5 year old reluctant to read - any advice

[CHUNKYMUNKEY]

Hi my 5 year old dd is in yr 1 and is very reluctant to read,when she does read she gets very frustrated with herself because she cant do it and i don't really know how i can help. Any advice greatfully received.

Read to her, encourage her when she becomes interested and other than that, really don't worry about it. In countries where they don't go to school until they're 7 they still turn out literate adults.

my 5 year old can't read, relax, she'll pick it up

My ds was just the same in reception (5), didn't show much interest in reading at all and then after the summer hols when he went back into yr 1 (6) he has been really keen to read/try new words. I think the break did him good and I am glad I didn't push him too much - just encourage him to look at books, listen to stories, talk about stories etc. I think they do it when they're ready and its best to keep them interested in books by reading to them, going to library etc than to push them too hard and risk them ending up hating books.

i'm very glad to find this thread as my brother is worried about my neice, who's the same age. is it far too early to be comparing their achievements with their peers? and too early to think that a bright non reader, at this age, has some specific difficulties?

Hi CM,

I'm sure you're already trying not to turn it into an issue with her, as you know it could really damage her self confidence.

Just read to her lots and lots, as WWW advised.

Also you could try reading her school reading books with her first, then repeat them with her reading with you, then seeing if she'll try on her own (obviously not all at the same time!)

Also try her with some books without words so she can just describe the pictures to you instead. This takes the pressure off the reading aspect completely whilst developing her description skills, her story structuring skills and her imagination.

My youngest DS didn't take well to jolly phonics, but learnt his words using the Ladybird 'First 100 Words' flashcards, as he learns whole words more easily.

You can get packs of magenetic words for each school year, so we had those on the fridge and everyone rearranged them to make a different sentence every day. (We ended up with some very strange messages!)

DS2 also loved the foam letters that you can use in the bath.

We played treasure hunts where he would have a set of words, and we would hide an identical set around the house. He had to match up the words and bring them back within a certain amount of time.

Making 'pirate ransom notes' by cutting words out of magazines and newspapers was fun too!

Little and often was/is the key with him.

'Wordshark' also contains some fun literacy games to play on the computer if she prefers to learn that way.

Some children just take to reading later than others, and I'm sure your DD will be just fine.

Thanks for the replies. I am certainly not pushing her, she will learn when she is ready like everything else she has done.

Its just she gets so frustrated if she cant read a word and gets very upset so i try to help her by gettng her to sound out the word and it just all ends in tears, i only try to help her so that she doesn't get worked up about it.

Im not fussed about her being able to read at the moment. I always give her lots of praise for what she does but she is losing confidence when she doesn't get words right so for me this is the bigger issue. She is very competitive, always wants to be the winner and do everything right first time. I think she is being very hard on herself.

Sounds a bit like one of my sons.

He'd get really distressed with reading, it was a shame because I knew he could do it but kept freaking out. I'd try and point out words he knew in a casual way but because he didn't know all the other words on the sign or page he'd get frustrated. Wasn't a case of being pushy, opening a book was enough to get a tantrum or silly behaviour out of him.

Same with some of the early reading books he was sent home with. They'd maybe focus on 1 or 2 words but of course have other words they weren't supposed to know, to make a story. I stopped doing his school books altogether with him at one point because I couldn't stand the reaction from him!

My Mum used to be a teacher and said different schemes and methods suit different children. She suggested the old Ladybird Peter & Jane books. So I started him with those during the summer holiday. He was so chuffed he could read the whole book and ploughed through the first few levels.

They work by keywords and all the words in the books are introduced in the books and repeated. There are no odd random words thrown in! They start simply

Peter
Jane
Peter and Jane
Jane and Peter
Here is Peter
Here is Jane

then build up. That method has seemed to give him a bit of a confidence boost and he's now much more relaxed. That probably makes me sound pushy LOL but now the books are longer I'm only doing one page a night with him and only when he's not too tired.

So I'd say it's worth looking at different books and schemes.

He also quite enjoyed playing word games in the bath with those letters that stick to wet surfaces. We're very silly and give him 5 letters then he spells a word with them. Say tcaZ and has to spell cat. All simple and as a confidence booster rather than teaching him to spell ;)

We called it smelly school and did words like poo, wee, pop, smell etc. What can I say, he's a boy and cracks up if you say the word fart ;)

Some excellent advice on here. I remember learning to read with the Peter and Jane books - when you explain how it works Froglette it does sound like a good system that would be good for boosting confidence - wish I'd started this thread last year!

Just read the replies below and agree very much with HumphreyCushion.

Over the summer we did similar to the ransom note idea. I wrote him little notes and cards to keep him entertained on a long car journey. I think it helped him practising words he aleady knew in different contexts. Can start simply with To (name) XXXX Mum and build up to more complex sentances.

