Little Learning Secrets

I am SO guilty of this 😬

And I literally caught myself doing it again today.

That tiny silence when a child doesn’t answer straight away can feel SO much longer than it actually is.

So we fill it.

Another question. A clue. The first sound. A point. A “do you need help?”

Anything to make that slightly uncomfortable moment go away.

And obviously sometimes a child DOES need us to step in.

But sometimes?

They just needed us to shut up for five more seconds. 😂

Because every time we jump in before they’ve had a chance to struggle a little, think, try and eventually work it out… we accidentally take away something pretty important too.

That little moment of:

“Oh. I did that.”

We spend so much time trying to BUILD kids’ confidence.

Sometimes we need to give them enough space to build some of it themselves. 🤍

Five more seconds. I’m working on it too 😂

“But they KNOW all their sounds?!” 🤔

This is one of those things that can make reading difficulties SO confusing for parents.

Because you can point to almost any letter and they’ll happily tell you the sound.

m? /m/
s? /s/
t? /t/

Nailed it. 👏🏼

And yet… put those same letters into words, sentences or a little book and suddenly reading is still really hard.

So what’s going on?!

The really important thing to know is that knowing letter sounds is only one part of learning to read.

Your child also has to be able to pull those sounds up quickly, hold onto them, blend them together, recognise words they’ve seen before AND do all of that with enough ease that they still have some brainpower left to understand what they’re reading.

Which is why, if your child knows their sounds but reading still feels much harder than you’d expect, I’d get curious about WHERE it’s getting tricky.

→ Can they say the individual sounds but struggle to put them together into a word?

→ Can they work out a word correctly, but then seem to have completely forgotten it a few lines later?

→ Do they know a sound on its own, but struggle to pull it up quickly enough when they’re actually reading?

→ Are they guessing from the first letter instead of looking all the way through the word?

→ Can they read the words, but it takes SO much effort that they lose track of what the sentence was actually about?

Those little differences matter.

Because two children can both look like they’re “struggling with reading” from the outside… while actually needing help with completely different things.

And that’s why “they know their sounds” isn’t the end of the conversation.

It’s actually a really useful clue about where to look next.

Find where reading is getting stuck. Then teach THAT 🤍

Save this one for the next time you’re sitting beside your child wondering, “But they KNOW this?!” 😅

Maybe they don’t need a more exciting activity 🧐

We put SO much effort into trying to make learning engaging.

Better games. More exciting resources. More choice. More rewards. More FUN.

And sometimes? Absolutely.

But sometimes the thing getting in the way of engagement isn’t the learning at all.

It’s everything their brain has to manage around it.

Think about how much easier it is to start something when you know:

→ exactly what you’re doing
→ how much you have to do
→ what “finished” looks like
→ what happens next
→ where everything you need is
→ what to do if you get stuck

None of that makes the actual learning more exciting.

It makes the learning easier to access.

And that’s a distinction I think about ALL the time.

Before I add another reward, another game or another fancy resource, I want to know:

Can I make the system around this task clearer?

Maybe that’s a visual showing first → then.

Maybe it’s putting out only the materials they actually need.

Maybe it’s showing them exactly how much work there is.

Maybe it’s giving them a really obvious finish.

Maybe it’s saying one sentence instead of five.

Maybe it’s making “what happens next” completely predictable.

Because sometimes what looks like “they just won’t engage” is a child using a huge amount of their capacity simply trying to navigate the situation.

And when we make THAT easier?

We leave a little more room for the thing we wanted them to do in the first place:

learn 🤍

“But you literally just said ALL the right sounds?!” 😩

If you’ve ever thought this while reading with your child… you are definitely not alone.

And the confusing bit is that they might actually know every single sound perfectly.

The tricky part can be what their brain has to do NEXT.

When a child sounds out:

/m/ … /a/ … /p/

they have to hold onto those individual sounds, keep them in the right order AND blend them back together to make the word map.

That’s a lot happening in a few seconds.

And if blending isn’t automatic yet, those long pauses between sounds can make it even harder to hold onto what they heard.

So one really simple thing you can try:

Instead of encouraging:

❌ /m/ … /a/ … /p/

try:

🤍 mmmaaap → map

Keep the sounds connected and let them slide into one another.

You can’t stretch every sound, but you CAN try to keep them as close together as possible rather than leaving big gaps between them.

You’re basically reducing the load on their working memory because they don’t have to hold onto three completely separate sounds while they put the word back together.

And if they still get the word wrong?

Try not to jump to:

“But you KNOW those sounds!”

Because they probably do.

Knowing the sounds and being able to hold onto them long enough to blend them into a word are two different things 🤍

I think as adults we have SUCH a strong instinct to correct the things that don’t look like “learning”.

Sit still.

Put that down.

Stop moving.

Look at me.

Focus.

And sometimes… absolutely. A behaviour is getting in the way and we need to step in.

But sometimes the kid pacing while they read IS concentrating.

The squishy in their hand IS helping them listen.

Sitting on the floor with something heavy on their lap IS helping their body settle enough to learn.

And I think we need to give ourselves permission to get a little more curious before we automatically correct it.

Instead of:

“How do I get them to stop doing this?”

I try to ask:

“What is this doing FOR them?”

Is it helping them regulate?

