wordless "reading" books in reception

[BetsyBoop]

Not sure what to do about this & don't want to hassle DD's teacher yet & come over all PFB-pushy-mum, so advice please....

DD is bringing home wordless reading books (ORT) & I'm struggling to get her enthusiastic about them. She sees them as "baby books" as they only have pictures (and TBH she we were reading books like this together 3+ years ago...)

I don't think they start teaching phonics until after half term.

She is currently at the starting-to-read stage (knows all her phonics, recognises quite a few words on sight, happy to have a go at blending & usually works out the word etc) All of this led by her asking about letter/words/sounds, I have deliberately not pushed her at all.

When we read together she really enjoys "proper" books (she took an encyclopedia of animals out of the school library for example - her free choice - and we read all 90 pages in just 2 sessions) and would happily sit reading together for hours (when I have the time...)

I know they all have to start somewhere, but I'm also conscious that I don't want to quash her enthusiasm for books & reading by forcing her to sit & "read" what she thinks are the "baby books" that school have given her for homework?

Do I go-with-the-flow for now, or should I speak to the teacher?

thanks for your words of advice :)

Ha, that happened with dc2. Teacher said pictures helped children to read. Yes, that is why dc2 "read" spaceman instead of astronaut.
Both are good words to learn to read....

Got a feeling dd2 may have done the very same thing, with the very same book!

mrz and faileddoctor

Nobody is arguing words aren't key, or that decoding isn't critical. This isn't some wishy-washy 'oh, let them guess' point.

Rsther, there are two broader points. First, that where words occur is critical in helping us decode them, and learners can be helped to understand context. Skilled readers are not simply involved in a process of 'decoding' print to sound or meaning, they are primed to expect certain forms to occur ('Sharon in peace talks' on the front of a paper a few years back, for instance, invokes Ariel or Osborne depending on the paper). Second, that 'reading' is about comprehension and ability to interact with the material, not just accuracy. I do voluntary work at my local school (for which I was actually trained, small mercy!) and I'm sick of listening to kids read a page of text flawlessly (they could probably do it without pictures) but being unable to answer simple questions about how what they've read relates to the story or even their lives. This isn't reading, it's just processing, and a computer with a reasonable database can do it.

People like me are often accused of not appreciating proper academic standards, but believe me I really, really do. I'm sick of assessing even PhD students with several languages, who just can't understand how to read a textbook differently to an article, or write a thesis differently to an e-mail. The ends of reading are to develop knowledge, understanding and pleasure, the means are decoding some scribbly symbols. We can't decode properly without context (which is not about guessing from pictures, but is about storyline and genre) and, even if we can, it's pointless without the ability to understand and manipulate. And all evidence is learners learn both skills at the same time, not that they learn to decode and then learn to understand. So, by all means be worried if DCs are not being correcting for imprecision (spaceman astronaut), but equally be worried if their teachers don't seem to care if they can't rephrase the story or express an opinion on it-that's not 'reading' either.

AdelaofBlois I don't think anyone has suggested that reading is merely the ability to decode. The question was about the role of wordless books in reception.
Do we really need them?

mrz

The point is that, used properly, they help develop early skills in holding a particular kind of story in the mind; in learning key features of literature (characterisation, genre, development); in anticipating the relationships between passages of narrative; and in relating the narrative to life and other knowledge.

A good picture book, for instance, can be used to help children think about who the central character(s) is or are, about what they've just done and what they might do, about what they're doing on this page and how it relates to the pages before, about how the 'story' relates to the children's lives, how believable they find it, how they feel about its events. Developing these skills helps both decoding and understanding. Word-poor books may be more effective in developing these skills when compared to asking similar questions using word-rich books because the reader does not believe the 'point' is really mechanical decoding, and so responds to feedback on an ability to comprehend and to hold and access narrative structures. And, in the OP's example, they are certainly far better at developing these reading skills than an encyclopaedia (which is great for her dd, but is developing different reading skills).

