Can anyone give me some advice on how to help ds1 (5) with his reading and writing.........

[becaroo]

...he is 6 in June and in year 1.

At his last parents meeting my dh and I were told that he is struggling with reading and writing. I am not surprised. He never wants to sit down and he lacks concentration when something does not interest him.

I have recently had a baby and have not been spending the time I should on his homework with him, although we do his it together on sunday mornings for about 45 mins to an hour (which is spellings, reading and numeracy.)

He is tired/cranky when he gets in from school and the monings tend to be a bit fraught so I am wondering what I can do to help him? He just doesnt enjoy reading (which breaks my herat as I love it) and gets very upset/annoyed when I suggest we read together. He is having smoe extra help at school, but this only amounts to 10 mins per day.

Any advice gratefully received........

Horrible when they strugge isn't it. FWIW DS1 hated reading at your DS's age and he loves it now (Yr 4). In fact DH and I can't believe we end up shouting at him to stop reading as he wouldn't do anything else given half the chance (unless it is computer games).

I think you need to concentrate on little and often. 45 minutes in one stint seems an awful lot to me. We are advised to hear them read 5 times a week minimum by DS's school but only for a max of 10 minutes at a time. (DS2 just stared YR R so we are going through it all again now).

Part of the problem with reading is that you have to wait for it to 'click'. For DS1 it was the beginning of Yr 1. What helped us was to stop focussing on reading the books and to concentrate on learning the key words. We did them in a very boring rote sort of a way but it worked for DS1 because we went through them for 5 minutes a day and he was bribed rewarded if he did them. He got to buy himself a book after each set of 50 learnt but obviously the reward has to suit the child.

The teacher gave us the full list at the end of Yr R and I failed to recognise the link between that list and making progress in reading but once I concentrated on the list the reading followed automatically.

The other thing to do is to reinforce a love of reading by reading to him,which you probably do anyway. No pressure to perform on him, just for the enjoyment of books.

My DS (Reception) instantly switches off is he senses we are about to do anything that formally involves reading or writing. I'm finding that doing it in a less formal way is helping. He complains about sitting and reading a book (though likes being read to) but will happily try to read words from signs/cereal packets etc.

In terms of writing we have one of those magnetic writing pads. This terms he is meant to "learn" 1 and 2 letter keywords. So we are doing it that he draws a picture and I then write a sentence about the picture. so if he drew a dog I might write "I am a dog". Or we'll come up with something together and he'll write it.

It sounds a bit stupid written like that but I think because it's viewed more as a fun activity rather than "I have to" he is happier to embrace it.

I agree with Niecie, 45 minutes is too long, try breaking it down into smaller more managable chunks with breaks in between.

It might also help to make it as imformal as possible. Allow for lots of opportunities for him to explore and develop him reading and literacy skills without actually formally sitting down to 'work'. Make it more lots of fun games like magnetic letters on the fridge, or you can get sets of magnetic key stage one words that can be on the fridge, and he can make up nonsense sentances with etc.

Get post-it notes and play games where you both go around the house labelling everything, you can write the words but he will still learn to recognise the words of familiar objects. Try focusing on cvc words at first (and other simple words like door, book, stairs et.)

You can advance this game by moving it on to another level and giving him the post it notes with the words already on them and he has to find the right place for them et.

Also, treasure hunts with very easy clues (can be one word to start with) and in the end he finds a little present or treat after 5 or 6 clues).

Anything to encourage positive associations with reading and words in general.

Hope this helps.

How is his drawing/penmanship in general? i.e. does he struggle with writing specifically or more generally with fine motor control? If it's a motor control thing then practising activities like threading things, using those Hama beads or modelling clay can help. If it's more specifically writing then working on notes that are relevant to him (e.g. "DS's Room - Keep Out" sign for his door, labels for his toys, that sort of thing) might engage his interest.

Does he like having stories read to him? If so keep doing that without pressure. If he's not so interested in stories, is there a subject he's interested in? If so perhaps you could find some simple non-fiction books on that that might interest him more, and you could look stuff up in them for him to pique his interest.

He is still very young, try not to worry or feel guilty. Reading a story book together for 5 mins at bedtime is always a lovely thing to do. Lots of good ideas for games have already been suggested. As has been said, little and often.

1. Stop worrying! He's young in his year, and it is completely normal for boys of this age to be 'struggling'. At this stage DS's writing was awful, v slow, and he couldn't read fluently. reading practice was torture, he hated it, I couldn't understand how he could be so 'bad' etc. By the end of Yr 2 he got a 3 in his SATS fo reading and a 2A for writing.

1. Back off and only do it when it seems fun. Make a pirate map and get him to write in place names, for e.g, but don't push it.

1. When reading, read in any word he falters over, don't make him struggle to sound it out painfully. Just read it for him and carry on. That removes the focus from the words he can't read, removes the sense of frustrating failure, and ensures that the story flows. Read the books through once and then get him to read them. We got on much better once I read a hand-pout that advised this.

At the last parents meeting at dd's school, they were talking about how sometimes boys are less keen to read than girls, and the head teacher recommended using alternative reading materials (eg magazines, factual books) to keep their interest better. not sure if that helps you, but might be worth a try!

Maybe try a week's trial at educationcity.com or similar if he would like that

Thanks for all your replies....will try the labelling thing.

He is quite happy for me to read to him, but gets very annoyed when I ask him to read words from a book, or ask him what letters make up a word.....