My second child however…was very similar to your son. She was so eager to begin reading and we progressed well until we were nearing the end of the programme and the stories started getting longer. Needless to say, we BOTH came to dread phonics. It came to be associated with lots of stress, lots of tears on both sides and no progress. I was so sad when I remembered how she had been so eager to learn to read in the beginning. And I too, have come to appreciate that she is not stuck in the school system, being labelled as learning disadvantaged and then believing that about herself for the rest of her life and being treated like that for the rest of her life.

I backed off for a whole year. I wanted her to forget the misery associated with learning to read as much as possible. Finally, she began to come to me and say ‘Look Mum, I read this page of this Doctor Seuss book all by myself’. Then she began to ask to read a verse during family scripture time.

After a few months of this, I gently suggested we start phonics again. We went right back to where it was very very easy for her, so she could feel confident and fill in any gaps in her memory. We covered 5 lessons at a time because it was so easy for her and she could whizz through them and was enjoying the success.

Then one day she decided she wanted to jump ahead a bit. She found the story she wanted to read – and I think it is the perfect place for her at this time – it is easy enough that she is having success and hard enought that she has to concentrate. This time around I feel like there is a difference. First time around, she had to work hard on decoding nearly every word, this time around she is much more fluent and her decoding is much quicker. I believe that she is READY now.

We are still working on it obviously but I can see how things are progressing in the right manner now and I have definitely learnt to NOT push your children to read. She is 9 years old now but I know that if I don’t make her hate reading, she will one day catch up and hopefully come to love reading, just like myself and my husband and my eldest daughter.