Worrying about use of ORT and HF words in reception

[Kerryblue]

Actually, I am feeling really tearful right now

I have dt's, just started reception. This morning their teacher told me she is going to send home some 'tricky' words for them to learn and start them on reading books. When I asked which ones, I got the answer I so didn't want - Biff and bloody Chip!!

Bit of background... my Year 4 dd is still on reading schemes, is having masses of extra help (for example a 'wheel' of sounds such as 'gr' 'st' 'cl' etc that she has to read every night), and has just really struggled with her reading. She learnt (or not as the case may be) with Biff and Chip. That scheme totally failed her. She is one of the 1:5 who needs synthetic phonics, it's just we didn't realise this at Key Stage 1. Long story.

My Year 7 ds, who although reads well now, was a late reader and also learnt with this scheme.

Both of them were very much 'I will only do what the teacher asks me to do, you mummy, know nothing!' type of children. The dt's are going the same way. If I want them to read to me at home with Songbird books for eg, I bet they will fuss about it because it's not what the teacher wants them to do.

I am probably being over emotional about this, but I really, really want them to learn with synthetic phonics. I have learnt so much about different types of learning to read - mainly from mumsnet actually - for me to believe that this is the best way. How do we know they are going to be OK with Biff and Chip until it's too late.

At the moment, they know all their letter sounds, some digraphs and long vowel sounds (using the Letters and Sounds DVD and poster) but are struggling with blending a bit. So they are at the very start of their learning to read journey and I so don't want it to go wrong for them.

What should I do next with them? How do I help them?

You can always read the less decodable words to them and ask them to do the decodable ones. Presumably you're pretty clued up on phonics techniques by now, so I agree that a fairly intensive phonics approach from you at home can overcome school. Let's face it, you can be reading one-to-one with her for half an hour daily whereas the school definitely won't.

The problem with that is it indirectly gives the message that some words are just too difficult to even try. Yes books are expensive but you could buy the full set of 36 Songbirds for £15 from the book people ... multiply by 6 to have group sets that's only £90 ...not a huge outlay.

Oh yes - the phrase is "some words are trickier than others - I'll do some of them now but when you've done a bit more learning you'll be able to do them all yourself"

I swear by getting tiny DCs to read the sound effects in their bedtime picture books because they're almost always onomatopoeic and hence decodable.

Obviously this is not ideal but the OP will probably manage, armed with all the stuff she's unfortunately had to learn the hard way.

Hi

Can I just say first, that just because your older child had probs don't assume your DT will- I have a ds who found learning to read VERY hard and was braced for the same with younger dd who was fine :)

Ignore people who say that if there is nothing wrong they will just get it- my ds found it so hard, despite the fact that his school taught synthetic phonics really well and he has a mum who is a primary teacher with a literacy specialism!!! He had slight hearing impairment, had been a little late with speech and language skills, has a summer birthday... he has absolutely no SEN, he just found it harder than some others, particularly in YR.

The only advice I could give would be to get stuck in yourself-the school will make decisions based on what suits most kids and their budget (as other posters have pointed out they may just not want to replace what they already have). You have the freedom to do whatever suits. Don't spend hours- I used to aim to do 10 mins twice a day with ds- at least one of which was a game on a computer e.g alphablocks so he didn't consider it work anyway.

I didn't like the reading scheme books ds got from school, for a different reason- they were really dull he had no interest. I ended up skim reading them ( I would read lots to him, him a little to me) so he was familiar with them. I joined reading chest and picked books he would like better and we practised reading with that...its only about £6 a month for 1 dc. When he was in the early stages we also did lots of games- alphablocks 'phonicsplay' which are free online. Also 'matching' games- pic to word etc. I also read lots of fab books to him without asking him to do any reading- to try and keep his interest in books.

My understanding is that now the school MUST be doing systematic synthetic phonics from YR -Y2, they just might not be using the reading books to back it up. So if you support dt with decodable books, online games etc you will still be consolidating what they have learnt at school.

If your older dc is 8 (? I think I read) then the fact that the school HAS to teach synthetic phonics is something that is likely to have changed since your older dc was at this point- it was likely to have been optional even just a couple of years ago.

Hope this helps :) I know what hard work it is supporting a child who finds it hard.

