Is this a developmental thing?

[PeachyDoodle]

DS (4 and a half) has been showing interest in learning to read. He know all his letters, upper- and lowercase, and their sounds. He can pick out the beginning and ending sounds of words and recognize his name in print. He frequently asks how words are spelled.

 

I have a copy of the Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading, so I thought we would try some basic phonics. The first real "reading" lesson starts with sounding out the word "at." He easily recognizes both "a" and "t" so I thought this would be easy. But it seemed like he couldn't recognize that the two letters went together to make a word. He only sees the letters separately.

 

I realize he's young, so if this is just a developmental thing, maybe I should wait a few months and try again. Is this something I should be concerned about?

[Ellie]

Developmental. Definitely wait.

[Mom22ns]

Developmental. Definitely wait.

 

Yep. Getting the idea of blending sounds is developmental. He isn't quite there, but he is close. :)

[Farrar]

Yep, blending. I'd shelve the OPG and just keep playing around or singing songs or whatever you're doing already and reading aloud and looking for readiness. A lot of kids aren't really there for awhile, but since he's got the sounds and is interested already, I'll bet he's there in a few months.

[ElizabethB]

Both my kids could spell before they could blend. If he is interested, work on learning to spell simple words like at, on, in, up, Mom, Dad, he, we, me, go, no, hi, etc. Long vowels are actually easier to learn to blend.

[KrissiK]

Oh yeah! My dd, who just turned 6 is barely learning how to put letters together. We worked and worked and worked all year, and finally, within the last week or two it is clicking. Be patient.

[AndyJoy]

I also vote developmental issue because he's young.  My DS knew his letter sounds before 2 and could "sound out" words at 3 but the next leap to really blending wasn't there.  I was SO SURE he could do it (and got caught up a bit in my in-laws' competitiveness with cousins) so I tried Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons for a while.  He wasn't ready, so I shelved it.  We just kept playing around with letters here and there as he showed interest.  Now at 5.5 we've picked up AAR1 and he is blending effortlessly and begging for more lessons each day.  And my in-laws get to keep happily thinking my SIL is a much better teacher than me and/or her girls are smarter ;)

[SebastianCat]

Totally developmental. My kids' reading came in spurts, so they would go from not being able to blend at all, to blending CVC words with ease, overnight. Then they'd "stall" at that level, then a couple months later have another big spurt ahead.

 

Keep it light and fun, and he will surprise you with a spurt.

[Desert Strawberry]

I killed myself trying to get my oldest to blend at age 4, and 5. I think I damaged him. While he was capable of doing it at 6, he didn't feel comfortable reading until 8. He's now twelve and reads at an adult level. Rushing did nothing to help things along. 

Be patient. He'll get it.

[PeachyDoodle]

I suspected as much, but this makes me feel better. Thanks!

 

I have never taught anyone to read (dd learned in public kindy), and frankly, I'm terrified. Also, dh struggled immensely learning to read in school -- he's still not really a confident reader as an adult. So there's always this nagging in the back of my mind... is it going to be that hard for ds? But that's the beauty of having him at home -- we can go at his pace, and he won't have to suffer the humiliation of being behind like his dad (if it were to come to that).

 

He really enjoyed playing with the OPG flash cards, so we'll keep on with that, and reading aloud, and some other fun things. Need to see if I can dig out dd's old spelling puzzles; I bet he'd enjoy those! Any other suggestions welcome!

[Desert Strawberry]

You might try some sight words, if you aren't opposed to that. I have used sight words in addition to phonics with Aries and gem. I find that their learning has been so much smoother than with just phonics alone. 

[Mom22ns]

I have never taught anyone to read (dd learned in public kindy), and frankly, I'm terrified. Also, dh struggled immensely learning to read in school -- he's still not really a confident reader as an adult. So there's always this nagging in the back of my mind... is it going to be that hard for ds? 

 

With all he is doing at just 4, it is unlikely that he is going to struggle with reading. He is doing great and so are you. 

:grouphug:

[RootAnn]

I'll be so glad when the last of mine are reading fluently. We're almost there with ds#1 & ds#2 just started 'learning to read' within the last several months.

 

That said, you can always try to have him glue & unglue words together outloud. Just say two syllables of a word separately & have him put them together himself:   "say-it-fast." Some words are better than others for this. Un-gluing has him take a word apart by syllables -- and we usually start with compound words like "your - self" or words we've already glued together to make it easier. If he can't do it, just wait & try again. Eventually, they'll get where they can break apart a word by sounds (not just syllables) and glue them back together.

 

Mine can blend when they are 5ish, but only one has been able to read fluently by 6. The others have taken far longer.

[Starr]

We went from letter sounds to Bob Books. 

[Tanikit]

I would blend for your child if I were you. Orally - not with letters since you know he can recognise the letters but he does not know how to blend. Blend is initially an aural skill. Look for short word objects in your environment and comment on them: look there is a c-a-t cat. Your child says NOTHING and you do not ask, you just talk. Here comes the d-o-g dog, look there is a c-ar car and so on. Initially pick words that have only 2 or 3 sounds in them though you do not have to use only the basic sounds (see c-ar above). When you have done this often enough without expecting anything from your child you then start to pause after saying the sounds and see if he will give you back the word. If not, you say the word still and try again a few days later.

