Is this a poor approach to reading from school and am I making it worse?

[lecce]

Ds is in reception and I am a little concerned about how the school seems to be approaching reading.

Things I am happy with:

• He only knew a few letters by sight when he started and now knows all - upper and lower case.

-He knew all sounds of basic letters before starting but now knows all letter 'names' and sounds.

• He is clearly learning to read - had done nothing in this area before school.

Things that worry me:
-There is only one comment in his reading book from school - written by the TA about 5 weeks ago. How does the teacher know anything about his progress?

-They send home words for him to learn. These are not decodable (at his level) and they are only supposed to be sent a new set when the previous one has been mastered. The first 3 sets ds loved but now we have 7 sets and he just finds them confusing. I have several times commented in his book that he finds them confusing and prefers decoding but the school continue to send more. He has not mastered the last 3 sets yet subsequent ones (and certificates congratulating him on learning words he hasn't learnt )have been sent.

-Books sent home seem to be completely random. I wouldn't have a clue what level he is on and most are not decodable (last one had guinea pig - what a waste of time). This has led to a lot of frustration on his part as he tends to try and use the pictures and I try and stop him and conflict ensues. He only gets one a week and I have commented that he is frustrated because he clearly enjoys the phonics sessions they do in class abd wants to be able to use them, but no one ever responds to my comments and similar books come home the next week.

I now more or less ignore what comes home from school and use other stuff. He abolutlely loves Starfall (though we've nearly exhausted it now) and I've got some Usbourne phonics books which he also likes because they have a bit of a plot. However, neither of these are completely the right level and I have been saying stuff like, "The 'a' and the 'r' make 'ar' in this word," and if I do that he will blend it fine. I have also told him about 'magic' and 'silent' 'Es' and, if I tell him which it is he can decode the word from there. However, I am a little worried that what I am doing is 'wrong' and will be counter-productive for him later. I am also a bit worried about basically ignoring the stuff school send home as I don't want to appear arrogant or unsuportive.

Thanks for reading.

Re Barking at print; a timely post on another forum saved me having to look this up

Keith *Stanovich looks at the scientific support (or lack thereof) of the notion of "word calling" (aka "barking at print") in Progress in Understanding Reading: Scientific Foundations and New Frontiers(2000). Smith and Goodman, of course, wrote statements such as "Preoccupation with teaching children to recode may actually short circuit the reading process and divert children from comprehension."

According to Stanovich, however:
There is no research evidence indicating that decoding a word into a phonological form often takes place without meaning extraction, even in poor readers. To the contrary, a substantial body of evidence indicates that even for young children, word decoding automatically leads to semantic activation when the meaning of the word is adequately established in memory.... Comprehension fails not because of overreliance on decoding, but because decoding skill is not developed enough. -pp. 173-174

*Stanovich is a very highly respected researcher who has been working in the field since the mid 1970s

Well, we had a meeting last term for parents about the school's literacy teaching. Obviously the deputy head didn't slate the previous teaching, but was saying what they were going to do, which seemed to be a more mixed approach. She did also say that she is not against phonics and is very much behind RWi which they are retaining, but that it was 'too limited in its approach' (or something like that, this was 6 months ago!). Now they have 'reading gym' every morning for 1hr - various exercises, ability based, and then phonics after lunch for 30mins, which is the 'pure phonics' bit. So I am guessing that the literacy teaching is mixed. They have also introduced this list of words to learn by sight, to make reading more fluent I am guessing. They are not supposed to 'spell out' the words on the list (like 'cat', 'dad' etc), it has to be instant recognition.

As I understood it just from what ds1 brought home in Reception, they were teaching RWI very strictly ie. he could not bring home a book until he had mastered certain lists and sentences. They were in small groups for their phonics class (still are), but there was little/ no other literacy going on other than phonics 'class' ie. the teacher could have no idea what kids in their class were learning as they never actually taught them literacy - they'd be going off to phonics for that!!!

This year the encouragement is to read the books they bring home with them, and help when they're stuck. I think they are really being encouraged to enjoy reading. We've had a list of books which are recommended for their age group if we want ideas for Christmas! At parents evening, his teacher also specifically said that reading is about phonics but also context, using the first letter, pictures, so I assume that is approach they are taking to teaching it. I'm not sure if she was talking about ds1 only, as he has struggled with reading till now (particularly the enjoyment part!), but it has really taken off this half term. I am so, so pleased with his progress. He's definitely using the phonics, but he is also using other cues if he gets stuck and if he still can't then I tell him the word. It seems to work for him, but only time will tell. And once he actually wanted to read his library book himself which was just amazing for me, even though it was hard - he read the words he could and I read the rest and it was brilliant.

Out of all you've said the only bit that is at odd with good practice is using the first letter, pictures
I've said many times that I'm not a huge fan of RWI (it can be very effective but I find it too prescriptive ... I do understand the reasons I just don't like them) but nothing in good phonics teaching prevents promoting a love of books and reading and children should always have access to high quality books to read and share (and I would do exactly what you do - read the words he can't). We have a 5 a day policy for stories

What about the sight reading, mrz?

I've been covering up pictures . DS was getting clues from them and I wasn't having any of it.

OK, here's an example. Ds1 is struggling with 'igh' sounds so in his book there is something about black tights. He reads 'black' 't-i-g-h-t-s'. So I say, "The beginning of the word is right, what's hanging up in the picture?" "Ah," he says, "Black tights". "Yes", say I. 'igh' t-igh-t-s. Next time the word is 'night' and off he is spelling it all out again (grrrrrrrrr) so I say, "Remember tights, now what does this begin with?" Next word is 'fright' and we have the whole saga again! I think it's just seeing it a lot and he will get it. After this malarky with about 6 words in 1 story, a few days later there was 'night' in his 'space' library book - and he read it with no prompting. Yipppeeee.

