Concerned that school reading books are hindering DDs reading progress

[Readytomakechanges]

I'm currently struggling with anxiety so can't figure out whether I'm being over-anxious about DD's reading or whether I have legitimate concerns that I need to be talking to DD's teacher about.

DD started reception in September. They cover phonics at school and the sounds that have been covered at school come home in a phonics book. So far, all of the sounds written in DD's phonics book are sounds that she was previously confident with. I see this as a good thing as it will ensure that the sounds are really cemented in her memory and will ensure she hasn't 'missed' any sounds as she's mainly learnt them through reading at home rather than any formal order.

In addition to the phonics, DD gets 'Key Words' sheets sent home. It has been made very clear to us that the key words are to be learnt by sight and not sounded out. I understand that, at this stage, it can be helpful to learn some high frequency words by sight as they appear regularly in text and the spellings for those sounds are not learnt until later. However, the majority of the words given by the school are words that could be decoded easily with DD's current phonics knowledge.

The problem that I'm encountering is that, as DD has learnt now 80 words by sight, this seems to have made her more likely to guess words that look vaguely similar to the sight words she knows rather than to decode them.

The reading books that are sent home (she gets 2-3 per week) are the Storyworld books and are made up almost entirely of the 'sight' words that DD has learnt. The 'key words' sent home are made up of some of the year one high frequency words that turn up if I google 'high frequency words' and some words that seem specific to the Storyworld stories, so that DD can sight-read the books quickly. The books seem set up to reinforce learning these words by sight as they have lots of repetition. Each book may have one word that can be decoded and the rest have already been taught by sight (DD's not decoding quickly).

DD reads to me most days. We have Jelly and Bean Books (a gift), Songbirds and a Reading Chest subscription. I didn't mind that the books from school were as I have described, as DD races through them in a minute, so I thought of them as just something that DD needed to do and then she can choose anything from our home collection, whenever she likes. However, I've now noticed that after reading her school books, her reading of other books seems slightly worse. It's as though she loses faith in the decoding and tries to guess a lot more after having sight read the school book, which makes her reading of other books worse.

We also get books sent home that were read at school with a TA, with a comment in her reading diary such as "Excellent reading! No hesitations. Answered all questions correctly." DD does not get anything from reading this book again, but the book will not be changed until I have written a comment about it having been read again at home.

Well done if you've read this far.

In summary: Are my concerns legitimate enough to bring up with the teacher at the next parents evening in March, or do I just need to chill out and leave it (easier said than done for me atm)?

[Gooseberryfools]

Our school books were completely uninspiring.

[HarveySchlumpfenburger]

What imbecile would do that?

Still waiting for the answer from Rosen on that one.

More to the point - where's the harm in teaching integrated cueing? I read that way. Don't all fluent readers?

No. Those strategies are usually predominant in weaker readers. Are you really saying that if you are reading a text and come across a word that you have never read before (possibly a technical one that isn't in your vocab) you have to resort to looking at the first letter and taking a guess at what it might be? Or do you read the rest of the sentence and go back and guess the word (not that it's actually possible to guess a word that isn't in your oral vocab, you just have to leave it out).

I don't understand how that is possibly better than a reader who can blend all through a new word using a phonetically plausible, if sometimes incorrect, pronunciation and adds a new word to their vocab at the same time.

Stacatto reading is a common phase in early readers. It's a sign of developing phonics skills, not strong ones. It doesn't necessarily interfere with comprehension even though many teachers still believe it does.

[ittooshallpass]

The books sent home from DDs school were boring. Everyine doesn't need phonics. I wasn't taught to read thhrough phonics. The English language doesn't really lend itself to phonics... so many words spelt exactly the same with different pronunciations and meanings.

Like I said one size doesn't fit all. As long as your child is progressing and understands what they are reading I personally wouldn't worry.

