How to help kindergartener struggling with reading

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You help by not expecting that your kindergartener will be reading.

Our ES teacher said, if not reading by the end of 2nd grade, then it's a problem.

Your ES teacher isn't very bright. Kids should be starting to read by K, at the latest in 1st. If they get to 3rd, someone has failed them if they cannot read.

School starts at age 7 in Europe. Kids are not expected to know how to read entering school. Their job is to play at age 5, 6 and 7 when US kids are learning to read. While our whole class is close to reading, they have missed out on a lot of play.
At 7, most kids are ready to learn and can move together really fast. In 2-3 months, all cam read and by the end of 1st (age 7) or 2nd grade, nobody can tell that they didn't start reading until 7.
Please let the kids play. I'm in K classroom now and the kids need to play more. They need to work on their gross motor skills, not reading. PE class is a mess this year. It's like they just learned to walk.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You help by not expecting that your kindergartener will be reading.

Our ES teacher said, if not reading by the end of 2nd grade, then it's a problem.

Your ES teacher isn't very bright. Kids should be starting to read by K, at the latest in 1st. If they get to 3rd, someone has failed them if they cannot read.

School starts at age 7 in Europe. Kids are not expected to know how to read entering school. Their job is to play at age 5, 6 and 7 when US kids are learning to read. While our whole class is close to reading, they have missed out on a lot of play.
At 7, most kids are ready to learn and can move together really fast. In 2-3 months, all cam read and by the end of 1st (age 7) or 2nd grade, nobody can tell that they didn't start reading until 7.
Please let the kids play. I'm in K classroom now and the kids need to play more. They need to work on their gross motor skills, not reading. PE class is a mess this year. It's like they just learned to walk.

This argument about Europe ignores that English is a deep orthographic language and it's very complicated to learn

[Anonymous]

Too early to worry anything about K kid. My kid was not reading in K, but now in 4th grade, he is a heavy reader and scores 99 percentile in MAP.

Don't worry about reading skills in K. Just read stories to your kid. Make sure this happens regularly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Reading to your child an hour or every half-hour every night is the best method.

Please, pay attention to this, or you will create a life-long hater of reading. Read fun books to your child (let them ake the lead/pick which books). Do not make it a chore

We read to my daughter every night. Her teacher complimented her on her extensive vocabulary and comprehension skills. But that doesn't change the fact that she struggles in reading and likes to guess words

OMG. The only point of reading is comprehension. That's it. That's the point. Reading without comprehension is useless. And it's the comprehension part that's hard! Your DD has a huge headstart. Once she figures out the decoding, she'll be ahead of many of her peers because of that extensive vocabulary and comprehension skills. Plus, the listening comprehension skills she's developed from being read.to so much will serve her for the rest of her life. There is no real benefit to learning to read at 5 versus 7. None. And if learning to read at 5 means forcing your kid to sit with worksheets they hate, then it can actually be counterproductive. (I would also argue that if reading earlier results in parents stopping reading aloud earlier, then that's also bad. Young kids learn so much more from being read to than from reading to themselves.)

Seriously, look at your child with the extensive vocabulary and excellent comprehension skills. Look at your home, with books everywhere. Look at the kids a few years older all around her who have figured out how to read. She wil figure it out, too, and she won't need phonics at age 5 to do so.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You help by not expecting that your kindergartener will be reading.

Our ES teacher said, if not reading by the end of 2nd grade, then it's a problem.

Your ES teacher isn't very bright. Kids should be starting to read by K, at the latest in 1st. If they get to 3rd, someone has failed them if they cannot read.

School starts at age 7 in Europe. Kids are not expected to know how to read entering school. Their job is to play at age 5, 6 and 7 when US kids are learning to read. While our whole class is close to reading, they have missed out on a lot of play.
At 7, most kids are ready to learn and can move together really fast. In 2-3 months, all cam read and by the end of 1st (age 7) or 2nd grade, nobody can tell that they didn't start reading until 7.
Please let the kids play. I'm in K classroom now and the kids need to play more. They need to work on their gross motor skills, not reading. PE class is a mess this year. It's like they just learned to walk.

This argument about Europe ignores that English is a deep orthographic language and it's very complicated to learn

Do you have any sources to support your suggestion that English-speaking children need to start learning to read earlier than their French or Spanish or German- speaking counterparts?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Reading to your child an hour or every half-hour every night is the best method.

Sooner or later your kid will read through osmosis, but first ensure your child has "sight words" down pat. A lot of issues can develop if the kid isn't well-versed in sight words first. YouTube has a lot of great videos where the child can read along and they're free.

I could not disagree with this more strongly! Read, yes, but not so they will pick up reading by osmosis.

