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Original poster

Y1 phonics

32 replies

Getdownfromtherethisinstant · 20/04/2015 12:51

DS is six, reasonably intelligent - he is around average in most things, perhaps a bit above in maths. I know he has a phonics test this term and I'm pretty unconcerned but I've noticed he is struggling to read longer words - not the sounding out but the putting together of sounds. Eg if he read the word 'exploding' he would guess it first based on some of the letters - he might say 'excited' or plodding'. Then when I get him to sound it out he'll get the sounds right 'ex-pl-o-d-ing' and when I ask him put it together he'll say something like explodderating, ie he'll add in extra sounds etc. Is this fairly common? Is it just a case of practicing or is there anything else I can do to help him? TIA!

OP posts:
maizieD · 22/04/2015 23:40

no amount of prompting or hinting got him try changing the a sou d

Two things ocurrr to me here .

  1. did you try just asking him what other sound the 'a' might be?

  2. I know he is very young yet, but would he be able to read a word like 'baby' or 'lady'? If he can you could analyse it by looking at how each sound in it is spelled and so show him that 'a' can spell more than one sound

Three things, actuallyGrin

  1. Did you ask him if he knew of a word 'backon'? Or tell him that it didn't exist as an English word? I know it looks as though he is being taught at a school where 'meaning' takes precedence over accurate word reading, but is he really expecting what he reads to make sense?
Original poster
Getdownfromtherethisinstant · 22/04/2015 23:47

maizie

  1. Yes, that was the first thing I did
  2. Yes those words would pose no problem at all to him
  3. I'm not sure really - the sentence was 'bacon and eggs' but it took a while for him to twig!

He managed to read diplodocus though - odd child!

OP posts:
HarveySchlumpfenburger · 23/04/2015 00:10

Nothing to be sorry about. I think my reply came across a bit more abruptly than I intended it to.

I don't think this is as big a problem as it might be. And it's easier to fix now than it might be in a couple of years, when the guessing might be much more ingrained.

mrz · 23/04/2015 06:06

Why is it a problem ... the school is sending home Look & Say books that are clearly beyond your son's current ability. it suggests they are teaching mixed methods which would explain why they are encouraging him to look at pictures then try to read the word and why he guesses.

Original poster
Getdownfromtherethisinstant · 23/04/2015 07:50

I think his reading level is right - the level he had before was getting too easy and it's only the odd word that stumps him now - but when he's stumped he's really stumped. I think as you are all saying the higher level has identified the issues. I will continue to work at it and see if there's an improvement.

OP posts:
AmateurSeamstress · 23/04/2015 10:18

My Y1 is a bit inclined to this too. I just remind him to use his sounds and ask him what other sound that grapheme makes. Quite often, though, it's like he hasn't noticed a couple of the letters or he's imagined an extra 'L'. Even when I force him to break it down, he struggles to see the letters as they are. But my DD did the same and she was all phonics, she really struggled with even 2 letter tricky words. She also used to reverse words a lot and would jumble letters quite spectacularly... I did worry about dyslexia, but it was just a stage. They are still so little. It's not much more than a year since they learned their letters, after all, and not many years since they were trying to put a square shape in the round hole of their shape-sorters and not being able to fathom why it wouldn't go. It is asking a lot of a 6 year old brain to decode "exploded".

i think also that we spot the mistakes but don't notice how successful they are in using their sounds the rest of time. DS read 'carbohydrate' and 'unsaturated' this morning - I very much doubt they were sight words. Look for where he is using his sounds successfully and praise him for that.

DazzleU · 23/04/2015 13:09

I read like the example in link mrz posted and had terrible spelling.

I didn't want that for my DC - but they were taught as you describe phonics were there but so was picture looking and guessing.

I'm not sure if some children who been taught this way work go on to read normally by working out the phonics code themselves I'm sure some must do- but my eldest especially didn't.

How concerned her teachers were varied widely - the problems spilled over into spellings some focused on that others reading - she coped so well no one was completely sure what the problem was that there was one got more obvious older she got.

It was actually easier with DC who failed completely to get reading and phonic taught by the school - after much better phonics tuition though still having mixed methods. It was easier to see the problem and see it had to be dealt with and wasn't going to sort out by itself and it was easier and we step in earlier and didn't have bad habit of guessing - which took ages to stop in eldest.

We've ended up using the sound foundation books - in fact for different DC I've started with different books but read the description and it fairly clear where to start for a particular child. Earlier we started this with them the quicker it's worked for them and the easier the process.

If the problem persists worth looking into for your DS.

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