Kind, well-meaning relative bought the Oxford Reading Tree box setfor DD (Aged 5.1)....but I am unsure how to sync this ox in with Jolly Phonics

[Greythorne]

DD is learning to read in English (we are in France) and doing pretty well with learning sounds, blending and reading Songbird books. We are following Jolly Phonics and it makes compkete sense.

However, the ORT set is not decodeable....so even the level one books have words like 'saw' and 'made' which DD cannot yet decode.

She is keen to get on with the ORT books but stumbles and gets frustrated even with the level 1 books.

I am te pted to hide them at the back of the cupboard and focus solely on Jolly Phonics and Songbirds but I keep hearing how ORT is standard in UK schools.

Any advice?

Hoe do you decode 'does' or the different between the ou in about and could?

you teach them as sounds. I don't see the problem. The same grapheme makes different sounds sometimes, we teach that. The same sound can be made by different graphemes.

In other words, it is unpredictable - so whatever way you teach you have lots and lots of anomalies. You can't really explain the i sound in women - you just have to learn it. Or spell out wo - men and then figure it out from the context (which is what my dd2 aged 5 is currently doing).

The way phonics is discussed as though it is the only way to learn reading is just silly. It's obviously a good method for groups, but many children still have difficulty with reading so it is not foolproof. And no doubt teachers 20 years from now will be insisting it is outdated and everyone must learn another method and chuck out all the Jolly Phonics books.

Personally I read at 3 and a half, using look and say (dm was a teacher). Dd1 was reading very simple words before school and reading reasonably fluently by the end of YR. She was at a school that let her choose whichever book she liked from the shelves. DD2 (YR) is doing phonics but also recognises words like 'breakfast'; her school sends her home with random books each day, including the odd ORT one.

In the end, all I am saying is that the OP would be silly to chuck out a resource of books - just let your child enjoy them if they want to, and don't worry if they don't.

actually ALL the evidence points to synthetic phonics being the best way to teach children

But what do I know - I am just a teacher who does this all day, everyday, and has done so for years.

I learned to read using look say, and grew up into a terrible speller.

Phonics is not unpredictable. Quite the opposite actually.

many children still have difficulty reading because they are incorrectly taught.

So nice to have coronet's subjective experience on the subject of reading books for beginners , now lets have some facts:

10 reasons why beginning readers should only be given phonically decodable books to read:

1. Only phonically decodable book schemes are consistent with the synthetic phonics reading method; they go from simple to complex, use only explicitly taught code and the illustrations are not deliberately designed to provide overt clues to text content. Taught code is used throughout words, rather than first letter emphasis, to ensure that transitivity is well understood. Sounding out is the only strategy required to read the words.

1. Whole-language reading scheme books give beginning readers a misleading idea of what reading entails i.e. that it is a memorising and (psycholinguistic) guessing game.

1. In order to become expert readers and spellers, children need to know the Alphabet Code and the skills of blending and segmenting to automaticity. To ensure this, they need to be taught the code and the skills directly, discretely and systematically. Phonically decodable books give beginning readers the necessary direct and sustained practice in newly taught code and skills.

1. There is no way of knowing which particular children entering a reception class have poor visual memories or weak phonological learning ability. These children are likely to become struggling 'dyslexic' readers if whole-language books are used at first. Children with good visual memories plus a supportive home background may appear to do well, initially, with whole-language books, BUT see 5.

1. Decodable books help prevent the development of the sight word guessing habit. This harmful habit can be difficult to change when children get older and the brain less 'plastic'. Those with good visual memories will develop this habit quickly and easily through the use of predictable, repetitive text. Eventually their memory for whole words will reach its limit and if they haven't, in the meantime, been taught or deduced the alphabet code for themselves they will struggle to read advanced texts with novel words and no illustrations.

1. Whole language, repetitive texts can be tedious to read. Many beginning readers struggle to read the early levels (pink, red, yellow, blue) of Book Banded predictable texts, losing comprehension and confidence in the process. Both types of books can put a child off reading. 'Attitudes to reading in England are poor compared to those of children in many other countries' and 'Children in England read for pleasure less frequently than their peers in many other countries' (Pirls 2006) These findings are from the time when whole-language books were used as the basis for early reading instruction in nearly all schools.

1. The use of phonically decodable books is usually only necessary for a short period in the foundation stage. When taught well with synthetic phonics, most children learn the code quickly, begin to self-teach, and can then move to independently reading real books rather than being stuck for several years on whole language reading schemes with the restricted word count necessary to ensure adequate memorisation of the high frequency words.

1. Good spelling is aided by the use of decodables -see Spelling

1. Ease of decoding from the earliest days by simply sounding out and blending gives children quick success, ensuring long term enthusiasm for reading.

