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

[Readytomakechanges]

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.

Newly reading reception children + grafitti is always a good combination.

Goat comes from and old MN benefits bashing thread. Something along the lines of 'people on benefits get my goat' I think. It's brought up every time someone starts a goady benefits thread.

Maybe Bertie. I'm not completely convinced, but it doesn't help that there are words that appear in the non-statutory lists for 3/4 that are also in the 5/6 wordlist and vice versa. I just don't think they've thought it through properly.

Grafitti lol. Will try that one in the morning with my son.

I think it's otherwise known as graffiti.

I take no responsibility for any awkward questions about new vocabulary that may result from parents encouraging their children to read graffiti.

Lol. He's asked more awkward questions, trust me.

I'm sure he has.

She can translate for herself in a few years

Rafals, it will be to do with frequency

See, now you would think that, but some of them are so obscure I've yet to meet the Year 2 child who has included 'steak' in their writing, for example. Or any Y5/6 child who has needed to.spell.'yacht'.

I don't think "yacht" is such a obscure word for primary children.
Certainly my ds never has experience of sailing on the yacht, but he has seen plenty of them when we went to the ocean/beach. Also read books about ships, yacht etc.

Also my ds definitely knew word "steak" in yr2, because it came up as an item called "behemoth steak" in one of his favorite game!

Feenie, my YR 1 child has used steak in her writing, and she barely writes much... she spelt it wrong too.

'Forty' is in the year 5/6 words, so I'm not at all convinced about the frequency argument. Yr2 would be a good place for that.

All the lists I've seen so far, organise those words in alphabetical order. Last year I though I'd be helpful and see if I could organise them differently by grouping the words and using the statutory spelling patterns taught in KS2. I'm not sure the people who came up with the word list and the people who wrote the spelling programme are the same people. The closer you look at it the more inconsistencies you find.

Yes, but why 'steak' over and above any other type of food?! There are no other culinary items on the list and it's not the first word your average Y2 child would reach for - certainly not the vegetarians.

And I don't think 'yacht' is obscure, necessarily - just not hugely pressing as one of the whatever number of words they absolutely MUST know how to spell in Y5 and 6.

Steak is of course essential, for when vampires attack, we need our children to know they have to go the stake supply store, and not start looking around steak restaurants.

I wonder if the 'frequency' element of the spelling lists is based on the frequency with which these words ocurr in the book banded/levelled readers that many schools use? Some reading researchers have produced such lists.

Though I'm a bit about steak and yacht... I wouldn't have thought that they would ocurr with much regularity.

Steak, break and great are the 3 most common words that are usually quoted as using the 'Ea' spelling of /ay/.

It's a phonics thing rather than a frequency thing, but then they labelled them as exception words.

Yacht is one of the few words which begins with Y which is why it is frequently known by young children, along with x-ray, because they're often in alphabet lists. But I agree, it's not a high frequency word in language in general. It might just be because it's a weird spelling, though. I don't think there are any other words which spell /o/ as "ach" are there?

It could be frequency in reading books or it could be frequency in language in general. That's just the connection which jumped out to me as an ESL teacher. I am not in UK so I don't know the full list anyway.

I know I know!
Person who made the list loves having juicy steak while sailing on the yacht!

The person who made the listed was from money.

'Muscle' is my favourite. The skeletal system and muscles are in the yr3 PoS for science and the 'sc' spelling is in year 3/4 in the spelling PoS. So the obvious place to put the commonly mispelt word 'muscle' is in the year 5/6 list.

"Yacht is one of the few words which begins with Y which is why it is frequently known by young children"

I find few 6 year olds know the word yacht ... yoghurt yellow yes you young yoga etc

"Yes, but why 'steak' over and above any other type of food?!"
Because it's one of a handful of words where the sound /ae/ is spelt . Break steak great ...

Mrz, not 6 year olds, yr6(and 5)

So why not break or great? Both much more commonly used.

Doesn't this go back to the point about calling these things 'common exception words?

If 'steak' was under the spelling pattern 'ea' rather than a section about 'common words', would it be an issue? Doesn't it just become part of a list of words for reading and spelling that can be used in teaching?