Ahhhh reception reading books

[Pineapple5678]

DS brought home his first reading book with words 3 days ago. He was very excited and wanted to read in straight away. It was a big cat pink band by Collins I think. It was about getting dressed.
My coat
My boots
Etc but he soon got frustrated as 'my' doesnt sound as it is sounded out not that he has learnt the 'y' yet and all the other words were undecodable to him at his current level. They have learnt up to jolly phonics 'll'
Today he brings home a book about teeth and after 2 pages refuses to read it as he can't make sense of any of it with his limited knowledge.
Along the lines of
Teeth bite
Teeth grow
Clean teeth
He ended up in tears saying he couldn't do it. I of course reassured him and we read a book from home to help his confidence.

Am I right to want to go in and talk to the teach tomorrow? It seems so unfair to give him a book he can't decode and ends up guessing by looking at the pictures installing bad habits .

[d270r0]

Totally agree with what you've decided to do. Buy songbirds, they are really good. I taught my ds myself using them and he has come along leaps and bounds. We read every day. He has just started reception too. But school has only been giving him books with pictures only! I still look at them with him but they are limited and he finds them boring, he wants to read! I would say use songbirds, teach him yourself but still look at the school books, just don't make him read them himself until hes more able to. Treat them more like books you read to him and make a big thing of the stories/pictures. (One we got the other day was called 'stripes'. No words and pictures of things with stripes on every page. Boring!)

[mrz]

The first set of Dandelion ibooks are available free (but you need to pay for later sets). Some Phonic Bug books are available on MN education

[louisejxxx]

Thanks HairyMclary (from donaldson's dairy) but that's not it...It was a complete reading scheme...don't think it was a particularly famous one either, but it was phonics-centred and free. Kicking myself for not saving the link!!

[PrincessHairyMclary]

Oxford Owl: it's free and has a large range of Ebooks to use

[louisejxxx]

Sorry to hijack - just wondering if any of the experts could help me with something. A while back online I came across a sort of reading scheme that basically had books online (for free) and they worked through the phonics. Does this ring any bells for anyone? It basically had links to all the different books and you could view them on internet explorer. My ds is doing well with his reading but he gets sent home ORT books that are not always phonics-oriented. I want to provide him with more books like Songbirds etc (he gets those from school though).

[NotCitrus]

How to encourage your individual child, who may or may not remember come evening what they learnt that week, is probably more important than the phonics - teacher at ds's school did a session on how to keep children interested, eg taking it in turns to do a page, hunting for certain letter groups that make a sound, reminding them that letters can make different sounds when with certain others, can they think of a word that rhymes, tell them other words where a letter/group does the same thing, ask them if they've learnt (letters making a certain sound) yet when they stumble on a word - gives them a face-saving excuse to fail! Tell off those sneaky vowels for changing their sounds so often. And don't force it or make reading into a big unpleasant thing - two minutes of them picking out sounds they know off a page then you read the book followed by a fun story is going to be way better than pushing them to decode the whole book.

Ds is very anxious and unwilling to try new things, but pointing out phonemes in stories being read, telling the word 'my' it was 'naughty' for having the y say I not ee, and teaching the words fart, wee, poo, got him enthusiastic very quickly.

First half term of Reception we were in traffic and he asked what a burr festival was. A what? A festival. Maybe it's a buh-eeee-ra festival?
Pub was holding a 'beer festival' Was very impressed.

[PrincessHairyMclary]

My DD took to reading very quickly and was soon far ahead of what they were doing in class so naturally hadn't been taught those phonics yet when it came to alternate sounds/spellings (ew in crew etc).

So when we came across those words I would tell her what it said, we would look at a few other words with that sound and off she went.

I'd recommend the Jolly Phonics handbooks, I got them 2nd hand from amazon if you aren't familiar with phonics as I wasn't. You can also watch youtube videos which are helpful too.

As for the books, you can sign up for free with oxford owl and have access to all their Ebooks if you want a wider range.

