Finding CVC reading books

The school will have appropriate materials for learning to read. He will learn at his own pace.

Humbertbear He will begin to learn to read once he starts school,and his teacher may not thank you for anything formal that you do before that. You would be best to play lots of games with him which involve looking carefully at things and noticing small differences, matching shapes and sizes and putting things into matching sets. Things like sorting buttons give him a feel for what is the same and what is not. Read lots of stories to him so that he enjoys what he hears frombooks.

Sorry if that sounds like preaching to the converted - that was not the intent.

Please don't try to teach him to read. There is a system. It's not based on the way we learned e.g. the first letter sounds learned are satpin. There is far more to reading than just phonics even though the government like to think there isn't. It's much better to encourage him to enjoy books in general. Stories and non fiction. Anything that he's interested in. Learning to read is just a skill. Enjoying books is a gift.

Let him join the local library and choose a couple of books every week. The more he sees print the more he'll understand how it works. Also it's really important to talk about the story and the illustrations. Not just what he can see but what he thinks is happening and what will happen next. If someone is looking sad/happy etc ask him why they look that way. How would he feel if that had happened to him?

You are invaluable because you have the time to stretch him....to make him think and to ask/answer questions....to foster a love of reading for it's own sake rather than as a means to an end.

All our children could read before they went to school and enjoyed it They are still avid readers. I know there are "systems," but surely if a child is interested in a story and shows a desire to read, parents should not wait until the "professionals" deem it the right time?
The thing that bothers me about synthetic phonics (and I am happy to be corrected if I have got the wrong idea) is that children are taught to deal with groups of letters not necessarily words which equal concepts. Given that English, unlike, say German, is not a language where groups pf letters consistently and logically sound the same I woud find this confusing. I don't want to start the whole pronunciation debate again , but there are so many examples that a bright shild could easily misread a word by analogy with a very similar word (s)he knows,"storm and "strom" being examples quoted in a recent radio programme. PS what is or are "satpin"?
As an ex-teacher I am wary of "leaving it to the professionals" - I think parental input and that includes grandparental input should be encouraged at all times.
PS -Pedant alert "it's"

Typo time - "of" as opposed to "pf"!

Don't you mean 'its', Gracesmum? (fellow pedant observation )

What I was pointing out - or trying to.( "it's own sake")

If a child learns the trick of reading before it goes to school, well and good, but there is no need to push it. Just enjoy looking at books together and reading stories. If a child looks at the book with you (both the writing and the pictures) as you read the story, it will learn an awful lot about how reading works. Watch a child's eyes when it is is looking at a book with someone who is telling the story – it's fascinating .

If your grandchild is already reading some words at four, humbert, he will have no trouble carrying on. As others have said, any suitable children's books will be fine; they don't have to be of one particular kind. Well, maybe they do, actually — one he enjoys rather than ones he doesn't enjoy.

Just by the way, for anyone who's interested, I hate the notion of stretching children as if they were elastic. I know what it's supposed to mean but the expression leaves me with an uncomfortable feeling.

Maybe that's why we "ping back" when we reach our senior years? Or, given that I often feel like piece of knicker elastic that has lost its stretch, I should blame my parents. I do in fact agree with you, but young children remind me of blotting paper, soaking up everything they are exposed to. It's lovely!

Yes, a blotting paper reference is much more to my taste

My mother taught me and my brother to read before we started school! My children could also read! They wanted to. My mother to be fair was an infant teacher and a qualified remedial reading teacher. In fact when my mother moved down to here and offered to listen to the children reading , as a parent as I couldn't, originally she was looked at with askance! Six months later the remedial teacher was cut! Mother took over on a voluntary unpaid basis several days a week!
I know there were several parents in the town who were very grateful.
We did not get on as she was a very demanding woman, but I have to admire th work she did in the school!