Of course, if the teacher just gave them out and told parents to talk about the pictures without guidance, that's daft. But so is dismissing them as 'basic' rather than very useful for helping readers do something which is actually very hard.

Yes, definitely, teachers should be teaching comprehension but that doesn't mean the best way to do that is through picture books. Isn't the problem that there seems to be a confusion between strategies to comprehend the story and strategies to correctly de-code the text?
I take the point that context can change the meaning of a story but this is so seldom an issue compared with the endless times kids look at pictures and guess, which I am told (by friend that is a SENCO) is the classic strategy of a weak reader - so why encourage it?

No problem with doing those things from a picture book that you mention Adela, sounds lovely. But not instead of actually reading. Also not, as many teachers do, use them to encourage kids to guess.
As you said they are not for teaching reading and back to the original point there is no reason why learning to read simple books should be delayed indefinitely for children that are already familiar with how stories work.

Sorry, should have added that the now widespread use of synthetic phonics might also argue for the proper use of picture books-that much early work is done with isolated words and sounds, so learners are driven to think 'reading' as the process of decoding. Something to counteract that is helpful, especially because there is no clear evidence synthetic phonics produces better results for comprehension-only for accuracy.

So to me picture books are needed because they help develop reading skills which are otherwise actively pushed against by currently understood best practice for developing accuracy at KS1.

AdelaofBlois but the same can be achieved with a good picture book with words.
My point has nothing to do with decoding or guessing just that sending home a normal story book can provide all the requirements with the added bonus that the child can have a lovely bedtime story with mum or dad and the school can save a few hundred pounds

Adela ofBlois said:
"So to me picture books are needed because they help develop reading skills which are otherwise actively pushed against by currently understood best practice for developing accuracy at KS1."

I assume that your in depth 'knowledge' of synthetic phonics teaching arises from your having been thoroughly trained in the principles and practice of SP teaching and having taught a very significant number of children to read (say at least 2 or 3 classes worth) using that method?

I fear I'm onto a loser here, but think the key point (as revealed by this thread) is a lack of recognition of what 'reading' as an intellectual skill is when applied to early learners. camicaze, for instance, separates reading and comprehension (and other 'lovely' stuff) but would, I assume, be horrified if on reading this all she could do were make the words into sounds. The OP talks admiringly (and her dd is amazing) about reading 90 encyclopaedia pages in 2 sessions, a rate of reading for information-heavy text that I as an academic couldn't match because I wouldn't feel I was absorbing the information fully. And 'guessing' from context is something we all do, it's just we have learned to from contexts in our heads from words. And this focus on the technical, which is obviously absorbed by young readers, does damage the ability to read, both in a narrow technical sense and in the broader sense we'd use the term of adults.

Partly this is damaging because it produces inaccuracies, because children don't correct errors. It's not unusual, for example, to have highly proficient readers at KS1 who do not notice if they miss a page when reading or who are incapable of understanding that a minor misreading has occurred because they are not attuned to sense (in the way that you or I would be if we missed a page or read something that didn't fit). About 30% of readers I work with compulsively sound everything out even when they know the word by sight, because they feel they should. It's the norm to get pupils who feel a book is 'finished' if they have sounded every word, or who can identify a book only as a 'school book' with no understanding of how it might relate to their world. These kids are failing to read just as soundly as kids who can't sound words out, because they fail to understand that comprehension (part of which is indeed accurate interpretation of graphemes) is what reading is about, but many would state they were 'reading' just fine, with a few errors.

I know that I seem to be stating what is general not answering the specific point, but to me the two are linked in practice. The problem is that some teachers and most reading partners send out signals to pupils which are not always what is intended. If you look at the back of most reading scheme books, for example, you will see that doing the 'lovely' stuff I mention is recommended before a first attempt to 'decode', and there are a whole series of reinforcement questions. 'Guessing' should be handled not by dismissing it as 'cheating' but by returning to the word again and asking what it meant, asking the pupil to spot it in the book, giving them it without a visual clue to see if it has been absorbed. Yet a stress on the technical, pressures of time, and a belief that these are 'optional' extras (kids often feel cheated because they think they've 'finished') often means none of this is done.

