Ds can’t/ won’t read

[Howmanysleepsnow]

Ds is 6 (year 2 but August born) and can’t read. He’s on stage 3 books (Oxford) and sounds out words but often still can’t recognise them. He’s very reluctant to read at home and often refuses as he “can’t do it”. He won’t even try to sound out words on signs/ in games anymore. His hearing is ok, according to the screening, but he can’t tell the difference between end and start sounds in words day to day (eg 14 and 40). He had speech therapy for the frequent mispronunciation of start/ end sounds and was able to recognise and replicate in sessions. He’s discharged now: partly due to improvement, partly because he hated it and stopped trying/ engaging.
How do I help him when he won’t try at home? Apparently he tries hard in school and is a hard worker and really conscientious, but at home he refuses. I have a meeting with his teacher next week at my request. What do I ask for? He already gets extra small group support.

To add to what Noredtformrz said, in recent years various studies using brain scans have confirmed that children use phonics to learn to read. It just takes some schools a while to catch up with current thinking!

Have you tried the reading eggs app - it's been brilliant for my 'reading refuser' 5 year old

It just takes some schools a while to catch up with current thinking!

Hardly current - phonics as the only method taught for decoding has been the NC since 2014.

When you go to the meeting I would say that the group intervention he is having doesn't seem to be the right one for him and do they have any others they can try? He may need a wave 3 intervention (wave 1 = class teaching, wave 2 = smaller group intervention, wave 3 = one-to-one intensive intervention). They should have a toolbox of interventions available. Possibly reading recovery or similar.

Ask the school what the most helpful activities are to do at home. You could also ask if they use Reading Eggs and can set him tasks or set up your own account.

At home, I would focus on reading for fun or utility. Perhaps a newspaper, magazine, annual or even a cookbook. Whatever interests him.

At school and at home I would say the key is little and often. Better to read for 7-10 mins a day than half an hour twice a week. Even just a minute at first, then stop before he gets bored or complains.

Hardly current - phonics as the only method taught for decoding has been the NC since 2014
Doesn’t mean that schools are doing it! Mixed methods is still very much favoured in many of the schools I visit .

And just this week I heard an EP recommend whole word teaching for a child with suspected dyslexia.

The LEA EP recommended whole word reading for DS who does NOT have any phonics problems (he passed his Y1 screening but has behaviour problems)

Whatever method you use, what you need is tons of practice and he will not want to do that unless it is fun.Thinks of lots of interesting ways to present words and be willing to give rewards - praise, stickers, sweeties, games time, outings, hobby items, whatever works.You want to get to the point where he thinks the chore of reading is worth his while.

One thing I used with my DC was a jar with folded pieces of paper in it with words on. Aim for a decent percentage of words they know with some they have to work harder on.

They pull out a piece of paper and unfold it, read it and trade the piece of paper for eg a sticker or chocolate button. If they haven't quite got the word, put it back in the jar after the session without them seeing so you can revisit it.

A refinement on this is to fill the jar with activities and then he can do the activity eg park, football, bike, swim, cook.

Never underestimate the power of success. I had a chart up on the wall where we wrote up words which the DC could read with a big tick and a sticker next to them.

Once the list started growing, it was a huge motivator, especially if my friends came round and I could say to them in front of DC (after priming them in advance) "Look X can read all these words" to which they were suitably impressed and asked for them to be read out and gave congratulations. A bit of self confidence does wonders.

Mixed methods is still very much favoured in many of the schools I visit
My point was more that even going by the statutory curriculum, they're six years out of date. Very pleased that Ofsted have at last changed their schedule to reflect it.

Dtds (also summer born) found reading tough. In evenings I stopped getting them to read to me and I read things like the faraway tree and wishing chair to them, a chapter every night ish. My thought was that I wanted them to absorb the vocabulary and enjoy books rather than see them as a chore. They're now year 4 and we mix it up - sometimes they read to us and others dh is working through Harry Potter - I cant do the accents like him!

I’ll look at the reading eggs app, he may like that.

The Teach your Monster to Read app is also good fun.

You need a proper hearing test to exclude glue ear which can cause the missing start and ends of words. My child passed basic screenings including one at school in between two specialist ones which she failed.

I’ll look at teach your monster to read too, thanks.
I’ll also ask about an extra hearing assessment.

We had similar problem when one of our children was younger -we'd had probelms with eldest -school did mixed method teaching so stepped in earlier with him.

He was nearer 4 so we did Bear Necessities Book A1 - tip in there about shouting out sounds being blended made a huge difference. Did 10 minutes in morning with mix of insistence and bribery then went on to next book.

He passed, failed was borderline with hearing tests I suspected glue ear but he wasn't bad enough for lcoal services to offer help.

Over time he went from hating reading to quite the book worm -he's at secondary and doing well now.

teach your monster to read how to read is good though we used it as a supplement for our other children - DS didn't seem to need it when it came out. We've also had to work on spellings - same issue can't hear sound in words.

We also used reading chest picking phonic based schemes and bought song birds and other phonics series like Fat Cat on a Mat and Other Tales as school weren't sending home phonic based books and local libaries had few.

Reading Eggs is American and uses mixed methods as does Teach Your Monster to a lesser degree

Howmanysleepsnow: I think he’s bright. He’s got a good spoken vocabulary (minus the speech issues), good reasoning, is able to understand concepts well, is good at maths.
To me that seems the main reason why he is finding learning to read difficult. Children like that like to work things out logically, but English spelling is often not logical. In most languages you can learn to read by just learning a few sentences. The biggest problem in learning to read English is that learning to recognise quite a few common words like 'one, said, who...' does not teach kids how pronounce all other words (bone, paid, so...).

Taught properly, English phonics is satisfyingly logical.

"Children like that like to work things out logically, but English spelling is often not logical. " English is more complex than other languages but is logical. Explicit teaching is important because of the complexity.

Buy "Toe by Toe" and do 10 minutes (timed ) every day with a little treat at the end (Full instructions come with the book which is targeted at dyslexics but works well with all )
You will go nuts with boredom but my experience is that kids are fine with it and progress rapid. dump all other books until he shows an interest

Bear Necessities is much more age appropriate than Toe by Toe IMHO

drspouse and Norestmrz
'Sleep, slept' and 'keep, kept' are clearly logical.
But 'dream, dreamt' and 'hear, heard' are very clearly not, and no teaching can make them logical.
Kids can be trained to accept them, not to question them and just learn them, but that does not make such spellings logical, or prevent them from baffling and infuriating many kids with very logical minds.

My DS, although a little older does the Nessy phonics programme at home. It's been amazing and he is going through the reading levels at lightning speed.

That's past tense though, not irregular phonics.

ea can be e like red or ee like feet.
ear can be ear like, well, ear or er like learn
All quite common.

Obviously you haven't been taught phonics gran