One of my sons learnt to read at nursery school; the other didn't go to nursery school and wouldn't let me teach him. They both turned out to be excellent readers and both are still voracious readers. In other words, they levelled out and it made no difference that one could read earlier than the other.

The whole family apart from late dh were and are avid speed readers! This is how I manage to read all my files and read at least a couple of books a week!
It's a gift! Not anything to be proud of! I was born with it! I thank the supreme being!

Thanks for all the advice. Sorry if I came across as a pushy grandmother. GS has been taught all the letters phonetically at nursery and worked the rest out for himself. I'm just trying to help mum and dad keep the reading going in the holidays.

Some infant schools ask that children should be able to write their names before they come to school.

Learning to read can become a chore for some children. I didn't mean don't help them learn words if they're interested but there is more to reading than simply decoding. Lots of children and adults can decode but not have the faintest understanding of what they're reading. For example you will be able to decode chronosynclastic disinfibulation but do you know what it means? Synthetic phonics helps children to decode but understanding comes from discussion. That is where you come in. Parents and grandparents have time. They can discuss stories and non fiction. They are invaluable.

Sorry about satpin. I should have made it clear....s a t p i n....are the first sounds taught.

I am not sure about the way they learn to read now, I know a seven year old who does not read as well as my DD did at three.

People learn to read words in different ways. Decoding relies mainly on phonics but some words can't be decoded that way and have to be learned. Also we derive meaning from the rest of the sentence so if we don't know the word we can often work out what it is. Children's books also have a lot of illustrations which can be used to help work out some words. For example if the sentence is The dog fell in the pond the illustration could show that happening. So say the child is struggling with fell the first thing to try would be phonics but if that didn't work use the illustration. The child might choose the wrong word e.g. jumped. If that happens go back to the the beginning sound of the word. The child will then have another go.

We do this over and over when we read but because we've been doing it for such a long time it's become second nature and we don't even think about it. My husband is dyslexic and he has to resort to strategies much more often or the things he reads just don't make sense. He often reads g as j so he might read The boy opened the jate. Of course he knows this can't be right so he has learned to self correct. Basically he still does a version of what children have to do when learning.

I can only endorse what others have said! Let the lad enjoy any storybooks by listening to them, joining in the repeated phrases, follow with his finger (or yours) talk about it look at the pictures..have fun!! Phonics are important but are only one part of the reading process!

If he is interested in individual letters and the sounds they make just tell him!
My 3 1/2 DGD is at that stage at the moment and whilst playing a computer game was very cross to discover kite was spelled with a K and not a C!

In school teachers will begin with making sure children can hear/discriminate the phonemes and blend CVC words aurally & orally first before focusing on the letter (grapheme) by playing games etc. They will then use the letters SATPIN first when they get to introducing the letter/sound link. Often they will also teach the correct letter formation at this time.

One of my 6 year old GDs still doesn't believe that Cinderella doesn't begin with S.....

There's more than one way to catch Prince Charming................

Also what you know and what you do are two different things..my 6 yr old DGD can spell kind orally if you ask her how to but when she writes it is still cinde!

My GS will go to school in French, also learning Dutch, and speaking English with me and with my DD when we are together. He will start school at 2 1/2, in a class Maternal where he will learn all the basic skills then start Primary age 6. We will definately be encouraged by the school to teach him at home, the old-fashioned 3Rs' are taught energetically here. Children leave school here at 18 and can stay on until 25 or even return until that age if it is felt it would assist them.

My GS is now in Year 1 and finds reading boring - because it is the 'Here is the ball. The ball is red' kind of approach. He wants to read a story or some non fiction. His choice of a book from the school library was one on moths and butterflies which he's carried everywhere with him this weekend so far. There are learning to read books which have a very simple story in each little book, but I cannot remember what they are. Does anyone else know? DD has mentioned this to the teacher who is taking the request seriously so fingers crossed but in the meantime I'd like to at least get the name of this series. Oh my memory is getting worse and worse.........