[christinarossetti]

By half term of reception, both of my children were excitedly decoding any work they came across as a result of being taught how to blend and segment at school.

I remember my ds reading out 'bus stopping' when the sign came up on the bus a few weeks after starting school and me realising how effective good phonics teaching is.

Wouldn't have been able to read 'cowboy' though, as ow / oy wouldn't have been covered at that point I wouldn't think. And I would have been very annoyed if the school had sent home a book for him to read with sounds that he hadn't been taught.

[LittleMissGreen]

Lashawn our school teach a sound a day so by half term they are expected to know loads. As they would know 5 sounds by the end of week one they bring back their first reader which consists just of single words to blend by the end of week 1. Also, just a word of warning, which obviously may not be true in your daughter's case but DS1 now 13 learnt to read very quickly as he had a photographic memory - was reading Harry Potter by end if reception but now he struggles knowing what to do when he cones across new words and his spelling has taken a long time to get up to scratch as his phonic knowledge was very lacking - phonics not really taught when he started school.

[mrz]

So school are still using old Look and Say ORT books ??

[lashawn]

Yes, pretty much. She can read all the high frequency words but will stumble over a couple of words in a book, usually a noun she hasn't come across before like juggler or cowboy or something.

[mrz]

Pretty much?

[lashawn]

Pretty much

[mrz]

And could she read all the words inside?

[lashawn]

It was only the first one. I wrote in her reading diary that she recognised all the words on the front cover and the next book home was an ORT level 3

[mrz]

It's a shame she's brought home any wordless books

[lashawn]

I wasn't suggesting she should memorise a million words rather than learn and apply phonics! I was saying that it would be a shame if she were still bringing home wordless books because she can't yet phonetically decode words she can already read.

I'm happy with the pace. They've been settling into the school routine as well as having the baseline assessments done. She's learnt how to write all those letters too which I'm impressed with.

[mrz]

i would expect them to be blending and segmenting words as soon as the first 5/6 sounds have been taught- sat, sit, pin, pat, pit, at, it, pan, an, at, tip, tap, sip etc .
It's possible to teach all the sounds in a half term but I would expect at least half to have been taught.
We use a different system so our reception children are blending and segmenting words from the first lesson.

[mrz]

What do you think is easier for a child with a photographic memory to remember 44 sounds (and the 176 ways they can be spelt in English) or over a million words?

[lashawn]

Why, where would you expect them to be by now?

[mrz]

Children are different but our written language is the same.
10 sounds and no blending or segmenting in half a term? ??

[lashawn]

How can it be a one size fits all approach though?

DD4 started reception in Sep with no phonics knowledge at all. So far they've learnt the first 10 letter sounds and as far as I'm aware, haven't learnt to blend yet. So DD has no decoding abilities whatsoever.

However. She started school able to recognise a large amount of words. Her teacher told me she thinks she has a photographic memory. She has been bringing home ORT level 3 and 4 books, yellow band I think. She gets through them really well - there will be the odd word she doesn't know but she can usually work it out from the pictures/ story.

Now obviously these books are WAY beyond her phonics knowledge, but if she can read them, surely that's better than her still bringing home wordless books?

[mrz]

Share the wonderful variety of children's books available but don't expect a child to read words beyond their current ability. Learning to read isn't a sprint.

[mrz]

It's atrocious practice to set a child up to fail which is exactly what you are doing if you send home books containing words that are beyond their current level of knowledge. I'm wondering how many threads there would be on MN if teachers sent home quadratic equations for reception homework ??

[Flumplet]

It's not poor practice at all!!! All books have words in that can be decoded!! (Key words like and, the, for, is, etc) So long as there are opportunities to contribute and of course have a parent explain words that can't be decoded then there's no problem. All books, any books, are fantastic for reception learning. I never suggested relying on pictures at all, you've made that up all by yourself, pictures can and should be used as prompts and points for interaction.