Are phonics more difficult for some children?

[RubyrooUK]

My son has just turned four and is starting school.

He has known his alphabet for a couple of years and has over the last year spotted words and worked them out: "mum", "dad", "no" etc.

Anyway, he is very keen to read and tends to remember words and point them out when he next sees them.

We have been trying to do phonics with him, sounding out the words. He can never sound them out well but can easily spot words he knows and make others from them.

Eg b-u-zz, he will sound out each bit but be unable to assemble it. He will then say the letters and then spot the word buzz somewhere else and recognise it in other text. But still can't sound it out, although he knows the letters make "buzz".

Do phonics work for all children or do some find sight words easier? I learnt to read very early using sight words and never came across phonics so I have no idea if it's normal that your child is clueless about blending early on but spots words at sight easily....

Apologies for long post. I'm well aware this is not a serious or important post compared to some; I had just been wondering as phonics seems the default method of reading now in school. And clearly I have too much time on my hands!

Thank you!

Many parents have found Cbeebies AlphaBlocks a good place to start with younger children.

A useful book that can help parents and children get to grips with Phonics, is in the MN Book Reviews, "Children's educational books and courses" section, the Oxford Phonics Spelling Dictionary. It is an easy and enjoyable book to use, and from the MN review you can link to sample pages from it, and purchase if you wish.

Not all children can work out how to blend by their 4th birthday. I remember my daughter couldn't and having the same concern. Relax and don't push him if he's not ready. Read books to him and let him have a go every once in a while.

Expecting a child know how to blend by their 4th birthday is unrealistic. Blending needs a lot of practice and it is skill taught and practiced during reception and year 1. The time to be concerns is IF your child fails the year 1 phonics check.

Many children leave reception unable to blend. They do not need mixed methods, but plenty of practice and patience. Practice with blending at home makes a huge difference.

Does anyone know at what point they start teaching the phonics in reception? Is it virtually straight away? Trying to get my ds to tell me what he's done is like trying to get blood out of a stone!

Our school start teaching phonics from day 1. By the end of the first week they would have done /s/ /a/ /t/ and /p/. However not all schools teach phonics as quickly.

Some schools wait until they have completed entry observations on children before they start teaching phonics so they know what the children can do already, but this doesn't take long, and once the teaching starts, it will be more or less one sound a day.

louisejxxx
I think a lot depends on the school. Many schools have a staggered intake and it would be unfair to start phonics teaching until all the children are settled in school.

"Trying to get my ds to tell me what he's done is like trying to get blood out of a stone!"

lol... the same comment could be said about my twelve year old son.

If you want to know what reception has been up to find a chatty little girl who will let you know in more detail than you could possibly want. I found the easiest way to get information out of my son is to ask him what was the best thing about school and what the worst thing was.

You can I spy game with the first sound of the word, IE 'I spy with my little eye something that begins with the sound C' - CAR! You can sometimes I read books to the toddlers I look after and replace one word with the sounds, such as C-A-T ; especially for books in which the word cat is repeated on every page. There are some good little cds for learning phonics sounds, such as Jolly Phonics. Yes I agree for some children it doesn't come as naturally, but if you try different games, different methods as part of your normal play, every day, the progress will be significant and he will he ready to read soon.

ds has just started reception, they've been part time for two weeks and going full time next week. We've been told they have been assessing where they are at over the past two weeks and will be splitting them into phonic ability groups and they will start on phonics straight away next week, they will get a book to bring home but when get an actual reading book will depend on when they're ready

From what I can gather, DS hasn't started any phonics yet; though the teacher said during the home visit that they would be doing 5 sounds/week.

Regarding blending, yes you can just wait for it to click; but I think what really is the precursor which might be taught explicitly (thus making it accessible to all, rather than just waiting for the kids to figure it out by themselves; a bit like teaching phonics explicitly) - is the opposite to blending, i.e. segmenting.

Which is basically just 'hearing' and identifying the sounds in a word.
So yes to i-spy games (hearing the first sound in a word) but extend it to other parts of the word once the first sound has been 'mastered' - i-spy something that ends with the sound /t/ ... then (starting with three-sound words), i-spy something that has the sound /a/ somewhere/in the middle.

i-spy is quite advanced though, if a child can't 'hear' the sounds yet, you can try easier versions at first. E.g. where you place three objects on a table and ask which one begins/ends with/has in the middle, a certain sound. And similar.

Once a child can hear the sounds, and knows some phonics, they may not yet be able to read a single word, but they can write words! Give them letter magnets (for example) and an item (e.g. a jug) and watch them write a word.

Once they've got the segmenting/hearing the various sounds of a word down pat, and have practised putting words together from the sounds they know, blending - i.e. reading back what they just wrote - is a much smaller leap, I think. (though at first it won't be real blending/reading, it will be just remembering what they just wrote)

That's why Montessori said that children would learn to write before they would learn to read. Because take all the skills you need to write (hearing the sounds, segmenting the words, identifying the phonics, making words from the individual sounds), then add some more (blending), to read. But learning to blend if you can't really segment yet, is hard.

So, in a very roundabout way, yes if a child has never been taught anything about segmenting, and hasn't worked it out by themselves, then the 'phonics' way of learning to read may well be harder for them; than it would be for children who have been taught segmenting (which may, or may not, happen as part of the phonics teaching). Just IMHO.