phonics advice please... books seem to be too difficult

[PourquoiTuGachesTaVie]

Ds is 4 and in reception. He's brought his second reading book home today and I've just gone through it with him. It's a level 1 "spiral starter" book (as was the first book he brought home) which focuses on the word "my" plus a range of other words, some of which he can have a go at decoding (such as bed and doll) and but most of the words are impossible for him to decode yet (bike, paints, flower, brother, shoes).
He's getting quite frustrated that he can't read these words and I don't blame him.

Is this normal? These books were published in 1995 so I'm not sure if they're entirely suited to phonics but that doesn't appear to be the case so far.

Are there any reading scheme books I could look into getting for personal use that could better support how ds is learning to read?

Also; can anyone link to a reliable resource for a list of "tricky" words so I can start practicing these with him.

Also, which are the best workbooks to get to practice phonics? I've only looked at jolly phonics so far but I'm open to suggestions.

Maizie, it was 'I've got a neurology degree' who needs to read the research. LittleMissGreen has the other degree but is a governor who actually knows what she is talking about.

Not dissing governors, btw - I meant in the context of this thread.

maizie - what a catty little comment about Pipbin; reeling in amazement? Really?! Is he/she not allowed to take an interest in what happens beyond the age range in which he/she teaches?

For what it's worth, I still haven't quite understood the whole decoding argument that went on up thread anyway as far as the suggestion goes that all reading is just fast decoding, even as adults. Does that mean that every time I ever read a word, my brain is just really quickly scanning through all the sounds I know (the 44 big'uns plus goodness knows how many other more rare ones) and looking for the combination that forms a word? Surely context and whole word recognition play their part too?

"Special School" - it's just not what we say in our educational setting anymore. SEN (or rather, SEND) etc. are still in common use but (round our way at least) 'special school' would most likely be heard in a derogatory context. Maybe it's a regional thing.

Hi Pouquoi, I have the same issue. DS 4 is coming home with stage 1 ORT (the old style) which he can't decode so he has no option but to guess based on the pictures.

I have left comments about it in his reading journal but the comments back just say mini jellybean read well today etc.

I was going to discuss it at parents evening but I never made it because all the trains back from work were cancelled (I was literally in tears at the bus stop that I had just missed 1 of only 2 opportunities that I will get to speak to my children's teachers this year)

Anyway DH broached the subject and teacher said she would review it. So today he got one phonics book and another old style ORT that he can't decode. The comment was mini jelllybean read well and enjoyed the story.

I give up. We will do Songbirds at home and look at the non phonics school books briefly if at all. Once he knows sufficient sounds to decode them we will start reading the school books properly. I will make no further comments in his reading journal.

Feenie, DS school was recently given an outstanding ofsted. Perhaps if overall achievement is good they don't look so closely at teaching methods?

What do you think SEN stands for?

"I've got a degree in neuroscience" was merely responding to "I have a neurology degree", I don't believe it is relevant particularly in teaching children to read hence my next statement that I don't teach reading. I am aware that there are a large number of theories behind how reading works but that isn't really what this thread was about.

When they are inspected using the Sept 2014 orders - or whatever orders are in place for their next inspection - then they are screwed. Ofsted gave very clear warnings. They may have different terminology though.

Feenie - I get that the 'S' in 'SEND (not just SEN anymore) stands for 'special'; my point is that this term is still in common use and in official Govt policies. "Special school" I haven't heard in ages. When I do hear it, it's not in a positive way. I think that was quite clear from my post - at worst, it was simple inference and deduction (aaahhhh - my comfort zone of KS2 reading).

As I said, I get the feeling it's more of a regional thing. Unfortunately, where I am, "special" gets used in the same way as some of those other very vile, disablist terms that I won't be typing. I'm thinking that 'special school' must still be in common usage elsewhere, so I apologise.

Pourquoi - all the best with getting the support you need! To reiterate what others have said, it's wonderful to read about parents who care and want to get involved and better their understanding of teaching methods; I wish so much that all parents were like that!

Think you are being a bit alarmist, but thanks for the apology.

www.ofsted.gov.uk/schools/for-schools/types-of-school-ofsted-inspects

Special schools
Community special schools are maintained by the local authority and cater wholly, or almost always, for children with statements of special educational need. Most special schools meet the needs of children and young people who have a range of learning and/or social, behavioural and emotional difficulties.

Maybe you just haven't visited an Ofsted page for ages.

Yes it was rather; I apologise.

But, whatever level one is teaching phonics at one really should have been sufficiently well enough trained to understand how it all fits together; the whole teaching sequence, from simple to complex and the way that children learn to cope with the complexities of English orthography. It seems very strange for someone to be teaching the very early stages and then to start arguing that basically phonics really doesn't work.

Nor does flatly ignoring what experienced KS1 teachers are saying about what phonics teaching enables older children to do seem much like 'taking an interest'.

