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1 &2 books, but as he seems to need more reinforcement, is there anything else at that level that's suitable and not outdated that we can practice on?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.

Aero as cantkeepaway said upthread, your sample size is 1. You also haven't said how long the mainstream school attempted to teach your DC and whether it was proper pure phonics or not.

From my recollection
mrz is an experienced primary teacher
mrz acts as a SENCO
mrz school gets much higher than expected scores in the y1 phonics check

mrz gives time on here a lot to help with literacy related issues.

It is better for schools to use a method which is proven to succeed with an extremely high % of children, than a mix of methods which is proven to work with a lower %.
No one knows which children will fail to learn with mixed methods, so it is better to do pure phonics first and if and only if they are failing with that to try something else.

I am going to use i pad apps as ds responds better to those, I am also ordered the songbird books level 1 and 2 for him. Bat I think that is what happened to dd, her anxiety, learning difficulties, SPD just got too much that she was just handing on in mainstream school. I think in her specialist school this is their thought, as most of the children have various cognitive difficulties, that other methods have to be tried with them, including dd.

Yes Teen that is just my dd, I am not sure, as she found school so hard and I was always called to collect her, I think they were just trying to keep her happy and settled there as her needs were so profound, they did not have the resources to help her progress.

helping him with recognising whole words, when sounding out does not make sense, like ICE.

Ice two sounds /ie/ spelt i-e and /s/ spelt c perfect sense if you've been taught correctly it means they can use that knowledge to read dozens /hundreds of words containing the same sound spelling representations ....I'm very sorry your child has been failed by mainstream teaching methods

Oh right, thanks MrZ, no back in the 1980's we were taught just whole words, as the system changed. Yes, I guess its a child by child basis, what works for dd might not work for another child. Some children at dds school are so profound they have a sensory curriculum.

Perhaps if your child had been taught better in mainstream it would have been easier

Phonics works for 95-99% of children including those with moderate to severe learning difficulties

Yes I've worked with an amazing special school where children have very profound needs and an academic curriculum isn't appropriate for all

Yes it might have been, but because as you know with Autism, she just was not coping with school anyway, as her Autism was disrupting her ability to learn. Now she is in an ASD friendly school, her anxiety and distress has reduced greatly, and she is able to learn and enjoys it. I don't think she was teachable in Foundation when she was in Mainstream school.

My advice would be he is in reception ..The most important thing at this age is to enjoy books. Read lots and lots of books to him, let him see you reading.

I Know my DS loved reading but hated word cards..Too much like work so we made a card matching game every time new words came home.

Everything should be fin.If you want them to colour print off a picture of something they love if you want them to count counting games and songs.Reading is the same,

In dds school there are classes for those with very profound needs, who cannot access a mainstream curriculum. DD is going to be 10 soon, and is doing kS1 some KS2 work. She really struggles with maths concepts and mental arithmatic, that she still uses numicon, they are trying to get her off that.