Blending and teaching sight words

[frankincensemydear]

My reception ds is learning phonics at school using jolly phonics following letters and sounds but also has been given a non-phonic word tin and books.The whole thing seems to be getting him (and me) confused.

He learns the sight words in his tin easily but the books he is given can't be sounded out easily as they aren't phonic.He will sound out the individual sounds in a word then randomly guess a word rather than blending the sound together.

How can I get him to blend? He seems to have gone backwards in doing this since getting his sight words as he just says any word he knows even with a different beginning sound!He sounds the individual sounds correctly and when I say to say it quickly he then says a completely different word e.g. r/e/d says blue.

I'm not sure where to go with the words in his tin and books as they can't be broken down easily into sounds he knows as he is only at the stage of knowing his individual letter sounds but nothing more.

Obviously I have to follow the school's way of teaching which means sticking with the books he is given which appears to be sight word based.

Any advice?

It could be that the school has been premature in giving him books to read when he is not yet at the stage of being able to sound out and blend individual words.

Ideally, words which are decodable and match the letter/s-sound correspondences he has been taught at school are the type of words he would be better bringing home.

The school can still provide books for him to share with you - but not with the expectation that he is to 'read' them himself.

The UK government has now recognised the value of 'cumulative, decodable phonics reading books' and added this to the 'core criteria' for evaluating the schools' phonics programmes. Unfortunately, how do you know how 'up to date' the staff are of any particular school.

My own granddaughter comes home with a reading book which depends on memorising whole sentences with no 'matching' to the letters and sounds being taught in her reception class - and the teaching staff comment so positively about how well she has guessed the words from the pictures - I despair!

You need to address your concerns as sensitively as possible with your son's teacher and ask if they have any word lists with which your son can practise his blending skill as a priority.

Thankyou debbiehep,
He was beginning to blend basic words with me such as cat,sun (he had learnt his basic letter sounds before school) before he started school with the word tins and books but now seems to have lost this in favour of guessing words.

I know he could easily memorise the words in the simple books as he can the words in his tin but feel the the approach is a bit of a mix of look and say with a bit of phonics thrown in but with no real commitment to this .

I presume it is too costly to replace the banded books with a phonic system and I don't think I'd get anywhere suggesting this to the school.

Should I push a phonic approach at home and just cursorily do the school books and word tin or will this help him.He does find learning the sight words easy and remembers them.

I did what you are considering. The drawback is that you have to buy the phonics books - personally I don't regret the expense. I really wanted my dd to have the very best foundation and the research seems to say thats phonics. If your son is recognising the words without taking in the letters that make it, then thats not a good foundation.
You could try The Reading Chest. Its a company you pay to borrow books by post and apparently its very quick and efficient and has a big choice of phonics reading books.

Thanks camicaze I had thought about buying these or the cheaper oxford ones.Will look into the reading chest.

I've heard lots of praise for the Dandelion Readers and those Floppy's phonics are really good.
One cheap option are the 'ditty books' that go with 'Read Write Inc'. They give lots of blending practice and are fill in, one use, books that also practise writing. The plus is the price, the only drawback is that they are not stories and just practice phrases in isolation.
I also used the Oxford reading Tree 'Songbirds' phonics series early on. They are very good. You can get the books cheaper on ebay if you have the patience (and re-sell). I never used Reading Chest as by the time I heard of it I virtually had my own library! I thought it only looked cost effective if you took out the top package and changed the books very often, especially if you have another child you can keep books for. That said, in the early stages you really do want lots of books. Good luck!

Thanks camicaze, really helpful.

My DH is a reception teacher. He said the school's strategy is probably to do with two distinct roles. The first is to sound out small words, like 'cat'. The second is to memorise those words that cannot be broken down, like 'was'. It sounds like the word tin is being used as flash cards that just need to be memorised while the jolly phonics scheme is designed to get children to build small words. It sounds like your child, like most children, is finding it hard to memorise some words, this just takes time and practise.

Tx EnolaAlone,
Some of the word tin he can say phonetically like 'c/an' but others not like 'the'.I think they are high frequency words but not necessarily non-phonetic.

