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Primary education

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Original poster

Tips to help a Year 1 reluctant reader

31 replies

KitchenSupperParty · 12/06/2023 21:23

Any KS1 teachers to offer advice?

Background: DD age 6, third child, February born. No SN as far as we know. Enjoys being read to. Attends large state school in "good" area of a big city. Book band green. She's in the second to bottom reading group and seems to be very discouraged with it all.

She was doing ok with her reading, so we thought, until her previous teacher went on maternity leave and the new teacher raised concerns. Not major concerns, but, for example, sounding out words she had already read a page ago. Things like that.

It was partly our fault, we hadn't done as much reading at home as we should have. We upped this and made it a priority, getting reading books from the library and trying to read at least every other night.

Tonight was a good example of the problem. She came home, ate, played etc and then trying to coax her to read resulted in a meltdown. Eventually she read (ok ish) but it's always so hard. She always wants to put it off. Still sounding out words that are really quite basic. Making silly mistakes.

How can we help her? I'm concerned about her going into year 2 and getting further behind. I'm going to speak to the teacher but she reads fine in school according to the reading record.

Sorry this is long. All ideas welcomed.

OP posts:
TheBestUsernamesAreGone · 13/06/2023 21:41

careerchange456 · 13/06/2023 21:30

Year 1 teacher

Which phonics scheme does her school follow and does she recall all the sounds taught so far?

Does she recognise all of the tricky words so far?

For improving fluency, lots of modelling an repetition works well. If she's not keen, on the first read of the book try you reading one sentence with her tracking the sentence with her finger; then she reads the sentence tracking it with her finger.

On the subsequent readings of the book, ask her to reread each sentence so that she can read it fluently without sounding out. To begin with, let her sound the sentence out, then read it back through together.

I agree with read every day - you need to build it into the routine at a time that always works. It's also a non-negotiable. With my DC (year 1 and 3) we read every day after showers and before bed. It doesn't matter when but a consistent time that you can manage every day works best. Much better to have a day off if needed than try to be negotiating when she will read!

This is good advice. I would say in addition to tricky words, it can be beneficial to practice high frequency words too (not necessarily 'tricky' but if they can be recognized by sight it speeds reading up and then aids with comprehension) such as and, but, because, then etc.

curtains23 · 13/06/2023 22:20

What are her interests? Go to the library and get out some books that interest her and then read to her at home.

Heckythump1 · 14/06/2023 07:13

At that age we read every day, without fail, we would get in from school, have a snack and then straight into reading, so it was done and out of the way.
We also subscribed to Reading Chest, it's all reading scheme books, you just choose the book band and they send you a few, you send them back and they send you more, really easy to change book band and you can have a few from different book bands too if you like. They get through so many books at this stage, it's not cost effective to buy them.
We also practiced phonics daily too, school did RWI, so I bought the flashcards, and she'd test us on them, but really she was practicing them herself.

thepresureofausername · 14/06/2023 07:35

Some good advice above but half an hour is way too much. 10 mins a day max. Take it in turns. Read them books at a separate time, a slightly higher level than they can manage.
Read to them MUCH more than you expect them to read to you. They have to learn to love stories and this is how.
Reading Eggs is a great app but you have to pay.
Biggest thing is put the subtitles on the telly. They read without knowing it but hearing the words at the same time helps them learn.

GobbolinoCat · 14/06/2023 17:50

@KitchenSupperParty

If may click but if not, blending and phonics could be a barrier to a natural site reader.

One of mine really got it the other sad prevented frome reading by it

Lulaloo · 15/06/2023 17:10

I have a lot of experience at this level and to be honest if she is still sounding out quite a bit she possibly shouldn’t yet be on green band . I would be expecting a high degree of fluency and sounding out only unknown words at this level. Fluency at a lower level would be far more beneficial at this point.
Green band is fine for year one level. As we all know they all learn at different rates and they all ‘get there’ in their own time.
It certainly doesn’t mean that they will not consolidate their skills and fly in year 2.

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