Does that mean that every time I ever read a word, my brain is just really quickly scanning through all the sounds I know (the 44 big'uns plus goodness knows how many other more rare ones)

Possibly. No-one can say with any certainty exactly what is going on. However, the very fact that you can look at a collection of lines on a page and recognise it as a meaningful word implies that your brain has actively processed the lines. People who claim to just look at a word and 'know' it seem to forget that the only reason they 'know' it is because their brain has processed it in a matter of milliseconds. Exactly how your brain processes a word isn't altogether clear but it certainly isn't by 'shape' (too many words have exactly the same shapes) so it must be something to do with the letters it contains. And it has to be more than just the particular pattern the letters make because it is very difficult to learn more than 2 - 3,000 discrete complex symbols and the average reading lexicon of a competent reader may be 30,000+ words. Which leaves us with processing the component parts of the word before putting them together to produce the whole word.

And as your brain is processing the word it is also converting it to sound.
tinyurl.com/o36f87r
How does it do that? How does it know what 'sounds' to convert the letters to?

N.B There are only 44 'sounds' in English words (or fewer, depending on accent). OTH there are over 200 ways to spell those sounds.

"I've got a degree in neuroscience" was merely responding to "I have a neurology degree", I don't believe it is relevant particularly in teaching children to read hence my next statement that I don't teach reading.

Once again, I do apologise. I got you confused with the other person and couldn't look back once I'd started writing a reply.

I do think that this thread (and many others like it) is about how reading 'works' because it makes most sense to relate the teaching of reading to the way it 'works'. If people don't have an idea of how it works they are understandably baffled by people saying that some teaching strategies are just wrong.

Dame I assume you've read the SEND code of practice 0-25 and know they refer to "special schools"

Thanks for the link Maizie - just managed to watch it all. Absolutely brilliant and think everyone should read from 30mins in

Come now, Feenie, you know as well as I do that I googled and realised that the special school thing was a local thing, hence the apology; you don't need to start posting links to Ofsted. As it happens, we have a real problem in our area with 'special' and the other horrible 'sp' word being used as an insult and always said in a particularly unpleasant, slurred drawl so as to really stick the boot on. Maybe it's alarmist or maybe it's just because I'm sick of hearing it used an insult.

Mrz "I assume you've read the code of practice." Patronising, passive aggressive and sarcastic.

Maizie - sorry, yes! I got my head muddled temporarily over sounds (phonemes?!) and how they are written (graphemes?)! This is where I show how truly not up to scratch I am with phonics yet...but I am trying!!! Fascinating to think that it could be the brain just working that fast to 'decode'. I assume incorrect decoding still counts as deciding though? (I was embarrassingly old when I finally linked the word hyperbole with its graphical representation...)

There are two ways to accept that you may not be right on something you've erroneously pulled someone up on when the facts are subsequently presented to you.

I think you've just demonstrated the least gracious of those, Damediff.

Do I now assume you haven't read the code of practice since you are avoiding the issue Dame?

a governor who actually knows what she is talking about.

I am a specialist teacher with 12 years of experience teaching children with very complex needs who find learning, and often acquiring reading skills in particular, difficult. I often pick up the pieces with children for whom 'Ofsted best practise' has failed.

If only I was also a governor. Then I would know what I was doing.

Practice

Is that in a behaviour unit, Charles?

I've worked in SEBD Special School and bases for SEBD, SLCN and ASD.

I often pick up the pieces with children for whom 'Ofsted best practise' has failed.

I always find statements such as this a bit difficult as, from my own experience of working with KS3 children and from comments on this, other fora and reports such as the NFER evaluation of the PSC and the Ofsted document cited on this thread, it is very clear that best practice in phonics teaching is almost as rare as hen's gnashers, despite official endorsement since 2007. Which always makes me wonder if assertions that children have been 'failed' by good phonics teaching are actually true (even if made in perfectly good faith).

Have you watched the Dehaene video yet?

Ooh, another phonics thread that's blown up!

Did you ever find that evidence that learning a few sight words in the context of a synthetic phonics programme is harmful mrz?

CharlesRyder - really interested to read your posts. I also have a son who's a brilliant decoder but prone to guessing occasionally despite my and (presumably) his teacher's best efforts. I think he tries to go too fast when he's enjoying the story. Interestingly he does it more with easy books than hard ones.

Pourquoi, glad people have pointed you to the Songbirds books, we've found them really helpful, and fun. Has anyone linked you to Oxford Owls online? (apologies if I missed it). You need to vet them a bit as not all are decodable books, but there are some good ones there too, and it's free to use. We also did lots of (online or made up with bits of paper/fridge magnets) games in the early stages of decoding, when sometimes reading a whole book was a bit much. Going through that stage at the moment with DD so it's all coming back!