Non decodable books in reception

[Sleeperandthespindle]

My DS was so excited to bring home his first book with words today - then disheartened to find he couldn't read it. He is doing well with blending with the phonemes and graphemes he knows, but of course hasn't been taught 'pp', 'er' and 'wh' yet.
Is it worth mentioning this to school? They must know that it's utterly pointless sending home such books? There's a printed page at the front of the reading record that mentions 'looking for clues' and 'encourage to guess'...

[mrz]

"But he has only just started reception, so therefore has not completed all of the phonics phases yet, so would not - at this stage of his development - be able to decode those words"

Which is why he would be taught to how decode those high frequency words early in reception. Only Letters & Sounds has phases but even it introduces "tricky" HFW as decodable not as wholes.

[kesstrel]

How much enjoyment would he get from books containing only the sounds that he has learned in phonics?

Many parents report that their children do enjoy 'decodable' books, and also the gratification that comes from being able to read them by themselves. No 'reading scheme' book can compare with a real book, but they have been found to be useful in teaching beginning reading.

And at what point would he start to recognize high frequency "tricky" words that are not decodable, even with phonics knowledge?

Almost all high frequency words are decodable, given sufficient phonics knowledge. The term "tricky" refers only to the portion of the word for which the child does not yet know the letter/sound correspondence. It doesn't mean 'not decodable'.

My daughter is also in reception and through bringing these books home, she now recognizes words such as "the" "wasn't" "said".

Many children can learn to do this, without it harming their reading. But a significant minority will become confused if told to use this as a word-identification strategy, and will also not acquire sufficient practice in decoding, if they are instructed to learn words as whole, or to guess from context cues and pictures. This is why psychologists who are experts in the evidence for reading say that children should be taught via decoding only early on, so that those with a tendency toward dyslexia will also learn to read well.

and uses context clues to help her when she comes across a completely unfamiliar word that she is unable to decode. All of these are essential early reading skills

The idea that using "context clues" is an essential early reading skill was based on unproven speculation by theorists in the 1970s, and there has never been any reliable evidence to show that it is true. It was nonetheless widely promulgated by the now abandoned "Searchlights" strategy that was part of the 1997 Literacy Strategy, and unfortunately many schools continue to believe what they were told then. As I said above, for some children it causes confusion, and distracts from the important task of learning to decode, which is why it is best avoided. While context is important for identifying homophones, that is a limited use, and children should not be encouraged to use it for other purposes.

[Feenie]

www.nifdi.org/resources/news/hempenstall-blog/402-the-three-cueing-system-in-reading-will-it-ever-go-away

[HarveySchlumpfenburger]

I have a feeling they weren't going to use the searchlights strategy in the original NLS in 98. It ended up being included for political reasons rather than educational ones.

If only they'd stuck to their guns and gone for phonics which was the other option they were looking at.

[kesstrel]

Rafa Yes, I believe I've read that as well. I'm not sure how much the political climate had really changed nine years later; if it was do-able in 2007 it might well have been do-able in 1998.

[TheLaurelsofPastVolcanoes]

Difficult to ignore the findings of the Rose review given how public it was. Would have been difficult to write the new primary framework and ignore a report they'd commissioned.

And the subsequent change in government brought in Gove and Gibb who were passionate about getting all children reading and phonics being the way to do that. I don't think the matched funding, PSC and Ofsted focus on early reading would have happened under the previous government. Especially since they were still ring-fencing money for Reading Recovery after the Rose review.

[Sleeperandthespindle]

Thanks for the interesting thread.

I've bought some decodable books (Songbirds. Not high literature but suitable for our purpose. I'll pass them on when we're finished with them). We're using these for practise at home (alongside all our usual bedtime and other time stories, which are much more interesting of course):

DS has been very excited to read them.

School have sent home a 'phonics book' in response to my queries. Their response was 'we use a mix of HFW and phonics books'. I guess I'm supposed to be pleased. However, the 'phonics book' is full of digraphs he hasn't been taught yet (and is, in fact, the worst example of a book I've seen - just a list of unrelated words on each page with a picture and the instruction to 'look at the picture and say the word').

[Mistoffelees]

Sleeper, if it is from the Floppy's Phonics range and is the type I'm thinking of its an activity book to introduce new sounds, good for what they're designed for but not what you were wanting at all.

[Sleeperandthespindle]

I'm sure it has its uses...!
Immediate problem is solved by the books I've bought, and he seems to be relatively unconfused right now.