Advice on reading books please?

[lilystar]

DD is in Reception. She's currently on the red book band, and the school only use the ORT books at this stage.

The problem is that she isn't decoding the harder words, she's guessing at them from the context and the picture. There is also the problem that as she can remember the whole thing after reading it once, it appears that she knows words she's guessed at.

Are there are books I can get (either from the library, or to buy) which will require her to actually work out the words properly? I'm concerned that she's not really learning and is going to come unstuck at some stage.

Any ideas?

Ahh, the dreadful ORT classic Biff Chip and Kipper books
Look at my page of decodable book schemes for brief descriptions, weblinks and more:

www.dyslexics.org.uk/resources_and_further_11.htm

P.S. you might like to inform her teacher that government guidance includes new advice on early texts to practise reading: '(E)nsure that as pupils move through the early stages of acquiring phonics, they are invited to practise by reading texts which are entirely decodable for them, so that they experience success and learn to rely on phonemic strategies. It is important that texts are of the appropriate level for children to apply and practise the phonic knowledge and skills that they have learnt. Children should not be expected to use strategies such as whole-word recognition and/or cues from context, grammar, or pictures.'

Thanks Maverick. To be honest, the teacher has his hands full with some of the other class members, he hasn't listened to her read since October, it's usually the TA.

I know that she can do it, but she doesn't have much confidence in it, so she avoids it wherever possible, so I thought it would be a good idea to work on it at home, as I'm sure they have higher priorities within the classroom.

Thanks for your help.

I'd say, hang on in there. We have Biff and Chip here (never experienced anything else, but the children seem to like it), and DD2 was similar to your DD in reception. I thought, although it sounds like maverick's thought this through more than I have, that guessing words from the context was part of reading? I'm certain I've used it when reading in other languages.

Anyway, DD2 was lacking in confidence at that stage, found the whole thing too much work and there were certainly words in there which didn't fit rules. I read the words she couldn't do after a reasonable pause to keep momentum going. She was happy with that. Now she's in Y1 and reads confidently, can read most of our picture books at home - and STILL uses guessing words from context as a strategy! What's wrong with it? I don't understand!

I'd suggest making sure she doesn't lose a love of books, so recognise these are early days. Take books from the library that she's interested in, and if she wants to, let her read the occasional word to you as you read it to her.

Hi Lost,

I understand what you're saying, but my worry is, what happens when there are no pictures?

She does like to read, she's just a bit lazy and will always try to find an easy way to do something. Plus, it's a bonus for me if we read something else too, this is my second time round on Biff and Chip, and I didn't much enjoy them when DS did them!

I have been looking at the link Maverick gave, and one thing I did notice was the current guidance that books should avoid predictable or patterned text - this is one of my bigger problems with the ORT books at this stage - it's so easy to work out what comes next, once you've read a couple.

Because guessing isn't reading.

That was to LostinAfrica, btw.

Rubbish - guessing is part of reading. Of course you need to learn the rules, but there is a place for guessing, too.

If she can memorise the whole thing in one read (which is what my DDs have done, too), then there's a good chance she's memorising the shape of previously unfamiliar words, too.

Unfortunately, predictable or patterned text is what they like reading - The Gruffalo, for example. And if you're going from reading individual words to reading books, then where's the harm in a little support like repetition?

What think you to Dr Seuss? Hmm... quite a bit of repetition there too, though.

My DS has the ORT books in reception as well. I really don't understand how they work alongside the phonics approach. When I read these books with my DS, I read the words for him that he cannot possibly decode (he has been introduced at school to a handful of "tricky" words so I ask him to read these when they appear in the books). The words I read for him are things like:

"said" etc

He reads things like "the" because that is one of the first tricky words that he has had to learn (at school, not with me).

By decode - do you mean regular words that can be sounded out? (just checking as am not familar with all jargon)

You can get books containing words that can mostly be sounded out: (I think - read the reviews to be certain)

www.amazon.co.uk/Jolly-Readers-Complete-Set-Level/dp/184414075X

Lost, yes, she likes repetitive text because it makes it easier to guess what's coming next. I love a bit of Dr Seuss, but I can already read. She can read a lot of that, mainly due to the repetition. If she were given a different book at a similar level, it would be a long way beyond her, I suspect, if she were required to actually read it.

Orangepoo - yes, I mean sounding out. I've been reading a lot of the posts on here in the last few days, so I probably picked it up from there.

I'm struggling with it, because I don't really know how to do it - I could read before I went to school, apparently, but we didn't do phonics anyway (early 80's), and I don't know how best to help her. My ds learned very easily, and it just seemed natural with him, so I never had to figure this out

Guessing has absolutely nothing to do with beginning to read, i.e. decoding actual words.

