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Original poster

Bit conused about this whole ' reading' thing. reception year.

83 replies

redderthanred · 18/01/2011 15:43

DD cant read. I know this. She doesnt even know all of her letters.

Shes had two reading books last week. One which she could ' read' cover to cover. In any page order.
She was not ' reading' it. She had memorised it.
It was things like ' dad is frustrated' 'kipper is hungry'

So i know she was not reading that. Tachers comments in reading record said ' superb reading'

Today, shes come home with two books and a comment that shes read one already with the teacher. The comment was ' excellent reading, very fleunt and fantastic sounding out when stuck'

This is the book:
Chip wanted some sugar
He went to the supermarket
He got some crisps
he went to the shop
He got a comic
He went to the market
He got a ball
he forgot the sugar.

Ive sat down with her to ' read' it quickly. and yes, she ' read' it. But she didnt really.

Please somone tell me the teacher doesnt actually think shes reading this?

Or, what do i do if she does?

She only started 10 days ago???!?!?!?

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iwouldgoouttonight · 18/01/2011 15:53

I am also confused by this - DS's teacher always writes 'superb reading' (DS loves the word superb - he's only ever heard teachers using it!) but DS can't read yet. Maybe the teachers call it reading to give encouragement even though they know the children are memorising it or saying what the pictures are depicting.

Chip sounds like me Blush

AMumInScotland · 18/01/2011 16:15

The teacher will be seeing what she can do the first time she sees a new book, when she hasn't had the chance to memorise it yet, so what she's commenting on may not be the same as what you're seeing. And at this stage "reading" means turning the pages and talking about what you see in the pictures just as much as reading the actual words, so if she's managing to see the pictures on a page and knows what the story is (even from memory) she's getting some reading skills from it.

I'm sure the teacher knows fine that she's not really "reading" the words as an adult would be able to, and isn't being fooled by your daughter being able to remember the words.

maizieD · 18/01/2011 16:31

Oh dear.Shock

Original poster
redderthanred · 18/01/2011 17:00

Well, its not really ' oh dear' is it.
It's my first child at school, I've not got a clue, and it hasn't been explained to us. If they had said by reading they meant turning the pages and just getting the gist of it, then I wouldn't have worried.
Silly to make such a comment..... when clearly the reason why I was asking was because I didn't know

OP posts:
IndigoBell · 18/01/2011 17:22

I think the 'oh dear' is not for you, but rather at the school for sending home books that your child couldn't possibly read yet.

mrz · 18/01/2011 17:22

Yes it is an Oh Dear I'm afraid
I haven't got AMumInScotland's faith the teacher knows ... speaking as a reception teacher (ex)

Itsjustafleshwound · 18/01/2011 17:26

I think the best thing to do is to make time to speak to the teacher about your concerns and what she expects you to be doing with your daughter at home wrt reading.

All children start reading and so it is a bit dismissive to write a catch-all comment like 'good reading' when you know that she isn't.

SoupDragon · 18/01/2011 17:39

There is only one person who can answer and that is the teacher. Have a chat.

crazygracieuk · 18/01/2011 17:43

I have a child in Reception and I'm guessing that if your child has read a few Ort then they would recognise the names or face

hocuspontas · 18/01/2011 17:49

Love the word 'sugar' when she's probably only just learnt the 's' sound. Grin

fel1x · 18/01/2011 17:53

I had exactly the same thing!!
I went and spoke to ds teacher and she said she knows they are memorising it and that they can't actually read yet but the memorising part is s key stage in the learning to read process and very good for them. Some of the kids look around the room apparently while they are 'reading' the book!
Ds is in his second term now and knows a lot more sounds and we are starting to see progress with him actually properly being able to read a few of the words in each book, so it does work!

crazygracieuk · 18/01/2011 17:54

I have to agree at how random Ort text is. We can pick from a selection of reading schemes and ds would only pick the factual Ort books like fireflies. The silly names like Biff and kipper really put him off!

midnightexpress · 18/01/2011 18:00

Learning to read will involve a number of techniques, as I understand it - not just sounding out the words, because this isn't always possible, as English doesn't have a direct letter/sound relationship (for example, sounding out 'through' won't help the child to read the word. So, with lots of common words like this, the child does have to just memorise the 'shape' of the word so that they recognise it when they see it.

DS1 is in the Scottish equivalent of reception, and from what I can tell, they are already familiar with the story before they actually get the reading book, so there is certainly a degree of memorisation going on. But that is not a bad thing, is the point!

Original poster
redderthanred · 18/01/2011 18:22

Oh good. Couldn't understand why the comment was at me.
I'm not fussed what she's doing at all. It's just that I know she's neither reading or sounding things out. We have this cat book too. And she does know about 3 words from that.

I'll leave it a little while and maybe talk to the teacher in a few weeks.

