How to help a child who doesn't "get" blending?

[Patchworksack]

I help in my daughter's year 1 class half a day a week listening to children read. The school do Read, Write, Inc and they have spent lots of time in YR on phonics. Most of the children are on book band 3 or 4. The school had to make a lot of TAs redundant at the end of last year which means much reduced reading support in school. There is one boy in the class who seems to be massively behind, he has secure knowledge of all the single letters but he can't blend CVC words. His reading book is one of the flip books with a single word on the page then flip over to see the picture. It doesn't look like he is getting any support at home, nobody is signing his planner to say they have practised with him. The school have had several workshops to teach parents how to support the scheme at home and had a meeting for all the families where the children were not meeting expectations in YR. I don't get chance to speak to the teacher about it because I come in after the register and have to sign out before the end of school to get my daughter and it would be a bit odd to ask for a meeting about a child who isn't mine. Any suggestions to help him? He just can't hear that c-a-t is cat and he's obviously demoralised with it.

OP - it’s great that you care so much. However, surely, you should be talking to the teacher for advice rather than asking on here? Isn’t knowing how to teach children at any ability their job...?

Try not to judge. You have no idea what the situation is as you haven't spoken to the teacher.

Blending is phonological awareness, which is a set of ‘pre-reading’ skills that some children struggle with. If their phonological awareness is poor then they won’t make progress in reading, regardless of how much phonics practice they do.
There are lots of games and activities that can be done to develop phon awareness skills e.g. www.readingrockets.org/helping/target/phonologicalphonemic

I'm not judging - I'm asking for strategies to help him. I can't speak to the teacher because she is teaching the class! He may have SEN that I'm not aware of.

Thanks Elisheva - that link is helpful.

I've been looking at stuff to help with blending for DS. I've seen recommendations for the Bear Necessities series. If you click on book A1, and then on the look inside link you can flick through the book and see their approach which I found helpful. It's at www.soundfoundations.co.uk/product/bear-necessities-book-a1/

Highly recommend this free course for parents who want to help their child read and write https://www.udemy.com/course/help-your-child-to-read-and-write/

Thanks I will check out those links.

A relatively small group of children find blending extremely difficult and, for these children, it is a skill that needs to be taught very precisely.

Google the 'Cluella Study'. This research shows that 'children were significantly more successful blending phonemes with added schwa than without.' That is absolutely our experience and interestingly it is in total opposition to how teachers are generally trained. You might want to talk to your senco about this.

Thank you twoyears

Adding the schwa makes it more difficult to hear the word rather than easier
/k/ /uh/ /a/ /t/ /uh/ 🤔

Surely you can talk to the teacher about a child who is struggling, outside the actual class lesson?

Do you have any knowledge of early literacy acquisition? Because if not, you may not be the best person to be supporting him. The teacher has a role here, too.

Children who are struggling with this need explicit, systematic instruction, so you probably need some expert help.

And do you have any idea whether the links people are sharing with you are robust, effective and evidenced-based?

Of course I'm not solely responsible for this child learning to read - I'm just asking for strategies to use to help him in the once a week where he sounds the letters then looks at me blankly. There is specialised qualified reading support further up the school for children who fail their phonics screening - that specialised support has disappeared for YR and Y1 due to funding cuts. In an ideal world he'd have a parent who read with him every day and 1-2-1 with a reading specialist - in reality he is not getting that. There are other kids who don't get listened to at home and are being listened to by year 5 children - I doubt they have any 'knowledge of early literacy acquisition' beyond their own experience either! Nobody thinks this is how it should be - we are in the lowest funded local authority in the country and the situation in schools is pretty dire. I don't know if the teacher will make an appointment to talk to me about a child other than my own - I can ask?

And Mumsnet seems like an odd place to come for that guidance, when a conversation with the teacher would seem to be the first port of call, followed by a little research into what actually works for struggling beginning readers.

I find it hard to believe that a teacher wouldn't have a single conversation(?!) with a parent who comes in to help kids read - especially if that parent has a valid concern about a child's progress. Isn't that part of the point of coming in to support the teacher?

