Is your child finding it challenging to learn to read?

Maybe you have noticed that your child's reading is slow and lacks flow. Or maybe your child's teacher has told you that they aren't working at the level they should be. Whatever it is, once you realise that your child has a problem your immediate response is try to fix it. 

When your child has a problem, any problem, it starts to occupy a large amount of headspace. You find yourself worrying about it on and off throughout the day and last thing at night whilst lying in bed. You've probably carried out extensive internet searches for ways to help your child at home. 

Some of the solutions you may have come across are to read more at home with your child or to encourage them to use their phonics and 'sound it out'. Perhaps you are waiting and hoping that the school alone will eventually help your child learn to read, after all that is what schools are for!

Whilst all of these solutions can work there is a bit more to it.

Let's take a look at reading at home more often. Chances are your child knows that reading isn't their strong point. They will try to avoid reading and look for any reason they can to delay the inevitable. They may become suddenly ravenous or desperate for the toilet. Suddenly the ten minute window you've carved out to read with your child has turned into twenty minutes and you still haven't even opened the book! Then you become frustrated, your child picks up on this and becomes even more reluctant to read. Before you know it, you are both in tears, a large amount of time has passed and you've only heard them read a page or two and they sounded utterly awful. You haven't taught them anything about how to read, just reinforced the idea that they don't like reading and don't want to try to do it. 

As to sounding it out, this one is the most deceptive of all. On the surface it seems so easy. I can sound out words, no problem. Ok, let's see c-a-t, cat, d-o-g, dog! See, I'm a pro at this. Until you try to explain how to sound out 'the' or how to sound out 'bear' and explain how the ear in bear, fear and heard are all spelt the same yet are all 'sounded out' differently.  Did you learn phonics at school? Do you know the rules? Do you know which groups of letters go together to be sounded out and which ones are left on their own? Do you know that some words can't be sounded out at all? Or not until you are further along in your phonics knowledge at which point you are past sounding it out anyway? 

What about the school? After all it is their job to teach your child, that is why you send your child to school, to learn. Whilst this is true, the teacher has taught. There will be other children in the class who listened to the same teaching and learnt to read. The school will try other approaches and maybe even intervention groups. The trouble is there is only so much time in a day and money is woefully short in schools. Imagine if all 30 children in the class needed one to one sessions and to be taught in a different way to make reading make sense for them. Now imagine in the same class, all 30 children needed one to one Maths sessions to understand adding, and how to subtract. Now imagine if all 30 of those children needed a one to one session to learn Science, Writing, D&T, History, Geography, Art, ICT, Music, RE, PSHE and PE. Even if this imaginary class were lucky enough to have an additional adult to help the teacher, how on earth could they help every single child in every single subject? They couldn't. Sadly, this is the reality that teachers face in schools all day long, up and down the country. With all the will in the world it is impossible. 

Why Should I have to pay to teach them to read?

In a perfect world, you wouldn't. We can't control what happens to us or our children. The only thing we can control is what we do about it. Unfortunately, your child currently needs a little more support to learn to read. You can moan and cry that it's unfair all you like but that isn't going to do anything to change the situation. Currently, the best way to support your child is to get them a tutor who excels in teaching reading.  

Once I start with a tutor I'll have to stay with them for years.

When you select a tutor who is an expert in their field, you won't be working with them for long. A skilled teacher quickly identifies the child's barriers to learning and teaches them the skills to overcome their particular issue. Once they have the building blocks and understand the process of reading they can then continue to increase their reading knowledge alone by reading harder books and with the general teaching that they receive in school. 

The quicker you start helping your child to learn to read the sooner they will close the gaps in their learning and catch up with their peers. 

Investing in your child's future is the best investment that you will ever make. A little support now will help them to thrive in the future. Once your child becomes a reader the world is their oyster, and anything and everything becomes possible. There are many famous people who struggled to learn to read initially but once they did, they went on to do amazing things. You might have heard of some of these people: Albert Einstein, Keira Knightley, Richard Branson and Thomas Edison. Maybe your little one will grow up to be the next Einstein. 

Once they are a reader, anything is possible. Oh and that parent guilt you are carrying around? That will disappear the moment that you decide to take action and start your child on their journey to be a reader. 

If you would like to know more about me and my teaching background click here.

If you would like more information or to book your sessions click here.