Yr1 child - top phonics group but slow reader - how can this be?

[sugarhoops]

Was told today by another mum that my year 1 DD is in the top group in the class for phonics, but is a little behind others for reading (this mum has a DD who, apparently, is 2nd highest reader in class, but is in a phonics group below my DD).

Putting aside for a moment how on earth this mother knows all this info - to be fair she helps out in class sometimes, I just wondered how this can be re: the top phonics group but lower reader level?

I had no idea where my daughter was at against others in the class - parents eve last week the teacher told me she's doing fine academically, which is good enough for me. But with this new info, I just wondered, purely out of interest, how she can be in top group for phonics, but apparently 'behind' for reading?

I learned to read mainly through sight words at a very young age, so have no personal gripe with mixed methods. I'm the one who daughter so far as she has only just started reception. She uses little flash cards with the red words on, which I don't mind at all.
However,whilst I thrived on memorisation, she is much stronger on the phonics side of things. I think it just goes to show that reading well requires a range of skills, not phonics alone, and different children have different areas of strength and weakness, like my child and the op's. I'm sure great reading will follow from great phonics in time, but they're not entirely synonymous.

It's actually easy to find these information even not help out in the class. In my DS class, they put children's name on different group and the list is on the wall. Although the name does not indicate which group is the top, but you generally know. I find it's helpful to know about my DS's position in the class, so I would know how well he is doing. DS himself know the group order since he is in year 1, when he started to climb from bottom group to the top group.

In DS's class, phonic group is like a literacy group, so it's about writing, grammar, phonic etc. But reading is based on individual children's progress, they have different colour band. My DS know the top 1 reader in his class, as that girl is having the highest culour band in the class.

I think some mum would be surprised how much their children know about their own academic position in the class. How can they not know, the work sheet they are doing are different according to the group, the book they took from different basket has different colour band on.My ds know exactly which colour after which colour.Children also know who is the fast runner, who jump the furthest, who dance best, who sing the best.

Some children won't mind, some children would. That's just life. As parents,wouldn't it be better to know their children's strength, know how well their children are doing in their class, then can help if needed.

Perhaps my ds is unusually clueless. He knows which book band he's on, he doesn't know or care what book band other kids are on. Long may it last I say!

I know which groups DS is in because teacher mentioned it to me. Doesn't really help us help him as we have no idea what they're actually working on in those groups.

In DS school, there are parents evening every term, also open morning you can go in to see your children's progress. That's how I find out what they are doing at the moment. I would also chat with DS on the way home about what he had done that day, Sometimes he likes to tell me everything, somtimes he just say had a nice day then nothing else. Then we just leave it, chat something else.

When I know he is below average, we do a bit extra at home, but now I know he is well on track, then we are not so bothered about the extra at home.

The academic content doesn't seem to be the part of school DS notices We have parents' evening coming up soon, hopefully will be able to find out more then.

I am really happy with DS2's school, although they don't have any homework. But they sent us the current curriculum they work on each half term. They also give out each children's target in literacy, match at parents evening.

That's a good idea cloud2, I'll ask if we can see DS targets if they don't give us them anyway.

No not a standard approach catkind

Does your child go to the Y2 class for a separate phonics lesson Ellie? If so surely they realise they are moving classrooms?

Well it's what our school do, what a couple of local schools where friends have kids do, what my DNiece and DNephew's school do and a teacher friend described something similar when she was talking about her kids without expressing surprise. So quite possible OP's school do it that way too.

Perhaps it's more common in schools with larger entry to split up? DS has 3 form entry so they have potentially 3 teachers and 3 TAs to take different groups.

It would be normal for children grouped by ability to do what Eliie describes ... Children work with Y2 if higher ability Y1s or with reception if lower ability while the remaining children have direct instruction.

Setting for ability is very common in larger schools especially those following RWI. What isn't common is your description of groups within the same classroom.

I know a lot of schools do mix year groups, but thought it was kind of frowned on. Perhaps that's just a personal opinion of teachers and parents I've talked to. At DS school mixing with Y2 wouldn't be an option anyway as they're a new school and only have R-Y1 at the moment, but obviously that's an exceptional situation.

No not within the same classroom, did I say that?

So would you expect the OPs child to be aware they go to the Y2 classroom everyday for phonics?

Or that other children in the class have their phonics lesson with a different teacher in another Y1 room?

I suppose he goes to the Y2 area to have his phonics lessons. The thing is his school is open plan, and the Y1 and Y2 area are adjacent.

When he was having phonics, I got the impression the other Y1 children were also having phonics but with a different teacher/TA at a different table.
Also, the TAs seem to be very fluid (there are 2 per year) and sometimes he has lessons or activities with a TA from Y2. I suppose this could explain why he was unaware at first about the split by ability.

I thought it strange that he would be clueless about it as, like catkind's DS, he knows what reading band he is and he is usually telling me things like it's a very high band, I always go to the Y2/Y3 area to get my books, etc. However, he doesn't know what book band other children are, and doesn't seem to be interested either.

I would expect them to know if they mix with another year, so was assuming this wasn't the case for OP. If it's like DS class then he knows he goes to the library with the TA for phonics and to a different classroom with one of the other teachers for maths but it hasn't occurred to him it's part of an ability grouping.

He isn't clueless about it he knows he works with other adults and children for certain subjects/lessons where he is in the hierarchy of ability is a red herring ...

Which sounds similar to OP's child if I read her post right - she knows they're split into groups, but not that they're ability groups. Am I missing something here? Not sure what I've said wrong. Not much point quibbling about it in OP's absence anyway.

Maizie: the High Frequency Words are a 20th century invention.

They are not!

Well, no, marsha, I grant you that HFWs have always existed. BUT, the development of HFW lists and the insistence on teaching them as 'sight words' is a purely 20th century phenomenom arising from the crazy notion that children should be taught to read by memorising words as 'wholes'. As that didn't work too well anything which might help (as long as it wasn't phonics) was pressed into service.

You will not find 19th century (or earlier) reading instruction manuals & primers insisting that children learn a specific set of HFWs. I think you'll find that HFW lists themselves weren't developed before the 20th century

My DD was the "best reader" in the class (in terms of happily reading and understanding the hardest books) at a point where she had no grasp of phonics at all. She memorised hundreds and hundreds of sight words - once she'd been told what it said, she had it. She didn't get phonics until she was seven or eight.

For kids who "get" phonics early, they're the same skill. For kids who don't, they're different skills. So yes, what she says is possible. (And rather missing the point - it's not a race or a competition.)

Maizie
the development of HFW lists and the insistence on teaching them as 'sight words' is a purely 20th century phenomenom.

As I said before, the invention of computers made it easier to establish which words were the most used ones.

But there is no need whatsoever to teach all the 300 most HF words, or even the 100 most HF ones, as 'sight words' from the start, although that is what all reading instruction achieves eventually with the 7,000 to 10,000 most common English words. None of us still decode any of them.

Two thirds of the 300 most HF words (189 to be exact) don't contain any tricky letters and don't need to be taught by anything other than phonics. (I would show them to u, but u, Feenie or Mrz would probably report me for posting spam again, in order to shut me up).

Only 111 of them are trickier, and the sooner children are able recognise those instantly, the more their overall reading fluency and confidence improve.

And even those don't need to be learned like pictures that children learn to put a name to, because some of their letters are easily decodable too.