Tips to help blending in sight readers?

[OutsidebutnotAlone]

DD is 6, year 2.

She can read her common exception words 50% of the time, and can recognise these in books or on signs etc. but can't read much more than that.

She refuses to blend and instead remembers the story, so when she comes across a word she can't read/doesn't know by sight she just remembers whats been read to her rather than the actual word. If it's an unfamiliar book then she just guesses the word. She won't even attempt to blend.

Teacher says she's a sight reader so commits words to memory so she knows them when she comes across them again but that makes teaching her to read difficult as her brain doesn't recognise the sounds to blend.

She is also suspected dyslexic. Writing is ok but she struggles with spelling even when told the spelling she still can't always write it down correctly even if we do a letter at a time it can still be written wrong, she only learnt to sing the alphabet last year in year 1 and still struggles with digraphs, school haven't even introduced her to trigraphs yet.

We're going through EHCP process to get an assessment for the dyslexia but school are trying some small group work with her, however it's only once a week due to the way the staffing works due to covid, also apparently sight reading is unusual (not sure how true this is I'm not a teacher) so it can be hard to group children up when they read like this. She's in the covid catch up groups but these stop at May Half Term apparently and there's no TA support in KS2 and therefore no reading support unless she gets 1-1 which is unlikely as although she struggles and is behind in all subjects her understanding is there.

She's still on pink level 1 books with 1-2 words in.

School have said covid has not helped her as they could have done targetted support at the end of year 1 with an external tutor (former teacher from the school whose now retired but does targetted English and Maths work on a supply basis for this and another school in the area) if it wasn't for covid, they can't have external visitors at all at the moment so no chance of that help.

Any ideas of how I can help her at home? It feels like it's now or never to get her reading as if I leave it any longer and she goes into KS2 she will never get the opportunity to catch up or be able to read again.

There’s quite a lot you could work on at home. She has poor phonological awareness, which is a feature of dyslexia, but also occurs in isolation. She needs lots and lots of practice at listening to the sounds in words. If you google phonological awareness games/activities there are loads of ideas.
Broadly she needs to be able to 1. clap syllables, 2. identify a rhyme, 3. identify the first, last and middle sounds in a word 4. Blend sounds to make a word and 5. Segment a word into individual sounds.

Www.readingrockets.org is a good website to understand the steps needed to become a proficient reader.

@Elisheva

Www.readingrockets.org is a good website to understand the steps needed to become a proficient reader.

Thank you so much I will try all of those and will look at the website too

Not everyone learns to read using phonics. It's not unusual to be a sight reader, the government has just been pushing phonics a lot over the last 20 years or so. Before that there was much more emphasis on sight reading.

I would focus on developing her sight reading skills. Work on High Frequency Word recognition with lots of flashcard games - e.g. snap, bingo, timer challenges (how many can you read in a minute etc), hiding them round the house - anything to turn it into a game.

'Guessing' words is also an important strategy not to be dismissed. If she comes across a word she doesn't know, don't just tell her the word but help her work it out. E.g. get her to read the rest of the sentence and think what would make sense, look at the initial letter for clues etc.

If she just remembers the text by heart, make sure she points to each word as she reads. Then make a game of checking her recognition of each word. E.g. 'which word says "because"?" or "how many times can you see the word "there" on this page?"

By all means keep practicing the phonics too, but in my experience as a Reception teacher sometimes we put too much emphasis on it. It's only one strategy of many and different things will work for different people. The goal is to get her to read, not just to blend.

I’m sorry but this is just not true. Phonemic decoding is absolutely essential to be a proficient reader. As the OP has already recognised her dd has no way to tackle new words, and unless she learns to blend and segment words she will never be able to read new words independently. Of course learning comprehension skills is important, but being able to decode is the foundation to successful reading.
Guessing is a terrible strategy to encourage as when the child is reading alone she will have no way of knowing if her guess is correct or not.

We used blending orally (what do you get if you put d-og together) for my two before they did it in letters. You can start with syllables (bas-ket) then one single sound and a syllable (c-at) then a CVC word.

