Totally failing at listening to my reception child read.

[Asleeponasunbeam]

Please offer any suggestions!

She's still 4 and has been in school two terms. She's working within phonics phase 4 and school are happy with her progress so far. But reading is a horrible experience. She doesn't want to do it and it's so stressful. It takes about 5 minutes to read a sentence. She pretends she can't do it, rolls around, leaps about after each sound she sounds out. It's truly awful.

She loves stories, being read to, and will read the odd word in books I'm reading to her, albeit reluctantly.

Any ideas about how to make this less painful. It's supposed to be a pleasant experience. I know I sound horrible. I'm hating it!

Yes it is supposed to be fun and the child shouldn't think of it as work but that is easier said that done.

I have three children and listen to 4-5 year olds read and what works is lots of praise, encouragement and a bit of I told you could do it and can you help me by telling me what that word is.

Will she read to someone else, is she just acting up with you? My children have always read a lot to DH as I had them all day and it was their time together.

Thanks. She sees it as a chore. And she knows it's 'work'.

I'm a teacher. Praise, encouragement, all the stuff you mention has always worked for me at school. It doesn't work with DD. She won't read with DH either.

Do it in the morning when she's not tired. Get up 15 mins earlier and don't do more than 10 or 15 mins. Have a few tricky words on the fridge or in the bathroom and get her to say them, or if she won't, model saying them while pointing for her. Don't worry too much, it'll come.

I'd leave it to be honest. Give her a big break from now until September and maybe with the extra few months maturity she'll be more ready to read to you.

My mum is a reception class teacher and used to label all the kitchen cupboards etc so they are 'reading' all the time, i rather like the idea so am going to start labelling drawers and cupboards soon. I think with your specific issue re reading, perhaps get back to just reading to her for fun for a bit or, might it be worth trying a coloured piece of film, my dsis has dsylexia and reading on white backgrounds is really tricky, i am not sure which colour is best, maybe worth asking senco? Might make things just a bit easier? Also have you had her eyes tested?
Might just be an age thing, but maybe worth ruling out other medical stuff first?

She's only 4! Perhaps she's not ready to read yet. Give her a break.

I put DS1's key words on post cards and played the game where you turn them all over and have to match the two. We also had them all face up and he had to match two the same. Fun and no idea he was learning at 4 1/2. His 2 year old sister joined in and was reading by 2 1/2.

Don't lose heart. In 10 years time this will be distant memory .

DD was like this in reception and I was worried. She got on much better in yr 1, and is now year 3 and a good reader. I probably tried to force her to read too much in reception, looking back I think it didn't help. Give it a few weeks and then try again. I got her to read really easy things, just Cvcs to start with and she got confidence doing that, I didn't move on to anything else for a while.

I think reading to adults is a new thing isn't it? I never did this with my mum and I read fluently by 5. I think she just did lots of "what does that sign say" "can you find cake on this menu" "what kind of juice is in this bottle" etc. Maybe try that approach instead?

I agree best time to read is in the morning

Both my reception and year 1 dcs can behave like your dc at times. The older struggles a bit with reading although he is still at an expected level. The younger is very good at reading but is not really a sit still and do something child!

I was a primary TA / helper for over twenty years.

Try not to make a fight or 'big deal' out of it.

One technique: read with her, inviting her to point as she goes along. If she knows the word, she can say it; if she doesn't know it, she hovers her finger on the word, and YOU say it for her.

(I'll try and come back when have more time)

I suggest ask her to read just one word a page. So

I am sad: she only does the "am", and so on.
Break the job down to something she can't object to.

Ds is 10 & still does the flopping around thing.

I gave up. It was a nightly battle to get her to read. She was in after-school care til 5.30, so by the time I'd got her home, bathed, fed and in bed I was struggling to find enough time, and I didn't want to be fighting in the two hours I saw her each day.

Tbh I figured if I persisted she'd grow to hate reading anyway. This certainly happened with my sister, she's never read a book in her life because reading is a chore, not something she's ever enjoyed.

She preferred the educational websites- falling star or something? and alphablocks games programmes. So I let her do 5 mins of that instead.

