Introducing phonics to DD starting reception.

[passthewineplz]

Hi, my DD is due to start reception class in September. Can anyone recommend a good website to help me introduce her to phonics, and recommend any good YouTube songs/rhymes as the ones I've found are mainly American (not 100% sure if there's a difference. But I know they say Z differently).

TIA

The child I knew that learned by sight started school reading on level 10 and stayed there all year while his phonics caught up.

The one I knew that learned with phonics, they still gave him reading scheme books at level 1 which his parents dutifully heard him read then went on to more interesting things.

Actually, thinking about it, there was another kid I know in DS year who was reading at level 10 around the beginning of reception; he'd come up through the school nursery though so wasn't a surprise to them.

That's 3 kids I know just in DS's year, albeit at different schools!

Level 10 is a long way off a fluent reader though. It's a very good level for start of reception but DS is that level and he certainly has a long way to go until I would consider him fluent.

Different schools apply different standards to what level they'd put children on too; I'd say they're fluent if they're reading level 10 with expression, without stopping to sound out? Reading to learn rather than learning to read? To be fair, I don't know the third child was what I'd call fluent I just know what his mum said about levels, the first two I would definitely say were I was just commenting on levels out of interest following irvine's comment.
If fluent means reading Tolstoy then no none of them were!

Fluent readers are very rare at the start of reception. Even amongst those children who have been taught some reading skills. CVC words and simple sentences is probably the most I've ever come across.

My son was fascinated with reading the Financial Times when he started nursery which he did without help ...when he started reception his teacher said she wasn't allowed to give him a reading book ???? at home he was independently reading the NATO defence magazines

Now if your DS read the FT with expression mrz, then I would be impressed, don't think I've heard any adults do that. Mighty few have good comprehension of it too ;) was he interested in finance or did he just like the colour of the paper?
DD's reading interests are much more age-normal, just she will read picture books to herself as well as us reading them to her.

He liked to keep his grandpa informed about share prices

I learned letter names before reading phonetically and I was the top of my class, came to the UK, and was tops at the top universities here. My English and crafting skills are much better than those born and raised here.

The moral of my story is stop worrying about nothing. If you are interested in your child's education and spend the time nuturing them, they will do fine as far as education is concerned.

Don't teach, have fun. If she picks up something along the way that's OK but leave it to school to teach - if you get it wrong and teach something that doesn't fit with school's policy you've created a bigger job for them. It's far harder to unlearn one way and then relearn the school's way.
Meanwhile there's lots you can do, cook with her, share stories, build dens, explore, all sorts. Get her ready for school and make she that's she's independent with self care skills like dressing, using the bathroom etc.
Enjoy the last days without routine and just being together!

WellyMummy, what if the child wants to learn something?
Some child are inclined to do something academic rather than sport or etc.
Certainly my ds was.
But I didn't make him sit down at desk and learn something.
I was naïve enough to answer when asked what reading level he was, but the comment I got behind my back was..."hothousing" whispered by English parents.

Ah I'm sure we'll get that too irvine. Anyone who thinks we're hothousing is massively overestimating the degree of control we have over what DD does. Though I suppose - hothouse in the sense of provide a nutrient (book!) rich environment, supply food and water and warmth and wait to see what grows?

Yes very true, catkind!!!

Yes, I get that some children want to learn, I was like that too! But with 4 weeks to go there are plenty of things to do without starting on phonics.
Work on pattern making, sorting, counting . . .

I had a very interesting conversation with my 11 year old this weekend about reading. She has just finished year 6 (at a school with quite competitive/pushy parents). She had done no phonics, but could recognise her name when she went school. Towards the end of the year they teachers did a survey of who in the year group read for pleasure related to when they learnt to read, no big enough sample to be representative. Of 40 children only two actively read for pleasure (DD and one other) neither of those two read when they started school.

Those who did not read for pleasure were asked why not and said, because reading was work.
I have always seen reading as a marathon not a race. I still read to my 11 year old to continue the joy of sharing the story.

