iOS 8 pull up menu

iphone 4s

ios 8.0.2 (12A405)

MD235B/A

ISSUE: PULL UP MENU

For my line of work I need to protect my iPhone with a heavy duty hard cover. The cover obviously "covers" the phone close to the glasses' border, so it takes some getting used to pulling down and up menus.

In iOS 7 there was no problem to call the pull up menu from the home screen, in iOS 8 however, I can't pull it up unless I block the screen, it's to the end of the world, still it is pretty annoying when wanting to block the screen rotation while reading a book, putting the phone in fly mode whilst... Flying, ecc.

since I can pull it up from the blocked screen, I see no reason why I shouldn't be able to from the home screen...

thank you!