And that's why picture books in practice seem to be 'needed', because they actively force pupils and those they read with to focus specifically on developing the conceptual frameworks necessary to read fully, and don't allow for the distraction of a focus on the purely technical. Nobody is necessarily talking about hanging about indefinitely, but the role of something which actively demands a focus which isn't on decoding is incredibly valuable. Providing, that is, the purpose is communicated to those who understand 'reading' in much narrower senses. Which doesn't seem to have been the case here.

@MaisieD

I've worked with 6 classes (one Special Needs) over 2 years. The work was unpaid and part-time (some attempt to pay back what the education system invested in me), but the school felt it sufficiently important to invest money in training me in SP and in 'best practice' when reading (I did the literacy bits of a PCGE and M.Ed course), recognising (I hope) the advantages of having such a reading partner available on a permanent basis.

I've nothing against SP, I think it's great (although you will also have read the literature and been aware it is much more noticeably effective for improving accuracy than comprehension). It's just I also think, reflecting on some of the problems pupils face (above), that it contributes (alongside many other things) to giving some of them a sense that 'reading' is about 'sounding'. I know SP done properly doesn't necessarily do this, but somehow it seems to be contributing where I work (indeed, obviously so, when I ask comprehension questions some even say 'Miss X never asks that).

I am very curious to know what the school regards as 'best practice'. YOu sound very much as if you have imbibed a great deal of phonics 'mythology' alongside your 'training' in SP. (I'd be curious to know a little about that training, too).

I agree that it is not the purpose of SP to 'teach'comprehension, but then, coming from a generation who managed to learn to read effectively without a single lesson in 'comprehension' (or, people spoiling every book I read by asking bloody silly questions about it)I find the idea that you can read without understanding what you are reading (particularly at the level of initial reading texts) extremely bizarre.

What I do know is that the emphasis on 'comprehension' apears to have grown as the fashionable methods of teaching reading over the past few decades proved to be less than successful. Rejection of phonics and espousal of theories of reading instruction which put 'making meaning' at the centre made it inevitable that teachers had to try desperately hard to give children the appearance of being able to read and the only way they could do that was to put the spotlight on 'comprehension.

But really, 'comprehension' is more dependent on expressive and receptive oral language skills than on being badgered through a book. I suspect that if you were to read the story to some children they would still be completely at a loss to answer your 'comprehension' questions, because they are lacking in language skills or the ability to concentrate for long enough to remember the storyline.

maizeD - what you've written makes perfect sense to me (but then I'm also from the generation who somehow managed to learn to read without any "comprehension" lessons )

AdelaofBlois of course reading is about more than decoding, I do know that! FWIW the encyclopaedia DD read (or rather I read with her) was a children's encylopaedia you know, not some heavy academic text! One page of information was something along the lines of "Panda's live in China and eat Bamboo. Baby pandas are called cubs" with an accompanying picture. However I don't doubt DD's absorption of new information and her ability to understand recall it - she "read" the book to me before she returned it & reacalled about 95% of it, (She has been "reading" to me for a while and loves embellishing the original story with her own twists & comparing to real life events so there is no problem with her comprehension and it isn't just straight recall) She also applied the information she had learned when she later did her "animals of the world" jigsaw - saying (for example) "look Mummy, that panda is eating bamboo, like the one in my library book".

My basic problem was that DD was bored totally uninterested with the not so amazing adventures of Biff, Chip & Kipper in the picture books. She wanted something that would interest & challenge her & is much happier now she has that.

