Important update from TheSchoolRun
For the past 13 years, TheSchoolRun has been run by a small team of mums working from home, dedicated to providing quality educational resources to primary school parents. Unfortunately, rising supplier costs and falling revenue have made it impossible for us to continue operating, and we’ve had to make the difficult decision to close. The good news: We’ve arranged for another educational provider to take over many of our resources. These will be hosted on a new portal, where the content will be updated and expanded to support your child’s learning.
What this means for subscribers:
- Your subscription is still active, and for now, you can keep using the website as normal — just log in with your usual details to access all our articles and resources*.
- In a few months, all resources will move to the new portal. You’ll continue to have access there until your subscription ends. We’ll send you full details nearer the time.
- As a thank you for your support, we’ll also be sending you 16 primary school eBooks (worth £108.84) to download and keep.
A few changes to be aware of:
- The Learning Journey weekly email has ended, but your child’s plan will still be updated on your dashboard each Monday. Just log in to see the recommended worksheets.
- The 11+ weekly emails have now ended. We sent you all the remaining emails in the series at the end of March — please check your inbox (and spam folder) if you haven’t seen them. You can also follow the full programme here: 11+ Learning Journey.
If you have any questions, please contact us at [email protected]. Thank you for being part of our journey it’s been a privilege to support your family’s learning.
*If you need to reset your password, it will still work as usual. Please check your spam folder if the reset email doesn’t appear in your inbox.
Common phonics problems sorted
It is crucial that we remember that phonics (i.e. decoding sounds) is just one component of learning how to read. The process of reading relies upon:
Therefore, if your child is struggling with reading, it is worth considering which areas might need to be addressed in order to help them. There is no value in a child ‘barking’ at print if they are not understanding what they are reading. Similarly, you can try and sound out exception words like ‘the’ and ‘you’ till the cows come home and they simply won’t make sense and need to be memorised.
In this article I will try and point out some of the more common phonics problems I experienced in my years as a teacher and give you some tips to help out.
Common phonics problems: similar-looking letters
When children start to recognise their letters it can often be confusing;
- b, d, p, g, q – all have circles and sticks that go in different directions
- f and t are lines with curly bits that are crossed over
- j and i both have lines and dots
- h and n are very similar and hard for children to differentiate
It’s important to teach these letters separately but then to recap them together pointing out the little differences (for example, we write h and n in the same way, but the h has got a long stick whereas the n has got a very short stick).
Talk about the similarities and differences between letters with your child and help them to come up with their own way of remembering so that it is more relevant to them.
Here are some suggestions of tricks for remembering the direction of b and d; you'll find lots more online. Help your child draw their own versions of pictures like these!
Your 'at-home' phonics support kit
- Step-by-step phonics programme
- Your guide to phonics
- Worksheets & games
Common phonics problems: guessing the ends of the words
Often, when children are learning to read, they guess the end of the word based on the beginning sound. If this happens, make them split up the word into its individual letter sounds and repeat them and ensure they are hearing all the sounds before re-blending them together.
It is also important that the children consider the context of what they are reading as usually their guess doesn’t make sense!
Common phonics problems: confusing blends
As children progress in phonics there are many new blends to be learned that look similar but sound different (for example, ai / oi / oa or ch / sh / th).
It is important to teach these blends separately, but every time your child learns a new one remind them of the one they already know and then ensure they remember the old one and practise the new one.
Common phonics problems: tricky words
When children are learning the difference between decodable words (ones you can sound out using phonics knowledge) and tricky words (technically known as exception words, ones where the English spelling code works in an unusual or uncommon way, for example the, was, one), point the tricky words out in the sentence before they read. By making them spot the words first they will be ready for them in sentences and their reading will be much more fluent.
Common phonics problems: homophones, homonyms and homographs
The English language is full of confusing words and sounds.
- We have many words that sound the same but have different spellings and meanings (homophones), for example which / witch or two / to / too or red / read.
- We have words that sound the same and have the same spellings but different meanings (homonyms), for example bear / bear or stalk / stalk.
- We also have many words that have the same spellings but sound different (homographs), for example read / read, bow / bow, wind / wind.
Each one needs to be learned separately.
The message for all at-home reading exercises is keep it fun, keep it relevant to their lives and where possible use print in the world around them (looking at posters, road signs, publications, etc) to enhance their reading skills as this keeps the purpose of reading at the forefront of their minds.
