reluctant readers thread

[Cappuccino]

just wondered if there was a need for thread for parents of reluctant readers; seems to come up quite a bit

my dd is 6, in Yr 1. She fannies around when reading and we want to kill her. Though she does enjoy word games and flash cards

come on in

Two major problems with English speaking countries - the alphabetic code is much more complex than abroad (or Wales) as it combines so many different words from different languages over time.Hence it takes longer to learn the various complex rules than abroad so they can start much later and still read within 6 months.

Also the 'searchlights' strategy used until very recently has had the effect of muddling early readers. if kids were struggling with one way eg phonics, insead of focusing on that for a while till it was fully understood, teachers were told to try a different strategy eg look at the initla letter of the word and guess what it might be or look at the picture and guess. They also mixed in a whole lot of whole word recognition which is easier for boys to learn as it uses the side of their brain which is more developed (girls are more evne at this age) so they give up on blending skills, which develps both sides, but then struggle when they have filled their brain to its capacity of learnt words or meet a word they do not recognise and there are no 'picture clues' to help them guess it.

Phonics is like numbers - no use trying to add 2 plus 2 until you know and recognise the numbers 2 and 4 and understand how to count. That is what phonics is - teaching children the sounds of letters so they can use them as building blocks for words.

sadly these strategies have resulted in 20% or more of children leaving primary school without being able to read well enough to access the secondary curriculum - an appalling statistic. it is alsoi suggested that in some cases these muddling strategies can cause dyslexia - wonder if that is what happened in Ruth Kelly's son's case!!!

thank you TheWillowTree that was masterful! Are you a teacher? You have just described the introduction to reading that my son has had, just a meld of all these methods. He definitely prefers the whole word approach. He is totally against working it out because he still doesn't really know the letters to even try to 'sound it out'. So his attempts at reading are so patchy and inconsistent and we remain befuddled as how to approach it.

I said to his teacher that he appears to be finding the weekly tests (this week he got one out of ten) very demoralising and I can't help but question whether they are doing more harm than good. She airily said that it is good for them to try to use their memories. But really I think it's not good for my ds although we are always really positive and encouraging that he just tries. I always thought that my parents were mad to flash card my elder siblings into reading around 2 (they ran out of steam with me and I stubbornly held out til about 6) when children are so biddable. Is it better just to go much younger I wonder? Too late for my ds any way!

My DD has a very good visual memory: result she sailed through reception without learning how to build any words - now in Y1 she is struggling with the school reading books. After a search on Amazon we have bought the songbirds phonics (new ort) and we seem to be having some success, having started at a very low level she is beginning to have the confidence to stop and sound out the words. The books are written by Julia Donaldson and the quirkiness of the stories definitely helps!

kathg that sounds like dd1

she is having private tuition and they have taken her right back to phonics basics

it is really paying off now as she is improving all the time

I took Labradora's advice and checked out the Easyread free trial:

\link{http://www.easyread-literacy.com/trial/26.html}

You have to turn your speakers up to hear the voice of this bloke. It does seem to be a genuine free trial and my ds tried the first lesson yesterday and really liked it and played the game at the end. I was impressed at how he responded, there is a bit of humour which really helps with my ds

The ORT songbirds are good but there are so few of them and they very quickly increase in difficulty.

I found the Jolly Readers very good and also, for starting right at the beginning, Jelly and Bean are excellent.

I really think that to help struggling readers going right back to basics in phonics is the way forward, and as early as possible. The Jolly Phonics handbook is also an excellent resource, as is the video and the songs CD ( I used it in the car all the time with the finger phonics books)

It really does work as my dd is reading Secret Seven at 5.5 and ds taught himself by watching / playing with her when he was barely 3.

Good luck

Mot an expert on this, early days for us. dd (6) is just starting learning to ring in German at school. School starts here at 6. German is much more phonetic so that does help but she had real problems at first. She was memorising the text but not actually reading and had a real blockage about the whole thing.

I took her to the LAST page of the school book, chose an easy sentence and got her to read it with my help - plenty of help, I didn't leave her to flounder. From that she gained enormous confidence and saw "Hey I CAN read it, even the last page, even without learning it off by heart in class". After that things rocketed.

I find the school book crap. I hate the pictures etc but I can see the logic in the way it's constructed. She does that at school and I just do word games with that vocab at home. I don't see the point in reading something 3 times that she has already learnt off by heart.

I write her little letters every day. Simple, nice, full of praise and how great she is- and she loves reading those. I knock on the door and say "post for Miss dd".

We go to the library and she chooses her own books to read. That makes a big difference I think. If they chose it, they feel more like reading it.

So far so good but my impression is that there is no linear progression, they make a huge step forward and then seem to loose it and drop back and so on, so I think you have to take these difficult phases in your stride,as part of the whole process.

Mot an expert on this, early days for us. dd (6) is just starting learning to ring in German at school. School starts here at 6. German is much more phonetic so that does help but she had real problems at first. She was memorising the text but not actually reading and had a real blockage about the whole thing.

I took her to the LAST page of the school book, chose an easy sentence and got her to read it with my help - plenty of help, I didn't leave her to flounder. From that she gained enormous confidence and saw "Hey I CAN read it, even the last page, even without learning it off by heart in class". After that things rocketed.