10. Parents easily understand the logic of phonically decodable books and are more able and willing to help their children practise reading at home.

-and some evidence:

?The selection of text used very early in first grade may, at least in part, determine the strategies and cues children learn to use, and persist in using, in subsequent word identification.... In particular, emphasis on a phonics method seems to make little sense if children are given initial texts to read where the words do not follow regular letter-sound correspondence generalizations. Results of the current study suggest that the types of words which appear in beginning reading texts may well exert a more powerful influence in shaping children?s word identification strategies than the method of reading instruction?(Juel and Roper/Schneider. Reading Research Quarterly 18)

well done Maverick.

That about sums it up

HumphreyCobbler,

don't understand me wrong, I believe phonics is the right way to teach reading.

But: I have a child who wants to read and wants to read what we have at home and what she likes in the library. She knows books since she was a couple of weeks old and we read to her books like Pippi Longstocking or Magic Treehouse each evening and she sometimes read the odd sentence herself?

Obviously she will come across tricky words but should I try and discourage her so she doesn't get confused because she doesn't know yet why "once" is pronounced the way it is?

Or should I let her decode it phonetically, which she does, and then explain that she has to pronounce it different and she knows it for the next time and we carry on with the story and build up her vocabulary and knowledge and have fun?

Our headteacher said on the introduction evening that English is not a phonetic language and phonics alone won't do it. Should I not believe an experienced teacher, who def. believes phonics is the right way to start learning to read?

Re ORT: I agree, the first books are a nightmare, no so much because it is Look Say but because DD knew the story after two times and I couldn't be sure if she actually reads or just retells from memory.

I really didn't expect this to become a bunfight :)

I was a bit muddled in my OP.

Dd is doing really well with Songbirds (which I have niw realised are also ORT) which provide stories using decodeable words from the get-go. Dd loves reading these and reads the high frequency words fluently, then sounds out the new yet decodeable words, based on the sounds they have learnt in school (they are up to "ie" and "j" at the moment).

So there are two strands of learning in process: learning the phoneme - grapheme correspondances in class and in parrallel, reading short books using the sounds they have learnt.

My problem with ORT Biff and Chip books is that even the most basic books include words that are not decodeable yet as the DC have not learnt all the grapheme- phoneme correspondances.

It seems silly to pick up a Biff book with a very simple story but relatively complicated words like
Nose
Smowman
Green
Orange
New

noramum - tell her what that particular letter combination sounds like in that word. And continue to share lovely stories with her so that her love of reading is promoted. Don't read rubbish 'look say' books as they are a total waste of time.

FWIW I am an teacher with many years experience in teaching children to read. I have witnessed first hand the rise in reading and writing ability in schools who have begun teaching phonics. I can also see my own son being confused and dispirited by a school that has not sorted out a proper reading policy. Because I am a teacher I can steer him through, but not everyone has that luxury.

This is not a bunfight - it is a discussion! I get really depressed at the attitude that a disagreement/discussion is to be disparaged as a bunfight. No one has been insulting.

Maverick stated it all VERY clearly. Have a look.

It is silly Greythorne - DS came home with 'The Headache' the other day. He HATES doing his 'reading' book. I wish they would send him something else. Don't bother your DD with this scheme, just put it away quietly. Songbirds are good ORT

I have a dd who is 8 next month. She was excited to learn yesterday that she is going to move on to the 'white' band of ORT and after that she can start chapter books. She is in Year 3!

I, on the other hand, am mightily pissed off that in her previous school she was taught to read with Biff and fecking Chip! How proud was her Y2 teacher when she showed me the full set of the scheme, that the school had just purchased.

In September, she moved schools, and has really gone back to basics and is being taught phonetically and has extra lessons in a phonics. Her reading is coming on hugely.

BUT it depresses me that despite being desperate to read a proper book, she still can't do it. In my view, this is because she was taught incorrectly, with too much reliance on ORT. She has really struggled with learning to read, and it is only now that she is sounding out words correctly, and therefore, beginning to 'get' decoding.

I pray for the day when it just 'clicks' for her and she can go into her room and read a book for enjoyments sake. It will make her so happy.

I have learnt the error of my ways though and with my just 4 year old dt's, phonics is the way to go!!!! And thanks to their natural curiousity with letters and sounds, they are half way there already!!

Kerryblue - it is children like your daughter that all of us espousing the virtues of proper teaching of reading have in our mind, when we are so emphatic in our pronouncements.

Listening to people talk of a 'mix of methods' and 'contextual clues' and 'look - say' as if they are a valid alternative to proper synthetic phonics is a very frustrating experience for those of us who know about the children who will fail under those methods. Of COURSE not all children will fail, but 20% will.

So glad she is catching up now

Absolutely Humphrey. I only wish I knew then, what i know now, about learning to read.

