How can I help her learn to read better?

[lyssie29]

My dd is almost 7 and I'm really struggling to get her to read. She brings her school reading books home but she still spells each word out before reading it and then says a completely different word. It takes a long time to read a page with 4 or 5 lines. She has come on well but will not read anything herself and will ask me what things say even if they are words she's read before. When she does read to me she gets distracted very easily and wriggles around continuously until I get annoyed and tell her to sit still. What can I do? I know you can't compare but her friends are reading independently now and bigger books. I'm not sure if she's just unwilling to read it or if she really doesn't know how to. I'm going to speak to the teacher on parents evening but how can I help her now? I was thinking of getting a note book and writing a word on each page and getting her to read the word and then write it out as it would help with spelling and handwriting as well as learning how to read the word do you think that would help? I have always read to her and she loves being read to but not reading herself.

Presumably you've had her eyes tested?

I just think it takes some children longer than others. DS is 8 and it's only very recently that he's started to read properly. All of the things which you describe were happening with us, there was a lot of frustration on both sides. We had meetings with his teacher but she said there were no particular problems, he just needed to keep practicing daily . I thought we'd never get to the stage he's at now but something clicked at last, just took a couple of years longer than expected!

I would go to the library with her find out things she wants to read. Read lots to her. cook with her and get herto read the recipe. Break doown the words? Could she be dyslexic?

Make it fun.

Scrabble tiles into a bowl of water and ask her to find the correct tiles for simple words.

Obviously, yes speak to her teachers.

My son is nearly 7, and still sounds words out. He didn't like reading for leisure, to encourage it we had 'book party', laying out a table with all his favourite snacks, but you have to read for atleast an hour. I took part, and had own stack of books. Now he reads one book everyday day, as well as school reading

Sometimes it takes a bit longer, or she could have dyslexic tendencies - a colour filter can really help, sometimes black lettering on a white background can be tricky.
DD is also nearly 7 and was massively behind with her reading until this year - I have always read with her but it just seems to have clicked with her and she has started to enjoy reading; sometimes it will just click.
(The last couple of years at school she didn't really progress much, but I didn't push it because I really didn't want to put her off)

There are a number of possible explanations for why she is struggling to learn to read and I would say Dyslexia sounds like the most likely because she is sound words out then still not reading the word right.

Around 10-20% of all children suffer from Dyslexia. At 7 you would expect some independent reading and it sounds like she is trying quite hard and is struggling.

This test is worth doing just to get an idea dyslexiagold.co.uk/DyslexiaScreeningTest of whether she has Dyslexia and then you can go from there once you know if it's Dyslexia.

My dd was struggling too. She was struggling with blending but knew all the sounds. She couldn’t seem to see how to put the sounds into a word.

I had a recommendation of a book which I bought from amazon; teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons by englemann.
It’s an American system which was trialled across the state and is quite simple- you read the red parts word for word and the child responds. She read her first book start to finish the other night after lesson 9 and by lesson 2 was blending.
I’m assuming I just wasn’t teaching her the best way and now I have read that book I can see why what we were doing wasn’t working. I would thoroughly recommend it

Many children find it difficult to switch from sounding out and blending to just reading words, as we do as adults.
Part of the problem is that many English words contain letters with several pronunciations (a: an - any, able; o: on - only, once, other). Many children have to meet the ones with irregular pronunciations very many times before they can read them on sight. Your dd might benefit from you noting down around 5 of the words that she struggles with, when you listen to her read a page or two. Then write those words on bits of card or paper and just help her to learn to read those. Keep going over the same cards until she can read them easily every time. Most children's reading improves dramatically when they can read all of the 100 - 150 most used words with tricky letters, such as 'said, was, he, she, friend...' which don't have their main or most common pronunciations (cf. paid, as, then, field...) - englishspellingproblems.blogspot.com/2019/01/worst-reading-problems.html
I would concentrate just on helping her with reading for now. Spelling is an even bigger can of worms. Most children get to grips with both eventually, but some find the irregularities really hard to cope with.

Thanks everyone. I'm gonna try some words games and write down the words she struggles with. I just tried to read her school book with her and after 3 pages of her reading pretty well and lots of praise from me she started saying the wrong words again. She kept fidgeting and rolling around on the sofa saying she didn't know and didn't want to do it anymore. I told her she was doing really well but stopped reading then so we only got through 5 pages as I read 2 of them. Then she lay on the floor saying she was stupid. I don't understand what's going on. I don't know if it's attention seeking or if she really feels this way. Her last parents evening her teacher said she was right on target for everything and she is doing good with her maths. Do you think it sounds like she's doing on purpose? The teacher hasn't told me that she behaves this way at school so I'm assuming she just does it with me.

Three pages sounds quite a bit, if there is quite a bit of text on each page.
Maybe stop when she has had enough?

