Reading advice needed

[Britt_Nichole]

My daughter turned 4 in May. She was showing all the reading readiness signs. Could identify sounds (beginning, middle, end) in words, can recognize all letters and sounds easily etc. We bought the Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading and she has had no problem sounding out CVC words and sentences comprised of those words. However, about 3 weeks ago we got to the section on 4 letter words and it's really been a struggle. We did okay at first because the book has you start with double consonants and "ck" words. She also did okay with "st" words because we learned to recognize that as a single sounds. But then it moved on to more complex words. When she sounds them out she always puts the emphasis on the 3rd letter. So for sand she goes "ssssssss-aaaaaaaaaaa-NUH-duh" dragging out the "s" and the "a" just like that and then quickly emphasizing the "N" to the "D" sounds. Since she can't seem to emphasize or read the words correctly she can't blend them.

 

I'm a problem solver so I tried to start with easier words like "st" "sh" and "sk" ending words because I could teach her to blend them as a single sounds with relative ease but we still can't seem to get down words with "mp" "nd" or similar sounds. I also tried to teach her to take the root "and" and add various letters to the beginning to make "s-and" "h-and" but it's just not clicking. She can read them out of context with help but not in a sentence and half the time I have to point out "see the word and after the s?" so it's really just handholding. I feel like it's just beyond her level at this time. Do I just stick with CVC words for now? She manages those so easily I feel like it's not challenging enough but after almost a month on the same handful of words I'm not sure what to do anymore. The book was excellent for us up until the 4 letter words and now we just can't seem to grasp them.

[Tanaqui]

Does she particularly want to read? Four is a little early to teach reading if a child is just going along. If this was your idea and not hers, I might wait until she's five or six and then start again from the beginning. (And for the record, at least one study shows that kids learn faster if you introduce three and four letter words simultaneously rather than doing three letters first, then adding another letter, though I doubt I'll be able to find it to cite it properly. More studies show that children learn faster if they wait until six or seven rather than starting at four or five - by eight, they're all in the same place.)

[HomeAgain]

Set out a moveable alphabet with a tray and stop reading lessons.  If she wants to build words, she can.  But she doesn't sound ready to press through lessons.  Give her some space and try again in a few months if you want.

[ReadingMama1214]

Does she particularly want to read? Four is a little early to teach reading if a child is just going along. If this was your idea and not hers, I might wait until she's five or six and then start again from the beginning. (And for the record, at least one study shows that kids learn faster if you introduce three and four letter words simultaneously rather than doing three letters first, then adding another letter, though I doubt I'll be able to find it to cite it properly. More studies show that children learn faster if they wait until six or seven rather than starting at four or five - by eight, they're all in the same place.)

This. If she doesn't want to move forward in the lessons don't. 4 is incredibly young to push them to read. If she's enjoying learning to read, that's great. But If she is fighting it then stop where you are. Let her read Cvc words and Books that use those words, but do not force lessons.

 

Many kids know their letter sounds and are able to rhyme and recognize sounds in words YEARS before they're ready to read. Blending is a developmental skill and not one you can force. Let her learn at her pace. If that means camping out at cvc words for weeks, months, or years then that's what she needs.

[medawyn]

I mostly agree with PPs.  Stop, wait, practice reading with CVC word books if she's enjoying that.  Many times there are just developmental leaps that have to occur before the next stage of reading (or math) can occur.  You can't really rush that.

 

The one game I have played with littles who are ready but just need a little help is to write one letter of each word on a card, and then have them hop on the letters and say the sound.  From there we move to skating over the letters to "smooth out" the word.  This will only help if she's actually ready, just having a hard time getting over a hump.

 

But mostly, take a break.  It's amazing what a month, six months, or a year can do.

[Ellie]

She's barely four. She needs time to mature. My recommendation would be to let it go. It is enough, for her age, if you read aloud to her from good books, just for enjoyment (IOW, don't try to make it a reading lesson. Just read and enjoy.).

[Pistachio mom]

It sounds like you have a maturity issue going on here. Blending comes both with the teaching of systematic phonics - which you are doing, but also with maturity. It sounds like your girl is ready to start learning phonogram families. For example: and, hand, land, sand, etc.

 

She might understand the idea of blending if she "sings" the sounds to say the word.

