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'...

The government have done what they can. There's the Rose review, Letters and Sound, a new NC and the matched funding to pay for training and resources. I don't see what else they could do at this point. It's really up to teachers educate themselves and sort it out.

Although I don't really think there's much point in going to the school either.

Would this be the government who specifically wrote a curriculum which doesn't include.picture cues.as a reading strategy, sashh? That one, yeah?

The impression I have got from friends at home in the UK is that phonics teaching is definitely better than it was 10 years ago, but that there is still a certain amount of "look at the picture and guess/memorize this list of random words" stuff going on.

Do teachers study synthetic phonics during their training? Honest question--I'm not a teacher so I don't really know. I know about synthetic phonics mainly because I studied English and took Phonetics and Writing Systems as two of my modules, and came across the McGuiness book then. I don't know what is done on most PGCE type courses.

Allegedly. Judging by the phonic knowledge of some teachers I know it's probably of dubious quality.

And anyone trained before 2006 is unlikely to have had much phonics during their initial teacher training. We had a 13 week module on teaching reading with 3 taught hours a week. Less than 1 hr was spent on phonics. And that hr was mainly spent on a group discussion mainly focusing on how English isn't phonetic so can't be taught using phonics, how cuh a tuh doesn't sound anything like 'cat' so even simple words can't be sounded out and how phonics is particularly bad for people with dyslexia.
It was definitely painted as the least useful of the searchlights strategies.

Students report very little phonics content in their initial training

We had a some phonics training and a particularly memorable "lecture" which was essentially a sales pitch from some people from THRASS phonics. I know how phonics works but in my school the expectation is that reception children will know how to sight read and spell the first 100 HFW and we have approximately 2 or 3 copies of 20 different phonics books compared to the whole set of original ORT books, we have asked for more and have been told that the literacy budget has already been spent on KS1, recommendation from the literacy coordinator is to send home 1 phonics book to every 2 or 3 ORT ones. This 'early years staff need to just get on with it' attitude is symptomatic of how we are viewed generally in my school and it's just another battle I'm too tired to fight. That being said some of the pictures in ORT do make for brilliant discussions about what's going to happen next and how the characters are feeling.

"We had a some phonics training and a particularly memorable "lecture" which was essentially a sales pitch from some people from THRASS phonics" and THRASS isn't even an approved program (it's not SSP /mixed methods)

I'd agree with that Miaow. Maths, science and the SEN module blew the English department out of the water. Loads of useable stuff in those but I can think of very little relevant content from English.

I'm possibly teaching you to suck eggs here, *mistoffelees. But this may be useful in schools where there is a requirement to know a number of sight words.

If you have a simple numerical requirement to meet—e.g., you are required to teach 20 sight words—you should be able to meet this requirement without any significant modification of the materials. You can begin working with some sight words as early as Unit 3, provided you select words that are 100% decodable.
If there are words you are required to teach that do not become decodable when you need to have them taught, we simply ask that you wait until Unit 8 of Kindergarten to teach those. Again, the idea is to give the students plenty of opportunities to work with the regular part of the language before teaching them the exceptions. Once students are successfully blending regular words and have met a few of the most important Tricky Words, you can introduce additional sight words, even if they are not completely decodable. Simply treat the sight word as a Tricky Word and explain which parts are pronounced and spelled as one would
expect (based on current code knowledge) and which parts are tricky.

It can almost certainly be adapted to letters and sounds with the use of the appendix which lists which of the 100HFW are decodeable at each stage.

mrz I know, it was awful! I seem to remember they just tried to criticise synthetic phonics to make their system seem better, it really annoyed me!

Rafalstheking that's actually really useful thank you! I work in a two form entry school and the other teacher loves the searchlights method and learning tricky words from flashcards. Having come from nursery and before that uni where as PPs have said, training left a lot to be desired, I have had to fit in with her and the schools way of doing things. That sounds like a good compromise!

It's from a US scheme and aimed at teachers who have to teach the Dolch or Fry lists as sight words, but the advice could be transferred to the HFW lists in L&S.

I do think reading and spelling all 100 by the end of reception is a big ask though. You have to wonder who decided that and who they thought it would help, because it doesn't seem to be the children.

I looked at an international school recently, and the phonics stuff on the wall suggested very poor quality teaching. And parents were paying some extraordinary fees for this school. It confirmed my decision to use the local vernacular schools and do the English reading and writing at home.

THRASS are quite bitter at failing to meet the criteria for inclusion in the approved list.

I remember that TES thread. They really weren't happy.

There are certain advantages to the BEd over a PGCE. We got 12 hrs in each of the foundation subjects and drama with an extra 12hrs for PE and 2 subjects of your choice.

We were allowed to use guitars to make music.

Although, now I think about it the geography lecturer basically just read through her own book with us and not much else. 1hr would have been plenty.

How much enjoyment would he get from books containing only the sounds that he has learned in phonics? And at what point would he start to recognize high frequency "tricky" words that are not decodable, even with phonics knowledge?

My daughter is also in reception and through bringing these books home, she now recognizes words such as "the" "wasn't" "said". She blends words where she has the phonics knowledge eg: "m-u-d", 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 (and general reading skills for life, actually).

Raise your concerns with the school, but listen to their response and trust their expertise. Their EYFS, Y2 and Y6 outcomes must be good to be rated "outstanding".

More than he would get from a book relying on learning whole words

My daughter has just started year one so I can provide the experience we had in reception last year. Whatever phonics they were learning at that time - so for example when they were focusing on "at" towards the beginning, they were given a story book that contained words with those sounds. The book was usually called something like "satp" and it would contain a mixture of high frequency words along with focusing on the ones they had been learning. In addition, we had a pack of laminated high frequency words that my dd would have to learn by sight in order to help with her reading. These would be added to each week. The story book would contain pictures to help as well. It seemed to work really well, so I'm in agreement that if the book that is being provided is not at the same level then it doesn't seem right.

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

High frequency and tricky aren't synonyms for not decodable!

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. However, with repeated exposure, he would be able to recognize them, as my daughter can.

Word recognition is also important for writing - children understand that some words to not follow the most obvious phonics rule eg - said / sed.

Also, on the point of picture cues - this is early teaching of reading in context, which sets the ground work for understanding homophones or inferring that, for example, the word you typed above the picture of a dinosaur is, in fact a proper noun for a species of dinosaur. Without that picture, I may not have known otherwise (although could possibly have guessed from the "tops" suffix).

Phonics is an important element of the teaching of reading, it is not the only only one.

I also don't think reception children should be expected to read with total accuracy - there should be an element of shared reading of their book where the teacher/parent models the reading process, including decoding words, discussing the characters and events, making predictions, repeating HF words etc.

If a child of this age can read a book with accuracy, I would suspect that the challenge level was too low and therefore progress will be slower.

Using pictures cues to 'decode' words and not reading what's on the page are two of the most common issues that have to be untaught in struggling readers and it's a total PITA once they are ingrained.

If you want to waste time doing it, then by all means encourage using picture clues and 'close enough' reading in Reception.But it's so much easier and better for self esteem and speed of progression to get it right from the start.