I found the problem with using standard ORT even when encouraging a decoding approach to them was that they are just so predictable that they encouraged mydc's to guess even without a teacher telling them to - and to guess wildly to the point where they would hardly look at the actual text and just fling out a series of possibilities. I actually really like Biff and Chip in terms of enjoyment compared with anything else and so have my kids but I find they are just harmful till about level 5 as they are written to encourage guessing and that is exactly what they do - to the point where my dc's would abandon all other carefully taught strategies. When I would then use a decodable reader, or even ordinary children's story books their reading would fall apart. So I have just had to avoid ORT till L 5. At which point I and kids enjoyed Magic key so much that the motivation to read they provided seem to outweigh the harm.

Synthetic phonics resources we've found useful in helping DS to read:
BBC fun with phonics (2 packs consisting of DVD, book etc).
Leapfrog DVD's, e.g. Talking words factory. (phonics tuition thinly disguised in a cartoon - its from the US, so needs a multi-region dvd player).
Bob's books (5 packs of about 10 books). Another US product. starts very gently with single CVC words and ends around ORT level 3 or 4.
Songbirds phonics (36 books spanning ORT levels 1 to 6).
Read write inc book packs (among other materials, there are 7 graded sets of books with about a dozen in each - the levels are 2 higher than ORT, i.e. read write set 1 corresponds to ORT level 3).

My pre schooler knows sounds and is interested in reading. If I want to encourage phonics early what is good to get? I saw -songbirds' mentioned above. I think the school she'll go to does rwi and sets them. Is that the right type of phonics? (these threads have me worried!!)

Dear Kerryblue

Some children find learning to read much harder than others and u seem to have been unlucky in that respect, but yours may well turn out brilliant in other ways. (Darwin was dyslexic.) And I am sure they will learn to read eventually, even if they take a bit longer, but I do understand your concerns, because reading ability affects ability to cope with other learning.

As Maizie said, Education is driven by fad and fashion, not data. Phonics, as pushed now, is merely the latest one.

My son made very slow progress with learning to read, and I pulled out all the stops to help him. I did so with a mixture of phonics and going over words which gave him trouble, again and again and again.

When I listened to him read, I helped him with the words that he had trouble reading or decoding, but also made a note of them, always stopping the session when he was getting tired or I had noted down about 7 words.

We would then look at those words again to see which bits were troublesome, such as the ?are? in ?area? or the ?u? in ?blushed? (cf. full), and he would try to read them again a few times. Often he read them all easily after we had been over the 5 or 7 words two or three times. Any words that still tripped him up, I would write on separate cards, in bigger letters and bring out when he was doing other things.

I also kept telling him that it was not him who was stupid, but English spelling, that his extremely logical brain had trouble coping with it, but that he would get to grips with it eventually, despite that.

It worked. And once he discovered the Dr Who books which he was desperate to read, he went from strength to strength.

English spelling (man ? many; on ? only; go ? do; house - hour; supper - sugar) makes the early school years for many children very difficult.

But to get matters improved would need the support of people who did not have many problems with it, who can't even see that it is full of flaws, and most of whom don?t care in the slightest about those who struggle. And so the needles battles continue and buckets of tears flow year after year.

''most of whom don?t care in the slightest about those who struggle''

I'm speechless with anger, Masha.

How dare you say that

Maverick
I dare say that most people who did not have much trouble learning to read or write don?t care in the slightest about those who struggle
because of the hostile reaction from most of them to the mere suggestion that we should consider making learning to read and write English easier.

The vitriolic abuse which this often provokes amazes me. Sadly, most of it is out of ignorance about how English spelling came to be so irregular and how costly and learner-unfriendly it is, compared to other orthographies.
Masha Bell

As Maizie said, Education is driven by fad and fashion, not data. Phonics, as pushed now, is merely the latest one.

Rubbish, masha. Synthetic phonics is one of the few educational initiatives which is supported by data.

People get annoyed by your replies Masha because they very much care that some children struggle to learn to read and you use it to publicise your cause.

I dare say that most people who did not have much trouble learning to read or write don?t care in the slightest about those who struggle
because of the hostile reaction from most of them to the mere suggestion that we should consider making learning to read and write English easier.

You're misreading the direction of the 'hostile reactions' - they're to your loony spelling reform campaign, your continued despicable insults and your constant hijacking of children's reading difficulties to promote your own cause.

