The One With the Snooker And the Phonics

We are still having a daily struggle with the boy and his reading. He loves books and he loves stories, but the moment you sit him down to do his reading from school it’s like you’re torturing him.

His ‘mark making’- which is bloody stupid trendy talk for writing- is getting much better. Currently it’s all about drawing pirate treasure maps, with X marks the spot, so that’s one letter he can do.

But the reading isn’t going anywhere. Granted the reading books from school are piss boring, but he’s not even trying. There’s only so much ‘Sam has the nut. The Nut is up the tree. Sam goes up to the nut’ that I can stand, so no wonder the boy buggers about rather than read that lot.

So on the advice of other Mums I’ve started trying to engage him in looking at letters and words in everyday life; cereal boxes, signs, shopping lists, DVD covers and captions on the TV.

So last week, when the snooker was on, I pointed out the player’s names to the boy on the screen. This didn’t inspire any interest in him until Judd Trump was playing.

Now someone on the telly called ‘Trump’ is the height of sophisticated comedy to a 5-year-old boy.

‘Those players are called Ding and Trump’ I explained

‘Trump?’ the boy said with his eyes wide with wonder. ‘Trump?’

‘Yes. His name is Judd Trump.’

‘Trump’ he was really laughing now ‘Mr Trump’.

‘Yes Mr Ding is playing Mr Trump’

He was rolling around on the sofa now holding his sides.

‘Ding and Trump’

Hysterical.

He went over to the TV screen and pointed to the name ‘Does that say Trump then?” he asked

I joined him and sounded out the letters as I ran my finger along them. Luckily Ding and Trump sound out beautifully and aren’t ‘tricky words’ - which is bloody stupid trendy talk for words whose letter sounds don't then sound like the word when they're 'blended' - which is bloody stupid trendy talk for using the letter sounds to read the word. 

He was still giggling about it all when he went to bed about half an hour later.

So this got me thinking. Maybe the only way to get the boy interested in phonics – which is bloody stupid trendy talk for learning your letters – is to teach him rude words.

Not really bad rude words. Not your four letter eff’s and jeffs. Just some mild schoolboy stuff. After all his main vocabulary currently consists of not just trump but bum, poo, wee, winky, boobies, stinky, smelly and pants, so why don’t we write them down and sound them out? We could spend a pleasant afternoon together trying to ‘blend’, stinky, bum and poo.

Yes I’m that desperate for him to read.

Shall I call social services or do you want to do it?

The One With The Jolly Phonics

You know in my last blog I said we've all started school? Well we really have!

It would appear that I have to totally re-learn how to read.

For those of you who don't have children, or children at school yet, let me introduce you to the wonderful world of phonics.

Or to be more precise, Jolly Phonics.

Oh and they'll jolly... they are really, really sodding jolly!

Children are now taught to read by sounding out the letters in words to essentially de-code them and that unlocks the mystery of reading. It's ages before they actually learn the name of the letters and do 'a,b,c' etc, they just concentrate on the sounds first. 

I have my reservations about this method, but every school does a form of it and it does seem to be working, so I've had to lay those to one side. Luckily the boys' school does use phonics alongside other reading methods, such as looking at the picture to help you tell the story, and good old fashioned memory, so it's not as sterile and I first feared. 

In Jolly Phonics each letter sound has a song and an action to accompany it, and this helps the children remember what the sound should be. Of course this is perfect for the boy who responds well to learning through rhyme, music and games, rather than traditional methods of sitting up straight and looking at the blackboard. 

Vintage Songtress, (who's son has also just started school), made a good point on Facebook the other day that once you've heard a Jolly Phonics song you can't un-hear it. She is so right. 

I'm delighted the boy is obviously learning but two things are happening. 

One, I can't get the bloody songs out of my head. 

Two, the boy, being the boy, is starting to get bored of the songs in their correct form and is riffing new lyrics to them.

As you can imagine this totally defeats the object, but he thinks it's hilarious.

One of the first letters you learn is 'a', with it's action being ants crawling up your arm, whilst singing the following, to the tune of 'Skip To My Lou',

'a, a, ants on my arm'
'a, a, ants on my arm'
'a, a, ants on my arm'
'They're causing me alarm' 

Well I've had ants everywhere but my arm these last few days. The little buggers have been in every nook and cranny according to my son. I keep trying to tell him that ants on my feet, head, shoulders and boobies isn't going to help him practice his 'a' sound, but that wasn't cutting the mmmmmm for mustard with him. 

I tried doing 'ants on my ankles' but after that I ran out of body parts beginning with 'a'. For a split second I toyed with ' ants on my arse' but that was just asking for a trip to the headmasters office, so I didn't go there. 

Would make a catchy song though,

'a, a, ants in the grass'
'They're nipping at my arse'

My other problem is that I keep forgetting what the sounds should be. Every letter has it's own sound, and some like g have two, then there's double letter sounds like ch, oo and au. 

Now I don't know if you remember how you learnt to read but I certainly don't. From the point I have any proper memories I could read so I've never given it much thought. I just know they didn't do it like this, thank goodness, because I would have struggled. Just pronouncing a 'nnnnn' is a feat of linguistic gymnastics. 

So it's back to school for me and hubby learning the alphabet and how to read all over again.

I'm just pleased they haven't set him any maths homework yet. 

I assume 1+1 still makes 2 otherwise we'll be screwed with that as well!