am i expecting too much with ds's reading?

[canella]

We moved away from the UK at the beginning of this year to Germany so ds1 (5.2) hasnt started school here although he would have gone into reception had we stayed in the UK.

So I thought i was doing the right thing by gently encouraging him with learning to read - i bought the "teach your child to read in 100 lessons" book and started it with him just before he'd have been due to start school. I also wanted him to learn to read in English as he'll obviously learn to read in German at school (although he may not start till he's nearly 7)!

He rarely asks to do the reading lesson but happily does it when i ask him to come and do it - i read to him at other times in the day and we talk about sounds and letters as part of everydsay life.

He's doing OK with the reading - would be able to read a sentence such as "the dog was in the park" and he's able to sound out a lot of words but he really struggles to remember new words from one moment to the next. He was driving me silently mad today - the sentence read "the dog sat and sat ......" he sounded out the first sat but at the next one he had no idea what it was!

am i expecting too much at this age - he has an older sister who just found reading much easier but she was in school in the UK and i'm sure she was reading more by this age!

any views welcome!

ds loved the lessons on headsprout - just doing it on the computer was so much more exciting for him! Still dont want to pay all that money though [tight scottish emotion!!]

not sure the book people ship to Europe but will get friends in the UK to keep an eye out for some good books for him!

Acebaby - will have a look at that website - thanks - will try anything to get him engaged!

I'm echoing Seeker's post having also had two children learning in totally different ways. DE did the learning overnight thing the Christmas of year 1 whilst DS has been steadily learning. He's now at exactly the same stage she was at the same time in the school year.

Reading to them, finding books they really enjoy, getting them involved in the story and seeing reading as part of family life is the key thing.

I'm not a fan of headsprout or starfall mainly because they are American sites and for some children I find it can cause problems with accent and spelling (segmenting).

I usually recommend phonics play which is mainly free
I used Phonics zone a lot last year with my reception class and they loved it but it has introduced subscription only this year (£69)

I'm also not a fan of ORT there are much better schemes around now.
If you want to use phonic schemes Songbirds have nice stories (written by Julia Donaldson - Gruffalo) and Ragtime Rhymes (a modern Dr Seuss) otherwise Big Cat (edited by Cliff Moon and written by well known children's authors) or Rigby Star are both more engaging that poor old Biff & Chip.

I'm from Sweden where children don't usually start school until 6 or 7. They learn to read just fine and usually really quickly. I think it's a bit like potty training. You can start really early and it will take ages. Or you start later, when they're ready and then they get it quite quickly.

my dd1 started reception here in England in september, she knows a fair few letter sounds but doesn't read. I'm not at all worried, I know she'll get it at some point and it's early days.

DS is bizarrely gripped by Biff and Chip; his excitement when they discovered the dolls' house with the small figures in the secret room was, I couldn't help feeling, out of all proportion to the momentousness of the occasion (he enjoys the Songbirds titles as well, but Biff and Chip are definitely #1 for him).

I used to just write them on a piece of A4 cut into six, so two of each word, turn them over and then take turns to match them up.

i'm so glad i started this thread - i've got so many ideas to make learning to read fun for him - websites to look at and I love you're idea Avendesora about playing pairs with words. Thank you

I think he'd just got bored with the "100 lessons" book - it is really good for learning sounds and blending them to sound out words - he was easily reading the word "sleeping" on friday - but it is dull to look at (only 1 picture every other page)! think because he's not picking it up as quickly as his sister did, he needs some more exciting ways to learn.