Feel free to ignore me of course, it all just seems very topsy turvy.

So those posters on this thread who are sniffy about the very idea of the TA doing anything to help a struggling reader--presumably you never read with your own children at home or listen to them read? Because nobody who does not have a PGCE is allowed to play any kind of role in the process...

The fact that parental involvement is strongly correlated with reading success suggests that people without teaching qualifications are perfectly capable of making a difference, and the OP has said that she is trying to help children who don't get read to at home.

Also the OP has explained why "just talk to the teacher" is difficult.

I have to teach my own child as a non-PGCE person (I live overseas in a non-English-speaking country) and I have found the Spelfabet site and videos very helpful. It's Australian but still great for UK people. It teaches about systematic synthetic phonics (SSP) and is evidence-based as well as being simple to use as a resource.

www.spelfabet.com.au

www.youtube.com/user/spelfabet

I think what you are already doing will help eventually. I remember my DS being at that stage and being very secure identifying c, a, t as individual letters but no concept of why those three letters made cat. tbh it just clicked one day after many frustrating weeks - and that was in a house full of books where he had been read to daily since birth and we were very assiduous with his reading books from school.

Obviously with this child he isn't getting as much practice as would be ideal so it may take a bit more time.

The only "strategy" is I am sure obvious enough that you already know it. Make sure when he is sounding out consonant letters that he knows, he isn't adding a neutral vowel sound (is just saying t as a t noise with the tip of the tongue, not vocalising it as 'tuh'. If that is already happening then its just a matter of practice.

He just can't hear that c-a-t is cat and he's obviously demoralised with it.

This inability to do phonetic decoding is a key symptom of dyslexia. You could refer him to SEN for assessment.

“Why Dyslexic Students Struggle with Phonics
Most teachers agree that difficulty with phonetic decoding is a hallmark characteristic of dyslexia. That is the reason that most dyslexia remediation is focused so heavily on phonics. It seems to make sense to intensify instruction in the area where the student seems to struggle the most.

This teaching strategy will often work well for students whose reading delays stem from poor preparation or inadequate exposure to reading before entering school. But children with dyslexia are often labeled as treatment “resisters,” as they do not seem to progress with even the most intensive and careful instruction. Researchers report that that 30-50% of children with learning disabilities fit this category.

The failure to respond to traditional intervention is so common among dyslexic students that it is now accepted as a valid alternative to formal diagnostic testing.

Of course, these children are not willfully “resisting” anything. They struggle with phonetic strategies because their brains are wired differently. They simply are not able to categorize the sounds of language or connect sound to meaning in the same way as other students. Researchers now know that this difference is probably inborn and can be detected in early infancy.

Additionally, research suggests that about 15% of children with dyslexia do not have the characteristic difficulties with phonics. Rather, if tested and diagnosed, they will be found to have a different subtype of dyslexia. They do well on tests of phonetic decoding, but have difficulty with irregular words, indicating a visual or surface type dyslexia. Phonics-based teaching won’t help that group because their reading barriers lie elsewhere. Almost two-thirds of children seem to have a mix of both types of dyslexia; for them, at best, phonetic instruction is only a partial solution.”

Link: www.dyslexia.com/davis-difference/davis-theory/when-phonics-doesnt-work/

References
Marshall, A., Smith, L., & Borger-Smith, S. (2009). Davis Program Average Reading Gains.

Torgesen, J.K. (2000) Individual Differences in Response to Early Interventions in Reading: The Lingering Problem of Treatment

Resisters.Learning Disabilities Research & Practice, Vol. 15, Issue 1, pp. 55-64; Al Otaiba, S., and Fuchs, D. (2006)

Al Otaiba, S. & Fuchs, D. (2006) Who Are the Young Children for Whom Best Practices in Reading Are Ineffective? An Experimental and Longitudinal Study. Journal of Learning Disabilities, Vol 30, No. 3, pages 414-431.

Snowling, M. J. (2012), Early identification and interventions for dyslexia: a contemporary view. Journal of Research in Special Educational Needs. Vol 13, Issue 1, pages 7-14.

