Help getting a reluctant 6yo to read.

[amygabrielle]

My dd, who is 6yo, does not want to learn to read. She fights me every step of the way if I try to teach her to read, or even run my finger under the words I am reading aloud. It's been this way since we started hsing two years ago. She's perfectly fine with all her other subjects- no complaints. She just outright refuses to read. I've tried OPGTR, Bob books and websites like Starfall.com and computer games. Any ideas?? Should I wait for her to want to read? It's becoming a slight problem for her, especially when she's at Scouts and it's assumed the girls can read. Nearly all of her friends can read and have been reading for a year now.

Thanks!

[RahRah]

My DS6 has been a reluctant reader, in part I think because other subjects, like math, are easy for him....reading (or at least learning to read), not so much - and likely because he just thinks he should be able to do it without much effort, like how it comes to him quickly with his math.

 

For a while, I didn't push it - if he didn't want to do the phonics, we'd do something else. But I realized that wasn't/isn't helping him, so we did just a little bit each day, even if it was just five minutes. He'd fuss and say he didn't want to learn to read, etc.

 

Like your DD, DS is in scouts, and recently he's realized that his den friends are reading, so a bit of peer pressure (self-induced, no one has said anything to him) has helped - he's more open to learning to read now and recently starting asking to learn to read.

 

But that wanting to learn hasn't easily translated into wanting to do the work to learn!

 

So, I've gotten creative and taken a different tact based on what I know he likes doing. Making some changes in how we do things is definitely helping and DS is a lot more eager to do the work each day - and has recently started asking to do his phonics!

 

What I've done:

 

I got out the set of phonics DVD's by HOP - I'd been using the workbooks and we were doing a book approach and now we are doing a watch together video approach. DS prefers this and will watch with me each day a lesson or two. The DVD's came with the books, but I hadn't been using them - switching to them, rather than the books, has helped DS.

 

After watching the DVD, we take a break, play and just have some fun.

 

DS loves to draw and do art projects, so I got him blank pages with the top for a picture and the lined area to write sentences. I create two sentences each day on two pages based on the phonics words he knows and those he's learning. When we're ready to get back to work, DS reads the first sentence to me, then has to copy it on the next line (copy work) and then gets to draw a picture related to the sentence. We then do the second sentence the same way. Once he's done, he gets to hole-punch the two pages and add them to his "I'm learning to read" binder we created, that he can go back to, show to family-friends, and see how he's progressing by reviewing his own work.

 

We do read aloud each day and have started that when he sees a word he knows, he reads it....otherwise, I read it. As we progress, he's reading more and more in the books we read aloud and I'm reading less and less. DS isn't fond of the primary readers, but we do those too now and then, and those are the ones where he reads to me the entire little book.

 

When we're out and about, we look for words we know on signs - DS enjoys this as it's similar to other car games we've played looking for car colors, shapes, etc. - this is just more challenging now.

 

Lastly, I've added an incentive to keep him interested on a daily basis - we have a goal chart to do 40 Days of Reading Fun....each day he does his reading-phonics, he gets a gold star on the chart - when he gets finished with his 40 days, we'll go to the store and he can get one of the toys he really wants (yes, bribery seems to be working and I've resorted to it).

 

I'm not sure any of this will help you, but it's working for us, so maybe some may help?

[In2why]

Did she just turn 6 and does she know her letters and their sounds? Can she hear blends? If all of those answers are yes, then I would give her some time, but if she is struggling in those areas I would be more concerned. I don't have any suggestions, because I am sure you don't want it to become a power struggle yet you don't want her to miss out on all of the things that go along with reading.

 

I know with my son he isn't happy with reading instruction and prefers just reading books, but that doesn't stretch him. I make him do it anyway. I usually do our Phonic Pathways last so that he knows when he is done he can go play or do something that he really wants to do. I chose a couple of pages, and when he complains I tell him that he gets to decide how long it takes but we are going to do these 3 pages. If he works at it then it will take about 20 minutes. But if he whines, stalls, refuses to do it, then it takes a lot longer. At first I had to make sure that I was in a decent mood and had time to waste without getting frustrated because he wasn't going to make it easy. But after about a week he realized that he wanted to get it done and stopped putting up a fuss. I also made sure that we had times to read strictly for pleasure that were separate, and even when we were doing the reading lessons I didn't move too fast, because I didn't want him frustrated. But you can tell when it is too difficult and when it is just obstinance.

[Guest RecumbentHeart]

:bigear:

[wapiti]

Have you ruled out vision issues? (eyes working together as well as 20/20 acuity)

[4Hisglory]

Make the letters that you want to work on out of playdough that the two of you have made together. Put glitter and her favorite color in it and then form letters out of it and teach her the sounds and have her form the letters,then you can make more than one letter and teach her blends. You could also do the same with peanut butter playdough and then eat or cookie dough and then bake them make their sounds and eat them.Another method used is tracing the letters in sand,salt,or even sugar. You can buy colored sand and save it in a shallow container.You trace the letter first and then have her trace it and make the sound.This can be used with blends and words also.