I find the school book crap. I hate the pictures etc but I can see the logic in the way it's constructed. She does that at school and I just do word games with that vocab at home. I don't see the point in reading something 3 times that she has already learnt off by heart.

I write her little letters every day. Simple, nice, full of praise and how great she is- and she loves reading those. I knock on the door and say "post for Miss dd".

We go to the library and she chooses her own books to read. That makes a big difference I think. If they chose it, they feel more like reading it.

So far so good but my impression is that there is no linear progression, they make a huge step forward and then seem to loose it and drop back and so on, so I think you have to take these difficult phases in your stride,as part of the whole process.

oops sorry!

This thread reminded me of DS1 a couple of years ago.

This is how he used to be here

He is just about to turn 10 now and still an avid reader, so things will get better!

Thanks thewillowtree - did you see my post below? I wondered what you think about testing? I can't gauge how much of a negative effect it's having on my ds.

Thanks will get some Jolly Readers and Jelly & Bean ones as well. Her problem is her good visual memory! In fact for words she knows she has no difficulty reading the book upside down. We are also doing Kumon English now, but only 2 weeks so far (having found that her maths problems were fixed by the Kumon maths).

Apparently I was slow to start reading and then went from nothing to "wind in the willows" in 6 months (aged about 6).

Not sure if this has been covered but I read with reception children and it isnt always the contents of what they are trying to read but the sheer volume of letters/words on a page that sends them into hyperspace.

Try offering to take it in turns to read a page each. I normally find this works with the reluctant reader they seem to find it funny that the adult has to read their book with them.

Good luck

ipane - I agree with you that testing where he gets only one correct is bound to be demoralising.

However, if you can spend 10 mins a day with him focusing on one sound each day and recapping at weekends you will see a significant difference in a very short time. Once he really understands phonics - both blending for reading and segmenting for spelling - so many many words are decodable and can be spelled from simple known rules.

If you are unable to withdraw him from the weekly tests i would tell him that even tho he has to do them you do not find it important and will do better 'tests' (games!) at home with him where he can 'earn' rewards (whatever he likes - with ds it is TV time!, or sticker chart towards a much wanted toy)

If you are able to pick some of the spellings from school that he can do with the code knowlege then focus on those and when he gets them all right you can really heap praise on him.

Dictation is very important in teaching segmenting for spelling. EG you say a word and he has to write it down, hearing the seperate sounds and translating them into letters. Once he is confident with words you can move onto simple sentences which can be fun eg 'A cat bit the dog' so making a game of the whole thing!

Good luck and have fun!

So Kumon English is doing exactly as suggested by Willow tree, and for 10 minutes a day: what is more she gets praise from the Kumon teacher which is worth much more than praise from me!

With the reading books from school I read every other page and we do the book two consecutive nights so at the end of it she has read all the pages - and sometimes I get words "wrong" which she thinks is hysterical.

KathG - glad to hear that Kumon English is working, I have no experience of it myself as i cannot afford the £45 per month per subject (altho I probably end up spending nearly that on books lol)

One of my friends described Kumon as being like Weightwatchers ;-) going there each week motivates her to do the work, and the public praise from a teacher (which she doesn't seem to get much of at school) makes a big difference.

ipanemagirl, please post in a couple of weeks/month to let us know how you get on with easyread. I have just ordered a reading manual called toebytoe which easy read is based on (I think). I shall post to let you all know how I get on with it. I'm going to use it to teach my dd2 from scratch rather than wait to use it remedially.

Will do Madora, and have just checked out Kumon and asked for a brochure, mil and fil have offered to pay for coaching if we feel it's necessary: I am increasingly thinking that it is. But I'm goint to see how Easyread goes - the website voice said he'd get a prize in the post- he was so excited!
Honestly I think the lack of praise from the teacher is the most disheartening thing for him. His teacher last year gave him loads of praise and he valued that so much. This year I think he feels like he's doing badly - however much we praise him I can see that he feels that he can't do something and is frustrated by it.
His teacher really only heaps praise on the top group who get all sorts of stickers and merit awards etc. My dh says "look it's not a competition - they all develop differently" But other parents can be so competitive about reading, his best friends' m is always saying about how she writes long letters to everyone and loves to read on her own..... (s i g h )....
very depressing!

ipanema girl - just to encourage you, my son was a very reluctant reader up until the summer and he is 8 and a half. I thought it would NEVER come. He now reads when he gets up and before he goes to bed - by choice! I thnk he found reading really tiring and unrewarding for a long time because he had to decode so much that he lost the sense and excitement of the story line. Now that his bank of words has reached a critical mass the number of words that he has to decode is fewer, so he can read faster and it is inherently more rewarding.

Some great posts on this thread!

DD is much keener to try reading again this week (less tired than last term). She is only in Reception so I'm not worried about how her reading is progressing (yet). I might try the Songbird Phonics because she loves Julia Donaldsons other books and might find it interesting.

Interestingly, I've been asking around and those who are flying ahead with reading are happy to accept odd English words (ie. touGH) without question. My DD and her friend however, question everything and disagree about pronunciation, so it's all taking much longer! I hope their curiosity pays off when they start doing science!

I'm trying to keep everything light and fun which is helping. DS played a spelling game with me for ages today really happily. Just need to remember that light touch for him - it's so hard when I'm feeling anxious.
Does anyone know if you shouldn't do too many systems at once - i.e. easyread and jolly phonics? Does that overload the learner?