4yo struggling to read

[QuickQuickNo]

I'm try to very occasionally help my 4yo to read. Today he had the word banana in front of him and I thought we would try it. He knows all his letters and will write a word himself or with you telling him the spelling, but just cannot get to grips with forming a word from letters.

After reading the letters out over and over, he came up with "apple!" - he literally just guesses any random word, he doesn't try to think what the letters combine to say. I even try to teach him how to blend sounds which he can do, but can't grasp the connection between letter sounds and a word.

He is too little.

Give him a while and let him enjoy books with you, playing with letters and sounds and give him time.

He's only 4. There's no need to push him. School will teach him what he needs to know. If he recognises his name, that is a big plus. Let him be a child a bit longer - you don't need to push learning to read at this stage.

He is only 4! He needs to show signs of being ready to read. Support what the school is doing with him. Do not push him ahead of time if he clearly isn't ready. Also what you're doing may not be the approach of the school and just leave him even more confused.

He's got plenty of time to learn to read.

He's 4. Give him time.

Be careful doing too much "work" or teaching, sometimes then the child thinks reading is a chore and it becomes something they don't want to do.

Mine didn't really learn until 7 or 8, but they caught up quickly and are now no different to their peers who were reading at 4.

I agree with other posters.
He will get it when he is ready.
My dc was early reader, but now in yr3, a lot of children caught up.
If you push him too much, he may start to dislike reading, which is more damaging.

my resposne is he's four for fucks sake, it will come. don't push it too hard as may put him off for life

He is too little he will be I phase 2 of phonics at school and they are just doing single letter sounds.

Segmenting and blending come a little later on.

Read for pleasure, reads lots, notices signs, labels, etc out and about. Make connections for him. So you see a big P for parking, comment on it, then say that's like p for poppy your friend.

Hairy letters/nessy is a great app for learning letters and if you google jolly phonics, parents- you'll find tonnes of stuff.

He is very little, and there is no need to panic yet!

Is he even in school yet?
Leave it to the teachers.

banana?! Good lord - what happened to starting with DOG or CAT?

Banana is quite a long word to sound out!

I've tried sounding out words with phonics which are long with more than one syllable and it can be tricky to hold it all in your head. We are so used to doing it quickly as our brains recognise a lot of words unlike little children who are just starting.

So, with all due respect, back off a bit.

I have twins who are nearly 5 and just started reception
I've always read lots of books to them and childminders did a bit of letter sounds with them but rather haphazardly so they've had no real 'teaching' until they started school mid sept

One is already able to blend and if he sees a word, eg cat, will immediately say c-a-t, cat. He can read simple books if they have mostly 2-3 letter words and single sounds (they haven't learnt things like sh/ch etc yet) and is super keen (when the teacher left the same words to learn in his word book for 2 weeks he asked me to print out some new ones for him because he was bored of the same old ones which he already knew!) I am doing lots to encourage him because he's so keen and I want to capitalise on that.

The other by contrast will firstly just guess at random words, then when encouraged will (rather grudgingly!) say c-a-t and then when I say what word does c-a-t spell, he'll say (for example) goat! Or whatever else comes into his head at the time! Bless him, just not got a clue yet ??
With him I am reverting to just reading lots of books and pointing out letters and sounds in everyday life, he's clearly not ready for more yet and I don't want to put him off reading for life

I would agree with everyone else here, sounds like your little one just isn't ready to read/blend yet so maybe take a step back and just enjoy reading and playing letter/sound games together and when he's ready he'll have a really good grasp of the basics ??

For what it's worth, I was reading at 3 because I was interested and wanted to, my sisters didn't read until closer to 5-6yrs - hasn't made a jot of difference to our adult lives ??

oh, and banana is tricky because it has two different 'a' sounds in it - short 'a' in ban but long 'ah' in nana - so very confusing if you are just starting out. If you do want to persevere with reading, maybe start with easier words - if you google phonics programmes (we use Letters and Sounds at school here so I googled that) you will find lists of words to start with which use the letter sounds in the order they are taught in school. Eg they start learning S, A, T, P, I, N - so example words might be sat, at, tap, in, it etc....

Start with 3 letter CVC words. You don't want to end up confusing him by moving too fast.