Phonics, almost 4 year old can’t blend but wants to learn more sounds?

[Worriedmumofone1]

As the title suggests.. she’s going into reception soon and has an interest in learning the sounds of letters. We’re only a week in so I appreciate oral blending may take some time to ‘click’. But she wants to move onto learning more sounds.. (we’ve done SATPIN) is that ok even though she hasn’t grasped blending?

Which phonics scheme does her reception follow?

theres really no pressure as they start at the beginning in reception but theres no problem if your child is keen to learn more sounds, just make sure you're pronouncing them correctly, e.g M its not em, its mmm.
At school they'll learn rhymes to help write the letters but it varies by phonics scheme. look at the schools website and it might tell you which they use. it could be good teaching those rhymes over the summer and practising writing.

English Lead and former reception teacher here. It's absolutely fine. If she's interested, go with that! The school phonics programme will teach her to read belt and braces and cover everythjng. As mum, go with what she's interested in. Absolutely no need to learn or practise anything else before she starts either. Lots of children are interested in letters and learn the letter sounds before they are anywhere near blending. Focus as well in helping her hear initial sounds, so when she's interested in a letter, just think of lots of things that start with that letter. Have fun.

I wouldn't push phonics on a preschooler but it's always good to follow a child's interests so there's no harm in teaching more letters if she's asking.

As a pp said, just make sure that you teach the letter sounds and not the names (ie not the ones that are sung in the alphabet song) and that you don't add a schwa.

So N is the sound nnn and not the name EN. It's the pure sound nnnn and not nuh.

They don’t tell us until the day before she starts full time 🥲 but I’ve been told the order in which they learn the sounds and writing too which I’m following. My daughter can write her name too really well bless her

Ironically after posting this she’s just managed to blend tip, sat and sit so I think she’s getting it!

Thank you! I always said I wouldn’t pressure but she is totally interested so I’m going with it! She can write her name clearly bless her but I haven’t been told the full phonics scheme they follow. As for sounds I made sure to follow correct pronunciations via happy little learners YouTube video

Thanks so much!

Ironically after posting this she’s just managed to blend tip, sat and sit so I think she’s getting it! She genuinely enjoys the learning so I’m going to keep going with it

Can I please ask, I’ve printed down resources from twinkl for blending. One of them has CVC words using SATPIN with pictures at the end. Is that unhelpful when teaching them blending - does it give them the answer basically?

Personally, I would cover up the picture with my hand, together her tonhave a go blending, then reveal the picture. Or fold it behind then unfold it. The pictures are important to connect the word to it being a representation of a real thing, but yes, if she jsut uses the picture, she won't be really practising blending.

Thank you!

Just go with her interest.

Teach your monster to read app is good as is alphablocks TV show.

I'm another former English lead and former reception teacher.

I'd focus on oral blending rather than printing off resources from Twinkl. Do lots of robot talk.
Eg Shall we go to the p-ar-k?
Play Simon says: Simon says, touch your f-oo-t
Simon says, shake your l-e-g
Collect toys and objects from around the house. Put 4 in front of her. "Which is the c-u-p?" If she gets it right, she keeps it. If she gets it wrong, you keep it. Replace with another object from your little collection. Who has the most objects at the end of the game?

If you want to do some blending to read, you can just get a piece of paper and write a list of 3 letter words in fairly large handwriting - you'll probably get a lot more words to a page than a Twinkl worksheet.

Parent who didn't think school would teach my child to read here. I taught him to read before Reception using flash cards of 100 high frequency words and First Steps in Reading set of books, which teach name and sound and words beginning with the letter. I left school to teach phonics as I appreciate it helps with decoding. It didn't do him any harm, he's always been greater depth in everything, and apparently, at school nursery, he used to gather up the 2 yr olds and read to them. He is an October birthday and did 1 year and 2 terms in the nursery (attached to the Infant school), but only 15 hours per week. He also, unofficially but administered by Reception teacher, got 40/40 for the yr 1 phonics test.

Agree!

Agree with this, from another EYFS&KS1 teacher.

I'd definitely focus on blending rather than what the letters look like, and actually hearing the sounds.

Stand outside and ask what can you hear? When they can tell you all the discernible sounds (birds, airplane, car etc), move to oral blending.

Get your c-oa-t.
Put on your sh-oe-s.
Pass me the c-u-p.
Let's go to the p-ar-k.
Jump on one l-e-g!

The problem with trying to teach sounds matching to the letters is that you may not be pronouncing the sounds correctly and that takes a lot of effort to undo as a reception teacher. Whichever scheme the school follow will likely have little rhyming phrases to help learn the letter formation as part of it all too and unless you know which scheme, you won't know how to help with this. That to can take a lot of undoing by the reception team, too. And that's where it gets confusing and frustrating for our little people.

Also agree with this!

Yes oral blending practise is all useful too. With regards to your other comments - I think as teachers we need to be careful about patronising parents. This parent has clearly said she is checking the pronunciation of the letter sounds, and that her child is interested in reading the words. Why should we assume she's not capable of doing that correctly and that we'll have to re-teach it?

I haven't made any other comments - you've quoted my only comment. 🙄

I didn't say anything patronising, I just explained part of the problem (as you have quoted), for informed decision making. Not once did I patronise the OP or make any assumptions. If we are going for correctness then perhaps I should have said "...one may not be pronouncing the sounds correctly..." rather than "...you.."

Reading is a skill, clearly, and teaching it is a trickier skill. Early reading is so important to get right.

Not wanting to derail the thread, but something I've been wondering about is how common it is for children to actually start school completely 'innocent' of all the wrong ways of pronouncing the letters? My DS is 4 and he already knows what sounds he thinks all the letters make, and he certainly hasn't got them from me (I have done my homework and watched the first episode of alphablocks multiple times...). But he and all the kids in his preschool room at nursery want to sound out letters and write their names and the staff can't teach them phonics as they're not trained in it. Plus all the children already know the letter names as they like to sing the alphabet song.

I was referring to your comments starting ' the problem...', as yes, you have only posted once but there are multiple comments in it. Perhaps patronising was the wrong word, but if you'd read the posters posts, you'd see that she is looking up how to pronounce the sounds. I do think that as early reading teachers we can risk being very superior to parents, who are just as capable as us of looking up how to pronounce the sounds. It's not that hard to re teach children how to pronounce things if they're slightly wrong anyway - children are very adaptable. Parents are a child's first educators. If that child is interested in letters and sounds, I think parents should be encouraged, not told that there's a risk they will hurt their child's reading!

But there is a risk there and it would be remiss not to recognise or be aware of that. Like I said - informed decision making. There's nothing superior in that.

We want to encourage a love of reading, as parents and educators, not put children off at the first hurdle because the child(ren) had to learn something twice or more when it could have been taught correctly in the first place by whomever.

Quality first teaching and all that. Keep up not catch up. And other such phrases.

I see where you're coming from. I think probably we've got very similar views! I suppose you're coming from the perspective of ensuring she has all the information to ensure she's making an informed decision, whereas I was coming from the perspective of encouraging a child's natural interest given shes already said shes looking up pronunciations. And of course we want to have the highest quality teaching in the classroom, but I do think it's easy to get hung up on everything being perfect with teaching early reading, whereas nothing n life is really as black and white as that.

@BarnacleBeasley Some pre schools do have qualified teachers and it’s a huge shame we do not think teaching reading to those who want to learn is nit a good idea. Such a shame and of course dc are taught at home! All the teachers would do it! And who holds a mathematically gifted child back? No one!