Question for maizieD (and any other SEN/Phonics experts)

[GuinevereOfTheRoyalCourt]

My ds has a diagnosis of Verbal Dyspraxia and is now in yr2 and July born. His speech is now fairly normal, and his language skills are now within range for his age but at the bottom end.

Learning to read has been quite a struggle, but he has worked incredibly hard on it over the past year so that now he is on stage 9 books. He got 40/40 in the yr1 phonics test.

However. I'm feeling like we're starting to hit a wall with his reading and I'm not quite sure how to approach it. He is struggling when we approach new words as he seems to have lost his once solid phonic knowledge, so he'll come up with some ridiculous guess instead. I try to get him to sound them out, but often he either can't or won't, so I end up doing it for him.

I don't know whether it's because any new words we are coming across are quite long and he's overwhelmed by them, or that we should be revisiting the earlier stage phonics.

If we go back a level on the reading books then he reads beautifully and fluently, but I suspect he now does it entirely by whole word recognition despite the fact that he learnt via phonics!

I suggest you post on the reading reform bullitin board. MaiseD often posts there and there are lots of reading experts there.

www.rrf.org.uk/

Has he been taught to split the longer words into syllables so he blends slyllable by syllable then puts the word together?

There is a book called Toe By Toe which teaches this well, and can be used by Year 2 children and parents. It is impossible to be sure what is going on without knowing your child, but possibly some sounds may need to be reinforced.

ReallyTired - thanks, I shall check the reading reform board.

Mrz, I'm not sure what he has been taught at school. But when I'm supporting him, then yes, I do get him to break it down syllable by syllable. He does struggle a little to break down multi-syllabic words verbally, for example he had "unfortunately" on his spelling list last term and no matter how often I said "un - for - tun - ate -ly", he just couldn't hear or say it as the composite syllables.

lovemyfriends - thanks, I'll look at that

I would break the word into syllables for him cover up the word with your thumb or a piece of paper and reveal it syllable by syllable until he gets the idea. I'm afraid most phonics progs/teachers don't teach children what to do with polysyllabic words - the expectationseems to be that if they can read short word they will automatically manage longer words. They can't! It's very common for children to start to flounder or switch off when faced with long words.

Personally I find Toe by Toe very dry for young children. If breaking words up for him doesn't help I would suggest Dancing Bears as a better alternative. Phonicbooks produce books that split the words into syllables at the bottom of the page to help children read longer words.
www.phonicbooks.co.uk/totem-series/tm1-totem-series-3-0-ref-22/

Mrz - that's pretty much what I'm doing. I will try to cover up half the word. However, ds doesn't like it at all and will make out as if I've covered up the whole thing and gets very annoyed with me for doing it.

It's reassuring that you seem to think it's quite normal for children to struggle with the longer words. Maybe he just needs more time and reinforcement.

I'm wondering too if perhaps part of the problem is that his school are racing him through their reading scheme a bit too quickly. The phonics books you have linked to are 'easier' than what he is reading at the moment. I did the songbirds phonics scheme with him last year (school sent back VERY old look & say books), but it stops at stage 6 - so we've had to fit in with normal ORT books since then. Perhaps he just needs to go through a number of books with easily decodable multi-syllabic words before being faced with things like 'expectantly' and 'peculiar' which we had today!

My first thoughts were that perhaps he's been taken through the reading scheme too quickly and that he was feeling a bit overwhelmed.I think your idea about taking him back a bit is good. Far better that he regains his confidence than trying to push him when he clearly finds it difficult.The 'Look and Say' ORT books are really unsuitable for children who need lots of practice to consolidate their learning as they contain complex words without systematically covering discrete concepts.

I'd agree with mrz about covering the word and disclosing it syllable by syllable but that is clearly difficult if he gets cross about it! Is he able to tell you why he doesn't like having the words covered?

As well as disclosing syllable by syllable I would encourage him to blend the word progressively rather try to remember all the decoded syllables at the 'end'before blending them. So,'expectantly' would go:decode 'ex', decode 'pec', blend them,'expec',decode 'tant',add it to 'expec','expectant',then the 'ly'. I found this worked really well with children who were less confident with 'big' words;in fact, I do it myself when I encounter an unfamiliar long and complex multisyllable word!

Would it be possible to practice the new words before reading the book? I would make a list of potentially difficult words and try to build each word syllable by syllable using magnetic letters/alphabet blocks or letter tiles.

By the way, I do not consider myself a SEN/phonics expert. Just thought that a technique used in teaching FML could be applied in this situation too.

I think that is a good suggestion, ikuji, so long as the child works them out himself and isn't 'told' them.

Should be MFL
Good point about working it out independently. Apologies if it was not clear from my post.

No need to apologise!