Much as I would be pleased its true, I don't think my child has gone from unable to read to being able to read supermarket in 10 days at school.
Lol

OP posts:
maizieD · 18/01/2011 19:39

Oh, redderthanred, I'm so sorry, my comment wasn't at you at all. It was an expression of despair at reading about yet another school which is approaching the teaching of reading so badly.

I would advise you to either get hold of a copy of the Jolly Phonics Handbook (probably cheap on Amazon) or have a look at www.phonicsinternational.com where there is a clear explanation of how children learn to read and many free resources to help parents. If the school will not teach your child good, systematic, structured phonics then you might be advised to schoolproof her by doing it yourself! It's not difficult.

@midnightexpress

Learning to read initially should not involve anything other than learning letter/sound correspondences, going from simple to complex, and how to apply that knowledge to sounding out and blending all through the word. You may not believe that this is compatible with the complexity of English orthography, but it is.

'Strategies' such as learning words as wholes, guessing from word shape, context or pictures are a hangover from the, sadly, not so distant past when 'phonics' was a dirty word among the self appointed reading 'experts' and they would try anything, however dotty, to avoid using phonics. These strategies should only be used as an very last resort if child absolutely cannot grasp phonics (and the percentage of children who cannot grasp phonics is tiny' estimated by researchers as 3 -5% max.)

midnightexpress · 18/01/2011 20:25

Well, I'm certainly no expert maizie, but I don't understand how a reception child could possibly sound out a word like (hang on a minute while I get ds1's reading book...) 'climbed' 'couldn't' or 'everyone' by simply 'sounding out' the individual sounds? DS1 is in his 2nd term, but from the very first ORT reading book he had last term, there were words without a simple letter-sound correspondence. With the emphasis on 'simple' - I understand that there may well be a correspondence, but at a much more complex level than I would expect a beginning reader to understand?

Perhaps they do it differently in Scotland, because I was told by a primary school teacher that they use a combination of different methods to teach reading, not just phonics.

Feenie · 18/01/2011 20:28

"I went and spoke to ds teacher and she said she knows they are memorising it and that they can't actually read yet but the memorising part is s key stage in the learning to read process and very good for them. Some of the kids look around the room apparently while they are 'reading' the book!"

Shock Another despairing teacher here. Jeez.

Feenie · 18/01/2011 20:31

They couldn't, mmidnightexpress - but then ORT is a sight word reading scheme. A phonics based scheme is needed - even ORT have realised they are out of date with current knowledge of teaching reading, and have responded with Floppy's Phonics and Songbirds.

Unfortunately, some schools have still been willing or indeed able to replace their old ORT scheme - hence the climbed, couldn't and everyone.

midnightexpress · 18/01/2011 20:38

Ah, well that explains it Grin.

However, I'm not sure I agree that 'phonics and phonics alone' is the only good way to teach reading. But that's probably another discussion...

midnightexpress · 18/01/2011 20:38

Ah, well that explains it Grin.

However, I'm not sure I agree that 'phonics and phonics alone' is the only good way to teach reading. But that's probably another discussion...

PoppetUK · 18/01/2011 20:55

Unfortunately DD only got ORT. We were abroad and I heard UK schools using this so started using them for DD. She wasn't being taught the sounds in school at any pace but she has got to ORT 11 with probably half the amount of phonics her year 2 friends have had (I'd probably say 1/4 if I was being brave). That to me shows that phonics isn't the only way but it does leave some gaps if they don't have it and now she's trying to sound out more and more longer words than guess. In the past 3 months she's had phonics lessons and it's really helped. Her writing and spelling is now starting to come. Back in her old school she didn't really practise writing with phonics. All her spellings were made up of sight words. Within 2 weeks of being in the UK I realised what a mistake this was. Just writing words with the sounds in it would have gone a long way to helping her.

DS is in reception and I will be making an effort with his sounds. I will try and play with making as many words as I can once a week using the sounds they are using. If it doesn't sink in this year I'm sure it will next year.

That's my view point. Hope it helps.

Original poster
redderthanred · 18/01/2011 21:57

The cat book is a floppy phonics one. We do sounds at home. Might do a bit more of that.

OP posts:
JaneS · 18/01/2011 22:04

I don't know if this makes sense, but doesn't 'reading' also mean comprehension of a written text? Maybe the teacher actually had to do a lot of the decoding of words while the child stumbled through them, but if they child could comprehend the narrative, isn't that also part of reading?

(I may be totally off the mark here, sorry if so.)

maizieD · 18/01/2011 23:19

It's a bit early to expect a child to 'read' and comprehend if they can't even work out what the words 'say'! In that case, the teacher might just as well read the whole text to the child... No, whatever is going on here is not reading instruction!

JaneS · 18/01/2011 23:28

maizie, I was thinking of the child sounding bits of the text out and then comprehending the sense ... it's perfectly possible the child stumbled through the text, with the teacher's help, but seemed unusually able to follow the story.

'Comprehension' only means 'understanding': it's possible to comprehend a written text without mastering the mechanical processes of decoding.