Ways to help 5 year old DD learn 'tricky' words

[yawningbear]

We have a big sheet of tricky words to learn and weshe is really struggling. After much time and effort she has now learnt most of her sounds, the jolly phonics rhymes were the key to this I think. She is still struggling to blend and now she has to learn a load of words by sight. It is not coming easily to her. They include words such as 'everyone' and 'pulled' and all have to be learnt by sight. We have been advised they are to be 'assessed' again next week so the pressure is on.

My advice- don't do it. It is really bad practice for the school to be sending home 'sight words'. They should be using systematic phonics only, as mixed methods fails up to 20% of children- take a look at some of the other phonics threads on here.

Btw, I'm assuming your child is in reception?

Why do they have to be learn't by sight?

She is in P1. We are in Scotland, I think it's the equivalent of reception, she just started in August and is finding it all hard going in terms of actually learning anything at least.

She really struggled to learn the sounds to the extent that she has been given additional learning support and now these words. It has been really stressed that they must learn them and that further assessment is taking place in the week. I am at a loss as to how to help her as she just does not retain them. Very much inclined to do as you suggest but I don't want her left feeling that she is not able to learn them. She has already come home and said the teacher said she needed extra help because she was no good at her sounds. I am sure this isn't what was said but it is certainly the message DD picked up. Will check out the other threads, thanks for the advice.

I am not sure mrz. The sheet (with 18 words on it) advises 'It is important that he/she recognises the whole word and is not having to break it down to read it each time so if she struggles at all to read the word, do not tick it.'
and that goes for both myself and DD.

Firstly I would say those words aren't really suitable for a child who started school less than 6 months ago.

Even as adults we break words down for reading and spelling so why shouldn't a young child. Of course the ultimate aim is for a child to read the words automatically but that doesn't mean it has to be achieved by memorising lists of random words.

How rubbish for you and your DD. my way of dealing with this was to teach the code my DD didn't know so that she could always break down the words. So for example that 'ed' at the end of words usually corresponds to /d/ or /t/ and sometimes /i/d/ or /e/d/.

However I was lucky that my DD could take this accelerated pace, or rather it was because she was interest at 3 so she had a head start & I just ignored the schools focus on learning by sight (alongside phonics) and their look and say books & guess the word from the picture strategy & learnt as much as I could about the phonics code to teach her all she needed to know to crack it.

She left reception a very able reader but my point is this she still sounded out every new word quite a few times before she could read it without needing to sound it out. I remember some words took ages, 'with' in particular & I mean she may have sounded it out 90 times before she could read it without sounding it out!

I did use some word lists & ticks though, because I realised that look & say books are full of HFWs so why not practice sounding out on HFW. We used 1 tick for sounding out a word correctly & two for reading it without sounding out. But they weren't words like everyone at this point.

If I was you I'd be tempted to use a scheme like Read Write Inc which has the sounds, and words to practice blending at the front of every reading book & to tell the school to stick it. It makes me really very cross because your DD could be having a much better experience of learning to read than this.

Given your recent posts, I would arrange a meeting with the teacher asap and ask how he/she is ensuring that the work set is at an appropriate level for your child. 'Everyone' is a ridiculous word to give a child at your daughter's stage. I wouldn't even give 'one' until they were much more confident.

If the words were simpler e.g. (with, went, then) I would teach your dd to sound them out by telling them the 'tricky bit'. That's how I did it with my dd when the school sent home similar words- I got her to sound them out every time until she knew them.

But with those words, I think it would be really demoralizing for your dd, too hard and risks putting her off reading. I would spend the time working on her decoding and blending, build up confidence at home and ask the school what they think they're playing at.

Apart from anything else, that seems a lot of words to learn at once, and the examples that you have given, 'pulled' and 'everyone' are not even particularly high frequency words that might be useful to learn early on. If they are teaching phonics as well and she is still gaining confidence working on simpler words, it would seem to make this exercise doubly pointless. I would definitely arrange a meeting with the teacher to both find out what the point of this is and also to emphasise how upsetting this is for your DD who is still in the very early stages of learning to read.

I think the child in question is more likely to be in Y1.

column the child is in P1, which is the first year of school in Scotland. Roughly equivalent to reception.

'Everyone' and 'pulled' seem to me to have come from a list of ORT words. The crop up quite commonly in there from about stage 3/4.

The problem with teaching the tricky bit and blending at this stage is that the OP's DD is struggling to blend. I would be ignoring the list and focusing on words that are phonically regular within her current knowledge until her blending is more secure. I appreciate that that is difficult without the schools support though and might well be sending negative messages to your DD.

DD is just 5 and in primary 1, she started primary school in August. I appreciate all your replies, thank you. The sheet states that the words are stage two words that go with the ORT books they are reading. I had assumed that the majority of the other children in the class are not struggling in quite the same way particularly given that they have told us DD requires additional support. We will put 'everyone' to one side and concentrate on the ones that she can more easily sound out and not worry about sight reading.

