"So" is a sight word and can't be sounded out...

[Stampstamp]

Said the reception class teacher today. Aaargh! Thank heavens DD can already mostly read (she's nearly 5). Why do some teachers and schools have such a limited understanding of phonics, it seems so fundamental to me?

I don't think anyone has suggested that it is a bad thing for a child to read for pleasure quite the opposite.

If a child can't read the words it makes understanding the story very difficult

Yes, that is true. But I'm certainly talking about a child who can't read any of the words. If that was the case I'd be consulting a lot more closely with the teacher. I's also be doing this if she could decode every word but didn't have a clue what she was reading about.

It's a balance.

What would you do if your child chose to read a book containing some words that weren't in her vocabulary?

Well, I wouldn't necessarily know in advance a word wasn't in her vocabulary, but once that became clear, I would read her the word and tell her what it meant.

How is that different to telling her a word she is struggling to read?

Because she can use the context to sort that one.

And you say that she might struggle further down the line, but I think that if she comes across a word in a novel as an independent reader, using the context will help her to increase her vocabulary. I see this in my 9 yo.

I can't really see how. If it isn't already in her vocabulary how is she going to guess what the word is?

Because you can often work out the meaning of an unfamiliar word by it's use within a sentence or paragraph.

Context is great for meaning not so great for accurate guessing an unfamiliar word.

Growlithe I think it's really important to think about the long-term reading behaviour that you want to teach. In 4 years time, when your DD encounters a new and unfamiliar word, do you want her to try to guess the word from the pictures/context? Because at that stage, with the kind of texts she will be reading, it won't work. She'll be reading a lot independently and will need to be able to work out the word for herself- using her phonic knowledge. Of course, she can use a dictionary to find out the meaning, but she still needs to know how to say the word.

You might think that this will come naturally, with time- but it doesn't always. I have taught a lot of Y6s who can not sound out a new word- even one that they would recognise if they heard it spoken. These children really struggle with moving beyond fairly simple texts. They skip over a lot of words when reading independently and only understand half a text.

So, yes, using the pictures might help raise confidence in a 5 or 6 year-old. But long-term it can have the opposite effect.

I've used this example before

"My granny lives in a ............ by the sea."

using context the missing word could be almost anything

Well, I have a Y5 at the moment. She obviously doesn't have pictures in her fiction any more. She is able to read out unfamiliar words by sounding them out. She asks what they mean. I ask her what she thinks they mean given the sentence, or maybe paragraph, she had just read. She is able to tell me this more often than not, and when not I tell her (or tell her to look it up if I think that would help her more).

I suppose this is wrong too. But I have girls who aren't struggling by any means in school, despite me.

mrz that word could be say 'yurt'. So the child could sound out the word using phonics. But they may never have heard of a yurt. The paragraph may go on to describe canvas sides and a ground sheet. The child may then think 'ah a yurt is a tent'.

"She is able to read out unfamiliar words by sounding them out."

That's great. She has obviously moved on from using picture cues to using her phonics knowledge- exactly as she should. She may be one of the 80% of children who seem to do this quite naturally. Your description of how you discuss the meaning of the word is similar to what I would do (only difference being that I would use a dictionary a lot as well).

However, I teach children who fall into the other 20%. They see an unfamiliar word and they just stop reading, or skip over it. If pressed, they make an attempt which usually involves most of the consonants, but not an accurate (or even plausible) decoding of the vowel sounds. I read with a group recently who couldn't read the word 'Jameson'.

Which is why I am passionate about teaching children that once they know the code, they will be able to have at least a very good attempt at sounding out ALL words.

I forgot to say- your example about a yurt. The children I'm thinking of won't think 'oh, I see, a yurt is a type of tent'. They might think 'a yorrit is a type of tent'. Or they might just think 'I don't get this, why does it say 'yutter' when it's talking about a tent. What a stupid book.'

The word could say château or auditorium or hostel or yacht or bungalow or cottage or dwelling or hermitage or even cave

mrz is it a condo?

Yes, but wouldn't the same principle apply? Wouldn't the context help? Those words mean very different things, although most could be dwellings. The context would help with the meaning of the word.

I'm guessing if the granny lived in any of these places, there would be some description as to how or why. Auditorium would throw my 9 yo no matter what, I'd have thought. She'd ask me if reading it alone and I was there (not really sure what she'd do in school, I'll ask her in the morning). I'd say eh? and we'd read it together and work it out, since neither of us would expect granny to live in an auditorium.

it could be village or town or resort or hamlet or settlement or farm or croft or manor or location

The same principle would apply though. It would all be in the context of the paragraph.

I remember a post on here from years ago about reading the word 'cagoule' in a text. It went something along the lines of children would look at the picture and the 'c' at the beginning of the word and would be able to work out it said cagoule. I don't know about elsewhere but where I taught I can can pretty much guarantee that 100% of the children would have said 'coat' using that method. Cagoule is not even in their vocab.

Pozzled, your 20:31 post is the reason I'm glad my niece was lucky enough to get a place at the school she did. Even as one of the lower ability 'struggling' readers in her year I know she would have been able to sound out words like 'astronaut' half way through year 1. If it wasn't for their phonics program I'm convinced she would have been one of the 20% and would not have been reading without significant extra help which would have damaged her confidence.

The context of the paragraph tells the child the word is something to do with places people live nothing more, which is why I haven't said butterfly, cardigan, elevator or aeroplane Growlithe.

It could be monastery, hospital, asylum, estate or commune.

My granny lives in a ..... by the sea. I love to visit her and grandpa. In the summer we go to the beach and I build castles or search the rock pools for crabs and shrimp. In the winter we watch the waves crash on the rocks and collect driftwood from the shore.