I honestly just left it to the school, in a far too trusting kind of way. It is only now, having had these experiences with dd (and to a lesser extent ds - also very slow to 'get' reading) and also discovering mumsnet and all the wealth of experiences people have on here, that I realise just how much her old school has failed her.

I am absolutely determined to give the dt's a solid foundation in phonics and only when this is done will they be allowed anywhere near the likes of Biff and sodding Chip - if at all!!!

I think the key thing, humphreyCobbler is this: 'Of COURSE not all children will fail, but 20% will.'

As a parent, you don't have to worry about the 20% who struggle with other methods unless your child is one of them. You actually don't need to follow at home any particular method to the exclusion of all others - because your child can easily learn by a mixture of methods (and may have a lot of fun doing so). Teachers being emphatic about phonics are doing it because overall it works best if you are trying to teach a group of children - so they are not always the best people to decide what is most interesting and enjoyable for a particular child to do at home.

And maverick it's not that I disagree with you, but in your point 5 you say

"if they haven't, in the meantime, been taught or deduced the alphabet code for themselves they will struggle to read advanced texts with novel words and no illustrations."

So if children do manage to deduce the alphabet code for themselves - like both my dds - it is fine to mix and match methods.

I just don't get why we need to totally professionalise the art of teaching reading. It's disempowering for parents - hence lots of mn questions worrying about what to do about reading to their own children. Great if teachers are passionate about the way they are teaching, but as parents we might well have our own ideas about what to pass on to our children - and reading other books might well enhance school learning and vice versa.

And all I am really saying to the OP is that it is fine to leave the books out and let your dd explore them if she wants to. If she gets frustrated and stumbles, reads those bit to her. Honestly cannot see what any teacher could possibly object to in a parent making use of a bunch of free books.

"I just don't get why we need to totally professionalise the art of teaching reading. It's disempowering for parents."

Teaching reading is not an art and, if it were one, why would parents be competent in that art themselves? Teaching reading is - ought to be - a professional skill.

I agree that some schools need to do more to explain to parents when they should start encouraging their children to read their bedtime stories to their parents, rather than have the parents read them to their children.

Yes, sorry - I meant every aspect of reading. I don't mean that it isn't a skill to teach, honestly!

And I am very supportive of dd's teacher and the way she is teaching eg I went to the talk on it, we read the book dd comes home with (which she chooses), we practise the tricky words as requested etc. She in turn has been really enthusiastic about dd's reading skills.

But actually some parents are competent!

Sorry to cut into the debate here...

My DTS are coming up 4 in March. I read to them a lot and they have lots of books including the Biff/Chip ORT. They don't read the words other than the names of the family but generally use the pictures to make up their own stories, as they do with all books they 'read' by themselves.

What would you wise MNs recommend for an introduction to phonics before they start in reception class? I am an old duffer so this is all new to me (new fangled emoticon).

The thing that made the biggest difference to reading and writing in my reception class was banning the children from using the ORT books and buying decodable books. Children who learn to read by sight I find are at a big disadvantage particularly in their writing.

Greythorne, I had a very similar experience to you re those first Biff and Chip books and they are at the back of the shelf somewhere and think they will probably stay there!

DS is reading around level 3/4 phonic based books now very well, which have a few tricky words/decodeables that I tend to tell him then he remembers.

No. 7 in maverick's list is particularly interesting to me.

coronet I just find it weird that people would choose Biff Chip et all for fun (which I'm sure the OP wouldn't do for her daughter)

It's also important to remember that the 20% who didn't learn using searchlights consisted of many more boys than girls.

As a parent, you don't have to worry about the 20% who struggle with other methods unless your child is one of them. You actually don't need to follow at home any particular method to the exclusion of all others - because your child can easily learn by a mixture of methods

You should count yourself extremely lucky if you have a child who has learned to read with 'mixed methods'. I am pleased that your dcs haven't suffered from their teaching. But, it does not seem very wise to blithely advise other parents that mixed methods are fine just because your children are OK.

The saddest thing about children taught with mixed methods is that you don't know if it is going to damage them until they have been damaged! By which time it is too late...

Teaching reading is not particularly difficult if you understand what you are doing. After all, (literate) parents have done it for hundreds of years. It does seem a bit perverse, however, when a number of well informed professionals post on mn with excellent advice on the best way to help a child with reading, to ignore what they are advising.

noramum read what you like with your daughter for pleasure that's what it's all about and no one is suggesting that parents shouldn't share lovely books with their children from the earliest possible opportunity but please don't inflict start ORT when children are learning to read.

Excellent posts, maverick and HumphreyCobbler.

Maverick, I am going to take your list and staple it to our deputy head's forehead next time she tries to talk to me about mixing methods.