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Reading skills in Junior Infants

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  • 25-05-2021 7:25pm
    #1
    Iced_tea
    Registered Users Posts: 14 ✭


    Hi, my daughter is in Junior Infants class and, for personal reasons, she has been homeschooled since early December and I have all the support from her teacher and school. She's done great in maths, something that her teacher told me before, but I’m afraid, for what the teacher tells me, that she's behind the rest of her classmates in english, specifically reading.

    My daughter knows all the phonics, every sound but she's having trouble in linking the sounds to read words. She seems ok with sight words, but something hasn't clicked in her mind to link the sounds yet. She started with Jolly Phonics in august and started with Reading Eggs in march, I downloaded both apps, and she really enjoys reading eggs and getting a mystery egg.

    I haven’t talked to her teacher about next September and starting Senior Infants, and I feel anxious thinking she might have to do JI again only because she can't put the phonics sounds together to read words, considering she can ‘read’ all the sounds and performed great in Maths.

    My daughter is bilingual, spanish being the language she uses the most at home so we’ve been focused on working on few sounds instead the whole phonics sounds,and she is able to read them, for example, she can read things like “Amo a mi mamá” (I love my mom), “El mono malo” (the bad monkey), or “Memo come una lima” (Memo eats a lime).

    So my question is, do kids in JI really need to read "properly" to pass to Senior Infants class? I feel very disappointed with myself, it was my responsibility to teach her how to read:(.


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    #2
    Moonbeam
    Moderators, Education Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 18,953 Mod ✭✭✭✭Moonbeam


    I really would not worry, my son was the only child in his JI class in Ireland that could read , my girls and their class did not reach a good level of reading until after chrismtas in senior infants.
    She is only 5/6 and bi-lingual , read to her and with her in both languages and she should be fine.
    Irish schools are not as used to dealing with bi-lingual children as they are in some countries where nearly everyone is bi or tri lingual.


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    #3
    starlady1
    Registered Users Posts: 113 ✭✭starlady1


    Iced_tea wrote: »
    ]

    I haven’t talked to her teacher about next September and starting Senior Infants, and I feel anxious thinking she might have to do JI again only because she can't put the phonics sounds together to read words, considering she can ‘read’ all the sounds and performed great in Maths. (.

    I would speak to the teacher and you will get a better idea of where they would expect her to be at to progress to Senior Infants.

    Normally we would advise a child to repeat if they were not blending sounds together by the end of Junior Infants. However school was closed for 2 months this year so all of them are blending later than they normally would be.

    Can she identify initial, medial and final sounds in 3 letter words?

    If you showed her pictures and asked her to identify the ones that started with the s sound very example would she able to do that?

    What is her letter formation and number formation like?
    Iced_tea wrote: »
    ]I feel very disappointed with myself, it was my responsibility to teach her how to read:(.

    Don't feel disappointed. I am sure you are doing and have done your best. You are not a teacher so don't feel guilty over this. You can only try and help her as best you can.


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    #4
    byhookorbycrook
    Moderators, Education Moderators, Regional South East Moderators Posts: 12,481 Mod ✭✭✭✭byhookorbycrook


    Had a long reply written and lost it. I work in special ed. The infant programme is a two year programme and some children are slower to blend sounds initially, but suddenly "get it" and fly so don't panic! Grade retention or "staying back" has been proved to have a huge detrimental effect on most children and the DES only allow it for exceptional cases anyhow.

    You haven't failed her, she isn't "failing." Please don't "beat yourself up," you aren't a trained teacher.

    Continue to read to her and with her. Discuss the cover of the book and the pictures , get her to predict what she thinks might happen. Point out signs , letters where ever you go.

    Get her to tell the story in her own words. Don't make reading a chore, let her listen to audio books as well.

    Do activities to help her build sound skills (make sure they are short and fun) If the school does Jolly Phonics, revise the actions that go with each sounds- you mime an action and she has to tell you the letter name and sound. Then she mimes them
    https://www.dropbox.com/s/l7h97ojssrrtxgd/summary%20jolly.docx?dl=0
    https://www.dropbox.com/s/ps9v1uehleazmt8/phonic%20actions.pdf?dl=0

    If the school isn't using Jolly Phonics, let me know and I can do up another list.

    Help her think of a number of words that start with the /m/ or /ch/ sound, or other beginning sounds. You could do a scrapbook for each of the 42 letter sounds, where she can draw pictures for each one or cut them out of the likes of toy catalogs etc.


    Make up silly sentences with words that begin with the same sound, such as "Nobody was nice to Nancy's neighbour". Get her to repeat them.

    Play simple rhyming or blending games with her, such as taking turns coming up with words that rhyme (go – no) or blending simple words (/d/, /o/, /g/ = dog).

    Read books with rhymes. Teach her rhymes, short poems, and songs.

    Help her with her auditory memory (she needs to be able to retain sounds to blend them correctly. https://speechbloguk.com/auditory-memory-strategies/

    There are some nice activities on traditional tales here: http://www.communication4all.co.uk/http/Traditionaltales.htm

    Concentration skills are also important, you will find some ideas here
    https://cgscoil.ie/tuismitheoiri/ag-cabhru-le-do-phaiste/developing-concentration-skills-gaeilge/

    Most of all, don't be anxious, as she will pick that anxiety up.


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