Most importantly of all though I want her to grow to love reading for pleasure as much as DH & I do :)

Look, as I said I know I'm onto a loser here. I love SP dearly, and am amazed it seems effective even with young children such as my son who can't actually speak clearly (he has verbal dyspraxia but can sound b-i-g even if he the renders it as his word for big which is something like hrg). I also love the way it grew specifically to save pupils who were otherwise written off by a fashionable system. I hated the focus on 'comprehension' as an end in itself which excused inability to read text, thought of it as a total cop out. And personally hated all reading at school, ended up in remedial class just to avoid the shit they were feeding us, until a specialist caught on. I'm not defending the old system at all, or saying sounding doesn't matter.

One reason I'm posting here is that I was given a 'picture book' to read with a Yr1 student, and was at a loss why this was a sensible thing to do. Yet after doing it for four weeks, his reading otherwise was much improved, partly because he now saw the point, and partly because he was able to pick up clues (not picture ones, just clues-to see that certain words would reoccur as the story developed). His 'sounding' was immeasurably improved by spending time concentrating on picture books, and he gained a great deal. He is simply the kind of learner who needed that impetus and explicit help. There is a role for it in the classroom and at home if he is not to be lost as thoroughly as others once were.

But my broader point is that there are a significant number of pupils who believe that 'reading' means 'sounding', and that this is an obstacle to their development not only into full readers but comes at times to hinder their ability simply to decode. That should concern, and may be driven by the demands of the school system (especially since it seems more marked in Yr1 than reception pupils). There are also a significant number of parents who believe this (my points above were about how we talk about reading, what we reduce it to, not criticisms-that we talk about children's reading in terms of accuracy and speed, not what they do with it even if, like the OP, we care about this), and reinforce the message. That hinders young readers developing in the way that you would wish them too. And that was my other reason for posting, to encourage some to think what they mean by 'reading' and how it might affect how they read.

And so within all this, there is surely merit in some activities which send an opposite message, which reward children for showing an appreciation of story and narrative and understanding, which make it clear that these are objectives of reading too. And readers such as BetsyBoop's dd who do this will get the message this is important, and others who don't at all will learn to think like this (their development will be speeded). Teachers do this all the time with other literacy activities-reading stories to pupils for example-why not also do it within reading programmes, both to stress explcitly a different and equally valid aim, and to help those who may find it actively helpful.

Biff and Chip are boring tossers whether they have words or not, this can't be used to attack 'picture books'. If they're going to be used to show what reading is, they can be used in ways other than as simple decoding, surely?

AdelaofBlois putting SP decoding etc to one side do you not think that a young child (non reader) can use the illustrations in a quality story book in exactly the same way as a wordless book is used?

mrz

I think they are less effective (see YR6 teacher posting previously) because working through the story does close options. It's more that in practice they often are not used like this at all. Readers often won't be encouraged to or praised for doing so because they and their reading partner place exclusive emphasis on the words themselves. There is merit in incorporating some (and the emphasis on the some) activities which force readers to do this, and allows an insight into the reader's ability in this specific area (as say sound books might in their ability to sight recognise or sound particular speech sounds and words).

The question posed by the OP, as I saw it, was about whether books like this were 'needed' in a school at all. I think they have two roles to play for which they are better suited than a 'quality story book'. First, they allow assessment of one particular skill important to reading which can otherwise be hidden. If I had been reading the book with her dd I would have been able to tell the teacher I work with that she understood how books work, could relate them to her life and express annoyance at them for being boring-this seems to have been what happened, because she was moved to different books. 7 of the 26 students in one reception class I work with, though, have never read a book in order, and the assessment of their abilities to do so would be very different. One girl really couldn't handle narrative books at all, but could read technical prose (how a steam train worked) well, and is probably on the autistic spectrum (she would have slipped through otherwise because her sounding of individual words was good). There are also a surprising number of pupils (and indeed adults), both in the literature and in practice, who show good expressive and receptive oral skills (one boy can discuss our shared passion for Merlin at great length) but cannot (or will not) relate those skills to literary forms. I don't think it is enough to assume these readers will eventually just 'get it' because people here did, this is a skill amenable to teaching. Understanding those disjunctures is important in assessing how young readers work, and how someone like me (or a parent) might provide particular support and encouragement to particular learners, and books like this do have a function to play in that assessment. It didn't work for the OP's dd, but that doesn't mean it has no place in a mixed-ability classroom.

