Sorry, another reading one... how to stop DD from guessing

[Pozzled]

DD1 is in reception. Her reading has really taken off recently - her school don't use bookbands but she's somewhere around green level. The problem is that she is starting to guess unfamiliar words from the context rather than sounding out. Whenever she makes a mistake, I get her to use her phonics, but how can I get her to do this automatically? More phonics practice? Reading words out of context? Harder books so that she has to 'sound out' more often?

(Don't suggest I ask her teacher- the school would be quite happy for her to use mixed methods. I'm not.)

mrz, I think that's a rather short-sighted approach.

And I think that is a very odd thing to say to an extremely experienced teacher who has been using phonics, with no other 'strategies', for teaching children to read for 20+ years.

I assume that you have very good empirical evidence for this statement:

Plugging away at phonics constantly results in frustration and a dislike of reading in some children.

Sorry, Pozzled. Ignorance like this has to be pointed out else people might think that the poaster knows what they are talking about...

Please excuse phonetic spelling of 'poster'

How many children does your personal experience include clattypatty?

Think it's totally normal & ok to try to guess words that they don't know.

Play "What's In The Box?"

Shoebox.
Selection of small toys / pictures / household items with phonically decodable name (car, pig, dog, cat, spoon, cup, mummy)
Postit note with name written on on outside of the shoebox.
She works it out, she opens the box, she gets praise and the thrill if discovery.
Repeat, and gradually increase length/ difficulty of words, while retaining phonic decodabilty.

Her reading with you has to be at least a bit enjoyable or she'll be put off reading. She will lose the flow of the text if she has to slog at it. If you tell her the word, she'll hopefully remember it the next time she sees it. Perhaps you could go over the new words that she didn't know after she's finished reading the pages/book.

Lots of words can't be decoded phonetically anyway - she'll practise phonetics when she does spelling.

When I did my teacher-training I was taught that a mixed approach to the teaching of reading is best.

"empirical evidence" - what other sort of evidence could there be? (The word 'evidence' comes from the latin verb 'videre', meaning 'to see').

"Mixed methods give a number of skills which aren't appropriate at any age."

From my personal experience there isn't anything more frustrating for a child than to discover that they can't actually read the words and guessing doesn't work...

Lots of words can't be decoded phonetically anyway then they aren't words ... writing is the symbolic form of spoken language each sound is represented by symbols (letters)

It is really frightening that teachers know so little about our written language

No it isn't a competition clattypatty ... I merely wondered on the sample you based your assertion

frightening!

When I did my teacher-training I was taught that a mixed approach to the teaching of reading is best.

It was what I was taught as well. We moved on from that idea some time ago though. Mixed methods teaching can leave plenty of children struggling unnecessarily.

How would the word 'shoe' fit in to any of our phonetic groups?

phonicsy people have a get out of gaol free card which is to call any words which don't fit into their regular sound/letter patterns tricky. A sort of collective description for all the bits that don't work and no further need to worry about it (or about the fact that some of their theory is pants.)

I was also taught that mixed methods were the way to go when I trained. And that some children 'just struggled'. After seeing just one child leave our school unable to read, I knew that there had to be something different, and made it my business to find out what would stop that happening every again.

That would involve binning mixed methods, which confuse some children, and using phonics exclusively.

Can never understand teachers who don't bother to find out what is successful and what works in all but the most severe and extremely rare cases.

It's baffling

/sh/ /oo/

The 'oe' makes the 'oo' sound here - as in 'canoe'.

shoe two sounds /sh/ /oo/
is an alternative spelling for the sound /oo/ shoe, canoe

How often is oe pronounced oo?

how do you pronounce shoe learnandsay?