My main concern is that this whole process is putting her off reading, I love books and had been really looking forward to her learning to read and discovering the joys of reading for herself

OP my DS is in his second year at school (yr 1) and will be 6 next month. He is reading level is good, just wherehe is expected to be. He would struggle with these words especially everyone. Have you asked the other parents? I'm sure your dd isn't the only one struggling. Then tell the school your concerns and keep telling them. The most important thing is your dd is happy and confident so don't let this pressure get to you or her! Good luck.

Sounds rubbish. Really rubbish .

My DD is just 5, in YR, very good reader but hasn't been given a list of tricky words and certainly could not read "everyone" or "pulled". She is one of the best in her class....

I would see the teacher/head or whoever.

Good luck!

Personally I'd ditch the ORT books and the unreasonable list of words and focus on what your daughter is ready for. My son was getting frustrated with his reading books, so I borrowed a Songbirds 1+ one from the library and he's doing really well with it. It gave him back his confidence.

Euphemia, Yes the whole class has the tricky words, we have also had Stage one words, 12 words- I, the, to, he, me, is, his, put, was, want, saw, no. We were struggling with those tbh and then they sent home the 18 stage 2 words. She has managed to 'learn' some of the Stage 1 words. Having read all of your replies I realise that I should have been delighted that she managed some of these instead of trying to get her to cram the other 18 words as well.

She has been sent home with The new Trainers, The Bad Dog, the new dog and others I can't remember I think this is where the Everyone comes into play, 'Everyone wanted a new dog' etc. She at least as an understanding of the meaning of the word, when asked what word she replies ' all of them?'

Really, thanks everyone for the replies, I feel much better about it all at least although the issue remains that DD is finding it all quite overwhelming I think. We do have a stage 1 Songbirds book Cornflake that she had been looking at with me and quite enjoying as she has a good sense of humour and the first couple made her laugh but she is not interested just now. Will go back to it when her enthusiasm picks up again.

I have found that for children who can name sounds but are struggling to blend then whole word recognition can really work. You could make up two sets of cards and play games such as snap or pairs. Do you have a fly swat? Splat the word is popular in my class as is magnetic fishing for words. Can she beat you or a timer and read them as flash cards (whizzy words). These are all games she may well play at school as part of her phonics lessons when learning the high frequency words. It is still important to explain how they can be sounded out and point out that they are tricky now because they havent yet learned the rule. I.e was in phase two is a tricky word yet in phase five it becomes decodable as the children learn that an a after a w usually makes an o sound.

'Sight' words is such a misnomer, as if the teacher is expecting children to learn the words as if they were pictures of faces and they are having to learn the names for them, as Chinese children have to.

Even in tricky words, there is usually just one letter which is tricky, apart from really beastly ones like 'one'. So they can mostly be sounded out.

But to become fluent readers, children have to learn to recognise the most common high frequency words by sight (although phonics evangelists would claim that they learn to do so in milliseconds). The main point I want to make is that laborious, slow sounding out is not reading. And for the words which have letters with variable sounds (on - only, once) sounding out is initially very laborious. So the sooner children learn to recognise them as wholes, the better.

But children have to be ready for this. Pushing them to go faster than they comfortably can is absolutely awful.

Your best approach might be to say to your daughter:
"I know that u find these words a bit scary, but let's take a good look at them. I think that u can sound out most of their letters. - (Show her using a word with just one silly letter) - They have some tricky bits in them, but I can help u with those. And once we've been over them a few times, u'll be able to read them easily. I promise."

I could be more specific if u showed all the letters that were sent home.

"'Sight' words is such a misnomer, as if the teacher is expecting children to learn the words as if they were pictures of faces and they are having to learn the names for them, as Chinese children have to."

Masha if you had taught in primary schools you would know this is exactly how sight words are taught. The teacher holds up a flashcard and the children respond by calling out the word just like Pavlov's pup. No attention is given to the letters.

The teacher holds up a flashcard and the children respond by calling out the word just like Pavlov's pup. No attention is given to the letters.
Any teacher who does that should be shot, but i have never ever met any who do.

We are in Scotland and ds3 has had sight words to learn before starting each new book level. Ds3 is very able and one of the top readers in his class and he was not learning these words at this stage in primary 1. Also, if she has just turned 5, she will be one of the younger children in the year. I think they are trying to go to fast.

With respect masha how many LEA training days have you attended .....how many classrooms have you visited .... how many university primary ITT lectures have you experienced. This is what happens!! In addition children are sent home with boxes or packets or lists of words with instructions for parents to help them learn these by sight ... publishers have produced mountains of books with instructions of learning whole words by sight!!!

Or too fast even!

he was not learning these words at this stage in primary 1

One of the problems of trying to get people to understand how phonics instruction works is that there is a perception that learning to read is about deliberately learning discrete words. Whereas there is really no need for a conscious 'word learning' process except for the tiny handful of words with bizarre correspondences. Just the action of sounding pout and blending a word a number of times ( which varies with individual children) is enough to get the word into long term memory and thus instantly recognised when read in the future. The learning is unconscious and doesn't have to be forced.