A bit worried about DS’s progress

[keepthereindeerwarm]

Ds is in reception and following the Little Wandle phonics scheme. I’m a bit worried. The image attached are sounds he can say confidently. What he doesn’t seem able to do (judging from the picture) is actually blend with them. I’m surprised, especially at the more straightforward ones.

I am a bit concerned as I feel like he might be falling behind already. I am planning to discuss with the teacher but I wondered if any primary teachers could put into context before I panic!

As a Reception teacher, you have absolutely nothing to worry about at this stage. I don't teach LW, but that's an awful lot of sounds for them to have whizzed through in the autumn term, when they're new to acquiring phonics. It's no wonder he has some gaps.

He has done well to retain most of the individual sounds (and some digraphs too - sounds containing two letters). That's great 👍🏼

About half of my class still struggle to blend independently. Most can do it with adult support, when we sound out together, but quite a few still struggle on their own for an assessment. It sounds like that might be the case with your child, if you though he could blend ok when you read with him.

Blending can be a tough skill to master and children click at different times. He'll get there eventually. Help him by sounding out instructions 'put on your h-a-t', 'put the l-i-d on', 'pop it in the b-i-n etc'.

I'm surprised they have sent assessments home as I'm sure they've done nothing but cause panic and confusion as many parents won't know whether that is good or bad.

In my opinion, he sounds like he's doing ok for this time of year, with extra focus needed on blending. If you are concerned though please do speak to the teacher who will hopefully explain it to you. If they're going to send it out, they need to be prepared to explain it.

Thank you. Blending is definitely still a challenge, although I’ve tried to practice a lot with him. I just did those words and he said ‘wag’ for the first one straightaway; I thought, great - then he couldn’t do box, yes, or jam despite spelling them out correctly! But thanks for that, it’s really reassuring.

As a TA in reception I agree with the poster above. I wouldn’t be worried at all just make sure your doing what your doing and practising a lot but without making feel like a chore for him.

We have just done assessment with our receptions but only to help us so we can target our work with them after Christmas, we haven’t shared any of it with parents!

Agree with the first post that's an awful lot of sounds for the autumn term. It's not at all unusual for some children not to be able to blend at this stage. For some children, who go on to be very academic in KS2, it just doesn't click until around Easter.

Thank you. That’s really
helpful and reassuring.

Also want to add to the professional advice above, whatever you do, don’t compare your child in reception to other kids in their class. Some nursery schools teach phonics, others don’t. So there’s a huge range of kids in reception but they all get there in the end.

In my DS’s nursery school they taught phonics from the start so he was reading simple books quite fluently from day 1 of reception. My DD went to a Montessori so had never seen a phonics book before reception.

Well they don’t all get there do they? That’s why some dc don’t get expected at sats. However worrying in YR is very early, especially in the first term.

My DDs actually didn’t do phonics in such a boring way. They used their skills with great books for young dc and had a varied diet. Reading is still about memory and retaining info about decoding. Read to him a lot. Mine liked poetry. Something you can talk about. Foster an interest in books and he will enjoy reading.

Thank you. I’ve always read a lot with ds but this hasn’t translated to actually reading himself although he seems to enjoy books and this will stand him in good stead in the future. I just want to ensure he isn’t falling behind in any way.

Why not read fairly easy books and look for words with sounds he does know? We had favourite poems and easy reader books. They had enough words that DDs could make the sounds at the start so sh, ch, and easy words like me, the, be, we etc. It seemed to please them to recognise bits of words or even the whole word.

We do thanks, and harder ones, he’s good at identifying words on sight but the problem is the very simple books with words like pat, etc don’t hold his interest very well and I don’t want reading to be a chore!

@keepthereindeerwarm I agree. Not a chore! I found my DD1 in particular had a great memory. She could remember words and understand context. In our day we didn’t have phonics in such a rigid system. Reading sats haven’t improved with phonics but my DDs did all that at nursery then took home beginner books in YR. It was a much more varied diet and it suited them. Phonics tests show a high pass rate but not comprehension. Anyway, keep going with books that interest him.

Being able to decode fluently does not guarantee meeting the expected standard in SATs, and is not the reason why children don’t get there. An expected score means answering a set number of questions on three texts in one hour. It’s not a measure of reading fluency.

@FeenieDC do not all get expected so by definition “they don’t all get there”. It’s that simple. The reason could be they aren’t that good at any subject in the same way some dc just get everything put in front of them.

As I tried to explain, my dc had a varied diet when learning to read. They didn’t do religious phonics. They understood what they were reading and could remember high frequency words. I’ve no idea whether they would have passed phonics screening or not but ensuring they enjoyed reading and books was key. DD1 was allowed to choose library books in yr at school that she could not read, but she was interested in the content. In her case I remember she brought home the Ladybird book of The Great Fire of London. Lots of learning from that, and not just reading. We just seem to go on and on about phonics and some dc really can benefit from more interesting material.