 

Only once he can blend with you saying the sounds do you reintroduce the letters. Again show him the word at and let him say a-t then you run the letters closer with your own voice - yes, a-t, pause and see if he says at. If not say it for him. At the same time you continue doing oral phonics with him but try to extend the gap between the letters as small children can seldom read these letters fast enough to get the sounds close to blending. Otherwise when using the letters continue to shorten the time between the letters for your child as you had done orally.

 

It took my eldest a month of this (and she was 2.5 years old) to learn to blend. It took my second child a month to learn to blend orally and about 6 months with me helping her blend the letters she was reading before she could do it entirely by herself - she was about 3.5 by the time she was able to do it alone. This prevents the testing and trying to get a child blending without anyone ever showing them how it is done. Imagine hoping a baby will say a word without ever hearing a word spoken - how can we expect our kids to blend without saying it as it should be done? 

[Alte Veste Academy]

I agree that it is developmental but watching Leapfrog's Talking Words Factory (over and over and over...LOL) would be a fun, painless way to expose him to the concept.

[Chris in VA]

He might enjoy working with small phonetic objects and a moveable alphabet. I bought a bunch of wooden alphabet letters and painted them red (for the vowels) and blue (for the consonants). I collected small objects that could be spelled with 3 or 4 letters and had short vowels (dog, cat, hat, pig, tub, bat, etc.--you can find the Montessori objects lists online). We used a work rug and dd would choose an object and then say t out loud, and place the letters she heard beside the object. Later, she could go "backwards" and read the words she'd spelled.

 

I would wait for the backwards part--just initial sounds would work, too.

 

For your ds, it sounds like he's almost ready! Waiting a few months will make it so much less frustrating b/c it is developmental.

[displace]

Also consider phonemic awareness games: rhyming, what sound does "X word" start with, end with? What if I changed the /k/ in cat to a /b/ sound? How many syllables in words? Let's think of all words that start with /t/. Those skills are important and can be worked on with blending skills or beforehand.

[ExcitedMama]

You might want to check out AAR Pre-level if you want something to do with your DS that is fun. DS loved it at at 4. Coloring pages and silly rhymes. He knew his letters but didn't undetstand rhymes and other good pre-reading skills. I could tell towards the end he really got it and we went much faster so he could finish and bump up to AAR1.

[hepatica]

With all he is doing at just 4, it is unlikely that he is going to struggle with reading. 

:grouphug:

 

Not necessarily.

 

My oldest DD knew her alphabet letters and sounds at age three. Still could not read at age 8, and is now diagnosed dyslexic. I would keep an eye on it. Having an immediate family member who struggles with reading is something to pay attention to. If he is still struggling at age 6 or 7, I would begin a reading program for dyslexics. 

[Rod Everson]

Not necessarily.

 

My oldest DD knew her alphabet letters and sounds at age three. Still could not read at age 8, and is now diagnosed dyslexic. I would keep an eye on it. Having an immediate family member who struggles with reading is something to pay attention to. If he is still struggling at age 6 or 7, I would begin a reading program for dyslexics. 

 

I agree. The fact that a parent had an obvious reading problem should be considered. 

 

The blending issue is developmental though, and the way to accelerate it is to just play oral blending games as others have suggested until he catches on.

 

If he's obviously struggling once he can blend, and especially if he gets to age six or so and is really resisting learning to read, or clearly doesn't want to read, then at that point I'd get his eyes checked by a developmental optometrist just to rule out the existence of a problem with his vision skills. 

 

For now though, it's early, and he might easily learn to blend, and read, in time.

[PeachyDoodle]

Not necessarily.

 

My oldest DD knew her alphabet letters and sounds at age three. Still could not read at age 8, and is now diagnosed dyslexic. I would keep an eye on it. Having an immediate family member who struggles with reading is something to pay attention to. If he is still struggling at age 6 or 7, I would begin a reading program for dyslexics. 

 

I am definitely aware of this. Perhaps too aware. I don't want it to become a self-fulfilling prophecy. And as you can imagine, it's a bit of a sensitive issue for dh, so it's hard for me to talk about my fears without him feeling like I'm blaming him. :crying:

 

For some reason, I never worried about this with dd, even though she showed zero interest in being read to or learning to read before kindergarten. In fact, when she started kindergarten, she flat-out told me she wasn't going to learn to read. Then she proceeded to take to it like a fish in water and zoom to the top of her class.

 

DS, on the other hand, is far less precocious all around than dd was, but he loves to be read to and asks lots of questions about what words say, how they're spelled, etc. I never thought we'd be even considering reading at 4 (due to my aforementioned paranoia). At this point, I don't see any reason to worry; I just wasn't sure what we were dealing with exactly.

 

FWIW, dh is not dyslexic. Both of his parents were professional educators, and he's been tested multiple times. Honestly, I suspect that he was more of a late-bloomer than anything, but the constant pressure of being behind destroyed his confidence. He reads just fine when he's not on the spot, but any situation with pressure (tests, reading aloud to a group) still makes him panic.