Speech therapy hindering reading - help!

[mistressmiggins]

my DS is just 5 and has been having on/off speech therapy for over 2 years.
NHS has been very hit & miss - not helping him & then big gaps with seeing him
final straw was last one has been off sick & noone has been replacing her so not had anything for 3 months

so I have gone private & he has had his 3rd session yesterday & already making "c" & "k" sounds instead of "t" - progress in such a short space of time when his previous SALT had been seeing him for 6 mths to no avail

however as he is in reception at school, he has a reading book which he is meant to read every night. Last night his reading seemed to have regressed and I wonder if this has something to do with his new learnt sound "c"...

I am finding the pressure of daily exercises set by speech therapist v reading book too much for him & I wonder whether he should just concentrate on his new sounds instead of trying to read.

hope that makes sense

Have you spoken to his teacher about the book? My dd2 had a book from school that she wouldn't read 'cos it was full of sounds she couldn't say.

If you can't fit both in I would say the speech is more important now and the reading will folllow and they will do some reading at school anyway.

thats what I wondered MrsWho
unfortunately his teacher is off sick & I work 3 days a week so my next opportunity is to speak to someone on Friday

at parents evening she said his writing was excellent and his reading was average which is great but I do think this progression with his speech is confusing his reading

I think I will just concentrate on his speech & not pressurise him further with the reading

Just phone up, thats what I do as I am often at work when I need to speak to dds teacher.

Or send a note in saying he appears to be struggling with this book and is he having the same trouble in school (possibly just tired at home?) and mae sure she knows you are doing a lot of work on his speech.
Then she understands that he hasn't always been practising the book at home

I will do the note thing - thats a good idea. dont want school thinking Im just not bothering.

He probably is a little tired as I dont pick him up til 5ish from after school club & he still goes to bed around 7pm otherwise too tired next day.

well you won't get much time then either, once you've done tea and bedtime stuff.

I only work 3 days a week so its not so bad weekends & Mon/Frid - just at the moment the school are insisting we read 3 books a week which I struggle with working mid-week

thanks for responding - not going to worry about it now & will just put note in book instead

3 books a week sounds like a lot for a 5yr-old. I think I'd do what you're planning to do - cut back on the reading and concentrate on the SALT exercises for now. Good luck.

we get 2 books but one is the group one they work on in class

he has 2 book bags
1 contains a book for me to read & a puzzle - once a week
other one contains book for him to read - he gets to choose it himself which seems odd - once he picked one that was in my view too hard for him & he refused to read it.

we were getting this changed once a week but have just had a letter saying please return daily so they can aim to send out 3 different books a week

now you can see why on top of his daily speech sheets I feel his books are too much

I would concentrate on the speech theraphy and ditch the reading. It great that he is making so much progress and it will help his reading in the long term.