What to do with a child who knows their letter sounds but isn't getting/ready

[mama2cntrykids]

for blending yet? She's known her letter sounds for months, but every once in awhile I'll try blending with her and she just doesn't get it so I'm assuming that she's not ready for it.

 

She's getting bored going over letter sounds but I don't want to stop because I'm afraid she'll forget. What do I do? She plays on Starfall.com sometimes but she get's bored with that too. She used to love "doing school", but not anymore.

 

She's only 4.5 yrs old so I know not to push it, but I really don't want what she's learned lost and forgotten. We do have the ETC books (she's on book C). Once again she's getting bored with it since we've been doing them off/on for the last year.

 

Suggestions?

[Cindyz]

My son was the same around that age. We just read a lot of books, played on starfall.com and waited. :) He watched Leap Frog videos, etc. We didn't drill the sounds or do workbooks, but we would talk about various sounds through daily life. Eventually he started blending. :)

[OregonNative]

Well, she's pretty young. Maybe she just isn't ready to move forward or doesn't want to. I'd wait and give it a break-especially if she isn't liking school. Even if she did forget, a short review time would probably bring them right back. My son knew his letter sounds before K, but has just started to understand blending and is reading simple words. He's 6.5-we didn't start a reading program until this year in 1st grade.

[trying my best]

did you try doing short blens like NO, MO, SO? keep O and just change first letter

AT is the same but chech C, P, T, F, M - make it fun!

After that make her write mat, cat and so on. Reading and writing go hand in hand actually! If she is not ready to read, writing will help that a bit :)

[Sevilla]

I would focus on her learning something else instead of letters - the information won't be forgotten, it will just go dormant until she's ready for the next stage. Why not focus on numbers/math, geography, art, music, physical stuff, etc...? There's plenty that's relevant for a 4.5 year old.

 

I know for DS he knew his letter sounds for two years before he was ready to blend (he was younger so the timeline is longer). I'd tried simple blending a few times and you could just see his brain wasn't ready and able to do that - and then suddenly he was and it all coalesced together and he started reading shortly therafter. Just watch for the window - she'll make it pretty obvious.

[Ellie]

I wouldn't worry about it. She's just 4½. Even if you think she'll "forget" what she's learned, she won't; and when she's older and you begin phonics more extensively, she'll either remember or she'll learn it again. Either way is fine.

 

If she's resisting now, that's your cue to let it go. She's too young to push.

[SkateLeft]

I wouldn't worry about it. She's just 4½. Even if you think she'll "forget" what she's learned, she won't; and when she's older and you begin phonics more extensively, she'll either remember or she'll learn it again. Either way is fine.

 

:iagree:

 

Ellie is right. I'd set it aside and focus on doing other fun things. You don't want her to associate school with drudgery when she's that young. She learned the letter sounds once. She'll pick them right back up again even if you take a break for a bit.

[Momofeat]

I don't have much time right now, but you can google "phonemic awareness" or "phonological awareness" activities and come up with some great pre-reading activities.

[fairytalemama]

We started OPGTR when my daughter was 4 years 9 months. She pushed back on doing it and didn't really seem to get it until around 5 years 3 months. Now we're about midway through the book (I think lesson #125 out of #231) and she's flying.

 

What I ended up doing was only doing a lesson out of there (which takes about 10-15 minutes) once or twice a week or some weeks not at all during that 6 month period and rewarding her with a sticker for doing it. She didn't forget anything and when it clicked---it CLICKED. Just be patient and it will come.

[LivingUnderGrace]

Well, I would say it's time to put the phonics away for a while, and move on to some other things. Mazes, color, cut, paste, dot-to-dot, whatever floats her boat. :D

 

Blending is a very common brick wall that children 1-2 years older than your daughter hit. I think it's best to wait it out, there is obviously a developmental readiness *rest* period going on there.

[OregonNative]

I wouldn't worry about it. She's just 4½. Even if you think she'll "forget" what she's learned, she won't; and when she's older and you begin phonics more extensively, she'll either remember or she'll learn it again. Either way is fine.

 

If she's resisting now, that's your cue to let it go. She's too young to push.

:iagree:

[Crimson Wife]

FWIW, there was an almost exact 2 1/4 year gap between when my two oldest kids learned letters & their sounds and when they finally figured out how to decode C-V-C words. My oldest learned her letter sounds at 18 mos and started decoding at 3 3/4. My second learned his letter sounds at 2 1/2 and started decoding at 4 3/4.

 

But once the "light bulb" finally came on in their heads, they both made very quick progress in reading. My oldest went from BOB books to Magic Treehouse books in 6 months. My 2nd went from BOB books in August to Henry & Mudge books now.