Dd had additional lessons on a Saturday through our local dyslexia association, really helped. She was level 1 at age 7, level 3 at year 6 sats ... but got a*aab at a level ... please don't worry, sight readers fo get there. Both my DD's are sight readers in fact, it's just dd1 has a better memory and learned to read before starting school, turns out I am too!

As a previous poster mentioned, your DD needs to improve her phonological awareness. This link has some great fun activities you could do at home. schools.essex.gov.uk/pupils/SEND/Documents/The%20Ultimate%20Guide%20to%20Phonological%20Awareness.pdf#search=phonological%20awareness

@Elisheva

I managed to get a degree, masters and work for many years without being able to decide efficiently! We all learn differently. I didn't realise I had an issue until my dd was diagnosed. I find it very hard to work out how to pronounce words I don't know for instance but thankfully I have a very good memory

How did your sight readers learn words such as photosynthesis, chlorophyll, Quidditch, muggle, despot, daemon, polygon?

I will try everything and will be talking to her teacher as well about whether these will work with DD.

I can’t remember how I learnt to read but I’m pretty sure that not everyone learnt the same way and I’m not even 30 so it’s changed a lot with the emphasis but I’m not sure if it’s a good thing or not.

@Elisheva I don't know about you, but personally I never used phonics to decode most of those words (the possibly exception being muggle.amd Quidditch, which are slightly different anyway as they are new, invented words). Are you really saying that you sounded out ph-o-t-o-s-y-n-th-es-i-s when you first encountered the word?!

Also, guessing is not a terrible strategy. Yes it's not 100% reliable but then neither is phonics in our wonderfully irregular language. I've seen plenty of children blindly sounding out words without considering the meaning of what they're reading - I'd say that's an equally terrible strategy.

I'm a sight reader; can't blend for toffee but I have a degree and I'm a very proficient reader. My eldest has inherited this trait from me. Honestly make sure you introduce a wide range of vocabulary because if I've heard it in context then I'll recall the word when read.

Yours is a bit young but we listen to a lot of TED talks. Interesting subjects in bite size chunks and use them as jumping off points.

I don't know about you, but personally I never used phonics to decode most of those words (the possibly exception being muggle and Quidditch)
The point being that you did use decoding to read these words. There is simply no way that you can teach a person to sight read all the words they need to know, and the brain hasn’t got the capacity to store the words as whole units - the average reading vocabulary is around 40,000 words, many more for an academic.
People think that they are sight readers because their brain decides at such speed that they are unaware of the process.

Are you really saying that you sounded out ph-o-t-o-s-y-n-th-es-i-s when you first encountered the word?!
Yes, how else would you read a new word?! I didn’t say the sounds out loud, but my brain ‘sounded it out’.
Brain scans have proven that adults use decoding when they are reading. Most children will pick it up either indirectly or with a bit of instruction, but the ones that don’t need to be explicitly taught or they become the 1:6 adults that can’t read.

Anyway, I wasn’t talking about phonics in my original reply, I was talking about phonological awareness which is a slightly different skill.

When people first encounter the word photosynthesis they usually already have a lot more decoding skills than just phonics. Phonics are the foundation, they would allow me to have learnt at a young age that ph made the f sound. Knowing alternative phonemes would have taught me that the o in photo is the oh sound in this case, rather than o (as in the word on). By the time I am needing to read photosynthesis I know other spelling rules such as when a y makes an i sound and when it would make an ee sound etc etc.
So no, phonics is not the only way, but it is the first way. Of course many people are able to skip this with certain words by reading by sight (my DD was the same with some words) but to know how to tackle a new word and break it down into individual sounds is the foundation to build other reading skills on top of.

@Elisheva
The point being that you did use decoding to read these words
But I didn't need to. All I needed to know was that 'muggle' is a non magical person and 'Quidditch' I'd a game. I work this out from context (or guessing, if you like). How I pronounce these words doesn't actually matter until I am talking to someone about it. I've mispronounced plenty of words without it affecting my comprehension.

