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.

Blimey, my fiirst biscuit, and it's in primary education... From Mrz :(
All this hooha, and a visit to dd's classroom last week, reminds me why I wanted to work in KS2 ;)
So do I not bother encouraging dd to learn "sight" words not that I'm doing that anyway as concentrating more on letter sounds and should I stop her using pictures?!

Get thee to AIBU, fluffykittens!

schwa is the most common sound in English

the a in about is schwa
the e in system
the i in pencil
the u in supply

and in hundreds of words

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

Not so different though, MerryMarigold - nearly identical. They're called voiced and unvoiced th don't ask me which is which. They're usually taught together - children happily accept both, ime.

Hadn't thought of the middle of the word ones, mrz. Never heard of schwa - where did that word come from? It's really weird.

sorry I've got a stinking cold and feeling grumpy as people may have noticed ... better on MN than in the classroom

word - there's another schwa!

That's as close to a virtual hot toddy as I can get, mrz.

Get better soon

It's German as you may have guessed in linguistics its an unstressed vowel
www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/pron/features/schwa/

Thank you

That's it ,voiced and unvoiced, not hard and soft! We had to put our hands on our voice-box to feel it buzz...now I am back in Barcelona 10 years ago and not sitting here with a pile of marking and another of ironing vying for my attention .

MerryMarigold, I thought it was fairly safe and civilised in here compared to AIBU :)

Thanks mrz. Though I'm not sure 'for' is a schwa sound - maybe in Surrey!

fluffykittens, AIBU has nothing on teachers (I know quite a few, inc my mum and sis!). Though to be fair, the advice is a lot better than it is on AIBU.

'for' is a schwa when it's mid-sentence eg "Horses 'fu' courses."

Now I'm sitting here saying things in my head. "This is for your daughter", "This is a present for you". I'd say them differently!!

My DS's school uses the same reading books as OP. My instinct was to cover the pictures up and change the order of the pages (each page says the same phrase, apart from the noun) -DS almost instantly memorises the order of the book.

School says I must let DS see the picture cues.

Perhaps I should use both my and their methods??

Yes, depends whether you stress the word or not. Someone about to open someone else's present, you'd say, "It's not for you!" Certainly wouldn't be a schwa there!

Oh h*ll. My brain has turned to mush this weekend. What is AIBU please? (I probably did know but it's deserted me... )

Try 'this' and 'thing' MM.

Am I Being Unreasonable, maizie

lecce. I would schwa on that example as the stress would be one the 'You'...and the 'for' would get cut off a bit. Ahhh...the intricacies of English. At least our kids get to learn it when they're young. I do pity adults.

skewiff, I'm not sure what the teachers would recommend, but my instinct as a parent is that if his enjoyment of reading the book is being inhibited, then you should stop. What does he enjoy doing the most? If he learns the order v quickly, he will probably learn the word from the first letter v quickly too, so books that use that technique of repetition probably aren't the best (We haven't had any back that do that).

What do you mean by (We haven't had any back that do that), MM?

DS likes both methods - hiding pictures is like a game, but reading with pictures makes him feel like he is really reading.

Can I ask school for different books? I think they only have these ...

I mean we haven't had any books where all the words are repeated except one word. But ds's scheme expect quite a high standard of reading before you get ANY books, which is pretty poor. I'm sure he'll soon move on, where the picture clues are much less evident.