Hi rose I have very clear views on the teaching of reading! Spent most of my working life as an 'infants' teacher' so have experience and opinions based on them!!
I think that first and foremost kids need to have a good level of spoken language, good aural skills so they can distinguish sounds, familiarity with books, stories, rhymes and poetry and to enjoy listening to stories. They also need a certain level of maturity to concentrate , listen and focus. Many children are at this point by about 5 but there will be those who get to this point earlier and some later.
Children need to be taught a range of skills and strategies to help them learn to read:
- letter/sound correspondence (phonics),
- Onset and rhyme (c/b/h/f/m-at etc)
- 'Look & Say': whole word recognition
- Context/meaning
- Educated guessing ( using pictures/ memory/visual recognition/ sense)
These in my experience are not hierarchical or more important than another but all equal parts of the puzzle needed to make a fluent and confident reader. Some children will find one strategy more useful to their way of learning but will need all to become good reader.
A child who is making headway in other areas but finds reading more difficult needs to have their reading skills assessed. This can often be done in school by a SENDCo. It may suggest that there is a specific reading difficulty or it might be that the child needs to build up a specific strategy that they are not yet using well enough.
If it was my DGC struggling with reading in Reception or Y1 I would not ask them to try to read anything but spend cosy time reading familiar and well loved stories with them, playing snap, picture bingo, pelmanism, Kims game etc and do those spot the difference /find the matching/odd one out games.
Take all the pressure off by not asking them to read but find casual opportunities to read.. traffic signs, supermarket signs, menu in a cafe etc. If a child finds it difficult to find matching symbols: e.g in game that says circle the symbol that is the same £: & $ £ @ # then they may well struggle with phonics.
If school feel the child has a SRD then further assessment would be useful. There are some good and simple strategies that can help. Be aware that there are a number of excellent Educational Psychologists who will be able to help but equally I have come across a few who have vested interest in
then providing expensive 'therapy' or specialist teaching which may or may not be the help a child needs. So be wary and research well!