I have one older dyslexic and I'm using All About Reading with my youngest. If being read to worked for all kids, my first child would have been the most skilled reader in the school, but there are plenty of children for whom it doesn't work like that. Interestingly, I was an osmosis reader, but my spouse was not. The main thing is you are seeing an issue of some kind. Please trust your gut.

I would recommend joining the All About Reading support group on Facebook, or just email them. They give extremely detailed support. He might need to start with pre-reading. One benefit of that is you can get the Ziggy puppet which will help him buy in. He's not formally used in the numbered levels, but you can still use him.

I recommend pre-reading even if he almost passes the placement test (I think mine missed 2 or 3 and that was the advice when I asked what to do), because as someone else said the letter and sound recognition need to be automatic. I can't speak to LOE, although there are some pros/cons mentioned of you search the AAR Facebook group. "Fun" is certainly a pro for AAR. Their website should have sample games also. The curriculum is scripted so you can learn the rules along with him. (But flexible also-- we repeat games and pend more or less time on concepts as needed.)

AAR recommends 20 minutes a day, so it should fit with your constraints. It's also very flexible. The books seem more "real" than BOB books, while still being fully decodable. Many have a "twist" at the end (full disclosure, just finished the first of three readers in level one). A thing I like is the pictures don't automatically tell the story in most cases. For instance a few animals "sat" in a van then the next one "fit" in the van. It helps to tell if they are trying to guess using patterns and context.

A huge help in pre-reading is saying the alphabet while pointing to the letters on a poster. You could just do this on your own. My child knew all the letters (loved letters, pointed them out everywhere), but this really helped with automaticity. Kind of surprising how hard it is to do it without singing and how much singing gets you "off" from attending to the letters on LMNOP, etc.

I just asked my five year old what they like about AAR. They said, "Everything because it's so fun."

I would be happy to answer other questions.

[Anonymous]

The Europe comment doesn’t even make sense. There are many countries in Europe with many different school systems. In Germany and England they start school at age 4. I think it’s the Scandinavian countries that start later..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Reading to your child an hour or every half-hour every night is the best method.

Please, pay attention to this, or you will create a life-long hater of reading. Read fun books to your child (let them ake the lead/pick which books). Do not make it a chore

We read to my daughter every night. Her teacher complimented her on her extensive vocabulary and comprehension skills. But that doesn't change the fact that she struggles in reading and likes to guess words

OMG. The only point of reading is comprehension. That's it. That's the point. Reading without comprehension is useless. And it's the comprehension part that's hard! Your DD has a huge headstart. Once she figures out the decoding, she'll be ahead of many of her peers because of that extensive vocabulary and comprehension skills. Plus, the listening comprehension skills she's developed from being read.to so much will serve her for the rest of her life. There is no real benefit to learning to read at 5 versus 7. None. And if learning to read at 5 means forcing your kid to sit with worksheets they hate, then it can actually be counterproductive. (I would also argue that if reading earlier results in parents stopping reading aloud earlier, then that's also bad. Young kids learn so much more from being read to than from reading to themselves.)

Seriously, look at your child with the extensive vocabulary and excellent comprehension skills. Look at your home, with books everywhere. Look at the kids a few years older all around her who have figured out how to read. She wil figure it out, too, and she won't need phonics at age 5 to do so.

+1. This process has become too competitive at the expense of developing children. Its completely okay if some kids learn to read at 4 and others learn to read at 7, as long as there is not an expectation to be reading earlier than 7/8. I know everyone wants the best for their child, but a little struggle is not a bad thing. Struggle can be proof of learning. When it comes to reading what kids need is phonics lessons, practice and to continue to be read to and exposed to language. They need their confidence built so they are encouraged trying and exploring language. Its not a race and the prize at the end is the same for all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Reading to your child an hour or every half-hour every night is the best method.

Please, pay attention to this, or you will create a life-long hater of reading. Read fun books to your child (let them ake the lead/pick which books). Do not make it a chore

We read to my daughter every night. Her teacher complimented her on her extensive vocabulary and comprehension skills. But that doesn't change the fact that she struggles in reading and likes to guess words

OMG. The only point of reading is comprehension. That's it. That's the point. Reading without comprehension is useless. And it's the comprehension part that's hard! Your DD has a huge headstart. Once she figures out the decoding, she'll be ahead of many of her peers because of that extensive vocabulary and comprehension skills. Plus, the listening comprehension skills she's developed from being read.to so much will serve her for the rest of her life. There is no real benefit to learning to read at 5 versus 7. None. And if learning to read at 5 means forcing your kid to sit with worksheets they hate, then it can actually be counterproductive. (I would also argue that if reading earlier results in parents stopping reading aloud earlier, then that's also bad. Young kids learn so much more from being read to than from reading to themselves.)

Seriously, look at your child with the extensive vocabulary and excellent comprehension skills. Look at your home, with books everywhere. Look at the kids a few years older all around her who have figured out how to read. She wil figure it out, too, and she won't need phonics at age 5 to do so.

