6yr old - RWI level red still

[Samsung1122]

Hi,

my sons school is doing the rwi, he was on the ditties and now gone to the red but that took 1 year, most of his classmates are moving up fast, how quickly should they move up with the rwi program ? I’m worried he’s going to fall behind, he has such a hard time with it, we do lots of reading at home and he loves it but when it comes to him reading himself it’s a very slow process, he still reads the sounds of the words sometimes to get it :/. I have a feeling there could be more to it maybe a learning disability but I can’t have him assessed at this age so just want to help as much as I can.

Usually with RWI teachers will assess every half term and then children will move up to their new groups based on how the achieved in the assessment.

If he is in red he will still be sounding out words and probably hasn’t learnt all the sounds needed to move up yet. I’d just have a word with the teacher and see if there is anything else you can do and check if you have access to the online videos RWI do as they may help.

I think expected level for Autumn Term Year 1 is purple, so he is a bit behind. Sometimes with reading though it just needs to click and then he will be flying through the levels so don’t panic.

It sounds like you are doing a really good job at home. Sounding out the words is fine at this stage. What do you think is stopping him moving up? Does he know all his sounds really well? Does he struggle to blend longer words? If you aren’t sure, ask his teacher what is holding him back and then try to work specifically on that.

Id also ask the school what they are doing to support your son. He should probably be having daily phonics interventions with a TA, check to make sure he is!

Thank you I will check about the videos with his teacher, he will do a speed sound check with me and he knows all the letter sounds and does it fast, also knows alien words.

Also we would have read the same word about 3 times in the above sentences he still spells them (not all of them just a few) I have to tell him that he can read that word as he’s said it several times before and then he will say it fine (not sure if it’s a habit hes got into) I also have to be careful about over correcting him as he gets frustrated and refuses to read :( it’s not an easy task for us.

Thank you, and yes goes out daily into a very small group with a teacher, hes definitely improved and in the evening he loves reading his sister a biff and kipper book (red level). He gets frustrated when he gets things wrong and I think he’s very tired after school, I know it’s quite intense in his reading class so he really has no interest when he gets home, he’s found a passion for writing and I have tons of sticky notes around the house so I’m happy he’s into that but I am worried about reading, it just dosnt seem to have clicked the teacher did tell me his confidence with reading is very low.

Im going to have a chat with her in the next 2 weeks so hoping to get some feedback.

Thank you, I really hope it clicks with him but so worried it could be dyslexia, have a feeling there’s more to it so we will see.

GSwas like this. I made cards with common words that I knew he knew but would still sound out. We played games like how many words he could get in x time or how many words can you find with a particular sound like ch or sh, then two sets of cards and we'd play snap. It improved really quickly.

Then a teacher said put subtitles on TV, it's hard to resist reading them and listening and reading seemed to help get the speed right but that's for a big further on

Good luck.

Great idea ! Will definitely do this, I have all the green words laminated so I’ll start the snap game, I know he’ll love that and the subtitle is a brilliant idea ! Thank you

I hope it helps. I think with GS he had sort of just got into a habit of sounding out everything and reading got boring but the games changed that.

I look forward to hearing he's raced ahead.

I heard once (no idea where, sorry) that having the subtitles on is a really undervalued resource and it can help massively. Especially if it's something they've watched many times and are familiar with because their eyes get drawn to it naturally. I've had it on ours since they were tiny because of that advice and mine are good readers now - although of course I can't prove it's got anything to do with it but it can't hurt!

Ask the teacher what is holding him back from progressing up to the next group - is it particular Set 1 sounds that he doesn't recall speedily yet? Is it difficulty segmenting or blending/Fred-talking? Find out and then you can target your support at home to whichever area he finds difficult. If the school use the online assessment for RWI then it's easy enough for them to find out from that data/gap analysis. Ask them as well what they are practising in the extra reading intervention sessions so you can also practise at home!

Ask the teacher to send the links for the virtual classroom videos from the Ruth miskin school portal for you to watch together at home (hopefully the school subscribe)!

Play free games on Phonicsplay.com or phonicsbloom.com.

Spot sounds and read signs out and about. Read together a lot, decodeable books and books to enjoy and point to tricky 'red' words like: the, is, I, to (etc).

Ask your child if they find anything particularly tricky and what they think will help them.