Bit concerned... Reception reading/phonics

[TripleRocks]

I'm beginning to have reservations but not sure what I can do.

DD has a reading book changed weekly, at the moment ORT wordless books.

She is also being given words to learn by sight. There are 4 sets of about 10, tricky and high frequency words to get through. Last week's were Mum, Dad and Floppy which she learned easily.

This week's are:

a
at
am
I (capitalised)
Biff
Chip
Kipper

I know the school follow Sounds Write but the emphasis right now (based on what's coming home at least) seems to be on these sight words.

She is able to recognise most letters and sounds but is not able to blend them yet.

We sat down with just a, at and am this evening and she got in an awful muddle and grumpy (possibly bad timing as it's been a busy day). She already guessing what these words are. I'm worried she's not equipped with the basics of phonics to tackle this. It seems too advanced?

My dilemma is, WWYD? I love everything about the school, the teachers are excellent and I have no doubt they have taught hundreds of children to read beautifully this way. I' m really keen to support the schools approach at home. But where do I start with her learning these words? How can I show her how to differentiate between similar looking words? Presumably the teacher is wanting these learned by next week

The school isn't following Sounds-Write if they are sending home word lists
I'd suggest rather than memorising the words as wholes help your child to decode them. Obviously at and am can be read in the first set of S-W sounds and mum just needs you to provide the /u/ sound.

That was my instinct too, to teach her to read the words phonetically.

But it seems tricky to do, as she's not really able to blend yet.

I think she needs a firmer grounding in the single letter sounds first.

Surely it's pretty tricky to set sight words that look so similar at this early stage? Especially when they don't know she's confident on the single letter sounds?

Feeling a bit out of my depth. Guess I need to talk to the teacher?

Sounds-Write doesn't teach sounds in isolation so right from day one they will be learning to blend and segment words.

Have you tried using the words in bingo, snakes and ladders, hide and seek, snap chalks white boards etc .. much more fun than sitting looking at them.

I don't think you need worry, as there is no immediate deadline for learning to read in a Reception class! Did she ever do any sounds or 'reading' in nursery or playgroup?

Can she make up plausible 'stories' for the wordless books?

Consolidate the 'a' sounds, and make sure you are using the correct sounds if you demonstrate for her. This might help a bit, and make it more fun:

www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/shows/alphablocks

Don't 'stress' her (or yourself), and if she doesn't feel in the mood to 'work' or read her books, then you read them to her for now. The main thing is to try and make books enjoyable.

Hi TripleRocks,
I'm sorry that the school say that they are teaching Sounds-Write because it doesn't sounds like it to me and I wrote the programme. I can tell you that our attitude to the teaching of so called 'sight words' is best expressed in my blog post here: literacyblog.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/should-key-words-be-taught-as-sight.html
And, mrz is absolutely right about the fact that Sounds-Write also doesn't teach sounds in isolation.
I'm afraid that there are some schools who send staff to our trainings only for them to go back and teach some sloppy version of the programme with a lot of stuff thrown in that runs counter to the it. It's maddening - especially when I read stories like yours - but it happens.
Here's another post that might help: literacyblog.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/linguistic-phonics-practical-example.html
If you'd like more help, you can write to me at: [email protected] and I'll do what I can to help.

I would tell the school that I eiukdnt be doing himewirk with a re emotion child . Ridiculous.

Reception!!

This is all incredibly helpful, thankyou.

I should say that I have no idea if the school have started the phonics programme yet, the phonics information evening is not until later in the year by which time they say most children will have started it. So I'm a bit in the dark about the whole thing.

It's interesting to know they will teach blending sounds from day 1, as at the moment I am giving her the sound names completely separately then trying to teach her to blend them back together which I now realise is going off on the wrong track, which might explain why she's not 'getting it'.

We will try again using some of the ideas suggested and keep it low key and will approach it by teaching her to decode them rather than recognise by sight, although this feels a bit of a daunting task.

I suspect this is a 'how long is a piece of string' type question, but here goes - if I teach her to decode these words phonetically, how long might it take for her to recognise them? Or rather, how many of the words should we look at at any one time? I'm assuming we're not going to be able to cover all these sounds in a week, as I have no intention of doing more than about 30-40 mins of this (spread over the week).

If you have an iPad the Sounds-Write app is excellent and the first unit is free. This would give you an idea of how you can work with your child at home.

You're right it is a case of how long is a piece of string. Some children might reach automaticity (able to read word without having to consciously sound out each letter) after blending the word once or twice while at the other extreme some will need to decode it dozens even hundreds of times before it becomes automatic. Most children fall somewhere between.

www.sounds-write.co.uk/apps.aspx

I'd also recommend the Dandelion launchers ebooks (first set free) which fit exactly with the Sounds-Write programme.

www.phonicbooks.co.uk/ibooks.php