[user789653241]

And the thing is, my ds never get bored with reading any books.
Until he got free reader status, he brought home school scheme books, and some he did several times. He never said any book was boring.

[user789653241]

My ds is a great reader/decoder who learnt to read before school. He learned phonics at school. It has made him even better reader, he can tackle unknown words easily now, and his spellings are excellent.

Some able reader may learn to read using their own strategy,(in my ds' case, his own understanding of how phonics work) but knowledge of proper phonics is invaluable.

[Gooseberryfools]

With all my kids we read the first 6 or so levels of books then abandoned them for real library books. We both got frustrated with the reading provision. They are engaged and interested. Spell well. And all working a couple of years ahead.

[Feenie]

You may well find the teacher is just as frustrated but government has dictated this is the way to do things

Definitely not the case from the OP's description.

[mrz]

"Some children don't 'get' or need phonics" we all need phonics because it's how language works without it we'd not have an effective strategy for reading unfamiliar vocabulary, increasing important as we access more technical language in school and the workplace.

[sashh]

You may well find the teacher is just as frustrated but government has dictated this is the way to do things.

Just get her to read as much as she can, if she enjoys it so much the better.

At this age reading is the most important skill she can acquire and will allow her to access the curriculum later in her school life.

[ittooshallpass]

Some children don't 'get' or need phonics. My DD is bright and a great reader. She has learned all by sight. Phonics made no sense to her. We read at home daily. Very rarely read the books that come home from school. The stories are bland. We have a house full of much more exciting books at home, fiction and non fiction, which DD devours.

I wouldn't worry about your DD. One size does not fit all. Let her enjoy reading. Pushing any child to use a methodology that doesn't suit them could kill the joy of reading for them.

[mrz]

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/education/reading-recovery-literacy-program-should-be-dumped-experts/news-story/aa1f1a3a3179e60a74d6ff07687b0c23
"A controversial reading program that experts believe actually harms children in the long term is in its death throes in Australia and should be axed from schools in the last state that still supports it wholesale, an academic says."

[mrz]

"It's the basis of the Reading Recovery initiative" http://www.massey.ac.nz/massey/about-massey/news/article.cfm?mnarticle_uuid=f287725f-9e6f-011d-be0e-f34366b8376a6a*^

[mrz]

"Don't all fluent readers?" Simple answer based on research (eye fixation/movement studies) ...no ...good readers don't use these cues.

[LoveDeathPrizes]

More to the point - where's the harm in teaching integrated cueing? I read that way. Don't all fluent readers? No one cue system is sufficient for all text.

[onthelevel]

Reading your child's school reading book with her is important, as others have said that although the current approach to the teaching of reading in schools is phonics based; children approach reading in many different ways and it sounds that for your daughter it all makes sense and she doesn't necessarily need a phonetic approach, certainly continue doing lots of other types of reading with her,but please as a teacher, do support the school by hearing her read school books too!

[LoveDeathPrizes]

No. I don't think so.

Rose Review in full not nearly as phonic-dominant as put forward.

Simple View lower right quadrant for phonic dominant readers.

Text level comprehension activities do not account for the gaps in sentence and passage level understanding. Lots of phonic led readers sound very stacatto - they struggle to even phrase across 2 words.

[IDontWantThisOnFacebook]

Only read the first few posts, and then jamdonut's, which I loved.

I have no experience of learning how to read, other than doing it myself in the 80's. My eldest is in Yr1 and brings a variety of books home, though mostly Oxford Reading Tree. I absolutely LOVE listening to him read, we do it every night. We snuggle up in his bed and enjoy a book or two, and I always tell him I enjoy nothing more than listening to him read. After reading jamdonut's post, I'm just going to carry on doing that and hope for the best!

Sounds to me like you're over-thinking things OP; your DD is in Reception and she's getting lots of help and support at home. As long as she enjoys herself that's all that matters imo (like I say, no experience in this field so ignore me if you like).