Edited March 5, 2011 by 4Hisglory

[amygabrielle]

Dd has no hearing or vision issues. I think we should just start from the very beginning, and move really really slow. It's got to be an issue of her thinking reading is too hard, why try? Funny thing is, dd2, who is 3yo, is very quickly picking up names and sounds of letters from being in the room with us. I'll have to jazz up the lessons more and keep them short. Thanks for the ideas! Keep them coming!

[Guest]

Mine absolutely hated and refused to work with OPGTR. So I bought McRuffy. Now both my 6 and 5 year old are excited. Sometimes you have to make the switch to something else.

[ElizabethB]

My nonsense word game is a fun way to get in extra practice:

 

http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Phonics/concentrationgam.html

 

You could also try Blend Phonics from a white board, working from the white board helps my students get motivated, especially if they get to pick their marker color!

 

I would read and spell a few words from each Blend Phonics unit that she does fine with, if she is having trouble with a unit, read every word and spell a few.

 

Links for Blend Phonics and some spelling rules correlated to Blend Phonics are at the end of my how to tutor page:

 

http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Reading/howtotutor.html

[Lisa in the UP of MI]

My oldest found it easier to spell words than to read them at first. We were about halfway through AAS level 1 when she jumped from slowly sounding out one word at a time to reading a whole book over night. She was quickly able to read any picture book she could get her hands on.

[mommymilkies]

That's normal for 6 yo. My kids had the phonics down at that point but it didn't click until 7 years old.

[HeidiKC]

What about some great phonics DVDs, like LeapFrog? Those are so great. Letter Factory teaches letter sounds, then word factory does 3 letter words. Sort of using word families.

[mombygrace]

Perhaps if you do something like the other poster suggested, leapfrog DVDs and add happy phonics which my son loved :). It would made it less like school and more fun. Another thing that helped us was timed lessons, usually 20 minutes but initially just 5 minutes. We also did most of our lessons on a dry erase board or with alphabet tiles and later word tiles.

[kalanamak]

Thanks!

My boy was reluctant, but just throve with SWR. He could spell all kinds of words before he could read "Bell". He loved the hints ("it is the 3rd sound of this letter"), the flash cards, and the finger hints.

 

After he had confidence with words, I started him with PP. Nice and slowly. And where Papa couldn't hear him. Now I can barely pry a book out of his hands.

[kkiller]

Hooked on Phonics is a fun program and has some cute books to go along with it. I agree with other posts about keeping the lessons short.

[TracyR]

Sounds like my oldest and youngest. LOL.

I found that they are visual learners.

My oldest I didn't know much about learning styles and I tortured her with phonics for the longest time. It wasn't until I blended whole words and phonics did she finally pick up on reading.

I tried other things like putting the program away, bringing it back out. Read, read, read to her and none of those things helped with teaching her to read.

 

Fastforward to my 4yr old. She wanted to learn to read but I brought out the phonics book and she just had difficulty with blending ( was reliving teaching my oldest child).

I caved in and bought Your Baby Can Read. Don't let the title fool you. It truely teaches children to read. They also have Your Child Can Read ( but you would want to start with the first one before going to Your Child Can Read).

What I can tell you is that since using it my 4yr old reads better then all three of her sisters ever had. Even if I had taught them at various times. Once I used YBCR the light bulb turned on and she has been on super speed ever since. Honestly, she is figuring out phonics herself! The more I taught her the more she resisted. I came to the conclusion that phonics requires the use of the auditory senses. If your child is NOT an auditory learner then they will not pick up on the sounds that make the word automatically. They tend to forget the sounds by the end of blending them. If they see and hear the word in a fun way visual learners will pick up on this. Visually being able to understand and figure out phonics on their own.

Now of course this is just my theory by observing my daughters. I have two that have needed whole words blended in with phonics and two that learn to read phonetically with no problems.

 

Another program I really like the most is Brillkids. Its marketed for babys/toddlers but I can honestly say it works for kids that are learning to read at all ages. It teaches both whole words and phonics.

 

Anyways, I'm rambling. What I'm trying to say is if I had known that in the very beginning I think reading would never of been torturous or even a chore with my oldest daughter. Now that I have leaned this way reading is now so much fun and my 4yr old is just picking it up like a sponge. She loves to read and had I continued to do what I did when I taught my oldest to read she would not be reading right now at all.

 

If anything you could give Headsprout a try.

[Dinsfamily]

My oldest found it easier to spell words than to read them at first. We were about halfway through AAS level 1 when she jumped from slowly sounding out one word at a time to reading a whole book over night. She was quickly able to read any picture book she could get her hands on.

 

We had the same experience with SWR. My ds hated phonetic readers like Bob Books and didn't like the slow-sounding out words stage. So (per SWR philosophy) we quit doing it. Instead, we focused on spelling and reading only his spelling words. Once we got to the point in the program where your supposed to assign reading, he picked up Green Eggs and Ham and has had a book in his hand since. His reading level improved 3 grade levels in a couple of months. I think waiting til he could read easily and disguising phonics lessons as spelling was key for him.