DS is 5 (June birthday) and has just gone into Year 1.

At the end of his reception year, his teacher had some concerns about his reading and writing development, so I arranged numerous meetings with her to try and see how DS could be supported both at home and school.

DS is still on the very first level of reading books and seems to struggle with those. When they began teaching phonemes to the children, DS picked it up quite well (Jolly Phonics), he knew all the songs, could recognise the letters and identify them by name and sound.

However, as the year progressed, he found it more and more difficult - with blending and segmenting becoming a real challenge. Teacher said she felt he should be at least attempting to blend sounds together. The trouble is, he does make attempts but seems to have forgotten some of the phonemes. For example, he gets b and d muddled up, forgets that ch, th, ng should be sounded together. When he is reading with me, he still has to sound out each individual phoneme, even if they are like the ones in the example (digraphs? I get so confused!) The teacher asked us to practice with him daily. We did and still do in a variety of ways, flashcards, on the computer, with books etc.

Since he has gone back to school, he seems to have forgotten half of the sounds. His teacher said that by the end of reception, he should be blending words in his head - he can't do this, and he appears to know NO tricky or high frequency words.

I am really concerned now that he is going to struggle throughout the whole of this year so would really like some advice as to the best ways DH and I can support him at home. I intend to go and speak to his Y1 teacher in the coming weeks, as they have only been back 2 days so she will need time to see where he is at (as well as dealing with all the other children in the class).

Thanks.

What you are describing sounds like classic dyslexia.

It is very, very hard to help this type of dyslexia. Don't expect school to know what to do.

He sounds like my nephew who has been diagnosed as dyslexic.

It might be worth getting him assessed by an education phsychologist. My sister had problems as the school didn't want to go down this route until he was older but she didn't feel she had time to wait, so paid privately. I think it was about £500 though.

Since being diagnosed he's been given specialist help and sees a specialist tutor after school once a week and he has really progressed.

Good luck

I agree- having a dyslexic son. I paid to have him assessed.
I think you are wise to let the teacher settle down with them,but I should see her as soon as possible and discuss your concerns. Suggest that you have an appointment with the school SENCO and get extra help within the school. Partly it may be due to being young for the year- my DS was an August birthday.

The other posters have suggested dyslexia, and I am not at all saying discount that.

However I had the same problem - my mum yelled at me for it a lot as she thought I was being stubborn and could read (I had memorised some of my own books before starting school). I couldn't recognise words on sight for the longest time - I painfully remember the learning to read and write phase. I got b and d mixed up when writing, though we weren't taught phonics back then so the digraphs never overtly came up, I just didn't know what word a collection of letters made even if I'd seen it hundreds of times. Despite being in the UK I couldn't read properly til I was 7. I didn't get any specific help but it clicked eventually - though late. Fast forward to adulthood and I have an A in English Lit at A level and a first class honours BA degree in English (as well as a Masters in another subject). I'm just saying you MAY not have to worry, it may not be anything "life long" like dyslexia (I'm still not a great speller, but am confident I can't actually have been dyslexic or I wouldn't have just suddenly moved past it). :)

My son is very nearly 6 and at a similar stage to your son - but we live in Germany now and he hasn't started school yet. None of his friends can read either :) By this age my daughter had learnt to read at home, but I don't think it comes as naturally to my son - he knows a lot of his basic phonemes in English but no diagraphs and can only blend simple 3 letter words. I let him use Reading Eggs and read with him when he wants to, but we are so lucky we don't have to push him for another year yet - I think 7 is probably a more natural age to learn for the majority of children.

Good luck to you and your son!

Even if it is lifelong he can still be successful.
My brother was like MrTumbles- struggled until 12yrs and then took off and a high flyer.
Boys are often like that- especially ones who are young for the school year. Having said that my brother was the oldest in the school year.

The important thing is to see the teacher and not let it slide.

Even if it is lifelong he can still be successful.
Absolutely.
English spelling is beastly for many children. It makes life much harder for them than other spelling systems which don't have identical letters making different souns, such as the
a in 'man, many, father' or the o in 'once, only, other'. (That's why I favour a modernisation of English spelling.)

Some children are much less able to cope with those inconsistencies than others, because they make no logical sense. My son who is now a uni lecturer was one of them.

I taught him to read with a mixture of phonics for regurlarly spelt words (man, can, ran...stop, not, on, hot, spot....) and drawing attention to the ones with stupid spellings like 'only, once, other... thought, through', always stressing that they gave him trouble because they had STUPID SPELLINGS, that it was not him who was stupid but the way those words used wrong letters.

Masha Bell

I would also like to add that yes, there could be a problem, but it's also possible that he is just not ready to read. My dd just "didn't get" reading in reception at all. It didn't click until middle of year 1. Now 7 she is a grat reader.

Another one here whose ds was the same. He left reception year still on stage 1 ort and couldn't blend the most basic of words. When he went into yr 1 i started doing 5 minute phonicsessions with him each day. By the end of yr 1 he was on stage 6 books and passed the phonics check. End of yr 2 he was on stage 10 books and level 2b. Just gone into yr 3. He still needs a lot of input from me but we are getting there. Some kids just need extra time and practice.