I was wondering ...

[mrz]

How many of your children's schools send home words to learn by sight?
reading posts from parents and teachers on MN I just wondered how common this practice still is ...

[montmartre]

I think our school must do the segmentation thing too, as my youngest is walking around spelling everything atm!

[simpson]

Bean - I am sometimes amazed that DD's teacher can read and understand what she has written

But I have a little folder for each DC which I keep any certificates they get, school photos etc and a couple of pieces of work from each school year and bin the rest and it was interesting looking at how far DS (now yr3) has come on in his writing.

[simpson]

It definately makes sense kind of like teaching division and multiplication together which DS (7) has learnt/is learning....

[beanandspud]

mrz thank you for the explanation, that makes sense.

Simpson I'm the same and amused by the spellings but we are slowly learning that 'phonetically plausible' is a good thing even if it looks a bit odd

[mrz]

I think lots of teachers assume the same simpson. I know I did and was puzzled why my class couldn't write the words they could read with ease. We now teach both skills together.

[simpson]

I never really realised that spelling is taught differently than reading iyswim. Well not differently but separately iyswim.

I guess I just assumed that if you could read cat you could write it too (big assumption I know).

DD does have some "interesting" ways of spelling words (all phonetic) ie she wrote the word radiator "raideeaiter" but I guess it's all good as she has the confidence to give tougher words a go...

[mrz]

A bit like addition is the reverse of subtraction - if you know that 2+3=5 you know that 5-2=3 the same with blending and segmenting if you can blend = cat when reading then you can segment cat into for spelling

[simpson]

What do you mean by reversible??

DD is having issues with sound time. They have a competition at the end to be the fastest to write a tricky word to get a coveted sticker so DD writes "I" every time

[Shattereddreams]

Ours send home 45 word list. And teach Jolly Phonics in reception. They only have ORT and even older schemes.
DD is now yr1, she had grasped the JP sounds in Feb reception.

She reads gold level
Her work book is full of phase 3 phonic worksheets. (Seen at parent eve a fortnight ago)

Thankfully our head just announced her retirement. .

[mrz]

We teach blending and segmenting as reversible skills right from day one.

[simpson]

Ah thanks ie ch a t for chat etc etc...

Spelling wise in DD's class she just has to learn the spelling of tricky words ie could, would, should etc. which is why I turned to MN for help (cheers mrz DD is very consistent in spelling them now).

[mrz]

Segmenting is splitting a word into sounds for spelling.

[simpson]

That's why I ask...in DD's class there is her and one other who are reading chapter books and there are also some kids who are struggling to get the blending so find reading the word cat hard iyswim.

Would you split into ability groups (each group learning the same thing but at a different pace) or wait until all the class can blend?

What is segmenting? Is that putting 2 letters together (or more) to get one sound?

[ClayDavis]

To a certain extent it depends on the scheme. Letters and Sounds starts teaching tricky words in the first few weeks. Phonics international starts at about unit 2 I think, but tends to leave it up to the teacher to decide.

Personally, I would do it once some children can blend words and are moving towards reading and writing captions and sentences independently.

[mrz]

It really depends on the child's ability to blend and segment.

[sheeplikessleep]

DS1 started reception in September.
He started learning phonics from the beginning of the second half term (i.e. 6 weeks in).
In January, as well as continuing with phonics, he also gets 10 high frequency words to learn each week. We have been asked to keep showing these to our DC / make it into a game etc.
DS1 now seems to be efficient at phonetically decoding words (well the words for his level) as per the phonics, but just immediately 'reads' the high frequency words.
TBH his progress seems to have stepped up since introducing the high frequency words, or maybe it just appears that way ...

[simpson]

So how early on would you teach these words? Before the first 12 sounds or after?

[mrz]

We would teach a child to decode these words right from the start, as you say they are very common words that children will meet in text and want to use in their writing.
The difference is we would only need "tell" the child the part they don't know rather than expect them to memorise the whole word. So in "want" the part the child doesn't know yet would be the spelling for the sound /o/ and in "go" it would be the spelling representing the sound /oa/ etc

[beanandspud]

Mrz this is a genuine question as I have very little knowledge of teaching methods but when do children learning to read by pure phonics learn common words like 'want', 'go', 'I', 'like' and 'come'? I guess that they are decodable but perhaps not immediately obvious at the start of a phonics programme. Do the reading books simply use other words until these are ready to be covered?

[mrz]

I don't send home word lists or teach words by sight

[1969Sarah]

Should they be getting the 100 words Mrz or only using phonics?

[Campaspe]

My DD got key words to learn in YR, but this hasn't happened in Y1. She is quite a good reader. I am aware that other children in her class do have key words to learn, so it is definitely a practice at DD's school.

[icapturethecastle]

Their not there - what hope do my children have!

[mrz]

When I asked the question I didn't expect to find schools still using the 45 word list that was superseded by the 100 word list FIVE years ago

[icapturethecastle]

My ds school sent home a list of the 45 key words (broken into smaller lists) from reading your threads Mrz I found out this is no longer the approved system. However there main focus is phonics using sounds write. My DS approches the 45 keys using his phonics just some of the tricky ones he has memorised. It is working well for him.