Part of the problem was her reading level didn't match her interests. She enjoyed texts and factual books, and couldn't give a flying about Biff and flipping kipper. Hated all those little girl fairy/puppy/magic/princess books.

She didn't read for enjoyment until she hit year 3 and discovered David Walliams.

Thanks for all your great ideas. You've helped me see what I knew all along really.

I'm secretly comparing her to her cousin, although I know full well all the reasons I shouldn't do that, and I'm not letting her know it in anyway. But I know I am, deep down, and I must stop.

We talked about it at bedtime and decided we'd like to do her school books by taking a page (ie a sentence) each and taking it in turns. She also wants to teach her two year old brother, so is going to make flash cards of tricky words for him (I'm sure he'll be thoroughly uncooperative, but we'll see!). I will also make some simple games for her while I'm preparing for groups I teach.

She was happy to read nearly a paragraph of 'The Faraway Tree' at bedtime, and did it really well.

She says she doesn't like reading if her brother is 'having fun' so I definitely need to make it more fun.

Thanks again for clearing my mind.

fidgeting and jumping around seems normal at this age - my 2 (now 6 and 5) would read beautifully at school and be awful at home. they were actually just bored. the books were too easy so they would sing them or shout the words out or glance at the page then turn their back and try to say it all then. they just couldn't be bothered to waste their time on scheme books.

now they are both reading their own chapter books we don't tend to have any problems. once or twice a week they aren't interested and I think that is fair enough as long as they read the other nights.

it is nearly the end of a very long year for her so I would just leave it for now and look at the books together until the end of term.

and yes distraction of a sibling doing something seemingly more exciting probably has an enormous part in it.

The jumping around is funny. She'd never dream of doing it in school ('angelic', apparently!). She did read a book upside down last week. Today's was in an attempted American accent...
I'll definitely up the playful side.

the books are probably too easy - hence her reaction. I know quite a few who have done the same until they suddenly got texts at their level. I bet she managed to concentrate when reading The Faraway Tree paragraph!

has she told you HER version of the story yet? My 2 would go through the school books correcting bad grammar, poor punctuation, rubbish stories etc and always told me that if THEY had written the story then it would have been better because...

My dd was doing this a few months ago. She's not doing it now-I'm not sure what changed, in fact I only remembered that she used to do it when I read your post.

She has gone up a few reading bands in that time so maybe it is like a pp said that the books are too easy for her?

Goodness she is young. My DS didn't start school till he was almost 5 1/2 - there is no way he was ready to read at 4! I wouldn't get too stressed about it. Maybe do the bare minimum and read to her instead.

Haha, I could have written your post! In fact, are you me?

We read in the mornings, during hairbrushing. It's the only time I can get her to stay still long enough. Less of an incentive to roll around between words when somebody's grasping a handful of your hair...

As for the 2yo brother, we've got one of those too. He climbs onto my lap and then points out all the words he knows. He's pretty good at spotting "Biff", "Chip" and "Kipper" [insert eye-roll emoticon] - but surprised me (and DD) the other day by saying "that did say 'crash'", and indeed it did. Suddenly DD sensed competition and started reading fluently! Get him involved too!

DD3 is 5 and was driving me to distraction with this this morning. I got out a clicker (it's a wooden chicken) and told her she'd get one click for each time she sounded out a word correctly. Suddenly, she powered through the book.

My dss really struggled with reading early on, couldn't seem to recognise a word he'd read fine a page back, would get fidgety and upset.

So I stopped getting him to read, and I would read the book to him.
I pretended I didn't know any words though so would spell them out but pronounce them incorrectly, or say 'three' if the word was 'to'.

DSS would sit beside me giggling and correcting me, and before he knew what had happened, he'd read a whole book!

no ideas on the reading side, but with the little brother - DS2 has "homework" too - a colouring book, and we often all sit down together, and I leave DS2 colouring while I help DS1, or we do reading.
When DS1 has colouring homework from school (YR, just turned 5), I use our scanner / printer to make a copy, and both "complete" the same worksheet.

Well done on reading a paragraph of the faraway tree. Makes me think the PP was right - the school books are too easy, in which case can you ignore the school books, and just read a paragraph of something she is interested in, and note that?