The school is teaching phonics in class and sending DS1 home with ancient Ginn books...

[StrawberryMess]

The phonics book that comes home with him in his book bag shows that the kids have just done x v and z. The class have only learned simple sounds - the only digraphs are ff, ll and ck.

He's coming home with some reading books including lines such as "Tilak saw a castle". "Rosie saw a ladybird". "Mrs Hall's class saw a play". "Sam couldn't sleep".

DS1 is very frustrated that his reading books he's sent home with consist almost entirely of words that he can't decode. He knows the basic sight words but it seems bizarre to make a child learn "couldn't" by sight before introducing "could". And "castle"? Even I couldn't explain the phonic rules for that.

When I ask him, after hearing him read, what he thinks I should put in his reading record, my child who had previously said "write DS1 read perfectly" is now saying "write DS1 read stupidly and I don't love him" . He's being melodramatic, but I can see that these books just confuse him.

I'm thinking of taking out a Reading Chest subscription so I can give him Collins big cat phonics, which a friends DD at another school has, and some other phonic books in the holidays, so he can be logically and gradually introduced to the trickier words. Does this seem like a good idea or should I stick with the school reading scheme?

It could well be a resourcing issue
We have only just got in phonics readers, were sending home books from the 70s by the look of them before
It was a total eye-opener me as NQT

I only like ginn as it aint ort!

The level 5/6 ones have peoms and short stories.

some of the language is old.

plus its stamped with old rea code and 1982 on back cover.

Im amzed its still in one peice after all this time and countless kids.

I think mrs z said ginn was popular when they used the look and say methods its not exactly hooked into phonics but dd can decode and read it all the same.

Early Ginn are dire they have one or two words repeated on every page of the book ...1st book says Look...Look ...Look 2nd book Look here ...Look here...Here, look here but once a child can read the higher levels have some nice retellings of traditional stories and fables. We still have some Ginn in KS2 but they look very dated.

I was looking at catalogues with the deputy head trying to decide which books to buy for KS2 as the children have been taking them home and permanently borrowing stealing the ones they like ...The deputy head made a comment today which I though summed it up ... "we've had Ginn for 20+ years and nobody ever steals them!"

so that's why they are so popular!

Bizarrely I have the opposite book situation tonight.
Dd Y1 has FINALLY bought home a phonetic book. (I was on train when I posted earlier).
It's Ruth M The Three Clares.

Compared to ORT 7 and Ginn 5, I would say she found this much harder to read.
Mrz have you an opinion on this regarding her phonic teaching? I thought it would be easier but it simply wasn't.

She did read it but was not very fluent, she had to sound out lots
(Despair, declared etc)

Sorry Minimaxkids I don't know the Three Clares book (just looked at preview on Amazon ...that's it!)
So the only text I've seen is
"Next to Fairy Wood
stood a square white house.
Three girls, all called Clare, lived there."

I'm not sure if this reflects the level of difficulty throughout the book?

My first thought is has your daughter been taught all the alternative spellings for the sound "air" or how to tackle words with more than one syllable because if not that might explain why she had to sound out more. ORT & Ginn have very predictable text so it's quite easy for children to become familiar with the text type but not to be able to read books of a similar level as easily.

I think I'm surprised how much she sounded out
are
air
ere
ear
Words in the book. Would these have been covered in phonics for a good reader in Y1? It didn't seem to be the case for DD.
An of course as soon as she got the gist of stare Clare glare fair chair stair bear pear etc her fluency improved.

I bought on Amazon a set of Read Write Inc set one books. BUT they are paper (like a comic) rather than with a proper cover. The are green, black & white & were only about £8 for a set of ten books and each book has loads in it. Good stories, excellent for decoding & spot on for the sounds that my child has learnt so far in reception.

I won't hesitate to buy set two when time is right.

School send home a real mix of old books. My daughter is cross, confused and put off by the words she cant decode as she has only just been taught to sound out! No RWI books even though they teach that method & send home the sheets with five or six sound, one sight word & eight decodable words. Its a shame because I think (as do school) that RWI is brilliant!

My Q to teachers on here is do you think school would mind if we used these & listed them with comments in the reading record instead of the books they send? I haven't done so far as didn't want to offend but having read this thread I have even more confidence that I would be right to use our books instead. Child is too tired to do both in a night as young summer baby so full time school taking it out of her! We have one sound to write each night plus one book to read. That is just enough but two books not a option so consequently our RWI books are only used at weekends which is real shame.

"Would these have been covered in phonics for a good reader in Y1?"
It really depends on why phonics programme the school is following and how they organise their sessions. It could be that she has been taught the most common way in reception but not yet covered the alternatives or have covered some of the alternatives.

Your reply matches my expectation. They did Jolly phonics last year, she had all sounds by Easter and then learnt no more.

She says they do still do phonics but she didn't have a good enough grasp when reading this book to make me think she has covered it.

Do I chat to teacher or not bother?!

I would ask your daughter ...and if she hasn't I would get her to find all the words containing the sound "air" and sort them by spellings so she can work out for herself the alternatives (with a little help from her mum)
I haven't covered all the alternative spellings with my Y1 class

I like your comments, learn and say.

Leafmould, thanks. To tell you the truth I'm worried that simpson was saying that she was reading with some Y2 pupils who were struggling with ORT stage2. Makes one wonder if they were SEN, underprivileged, ESL (or what.)

I suppose it's possible that reading just wasn't their strong point, (late reading developers.)

Don't know what it is tbh...

There were no comments in their reading diaries (apart from the teachers and TA's ) but that does not mean that they are not listened to at home obv...

I am the op and ds1 is now in y2. I used reading chest with him until the end of reception when he had finished orange band on the phonics books. By the summer of reception he was good at decoding stuff and it started to not matter about the school reading books. He still gets some ginn books but level 8 has got some good stories and non-fiction. I don't regret opting for phonics rather than trusting school books as ds1 and ds2 have done well and both do guided reading with the year above.

I don't buy the whole "new books are too expensive" line that schools put out. Phonics has been the recommended route for all schools for what, 4 or 5 years now. In that time, if school's haven't managed to allocate resources to buy appropriate materials, it's about priorities and money management. There has also been matched funding available for school to spend on phonics resources for the last year or so. I think it runs out early next year. So for every pound a school spends on phonics resources, the government will match their spending pound for pound. If your school does not have phonics books yet, they need to get their act together and buy them in the next couple of months as by summer next year the books will effectively cost double what they could buy them for today.

I fail to understand why some schools don't priorities buying resources that will the experience of learning to read significantly easier for children, parents and teachers. Schools are judged constantly on their skills to get kids to learn to read. Why make it harder for themselves?

I presume it's not about the books; it's about the staff. Effectively what you're saying is that the current staff should replace their books. But if I had taught xwz-hundred children to what I believed was a good or excellent standard using my current method then I wouldn't hurry to replace that method no matter how much the resources were appreciating in value.

My attitude would be: my method works. So you can take your fancy methods and stick ... (well, you probably get the message.)

The English written language is totally phonetic

Rubish.

I say cat and bath with exactly the same 'a' sound. My brother does the same, but his children would say cat and barth with different sounds.

That's accent not phonics sashh