'Fun at the beach', what is the point of this book? Reception ORT Satge 1 First words

[ChinaInYourHands]

DD recently turned 4 and in YR. She's started to blend words but the books she gets from school don't seem to have many blendable words, or am I not using the book correctly? there's 'at', 'dad' 'and' and as far as I can see that's it because the rest of the words are the names of the characters and a few more that as far as I can see are not blendable. English is not my first language so I am thinking perhaps I am not using these books correctly?

[Shanghaidiva]

I don't think this is a phonics book and therefore not many words for your dd to blend and sound out. There are phonics books within the ORT series - Floppy's Phonics and Songbirds. You can't do any more than you are with the book your dd has been given.

[ChinaInYourHands]

thanks for your answer. I honestly don't understand. The school is promoting phonics so why don't they give us books that allow us to practice phonics? Are tere any online worksheets (free) that I can print out and have my dd practice blending?

[snowball3]

Have a look at the phonics ones on here ( not all of them are but the covers say which ones are OK!
www.oxfordowl.co.uk/Library/Index/?AgeGroup=2

[IndigoBell]

The school a) can't afford to replace all their old books with decodeable phonic books and b) probably believes in 'mixed methods' and is only teaching the kids phonics because the govt is putting them under a lot of pressure to. :(

[whenIgetto3]

well at least your book has words in. DD4 was so happy :) to bring home her first book on Friday only to open it up and there be no words, she was very sad :( she has been reading for several months now and to get a book with no words made her sad, although there are apparently aliens hidden in the apple tree and they come down and eat biff,chip and kipper for supper (she really got into making up a story once we had got over the disappointment of no words). So Indigo I know you will know this one,what is the point in a book with no words? Is the whole class working at the slowest childs pace?

[mrz]

they come down and eat biff,chip and kipper for supper
great news I like this story

I only use wordless books with children with language difficulties and not to send home

[ChinaInYourHands]

mrz are there any online phonics resources you would recommend?

[mrz]

www.phonicsinternational.com/ excellent overview and Debbie has made the first unit free

www.oxfordowl.co.uk/Library/Index/?AgeGroup=2&BookType=Phonics

www.mrthorne.com/

[ChinaInYourHands]

This is fantastic. You're a gem mrz. thank you.

[BabyGiraffes]

Tehehe, I had that book home too. My dd was fascinated by the pictures and 'read' the text without looking at the words... . I also don't understand how reading is taught in this country (my first language is not English either) and my dd is equally confused. Seems to be a mixture of decoding with phonics, using initial sounds and picture clues to guess the word, sounding out words, and using sight words eg the names of the characters. I guess she'll get there in the end but I don't think I am much help because it's all very strange to me (coming from a totally phonetic language that children learn to read within weeks). I feel very sorry for children having to learn to read English....

[Mashabell]

Are tere any online worksheets (free) that I can print out and have my dd practice blending?

I have a website (which mumsnet rules prevent me from giving a link to, but which u can easily find it by googling Masha Bell) on which there is a Learning to Read page, with has lots of words which u can copy and print, form very simple to more complex.


Perhaps my attempt at providing a simple explanation of English phonics can be of help to u as well.


Words are made up of sounds (or phonemes) which are blended together. Learning to read by the phonic method involves learning to sound out the letters with which the sounds are spelt and to blend them into words. Cat - C ? A ? T : cat. For writing, children learn to break words up into their sounds and what letters are used for them.


Some sounds, like the three of ?cat?, are spelt with just one letter. Others with two or three (ch, sh, igh). The different spellings for sounds are collectively known as ?graphemes?.


English has 43 ½ sounds . (The ½ sound is the unstressed, barely audible vowel which occurs mainly in endings, such as ?flatten, certain?, but can be elsewhere in a word too (decide, invite).

The 43 main English sounds (in alphabetical order) are as follows (illustrated with the words in brackets).
a (ant) ai (rain) air (air) ar (arm) au (autumn)
b (bed) ch (chip) d (dog)
e (egg) ee (eel) er (herb)
f (fish) g (garden) h (house) i (ink) - igh (high) j (jug)
k (kite) l (lips) m (man) n (nose) -ng (ring)
o (on) -oe (toe) oi (oil) oo (food) oo (wood) or (order) ou (out)
p (pin) r (rug) s (sun) sh (shop) t (tap) th (this) th (thing)
u (up) -ue (cue) v (van) w (window) y (yak) z (zip)
zh (spelt mostly -si-) (television)

Because some English sounds are spelt differently in different positions of words (may, make) or are spelt differently for other reasons (kick, comic),
the basic English spelling system uses 81 graphemes:
a (ant) ai (rain plate play) air (air) ar (arm) au (sauce saw)
b (bed) ch (chip stitch) d (dog)
e (egg) ee (eel funny) er (herb)
f (fish) g (garden) h (house)
i (ink) igh (by bite) j (jug bridge oblige)
k (c/at/ot/ut crab/ clap kite/kept comic pick seek/ risk quick fix)
l (lips) m (man) n (nose) ng (ring)
o (pot want quarrel) oe (toe bone old) oi (coin toy) oo (food) oo (wood)
or (order wart quarter more) ou (out now)
p (pin) r (rug) s (sun face) sh (shop station musician) t (tap delicate)
th (this) th (thing) u (cup) ue (cue cube) v (van have) w (window) y (yak) z (zip) -si- (television)

There are also 8 main endings ( doable, fatal, single, ordinary, flatten, presence, present, other),
2 prefixes (decide, invite)
and the use of doubled consonants for showing that a vowel is short rather than long (dinner ? diner).

