Reception age reading

[PETRONELLAS]

I’m trying to help an EAL child (free - my DS’s friend) with reading. His phonic knowledge is accurate and he sounds out/blends properly but literally every word. Very mechanical. Understands what he’s reading but there’s no fluency. It’s like he’s stuck in a rut with the process. From my own DC I think the next step is memorising some (tricky) words but what else can I do to encourage fluency.

I would concentrate on accuracy in reception fluency will follow. Natural exposure to high frequency words builds automaticity so avoid memorisation of whole words. Basically at this stage (when child is able to blend words accurately and understand) it's a matter of repetition and can't be rushed.

One thing would be to try and focus on comprehension. Get him to talk about the picture, what has happened, predict what is happening so that he gets the idea that reading is about content rather than the mechanics of a word.

He's in reception so what you are describing sounds completely appropriate.

I am ESL myself, and at reception, he is doing just fine. Many native speaker children are at the same level at this stage.
Agree that accuracy is more important than fluency at this stage.
Small children are like sponge, they will learn new language really quickly. Tricky words are better decoded properly than memorised. Like pp said, repetition and exposure by reading lots of books is better, imo.

DD is in Yr 1 and was exactly like this last year. Her fluency has come on in leaps and bounds in the past year so that sounds fine to me.

Thank you for the help. I know it’s all fine but wanted to support towards the next steps as the phonics/blending is totally accurate and he is a really good learner who reads often.

The best thing is for him to mix with native English speakers and talk to adults in English eg making up stories from picture books. My friends son "caught up" with his single language peers by the end of year 1, he's fluent in 3 languages!

I assume if you are helping him, his own parents aren't fluent in English.
Best thing you can do is talk to him, a lot. And tell your dc to talk to him too. At this really early age, it won't take long for him to become fluent.
And you can ask him to teach your dc his language too.Using your brain to learn knew language is really good for developing child'd brain at early age. He may love it too, to teach them.
It's very lovely that you want to help your child's friend.