Kipper, Chip et al...how does it actually work?

[TheProvincialLady]

DS1 started reception 3 weeks ago (late due to an operation). He is 5 and can read basic words and a few more complex ones, from my having taught him the basic phonetic alphabet and then him asking questions about other sounds. School ran a 'how to support your child's reading' session but sadly I missed it as I only had 2 days notice and an important work meeting at that time.

Last week he brought home his first book, which had no words but a list of questions to ask and things to talk about which we did every day as requested. DS says his teacher has listened to him read some words in a book and so today he brought home a reading book with words. But the words contain sounds that we haven't covered at home like AI (which AFAIK can be read as either air or aid) - how do I teach these if he hasn't already covered them at school?

I was a bit surprised TBH as the reading scheme they were using at his Montessori nursery seemed a bit more structured, ie each book built on the foundations of the last one - whereas this is more dive straight in and get on with it. I've seen rumblings of Kipper discontent on MN before but never really paid much attention before, oops.

I guess what I am asking is, how does this scheme work and what should I be doing to teach this stuff? Thanks

They can be used in addition to learning phonics. How else does a child learn to read the word 'the'?

How else does a child learn to read the word 'the'?

They learn that the letters "th" represent the phoneme /th/ and that the "e" represents either the /schwa/ or the /ee/ sound.

2kidsintow please tell me that your school isn't teaching that way?

Or they could look at it, read it often and learn that it is pronounced 'the'. It is possible to use both methods.

The same way as they look at the letters 'th' and learn that they are pronounced as one sound. And that the letters 'air' are pronounced as the phoneme 'air'. That is still and look and learn approach.

Learning the whole word means you have the skill /knowledge to read ONE word learning the phonemes means you have the skills/knowledge/tools to read limitless words ...
As reading is initially a visual process then of course you have to look but it is easier to learn the 160 ish graphemes by sight than to learn a quarter of a million words

mrz, I simplified my reply because I didn't want to be going into 'teacher speak' or writing paragraphs about the different styles and stages of learning to read. Of course, once the children have learnt all the 160 ish graphemes, then they can decode, but how long does that take? At the age the OP was discussing it is not the case that they will have learnt all of them, so there is a great selection of words that in their current state of phonic understanding, they cannot decode. Does that mean they only have books with words in that they can? Surely not. Other strategies have their place and learning to read should encompass them all. An adult reader relies on many other methods of word recognition when reading and the children begin to pick these up as they learn to read, alongside their instruction in phonics, synthetic or otherwise.
What is it that your school does that makes the approach that I detailed (that works with 80% if it fails the 20% you mentioned) so different?

mrz why the ?

Do you not agree that children can use a variety of methods to help them learn to read?

The phoneme 'air' is in lots of words and useful to learn. The point I was making was how to they learn it. They cannot sound it a-i-r they need to sight read it.

I am not suggesting that children learn to sight read all words, just that it is another strategy they can use, especially with high frequency words, such as 'the'.

My son's school has been doing the same-first picture books to introduce the characters and gauge how the might follow a story, now some fairly simple ORT Level One stuff that he can decode, but only because he has picked up a lot of GPCs through speech therapy. They are also teaching Letters and Sounds at a rapid rate alongside it. It's mixed teaching because resource is scarce, and it's not by any means optimal but...

Sending books home has established a nice reading routine for school books, and he's very happy with them. At the moment he likes Kipper because he looks like his own younger brother and (I think) my son is reading OK anyway and so is just getting on with this-and he hates sounding out verbally (he does it in a whisper) because of speech issues. So it isn't the disaster for him I had thought it might be.

Just be aware, when reading, that you should make unfamiliar sounds clear, breaking the words up. (e.g in pancake the a-e split makes the sound). Don't talk about silent letters or odd letters or funny old English (said has three sounds, ai is /e/, this is not a word that needs 'learning by rote, just a word that has an unusual GPC).

As I've often said, I really don't know what to do or think here, certainly not going to moan as a parent.

ScareyFairenuff children are taught the individual phoneme (which is a trigraph) they are not taught to sound it out letter by letter, it is not "sight" reading as in the accepted definition which is applied to teaching and learning complete words not individual phonemes.