I have no problem at all with Dr Seuss and The Gruffalo - quite the opposite, but they are more useful for repetition, prediction, and pure enjoyment of reading, not so much actually decoding the words.

The problems arise when schools have failed to replace their whole word reading schemes with phonic ones, yet are trying to teach phonics and sending whole word schemes home. If you are lucky enough to have Floppy Phonics of ORT sent home, or Songbirds, they will be fine, but so many schools still send home the core scheme.

Jolly Readers are good, orangepoo, as is Rigby Star and Big Cat.

There is another thread running currently on this exact theme.

The role of phonics in learning to read English is limited, because too many English spellings have more than one pronunciation (paid ? said), as shown at englishspellingproblems.blogspot.com/2009/12/reading-problems.html
The contrived texts which use mainly just phonically regular words tend to become a bit tedious. Supplementing them with real books like Dr. Seuss?s The Cat in the Hat can be very helpful and much more fun.
There is nothing wrong with helping children to decode the words which have tricky letters in them. When we become fluent readers we recognise all common English words by sight instantly, but children take longer to reach that stage with the words that contain some tricky letters. They keep needing help with those. My granddaughter?s school sends home phonic and tricky words for practice, making clear which are which, and this seems to work really well. She needs hardly any help with the phonic ones, but quite a bit with the tricky ones.
The tricky ones that are most worth teaching are the 95 from the 300 most used English words, because they crop up constantly in every real text. Some are harder than others, as no doubt u?ll be able to judge yourself:

Any many animals after all asked called can?t fast last plants said small
want wanted was what water

are have laughed

be he he?s me she we we?re

ever every everyone never there there?s were where eyes key

great head ready bear

find I?ll I?m

live lived river friends

another coming don?t most mother oh once only other work
do into to two who

one come some something gone

pulled put
could couldn?t thought through would you your

school book door good look looked looking looks took

grow know snow window

giant people
Mr Mrs

Oh dear.

Thanks for the link to the other thread, Feenie. Have just read through. Seems phonics has been shown convincingly to be the way to go. Although that doesn't much help the OP who has no control over what's being done at school. I suppose I'm a bit blase about it all because both DDs are enthusiastic, confident readers despite their reading schemes (and really, their chosen reading matter is so much more advanced than the reading scheme books, we only read them to keep the school happy ). Now I'm a bit more educated about it all, I shall count my blessings regularly! :o

~Oh Dear indeed

"I suppose I'm a bit blase about it all because both DDs are enthusiastic, confident readers despite their reading schemes (and really, their chosen reading matter is so much more advanced than the reading scheme books, we only read them to keep the school happy hmm)"

Yes, that was largely my attitude with ds, he found no problems reading the core ORT books while learning phonics, and he is enthusiastic and confident, and his teacher also supports him reading non-scheme books at school. The problem is that dd is not finding it as easy, so I need to figure out the best way to help her.

I think I'm going to try to find some of the Read Write Inc home readers, and maybe the Jolly Phonics story set.

Feenie, The JP site says "The Jolly Readers are designed to start once a child has learned all the 42 sounds in Jolly Phonics, and can read new words by blending the sounds together. In normal classes the child is at this stage about two thirds through their first year at school." - would you say this would be about the right level? They haven't done all the sounds yet, I know they were doing 'qu' last week, but I'm not sure how many are left.

In normal classes the children will know the 42 phonemes by the first half term certainly no later than Christmas lily
JP suggests 6 sounds a week (I teach 1 a day as it's difficult to fit 6 in) so 7 or 8 weeks to teach them all.

Thanks mrz. I'm pretty sure they have not done them all, which is slightly worrying. I may get the final set of jolly phonics sounds as well then. The problem is, I don't want her to get ahead of the rest of the class, as then she gets very easily distracted.

To be honest, I am very glad I have no further children to go to the school, as it has changed a lot in the last 2 years, since my ds was in Reception. I know on another thread someone has mentioned only ever getting negative comments in the reading diary, but all I have had all year so far is 'well done, good reading', which doesn't give me much to work off!

Gosh, lostinafrica, you deserve a medal for wading through that lot! I am glad about your conclusion.

I think u might it helpful if I explained exactly what learning to read English involves. It?s not about learning the 43.5 sounds of the language, but what sounds the letters and letter strings which we use for them(e.g. a, sh, th)make, and blending them into words. For spelling, children have to learn to break words down into their sounds and to use the correct letters to represent them.

In a language like Finnish, which uses just 38 spellings for its 38 sounds, both learning to read and write is very easy. Because English uses 91 basic spellings for its 43 sounds and another 94 unpredictable ones, and 69 spellings are used for more than one sound (ear, early, wear)learning to read and write, and teaching children to do so, is much trickier and takes much, much longer.

