Learning to read

[frazzled]

My 5 year old HF daughter is in mainstream Reception but the teacher is unable to get to grips with the fact that she is not going to learn to read through phonics but visually through a 'whole word' approach.

 

Has anyone else got experience of this, or any suggestions about resources such as books or software?

 

I am very much on my own with this.

[Tilly]

I'd just like to say that when my dd was 5 I was told that she would not be able to read phonetically, but by seeing the whole word. So I labelled everything and would tell her what the word said.

 

At the time she was in mainstream school and would sit with the rest of the class while they learned Jolly Phonics, which she would enjoy. By the time she was in Y1 she was world building phonetically and making plausible attempts at new words introduced. I use to get very disheartened by being told what she would never be able to do so it was one in the eye to the paed who told me that little gem.

 

I imagine flash cards would be suitable and dd did have puzzles from ELC where the pic and the word had to match up. I must say dd enjoyed learning words by rote but she has more confidence now that she can build up her words.

 

Tilly

[JsMum]

Full word with a picture is a good way to learn and placing word description to items in the house like the door has the word " door " and a chair on the back place the word " chair " so she has a connection with words with the objects within her enviroment.

 

J got some magnetic words from waterstones, his are called the First Words, its large letters and its a great first step to learning about language.

 

http//www.magneticpoetry.com

 

they do a whole series of magnetic words, I also have one that has positives words and place them in my room to wake up to.

 

CDRom Books are also a hit with us, Living Books is one we have used interactive, animated series for children from 3 years old.

 

Anything CDRom has been really successful so the Jump Ahead they are good, reader rabbit.

 

However books themselves have been a real difficulty, he just doesnt engage and so we are still struggling but he has CD stories and they have been very good at bedtime.

 

Foam letters that are for the bath, wood letters in arts and crafts, spell out certain words and get her to glue them to card, and then decorate it and place it on the wall.

 

sand trays are great for practicing writing each letters, and whitebaords are also a hit with chunky pens.

 

We have phonic Poster too, WHSMITHS, woolworths.

 

JsMum

[JsMum]

Just found this site as well and UK so may be useful for the magnetic words.

 

http://www.happypuzzle.co.uk/specialeducation.shtml

 

we have a magnetic calander as well with magnetic numbers, days of the week, months of the year and year and J is beginning to find the right word for day of the week.

 

JsMum

[Pippin]

Just a quick reply (considering the hour!!) to say my 8 year old is only just grasping reading now and will never manage phonics. He does whole word reading and can manage a long word this way but not even small familiar words by phonics. We had to convince the school about this rather than the other way as they are of the opinion that EVERYONE can learn to read by phonics if given enough help. The whole word approach is slower, but it does work.

[forbsay]

Hello

 

my son is 6.5 years old asd and is now on his third stage reading book. I never ever thought he would learn to read and he is proving me wrong.................

 

Forbsay

[summertime]

I teach a child who came into school aged 4 apparently reading fluently, no one had taught him he had simply picked up words as someone had read to him and ran their finger under the words as they read. It was assumed he could read anything but faced with even the simplist of unfamiliar words he was unable to even attempt it but as soon as he was told it he would remember it forever. He is a very bright boy with AS but its only now that he's in Y6 that he is starting to build unfamilair words phonetically.

 

I'd say there is some really good advice here already, flash cards, labelling everything and simple childrens dictionaries would be a really good way to start

[aro]

When I trained as a teacher I first came across phonics, I was amazed as I believe I must have learnt by sight instead. I never knew about letter blends etc and phonics seemed so alien to me. This may explain why I am hopeless sounding out unfamiliar words and at spelling. I was a very early reader and writer and artistic, so I think possibly a very visual learner. Just an opinion though,

 

A x

[LKS]

Hi Frazzled. I think you are doing the right thing by showing concern for your dds reading at this age. At the age of 9yrs and 6mnths my dd had a reading age of just over 6 yrs. This was despite having 1:1 tuition for all of her 4yrs+ at school. As she has a moderate learning difficulty the experts said that this sort of reading problem would be expected and she would work out stategies for her reading difficulties!! I found this very hard to accept so I started to dig for information. I found a very helpful lady called Fiona Nevola who talked me through why children struggle to read. I found a private tutor for dd, and this involves a round trip after school of over 2 hours. This lady works with phonics and I have seen, by sitting in on the lessons that at some time (prefably at the beginning of learning to read) you have to learn how words are made up from sounds, otherwise you will get to a certain age where you have no picture clues and no way of working out what the words could be. She makes the lesson quite fast paced, and there is lots of playing with letters and timed activities that dd loves. DD now has a reading age of 9yrs 8 months (she is 10 now) and by the time we have finished the course she should have an age appropriate reading age. The tutor said the only child that phonics has not really worked for was one that had a quite severe auditory processing problem. Frazzled your daughter has quite good speech I should think, she has learnt to talk by hearing the sounds that go into words, she now has to learn that these same sounds are transferred to the written word. Sorry to get on my soapbox here but I think unless you are absolutely positive that phonics won't work, you will probably be doing her a favour by letting the teacher continue with the method for a while. Hope I haven't offended

[allsetuk]

this is interesting i just posted that my son in another topic entitled "throwback after school"yesterday he only got one star instead of his normal three for forgetting his sounds in reading class .....he is four and half and has mastered the Jolly phonics but hates sounding out everything and had forgotton all the sounds ....he was repeating non stop when he came home and couldnt get to sleep as he was a , b, c, d, was up all night from 2am as he was stressed ... trying to spell words as i think he was so stressed out because he sets himself high goals .....and is a perfectionist

this would be right following on from what you have written ..