[MorganClassicalPrep]

Well... I'm in a similar position. My DD is 4.5, knows all her letter sounds, and can read CVC words (and some other longer words that she's picked up by sight without my instruction). But... she's not in any hurry to really "get it". Anytime I try and get her to read instead of just reading to her, she resists.

 

I put it away. Really, what does it matter if she learns to read now, or at 5, or 6, or even 7? Instead of pushing DD to do something she either isn't ready for or flat out doesn't want to do, we are focusing on the things she loves, like science, French, geography, and art. Eventually DD will want to read. I won't be surprised if she reads French before English.

 

So... that's my suggestion! :D Let it go for awhile. Find out what she DOES want to do. The reading will come, and instead of worrying about what she's not getting, you could spend that time discovering a new interest.

[Guest]

We've moved to "salt letters". I am teaching her to write her letters in a big tupperware of salt. It's learning, in disguise. The kids fight over playing in the salt. :)

[In the Rain]

I agree with the others who say to let it go for now. Each of my girls learned sounds and blending rapidly, and then STOPPED! One of them stopped for over a year. When they were finally ready, they picked up reading very quickly.

[boscopup]

I agree with taking a break. My oldest learned his letters and sounds (and recognizing the letters) at early age 2. He started reading at 4.5. Before that, he could play starfall and had learned to "chunk words" like they do in starfall, but he couldn't for the life of him figure out how to put those sounds together and figure out the word! It drove me batty. :lol: Finally, I just stopped trying to teach him anything related to reading. Guess what? He picked it up when HE was ready, and he took off. His first book to read himself was Go, Dog, Go! (30 pages of it, totally shocking me as he knew such words as "like"). He totally skipped the BOB books and other such early readers. Within 6 months, he could read Magic Tree House books.

 

There's nothing wrong with not being able to blend at this age. Give it a rest, and see what happens in a few months. She might surprise you! There is no reason to force lessons on her at this point, and it will likely just delay her learning.

[AmyinMD]

My 6 yo son hit that roadblock this fall. We were both getting frustrated with reading lessons. I took a 2 month break (a little longer than I'd planned) and pulled out reading lessons a few days ago and he gets it now. I can tell he's going to get through CVC pretty quickly now that blending has clicked for him.

 

We've played the last couple months with blend ladders and other games but didn't push the reading.

[HeidiKC]

My son just turned 5 and has known his letter sounds very well since he was 3 or maybe earlier. It's been over two years for sure. So I kept wondering WHEN he was going to start learning to put together letter sounds or understand blends. Then FINALLY this week he is getting it - YEAH! Very interesting, because his speech was a bit the same way: he could say many, many single words fairly early, but was late in stringing them together and then it came almost overnight.

 

Anyway, I was also worried that he might "forget" his letter sounds if I didn't remind him now and then. But I didn't want him to feel like I was making him learn them so I didn't sit down and instruct or anything. But I'd occasionally (once/twice weekly) have him watch a letter sounds DVD, like LeapFrog's Letter Factory or the Richard Scarry one. He got bored of those after a year or so, so I backed off. I didn't want him to associate boring with letters/words/reading.

 

Yes, he did "forget" some when I backed off. But he picked them back up right away when I "reminded" him. So it's not the kind of forgetting like forever. More like you forgot an old friend's name, and when reminded you don't forget since you're seeing the friend again.

 

If she doesn't resist, I'd try getting some CDs and DVDs and just pop a CD in for background music/quiet time/bedtime without mentioning anything about learning letter sounds. I also wouldn't do it too often (maybe once/week) in case she gets tired of it. Same with a DVD (if you do those) - maybe once/week.

 

Do you have a LeapPad? Or whatever the new version is these days with one of those pens? Or Leapster? Maybe get the book/game that works on letter sounds?

 

I just wouldn't try to move on when she isn't ready. Don't worry, it will come!

[sarahli]

DS isn't ready for blending yet, so we just review letter sounds that we see on signs, boxes, etc. I sound out the word for him. One thing he really enjoys is typing words on the computer. He asks how to spell a certain word, and I help him spell it out letter by letter with a very large font.

[MerryAtHope]

You can also play oral blending games. Say 3 sounds (or even start with 2) and see if she can blend them into a word. Let her also say sounds for you to blend, even nonsense words. My kids loved doing that at this age & hearing me try to blend their sounds, LOL! You can play the opposite way as well--say a word with 2 or 3 sounds and see if she can say the sounds. Let her do it too.

 

My kids also liked a game I played on the white board. I would write 3 letters, such as "atc" and then draw 3 blanks. Then I'd say, "I really want to make the word CAT. I have the right letters, but they are not in the right order. What sound comes first in "cat?" See if she can say it orally, then see if she can draw a line from that letter to the blank it should go in. You can write the letter, or she can. and so on. You can also use letter tiles to play this game.

