We can often trace the roots of poor reading and spelling to a child not knowing (or being taught) the phonics code. When it comes to dyslexia and other reading difficulties, what needs to happen is to take the child back to basics and give them the confidence in the simple phonics logic.
Older phonics approaches can trip a child up with too many unknown sounds. Reading and spelling, therefore, become a guessing game, without a set of rules to follow. Phonics Hero takes a child step-by-step through the synthetic phonics logic, only presenting words which use the sounds they have learned. It will give them lots of success early on, and give that confidence boost that is so needed.
Learning to read has been described as one of the hardest things we ask of our children. This is easily forgotten when, as an adult, reading has become second nature and we are hardly aware of how it is done. If reading difficulties persist then someone soon questions whether ‘Dyslexia’ is at the root. It is important to remember however that there is no definitive test for this condition.
Indeed, in other countries where the spelling is written much as it is spoken, the levels of reading delay can be much lower. For example, in Italian, there are around 26 phonemes using 22 letters which makes for faster and more efficient learning to read. Levels of reading delay can be up to 50% lower than in English speaking countries where 26 letters have to be stretched to represent 44 phonemes.
Learn more about the differences between synthetic phonics and analytic phonics.
When a child starts Phonics Hero, a placement test will assess reading skills and assign the correct level. This will ensure they have the solid, basic foundations before moving on.
Read more from parents who were looking for catch-up help.