Do they stop and start this phonics business?

[learnandsay]

Our Reception children started a few months ago with Letters & Sounds and a sheet of A4 paper was sent home with letters (pictures, I think) and some activity for each letter. But I remember there being some digraphs on it. And I thought that was fairly ambitious and good. But it seems as though the children got to the end of the regular alphabet (quite a while ago) and I don't think they've learned any sounds since. My daughter used to come home rubbing her tummy and saying "mmm". She doesn't do anything like that any more. And when I ask her what sounds they've leaned she says we've finished them all now.

Maybe some Reception children still aren't getting books with words in yet. But surely they've got to learn "sh" "th" "ch" "ai" "oo" "ee" some of which are already on the sheet, "ea" and quite a few others before they can reasonably read much of any use. I know they can start more stuff next term. But won't it take ages to learn to read anything at this rate?

Sorry I can't answer your question, but I am glad you've asked it as I was wondering exactly the same. DS finished learning the letter sounds a few weeks ago, and was all excited because they were going to start learning, as he put it, "sounds joined together" but since then as far as I can tell they have done no phonics at all. I will watch with interest to see if anyone can shed any light!

DD stopped with actions when they reached all the single letters. She then got a sheet with some combinations like "ee", "ea", "ight" etc and a picture for each of these sounds.

From the way she read her books she must have learned the sounds in school as we hardly ever taught her them in a proper way, we may explained some when she came across them like the word "sea" or "night" but that was it.

I think it took until the end of Summer term to get her settled with the combinations and her not being totally confused why the "ea" in "sea" is different than in "head".

Somebody once said that she labels common objects in her house. I'm not sure how many people do this. It's clever and simple. But I think that not many people do it. Very early on children are likely to come across:

sheep
Sharon
baa
and might come across
chair
floor
door
light
stairs
water

Depending on how parents behave and how shielded children are by only being given access to books which have had natural words removed from them, (like Sam's Pot, or the look, look, Look & Say book mrz was referring to,) children might naturally pick up reading quicker than they are being allowed to.

Not 100% sure what the kids in DD's class are doing as she doesn't do phonics with them but I am pretty sure they are onto ou/ow, ch, sh etc by now...

DD did OW as in grow, know, slow the other week...

It does seem rather slow going but I guess all the basics have got to be covered...

I know how unreliable the word of a four year old is about what she's learning. But she has said several times that they have finished the sounds. And I remember having conversations with her about them when the children were learning them.

I know it's a cliché, it's not a race it's a marathon. But if my daughter's school (and some others by the sound of it) are pausing in the middle of the sounds doesn't that mean that they're putting off the day when the children can read meaningful books? Maybe it doesn't matter if they are putting that day off. Maybe there is some advantage (that I can't see in doing it.)

I'm not sure to what extent it's my business, since my daughter isn't affected one way or the other. But I still find it hard to understand why anybody would want to hold children's reading back. Surely with object books, the ones with common objects pictured and the names written below, children have easy access to more words and more sound combinations than the ones they're being taught anyway.

simpson, is your daughter going to rejoin the classes for the more tricky alternative phoneme/grapheme spellings? Or is she being taught the more interesting stuff separately?

No she and another boy share a TA who is doing yr1 stuff now (yr2 after Easter)...They do their numeracy and all "academic" work with their TA.

The only reason the school can do this is because they have 90 kids all in one large room with 3 teachers and 3 TAs. So they have allocated one of the TAs to DD and this other boy. She will have this for the whole of reception but not sure what will happen in yr1.

TBH I think this takes up a very small part of the day and she does all her other stuff with her class (each child has their own teacher even though there are 3 of them iyswim). She reads with her teacher once a week (sometimes twice).

When you say 90 children in one large room do you mean one of the modern purpose built reception classrooms where you can pull dividing doors across to separate individual classrooms? Or do you mean that they all literally get taught in one large classroom?

Kind of a cross between the 2.

