How to practice reading with reception age child who's behind?

[slightlyglitterbrained]

Didn't want to derail this thread www.mumsnet.com/Talk/primary/2844011-learning-to-read-books-4yo which had some useful info on it but seemed to be turning into a bit of a debate on phonics vs whatever. I'm quite happy to stick with phonics.

What I'm not so sure about is what will be most productive to help DS with reading. He's apparently in a group getting extra help at school - which isn't a big surprise as he's the youngest in class, and his speech was borderline for referral to SALT when he started school (it's come on a lot since then). He knows a lot of sounds and can sometimes decode words with sounds he knows, and can also read some of the "tricky words" with unfamiliar sounds.

School have asked us to do more reading with him, but I'm finding he's often reluctant to read his "school" book at home. We try to encourage him to sound out some words in the books we read to him, but he tends to know them off by heart as he'll tell us w/o looking at the page.

I'd like some advice on the actual mechanics of reading with him - we prompt him to look at the initial sound, and look at the picture. When he sounds out all the letters, but doesn't put them together - are we supposed to tell him the word? Or just say that's good, move on and maybe next time he'll get it? I don't know if reading it to him is a big no-no or okay. Will it end up in him just memorising the word instead of practicing decoding? I don't know.

We have the Songbirds Level 1 &2 books, but as he seems to need more reinforcement, is there anything else at that level that's suitable and not outdated that we can practice on? We're rapidly going to get to the point where he's memorised everything at this rate.

It's important to get DC understand the relationship between the sounds and the words.I would suggest you just practice the sound&words he was taught at school. Also, CBBebies Alphablock online game is quite good, DS2 used to love to watch it.
What sort of books he is getting at the moment? DS2 only started to have books with words from January in reception, I think we waited till summer term, I started to borrow similar level books from library. I normally point out words that I think he can read for him to read, if he didn't get it, I will sound it out for him, he will repeat after me. I don't worry he only remember it, as we changed books very frequently, next time he meet this word, he normally will be able to sound it out.

I would just keep doing a little bit of something he enjoys daily. My dd was pushed too hard too fast in reception and we are still picking up the pieces 2 years later and she really doesn't enjoy reading at all. Level 2 songbirds sounds quite advanced for this stage of reception. Most of ds class is still on level 1.

When he sounds out all the letters, but doesn't put them together - are we supposed to tell him the word?

I volunteer with year 1s, some of whom are still at this stage - what I find really helps is if I model how to do the sounding out for them. So if they can't blend it when they're saying the sounds correctly, I say the letters back to them. Often that's enough for them to hear it, but if not, say them slightly faster, and slightly faster again until you're actually saying the word. Top tip I picked up from a post here I think - if you put a slight emphasis on the first letter, it's easier to hear the word. so C-a-t... He may find soft consonant sounds like sss, mmm, nnn easier to blend to start with.

From experience with my own kids, they were initially more interested in sounding out individual words (fridge letters, flash cards, written down, whatever) and a whole book was a bit intimidating. So I would feel free to put the books to one side and play some games instead for a bit. There are online games that are good too if you're not averse to a little screen time - DC liked Teach Your Monster to Read and Alphablocks which are both free.

What stage is he being sent home with and what scheme?

Signs, street names etc when you're out and about, food packets and tins, anything that comes through the door at home.

A whole 'book' can be intimidating and I guess there are only so many story lines about Bob Bug (how we loved him!) that you can make with the early phonic sounds, so focus on words in everyday life rather than 'more reading' for him to do.

But carry on reading to him lots.

Alphablocks (is it still on?) is good for phonics too and very short 5 minute episodes.

Alphablocks website:
www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/shows/alphablocks

Thanks for all the suggestions - will check out Alphablocks etc. catkind will try what you describe with sounding out.

Re: stage - I don't think he's moved up from the first stage. He's had a couple of books turn up twice (so wondering if he's gone through them all). Not sure on scheme. We have Level 2 Songbirds but he hasn't read them yet.

Alphablocks was our schools suggestion.

Individual words seem to work well with kids I know - so if reading a story, ask them if they can figure out the word in a speech bubble or on a sign. I follow the words with my finger when reading stories and sometimes stop and see if dd will figure out the word (or say 'read it properly, mummy')

And treasure hunt - put clues on bits of paper, all round the house, then chocolate at the end. Ds suddenly mastered reading at Easter thanks to demanding more and more egg hunts (clues like bath. sink. oven. Dsname's bed. under sofa. getting more complicated.) Needed hovering to help with frustration, but soon I was failing to keep up as he ran up and down two flights of stairs multiple times.

