Little boys & reading....

[rebeccaw]

My 5 year old boy is just coming to the end of his first year at school & seems to have made no progress at all with his reading. This time last year, he pretty much knew all the letters of the alphabet & could write his name, but he doesn't seem to have moved on much.

On one level I'm not worried - he's settled in really well at 'big school' & it will come when he's ready ... but on the other hand I'm thinking that I don't want it to become a problem. They're learning with the phonics system. I find it really difficult to get him to sit with me & read the books he comes home with from school & would like to think of some other games/ideas I can do & play with him over the summer which help him learn so he builds confidence & it starts to fall in to place for him. any ideas???

rebeccaw it takes time for some children to want to read. With dd2 she 'got' phonics quite early but then stalled for ages with her reading as she couldn't read non-phonic words. It took ages for this to click and now she is a fab reader .

With dd1s class the standard all seems very similar now they are 9 - eberyone just learns at their own rate.

I do fun reading at home - ie in the supermarket / writing shopping lists (even if you have no idea what they've put) and reading some of the old favourites 'baby books'.

Over the summer holiday, just enjoy reading books as stories to your son. At the end of reception, you are still quite young and many children won't appear to have learned much.

Sue Palmer (toxic childhood) believes that children 'catch' reading rather than being taught it. So, cat64 is re-emphasising this with her comments.

Also, all playing and chatting gives children 'hooks' to hang later knowledge on. So, just enjoy each other's company and read lots of bedtime stories.

does he like the books he gets from school?

DS1 found floppy and family on the oxforde reading tree really dull at one point. We got the Project x books, which are designed for boys, and he was much more interested in them.

Don't push it. Honestly just read, read and read more to him and let him enjoy books. They make leaps and bounds in year one.

Thanks for the suggestions ... glad to have it reinforced that I'm just being paranoid rather than there being something wrong!

Will look up thos Project X books - DS finds those from school distinctly dull, as do I to be frank!

You'll probably find that he'll suddenly turn a corner and before you know it you'll wonder what you were worried about.

DS will be 6 soon and he suddenly turned that corner a month or so ago.

He was a lot slower than DD was at that age to get the hang of it, but all children are different.

the book people sell them rebecca, DS thinks they are great, much more interesting pictures and stories.

More words of reassurance here. My ds left reception on ORT level 2 and could not score a reading age when he entered Yr 1. As he comes to the end of Yr 1 he's now about to move onto ORT level 9. He turned 6 years a month ago. Reading just clicked a few months ago and now there's no stopping him. Don't stress about it. Continue enjoying reading to your child over the summer break and it will come.