Bit worried ds reading.

[Moonfacesmother]

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?!

My DS is in reception too and he is on yellow band books.

There are certain words he can't sound out yet, like "made", taste", "bike" - this is because he hasn't learnt split digraphs or alternative vowel sounds.

From what I gather, these are taught in Phase 5. But in Reception they are only taught up to Phase 4. So surely they won't be learning these till Y1?? Or have I got it completely wrong?
DS understands sometimes when I say the "e" is silent for certain words, but because he hasn't actually learnt split digraphs or alternative vowel sounds at school I don't want to push it as he's not keen to learn it if he's not been taught it at school yet! He just says that he's not learnt that sound at school and refuses to learn from me. He is happy for me to reinforce the stuff he has already learnt, but god forbid if I try to teach him something new!

But hey, Kesstrel's friend and brother-in-law are probably exceptions that prove the rule.

If you'd spent some time working with older struggling readers* you would find that they are very far from being exceptional.

i.e some 20% of any year group. That is one child in five*.

Not sure why you call yourself a boffin.

Also this:The bandage was wound around the wound.
The farm was used to produce produce.
The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
We must polish the Polish furniture.
He could lead if he would get the lead out.
The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
Since there was no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
When shot at the dove dove into the bushes.
I did not object to the object.
The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
They were too close to the door to close it.
The buck does funny things when the does are present.
A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
After a number of injections, my jaw got number.
Upon seeing a tear in the wallpaper, I shed a tear.
I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
How can I intimate this to my most intimate friends?

Not my sentences btw but they make a valid point.

And what point would that be?

Your original contention was that Some English words are not decodable. There aren't any difficult words in that rather overworked ditty.

That might be the fact I'm a qualified teacher and have a PhD in education. But what do I know?

love that bauhousfan.

Phonics is important but just one of many components of reading. Children that fail the phonics check can still be good readers.

That might be the fact I'm a qualified teacher and have a PhD in education.

You posted a very hackneyed ditty and said that it made a valid point. When asked 'What point?' your response appears to be that the point was that you are a qualified teacher with a PhD. How was anyone supposed to deduce that from the 'poem'?

But what do I know?

I don't know. What do you know?

I have worked with many highly qualified teachers who wouldn't have a clue about how to teach reading. Or have much knowledge of English Language or English orthography.

proudmama has anyone said that phonics is the only component of reading?

People have been talking a lot of shite, that's for sure. Is this the room for an argument?

SaveTheMockingBird if the school is providing books containing words he hasn't the phonic knowledge to decode yet I would support him to read these words by pointing out the parts of the word he isn't able to recognise yet. m a d e (something like a-e is spelling for the sound /ay/ can you read the word now?) or if it's a word beyond his ability - tell him the whole word.

Maizie, I did not post the poem.
Katnip, I agree.

It's not a poem! It's a list of sentences!

Did anyone say it was a poem?

Oh dear, BoffinMum. I didn't say that you did post it.

Blank verse, bausausfan, blank verse

mazieD called it a ditty. Poor decoding there!

as an English teacher you know that ditty has more than one meaning?

It can never refer to a list of sentences whose only link is a grammatical point. Now let's get back to the op mrz :) we don't want this turning into a bunfight do we?

I never fight with buns

I do quite often, in fact. But I always allow the buns a couple of free strikes, rude not to.

in many other EU countries, the approach to reading at school is also considerably more relaxed than in the UK

Of course, in most other EU countries they are not teaching children to learn to read in English... which is rather the point. English is an astonishingly complex phonetic language, far more so than almost every other European language.

We don't know what bauhaus's point is - she still hasn't told us.

I disagree; I think it's neither an argument nor a contradiction.