Is something feeling too hard?

Are they looking for predictability? Connection? A little bit of control?

And then the next question becomes:

Is it actually getting in the way?

Because if the answer is no… maybe I don’t need to fix it.

And if the answer is yes, understanding WHY they need it gives me a much better starting point for helping them find another way.

Not every behaviour needs correcting just because it looks different from the way we think learning “should” look.

Sometimes the thing that looks like distraction is the very thing helping them stay with us 🤍

Wait… we have a 9th sense?! 👀

Aaaand it might be one of the most important ones your child has.

It’s sometimes described as our “ninth sense”… neuroception.

Basically, their nervous system is constantly noticing little cues around them and asking a question they’re not even consciously thinking about:

Am I safe here?

And THIS is the bit I find so interesting.

Kids aren’t just listening to what we say.

They’re noticing our face. Our tone. How quickly we move. What happens to us when things get hard.

So we can KNOW a child is safe.

We can TELL them they’re safe.

And their nervous system can still be going… hmmm, not convinced yet.

That’s felt safety.

And once you know that, there are some really simple things you can do with it:

* Use fewer words. It’s so tempting to keep talking when a child is overwhelmed… but more words usually aren’t what they need.

* Slow yourself down first. Your voice. Your face. Your movements. We can’t demand calm, but we can bring less intensity into the moment.

* Be predictable. A boundary doesn’t suddenly make you unsafe. “I won’t let you hit me. I’m right here.”

And this DOESN’T mean our job is to make sure kids are happy all the time.

They can be disappointed.

We can say no.

Things can be hard.

The boundary can stay AND the relationship can stay too.

I think sometimes we get so caught up trying to find the perfect thing to SAY that we forget how much kids are picking up from everything else.

Because being safe and actually FEELING safe aren’t always the same thing 🤍

“But you JUST read that word?!” 😩

If you’ve ever thought this while reading with your child… you are definitely not alone.

Here’s what might actually be happening…

When your child successfully sounds out a word once, it doesn’t automatically mean that word has been stored securely enough for them to recognise it instantly the next time.

They might still need to work it out again. And again. And maybe again 😂

Every time they successfully decode it, they’re getting another opportunity to connect the sounds in the word to the letters they see.

Over time, those connections become stronger and the word starts to become more automatic.

That process is called orthographic mapping.

And this is where I think knowing what’s happening can completely change our response as adults.

Instead of:

❌ “You JUST read that word!”

Try:

🤍 “That’s okay, let’s work it out again.”

Then help them attend to the sounds and letters and successfully decode it again.

Because “you just read that” doesn’t actually give their brain any information about how to read it.

Another successful attempt does.

And as those pathways become stronger, something pretty cool starts happening…

They stop having to consciously work out every word.

Words start to POP.

That’s automaticity. And it’s one of the things that eventually frees up so much more brain space for fluency, meaning and actually enjoying what they’re reading.

So next time you’re thinking:

“But I KNOW you know this word!”

You’re probably right.

They may know it.

It just might not be automatic yet 🤍

Save this one for the next time you find yourself saying, “but you literally JUST read that!” 😅

It sounds almost too simple to actually work…

Doing nothing when a child is overwhelmed can feel REALLY uncomfortable.

I think as adults, we’re wired to want to help.

So we talk.

We ask questions.

We explain.

We reassure.

We suggest strategies.

We try to work out what happened.

Basically… we do more 😂

And sometimes, with the absolute best intentions, we’re just giving an already overwhelmed child even more to process.

I’ve learnt to get much more comfortable with doing less.

Sitting nearby. Staying calm. Keeping myself predictable. Saying very little. And waiting for their body to tell me they’re ready for more from me.

That doesn’t mean ignoring them or leaving them alone with something hard.

I’m still there.

I’m just not asking anything of them yet.

And honestly, I think that distinction matters.

Sometimes support doesn’t look like doing more.

Sometimes support is being able to sit beside the hard thing without rushing a child through it 🤍

I think sometimes we put so much pressure on ourselves to respond perfectly to kids.

We won’t. We’re human 😂

We’ll get frustrated. We’ll need a minute. We’ll say things we wish we’d said differently.

But I don’t think our kids need perfect versions of us either.

I think they need to know that on the days when they’re not the best versions of themselves… they’re still one of our favourite people.

We can hold the boundary AND hold onto the relationship.

You can be struggling and still have me.

And gosh… don’t we all need people like that? 🤍

I could have made about 60 reels from everything that was shared at the Epic Families event yesterday 😂

So much of it really resonated with me…

not because these were all brand new ideas, but actually quite the opposite.

There were so many moments where someone put beautifully simple words around things I already believe really strongly about kids and I just thought… YES. That.

That felt safety matters.

That difference doesn’t automatically mean deficit.

That kids need adults who see them, believe in them and keep showing up.

That a hard moment doesn’t get to define the whole story.

And that amongst all the things we’re trying to teach, support, scaffold and strengthen… we can’t forget to notice what’s already brilliant about the child in front of us.

So much to take away, reflect on and keep talking about 🤍

Thank you Bay Paediatrics and all of the incredible speakers for such a brilliant afternoon.

And Ellen Nathan sorry for apparently renaming you Nathaniel 🤦🏼‍♀️😂