refusing to learn to read

[pippel]

dd1 is 5 and in year 1 and she refuses to learn to read. She will tell you the story but its from the pictures, she wont look at the words and she wont point at them. She gets annoyed and wont even look at the book.

She really enjoys being read to, and she has been since she was about 6 weeks.

But I remember my sister being exactly like that, she couldn't read a word until she was about 8, and it turned out she is severely dyslexic and dyspraxic, it just wasn't picked up on until she was at university. I'm also dyslexic and so is my Mother. Dd is waiting to be assessed for dyspraxia its just taking forever

So does anyone have any tips?

Keep pushing for that diagnostic assessment.

In the mean time just keep sharing books, using the pictures to talk about the story and retelling tales with her. You could read the words and point to them, so she sees what you are doing and knows that the words relate to what you say. But I wouldn't push her to read them herself just yet.

How is she with her phonics work? Does she know her letters, etc?

That's pretty much what I was doing but unfortunately her teacher thinks I should be pushing her more. But I dont want to put her off reading all together by making it a battle ground.

She knows all the letters, its just putting them together to make words that she has a problem with.

I think the teacher needs to take a step backwards a bit. Pushing her too hard will not help. I doubt your DD is deliberately refusing to read.

Ask your DD's teacher for specific strategies they suggest in helping your child, and ask what s/he is doing in class to help your DD.

Can you get rid of the books for a while, or at least books with words?

How about some word making games instead, or jigsaws where you make up simple cvc words to go with pictures.

You can have magnetic letters and play with them. Make up some silly nonsense wrds that are phonetic CVC ones, such as zat, pog, etc. Silly words can make it a bit more fun and giggly.

Or ask her to tell you a word to spell such as cat or dog. You write the word but get it wronf (such as tat instead of cat) and ask her if you have done your writing correctly. She might like playing teacher and marking your work.

Try writing letters in sand to make simple VC words such as at, on, in.

they all sound like really good sugestions thank you, Ill give them a try.

DD did this when she atarted primary.
The teacher was very relaxed about it and was happy for dd to tell a story from the pictures in the book.
Is it the Oxford reading tree or similar she ios doing? We were told that one of the reasons the pictures in the books were so full of information so that children like this could still tell a story along the lines of the acutal written story.
DD eventually without pushing started reading the books brought home and now is pretty much at the same stage as the other in her class give or take a few books.

Hulababy has some great suggestions.
One of the things about my dd was that she couldn't get the letters on the page to form into a word no matter how closely she sounded it out and her teacher did say that some children are just like that and they are young and it will come with time. Once she got it she really got it though.

Think the teacher needs to relax about this TBH and go at your daughters pace for a bit.

Don't forget that whenever you are reading to her you are still modelly reading to her, so she is learning and she will be picking up on pre reading skills.

Some children are just not ready to read at 5y. In some European countries they don't even start learning to read til they are 7y. Unless there are some dyslexic issues (which is why the assessment is good to push for) you may find that one day it just all clicks into place and from there she may well race on and catch thers up. Have seen it happen before.

If she already knows her phonics then she is well on her way.

Do play games like I spy with her too. As well as doing "I spy something beginning with..." also trhow in some "I spy something that ends with ...."

Am not a KS1 teacher BTW (was a secondary teacher) but I do work as a TA in a Y1 class. I have a number of new Y1 children wh are not yet able to read, even simple CVC words. I have a couple who do not know their letter sounds yet. So try not to worry just yet.

dds teacher is very traditional. I'm just going to have to relax about it. They are the oxford tree books I think.

Its good to know she isn't the only one!

If you even suspect dyslexia/ dyspraxia, surely the teacher's being more than a bit useless in pushing her. Do they know? I'd go meet them and explain and if they do already know, remind them. It's really bad if they're making her approach reading in a way that's possibly not helpful for her. It could really knock her self esteem.

Well the Oxford Reading Tree were specifially desgined with pictures with loads going on and loads of detail to enable and help the children get the idea of the story.
We had a meting with the head when dd started school last year to go through all this and we were told that every single one of the children were going to be different and some would be telling a story from the pictures for months and months and some would be reading immediately and never to force.
DD just wouldn't entertain it at all for a long long time knew all her phonice well, able to identify them within the words but could not get the word to from in her head.
Like I said though once she got it she just took off.

Funnily enough she is miles ahead in Maths just not been as hot on the reading.

My son did this. If I tried to get him to sound out the words he would look away and sometimes just get up and walk off. In hindsight I should have just kept him interested in talking about the pictures, but i thought he was just being difficult. With some extra 1-1 help he was reading pretty fluently by the end of year 2 and at nearly 15 now he is an avid reader.

dd would look at the ceiling, at the floor, anywhere but in the book

now that she is 12, she has read pretty well everything by Jane Austen, a couple of the Bronte novels, Vanity Fair, several Dickens and is looking thoughfully at War and Peace

I think she felt overwhelmed at the start of school and just needed the time- and not too much pressure

I would ask the teacher for some phonics based books rather than the ORT ones.

When DD started getting books sent home to read to me, she hated it. I used to cut a deal with her that if she sounded through one word, I would read the rest of the book. She came around and now in year 2 she really likes reading and is quite good at it now. She is not dyslexic/dyspraxic so not really the same. You obviously should not force her to do something she can not reasonably be expected to do. Her teacher needs a kick up the back side.

Obviously, with your family history, she needs an assessment and I would resist making any decisions on her readin until she gets one.

At age 5 my ds flatly refused to learn to read. He suddenly took an interest shortly after turning 6 and now aged 9 he is a very good reader.
He struggles in plenty of other areas but that's another story