Sophia's English Journey: ‘I’ll never be able to read’ to ‘I can read mummy!’

It has been a milestone year for all three of the children within the subject of English. Their progression has been fantastic and they have made us all proud. 

All three children have learnt to read and the girls have made a start on spelling. 

Their writing has really improved, as has their understanding of story telling within role-playing, and the use of imagination in pictures and within play. 

They have embraced English grammar and expanded their vocabulary.

Sophia had ended the previous teaching year on a sad note regarding her reading. She had massively struggled and did not enjoy the activity at all. She made little progress in phonics and reading by repetition and recognition. 

This teaching year commenced with little change, until I sat down with her in January and had a little chat with her on the subject. I asked her what she wanted/needed in order for us to win at reading, what would she change if she could. 

Her answer was simple, she asked for more Peter and Jane books. She thought they were the answer. I listened to her and immediately brought the entire set of 36 books in the series.

They are truly amazing as a reading scheme, and I was taught via this method. 

Each series comprises of three books: two reading books which follow on from each other, complementing the new words introduced. The premise behind the scheme is to continually build the vocabulary slowly on each page, alongside the students confidence. The third book is a comprehension book with writing exercises based on what they’ve just read. The series follow 1a, 1b, 1c, 2a, 2b etc finishing on series 12. The age range incorporates aged 4-10 years of age.

Sophia sat down the next day when they arrived and read half of the first book with little assistance from me, and she was absolutely delighted with herself. Her confidence bloomed in that one session and she never looked back. 

She finished this school year on 8a, and she has retained all of the words she’s learnt and can recognise them out of context in other books. 

She has developed an appreciation of reading which was very unexpected and works hard on the topic.

She has just started to be able to read familiar words on flyers and public signs, and can read printed plain text, capitals and my writing. 

She will correctly switch synonyms when she's reading if she struggles with the original word, and say an alternative sentence to what's written which fits perfectly within the page. 

This should be encouraged as it shows clear understanding of the books contents which is being read.

Sophia has learnt to read and spell using the decoding method. This is a combination of using all of her current knowledge on phonics, recognition of words and letter and word patterns, in order to provide the light bulb moment of being able to recognise, pronounce and spell the words. 

Sophia’s nemesis this year mainly has been spelling. She struggled to retain them for more than a few days. 

Slow and steady with lots of repetition has been a key teaching technique. I focused on a mix of tricky words, including ‘the, were, me, and her’, which are hard to pronounce and to explain the spelling. 

We touched on phonemes, high frequency words such as ‘at, a, on’ and CVC words (consonant vowel consonant). 

She ended the year on writing 63 spellings in her final end of year test. She read 450 sight words from flash cards and written lists taken from her Peter and Jane books, the words ranging from ‘at’ to ‘children’. 

She was very happy with herself on her progress.

Sophia’s writing improved drastically throughout the year. She began with practicing her uppercase and lower case letters and numerals 1-10 on plain paper, focusing on precision and sizing. 

This has progressed to writing printed words on single lined paper, using finger spacing. She can identify punctuation, and is beginning to understanding the significance of it within writing.  

She knows examples of action verbs, nouns and contractions. She knows the difference between upper and lower case letters and can see where they fit within a construct of a sentence. Her written work is now legible and shows great promise.

She completed two workbooks over the course of the year. You may think this is a surprisingly small number, however it is not a teaching method to excite her and invoke her interest. 

An unengaged child is an uneducated child. Especially if that child is autistic, they have to be engaged and tuned in, otherwise it is a complete waste of time to try and teach them. 

She completed 3+ Reading, and 6+ Handwriting workbooks, which demonstrates where her weakness and strength lies this year. She did love practicing her handwriting in wipe clean books, and she had a high level of focus within this exercise.

Sophia is a natural and passionate story teller, which feeds in well with her flair of dramatics and love of performing. 

She creates songs and stories as easily as breathing, and loves producing role plays with puppets, her siblings and stuffed toys, changing her voices for different characters and using an array of emotion. 

She can create a character within a drawing, describe it verbally from physicality to personality, and then make up a narrative for that character to follow. She uses sophisticated vocabulary and has a natural understanding of synonyms without studying them officially yet.

I am excited to continue her English journey with her this coming year and cannot wait to see her level of progression within the subject. I have a feeling she will fly with it.