[Feenie]

Phonics, when used as the only strategy has led to a real decline in comprehension and inference skills in reading

How can a strategy used.to.decode lead to a real decline in comprehension and inference? The only way that could happen is if teachers simultaneously stopped teaching any comprehension or inference. What imbecile would do that?

[HarveySchlumpfenburger]

The Simple View of Reading is a nice model that summarises its findings.

Is there a chance that you may have misunderstood phonics and the simple view of reading?

If you think the Rose review and the simple model of reading = mixed methods, there may have been a miscommunication somewhere.

Phonics only has only ever been meant as 'phonics only' as a route to decoding on the page. It is always part of a language rich curriculum and doesn't exclude activities that develop comprehension e.g. drama and role play, picking apart texts etc.

What it does mean is giving children texts they have the skills to access and not relying on multicueing strategies to 'decode' words on the page. These multicueing strategies are stupidly hard to unteach when children have them ingrained and they are causing problems.

[jamdonut]

Threads like this never cease to amaze me.
Quite clearly she is doing fine!

I have 3 children who all learned to read completely differently.
The eldest ( he's now 24, doing History degree) didn't learn with phonics, he brought home key words that he learnt, and we read the books that he was given by school. He made quick progress, as we used to read together at home, before school began to teach him. Books weren't decodable as such, and some were quite ancient.

My daughter ( now 20, doing music degree) started learning Jolly Phonics at school, then we moved and she continued with Letterland at the new school. No problem, we read together at home, and she read the largely non decodeable books from school...Phonics was beginning to be taught daily in literacy hour. She progressed well.

My youngest child( now 16, doing A levels) could read when he started nursery. He basically taught himself, and as the nursery teacher put it had an "amazing ability" to read. I didn't do anything different with him, we read books together at home,as with the others, and he could just do it!
Phonics was being taught more rigourously at school by this point, through Letters and Sounds. Books were no more decodeable than my other two had.He was a 'free reader' in year 2.

I am now a TA in that same school. We now do Read,Write,Inc with a very good degree of success.
But the reading books children take home are still not all completely 'decodeable'. We have Songbirds, and a wide variety of others. We don't have any really ancient books anymore, they were all got rid of. Reading books are sent home for the children to have a wide variety of reading material, in their level, to try to encourage a love of reading.

I've told you all this because in my experience, children learn to read in very different ways. My own children read well, but that was with no major input from me other than reading to them and listening to them.And each learned completely differently at school.

If your child reads well, get a lot of books, maybe from the library, and sit and read them together.
Use school books for practice at their current level. Don't worry if they're not changed straight away. Reading a book more than once does not mean a backward step.Just check that there is understanding of what has been read, and that unusual vocabulary is understood.
Just continue to read other books for fun.

I think it sounds like she is doing just fine from what you have said!

[LoveDeathPrizes]

Sorry - went off topic. What I should've have said was, try a bit of everything- that way you know she has other tricks up her sleeve for when the phonics isn't enough.

Sorry again. Really need to get out more.

[LoveDeathPrizes]

That is interesting. I also think there's a dearth of research into capacity to visualise and abstract and how it informs comp. Obviously it runs very deep and there will be caveats to all research as reading is inevitably subjective. But I have personally found that many poor readers rely purely on phonics and respond well when encouraged to pay equal attention to other cues, which is why my instinct would always be to teach a wide-range of reading strategies.

[ageingrunner]

Does it matter if a child has memorised or learnt words by sight? That's how people read when they've learnt to read, surely? I'm not decoding every word I read on here.

[LoveDeathPrizes]

The RR evidence-base for the point in question would be inference training rather than strict RR.

I appreciate that RR has its limitations too.

[LoveDeathPrizes]

The Rose Report suggests use of mixed methods is best. The phonics focus was taken completely out of context and pushed as the way forward but the full report doesn't support this. The Simple View of Reading is a nice model that summarises its findings.