He finds the words in his word tin easy to memorise and wizzes through them and knows them from looking at them once with me saying them with him to being checked on them a week later at school so there is some way he has of visually memorising them .

Are there any key things I can do to encorage blending? I think he could do it if I could practise with him.

You will probably find many of the ones in the books are high frequency. 'The' took my DS eons to get, a lot of which was because he couldnt say the 'th' sound- meanwhile he was starting to blend and could do most of the other high frequency but the 'th' words stumped him as he heard 'f' or 'v' or even 'd' and couldnt equate all thiose things with 'th'

If he cant sound them out then just read most of the words for him, whilst following it with your finger then stop at a word he CAN sound out and get him to fill it in

If he cant blend r/e/d then he cant be going backwards

I think I'll just keep pushing the phonics and get some books cheaply for use at home.

I'm not sure if his blending is memory alot of the time so I think I'll get some magnetic letters and look at this with him.He would for instance sound out s/i/t then when asked to blend say 'it' as he knows the word.

He is very keen to learn btw,loves books and is fascinated by letter sounds so I want to help him where I can.

frankincensemydear - please do email me and I can help you out - your son needs plenty of blending practice and the school is premature to send out tins of tricky words without blending firmly on the way. Why haven't they sent out tins of words to blend, for example?

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Rather than saying 'now read it faster' try 'push/put the sounds together'. The faster thing could have panicked him. If he says blue, go back at end of sentence/book and re-read the sentence back as he said it and ask him to put it right or point to the word and ask 'does this say red or blue, how do you know?'. Early reading scheme books are for word matching ('read with your finger' - one word on the page=one word spoken), reading from left to right, and with two lines plus of text, the return sweep back to the left. There will be high frequency words and words that can be sounded out. There will be also longer words to add interest to the text - such as 'Mum is reading'. For 'reading' a reception child in their first term prob. could not build r/ea/d/i/ng but if they said 'Mum is sitting looking at a book' they are not word matching so demonstrate 'Mum is... what's the sound' 'r' 'what's she doing begining with r?' 'reading' then you could say 'let's see if it fits and run your finger underneath while slowly saying the sounds in 'reading'. If they said 'raving' you could say after checking if it fits 'mmm I hear a v in raving, do you. Is there one in this word, let's have another think...'. However if they said 'Mum is really' ask them if that makes sense, would we say that? The picture is meant to be used as a clue along with most importantly the initial letter of the word (reinforcing reading a word left to right), but also attending to other letters l.to r. along the word. Children are also learning the skill of listening to and thinking about what they are reading. And as these books progress only a little bit further to read with pace, fluency and expression (removing the finger when secure that the eyes do the left to right work and only putting it back in when needing to slow up on a trickier words eg t/ea/ch/er).

Visual memory is fab. Would make for v. stilted laborious reading if we had to keep sounding out words and then blending them because we thought that was how you read, and to wait until we had been taught /ere/ to read the word 'here', so cutting off a vast swathe of interesting books. If you know it say it. If it's tricky can you sound it out, have you seen it before, does it look a bit like another word you know, let me tell you and we'll move on and then have another look at it at the end (so keeping pace and interest in the story and prevent the book becoming a list a words that must be read).

stilted laborious reading is quite normal for beginners. Fluent automatic decoding is the aim for beginners, and for that you need plenty of decoding practice with, for the most part, single syllable words with code children have been taught.
You don't have to cut out a 'vast swathe of interesting books' because mum or dad will continue to read interesting books for some time yet.
Do email debbiehep as offered above.

Some of the advice being offered by Zebedee above sounds suspiciously like guessing from first letter to me (initial letters are no more important than any others in a word )and will lead some children down a dead end to reading hell.

There are many decodable books available now that are quite attractive to small children. Many have been mentioned. Look at this clip on you-tube to see how enjoyable learning to read with a good decodable evidence-based reader can be.

Couldn't agree more with Debbie Hep's expert advice and malaleuca's follow up comments although after plenty of practice the blending will no longer be laborious. The majority of high frequency words are decodable, even tricky words like 'the' are taught as decodable with a tricky 'bit'.

Just got back to this.I've had some great advice on the thread so I feel clearer on what I should do to help.