Van Leeuwen, T., Been, P., et al. (2006). Mismatch response is absent in 2-month-old infants at risk for dyslexia. Neuroreport. Vol. 17, Issue 4, pp 351-355. van Leeuwen, T., Been, P., et al. (2008).

Two-month-old infants at risk for dyslexia do not discriminate /bAk/ from /dAk/: A brain-mapping study. Journal of Neurolinguistics. Vol 21, Issue 4, pp 333-348.

Wybrow, D. & Hanley, J.R. (2012, August). Subtypes of developmental dyslexia: Stanovich et al. (1997) revisited. Talk presented at BPS cognitive section conference, Glasgow.

As a Y1 teacher I can honestly say at this point in the year I haven’t been able to listen to every child in my class read. I teach the highest ability phonics group so there are some lower ability children I haven’t had the opportunity to listen to yet. If a child wasn’t picking up blending in the same way as their peers I would want to know so I could assess them myself and potentially refer to the SENDCO.

I'm a speech therapist with a specialty in literacy. Here are some tips, but if he continues to struggle with reading and spelling after receiving one on one instruction in systematic synthetic phonics you should definitely refer him on to a specialist. Early intervention is key.

Here are some tips:

I would make sure he thoroughly knows his letter sounds. SOUNDS! Go over them- over and over and over (use flash cards) until he can read each one at a rate of one per second or faster (including short vowels, maybe some high frequency long digraph vowels, and consonant digraphs). This takes time. Don't assume he knows these sounds well enough for fluent reading.

Regarding blending, try this technique:

Instead of getting him to blend one sound at a time and then figure out the word (e.g c-a-t=cat) get him to BLEND the sounds into each other. (Cat- "what's the first sound? /K/, what's the second? /a/... Now squish them together- remember to keep your voice on 'cc...a... Ccc.aaaa. caaaa-t cat'

This will take a lot of pressure off his memory and is also the correct way to blend.

Lots of praise too and please consider getting a specialist to see this child.

Best of luck

but if he continues to struggle with reading and spelling after receiving one on one instruction in systematic synthetic phonics you should definitely refer him on to a specialist.

The OP can't even seemingly talk to the child's actual teacher about the issue - how is she supposed to refer him to a specialist?

This inability to do phonetic decoding is a key symptom of dyslexia. You could refer him to SEN for assessment.

Surely this is the teacher's job.

Most teachers agree that difficulty with phonetic decoding is a hallmark characteristic of dyslexia. That is the reason that most dyslexia remediation is focused so heavily on phonics. It seems to make sense to intensify instruction in the area where the student seems to struggle the most.

Where students 'struggle the most'?

Surely if a child is struggling with phonological and phonemic awareness, they will be struggling much more with whole language. They're not struggling 'the most' with phonological / phonemic awareness - they haven't even got past it, or mastered it, so as to move onto the more complex aspects of reading!

Of course it's necessary to intensify instruction with phonological awareness - since this is the 'code' of reading and writing.

If children struggle with this aspect, then they're never going to be able to read for meaning, or think critically about the text they're reading - both much more complex that 'phonics'.

So those posters on this thread who are sniffy about the very idea of the TA doing anything to help a struggling reader--presumably you never read with your own children at home or listen to them read? Because nobody who does not have a PGCE is allowed to play any kind of role in the process...

I can't work out if you're being disingenuous, or genuinely don't get it.

We're not talking about someone's own child.

If you were reading at home to your child and they were struggling - and you had a gut feeling that they weren't progressing as they should be - would you blunder on?

Or would you talk to their teacher and ask for a referral or specialist support?

We're not talking about supporting learning at home, for a child who's meeting curriculum expectations here.

@OooErMissus
I think you will find that phonetic decoding and phonological awareness are not the same thing.

As a dyslexic and the mother of a severely dyslexic child, I can tell you that phonetic decoding is not essential to learning how to read for meaning or critical thinking. Dyslexics with the right intervention tailored to their specific subtype of dyslexia can be very successful readers and academics.