Egg hunts is genius, must try that

I e just started volunteering at DS school to read with kids his age. Not his class so no conflict of interest.

I've been trained to use phonics and back it up with other methods. They said not every child responds to phonics and they will support a child in whichever way they learn. And they said kids need to build confidence by reading books that are a little bit easy. Also to be read to by grown ups, any book but rhyming ones ate good for involving the child in reading some of the words. I'll come back to this thread and put some pictures on of the materials they gave me.

This might help, and boost confidence:

When reading harder books with a child, get him to point to words as he goes along. If he knows the word, or can sound it out, he can say it. If he doesn't know the word, he can hover his finger over it, and YOU say the word for him. Don't stop to analyse or discuss the word at this stage, but try and keep the 'flow' of reading going. Review difficulties at the end, if you wish to. This way, he has the satisfaction of reading more difficult books, without the fear of getting 'stuck' on words.

My children learned by being sat on knee or cuddled on sofa with piles of children's books to choose from. I read to them, same book over and over again if they wanted (they did). They increased word recognition and pointed to words etc but there was no pressure to read to me. They just learned to enjoy reading and the actual reading just followed. We could spend a couple of hours with books easily. No reading schemes just ordinary books like The Gruffalo, Bearhunt, Each peach pear plum, Rainbow fish, Elmer, Baba, The jolly postman etc.

I've been trained to use phonics and back it up with other methods.

"I've been trained to use phonics and back it up with other methods. They said not every child responds to phonics and they will support a child in whichever way they learn"

They need to look at the evidence rather than repeat nonsense

Feenie and Mrz - I don't understand?

Op, I've written a booklet about fun things you can do with phonics. If you pm me with an email address, I can email it to you.

Feenie and Mrz - I don't understand?

I think what they are getting at is that whoever trained you has given you incorrect information. It's not uncommon, and not your fault, but is incredibly frustrating that it is still happening when that information is at least a decade out of date.

FWIW, primary teacher here
I would say treat reading as a life skill rather than a curriculum subject

Read lots of real story books together for fun. Choose whatever your dc likes. Thomas the TE went down well here. Find high frequency words and words that are easy to sound out in the normal, fun books. If you want to make a significant impact, do this twice a day e.g. over breakfast, in the car before school, chilling with an after school snack, bedtime story. It's a little and often thing rather than bashing it all in one go.
Keep pointing out initial sounds, pick a few words to emphasise in a book, don't labour the whole thing. Do sound out cvc words together and blend the sounds back into a word. Don't worry if you have to do this a lot and your DC doesn't seem to join in. Every time you do it together, you're modelling the right strategies and these will sink in over time (like a term not a week).
I do think that it's important to work with school, reading school books etc but I think you said motivation is also a factor. So keeping things real and fun gives a true purpose to reading, not just because school said so.
All learning is best done in context. Both Costa and Slug (and Lettuce) are phonetic

OMG, Alphablocks - yes! They are fab!

Okay I understand now. I don't think there's any need for that kind of attitude though.

My DS School has chosen to take a pragmatic approach and use the searchlights methodology to support reception and Y1 who are struggling with phonics alone. That seems reasonable to me. As someone who does not have a teaching degree it is useful to understand what else we can do to support our children. I'm new to this 'phonics is the only way' ideology, it takes me back to breast is best. Let's not get started there...

"My DS School has chosen to take a pragmatic approach and use the searchlights methodology " so the school doesn't follow the National Curriculum and prefers a failed methodology?

Meh I think the issue with not focussing on phonics and permitting other stuff to come in to play is it encourages the child to look at aspects other than what is actually written.

When learning to decode (which is what phonics is about) a child needs to look at the letters infront of them and decode them. Otherwise you get people / children who don't read the difference between electric, eclectic, eccentric, especially if they haven't actually heard the word before.

It leads to the nonsense of 'some good readers fail the phonics check'. No they don't.

You need the context etc to understand the overall sense of a sentence, but you shouldn't need it to decode an individual word.

(Though context must play a part when a word can be decoded in two different ways such as 'read'.)