I also think they are important in helping implicitly define the purpose of reading. Ultimately, I think what most bothered me most was the number of postings who simply seemed to think 'wordless' meant cop-out unrelated to proper reading. On the whole I am coming from the same definition of reading as the OP. Yet if we 'badger' students into reading text for 5-10 minutes, but are unwilling to 'badger' them by asking if they enjoyed it or got meaning from it, what are we teaching them about what reading is for? Because if we end up implying that it is simply about sounding, we do a disservice not only to particular learners (myself among them, who was reading silently at 5 but would not read aloud for staff because it seemed so pointless), but to all readers. And the odd exercise like this, not as a substitute for sounding (some fakeable sense of 'making meaning') but as one small part of a literacy programme which is defining what reading is, is very valuable for explicitly heighlighting another aspect of reading.

So, I guess the answer is 'yes', but there are particular merits in this sort of book for particular literacy tasks and assessments, that they are better than a 'quality story book' at those things and that, if we want those things to form any part in how we teach, then these books have a role.

DS1 only had 1. he told his teacher in no uncertain terms that he thought it was 'rubbish', and that he wanted one with words.

But our school did phonics and a woprd tin first

AdelaofBlois I did state young child (so really don't mean Y6) and I also didn't suggest working through the story just using the pictures.

AdelaofBlois Sun 17-Oct-10 12:00:40 The question posed by the OP, as I saw it, was about whether books like this were 'needed' in a school at all.

I think if you look at the title of the thread you may realise how you saw it was in fact mistaken

wordless "reading" books in reception

@Highlander

And that is what I'm trying to say about utility. It is important to understand early the differences between your DS and someone who has never read a book and, potentially (esp. during transition to KS2), to understand if another child who is sounding and decoding well and gives a book back is pissed off because they just don't like the topic, or because he or she is less good at getting 'meaning', and therefore finds the thing pointless.

My other worry in this is what do you do with a pupil who really does seem to be struggling to make meaning, yet can do so in other contexts, who is coming to hate reading as a result, if when you ask her parents to help in encouraging this other key skill they dismiss it as not real reading (as many here have implicitly done here)?

Adealea - I certainly know what you are talking about and agree with you.

My son was taught using SP and his ability to decode words is far ahead of his ability to read and enjoy a story. I find it all really odd.

He's very proud of how good at reading he is and what colour book band he's on - but he doesn't enjoy reading or books at all. So now I'm trying to get him to enjoy stories and not just see it as something he does so that I sign his reading record so that he gets house points.

Is it because SP teaches reading as a logical system like maths-and therefore uses the left side of the brain rather than the right? ( or viceaversa)

When I asked my eldest what she remembered about learning to read - guess what it was? The wordless books, which she remembers finding weird! And now she has a good laugh about it.
It's just another one of the inexplicable (to children anyway) things schools do that children have to adapt to! They were quickly discarded for something more interesting.

IndigoBell SP teaches the skill of decoding but at the same time the child should be taught to look for meaning/understanding. Like any skill, reading is made up of other essential skills.
Unlike AdelaofBlois I don't believe wordless books contribute to the development of these skills.

Sorry haven't read whole thread so this may have been mentioned.

But how about using it to practise writing?

As the next stage has a single sentence on each page. Could you suggest to your dd that she writes the single sentence under each page.

This practices forming sentences, spelling, and the most difficult thing, constricting what you are saying into one sentence.

As you can see not something that I've mastered yet!!!