Reception homework: how do I approach "tricky" words

[gutzgutz]

DS has just started reception. Tonight we had a no words reading book home and some words to learn: mum, dad, I, me etc. about 6 words I think.

So I get the picture book, we looked at it and talked about the pictures and what was happening twice (it was about 5 pages long!) and then left it and read a proper book. DS said we need to tell the teacher it hasn't got words !

But I'm not too sure about the sight words. DS can't read (he is August baby so v young in year) and I haven't pushed it. We both enjoy books and I've read to him since he was a baby. I sometimes spell out simple words but he doesn't know his alphabet. Do I just go through them and say m-u-m "mum" etc or what? Do I try and make a game of it? But how?

I'm confused! I want to support DS and the school but at the same time it seems a bit crazy in week 2 to have words sent home (books I have no issues with). Thanks for any advice.

there is a blissfully simple way to learn this

Which is?

We found the "no words" books quite useful for making the transition from us reading to DS to DS telling the story himself.

Re tricky words, as others have said it's not great that they're talking about these before phonics. But yes, I'd definitely teach it by sounding out the words for him, not just saying the whole word. Personally if he hasn't learned all the relevant phonics sounds yet I wouldn't worry about getting him to sound them out, but if you sound out m-u-m and he says "mum" then he's understood that it is a word that's sounded out even while he's learning to read it at sight. Even if he can't do the blending yet and you say "m-u-m" and you say "mum" for him, he's starting to hear how blending works so it'll help his phonics.

We've had big arguments about this on here before though and some people think that they should be taught to sound out the tricky words phonetically themselves from the beginning. I personally think the benefit of knowing a few words like I/the/me early is high, the cost of teaching those alternative phonics sounds fully when they're just getting to grips with the alphabet is too much, so learning them with the teacher/parent doing the sounding out is a good compromise.

And yes, definitely do it with games, DS used to love that sort of thing. We cut out the sheet of high frequency words school sent home and used them to make silly sentences which we'd take it in turns to read to each other.

I personally think the benefit of knowing a few words like I/the/me early is high, the cost of teaching those alternative phonics sounds fully when they're just getting to grips with the alphabet is too much

I don't think I agree that there is a cost at all. I think we've got into a rut of thinking that there is a specific order that skills have to be taught in and that the later skills are harder than the earlier ones and children won't be able to cope with them. The letters and sounds phases have made this worse.

It isn't very logical. We expect children to cope with the idea that one sound can be written in different ways (technically a phase 5 skill) in the first few weeks when we teach c, k and -ck. It's not a massive cognitive leap from there to one grapheme representing different sounds and most children will get the idea very quickly.

Opportunity cost. Why learn e-/schwa/ as a correspondence when you could learn e-/e/ which is much more common? Why have them trying alternative phonemes when they're only just getting used to reading a few words in a row? Come to that how do you learn e-/schwa/ as a correspondence when there are probably no examples other than "the" that you want to introduce at this stage?

Of course it's not that hard a concept and they'll get it soon enough. But it's a bit of a pain not to be able to read anything with the word "the" in until they get to that stage. Particularly if you have the sort of child who wants to read cereal packets, knowing a few common words is a big confidence boost.

But it's a bit of a pain not to be able to read anything with the word "the" in until they get to that stage.

As the OP's child is being sent home with wordless books this seems like a bit of a non sequiter at the moment. It also makes a nonsense of giving a list of half a dozen HFWs to 'learn'; not even HFWs from any of the reputable SP programmes, where they are usually introduced far more slowly, just a random set of words and no opportunity to use them in context. 'Mum' & 'dad' aren't even 'tricky', FGS!

I normally a rebel. However, having those words sent home to learn would have me sending them back with a covering note saying 'please could you explain how this fits in with your synthetic phonics teaching?' If I gort a 'mixed methods' reply back from the teacher ('oh, we find it useful for them to learn common words by sight'), I'd be sending another note to the head, quoting relevant Ofsted etc guidance, and asking to see their written policy for teaching reading through phonics.

It is exactly children like your DS - non reading, boy, young in year - who benefit so much from high quality, systematic phonics teaching. It makes me RAGE.

Sorry 'I am not normally a rebel'. One of life's conformists, me.

When they get to a book with the word the in then you teach them how to decode it (why wouldn't you?) ... really simple and totally painless.

Browsing the Ofsted website for their inpectio framework for ophonics is interesting. one of the things they refer to is this :
"It is very important that teachers demonstrate what the Rose Review referred to as ‘fidelity to the programme’. That is, once a school has determined the order in which letter-sound correspondences will be taught and the ways in which this will be done, the programme should be followed. If teachers dip in and out of different programmes, there is always a danger that key learning is missed out. Teaching phonics should be done systematically."
So you could point out, if this gets as far as the head, that by using mixed methods for the teaching of reading, the school risks a negative inspection report in this area.

As the OP's child is being sent home with wordless books this seems like a bit of a non sequiter at the moment.
I was just commenting on how to learn them not whether to learn them. Already agreed it was not great that they were starting by sending word lists.

www.ofsted.gov.uk/resources/ready-read-how-sample-of-primary-schools-stoke-trent-teach-pupils-read

All the 11 primary schools with Key Stage 1 provision taught phonics (letters and the sounds they make) in Reception and nine taught phonics in Nursery.

Not all the schools taught early reading using phonic decoding as ‘the route to decode words’, as required by the national curriculum 2014. Three headteachers were unaware of this requirement in the new programme of study

the books used did not support young children to practise and apply the phonics they were learning.

Four of the schools did not send home phonically decodable books so that children could practise their new knowledge and skills at home.

The teaching of phonics was not always of good quality and pupils did not progress quickly enough in several of the sessions observed.

I don't think I said you shouldn't teach 'I' or 'the' though did I? I disagreed with your point that teaching them to decode them early on came at a cost.

In the case of 'I' if you teach them that I/i can represent the sound /igh/ as well as /i/ when you come across it then not only have you taught I but you've given the the skills to have a go at reading find, kind, find and plenty of other words which will give the sort child who wants to read cereal packets a much bigger boost.

But they can't read find and kind until they also know f, n, d, k. Hence picking a sensible order and sticking to it. I'd think that would be f,n,d,k before i - /igh/. And also having to worry about which sound to use is going to add confusion when they're just learning to blend. I'd mention in passing that i sometimes makes the sound /igh/ but not teach them to actively use that till later when they're already used to actively using i-> /i/ and do that first by default.

It's called incidental teaching and is something that is encouraged within phonic programmes. Alongside planned, systematic phonics teaching, you should also find yourself continuously pointing out parts of the alphabetic code in addition to the main teaching.