I’m beginning to suspect that Big just isn’t ready for this. Seems so odd – she is a bright child in a lot of ways, although immature at times. (Lots of times, lol.) She says that she wants to read, but today we had a performance on the grand scale, a repetition of last nights. And all I was asking her to do was read the 5 words on her word tree. She knew them for two days running before we put them on, but last night she couldn’t read them for Grandma, and today she couldn’t read them for me. She remembered some of the words she had stuck on, but couldn’t identify which leaf was which word, and she doesn’t seem to have the connection between the letters and the sounds firmly at all – she can read out the letters t i n y (in lower case on the leaf) and then calmly tell me it says ‘grumpy’.
Hm. I’m a bit lost here. I’m sure she knows all her letters, she is very good at rhymes, we didn’t get on with 100 Easy Lessons, she goes on about learning to read….I’d really like to help her here, but I’m not sure how to. I’d rather just leave it alone and go on with reading and letter stuff and wait til it all falls into place, but she doesn’t seem to want to do that. It has crossed my mind that this is all an attention seeking ploy, in which case it will fade with time, but I really wish she’d pick something else to stress about!
Other than that, I was good today, got down on the floor and played with the children. Well, mainly with Small, to occupy him so that Big could get some uninterrupted computer time. Before that I did a pile of research into the foundation stage of education – like to be forearmed so that if/ when we come to the attention of the LEA I can tell them where to shove it with chapter and verse. That was quite cheering, as I feel Big is well on her way to exceeding all the attainment targets for the foundation stage, and she’s got a school year yet (if I’m reading it all correctly) before the end of it. Not sure that I think that the whole description is necessarily something I would design for a foundation educational stage (OK, so I know it isn’t – what is all this carry on about ‘appropriate’ behaviour? They mean sit down and shut up don’t they?)
Then we had a massive fall out at tea time over the cheese being on the potato and then the bread being brown instead of white, and I don’t want to make food a battle ground, but this chopping and changing of what is acceptable is another thing that is doing my head in! Can’t help feeling that all of this is just her reaction to the stress levels in the house atm, but it still doesn’t help knowing that.
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10 responses to “This reading thing”
Oh dear. I’ll try to write a decent comment to this, despite the challenge of the disappearing comment box ;-). This could be Hannah I’m reading about. In fact, I looked in an old (paper) diary and it IS Hannah :-)She expressed this very strong desire to read, and then couldn’t grasp it at all. Had she not wanted to, I would happily have backed off, but she was very determined ;-)To be absolutely honest, for me, getting hooked into that recognising words approach was not helpful. Everyone told me it was the thing to do, but in fact, it just did not work for us.And while of course we later found out about the dyslexia, I don’t believe that is the case in all situations where this happens. For us, me explained a long time ago, people didn’t read, and everything was spoken. But then gradually they needed to get a way of communicating with people who weren’t right beside them, so eventually a bunch of people got together and agreed that if they made a particular mark, then that would stand for such and such a sound in speech. gradually, more and more symbols were added. And then we realsied that we had more sounds in English than we did in the alphabet, so we joined some symbols toether to make other sounds. So this means that reading was like a code, and that every mark on the page “stood for” or represented a SOUND in our language. I NEVER said that a particular letter “said” a sound, always that it stood for a sound. And then we used Jolly Phonics religiously. The advantage being that they very quickly get some word building skills. We also played used of oral games eg “I’m thinking of something in the sky, and the end sound in /n/ and the middle one is /u/. While the end sound could mean it was sun or moon, the point was to encourage her to work out that all the sounds were important. And then on top of that, I just read to her a lot, but didn’t make a deal about word recognition for a long time. English is actually a lot more reglur than people realise, once we move into accpeting that the symbol/sound correspondence is not always 1/1 But I really do believe that in learning to read, a very helpful first step for lots of kids, who want to learn, but aren’t whole word readers, is to understand first who language is made up orally. Clear as mud? 🙂 I can’t cope with the disappearing comments any more, so I’ll stop now, but just ask if you want more of my thoughts on this – I have loads. *thoughts that is :-))
Ps the other thing is that I think there is a vast difference between knowing your letters, and knowing what to do with them. If the child doesn’t grasp that the letter stands for a sound, then they still don’t know what to do. Hence t/i/n/y says grumpy (or was that fruedian;-)) So lots of oral blending games can help. So in the car etc, we would play blending games, like a vesion of ! spy, where I would say b/e/d Stick these together to make a sound. Or, as she got skilled “what are the sounds in “boy” – answer being two sounds b/oy etc etc
I imagine Joyce’s comments to be really reassuring, just look at Hannah now 🙂
ROFL to the ‘appropriate behaviour’ thing though – yes, they do mean sit down, shut up, and don’t ask any awkward questions!
