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Original poster

Phonics versus Biff, Chip and Kipper

405 replies

Lukethe3 · 31/01/2013 14:09

I find it slightly irritating that at DS school he is taught phonics but then sent home to read the old ORT stuff which has tricky words at even the easiest level. Is this purely because the school has no money to buy new books or is there actually an advantage to be taught like this?
I have bought some Songbirds books for DS and these seem to make far more sense to me as they include the sounds that DS is learning.

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Wheresmycaffeinedrip · 03/02/2013 10:10

I would hope so to mrz or L&S is going to
Have an awful long wait to get books that she seems suitable as some schools continue reading schemes up til stage 14/15 yr five level.

lougle · 03/02/2013 10:12

If a child consistently read 'many' successfully, but struggled to read 'any' would that just be a case of an insecure grasp of the rule?

mrz · 03/02/2013 10:12

I obviously don't know L&S daughter or her reading ability but based on L&S posts Hmm

learnandsay · 03/02/2013 10:20

The teacher wrote in the reading diary that she would give my daughter a mixture of reading books and then move her up and then move her up again.

We're getting the mixture of reading books now. So I suppose at some point she'll move her up and move her up again. I don't want to interfere unnecessarily with what the teacher is doing. She seems to have a method of sorts and I'm not unhappy with it. OK, I don't understand her method. But I'm not unhappy with it.

learnandsay · 03/02/2013 10:36

If I had to guess what she's doing I'd guess that she's giving my daughter's reading a thorough MOT before putting her up the levels she talked about. The reason being that if she had taught my daughter to read herself she would have a thorough knowledge of what the child knows and what she doesn't. But since I taught her she doesn't know. And consequently giving her a weird mixture of all the non decodable books she can find is revealing my daughter's knowledge. It's possible the teacher is planning something similar at the other levels too.

teacherwith2kids · 03/02/2013 10:37

Tbh, L&S, in your position I would be unhappy with it.

It either says that the teacher doesn't know your daughters true ability (which would be VERY bad indeed) OR that despite what you think your daughter can do based on her reading at home, there are significant gaps in that which her teacher feels that she needs to fill (which obviously you need to understand, as otherwise your work at home vs what she needs to learn will diverge more and more widely and will not enable your daughter to progress).

btw, the books she reads at home such as the All stars- approximately how many word per book do you need to tell her? There is obviously a difference between reading such a book with a parent who tells a child 4-5 words per page, and a child reading the book and stopping to work out for themselves, with a little support, 3 or 4 words per book.

mrz · 03/02/2013 11:22

As a teacher you can quickly work out a child's level of knowledge and ability - children move schools all the time and spending half a year to work out what they have previously been taught would't be acceptable

teacherwith2kids · 03/02/2013 11:25

I have a new pupils arriving tomorrow morning. By Wednesday, she should be in the correct Maths group, appropriately grouped for Literacy, and have a reading book reflective of her true ability. By the end of the week, I would also expect to have a decent idea of which spellings she needs to learn, and which times tables form her next step, as well as knowing where she needs to go next to improve her writing. It's what teachers do.

teacherwith2kids · 03/02/2013 11:26

(Oh, and she'll be the 32nd pupil in a class that I only moved to 4 weeks ago)

Wheresmycaffeinedrip · 03/02/2013 12:01

Just out of curiosity though , when a teacher or TA uses the line "we want them to read all the books in a level" what does that mean? There seem to be loads of people on MN (myself included) who have been told this at some point. Is it a sign of bad teaching, a teacher being polite or just a case of assessment has t happened yet?

I'm honestly just curious as a scary amount of people have been given this line and from what all you teachers are saying , it's not something that should be happening ? :)

teacherwith2kids · 03/02/2013 12:16

I would say that there might be two reasons for saying it:

  1. Bad policy on behalf of the school (see the example of the school I gave above)
  1. It's a kinder / easier message to parents than 'actually, no, I'm not going to move your child up, because they're not ready for the next level yet, despite what you think....'