There are many exceptions to the above which children get taught as they move up through the primary years, but to begin with, they?ll start learning the sounds for just a few letters which nowadays are often s, a, t, p, i, n.

Masha Bell

[blackeyedsusan]

you can still do phonics with non phonics books, but that is quite difficult.

let the child read the phonically regular words such as cat, mum, dog, at,

then best, shop, drop

then start addiing words with more sounds as they are learnt.

in the mean time, you read or sound out more difficult words or the more difficult parts of the word. [grumpy] (dd's school does not have phonics books either)

it is a lot easier to go to the library and borrow some phonic reading books.

[swanriver]

some of the words aren't phonic (words like "the") but we use them so much that the children have to learn to recognise them. These are the words you will see over and over again in the ORT series.
the rest are phonic (ki -pp- er, b-i-ff, ch-i-p) a-t, b-ea-ch f-u-n, m-u-m)

so what is the problem?

I think you don't have to "think"about the point of them, just use them and after a bit the cumulative effect is that your child is practising phonics.

In the meantime you should not get bogged down with reading books, just enjoy lots of "proper" books together - Dr Seuss is good if you really want phonics. I think at beginning of the "reading journey" people gets completely strung up on the detail, as if it's some secret code. It is incremental. Children learn to read if a) they are used to being read to b) enjoy books for pleasure c) are allowed to indulge their natural rhyming instincts (all part of phonic awareness) It's not rocket science, it just happens if they are used to listening to lots of books and stories and looking at text. It comes together it you let it.

Enjoy reading with your child, please.

[swanriver]

If you start analysing the difference between the -e- in egg and best and the silent -e- in the and chocolate, that's all very well, but your child will work these things out eventually just by seeing words in a context, and recognising words, and discerning patterns over time. You don't have to "learn" patterns off by heart. It can be a game, it can be a song, it can be in a silly story.
I do get cross that reading is treated like times tables.

[mrsbaffled]

I only use wordless books with children with language difficulties and not to send home

grr DS was given wordless books for weeks when he started reception. We were told it was to get him used to the structure of a story. Grrr - we were reading "Stig of the Dump" with him at home and his understanding was perfect!

[whenIgetto3]

MrsBaffled I don't think they will try it again with my DD she waltzed into her teacher thismorning and said "Mrs X books should have words, I can make up a story by myself about anything so next time words would be good, I need to learn to read not make up a story, you said I was good at that" I was very but to be fair last week she got in trouble for making up a very convincing story about her older brother being seriously injured and had the whole of the school believing it and teachers asking me if he was OK

[mrsbaffled]

[mrz]

swanriver all words are "phonic"

[maizieD]

Children learn to read if a) they are used to being read to b) enjoy books for pleasure c) are allowed to indulge their natural rhyming instincts (all part of phonic awareness) It's not rocket science, it just happens if they are used to listening to lots of books and stories and looking at text. It comes together it you let it.

I'm afraid that none of this will teach a child to read. There are a good many puzzled parents around who have done all of this yet their dc hasn't learned to read... Conversely, many children learn to read perfectly easily without experiencing any of these things.

[swanriver]

But they would learn to read by 7, if the parents just continued to be patient and actually let them enjoy books without doing strange hand signals at them.

The aim is presumably to have the child reading widely at 10, not just reading the ORT at 5.

I agree that if you just read the Secret Garden and Dickens to your child they might never work out how to read words, but I suspect that if you started on Dr Seuss and simple rhymes, progressing to books of varying interest and difficulty and kept talking about the books, and letting your child watch you read, your child might possibly learn to read without any formal reading scheme. Reading scheme is a catch all to help children whose parents don't read with them.

[swanriver]

mrz "the" is not phonic nor is "was"

[mrz]

yes they are swanriver
"the" is two phonemes and represented by the graphemes "th" and "e" was is written with the graphemes "w" "a" "s" (the letter a following a w represents s represents very phonic

[IndigoBell]

But they would learn to read by 7, if the parents just continued to be patient and actually let them enjoy books without doing strange hand signals at them. - swanriver have you never heard of dyslexia?

Are you not aware that many, many children don't learn to read by 7? Regardless of their background, their parents, or their teaching?

I really hope you aren't a teacher......

[whenIgetto3]

mrs thanks you just explained the to me. I simply taught all 4 DCs to just recognize it as a sight word . I think you should tour the country teaching parents all your wisdom you would make a packet

[mrz]

There is nothing wrong with telling a child th e is the word the IMHO but they should also know the phonemes when they meet them in other words and they shouldn't be told words aren't phonic when by definition all words are