Helping 5 year old learn to read

[electricblue2017]

My DS has just turned 5 and struggling to read- he can recognise 'and', 'is' and 'of'.

I never taught him how to read before he went to school as I couldn't and seemed to do ok in life. I've since been informed this was wrong and should have done some work with him.

How can I help him (and me) learn to read? We are on stage 1 books and have ten high frequency words to go through

Op, keep it fun and light. He )and you) have no need to rush, school will teach him, but it does help to practice and learn at home too.
I have red words typed up with pictures and laminated (work somewhere it was easy to do this) and put around the house. They are just there, sometimes we play ‘find the word’ game, etc. But having them. Visible does help. Eg in toilet..😀

Use blackboard or whiteboard or paper to practise writing or reading words eg every morning I would write a word and ds would have to copy it and read it, used names of people, pets, easy words to build up confidence. ( he would look every morning for the word, he enjoyed it, we stopped when he wanted to)
We all enjoy doing things we can do, if it’s too hard it’s not fun.

Don’t worry, relax, get phonic books very cheap, playing cards with words, pictures etc
Lots of kids games are about reading, can family or friends with older kids help with second hand books etc? Or get same books school use. Can you read ds books to him? Read daily!

Who is helping you? School will help ds and give advice etc,

Well done for trying, you have done nothing wrong.
Learning to read at 4 or 5 or 9 doesnt mean anything, enjoying learning is a lifelong skill. I love reading but don’t remember at what age I could do it!
Have fun 😀

https://www.udemy.com/help-your-child-to-read-and-write/ this is a free online course for parents to help your child to read and write

We home ed and are using Literacy Planet with our 4 year old. She could only recognise her own name, Mum, Dad and cat by sight. She is now reading lots of CVC words. She enjoys the game. There is a free trial if you wanted to try it first.

There is an app called Teach Your Monster to Read which is quite good. I think it's free on a laptop.

Don't worry. Our 4 year old is the youngest of our 5 dc. They have all learned at different ages and needed varying amounts of support. No one would have expected you to teach him to read before starting school.

Who told you that you ‘should’ have been teaching him before he went to school? Nonsense!

Teach your monster to read is free on a laptop.

Reading chest is great for extra books. You choose which level are sent out. It costs £10-£18 a month depending on how many you want.

As PP says, parents should have taught child to read before school is nonsense. Though reading daily with a child once they started school is very important, especially when they started to learn to read at school.

I agree with teach your monster to read. Tbh I don't know any kids who could read before starting school.

Got the teach your monster to read app- he has really enjoyed it and will do some cards around the house.

It was my sister in law who made me feel shamed- her kids obviously could read perfectly before school

Ask the school which reading system they are using, ours used read write inc. I bought little cards which showed the phonics sounds and how to say them correctly before really trying to read a book. You only introduce a few sounds at a time.

Alpha blocks on BBC iPlayer is a great programme to watch with kids, episodes are about 5 minutes 😄

Ignore your sister in law

The point of going to school is to learn to read - and other things. You're not expected to send children in already knowing what is to be taught.

My son had just turned 5 this time last year. He struggled ALOT with his reading. I used phonics play and teach a monster and we kept practicing his sounds rather than reading sentences. We also practised the 100 high frequency words via flash cards and played games with them such as memory. I took the focus away from “reading” really. For the entire duration of reception.

He started Y1 on red reading level which is was the lowest of his class. He has moved up 4 levels since September and more importantly loves reading now. Also try you tube for the sounds so that you can help him with it . English is my second language so I wasn’t very good at helping him.

Keep it brief and fun with him and focus on the sounds and some very simple blending. Ie s u n/sun and he will get there.

Thanks everyone for their advice. The each your monster to read app has been a success and getting there with high frequency words although still struggling with it and at.

High frequency words are no different to any other word. They are words that appear frequently in texts (common words) but there's nothing difficult or special about them.

When you say your DS is struggling with ‘it’ and ‘at’, do you mean he doesn’t recognise them automatically each time, or that he can’t decode the sounds and blend them together to form the word?

It’s the second way (decoding) that’s important at this stage. Encourage him to sound out the letters how he’s been taught (‘i’ is ‘ih’, not ‘eye’) and then put those sounds together. It may take a while for the penny to drop, and he may need to go through the whole process every time he encounters the word, so be patient.

There is likely no "magic way" that helps them "click" and suddenly find it easier to learn to read and the more solutions you throw at him, the more he will resent reading.

My suggestion would be, since they're a boy, phonics flash cards. Boys are often motivated by competition rather than a challenging slog so challenging them to remember x number of phonics combinations could be helpful.

You'll be tired from work, they'll be tired from school. You'll fight with them, they will cry and rather do absolutely ANYTHING else than practise reading...but come Year 2 or Year 3 they'll be a pretty fluent reader. Supporting a child's reading at home is exhausting but you'll get there in the end.

Hi op, I was coming on here to say try the "teach your monster to read" app but pretty much everyone else said it already!

My dd really struggled with reading in reception and ended the year on red.
I am a prolific reader and was so disappointed that she seemed to hate reading so much.

Year one it just clicked and she flew through the stages and finished year one on turquoise.

Now she's in year 2 and just turned 7 she is a total book worm.
Is now reading white level which is the expected end of year level for year 2 and her teacher said she will likely exceed this.

I found that getting books about things that dd was/is really interested in massively helps.

She reads for pleasure now rather than because she has to.

Hang in there, he's still only very young and you are supportive which makes such a difference.

The above app as suggested but also The Read Write Inc programme is very good. Also go on Oxford Reading Tree website, there are some good tips there and some free online books. Try reading to your little one every night before bed.

Does the school use jolly phonics? It gives actions to the letter sounds...
So for s, wiggle your arm like a snake, n is hold out your arms and saying nnnn like a plane. I wondered what on earth my 5 year old was doing at first then realised each sound had a (reasonably intuitive) action to accompany it. It seems to help them remember the sound and makes it an active experience too.
I will add too that you shouldn't be made to feel bad or that you've done anything wrong. Its important that you feel you can work with your school and they will have seen a whole range of parents some who are unwilling to engage with their children at all. You're clearly not one of those.