 

Teach her the trick of learning to look for what comes after the vowel to know how to read it. So, read the first sound, then look at the vowel chunk and what comes after. So, it would be /s/ = /an-d/. This way you teach for comprehension.

 

Also learning the two letter sounds such as the /nd/ that end words. School supply stores have posters of this kind of thing. I think, if it were my child, I would keep on working on the words that are familiar and add in just a few word families. You can make books very easily with easy words, basic sight words, and just a few of your word family patterns. Some kids have to learn word family cards right brain style. What I mean is - even though they can sound out the individual sounds, to put it together comes faster and more permanently by memorizing it. I made index cards for my youngest a few years ago when she was stuck sort of like your daughter is right now.  For /ail/, I drew the letters on with permanent black sharpie, then my student helped me draw little nails on the card over top of the phonogram sound. WE made about 2 or 3 new cards per week. So, we reviewed these cards each time we read and this helped so much. For a very smart girl in other areas, she could not remember phonics "rules" for the life of her. But she could memorize the patterns. Since she could sound them out, she would try to read the words and part way through -- would recognize the patterns. She was memorizing, but doing it with understanding. Teaching reading by learning to either read or recognize phonogram "families" will produce a reader who reads by syllable chunks, rather than a reader who is sounding out every little sound.

 

I also used vertical cards with word families such as :  _um, _ump, hump, pump, dump....    Reading the words in lists, rather than in sentences worked well for practicing these words.

 

An example from one of the little home-made books: The text was about our cat named Aslan. Title: Cat Nip. Each page has one sentence:

Aslan is here.

He has a tick.

She will pick it off.

He can take a nap.

[child's name] will pick him a bit of cat nip.

Aslan will lick it.

He loves it!

 

You can see, that we are introducing the /ick/ sound. Sight words we already learned help make a story flow. My children loved to draw the pictures in these construction paper books. Sometimes I drew them also. Doing this made it easy to tailor books to the sounds we were learning. Reviewing was fun because the books were about our family and pets. I just chopped construction paper in half vertically, and stapled paper books. The expensive reader sets with the full color pictures hardly got used at my house. Simple stories like this helped us use the three letter CVC words my children knew, but allowed practice of specific phonogram word families in a fun way. And then before I knew it, a quantum leap in learning would happen and we would be over that particular hurdle. For my children, progress in learning to read was not always by increments. Sometimes, something would "click" and learning would happen in chunks.

 

If you are not already teaching sight words, I do recommend it. You can find Dolch and Fry lists on line. Many reading curriculae have them too.

http://www.mrsperkins.com/dolch.htm

http://www.k12reader.com/subject/vocabulary/fry-words/

 

Sound Hounds is a fun card game resource to work on these types of things. I bought my set at a craft store with a 40% off coupon

https://www.amazon.com/Trend-Enterprises-Inc-T76302-Learning/dp/B001JTMJ50/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1501532674&sr=8-1&keywords=sound+hounds+game

 

Pinterest is super loaded with lots of ideas also:  https://www.pinterest.com/pin/376543218814932467/

 

Since your student is very young, it is not a rush or anything to be worried about if she seems at a standstill for now. What seems hard right now, might be very easy in a month. You want to make it fun so that she looks forward to reading with you. You can play lots of games with what she knows and scaffold her up to the next step. My children loved playing on the Starfall app for ipads. The resources available are really endless.

Best wishes as you explore options! :)

Edited July 31, 2017 by Pistachio mom

[Pistachio mom]

Another idea: Whatever sound you are working on, have your girl listen for it in your read aloud books. For example, when I was teaching suffixes, I used the book My Lucky Day. I had my girl listen for particular suffixes, and we kept tally marks or she would oik like the pig in the story when she heard the sound. Anything to find the sound and make reading fun. Technically, this technique of token analysis is useful for lots of subjects.

 

Honestly, I had one child reading individual words at 3. My other two started at 4 and we built fluency throughout 2nd grade. I am doing some review of phonics in 3rd grade for my youngest too. There are plenty of ways to make learning to read feel like a really fun game time.  Just because you are teaching her to read, does not mean you are forcing it down her throat. Some children do read early. But do know that reading individual words and short sentences will grow as maturity and focus ability allow. You can't rush it.

 

I learned a lot by checking out library books for teachers about teaching reading. It is a fun time to enjoy with your child.