I find it incredible that people find the idea of making learning to read and write easier 'loony'.

One of the things I have suggested for speeding up literacy learning is to drop clearly redundant letters, such as the surplus -e endings of 'have, imagine, promise' which make both learning to read and write needlessly more difficult (cf. gave, define, arise - chav, coffin, tennis).

What is loony about that?

In the 16th century printers had added masses of extra letters, to earn more money (as they were paid by the line) or to neaten margins (inne olde shoppe). The pamphleteers of the Civil War (1642-9) dropped most of them again, as they wanted to squeeze the maximum of information onto a page. But working in a hurry, they did not get rid of them all. Why can't we get rid of those that escaped their cull?
Only because they have been around for 400+ years, regardless how stupid?

Richard Mulcaster had suggested in 1582 that only -e endings which lengthen vowels (bate, bite, note, cute) should be kept. It took another 60 years and a revolution before people finally accepted the sense of it. So I am not expecting my suggestions for tidying up English spelling to be picked up in a hurry. But I will keep pointing out which pointless irregularities make learning to read and write much harder than need be. Even if it never happens, my efforts are already helping people to understand more clearly why learning to read and write English takes an exceptionally long time, regardless of teaching method.
Masha Bell

It's crazy because it's never going to happen.

But I will keep pointing out which pointless irregularities make learning to read and write much harder than need be.

I guess that would be the reason for your relentless lists, Masha.

Even if it never happens, my efforts are already helping people to understand more clearly why learning to read and write English takes an exceptionally long time, regardless of teaching method.

I hadn't noticed that - mostly I notice you confusing the issue hugely because of the way your lists are arranged and the indiscriminate manner in which you post them.

But I will keep pointing out which pointless irregularities make learning to read and write much harder than need be. Even if it never happens, my efforts are already helping people to understand more clearly why learning to read and write English takes an exceptionally long time, regardless of teaching method.

Fine, masha, you do that. But at the same time will you stop denigrating methods which do make English easier to learn to read and write. You might be very well versed in the history of written English, but you are woefully ignorant about synthetic phonics.

You completely ignore the fact that synthetic phonics experts have exactly the same aim as you; i.e to make the learning of reading and spelling English easier. But of course, to acknowledge that would diminish the impact of your 'message'.

if you look at letters from those periods (no motive of increasing letters to lines) you find plenty of irregular spellings.

U do indeed. Until roughly 1700 there was no concept of 'correct' spelling. People spelt how they pleased, often using different spellings for one word on the same page or same line, even in the King James bible of 1611 u find we and wee, wel and well on the same. There was no linking of different spellings to different meanings, such as 'their/ther' either.

But in Chaucer's time, before 1400, English spelling was much more consistent e.g. 'speke, leve, beleve'.

The consistency of English spelling was diluted most of all by the first printers of English books in the 16 century:

1. Because they spoke little or no English.

• Tyndale?s New Testament of 1526 was the first English book which was bought in large numbers. It enabled more people learn to read and write than had ever done before, but from a book with a great variety of spellings which was becoming steadily greater with each new printing. ? The early bibles were all printed in Holland, Belgium and Germany, because English bible printing, and even the possession of a bible, were still forbidden by the Church of England, until Henry VIII's edict of 1539.

1. Many of the early printers inserted extra letters, because they were paid by the line and also because they liked to have neat margins, so they shortened or lengthened words to suit (moste ? most, had ? hadde).

Those two things made English spelling very chaotic.

Spelling was pretty chaotic in the 18th C because there was no "standard" English (RP) and people spelt how they spoke. Chaucer himself often used different spellings for the same word in his writing.

Kerry you are obviously clued up how to help your twins and have recognised the problem early before they struggle like their older siblings. Good luck

Spelling was pretty chaotic in the 18th C because there was no "standard" English (RP) and people spelt how they spoke.
By 1755 it had become fairly standard and Johnson's dictionary of that year put a seal on it.

Chaucer himself often used different spellings for the same word in his writing.
Chaucer himself didn't, but his scribes did. There is a letter of him telling off his scribe Adam for it.

Chaucer was the first English writer to be printed by Caxton in 1476, but he was type-set by his Belgian assistants who spoke little or no English.

Imagine yourself type-setting a text in a foreign language, which u have no idea how to spell, and from a handwritten coppy.