Summer born YR DC struggling with reading

[WalkingDead99]

My DS is summer born. He is currently in Reception at a non-academic prep. He know all letter and all phonics they have learned so far but is still unable to blend phonics. Because he is unable to blend he does not like reading himself, always asks me to read.
His father went to school at the age of 4 but did not learn reading until he was 7. So the chances are DS may not be able to start reading until he is 7.
The prep teachers are keep calling us to tell that DS is behind. I guess behind the children who are 8-9 months older than him.
I do not want to put my DS off reading completely. He refuses to read the books school puts in his bag, those Oxford Reading tree books.

How would you deal with the situation?

1. Shall I just tell the teacher that I am aware that DS cannot read (which is true) and I am aware that his dad is late reader so we have to wait until DS's brain matures enough to understand blending? I keep reading to DS myself because he is used to it and asks me to read every evening.
   Obviously I will try to encourage DS to attempt to read Oxford Reading books when he is in the mood.

2. Or shall I find a good tutor (if such exists) who would be able to explain blending to my DS? Is it even possible before the child's brain ready to teach him reading?

3. Or shall I try to teach DS sight reading, basically memorizing the words? The teacher gave us the list of "high frequency words" for DS to memorize which came as surprise to me. She mentioned he should recognize 40 by now but he only recognizes 11. So there is a lot of words memorizing anyway why to bother with phonics and blending?

Try not to worry. He is very young. It's great that he knows the sounds so blending is the next step to work on.
What I did with my sons was when I was talking to them I might say, let's get your h-a-t and see if they could figure it out. Or look at that d-o-g etc. the more practice you can do with him the quicker he will get it. Just try to fit it in your usual conversation (at first just cvc words) so it isn't putting extra pressure on him or forcing him to sit at the table for too long. Good luck.

Am so surprised at the push. Although my summer born ds picked blending quickly their school did not push this though its a rather academic one. For the first few months they were given books without words to "read". Try not to worry. I would go with option 1. I also think @Newuser75's suggestion is brilliant. DONT overly pressure your son. There is still time and so many kids start slow then make a leap

Definitely don't bother with a tutor. If he's not picking up phonics from the work his teacher is doing with him in class he's not ready yet and you'd be throwing your money away.

The approach of teaching 'tricky' sight words separate from phonics is because the English language is very complex and many of the high-frequency words which appear regularly in their books can't be sounded out as they haven't learned the code for it yet (eg the, to, no, go, he, she, was, my etc).

Children 'get' blending at different times, it takes some a lot longer than others. I often find some children pick up the tricky words quickly, as that's how their brain works, and yet they're still struggling with can, had, big, run etc. As a Reception teacher I see no harm in using flash cards for those who struggle with phonics but are picking up sight words. The theory behind teaching phonics is because the human brain only has the capacity to memorise so many hundred words (apparently), so we we need to teach children strategies to work out unfamiliar words which are phonetically decodable. So keep plugging away with blending games, but there's no harm in adding in a sight reading approach too to help him on his way. If he can learn to recognise several vc and cvc words by sight, it will give him a confidence boost if nothing else. I often add them in at this time of year anyway as I want children to start recognising them even if they can blend. It can be frustrating hearing a child read the sentence 'They went on a bus and had fun' (for example) and the only word they read by sight is they! If they can read they, because they have memorised it, they definitely should be able to do the same with 'on', 'and', 'had' etc if they're shown them enough times!

40 words by sight at only half way through Reception sounds incredibly optimistic though, I'd be happy with 50 by the end of the year (on average, obviously some children will be well beyond this and others will know a lot less). To say he 'should' know 40 by sight already, only halfway through the school year, is unrealistic expectations. Talk about putting pressure on children and labeling them as behind an early stage.

Ideas to help the blending process:-

Play I spy by sounding out CVC words, eg I spy with my little eye a b-i-n, or a m-a-t etc.

Give instructions in robot talk whenever you use a CVC word, eg s-i-t down, or g-e-t your c-oa-t. Z-i-p i-t u-p etc.

Animal noise game. Ask what noise a d-o-g makes? What about a d-u-ck? What does a p-I-g sound like? etc (could also do hen, cat, sheep etc) . Or ask him to point to body parts on command. Where is your n-e-ck? (Back, chin, leg, lip, foot, cheek etc)

Children need to be able to orally blend before they can do it with words in a book.

I would have a meeting with your school and ask what they recommend / what they can offer in terms of additional support. It is not at all unusual for your dc to be where he is - mine were pretty similar at this point in YR. you are paying for the school and should be able to ask for support if things aren’t working. If you don’t feel like you can do that, you need a better school.

pressurizing reading is unlikely to work, but there may be games or other strategies that help. My pre-prep gave us a subscription to Nessy, and also offered once weekly interventions with a literacy specialist for nominal additional cost. One DD only needed this for about a term and a half, at which point her reading ‘clicked’ and she caught up almost over night. Other dd still receives support in y2 and may be dyslexic, but nonetheless has made good progression and is just about meeting expectations for year despite struggles.

definitely don’t tutor, but keep reading to your dc regardless of his progress as there are so many benefits. Persist with getting him to read, but don’t ever let it get to the point that it is stressful for him or you. In early days we would take turns on pages or I would just get them to try a handful of words.