The room is L shaped and and each group of 30 kids has their own allocated area iyswim.

They seem to be kept fairly separately, but there is only one part of the classroom (the shorter L part iyswim) that can be separated off by pulling out a temporary wall/divider (never seen it but been told about it).

It is a bulge class this year so next years reception will be the standard 60 and the yr1 (my DD's year) will be in 3 separate classes using the 2 existing yr1 classrooms and part of what is the reception classroom now by having the temporary wall/divider in place...

My son is in year 1 and they're still doing phonics. I learn a lot about his days as he is obsessed with playing school and repeats a lot of what he's done during the day in his teacher role-play - I have to sit on the sofa and listen while he explains the sound and writes it on his white board etc, recently I was 'taught' the short sound oo as in book. His obsession with school is so strong that the top item on his christmas list is an overhead projector!

They should keep going all the way through infants, and ideally into juniors.
With most schemes the letter sounds are not learnt in alphabetical order. They are doing in a different order and although most individual letter sounds are done first, some of the digraphs are done before some single letter sounds.

They may have had a bit of a pause with it being Christmas recently - lots of off timetable sessions for school plays, assemblies, etc.

But phonics shouldn't be a race. It needs to be taught steadily and comprehensively. Children are not held back as there is also incidental teaching of letter sounds during normal lessons and normal reading in additional to the formal phonics sessions.

We use Floppy Phonics and that only teachers approx 4 sounds per fortnight, but does so comprehensively.

It sounds as if the school is using JP actions (so possibly JP order of introducing the sounds)
1. s, a, t, i, p, n
2. ck, e, h, r, m, d
3. g, o, u, l, f, b
4. ai, j, oa, ie, ee, or
5. z, w, ng, v, short oo, long oo
6. y, x, ch, sh, voiced th, unvoiced th
7. qu, ou, oi, ue, er, ar

We taught 5 sounds a week and usually covered all 42 sounds by Christmas

Once the first set of sounds have been taught children can read words and by the end of set 2 children can start books (but of course that depends on whether individual are able to read the words)

In answer to your first question "But won't it take ages to learn to read anything at this rate?" Yes. That's why I taught DS the sounds myself .

Clearly not all schools are as zippy as mrz's . I think DS covered the easy ones pretty quick but it was the trickier diagraphs he needed and wasn't getting so I covered them (after learning them myself).

With only the first 8 sounds a child can read and write simple sentences and with only the sounds represented by single letters children can be reading and writing quite complex words and even some polysyllabic words

Yes, that's very true mrz. I guess it depends on the definition of "anything" in learnandsay's OP. I think she might be talking about reading fluently which I know takes a while but is helped when you are given the harder sounds (if you are ready for them).

but is helped when you are given the harder sounds (if you are ready for them). and this is my big issue with how L&S is being taught in some schools/classes, children aren't being given a chance to learn digraphs due to mistaken belief that they aren't ready. Lots of children easily learn "sh" and "ch" and "ee" and "igh" if given the chance but aren't given the opportunity because they still confuse "b" and "d" or "n" and "h" ...

Looks like we are agreed then. Also, many YR classes (DS's for example) have a one size fits all approach to phonics which is understandable ("I have to teach the whole class"), but doesn't do any favours in terms of encouraging progress for those ready.

Ultimately I'm talking about reading fluently, of course, but not initially.

Of course it depends on what the text is. My daughter can read lots of Biff & Chip books fluently but would have problems with the King James Bible. In a way I think "anything" in my OP really means "anything useful." For example

Ice creams half price.

I think a lot of children would like to be able to read that.

I think lots of children could easily read that in reception learnandsay.

and without any sight word learning

possibly not at this point in YR though to be fair mrz- DS couldn't.

Some children will be more than able to read that sentence (I was going to write it but it causes confusion) at this stage in reception Tgger.

Some perhaps but not "lots"?, well not "lots" at our school anyway for the reasons I've given.

It really depends on how they are taught, using phonics or mixed methods and whole words.