Edited July 31, 2017 by Pistachio mom

[Finlandia]

I agree with the PPs. It sounds like she's simply not ready for that next step. That's okay. Blending is a developmental skill, and just turned 4 is a little young to be able to do that. If she wants to continue with reading lessons you could repeat the CVC lessons you've already done, which would be good practice, or you could use something like Bob books for reading practice (the early ones have mostly CVC words). I found that the progression in OPGTTR was somewhat awkward at times, so I would skip lessons and come back to them later if necessary.

 

But if she's not expressing a desire to continue lessons then I would put it away for awhile and simply read lots of books to her.

[Tanaqui]

If you are not already teaching sight words, I do recommend it. You can find Dolch and Fry lists on line. Many reading curriculae have them too.

 

I think it's better for nearly all kids to teach sight words as phonics words. When they get good enough at phonics, they'll automatically recognize those words by sight, and nearly all of them can be sounded out anyway.

 

[Milknhoney]

My daughter's birthday is also in May, and I started her on OPGTR around August the year she turned 4. We went super slow. Instead of the "two review one new", we did one review and one new, then the next day just review the same two pages, then the next day one review and one new, and so on, so that each page got read three times. I know there were times when that was not enough, and I don't really remember how I handled it. I think I may have just backed up and started whole sections over again. I know she was five before I could really say she was reading. 

 

I have a friend who didn't get through OPGTR until her child was 7, so my experience obviously is not going to work for everyone. In her case, she would stop for a week or two and when she picked it up again, suddenly everything had clicked. Like his brain just needed some down time to process it all. 

 

I recommend the Leap Frog Talking Words Factory video. It's not quite as good as Talking Letter Factory, but it could still be helpful in mastering concepts. There's a whole song about blends. Just be forewarned that if you later do All About Spelling, your child will not be able to answer the "what are the long vowel sounds?" key card without breaking out into the song "We're A-E-I-O-U, we're the vowels, we're the glue, to stick the words together..." Every.single.time. 

[ElizabethB]

Try syllables, for example ack.  Here is the syllabary:

 

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

 

And how to teach Webster:

 

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

 

Some YouTube Webster, including Don Potter's complete reading of the syllabary:

 

 

Blending and pre-reading ideas, keep working on phonemic awareness:

 

 

And my blending page with more ideas:

 

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

 

I would not teach sight words as wholes, I have remediated too many students who have problems from that, here is how and why to teach them phonetically:

 

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

 

Recent brain research shows that the brains of good readers are not actually reading words as wholes but reading every letter or letter group (like sh or oa) in the area of the brain that processes sounds, just super fast in parallel.

Edited August 1, 2017 by ElizabethB

[Pistachio mom]

BJ Press has a very nice set of flash cards that have true sight words (words that really don't follow the phonics rules... not just a bunch of CVC words to memorize.)   -it's not nearly as huge as the Dolch and Fry lists. Their first grade card set includes loads of words arranged by word families. If you need fun characters to introduce the basic phonics rules they have a Mr and Mrs. Short, a Miss Long, and Bossy R for teaching r-controlled vowels. My children's favorites were the bad cats for suffixes. I have not ever used their teacher book, just the cards with the workbooks.

 

Obviously, different teachers will have different opinions about which word to teach as sight words. The point is to teach with understanding - not rote memorizing. Parts of sight words can be read phonetically, but many really do have to be recognized. You will have to decide what makes sense for your child.

 

If you need a solid phonics program, BJ Press has one for K4 and up. It is Christian perspective. THe CBD website called the flashcards a flip chart set:

https://www.christianbook.com/phonics-grade-1-homeschool-visual-flipchart/9781591662921/pd/211847?event=Homeschool|1004221

for K5 card sets - https://www.christianbook.com/bju-beginnings-phonics-charts-homeschool-packet/9781591662969/pd/208090?event=EBRN#CBD-PD-Description

 

A BJ Press phonics workbook for grade 1 would be too much writing to a 4 year old. But the grade one flash card/flip chart set is a better mix of sounds and words.

 

Critical thinking company has great preschool products too. I used their math for preschool. Since then, they have developed a phonics program. It might be worth checking out.

http://www.criticalthinking.com/preschool-academics

http://www.criticalthinking.com/catalogsearch/advanced/result/?grade%5B%5D=117&subject%5B%5D=122&product_type%5B%5D=all