 

If you have some letter tiles, you can also change words one letter at a time. Make "cat," then slide the C away and put a B there, and then see if she can see that it makes "bat." If not, you say it. Let her come up with the next rhyming word, and you make it. Also you can change the middle or ending letter.

 

Play with words and let it be fun. Take a break if needed, she's only 4.5. If she forgets some of the sounds, she'll learn them faster the second time.

 

Merry :-)

[alpidarkomama]

Sometimes just by letting things soak in for a while, a child makes a huge step without formally focusing on the skill. At least, I've found that to be true from time to my time with my kids. :) Just point out some blends in ordinary conversation, like, "Look! We're having a ssssssmmmmmoothie! Let's think of some other words that have the sm sound at the beginning." Just playful things like that, off the books.

[EJCMom]

A suggestion that someone on here gave me that really helped me with my son and blending was the suggestion to start orally with having him blend compound words. So, we started with things like, "Put these two things together: Back (pause) Pack" and he would shout, "Backpack!" then, "Sun (pause) flower" and he would say, "Sunflower!" We would do that for a couple of days. Then, we would move on to breaking down words into syllables, moving on to bigger words as the days would progress. So, we'd start with things like, "So-fa", "Mag-ic", etc. and move on to things like, "El-e-phant", etc. Then, when he had that down, we would move on to breaking down small words like, "C-a-t", "P-a-t", etc. That stage took a little longer for him to get. Then, once he could do it orally, we moved on to doing it with letter tiles. I swear, once he got it orally, it was like a switch had flipped and he was able to do it with the tiles. Once he was able to sound out simple CVC words with the tiles, we went back to OPGTR and he's been flying through ever since. I think teaching him to put the sounds together orally first really helped.

[theYoungerMrsWarde]

A suggestion that someone on here gave me that really helped me with my son and blending was the suggestion to start orally with having him blend compound words. So, we started with things like, "Put these two things together: Back (pause) Pack" and he would shout, "Backpack!" then, "Sun (pause) flower" and he would say, "Sunflower!" We would do that for a couple of days. Then, we would move on to breaking down words into syllables, moving on to bigger words as the days would progress. So, we'd start with things like, "So-fa", "Mag-ic", etc. and move on to things like, "El-e-phant", etc. Then, when he had that down, we would move on to breaking down small words like, "C-a-t", "P-a-t", etc. That stage took a little longer for him to get. Then, once he could do it orally, we moved on to doing it with letter tiles. I swear, once he got it orally, it was like a switch had flipped and he was able to do it with the tiles. Once he was able to sound out simple CVC words with the tiles, we went back to OPGTR and he's been flying through ever since. I think teaching him to put the sounds together orally first really helped.

This is a GREAT idea! I've had the same problem with my ds. At 3.5 he knew all the sounds, but couldn't put it together. I made the mistake of backing off for 6 months without any review, so know we're relearning. I will try this, and I found the Starfall (thank you everyone who mentioned it!) He's been completely bored with the HOP game that he's memorized. He thinks it's funny to give every wrong answer before giving the right ones. :glare:

[mama2cntrykids]

Whew! Thanks everyone for reaffirming my thoughts on backing off a little and picking different things to do/learn. She known her sounds since she was about 3 (so about a year and a half now, give or take).

 

I like some of the ideas of taking the phonics readiness in a different direction until she's ready to proceed to blending. She really *wants* to read, but blending the CVC words just isn't clicking and that ok, she pretends to read and is satisfyied with that atm.

 

One thing I have learned with my older two boys is this...keep trying evey once in awhile and...they're ready when they're ready. *I* just need to keep that in mind with my little girl (who tries to be so grown up ;).

[RoundAbout]

I'm in the same boat with my 4 year-old. He really loves to sound things out letter by letter so we just keep doing that - mostly street signs, book titles, etc. It keeps his letter sounds skills going and keeps it fun. I also have the next Leapfrog video (Word Factory 2) which deals with some blending like "sh."

[GypsieFamily]

I just keep playing games. I figure with dd5 that the more early work we do as games based literacy, the better she will read when she is ready. I have her play snap or other games with the 70 odd phonograms (spading). We clap syllables. We 'glue' and 'unglued' words orally. We then slowly blend v-c and c-v using the webster syllabalry on don potters site. We practice handwriting. We introduce the terms vowels and consonants. We listen to (audiobooks) and read lots of fairy tales, aesops fables and nursery rhymes.

 

Only once all this is comfortable (though not aiming for mastery) do I expect simple spelling. Going on from there, they need to be able to read back what they've written, and really soon afterwards write fro dictation two or three word phrases and sentences. Copywork soon follows that. It's all slow. It works on an idea that the more foundations of the above vie built before they've 'got it', the better they'll read when it 'clicks'. I wish it would just hurry up and click, though!