That didn’t quite come out right – didn’t mean to be patronising – because I know that despite the reassurance/knowledge that it will be okay in the end, it doesn’t necessarily help the frustration that is obviously there in the current situation – sorry, I hope you knew what I meant.
LOL – if Jax looked at Hannah right this minute, i doubt “very” much that she would find it reassuring. I’m up here finding to avoid shrieking like a fishwife at her 🙁
You see, I don’t get to avoid the shrieking bit 😉 🙁 Trying really really hard today – I’ve already played duplo with them, referreed a number of fallouts and am wondering how long before I can call it lunchtime…
Sarah, it didn’t come out patronising at all!
Jax – huge((((((((((hugs)))))))))) it will come.
Haven’t trawled through all the other comments .. so excuse me if it’s a repeat.
Seriously consider reading Montessori Read and Write, because what you are saying does not surprise me AT ALL, and it is actually considered to be totally normal in the Montessori community. (Misunderstanding of this stage in schools is considered to be the reason a lot of kids get stressed about learning to read … traditionally we encourage kids to learn these two things in the wrong order … ). Children can compose far earlier than they can read (because writing starts with a child’s own thought … so they may well be able to read a word they just wrote immediately but not later … and even not at all (which we find incomprehensible)) … reading starts from a blank (you don’t already know what you’re about to read, but you do already know what you are going to write!) The I Spy variety of games in the book will help Big to understand, in a very concrete way, how to compose a word … and gradually,therefore, how to DECOMPOSE a word. If I’m right, she is around 4 and a half? She sounds well on target, and in danger of feeling a failure, because she doesn’t understand what it is that she doesn’t understand. Decomposition seems so simple to us, but that’s because it is obvious to us (it wasn’t once, and it is actually one of the most abstract concepts to grasp).
HTH (and isn’t too emphatic).
I’ve got the book somewhere if you need an urgent borrow!
Best wishes
Sal
Gosh Jax,
Big sounds so much like my Lani! It all resonates so.
Maybe if she really wants to read, you could work with the moveable alphabet (they sell one cheaply at LDALearning.co.uk or .com?) … through which she can write her own words (next to the real object that the word describes, and purely phonetically, not accurately) and then read them (because she’ll already know what they say!).
Even more cheaply (and instantly) you can print multiples of the alphabet letters off on the computer, cut them into individual squares, and store them in a box with 26 compartments (the box being the difficult bit to find!)
We collect animals and objects (cat, hen, fish, dog, man, ant, peg, pig, nut, pan, pin, etc) … whenever we see them, for our moveable alphabet work. Lani loves when she finds something and wants to rush off and try to write it (alien was recently a favourite! Very difficult to attempt phonetically … so I got the job!)
We always work on a mat so that Lani can put a ‘reserve card’ on her work until she is ready to put it away (we only ever have one per child, so only one work can be left out, and it has to be left out of the way, so it doesn’t get babied!) She likes to savour it, show it to dad and Becsy, etc. She can also read the words to them if she chooses to, later in the day (because the object is next to it!) so she gets to bask in her own reading success too.
“Yeh, Sal, blah blah blah … this is bordering on spam!”
lol
Sal
So I did just read through the comments (and it wasn’t trawling, despite being daunted by the number initially!) and, what a wonderful bunch of people we have here! Sensitive, sensible, clever bunch aren’t they Jax!