Last year I ran two reading cafes for Y6 and Y4 and asked the same question (I have a slight advantage with Y6 as I was their reception teacher so taught them to read) Most read for pleasure and talked about the types if books they enjoyed, one boy only reads books related to the computer games he plays and another never reads (Because he doesn't have time ... He rides competitively) and one girl said she didn't enjoy reading. The child who read most for enjoyment had struggled with reading all through school although all members of the group had taken part in reading interventions in the past ...

I think my ds loves reading, but never at a table or desk. I see him reading on the loo(!), bath, bed, in the car, but try to avoid it when it comes to homework reading. He hates reading aloud with passion. Even though he is allowed to choose what he reads, homework = work makes him very reluctant.

MRZ, DD's nursery did, they started with numbers and letters around 2 years, if a child showed interest. We spend hours walking home, DD read letters from number plates and street signs. I don't see it as actual teaching in sitting down with flash cards, it is part of general knowledge to me like colours and shapes as well,

DD started with letters in print, but not as learning as such, most children just copied it from a sign in the room or from a book.

Most of DD's year group came with these "incorrect" knowledge to school and I doubt it really is a big problem. 3 months later DD forgot most of the letter names, we saw an optician for an eye test and she gave the phonic name to all letters instead of the letter name. If the parents are going with the school's approach when it comes to learn to read and are consisting in their help, then a child won't get confused. Come Y2, end of Summer term and they started with letter names. I found it even more confusing as the children mixed them up, so trying Dd to spell a word with "E" and "I" in it meant lots of mistakes as she swapped letter names and phonics for a good couple of weeks.

If a nursery or pre school feeds into a specific primary school, then I would assume there is some form of teaching as they know which system a school uses. But most private nurseries used for childcare have children going into lots of different schools, we have so many in our borough, they can't even come up with one style of cursive writing.

mrsz

can I be rude and butt in and ask a question?

Is jolly phonics different to other 'synthetic' courses. Is it appropriate for children with SEN or would you recommend sight words?

Jolly Phonics was one of the first SSP programmes to be published. I used it for many years in reception and it's very effective. IMHO it's most effective for this age group as the Jolly Grammar book is less systematic in the introduction of alternative spellings for the sounds.

I would never recommend sight words as an effective strategy for any child although it can appear to be a quick fix.
If you teach a child to read six words by sight ... They can read sux words. If you teach the same child six sounds they can use those sounds to read countless words.

It's often a big problem for schools when nurseries introduce letters and sounds and numbers early

I'm very much not a fan of phonics - I favour a visual approach, which has had a lot of success even with so-called dyslexics. Perhaps you can do this and not create issues with phonics training?

Teach your child to visualise short words (cat, dog, fish, written down large on paper) in their mind, which they then read off like an internal whiteboard. Get them to read the letters off backwards (always fun) - then you know they have it. Graduate to longer words slowly, visualise ways to break up tricky words eg 'tennis' - perhaps the 'n's are hitting a ball to each other, so they remember there are two 'n's.

How do you do phonics without a visual approach?

but mrz, in some way, sight words might works on some children?
My child learned from watching TV with subtitles on. Some how, the words got embedded in his brain.
He didn't learn to read properly, but learned to recognize words without any effort.
He was given words to spell like "catastrophe" and "philosopher" in yr1(which I thought it was ridiculous!), he had no problem decoding it.

They only work for those kids who are able to work out the alphabetic code for themselves (the lucky ones if you like and unfortunately it's impossible to identify which children will be lucky and which will hit a wall until they struggle). without understanding how written words relate to spoken ones reading and writing is very limited. We can't memorise every word in the English language ...it would be a task that takes more than one life time.

Yes, I understand what you are saying.
I just wanted to share my experience that exposing children to simple thing like subtitles, it can make some children's life so much easier.
While they are watching their favourite programme on TV, they can be learning something without realizing it!
I've seen my friend's dc struggle to learn to read in school, and told me I was lucky because my ds was bright, but I recommended in the past all I did was let him watch TV!(and she dismissed it.)
It might not work on everybody, but clearly worked for my son.