I like the idea of hte cut out words! Can think of some fun ways to use it

If the Peter and Jane idea appeals to you but you remember and loathe the said characters from your own childhood, there is also the new Ladybird scheme with Tom and Kate, who are modern, occasionally naughty children with lunchboxes and crocodile fixations. I taught my children to read using that scheme but ensuring that I also covered phonics - I encouraged them to sound out unfamiliar words and made sure they knew what all the sounds were (including magic e, diphthongs, consonant blends etc. not just what each letter sounds like). If you just do whole words without any phonics overlay, your child may hit problems later on with unfamiliar words.

I found ds choosing a comic every few weeks really helped his reading. It was something he wanted to read rather been given books from school. It's more casual and something he'd chosen and was interested in.

I would also have a word with your dd's teacher - they can I'm sure suggest some things to do at home that complement the reading work going on during school hours.

The comic idea is good- several are aimed at new readers, and dd loves doing the "activities" in hers

Sparkle World
My Little Pony

are two we've had recently which have work books in the middle, and stickers etc.

My ds was like this in reception and trying to read his school books was a real battle. I went in to see the teacher and her advice was just to leave it to her. So I backed off completely.
He went into year one, still on level 1 of ORT. But he has just turned 6 and just discovered that he can read if he trys and we are now having great fun reading his school books together. If he carrys on putting in the effort that he is currently doing he will catch up with others before much longer.
Am so glad that I gave in and let him do this at his own pace.

By the way, he is the oldest in his class so was 5 just as he went into reception.

ChunkeyMunkey have you seen the Jolly Phonics stuff? They hve a DVD and CD which my two babes found wonderful - my dd preferred the DVd with the captivating characters whereas my ds loves the CD as he is very musical.

My dd sounds similar to yours when she wen tinto Reception last year - she was given books but no instruction on how to read them and basically told to 'infer from the oictures' ie guess what the word says. She does not like to fail and got very demoralised, and i know would have given up, except we found Jolly Phonics.

It has a very quick pace so they learn all the alphabet sounds in 6 weeks (even if they do not know them already) and then go onto the rest. She thrived on this and the challenge of decosing words inher books, which were set at just the right level, was perfect for her. She now reads independently (just started Year 1) Dick King Smith, Enid Blyton etc and often I have o go upstairs several times after bedtime to turn off her light as she turns it back on again to read!!!

Incidentally my 3 yr ds watched and lsited and taught himslef to read at the same time!!

I did see that there has been some new guidance recently that says children's attention should be focused on decoding words rather than the use of unreliable strategies such as looking at the illustrations, rereading the sentence, saying the first sound, or guessing what might "fit". This fits very well with my experience of phonics.

The JP suff can be found at ELC or very reasonably on ebay. i also bought some fantastic books called 'Jelly & Bean' which were perfect to practise the sounds she had learnt in a simple book with lovely pictures, but not ones which were so busy they took the attention away from the words.

Good luck

ChunkyMumnky - I have exactly the same problem. DS wants to be able to read, gets upset because he can't, get's completely bored with the book once we have read it through once because he knows the story and doesn't want to read it again...

I am backing off for a bit. I sometimes introduce things by stealth - like encouraging him to teach words to his stuffed animals, or helping his doll to read - i.e I help his doll, he does the voice....

We only attempt his ORT books in the mornings, never after school when he is tired and has had enough.

He is also completely obdurate over the whole thing with DP and I - but apparantly reads well with his teacher and TA.

snap, blu!

I'd reiterate what others say, they are very young, my dd1 at just 5 was not interested in reading at all. now at 6.5 (starting year 2)she's really quite keen and reads to herself every night in bed. We didn't push her too much as she doesn't like being pushed. So if she didn't want to do any reading we'd just leave it for another day.

We did find that reading on weekend mornings worked better than after school when she was already tired.

Reading TO your children is as important as them reading to you. My ds isn't too hot on reading, because the stories he is read are much more interesting than the stories he can read himself. He reads the ORT books in the car to his sister on the way to swimming. Other than that, I leve it to the school really. With me, he reads signs in shops, posters, food packets, all sorts of things, bit not books!

I agree Becky - DD (7) is a voracious reader - top reading group and has brought home the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe this week. But DS#1 was a nightmare - he hated school books (not surprised) and refused to read anything but non-fiction with lots of pictures and not much text (he was 7 at the time). After talking to his teacher we ditched school books and started reading stuff we had at home - We did The Hobbit, LOTR, all the Narnia books, we recently discovered Stuart Hill's Cry of the Icemark. But DS and read them together - he read a few pages, I read the rest. He is still not a very keen reader but he does pretty well and is in the second from top group at school, he can read the instructions on toy boxes or on PS2 games - but more importantly he loves books and knows it's worth making the effort to get to what's in them.

You probably could force a child to read but I don't think it would be a good idea in the long run.