Personally I would teach the child to sound out the word first but the ultimate aim is aromaticity (no one wants children to continue sounding out every word forever) but that isn't the same as memorising whole words without understanding. So I would do the c-a-t =cat until the child reaches the point they no longer need to.

As I said I wouldn't cover up illustrations but neitherI wouldn't use them as clues

I am guessing (no picture clues though) that you mean automacity, mrz

I would say lets look at the word - t - what sound is "igh" (hopefully he will say "ie" or I would tell him) t s ... lets sound it out t ie t s that's right tights

and yes in the early stages it is repetition repetition and more repetition (and that would apply to whole word learning just there are more words to repeat than phonemes)

yes I do feenie ... see I was right about my spelling (although I am going to blame the spell check )

I liked aromacity - scratch 'n' sniff clues would be about as useful to reading skills as picture clues are.

Am amazed ORT never latched on to this as a marketing strategy

Very interesting to read the advice here - thank you for all the replies. There was a teacher further up who suggested a spelling strategy for the 'sight words we are being given - sorry I can't scroll up from here to check the name - thank you for that, sounds like something productive we could do with those words.

Still confused though! I had reservations about 'pure' phonics before (and voiced them on here) but, as ds progresses, it seems to me that phonicis is working for him and it just seems so odd that they send him home with something that really does not complement what they are doing in the classroom.

Btw, I don't manically cover up pictures but sometimes I can see that all he is doing is looking at the pictures, thinking about what would make sense, and not looking at the letters at all. I just don't see the benefit of that. Fwiw, when we use starfall, we always look at the picture (and wait for the animation to stop, if there is one) before we do the reading and that seems to work because he likes those stories so much.

I also really don't see the point in him getting books full of non-decodable words as a way of learning about the sequence of a book, or whatever. He's had books read to him almost since birth and has had all the 'pre-reading' skills in place for ages. He is always getting his favourites off the shelf and reading them from memory to himself. I'm not being precious - I know that he was behind most of his class in terms of phonics when he started YR because he didn't go to pre-school (has caught up now, though) and was very resistant to letters etc at home, though he did know all the sounds and was a whizz at eye-spy.I honestly don't see what he has gained from the last few books that have been sent home and it just seems to be pot-luck what he gets.

Maybe I am getting too far ahead of ourselves with the Usbourne books, then, and would be better off getting some Jolly Phonics workbooks? The thing is, he prefers stories with a bit of a plot - are there any like that around?

My head wants me to write a book so hands off ORT!

Was getting quite interested in 'aromacity' - then remembered some of the aromas floating around in lots of primary school calssrooms, and went right off the idea..............

There isn't any point in giving him books full of words he hasn't got the skills to read yet.
Have a look at Oxford Owl www.oxfordowl.co.uk/Library/Index/?AgeGroup=2&BookType=Phonics He would probably enjoy the Project X phonics books (they are aimed at boys and have main characters who shrink down and have adventures)

Out of curiosity - and impatience - how does one teach words like 'the' without sight recognition? They've made no mention of tricky/sight words at school, the only stuff they've sent home is info on each phoneme (picture of JP action etc), so I don't know if they do lists (as I believe a lot of schools still do?) - but seeing as sight word lists are not in keeping with synthetic phonics, how are you supposed to read it? They will be doing the two 'th' sounds soon but I'm confused about the 'e'.

Even if the school does do lists (and in yr1 classes where I volunteer - I'm known as the Numicon Lady :o - I've seen some tricky word sheets but not sure how they are using them) I really think DD will struggle with them :( her visual memory is actually pretty poor, unlike her auditory (sp?) memory - total opposite of me (may help explain why I learnt to read very early with no phonics instruction?). Could use some advice on this please - how do you approach words that are really common but also hard to sound out?

Good for you, Meglet!

He can look at the pictures after he's read the text...

Tricky words are supposed to be taught as partially decodable with a 'tricky bit' - 'th' is decodable and the 'e' is the tricky bit.

the "e" represents the schwa phoneme in the (a neutral shortened vowel sound )

how does one teach words like 'the' without sight recognition?

All words contain letter/sound correspondences; it's just that some correspondences are (or appear to be) unusual. Words like 'the' are taught as 'tricky words' with a continued emphasis on sounding out and blending. 'The' shouldn't be taught until 'th' has been taught. Then, the 'th' in 'the' is easily decodable' and the pronunciation of the 'e' as /uh/ is the tricky part.

Personally I really dislike the fact that these words are taught before the children have enough phonic knowledge and experience of 'alternatives' but it's something of a one woman campaign

Not sure if this is the right place/time to wade in but my son is in P3 (Scotland) so has just turned 7 and he is struggling to learn to read (mainly using ORT but now getting learning support focusing on blending and digraphs (I think)). I was wondering about the Toe by Toe approach and seeing the comment above about automaticity being aimed for reminded me about this. A friend with a dyslexic son uses it and it appears to be a lot of repetition until getting things correct. But maybe this is a very different scenario and not relevant here

I can see why maizie, it's just a shame that a tricky word is so common!

Schwa? what other words is that in?

But 'the', 'that', 'this' have a different 'th' sound than 'thin' and 'think'.

When I did my TEFL (a long time ago) we learnt that there is a hard 'th' - that, there etc and a 'soft' th - thin, through etc. That is what I have told ds.

Isn't the schwa that most common sound in English - for example, pretty much all words ending 'er' have it - it's like an 'u' sound.

Ah ok, I wonder if they distinguish that at school...

Oh yes, British English is FULL of 'uh's!! Better, honour, pressure - and loads of ways to spell it.