Neither reason is good, as in the latter case it is MUCH better to give the parent an honest assessment of their child's strengths and weaknesses (cf the discussion as to whether L&S's daughter really needs to be on yellow books)

mrz · 03/02/2013 12:26

It either means the school hasn't enough books has a policy or it means I'm listening but you but I think your child isn't ready for the next level just yet...

Wheresmycaffeinedrip · 03/02/2013 13:11

I did wonder .... But then there did seem to be a ton of stage four books and I asked for stage gives along side. Received one as it was end of term and new teacher bumped her up to stage six after the Hols so I assumed it was just a case of "it's end of term we won't start it yet"

mrz · 03/02/2013 13:15

if it is a case of "it's end of term" I would be unhappy

Wheresmycaffeinedrip · 03/02/2013 13:32

There did appear to be a Lot of winding down the last few weeks of reception and there was slot of other stuff on. Fortunately in yr one progress has been well noted and appropriate levels assigned.

As much as my dd loves her school I do think that being one of the older ones she was hoping for a bit less play and more learning strange child :) year one much more productive

Wheresmycaffeinedrip · 03/02/2013 14:46

Interesting mrz some good points there :)

mrz · 03/02/2013 15:20

I think it's relevent to the "rushing" through the scheme discussion

simpson · 03/02/2013 16:55

I agree with the not rushing through the reading scheme, but what about kids who are capable of more and are being held back??

If I was LandS I would be pushing for my DD to have her reading assessed properly and to be put at the correct level. You say you are happy with stage 3 non decodable books, but surely you would be even happier with the correct level book??

You can look through the Oxford owl website and try and level her yourself. If it turns out that she could cope with 2/3 levels harder then I would not sweat it tbh but any more than that I would want them on the correct level.

mrz · 03/02/2013 17:13

simpson I think the issue is more about whether those children have mastered all the earlier skills before they are moved on which could leave gaps in knowledge and cause the child problems later.

Wheresmycaffeinedrip · 03/02/2013 17:34

Unfortunately with my dd it can be a vicious circle. If she's not interested challenged and engaged then u won't get what you are after from her in order to move her on. But as a result you would probably struggle to assess if she is capable and there for perhaps be reluctant to move her on. Which of course leaves her bored ..... Hmm

mrz · 03/02/2013 17:47

When I first started teaching I had a child in my reception class whose mum was a qualified teacher (although she had never been employed as such). She insisted that he should move up the reading scheme at high speed and questioned my every decision. It turned out she had all the scheme books at home and was teaching him to recite the next book in the scheme so that he would be the "best reader". It came to a head when the next book wasn't available and he didn't know where to begin reading the alternative he had been given. Hmm

simpson · 03/02/2013 17:54

Mrz - I absolutely agree. If you have a child who is reading pretty fluently when they start reception though, the best way is to do a reading assessment and find out where those gaps are (this is what they did with my DD). If I had been told that she had phonetic gaps in her knowledge as she was self taught ( and a few sounds pointed out by me) then I would be happy for her to be on the appropriate reading level.

But it sounds like LandS's daughter has not had that assessment..

My next door neighbours have a DD in my DD's class and they were talking to be about their DD's reading book from school and saying that they like her to read it at least 5 times so she has "learnt it". Hmm

I do get on well with them so I pointed out that it might be better to have her read it twice and get some books from the library at the same level.

simpson · 03/02/2013 17:56

Oops me not be!!!

Wheresmycaffeinedrip · 03/02/2013 17:58

Shock that's awful poor child :(

I'd have loved nothing more than for my dd to have loved reading the books and progressing at a steady rate with the earlier books. Sadly the opposit happened and they bored her to tears and she got extremely upset and frustrated having to read them. It's only now in yr one that things have improved and she is starting to reAlise that if she can suck
It up if only for the moment she reads to teacher or TA then she will be given more interesting books and a chance to
Enjoy it.