Something v odd about ds reading and worried

[alltheworld]

Dc, 5, had hearing problems as a toddler ands significant speech delay. At one point he was dx with verbal dyspraxia and then the therapist changed her mind. He started reception and his speech is slowly improving but his reading is odd and I am beginning to wonder, given the past indicators of verbal dyspracxia if there is some other issue or processing disorder going on.

He can sound out individual letters, though he gets d and b mixed up. He sometimes has mirror writing. What he cannot do is blend eg. H a t. Say together? Either total blank or he says at. Usually he loses the first sound although sometimes he says Hap. Which doesnt surprise me because when he couldn't hear, he couldn't distinguish between consonants.
But on top of that, he seems not to be recognising words he has just read eg. We struggled though a book tonight that had dad played or the band played on each page and it was as if he was seeing the words for the first time. There was even a sentenced which read, the dog barked and barked and he read barked the first time but couldn't seem to see it was the same word, even when prompted with the first sound.
I think he thinks reading is just sounding out letters, not blending them or making sense of words.
What is going on?

[BatSegundo]

Each to their own mrz; I've found it useful. Not for everyone, but some kids really respond to it. As an aside, do you know any good UK phonics apps? Ladybird Phonics has good methodology and UK voice acting, but it's blotchy so I'm not recommending it anymore, but don't know of anything else that is accessible to parents.

[mrz]

Sounds~Write initial code app

[alltheworld]

First of all, thanks so much for all the support and good advice. Secondly, it turns out that he was sent home with the wrong book for his level, a book that was several stages up! No wonder he was struggling with played and barked. He is now being sent home with books based on words like cat, mat, dig and is managing better.
Someone up thread mentioned phonological issues and that has been mentioned in the past.
He had a happy short session on teach monster tonight and was asking for his new school reading book so that is good.

[wrinkleseverywhere]

DS is also in reception & suddenly "got" blending over half term. I was beginning to wonder if he was ever going to connect the phonics he was learning at school with words in books. Things which, I think, helped (although it may have all been co-incidence):

• he got to a stage where, other than p, b, d & q he can recognise all of the letters which has helped his confidence and means he isn't distracted by having individual sounds corrected
  
• going back to basic CVC books (Songbirds & the Biff, Chip & Kipper phonics) and, rather than reading them page by page, reading a word like "cat" and then getting DS to look for it elsewhere in the book. In the first Songbirds book, I think there are only four or five words in the whole book so we did a hunt for each of those in turn & then DS was able to read the whole book;
  
• played a lot with letters in the bath, in play dough etc focussing on doing a word like "cat" and swapping the "c" for a "s" and then a "b" and then a "hat" which helped him make the connection between changing one bit & the rest staying the same. DS also has some speech & hearing issues so I'd really focussed on what he could say easily. He can manage "at" words and "it" words but (ignoring it being a different phonics level) will still swap "and" and "ate" words;
  
• telling him that he knew some words e.g. "the" so he didn't need to sound it out every single time.
  
• pointing out words like "the", "and" & "is" when out & about - shop signs, menus, in stories we read to him etc - as I think he thought that words were new & different in every book.
  A lot of this has been done with us opposite each other so DS could see my mouth shape & with ridiculous over enunciation by me so he can hear the right sounds.

[BatSegundo]

Thanks mrz. Unfortunately, it's apple only. I'm trying to find one for parents to use so could do with one for apple and android. Most of the quality education apps are on Apple.

alltheworld that explains a lot! Glad you're feeling more chilled about it.

[mrz]

The Sounds Write app is for parents not teachers but is only available for iPads unfortunately

[alltheworld]

Thanks wrinkle some really good pointers there....will work them in!