I wrote the long AAR post. Disagree strongly with this as well. I read like crazy to child 1 and purposely didn't teach reading. Biggest regret of my life.

Benefits that would have happened if I had done it at five or earlier:
-confidence - that disappeared sometime in K and started to come back only after intensive tutoring
-love of school - also disappeared for a while even though love of learning outside school was still there
-money - I'd have a lot more of it. Tutors are $$$
-brain pathways - would have been done correctly and not have to be undone/relearned
-spelling - would be way better if taught from the ground up
-writing - all else about my child (vocabulary, creativity) indicates they would have written very well but the congnitive load of not being able to spell meant writing output was way below all other indicators. Finally coming back in line after 1.5 years of tutoring.

This is not even a severe dyslexic, but the cost of waiting has been tremendous.

[Anonymous]

AAR poster again. Meant to mention how great letter tiles are for helping with blending.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:AAR poster again. Meant to mention how great letter tiles are for helping with blending.

Do you have a link to letter tiles? Are referring to blocks that have one letter on each block? I’m interested for my DC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:AAR poster again. Meant to mention how great letter tiles are for helping with blending.

Do you have a link to letter tiles? Are referring to blocks that have one letter on each block? I’m interested for my DC.

https://www.allaboutlearningpress.com/letter-tiles/

Also get the magnets. You have to assemble them. If you just want letter tiles, you can probably find better quality. These colors match this program.

Not just one letter for things like th, sh, ch.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Your kindergartener gets take home work? Wow.

Our approach was to come at it from the opposite direction of school and do more reading out loud and decoding words in narrative/visual context. It won't necessarily help with the worksheets but did help keep him interested in reading.

Yes to this. I would turn the pressure down at home substantially and just read for fun- take than 30 minutes + and read anything and everything he wants. Go to the library and get every single book he wants, no discussion. Then also put into your bag an equal number of books you like for him. Picture books- don’t have to be easy readers. And then sit on the couch with him and do good voices and sit there as long as you possible can reading to him every single day. Get him comic books like Garfield to lead through while he eats or has to wait for an appointment. Read your own stuff in front of him- but not on a device.

Good luck, OP!

[Anonymous]

It is true that some kids need extra help with phonics, and some kids need even more. I have friends whose kids were diagnosed with dyslexia and that was really hard. However, I always thought that teaching the nuts and bolts was the job of the teacher and my job as a parent was to give them warm snuggly associations with reading. I wouldn’t worry too much about things midway through kindergarten, OP. Just read to them- and even more than 30 minutes a day, if you can. Good luck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Reading to your child an hour or every half-hour every night is the best method.

Please, pay attention to this, or you will create a life-long hater of reading. Read fun books to your child (let them ake the lead/pick which books). Do not make it a chore

We read to my daughter every night. Her teacher complimented her on her extensive vocabulary and comprehension skills. But that doesn't change the fact that she struggles in reading and likes to guess words

OMG. The only point of reading is comprehension. That's it. That's the point. Reading without comprehension is useless. And it's the comprehension part that's hard! Your DD has a huge headstart. Once she figures out the decoding, she'll be ahead of many of her peers because of that extensive vocabulary and comprehension skills. Plus, the listening comprehension skills she's developed from being read.to so much will serve her for the rest of her life. There is no real benefit to learning to read at 5 versus 7. None. And if learning to read at 5 means forcing your kid to sit with worksheets they hate, then it can actually be counterproductive. (I would also argue that if reading earlier results in parents stopping reading aloud earlier, then that's also bad. Young kids learn so much more from being read to than from reading to themselves.)

Seriously, look at your child with the extensive vocabulary and excellent comprehension skills. Look at your home, with books everywhere. Look at the kids a few years older all around her who have figured out how to read. She wil figure it out, too, and she won't need phonics at age 5 to do so.

I wrote the long AAR post. Disagree strongly with this as well. I read like crazy to child 1 and purposely didn't teach reading. Biggest regret of my life.

Benefits that would have happened if I had done it at five or earlier:
-confidence - that disappeared sometime in K and started to come back only after intensive tutoring
-love of school - also disappeared for a while even though love of learning outside school was still there
-money - I'd have a lot more of it. Tutors are $$$
-brain pathways - would have been done correctly and not have to be undone/relearned
-spelling - would be way better if taught from the ground up
-writing - all else about my child (vocabulary, creativity) indicates they would have written very well but the congnitive load of not being able to spell meant writing output was way below all other indicators. Finally coming back in line after 1.5 years of tutoring.

This is not even a severe dyslexic, but the cost of waiting has been tremendous.

NP, strongly agree. DC has mild dyslexia and all the reading aloud we did, Bob Books, etc. could not overcome the decoding and encoding difficulties. DC needed tutoring with evidence-based program and now at Siena School.