Today my son did not want to do clay. So I told him that we would do his reading book or the clay. He chose to read his book.
He has improved his reading a lot recently, and did very well. I did hands on shoulders (an orientation excessive) with him, this helped him stay focused. Until about half way through the book he got stuck on a word he did not know. He tried the technique he learnt at school (sounding it out, blending etc.). I then stopped him.
I asked him some questions.
Do you know that word?
, No.
Can you sound it our?
(I know he could not, I know it was impossible.), cryingNo I don’t know how.
(He can do phonics, I have seen him use it successfully with words that it works on. But never mastering the word and having to sound it out each time he got to it.)
I reassured him, I showed him dad having a go and completely failing. He laughed.
I explained It is impossible, phonics don’t work all of the time.
I then asked Can you read this word?
pointing at a word he knew, Yes.
How do you know?
, I just know it, I know that word.
I told him that he would never get really good at reading, and not at all good at writing using phonics. It will not be fun.
Would you like it if you could just read, with out difficult words?
, Yes, but it wont be interesting without the interesting words.
What if you could be good at all words?
, Yes, that would be good.
Then we need to do ping, hands on shoulder and clay.
, OK.
Tomorrow.
, Yes.
At some point he was trying to rush, because I said he could do something else when he had finished. Recognising this I told him I could change the success criteria, We are going to focus on this page then stop.
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