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Original poster

Non decodable books in reception

234 replies

Sleeperandthespindle · 23/09/2016 19:38

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'...

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Feenie · 25/09/2016 10:12

If everyone changed their name to suit my autocorrect, it would be a lot easier. It only uses initial letters and context cues, so it really can't read properly. But no one will mind, will they? Grin

ClockMakerSue · 25/09/2016 22:49

Mary, clearly that is what I meant so please have my first ever Biscuit for missing my actual point.

EverReadyEddy · 25/09/2016 22:58

You're all very stressy over here, aren't you? Is it a vocational thing?

quickly hides away in AIBU

Mistoffelees · 26/09/2016 07:30

EverReady it's a 'we know the best ways to do things and aren't allowed to do them because of government policy/pressure from management/old fashioned colleagues/lack of resources' thing. Or at least that's what it is in my case.

PileOfPasta · 26/09/2016 07:58

OP if you are still here! Try reading chest website for books through the post, wide range of reading schemes. Also Usbourne do a good range of phonics based early readers. The first few have a sentence for adult to read and then very easy sentence for child, which makes the story more interesting!

YorkieDorkie · 26/09/2016 07:59

It's such a shame this thread has even happened.

Phonics is our method and yet there are millions, literally thousands of millions, of outdated books on the shelves of our schools.

I share a limited number of decodable books with 5 other classes.

LindyHemming · 26/09/2016 08:10

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

GraceGrape · 26/09/2016 08:39

Euphemia, I'm not sure whether it was really allowed, but I worked in a school where they photocopied the RWI books and sent the copies home. That was a fun job for someone...

LindyHemming · 26/09/2016 13:54

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

namechangeforanonymity · 26/09/2016 14:29

Songbirds phonics are 47p per book if you buy 36 books in stages 1-6 and that's retail price.

How can schools justify the argument that they can't afford to buy any at all ?

Surely they can negotiate good deals for bulk buys ?

We used them and the dc just whizzed along with phonics/reading. Lent them out several times in between each dc needing them and then sold them so you can't say they aren't reasonably robust little books too.

I've recommended them to other parents who have thought it well worth the money so why don't schools think so ?

EverReadyEddy · 26/09/2016 14:35

If a school is following Read Write Inc, should only phonics books be sent home?

What are these 'red' words all about?

GraceGrape · 26/09/2016 14:39

The red words are "tricky" words. The RWI books tell simple decodable stories but as it is impossible to write a series of books in just CVC words, they have common words like "the" or "when" for the children to try to recognise by sight. These words may well be decodable, but not at the stage of phonics that children begin on.

EverReadyEddy · 26/09/2016 14:45

Thank you Grace

kesstrel · 26/09/2016 16:27

A few years back, the government offered match funding for the purpose of buying phonics books and training, but a lot of schools didn't take advantage of it....

mrz · 26/09/2016 17:23

The "red words" contain spellings for sounds that haven't been taught at that point ...that doesn't mean they are meant to be taught as wholes. The child identifies the parts they know and the teacher supplies the new knowledge they require to decode the word.

mrz · 26/09/2016 17:25

Is there any reason you can't send the nice glossy ones home?

mrz · 26/09/2016 17:26

When is a cvc word

HarveySchlumpfenburger · 26/09/2016 17:28

The red words aren't supposed to be taught be sight though. They have the sound buttons underneath so they can be sounded out and the tricky part discussed.

Because these words are high frequency, most children will move to reading and writing them without the need for overt blending quite quickly.

GraceGrape · 26/09/2016 17:35

I just meant mrz that 'wh' as a grapheme doesn't come up in the very early stages of RWI. The initial red books in the scheme, as I recall, contain only single letter graphemes to decode.

The schools I have taught in with RWI wouldn't let us send the glossy books home as they were also used in class sessions and it was likely that they wouldn't be brought back every day. And they cost a fortune.

mrz · 26/09/2016 18:07

No but the teacher tells the child this is another way we can spell the sound /w/ say /w/ when you see this spelling ... We are making it more complicated than it is teaching words as wholes - giving the message that these words are difficult then having to reteach at a later date.

mrz · 26/09/2016 18:09

If the school have been given a free set surely they could risk sending the free books home (charge for lost books perhaps?)

LindyHemming · 26/09/2016 19:48

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

MaryTheCanary · 28/09/2016 00:20

My daughter and I live in a country where English is not the main language, so I teach English reading at home, using RWI books. Love these books.

There are a very small number of red words. At the beginning, I just read these words out myself without comment. She picked up the, I, said, are and several others by sight. As she is 5.5 now, I am explaining how the red words show sounds in unusual ways.

So,

"We've learned that you can show an /ee/ sound with [ee] and [ea] and [----y] so far, right? So sometimes you can show an /ee/ sound with just this one letter [e]." And then we look at be, we, he, she, me, and practice reading and writing them.

We also did go/so/no in the same kind of way. As a "pack" of words in which the sound is shown in the same kind of way. Rather than throwing random words at her and saying "memorize all these one by one."

Next will be to/do, in which the /oo/ sound is shown with [o].

And so on. For example, in done/some/come/none, the /u/ sound is shown with [o_e] so when she is a bit further along, we will be looking at that.

I am not a qualified teacher so I don't know if this is how it is done in schools, but this is how we do it.

mrz · 28/09/2016 07:04

"So sometimes you can show an /ee/ sound with just this one letter [e]." And then we look at be, we, he, she, me, and practice reading and writing them.
*
We also did go/so/no in the same kind of way.*"

I find it amazing that some teachers haven't managed to work this out and insist these words need to be taught as wholes.

sashh · 28/09/2016 18:49

Well I don't want him to be guessing! 1or looking for clues in a picture.

Then there is no point going tot he school, you will have to take it up with the government.

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