Should I speak to ds' teacher about words he was given to learn

[saadia]

Ds1 started in Reception in September and a few weeks ago (before half-term) was given a sheet of words with a letter saying that he should learn to recognise these words, which he did. The letter said that when the children learnt these words they would be given a silver pencil.

Anyway two friends with daughters in another Reception class at the same school mentioned a few weeks ago that their daughters had got their silver pencils, and one of the mothers said today that her daughter was now on her third sheet of words.

I am wondering why ds has not been given new words to recognise. It may be that he fails to tell the teacher he knows them, or that the teacher is for some reason going at a slower pace. Anyway, I was thinking of asking her about it this afternoon but wasn't sure if I was making too much of it. Would be grateful for any input.

hana the high frequency words should still be taught 'phonetically' as most are decodable.

The others can be taught as 'tricky' words where the decodable parts are OK, and they learn to 'tweak' the tricky parts.

ORT is OK at the higher levels (5+), but horrendous below that - including words like 'fence' which are far too difficult unless the 'split digraphs' have been taught

Didn't know that maverick. Is this a new law or do schools get a choice?

For what it is worth I thought sounding out words was the only way to learn to read but ds1 has proved me wrong. He was given his 45 words in Reception a couple at a time and learnt them no problem he also recognised them easily in books.

I also taught him the 100 Ladybird words with no problems via flashcards while he was in Reception.

He is now in year 1 and is getting 5 words a week to learn. He is only now beginning to be able to sound out words and found learning whole words much easier as for some reason although he could recognise whole words he really struggles with phonics (I suspect he may be very slightly dyslexic). I am really glad he had the opportunity to learn whole words last year.

23balloons - it is not surprising that your ds found whole words easier as that uses the aport of the brain that is most developed in boys. They need to start with phonics to get the neural pathways linking the two sides of the brain together growing.

If phonics is started later it can be difficult as the one side of the brain is so well developed that it takes time to build up the other side. Just keep persevering and he will be fine.

I think maverick was talking about the Rose report and the new primamry strategy which says that high quality phonics should be taught 'first and fast' and unreliable strategies like guessing / picture cues etc should not be used. This becomes compulsory from Sep 2008 but can be used from now.

Thanks snowisfalling. In his school they don't use just one method of reading and did start off with phonics in nursery and also had a sound book eg ch sh etc along with the words in Reception. They also have lots of different reading books/schemes including ORT, it has possibly confused him. He is now in Year 1 and is reading level 5 ORT fairly easily so he is definitely improving.

The idea of mixing schemes is so that children have a variety of books within their level of reading, some children love ORT others don't and there are alot nicer books out than ORT. Enjoying reading is the most important thing don't get too hung up on reading levels.

You can always ask which phonics scheme the school are using for instance we mainly use Jolly Phoics but also incorporate other strategies.

Loopybear if you mainly use Jolly Phonics but also incorporate other strategies you are not teaching it as it should be - the point about high quality synthetic phonics teaching is that the children are not muddled with 'alternative' strategies but are taught 'pure' phonics from the beggining. hat is why specifically decodable books are needed so the damaging strategies of guessing etc are not needed.

Children need all 44 sounds very quickly alongside blending and segmenting skills to equip them with the building blocks of reading - the Alphabetic code. Once thay have that it does not matter which scheme they use, they can read virtually anything.

There is only one alphabetic code and phonics is the way to teach it. How the teachers actually teach the sounds is up to them and can be tailored to children - some prefer songs, others prefer actions etc

I am sorry you think it blinkered - all I am doing is going from my own experiences, plus those of colleagues who teach by phonics and have found the results amazing, remedial teachers at Yr 3 and Yr 7 who are undoing the damage done by mixed methods and parents who have told me their appalling stories of how their children have been 'writen off' by the establishment but through one to one tutoring in phonics are now reading well.

I suggest that the children you have come across have not been taught phonics properly from the start but have been damaged by the now discredited mixed methods and multi cueing strategies.

Of course one size does not fit all but all children need to understand how the alphabetic code works to be able to decode unknown words wihtout picture clues especially once they get to secondary school. How phonics is taught i.e. multi sensory is where the differentiation comes in.