Do some children just not really get on with phonics?

[inthesamesea]

DS is reception, so I do know it’s early days, but he doesn’t seem to be ‘getting it.’

I’ve been taking the advice to sound out words ‘r e d and c a t and b e d’ for instance but he just doesn’t seem to get it. If I say b e d and ask what you think you said he will often say something random like chair but does know the letters, the problem is blending them together.

He knows some words by sight and I’m wondering if this might be a better approach for him. Would welcome any suggestions etc.

And no, he’s actually one of the older ones so definitely ‘ready.’ And I think he wants to do it if that makes sense; just hasn’t got the technique yet. It’s hard knowing how to teach it to him.

It is very early so could be nothing. DS can't do phonics and he is dyslexic but at 4 that can't be identified yet.

Did he do phonics in nursery? Lots of children will already be able to blend simple words at the start of reception because they were taught in nursery. But it’s very early in the year, not every child will get it straight away.

Mine never got phonics. She learnt by sight and memorising words. No dyslexia or additional needs.

My son never really got phonics. He basically read by word recognition I think but I did too. Weirdly he was v good at mandarin ( character recognition) when he did that in school so I think he has a v visual memory which may explain it. My daughter, who is dyslexic, is kind of the other way in that she spells in a hyper phonetic way.

He didn’t do any phonics in nursery I am aware of. I did wonder about teaching him some myself but decided not to - regret that a bit in some ways although I don’t know what I’m doing so probably best left!

I did too … no idea how that works for complicated words but I guess it must have worked for me! I was always a very avid reader though so I guess I just exposed myself to a lot of vocabulary.

My son is severely dyslexic and didn’t get on at all with Phonics. If you suspect a reading difficulty, look up Orion-Gillingham method.

Phonics teaches the relationship between sounds (phonemes) and letters (graphemes), which is essential for learning to read. However, dyslexic children often struggle with phonological processing — the ability to recognize and manipulate the sounds within words. Because of this core difficulty, traditional phonics-based methods that move too quickly or rely heavily on auditory memory can be ineffective for them.

So, for example a child with dyslexia is learning the sound for the letter b.

A regular phonics lesson, they might just see the letter and say “/b/.”

In an OG lesson, they see, say, and feel the sound:
The teacher shows the letter b and says, “This is b, it says /b/.”

The child traces the b in sand or on a textured card while saying “/b/, bat, b.”

They may also air-write the letter while sounding it out.

This combination of visual (seeing), auditory (hearing and saying), and kinesthetic (moving and touching) pathways strengthens memory and helps the child retain the sound–symbol connection.

Try it out and see if you have better success

from another thread i gather children with hearing impairment also struggle with phonics.
you could have his eyes and ears checked but as others have said it's early on, give it till spring.
then give frequent word flash cards and see if he does well with whole words vs phonics, which they do with phonics anyway (memorize the high frequency words).

I know it is early but at the same time if there is a problem I don’t want to wait for it to become a problem, if that makes sense. Hard getting a balance sometimes.

My dd was like this too. My ds picked up phonics with no bother. Both great readers, just different kids.

It’s definitely possible as it’s how Chinese people read- they just learn what the characters are. Phonics is also a v imperfect system given the vagaries of the English language so I’m not sure it’s much slower. And in the end we do all read by word recognition- we don’t decode words as fluent readers. We just see the word as a whole and know what it is.

It is incredibly early to worry.

My eldest ds is dyslexic but we worked incredibly hard on phonics and whilst not fantastic he can read well enough to get 4 A levels and at least an A and to be doing a degree at university

ds2 found blending incredibly hard and was in the ‘cause for concern’ group at the beginning of year 2. He then suddenly ‘got’ blending like a light bulb moment and by the end of primary was reading 2 years above his chronological age.

ds3 was pretty average with how he learnt phonics and again has a reading age 2 years above his chronological age.

learning to read using phonics does really help as they encounter new words

in addition to working on the phonics I would encourage rhyming activities, listening activities and loads and loads of exposure to good quality children’s books.

My son was struggling. I actually went and bought the Ladybird Peter and Jane books I read as a child and they were brilliant for teaching him to read.

I never got the hang of phonics - it's pattern recognition for me. I don't have dyslexia.

And yes I do have trouble speaking new words from a page and I'm not a brilliant speller however I am and always have been an avid reader and am educated to masters level.

Phonics is not the ony way but don't panic!

I spy is great for hearing initial sounds in words. At DS's school they worked a lot on hearing sounds at the start of year R and played lots of games like sorting pictures into piles based on their initial letter.

Thanks. It’s hard to know, really. We read a lot but doesn’t seem to be helping him actually learn to read himself, of course it’s good for other things but hasn’t made any discernible difference in terms of learning to read.

He can’t do that.

I'm not an expert at all but DS's school seemed to think that needs to come first so maybe it's something to work on? Hopefully it will just click for him. You don't have any concerns about his hearing do you?

Before phonics comes rhythm and rhyme. Can he recite at least 5 nursery rhymes off by heart?

He can although I’m not sure there’s much rhythm to it - he has definitely inherited my pitch and tune where singing is concerned 😂

My 5 year old is just getting it now in Yr 1. Several others like him in his year. Obviously there are some kids who are much further along. Bit it's not a race. Key thing is to keep them interested in stories and books - my son still loves books despite being slow to pick up reading. But he's progressing and he'll get it eventually.

My son didn’t get on with phonics either. He has a speech impediment and was later diagnosed with auditory processing disorder so blending was an issue for him. We was on the picture based books at the beginning of year 1. He learned to sight read with a group outside of school and by the end of year 1 he was reading. He has always loved r
books and stories but was so miserable trying to learn phonics and I was worried about putting him off reading but learning to sight read worked for him.

Does he have phonemic awareness - can he tell you what sound a word starts with, e.g. if you asked him does "dog" start with the sound "d" or "mmmm" would he get it right, or is he guessing randomly? Would he get it right without being offered two choices?

Does he understand the concept of rhyme e.g. can he tell you whether or not a pair of words rhyme, or can he finish a list e.g.

rake
lake
snake
b.... (bake)

Can he clap the number of syllables in a word, e.g. bus = 1, ba-na-na = 3, mel-on = 2.

If he can't yet identify beginning/ending sounds, syllables and rhymes then he is still at the phonemic awareness stage and needs to develop this more before he will be able to move on to blending. There's no point pushing blending unless he has good phonemic awareness.

Some children will have already worked out phonemic awareness in reception, but not all children will. It's a bit like how they need to be able to count before you can expect them to be able to add numbers together. Don't worry!