Reading in Reception (I know, but this is a technical question!)

[sleepingbunny]

Hi. My dd is still in nursery, but goes up to Reception to do reading with the lady who will be her new teacher in January. She brings home Songbird phonics, purple level, which seem great and we are going through them with her. But, I feel really stupid asking (and its hard to get hold of a teacher whose class she isn't in yet) whether she is 'getting' them or not and whether she should even be doing reading books yet.
Songbirds 1 are nearly totally decodeable (the one she brought home today had 'to' 'the' and 'of' in it but the rest decodeable) and dd is just sounding out every word every time. Occasionally she will realise what a word is without sounding it, but this is rare. She knows 'the' and 'of' without sounding, but I sometimes have to reminder her that they are tricky when I have my finger under them.
Am I supposed to encourage her not to sound them - and is she really ready for reading books if she is still sounding things or is she only ready to move on when she has stopped sounding out EVERY SINGLE THING?
Sorry, it's all new to me. Can anyone help?

She's only in nursery, so it's absolutely fine that she's still sounding out every single word.

She def sounds like she's ready for the songbird books, and it's great that school are giving them to her.

In time she will get it. But it does take time and practice.

If she were older I'd say tell her she doesn't need to sound out the word if she knows it. But she's so little, I would say nothing.

I think she's doing brilliantly, and you need to chill, and buy an extra bucket of patience :)

DS2 is on stage 3 and is still sounding out the words. It takes quite a long time before they read without sounding words out. She's doing great!

thanks so much. Thankfully the school have provided me with a pink cardboard bookmark with a script on it. It says "say the sound and read the words". Not "you've just read that one. How can you not get it again!" Which is very helpful and I use it always (although occasionally I can hear my teeth grinding behind the words)

Songbirds books are fab, hope you and your daughter enjoy them! Just have fun with them, sounding out is great and these books in particular are very good for that.

I discovered them purely by chance when my son was about the age of your daughter (he's 5 in October)- over the Summer he wanted to try some reading so I got a few different things and he surprised me by just reading "Mum Bug's Bag" or whatever it is just straight off with no help! (he'd been taught phonics in nursery).

He's got up to about level 3 and we've paused there for the time being as he's rather tired from 5 full days in Reception (unlike the Summer when there was all the time in the world!).

Further to this, I've just got home tonight and there's a comment in DDs reading record saying we have to go through the awful Pen Fun book again because she's still sounding out all the words and not just reading them straight off.
I'm really confused now? Which is she supposed to be doing? Are we really supposed to be keeping the Songbirds books until she stops sounding out words in them or can we go on to the next one? How is she going to learn like this? Because DH says she nearly wept when she had to do it again because she still sounds out 'big' every time ....The teacher has written, rather ominously, that she will explain this to me tomorrow..... I thought DD was supposed to be sounding things out but i guess I'm about to be told that I've got it wrong again?

I honestly don't think she should be being asked to say the words without sounding out audibly at her age and stage. It will come naturally as she progresses, but if you put pressure on to do it, then it causes anxiety that makes it harder to learn anyway.