Debbie,I've looked at your phonics international website and there is alot of information on there to help.I am going to persevere with the blending with him at home.

I think the school isn't following a full phonic approach but lots of different ways in common with some of the other posters at their schools.It is almost as if the school thinks we better do some phonics but are also sticking with the traditional way they have always taught.

I'll email you once I've read through the information on the website and thankyou for the offer.

Malalueca would you not say that initial letters are important as they are key for focusing the eye on the word to read from left to right across the word. If the w in 'where' is ignored the whole meaning of the sentence is changed 'W/here is the rabbit?' Clearly in the types of early reading books I assumed the question was about, the aim of the more ambitious words ('I am a 'dinosaur'') are not for the early reader to be able to decode them, but as I say to provide additional skills for the early reader beyond decoding. And it wouldn't be wild guessing it would be making an informed choice based on initial letter, stucture of story, picture...

I have a reception child, and because we know to have a wild time, we were sat at the table looking at the juice cartons. The dialogue between us was something like this 'What do you think it might say on here?Orange juice which he then points to locating the words by using the initial letter sounds, saying the words and matching. Then he tries to s.o orange, I say oh here the g is making a j sound and then he slowly runs his finger under the word juice as he slowly says the word. Genuinely unsure - is this not a valid thing to do...?

We then look at the smaller letters 'Made from concentrated orange juice' (non of the fancy pants stuff in the House of Zeb.). I point to Made and say it, then 'oh you could sound this out' for 'from' which he does segmenting and blending, and then I finish off while modelling the matching.

Quiet. Phew 'cause I am really trying to listen to the Archers. Then he pipes up 'the small letters on the apple juice say concentrated apple juice'. Well I would rather hear about the extra lessons for Lily and thingy-me-bob. But I indulgently bring the apple juice nearer so we can check. Concentrated and juice match, and does that say apple? Sounds out a p l e, blends aple (with e sounded) mmm apple the e isn't making a sound.

Quiet then 'the c and the e in juice say s together don't they'... Just his own conclusion through his own interest in letters and sounds.

Looking for an initial letter is also great in a supermarket eg let's look for the baking aisle, what does it begin with.. (and whizz quickly past anything shiny and attractive while their nose is in the air looking for the correct sign).

I suppose what I am saying it seems so limiting to have to stick to texts that they can only sound out only once they have been taught the rules. They can draw on their experiences, their knowledge of print around them, how books work, stories and poems etc. and start making connections - get their brain fired up and fizzing.

Don't get me wrong I am an advocate of phonics, but give children other skills and they can make connections eg come across the word 'teacher' never seen before, and have not been taught/forgotten 'ea'. So they use meaning/context and yes the initial letter and the picture as clues. Could it be the word 'teacher' they think to themselves. Say it slowly - well the t ch and er fit, and blow me down ea make ee sound as in the word pea from the bag of peas or my fav. book 'Peas! It's not easy being peasy', or my friend Jean's name. Obv. the balance of words would need to be right between those known/decodable/extending the child.

Would be interested to know your thoughts.

Zebedee - I tried to make it clear that any invitation to guess for some children can lead to reading hell! I'm sure in your hands that would not be the case, but over the years I've heard too many children making wrong guesses from initial letter to let it pass unchallenged.

Many teachers would not correct a 'guess, and of course children who guess from context and initial letter, and get the word 'correct' have not only guessed, but also learnt that guessing can work. It's a hard to break habit, for some children.

The trick, I believe, is to make the sounding-out phase as rewarding as possible, solving the little puzzles of words can be immensely satisfying for beginners, and we need not rush them on, IMO, to attempting words and text we know are beyond their ken. eg I often say 'That's a hard word for a 5 year old, you'll manage it when you are older,' meanwhile telling them the word.

He's 5 - or even possibly still 4. Please don't worry aqabout this. Read him loads of stories, enjoy lots of books together - he'll get there when he's ready. Honestly.

I had always heard saying "that's hard for you " was very bad practice

Lots & lots about it in 'How to talk so kids listen'

My own DS does guess, but he is getting better about it and loves to read, which at the end of the day is the bigegst thing in the world for me. Hopefully he isnt some children