Alternative to phonics?

[CoffeeCakeAndALattePlease]

DS6 is AuDHD and can’t read at all.

In reception he was completely unable to engage with any structured learning and the main focus was on keeping him in school, regulated and learning indirectly/ through play.

Through Y1 he has started engaging in some structured learning with 1:1 support. He’s an absolute whiz at maths but he can’t grasp phonics at all. He can make individual letter sounds but can’t do any blending (special friends, CVC words etc).

Im delighted with his progress in the areas that he can engage with. But I’d like to find a way to help him learn to read as he loves stories and I’m worried about him being so far behind.

Has anyone got suggestions of alternative reading methods? Particularly that may be aimed at children with ASC or ADHD? I’m not sure what is most likely to make any sense to him.

also I’m wondering about getting a dyslexia test to see if anything comes from that. Is that even viable for a child his age and with his diagnosis?

thanks ☺️

It may not be the answer you want, but I would be persevering with phonics, albeit with more information about DS’s needs and different support.

An EP will help to understand DS’s needs. A SALT assessment may help DS too.

When you say “structured learning with 1:1 support”, what exactly do you mean? Unless you mean some 1:1 teaching with a specialist, I would try that. If you mean 1:1 TA within a class or small group, sometimes it isn’t enough. Similarly, a small amount of 1:1 TA or teacher time sometimes isn’t enough - some DC need more.

Has DS tried any programme to help with literacy generally? Such as Dyslexia Gold (can work for DC with other SEN), Toe by Toe, Nessy, Wordshark. Some may work now, some may work better when DS has begun to understand the foundations of phonics. Not to replace other provision. As well as.

Thanks, I appreciate your reply.

DS is in a support hub of 3-5 children, and within that he has 1:1 all day. The TA he has is experienced in supporting children with Autism but I’m not sure about specific qualifications etc. He gets on very well with her and she’s good at preempting his needs.

His SALT assessment fed back that until his regulation was more stable they couldn’t make any recommendations. This is because he was just in a constant state of dysregulation when they were trying to observe him or interact with him, so they weren’t able to assess his needs.

The Ed Psyche recommended continuing with RWI phonics at a pace DS could tolerate, with his 1:1.

No, he’s not done any other literacy programmes other than Read Write Inc. I’ll see what other options are available. He says he knows how to read and doesn’t need to learn and usually just point blank refuses.

I can’t recall without checking what is in his EHCP about this, I need to have a look and maybe it needs updating.

DS needs some specialist 1:1 tuition rather than just TA time.

Were the EP and SALT assessments LA or independent? And were they recent? A good SALT assessment would still have been able to assess (even if not via formal testing) and make recommendations even if DS was dysregulated. The EP should have highlighted difficulties and made recommendations beyond just RWI.

no, they weren’t recent and we’re waiting for them to visit and update.

EP was one from LA and one private. I’ll go back to their reports as it was a while ago
I read them.

SALT was LA and we’re due to have them visit again very soon as I think he’ll manage better now.

I do empathise with the SALT as literally he was just extremely violent, attacking her and the other adults, smashing up the room and screaming. That was it! He didn’t speak or do anything which could have been meaningful to an assessment.

Some ND children do learn to read in different ways. He may just be recognising and remembering whole words rather than blending and decoding.

Most NT children can retain around 50 words without learning to start decoding.
At this stage he needs lots of access to multisensory learning which hopefully school are using. He could make letters and words from playdough, use his finger to write in a sand tray, use textured plastic or sandpaper letters to make words ( sensory needs allowing)

There are lots of outdoor activities too such as chalk letters on the floor, writing with a paintbrush and water, using a squeezy bottle of water to form letters. He can also go on a letter/ word hunt or jump on foam letter tiles e.g. find me the letters for cat, a word beginning with b.
Keep going with the reading and love of books
including noisy books, lift up the flap etc. He could make his own books with photos and labels or captions. Laminated words can be used to form simple sentences.

If he was not regulated previously he may have missed some of the important pre reading skills stages so Google those and use a play based approach.

Ask school if they have any of the ( triangular prism shaped) phonic flip aids. The individual letters flip over so you can leave at in place and flip over the first letter to make hat cat sat bat etc.

There’s lots of adaptive software available such as Writing with Symbols, Clicker or Dragon.
A good multisensory app to use on a tablet is Writing Wizard. You can put your own words in and it can be used with a finger or stylus. Supports formation and embeds letter shapes and sounds.
Collins Big Cat readers or similar are interactive stories that can be read online.
Sounds like he is making progress with support in place. Reading out loud may come later once the foundations are in place and he is more confident.

An alternative to phonics is to break and word down into its smallest meaningful components and to learn those by sight. Until quite recently that was the main way children in the UK learned to read, and it does suit a minority of children better than phonics, so it's worth trying.
Other ways are sensory ways/muscle learning, like writing with finger in sand/finger paint, water paint etc or learning to touch type (e.g. Nessy Fingers).
My son (AuDHD and DCD) learned to read and write through Roblox and Minecraft and other online games where he chatted to online friends. Things like auto correct (with red line option) can help to reinforce how it is supposed to look. Also watching videos with large subtitles on. We also chat a lot during the day via text messages, so he has to type messages to me on the phone, and he can add cat GIFs. Everything screen/tech based helped him a lot. It's like everything down to the amount of practice, so if he is reading and writing chat and doing Minecraft coding, I didn't limit screen time. 5 hours of Roblox a day got him top of class in reading and typing 😀

I echo the earlier comments about keeping going with phonics. He’s 6. The classic age, regardless of SEND, for some boys to get stuck at the bit where they need to blend. It requires a lot of support, teaching, practice. Once he suddenly makes that connection, he’ll be a pro.

Your comments on his mathematics ability shows two things a) he can learn b) he has possibly been allowed to ‘choose’ too often in earlier school experiences, such that he opts out now of what is ‘hard’.

Stick with the phonics, we tried ‘whole word reading’ on professional advice for several years and it’s useful for about the top 50 words and that’s it.

We are doing 1-1 currently, the thing which worked the most was stuffed felt letters, and then magnetic foam letters. Tactile things that our children can pick up and feel, while we or they say the letter sound. We did this for weeks because my daughter just didn’t know the alphabet in year 8.

If he is into playing on a tablet or computer, I recommend Nessy and Teach your Monster to Read. That will be a good dose of phonics.
Unless it's changed, don't use Reading Eggs, when my DCs were younger it wasn't phonics based.