DD2 phonics/understanding letters help please.

[ClutchingPearls]

DD2 is in reception. She doesn't recognise letters apart from those in her name plus P and S in phonics only. School were aware of this when she started. She has short term memory issues and it takes alot of repetition to get her to this level.

She has had difficulties in understanding that a letter has a sound, a name and an action.

Is it better to take longer learning sound, name and action or continue teaching phonic sounds only? She is unlikely to learn the action and names afterwards as she is rigid in what she knows.

In a meeting yesterday, school insisted the whole would/should be taught and she is best knowing a handful properly than all in phonics only. I feel it will severely limit her in her learning to do this and while not ideal she would be able to get by and continue to learn using phonics until hopefully she gains the names as she grows up.

I have another meeting on Friday with the HT who happens to be the SENCO to try to reach an agreement. So I'm just trying to understand their opinion as,to me, it seems bizarre.

I think she needs to know the name and sounds of each letter.
The actions I'm a but about atm. If she won't go back and learn the names later, I'd suggest sound and name together. Actions if that helps her learn.

Everyone goes at their own pace! if it takes her longer to be reading, but she has the ground work secure, I think in the long run, it will make things better. School are obviously happy for her to go at her pace and elarn things properly??

FWIW, I'm not pushing reception DS1 with the writing or reading. He's just not interested, although we are working out way through the letters in the names of the Octonaghts when he asks. C is for Captian Barnacles is much mroe attractive than C is for Cat!

Cut out learning the letter 'name'. It isn't necessary at all in learning to read or spell. Learning the letter names introduces an layer of learning which is not needed. Learning to associate a letter (or group of letters) with a speech sound may take longer for your DD than for other children but it is not uncommon.

Consider that the only alternative to learning letter/sound correspondences is learning words as 'wholes' and that is a far more difficult task as the whole shape and pattern of the word has to be learned. If she has difficulty in remembering a single letter shape what chance will she have to remember correctly a whole sequence of letters? There are some 250,000 words in the English lexicon, and it is impossible for most people to remember more than 2,000 as 'wholes'. Whereas there are only about 160 - 180 common letter/sound correspondences to be learned in able to access a huge number of words.

I suggest lots of practice (and lots of patience) in linking sounds to letters. If she finds it difficult to remember actions to go with the letters cut them out as well, though as the most well known (and effective) programme with mnemonic actions is Jolly Phonics, which was developed by an SEN teacher, the actions probably do help. Do you know what phonics programme the school is using?

You may like to look at these little books which have been around for many, many years and have been used most successfully for children with profound difficulties in learning to read.

www.piperbooks.co.uk/index.htm

Hi -

I fully agree with maizieD; don't worry about the letter 'name' or the associated actions, and first concentrate on getting the 'phonic sound' secure. It is only with the sounds that a child can start to construct words. And only use 'lower case' (small) letters; capital letters only add to the confusion at this stage.

Ironically, I guess the 'actions' were intended to make it easier for children to remember the sound. Normally, they do enjoy the actions, though some are a bit bizarre (actions, I mean, not the children!), and for a few children I think the action gains MORE importance than the sound.

A book that is enjoyable to use, and will last throughout primary school, is the Oxford Phonics Spelling Dictionary and you can see sample pages HERE: It is under £7, from Amazon.

In the very unlikely event that she does NOT make reasonable progress, there is a teaching system called SoundWorks, that I used with Yr2 children who could not get the 'hang' of reading. BUT, it is very expensive, though you can easily make a home-made version. I'll give you the link, out of interest, but come back to me sometime if you would like me to 'talk you through' making it. (I did it for another parent, some months ago.) : www.soundworks.uk.net/