To think that schools should teach reading properly

hey singersgirl
did you see we decided on your dss' primary school for dd in the end! (i think i was using a pseudonym)

lol at the graffitti Popsycal. When my brother was little he once asked my mum "'Why has someone written 'Leeds United are wankers' on that wall?"

I like ORT books; I just don't think the very early stages (say 1 to 4) are great for teaching children to read. Once they can read, and understand the main rules of 'the code', from about Level 5 they are very good - entertaining, lovely illustrations, good plots.

I ignored the tedious run floppy run ones though....once you ignore the boring first 4 stages they get better

Jacanne, as Edam said, once people know how to read they do acquire a so-called 'sight vocabulary', but it is the wrong place to start.

Once a child has learned the basic rules of the English spelling code, many of the words in your list aren't that difficult.

Said - child sounds out 's -ay -d' and adjusts
The - the 'th' is easy, and in front of vowels the 'e' behaves like 'me','he','she'
Are - the 'ar' is easy;it is only the 'e' on the end that is unusual

'One' is particularly tricky, I admit.....

Ah well, it'snot like we don't have dinosaur book coming out of our ears, so I guess we haven't missed out.

But we'd be less likely to have the parent helper tut-tutting at us if they had come home I can tell you

castle adventure, pirate adventure, land of the dinosaurs....those are the 3 that I have currently borrowed from work

We had no priates and dinosaurs.

Now those he would have read...

I agree with popsycal.

The earlier levels of Ginn are sooooooo tedious. DS1 would rather read about the castles and pirates and dinosaurs in ORT

And in response to the OP, i think the little girl needs to go back to basics and start to love books that are shared with her before she can love reading iyswim

Now ds had brought home a Ginn book and I much preferred it to ORT. It had a couple of Fairy tales in it.

We now have a problem with him reading graffitti and MN thread titles.....but that is another story

Sorry - Jolly Phonics

Gosh we get bloody Ginn at ds1's school. WOuld love them to do ORT. I 'borrow' them from work for him. He also likes the 'green banana' and 'yellow banana' books and read it yourself ladybird books.

The reading book gets read quite a bit but he reads tons at home himself. he is in reception and is nearly 5 (August) and has really taken to reading. Taught Jolly Phonics from Nursery informally then just got absorbed in the whol thing

Jolly Phonics

what is JP??

Just curious - do people not feel that there is a need for a sight vocabulary? There are some words which are so phonically irregular that the only way to learn them is to, well learn them

For example, one, was, said, their, there, are

Actually the booklet is called 'A Guide to Supporting Reading for Parents of Prmary School Children' and was written by hte National Literacy Trust and the Parent Centre.

I've got a booklet from DfES called something like 'A Guide to Supporting Reading for Parents'. It's got lots of different ideas of informal/fun things you can do at home to support your child's education (it also discusses writing and spelling).

It doesn't mention any particular teaching method.

dd is in Yr1 and they have been doing Ruth Miskin all year. The reading books make no sense to me whatsoever - but dd likes them!

Singers, I think you are right. Whole word recognition is something that develops once you have learnt to read. Trying to start with whole word recognition was putting the cart before the horse - madness.

People who know how to read do recognise whole words, especially in lower case with capitals only at the start of sentences and as appropriate - you recognise the shape of the word, with ascenders and descenders (that's why whole words or sentences in block caps are harder to read). But you can only do that once you are a confident reader.

DS starts school in Sept and we've been roundly told off for his reading (which, mea culpa, we taught him, all our own fault but largely because he was so interested).

I find it sad that schools still put restrictions on reading (ie he'll be allowed 1 book a week from the library from the age appropriate section - most of which he's read already). I get that they're dealing with more than one kid but surely they can see that encouraging reading is only going to pay them dividends when the harder stuff comes along?

Reallytired I think that perhaps too much is being expected of her, epseically in comparison ot your ds - she is just 5ish and maybe being advanced in other ways leads people to assume this will follow when in fact it hasn't yet. Next year she'll probabaly have a different teacher whose approach may be more in tune with her stage of development and her reading could literally happen very suddenly. If she is writing voluntarily already then it is unlikely she is dyslexic and she may be taking more in on the reading front than you realise whether she wants to sit and read her "set" book or not. Audio books(which you can borrow from the library) may be an alternative way of developing more of an interest in books.

But TBH, my ds was, not exactly resistant to, but showed zero interest in, reading during reception. He did JP and we gesticulated and whatnot, but he had no real desire to sit and try to read. He did love being read to, and as I sad, we did, and still do, do that a lot. Over the summer holidays after reception, with no real input from us, it clicked. He read signs in shops and at the zoo etc. And when he went back to school he was whizzed up several levels.

Not wanting to read herself is not necessarily a bad sign.

One bright and articulate Y1 boy I listened to actually said to me of his ORT reading book, "I can't really read this. I just look at the pictures and try to remember what it said last time." He knew he hadn't been taught to decode, even if he didn't know how to express it.