My 5 year old can't read....

[Stuffragette]

She is the third dc. She is a mega happy child, loves school, has lots of friends. But we recently had a parent teacher meeting and they said she is behind. She knows her sounds she just isn't blending them. Before the meeting I really couldn't care less. She's happy, she has friends. My theory is she'll get there in the end. But the teacher now has me really worried. What does anyone else think?

[OlennasWimple]

My five yo couldn't read (she was hesitant at even simple three letter words, sometimes got them wrong). At six she started to read simple board books, and seven she is now reading Harry Potter with fluency and intonation and speed.

IMHO it's great that school have identified that your DD is behind the expected standard, and you should discuss and agree with them strategies to support her development. But unless you have reason to be concerned that there is any underlying issue, don't assume that this means that she will never be able to get it or will always be behind

[MrsWhiteWash]

Had this with DS and turned to dancing bears I think bear necessary a1. Their tip of getting them to shout letter sounds when blending
seemed to help him. I stopped waiting and started helping him when he started to say reading wasn't for him and that he was stupid compared to others in his class.

Glad didn't wait. He is a child that seems to need more practise than others. He is a proper book worm now and reading has helped advance his vocabulary and wider knowledge. He now does really well in school which has improved his confidence generally and helped him enjoy school.

[ChilliMum]

My dd struggled knew all her sounds but was completely unable to blend. I will never forget our despair as she sounded out M A T looked at the corresponding picture and said carpet
We moved to France when she was 6 and here they learn whole syllables rather than individual sounds, she picked it up straight away and can now read in both languages although when confronted with an unfamiliar word in English she will always sound it in French then convert the sound to English.
I think she just didn't get on with phonics. Interestingly she also struggled with spelling but has had help from an orthophoniste and they worked on recognising the shapes of words and recognising misspellings and her writing has improved dramatically.
Maybe you could try some word and sound recognition with her instead learning familiar words and rhyming words.

[mrz]

Simply maisy if you learn one word as a whole by sight you can read one word and no way of tackling the million plus words of the English language.
So you teach them the 300 high frequency words of English ...still leaves a lot of unknown words and no effective strategy to tackle them ...you could try looking at the pictures or guessing what might fit the sentence ...not very effective at best, useless at worst. Of course you could cross your fingers and hope your child is one of the fortunate ones who will manage to work out our phonic system themselves ...it's a risk because until a child actually struggles there's no way of knowing who will be lucky and who will flounder.

[mrz]

5minutesmore where did I insist that children have to lean to read in English earlier than in other languages?

[BackforGood]

I told you some people get very upset at anyone suggesting there might be other ways to help children learn to read .

Yup, lots of focus on phonics over the last 12 years or more, and some really good evidence to say it does suit a lot of children but children have been learning to read for Centuries with all sorts of methods, and, (can't speak for all those centuries ) but in the last 30 years or so a lot of children benefited from teachers giving them all sorts of tools (sight words, phonics, picture cues, rhymes, context, knowledge of word patterns, chunking, etc., etc) and then learning to read by combining them. Just as we - as adults - do when we come across words we aren't sure about / haven't seen before.

[mrz]

"but children have been learning to read for Centuries" yes and for most of those centuries the method of teaching/learning was Phonics. Learning whole words by sight is a 20th century (took off in the 70s) method based on a flawed theory.

[mrz]

[mrz]

Word shape

[drspouse]

The English language is apparently just about the most difficult to learn, spelling wise.

But the set of words that is introduced in early phonics uses only the easiest spellings.

So yes, given there are a lot of sound-to-letter correspondences in English, it is hard to become a fluent, read-anything reader in English.

But it's no harder to learn to read r-a-t in English than r-o-s-a in Spanish, if you are first taught the easiest 20-something sound to letter correspondences.

When my DS (who is also 5, in Reception) was first learning to blend I kind of blended for him - I sounded like a slowed down tape. So I'd get him to say the sounds, then I'd blend it but really really extended, then see if he could speed it up.

It would help a lot to know if your DC is in Reception or Y1.

[DPotter]

I couldn't blend words at 5 and still can't at 56 - phonics are just beyond me. And yet I have a masters degree and read book after book. Give your DD time and plenty of positive inaction with books. 5 is still very young

[mrz]

So you have to learn every single word as a whole before you can read it DP?

[drspouse]

So how do you read a new word you've never come across before DPotter?

How did you read Brexit when you first saw it? How about new names of people? Granted, May and Trump are words you might have seen before, but, say, Corbyn, Clegg, and Gove - how did you read those when you first saw them?

(Apologies for the politics. On my mind today)

[Lunde]

I was very worried about DD2 who could not read and had no interest in reading at age 5 in total contrast to DD1 who self taught herself to read at 4.

Luckily we lived in Sweden where reading is not taught until the age of 7 - they focus on oral language in nursery and the optional reception class. She struggled for a few weeks and then she was away and reading "big books" - the whole class was reading fluently. At 11 she volunteered in the library at lunchtimes (it was a village school with a combined school and public library) so that she could do inter-library loans and read 3-4 books a week

[BackforGood]

That's why you use a combination.
when a dc just isn't 'getting' phonics, there are other ways to 'kick start' their reading, or maintain their interest in books.
You'd struggle to get through life without being able to use phonics, but you won't get any meaning out of reading an unknown word, if you just use phonics or decoding - you have to use context, and chunking and all the other tools in the box.

[LastnightaDJ]

5 is so young! We kept our son in nursery for an extra year before P1 (Scotland) because he just wasn't interested in reading or writing so I thought : what's the rush? Teachers agreed. He has just turned 6 now and is only starting to read but doing fine. My husband and I are very word oriented (lawyers) and very academic so DS is very verbal but 5 is still extremely young.

[mrz]

"That's why you use a combination." Except multi cueing methods have been shown to be ineffective in those thirty years they were used exclusively

[mrz]

"You'd struggle to get through life without being able to use phonics, but you won't get any meaning out of reading an unknown word," you'd get less meaning out of guessing incorrectly ... if a word isn't in the readers receptive vocabulary they won't understand it no matter how they "read" it but if they can decode accurately they've got a much better chance of understanding what they read. Guessing compromised meaning.

[d270r0]

There are some nice free apps you can get for tablets etc. that are little games that teach how to blend

[mrz]

http://www.spelfabet.com.au/2016/08/multi-cueing-teaching-the-habits-of-poor-readers/

https://www.nifdi.org/resources/news/hempenstall-blog/hempenstalls-referenced-documents/306-three-cueing/file

[drspouse]

Who is "you" here Back?

Lastnight I agree it is young but a new 5yo in Reception who's only had 2 terms of school (and may not have known any letters before starting) versus a child who is 6 next week and has had 5 terms of reading instruction are quite different.

A year of schooling improves reading vastly more than a year of age - so no worries if it's 2 terms but time for a chat with the teacher if it's 5 terms.

[Enidblyton1]

My DD could hardly blend by the end of Reception (just 5) and was below expected levels at the start of Yr 1. Then she suddenly seemed to 'get it' and was reading fluently by Christmas.
She struggled with phonics and I think she largely reads by sight/memory.
I wouldn't worry for a while yet

[maisyanddaisy]

Jeezo mrz. An understanding of phonics can follow on from learning whole words and then working back to their constituent sounds. For some children that makes more sense.
I've seen children of 5 or 6 able to sound out perfectly, but unable to make the leap to the word and it's meaning. Some get it straight away. One approach doesn't necessarily fit all.

[maisyanddaisy]

Argh autocorrelation! Its not it's

[maisyanddaisy]

*autocorrect. FFS