Why has DD (reception) been given 'car' and 'park' as key/sight words?

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I'm new to the whole school thing so have been trying to read up on the early years and key stage one curriculum in order to best support my nearly-5yo.
DD is loving school so far.
Yesterday the teacher gave me a list of 15 sight words for DD to practice at home. The teacher stated that they don't usually give homework this early in the school, but DD had asked for it. I believe this and am happy to make games etc. out of learning these words at home.
Most of the words are what I thought of as sight words; the, I, she etc.
However, I thought car and park were phonetic, using the digraph 'car'. So 'c' 'ar' and 'p' 'ar' 'k'. Just wondering why the teacher would want DD to know these works by sight instead of decoding them?
Thanks.

Certainly words like put and bath are easier

And Y2 common exception words fast, last and past are very easy

All of these are fairly easy in my Midlands accent too.

In the south, one of the alternative spellings that is definitely worth teaching in yr R just because it crops up so much, IMO. Things like fast, grass and bath do occur in some of the decodable schemes in early stages so it's easier to just teach it.

Tbh, I wouldn't expect those words to be common exception words by year 2, Feenie. I think there are a few other exception words in the NC lists that should definitely be decodable by the end of KS1.

Move north the put and cut do rhyme that works for me. So does foot

Pre-phonics, one of mine learned to read within a month in reception (mainly self-taught) and the other two did not learn to read reliably until Y5. How they expected them to learn was a complete mystery. .

They were given graded books, mostly Oxford reading tree, but in any old order mixed with other schemes (Ginn? ). The good reader was kept back from progressing through the scheme because his understanding would not be sufficient for the content of the books so we ditched the school books and read what he wanted at home.

The twins were put onto books above their reading level 'to encourage them'. We also had the new 'whole class teaching' 'letter blends' and 'group reading' which seemed to put the dampers on it. So we ditched the school books and read what they wanted at home. Thank goodness for The Cat in the Hat - that was our breakthrough

Yikes, Y5 for a NT child is extremely worrying and shows that the scheme isn't working for all children, which is really sad.
Children should be able to progress and given the chance to read non scheme books too.

DS' son sends both a scheme book and a non scheme ATM for parent to read to the child and I really like that.

Yikes, Y5 for a NT child is extremely worrying and shows that the scheme isn't working for all children It was PRE-phonics - maybe phonics would have helped them, but maybe not.

The main reason is that being twins, they had better things to do with their life than reading, so just used to go through the motions at school then forget it. Then they used to get me to read everything for them .

Oh ok. I don't think any scheme will ever be the solution for every child. My hubby had huge issues with reading at school and to be honest in the end it was comics that saved him. They were also what got me reading regularly in my earlier years when I much rather had written than read.

Yikes, Y5 for a NT child is extremely worrying and shows that the scheme isn't working for all children, which is really sad.

Certainly wasn't that unusual in at least one school I know. At least 3/4 of the year 1s had 'learn to read the 45 Reception key words as a target. At least 2-3 of those children still had the same target in Yr5 every year.
Now children reading at that level is almost unheard of except in rare cases.

It is definitely better if they can get all the children reading like that. Mine were just left to get on with it - 'middle class home' is supposed to make up for it . Goodness knows, I did my best. They now think they each have some form of dyslexia, but they are both adult and struggling with some things. It might have been useful to have had a better idea when they were younger.

Yes, Rafa, I would say all my Y2s could read them easily. Whether or not they could spell them is a different kettle of fish altogether

The 'middle class home' thing crops up a lot. I think it extends from the misconception that all you need to do is read to a child and they'll pick up learning to read.

It's the labelling them as exception words I have an issue with Feenie. To some common exception words=tricky words=words that can't be sounded out. They may not use the most common spelling for a particular sound, but that's not the same as being an exception.

Especially when many of the 'exception' PGCs appear in phase 5 of a government produced phonics scheme

Totally agree!

For a department that were so keen on phonics, the spelling appendix to the NC seems to be a bit of a mess and a missed opportunity.

Spelling appendix?

www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/239784/English_Appendix_1_-_Spelling.pdf

If anyone can offer a reasonable explanation as to why 'believe' is a yr 3/4 word, while 'achieve' is a yr 5/6 one, I'm all ears. Similarly for 'fruit' and 'bruise'.

I would assume she has been given car and park so she can read and post on MN parking threads!

She'd also be taught rude words to do that!

She'll also need 'bus', 'pram' and 'wedding'.

And 'child' and 'space'.

Forgot 'benefits', 'goat', 'flat', 'screen' and 'TV'.

That lot should cover about 90% of AIBU.

Nah most of the rude words are decodable with phase one...

Rafals, it will be to do with frequency. I'm not sure how they do that with children's vocabulary, though, but I think that a younger child is more likely to know the word believe (I believe you/do you believe in magic?/I couldn't believe it) than achieve (higher frequency synonyms include get, manage, do, dependent on context) even though they have the same spelling pattern. Likewise, younger children more likely to know the word fruit as it's general and very familiar whereas bruise is a more specific word for a particular kind of pain/injury which comes later, and many children use a baby word for injuries (even "bump" or simply saying "I hurt my leg", not necessarily ouchie/booboo etc) rather than using specifics like bruise, cut, graze, sprain etc.

Goat?