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Original poster

Bit worried ds reading.

157 replies

Moonfacesmother · 01/04/2014 19:58

Ds is in reception, he was reading dandelion readers and was on unit 17 which is apparently yellow band equivalent. He was doing well and has a lot of high frequency words and could sound out the unfamiliar words as the dandelion readers are entirely phonetic.

However apparently his school only have them to to unit 17 and now he's finished all the ones they have they have given him a red band reader and he can't read it! He can read the high frequency words but when he comes to words he can't sound out he's lost and he's getting frustrated because he could sound out the words in the other books. The book we have had this week has words like "tastes" "whoosh" "house" "dance"
I know you can in theory sound these out but ds doesn't seem to have covered split vowel digraphs at all so he struggles whenever he comes to one.

Any advice or is it basically like starting again?!

OP posts:
mrz · 01/04/2014 20:33

He can't sound them out because he hasn't been taught how ... yet!
No wonder he's frustrated

simpson · 01/04/2014 20:43

They sound like the older style school reading books.

I would have a word with the teacher.

Meanwhile check out the Oxford owl website for free ebooks (especially the RWI and songbirds ones).

Original poster
Moonfacesmother · 01/04/2014 20:43

So should we now just plough through the books they send home?

It's a shame the dandelion ones have finished - they were good! I wish they had them all!

OP posts:
simpson · 01/04/2014 20:44

Ask if they have songbirds ones, they go up to stage 6 (orange IIRC).

mrz · 01/04/2014 20:46

Seems mad to half teach children to read then leave them to struggle or guess!

pancakesfortea · 01/04/2014 20:47

To keep our boys going in the summer between reception and year one we bought a set of dandelion readers - 20 quid for ten books. You'll be able to see from their website what set you need. So if money isn't a problem you can DIY it, and donate the books to school afterwards.

pancakesfortea · 01/04/2014 20:48

Ps the dandelion.readers are great at teaching them to read but a bit grisly don't you think? We've had the pet dog's leg trapped in a snare, a boy locked in a trunk when hide and seek goes wrong. etc etc!

Original poster
Moonfacesmother · 01/04/2014 21:04

I was just glad they'd moved past "Sam" and "Pip"!

I've seen the sets but it looks like you get one book at each unit level? I only really want unit 15 and up.

I'm annoyed that we were sailing along and suddenly we've stopped!

OP posts:
Original poster
Moonfacesmother · 01/04/2014 21:06

Ooh I can order specific vowel ones though. That might be the way forwards. There are split vowel ones.

OP posts:
mrz · 01/04/2014 21:16

If you are thinking of buying the extended code books I would look at Level 2 (DR14 )

nonicknameseemsavailable · 01/04/2014 21:16

how many units are there? that sounds really rubbish to me. Have they given you a list of exactly what they have been taught yet? DD2 is in reception and she could sound those out. I have explained split digraphs to her admittedly rather than her do them at school but she knows wh and ou and is aware that c can have different sounds and I don't remember telling her those so assume she has done them at school. To be honest I would tell him the sounds in the words that he hasn't done yet and explain it to him and see if he picks it up just from that.

mrz · 01/04/2014 21:18

There are 20 units in the initial code books not sure how they have only 17 as sold in packs of units 1-10 anf 11-20

nonicknameseemsavailable · 01/04/2014 21:21

the songbirds ones are excellent - actually thinking about it more sensibly that is probably where DD picked up the ou and wh etc. I forgot we had those (sorry - brain is a bit fried). I don't know how the dandelion ones work but the songbirds ones show on the back which sound/s they focus on and then the book will include the different ways of spelling that sound so by the end of the book the child will have really started to pick them up. my girls have enjoyed the stories too.

mrz · 01/04/2014 21:26

Dandelion books are far more structured than Songbirds so much better when children are first learning. I use both in school.

simpson · 01/04/2014 21:35

The school I am in use both &Floppy's phonics.

Oddly they don't use RWI books (in reception) despite using RWI for phonics lessons.

bauhausfan · 01/04/2014 21:42

Both my boys are home educated and very early readers. I think you can only go so far with phonics before you have to take the plunge and learn all the irregular words too. I've used phonics books at the very beginning before using Biff, Kipper et al and I am using Songbirds with my 4 year old now. They have both really enjoyed these series. I'm an English teacher btw.

mrz · 01/04/2014 21:46

What irregular words bauhausfan?

bauhausfan · 01/04/2014 21:46

eg one

mrz · 01/04/2014 21:48

and?

bauhausfan · 01/04/2014 21:49

And what? What I just said.

mrz · 01/04/2014 21:50

so just the one irregular word to learn?

bauhausfan · 01/04/2014 21:53

Why are you asking me these strange and confrontational questions mrz? What is your problem? I am as entitled as anyone to comment on the op's thread. I don't understand why you are being so deliberately aggressive to me.

mrz · 01/04/2014 21:54

I'm trying to clarify what an English teacher means by "irregular words"

mrz · 01/04/2014 21:55

it's a simple question I'm sorry you find it aggressive

bauhausfan · 01/04/2014 21:57

All words are not phonetically regular - I'm amazed you didn't realise this :(