I’d be considering getting her eyes tested at a specialist opticians which tests for dyslexia/irlens etc

I work with these kids as my job. Firstly! At this age it is perfectly normal!! Most European countries don't start teaching kids to read / write until they are almost 7. If there are no known issues then the main problem is that the child needs practice manipulating sounds. Phonetic games without looking at words / books usually help this and are fun for the child. Start with 2 letter words then 3 then bigger words. Clap them, stretch them, lots of energy and fun. Many of my parents do it on car journeys etc and if there's more than one child you can give them one each - adjust for ability. No more than 5 minutes at a time twice a day unless they want more. You start with 2 because it a so easy and it's high success so they enjoy it and want to keep 'winning'. You would expect to see improvement within 6 weeks if not sooner! Taking away the book takes away the focus on printed word which is not the issue since she is able to say the correct sound corresponding with the letter just not put them together. Progress to elkonin boxes after a few weeks as they might help. Good luck 😊

@gran75 there are 4 or 5 lines per page

@isitpossibleto she got her eyes tested in December but it was just a normal eye test do I need to ask them to test for it separately?

@eatanazurecrayon thank you for the advice. I will try some games with her and maybe just chill a bit with the books and just keep reading to her.

I would second the idea of adding in books with no words.
Explore creative language there are some awesome no word books that we still use in year 6 so they aren’t babyish!

Can she orally segment and blend sounds? So if you said to her ‘What are the sounds in sheep?” would she be able to say sh-ee-p? And vice versa, if you said the sounds s-n-a-ck separately would she be able to blend them into a word?

Are the books too hard for her? 4 or 5 lines per page must be quite a struggle if she’s not reading many words with automaticity. Is she able to follow the story of what she is reading if she is having to concentrate on the mechanics of reading? If not, she may be getting bored hence the unwillingness to read very many pages. Maybe “easier” books would give her more confidence.

I also find that my kid’s reading is much better when they find the story interesting, and some reading scheme books are really dull.

Maybe try a different "type" of book, such as fact books instead of fiction, poetry, comics or comic books, something like a joke book where reading a few jokes isn't very daunting.

lyssie29
Keeping it light and fun helps a lot. And not pushing too hard.
Definitely keep reading to her yourself. If you can find a few books that she really likes, keep re-reading them, and she may soon want to start reading bits from them to you herself. And as Leeds2 suggested, it does not have to be fiction all the time. (Much of the early years fiction written for teaching phonics is not exactly great!). eatanazurecrayon mentioned that in most of Europe kids don't start to read and write till nearly 7. They can afford to, because none of their spellings pose decoding difficulties like 'wOman, wOmen, wOnder'. Our little mites have to start earlier, because the 100s of words with daft spellings make learning to read English much harder than nearly all other languages. Please bear that in mind when trying to help her.

@gran75 I'm sorry but I have to disagree there. Developmentally it has been proven time and time again that teaching reading etc at such a young age is detrimental to the child. Our early start has also proven time and again to leave us further down in education ranking, behind say Finland, Denmark and the Netherlands who focus on social and emotional learning with a big focus on the outdoors. It has also been proven that starting at 7 rather than 5 by the time the kids are 9 there is no difference. Give the kid a break, she's just developing at a different rate which is totally common between 5-7...hence why other countries have different systems in place to recognise that. Not trying to be argumentative, just giving perspective. Our kids don't need and extra 2 years of sitting still and staring at paper. They're just as bright and capable as their European counterparts. We just need to recognise what our kids need developmentally at different states and react to that.

Although you are right, the problem is that in this country we don’t have systems in place to accommodate children who develop at different rates. Children who leave KS1 unable to read are likely to continue to struggle with reading throughout their school career. So although theoretically it might be better to wait until a child is 7 to teach them to read, our education system is set up around them learning when they are 5. The OP is doing the right thing in questioning this, and intervening to support her child.

@Elisheva totally agree. OP has had some great suggestions on how to help. Hopefully these will help ❤️

Look up Gwen and John precision teaching

Have to go to work! Will report back

Try not before bed, and some silly books - cartoons etc, so reading a few words will get a 'payoff', and try alternating pages - she does a page, you do one, she does one, and eventually she may just keep going.

My kids had very low tolerance for frustration, so looking over their shoulder and seeing a tricky word coming up I'd be ready to say 'that's Should - silly word with o-u going uh and a silent L' and child would tell the word off for being 'naughty' - but remember should and would in future.

Ds copped on quickly but dd seemed to be at the sounding-out stage forever...

I was the same, I wasn't very good at reading and wasn't reading at the right level.
My mum read Harry Potter to me every night until we got to the 4th or so book, she stopped to go to bed and I couldn't wait to find out what happened so I just picked it up and read it.