It wasn't me that mentioned 20% failure. I consider that unacceptable as we have below a 1% failure rate by not teaching mixed methods

I heard that the new 2011 Biff, Chip & Kipper books were phonics based?

http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/education/series/primary/ort/9780198480259001000.do

http://www.oup.com/oxed/primary/oxfordreadingtree/resources/biff/

The new Sounds & Letters Floppy's Phonics are phonic based as are most of the new schemes OUP are producing (Project X & Traditional Tales) but many schools are still using the old ORT look and say books for children who are being taught to read using phonics and then given books to take home which don't support the method.

I often think in these discussions that the problem is that children will in practice usually read by mixed methods. I subscribe wholly to the idea that they should be in an enriching literary environment (having stories read to them) but not be asked or encouraged to decode words without an appreciation of the sounds that make them up (and that includes 'high frequency' words-these are not 'impossible' they have sounds represented by letters).

But most children with an enthusiasm for reading will look at a text being read to them and try and pick out more words, they will want to read beyond their knowledge. Or they will use their growing understanding that written words represent spoken ones to begin to follow a story they know on the page. Because most of these experiences often take place outside the classroom and beyond structured reading schemes their impact is very hard to research. But it does seem to me that even if every school switched to SP with only decodable books issued, parents would be faced with this problem daily and, while many hae existing not SP schemes, teachers are too.

So, as a parent and teacher, you face a choice about how and if to use an resource (a book from home, a popular existing scheme) which engages and encourages reading without resorting to explicitly encouraging whole word recognition or picture guessing strategies. And, beyond making the sounds in new words clear, I'm not sure there is an easy answer to that one.

Is it only Floppy's Phonics which are phonics based or are the 2011 Biff, Chip and Kipper ones I linked to phonics based too?

No the ones you linked to aren't a phonics scheme nappyaddict

Oh, so why does it say that they have been written using a mix of high-frequency and phonic words which can be blended and sounded out?

This primary school jargon confuses me lol.

All books contain a mix of high frequency and phonic words it's how/when they are introduced that is the issue. A good phonic scheme is developmental gradually building up skills/knowledge.

Of course, once the children have learnt all the 160 ish graphemes, then they can decode, but how long does that take?
with good systematic teaching it can be achieved in the summer term of reception.

Ah I see :)

Are any of these phonics schemes?

Treetops
Songbirds
Biff, Chip and Kipper Decode and Develop Stories
Snapdragons
Glow-worms
Fireflies
Time Chronicles
Stories for Writing

Songbirds is a phonic reading scheme

Biff, Chip and Kipper Decode and Develop Stories has been written to match Letters & Sounds

I looked on the match funding guide and couldn't see Songbirds on there, why is that? Or did I just not look properly

OUP have Project X, Sounds & Letters Floppy's Phonics Read Write Inc and Traditional tales included which are their newer offerings

Why not Songbirds though if it is a phonics scheme? Do the government not think it's as good or something?

adelaofblois says
I often think in these discussions that the problem is that children will in practice usually read by mixed methods.

I have no particular problem with children using the odd faulty strategy when reading at home, for pleasure (though, personally, I would strongly discourage it). What sickens me is that schools are still deliberately teaching these useless strategies; then 'blaming the child' (it must have some sort of SEN) when it fails to learn to read successfully.

I think publishers (OUP) submitted products to be included and the government selected from those ... so perhaps OUP didn't submitted Songbirds which is an older scheme (and not expensive - you can buy the complete scheme from the Book People for £15 at the moment) and instead chose their newer schemes or the government thought 4 products from a single publisher was a fair share of the promotion ...

Maizie - blaming children not learning to read on SEN is bad enough, but I find it more frequently blamed on their parents not reading with them, or their parents not speaking English, or them being poor :(

Anything rather than considering it might be poor teaching :(

I read once a week with some Y6 kids in a deprived inner city borough. And the school is sure the reason most of their Y6 kids can't read is because of their deprivation, mobility, EAL, etc, etc.

Even though they gave us volunteers a training session on how to read with these children and told us to 'tell the children to look at the pictures and guess'