The 43 main English sounds are:
A, ay, air, ar, au, b, ch, d, e, ee, er, f, g, h, i, igh, j, k, l, m, n, ng, o, oa, oi, oo (long), oo(short), or, ou, p, r, s, sh, t, th (sharp), th (soft), u, ue, v, w, y, z, -si-
(at, play, air, car, sauce, bed, chip, dog, egg, eel, herb,

fish, garden, house, ink, high, jug, kite, lips, man, nose, ring,

pot, toe, coin, food, wood, order, out, pin, rug, sun, shop,
tap, this, thing, up, cue, van, window, yak, zip, television).
The half sound is any unstressed vowel, as in ?flattEn, AbandOn, certAIn?, spelt in several ways.

The 91 main ways of spelling the 43.5 English sounds are:
A, a-e, ay (cat; plate, play) air; ar (car); au, -aw (sauce, saw);

b (bed);
C, ck, k (c/at/ot/ut, crab/ clap, kite/kept, comic, pick, pocket, seek, risk)
Ch, -tch (chat, catch); d (dog);

E (end); ee, --y (eel, funny), er (herb),
F, G, H (fish, garden, house);

I, i-e, -y (ink, bite, by);
J, -dge, -ge (jug, bridge, oblige); L, M, N, ng (lips, man, nose, ring)

O, wa, qua, (pot, want, quarrel), O-e, -o, ol (bone, so; old),
Oi, -oy (coin, toy), Oo (food, good),

Or, -ore, war, quar (order, more, wart, quarter),
Ou, -ow (out, now); P, Qu, R (pin, quick, run),
S, -ce, -cy (sun, face, emergency);

Sh, -tion, -tious, -cial, -cian (shop, station, cautious, facial, musician),

T, -te (tap, delicate), Th (this thing),

U, u-e, -ue (up, cube, cue)
V, -ve, -v- (van, have, river ? no doubling),
W, -x, Y (window, fix, yes);
Z, -se (zip, wise),
-si-, -su- (vision, treasure)

• 8 endings: doable, fatal, single, ordinary, flatten, presence, present, other and 2 prefixes: decide, invite: and the consonant doubling rule (bitter - biter)

So for reading children need to learn the sounds for those 91 spellings first of all. That?s what they learn in basic phonics. But because 69 spellings are used for more than one sound
englishspellingproblems.blogspot.com/2009/12/reading-problems.html
just learning the sounds for them is not quite enough to turn any child into a confident reader.

There has been a lot of debate (for more than a century) how best to teach children to read words like ?one, only, once, other?, ?soup, touch? and hundreds more like them.

"I think u might it helpful if I explained exactly what learning to read English involves."

Mashabell, you lost most MNers at this first incomprehensible sentence, but especially with the textspeak.

Mashabell is a well known loon poster on TES - a search there will tell you all you need to know.

I would buy the Read Write Inc phonic flash cards to teacher her the sounds and then the Read Write Inc Ditty books.

Ruth Miskin wrote the program and she is a genius!!!

Good Luck

"I think u might it helpful'...
Sorry about leaving out 'find' in my last post.
Many supporters of synthetic phonics, like Feenie, dislike me because they have bought this teaching method as the cure for all literacy problems and they don't really want anyone to understand what learning to read and write English really involves. They like it to remain mysterious. Because I am determined to make it as clear as possible to everyone, I annoy them.

In the current issue of TES we find this:
Effective phonics teaching was found at all of the primaries inspected, with pupils taught "letter-sound correspondences", "how to blend individual sounds together to read words" and "how to break up individual sounds to spell them".
Inspectors observed a "wide variety of effective approaches" using phonics, and there was "no notable difference in attainment" whether schools devised their own programmes or used published schemes.

Of course synthetic phonics is vital to learning to read and no-one can dispute that fact. However I do feel that there is a place for learning other strategies for decoding text. I don't think that relying purely on phonics and texts which are entirely decodable at the very low levels helps to foster an interest in reading. These books tend to be below the interest level of the child. There is definitely a place for learning some whole words in my opinion. The link above is intended for children with dyslexia, not every child is dyslexic.

Mark my words- when the current phonic fad is over, "experts" will again be advocating an acleptic or "another new" approach to the teaching of reading. These approaches are always cyclical.

How on earth did children learn to read before??

they don't really want anyone to understand what learning to read and write English really involves. They like it to remain mysterious.

Au contraire, the people advocating synthetic phonics desire to make learning to read transparent. There is no denying that the English alphabetic code is one of the most opaque, and because of this it is critical that children are given all the help they can at the beginning to learn the most transparent part, which will later support them in learning the rarer and thus more difficult bits of code.

Please don't start with the hard bits, my god Mashabell you frighten the horses terribly!!