Sorry another Reception Reading Question?

[ihearttc]

Just need someone to give me a reality check please (and probably a good slap as well!)

DS2 started Reception in September. He has an Autumn Birthday and went to the school nursery for 18 months so knows the single JP sounds (not technical term but Im sure you get what I mean!) but they haven't been taught the double ones yet. When he started in september he couldn't blend at all and then literally within the first couple of days something clicked and he worked out that he could do it.

Fast forward a few weeks and he is doing quite well but he is literally sounding out every single word as he reads even ones I know that he knows as a whole word. So he knows that "the" is the yet he sounds out t h e despite it not being a word that you can sound out anyway. Its almost like he has to say the letters in his head to know what it is which makes the whole process really slow going.

DS1 who is now 11 never got phonics and just memorised whole words so it might be why Im finding the whole thing slightly strange. Im sure he is doing ok but just wondered if thats completely normal what he is doing??

My ds was able to read starting reception, but when he started learning phonics at school, he done this. I thought he was testing out what he learned at school. Soon, it stopped. Your DC will encounter a lot of new words from now, so it could be a good thing that he is grasping what he is learning at school? If you are worried, maybe speak to the teacher?
Hope some teacher come along and help.

We had sounding out every single word for about a term from DS, 2-3 weeks from DD. Then something clicked and they started just saying most words. I'm not sure to what extent it was sounding out in their heads and to what extent just recognising words.

For "the" you might want to help him to sound out the th sound as a unit rather than t-h. And at some point probably worth checking he knows that sounding out every word aloud isn't compulsory - I don't think DS realised this until someone told him!

But basically, yeah, normal from here :)

I had to tell my son that he didn't have to sound out every word if he already knew what it said. He was told to sound it out so he did. Worth checking.

One of my year 1 dts still does this (although not as much as before), he is summer born and exactly where he should be in terms of reading ability, I don't think it's anything to worry about. He does it with tricky words like no, into etc. It doesn't hinder him in anyway, it's probably just habit and will grow out of it eventually.

I think 'sounding out' gives some children confidence, even when they don't need to. It will just fade out as they improve and mature.

Thanks everyone.

Good to know it was ok...I thought it probably was but was just so far removed from DS1 was doing that needed to check. Its almost like he has worked out how to sound out and blend that he has to do it for everything.

I think you are right Ferguson its giving him confidence and thats exactly what he needs with reading at the moment so will just carry on as we are.

I've taught Foundation and Year 1 for years and this is really common. We spend so much time teaching children how to blend to read, and telling them to sound out words rather than guessing, that children do quite often get into the habit of sounding out every single word.

Once children develop a bit of confidence, then I tell them only to sound out the words that they don't know and to just say the words that they recognise.