Yes, how else would you read a new word?
Well personally I would first see the word 'photo'. I would then realise that I'm reading about how plants make food, so it probably says photosynthesis.

Brain scans have proven that adults use decoding when they are reading
Could you direct me towards this research? My DH is nearly 40 and dyslexic, and still asks me for help to spell and pronounce perfectly decodable words. He's a voracious reader and in a good job, so defin not one of the one in six.

I'd try nonsense words to help decoding.

www.healthyplace.com/adhd/articles/10-years-of-brain-imaging-research-shows-the-brain-reads-sound-by-sound

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20395549/

www.unicog.org/publications/Dehaene%20Review%20Cognitive%20neuroscience%20of%20Reading%20and%20Education%202011.pdf

Devauchelle, A.D., Oppenheim, C., Rizzi, L., Dehaene, S., & Pallier, C. (2009). Sen- tence syntax and content in the human temporal lobe: an fMRI adaptation study in auditory and visual modalities. J Cogn Neurosci, 21(5), 1000-1012.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2734884/

@Elisheva those scientific papers are not actually saying what you think they're saying. And the first link is actually an advert for something the site is selling, The Phonics Game (TM). Coincidentally the DfE's big push on phonics also happens to be very lucrative for friends of the government such as Ruth Miskin.

I'm not saying that phonological awareness has no role to play in reading - just that it's one piece of a complex puzzle and over reliance on any one piece of that puzzle is damaging.

Wow didn't expect such a discussion but it is interesting to read other peoples opinions and experiences.

@3ormorecharacters is right in that as an adult we're sight readers until we come across a new word which of course is rarer.

@Elisheva thank you for your very helpful input I will be looking into those suggestions. I've googled phonological awareness and reading up on it slowly.

Everyone else thank you I will keep working with her, and try what I can. She definitely has the understanding so is unlikely to get 1-1. She was talking about her history project from this half term and could tell me facts about it even though some of them were in the wrong order factually they were right, so she definitely has the ability and understanding she just needs support to actually read which will be even more important in year 3 and above,

@onthinice you are talking about phonics and saying it isn't phonics. Not sure why?

@Elisheva I couldn't agree more with everything you've said throughout this thread! I was about to type a response but you have taken the words right out of my mouth

@drspouse not sure what you mean there. Phonics is phonics, there are other spelling rules that children learn further on through school as well. I was saying you need phonics as a foundation and then you will build on this with learning further spelling rules.

@Elisheva

I’m sorry but this is just not true. Phonemic decoding is absolutely essential to be a proficient reader. As the OP has already recognised her dd has no way to tackle new words, and unless she learns to blend and segment words she will never be able to read new words independently. Of course learning comprehension skills is important, but being able to decode is the foundation to successful reading. Guessing is a terrible strategy to encourage as when the child is reading alone she will have no way of knowing if her guess is correct or not.

I agree. Many children use sight recognition as a coping strategy. Once they come across texts with more ‘ longer words, they easily come unstuck. Having taught for 30+ years, I’ve seen all sorts of methods being in fashion, sight vocabulary being one of the least successful. Structured phonics is what helps the overwhelming majority of children to learn to read fluently. OP, you need to get your dd registered on PhonicsPlay, it’s £6 a year and has lots of games she can play to support her learning. She needs to do activities every day - really immerse her in this. www.phonicsplay.co.uk/secure/signup#top It will help her immensely.

I'm a TA and my daughter is a sight reader. Whilst we would always encourage blending, some kids (my daughter included) just don't get it. Interestingly, she's dyslexic too. Whilst it did hold her back through primary because her spelling was so poor, its proved an amazing skill at secondary. She picks up languages so easy as she recognises the shape and patterns that the words make. She's soaring with French and taught herself some simple Japanese over lockdown. Whilst she's eyeing up careers in a wildly different direction, her language ability means she has a rock solid plan B.