Non-decodable book sent home

[drspouse]

DS has just started Y1, he's decoding nicely and building up fluency. He is still on Red partly I think because he tends to mix up some of his digraphs.
I've done the Yellow digraphs on Hairy Phonics and read a few bits with him too. But if they feel he needs more practice on Red that's great.
However we've just had a non-decodable book from school. New Zealand publisher, 1997, all repetitive/guessable, and on every page is the word Time. He's not done i-e. The title contains i-e too.
Shall I send it back and say maybe it's in the wrong band?
He's started trying to guess words which we have firmly discouraged and I try not to say "you've seen this word before" unless it's an official "tricky word" but that's how he'd have to read this book.
Maybe advice from @mrz?

Ah, ok. Thanks irvine. I don't understand all this modern terminology!

Wait WHAT! Why has mrz de registered? She's absolutely amazing I love reading her posts.

Sorry for the de rail

Mrz has gone, because of us stupid posters who has taken her for granted, and didn't appreciate her dedication.

No, she's just v busy right now.

I did think that some posters on the last thread she was on were extremely and unnecessarily unpleasant, actually. But that had nothing to do with her deregging.

They've done Yellow digraphs in Reception but they didn't do spilt digraphs as a group (I assume the more advanced children did).
I know this because he came home with all the example sheets to practice his hand signs (which he really likes).

Mine has just started reception. His first book came home with decodable words and he was so chuffed he could figure them out. Then he git a book with ch words and 'the'. I had to tell him them. Then books came home he had no hope of doing anything with - we are in week 2 of reception . I keep putting them back in his bags saying 'mini peace has no chance of reading this but enjoyed me reading it to him. I've no idea what's going on. Dd's first reading books didn't even have words. Meeting for parents on Wednesday for them to explain how they teach them to read and write.

I don't understand why it is considered a bad idea to allow a child to learn a few words visually rather than phonetically as per the scheme? Can someone explain?

A very few words have to be learned visually at an early stage.
Beyond that, it hinders reading because children start to try to guess more and more words - rather than sounding them out.

My DS keeps guessing "on" (easily decodable by any child who can decode) as "no" (one of the first sight words they learned). He does this almost every time he encounters it. If they'd only let decoding bed down a bit before teaching him that sight word, I think he wouldn't be doing it.

They've also taught them he, she, me we as sight words. Would have been much easier to teach them that "e" can sound like "ee" and he could decode those immediately.

I think I caught "you" when we were doing the vowel digraphs on his app so I don't think he's going to start guessing other words starting with "y" as "you" at least.

I'd say my DS is a classic example of a child who, with a sight word reading scheme, would get to a certain point and get really really stuck. He already does it with the few sight words they are taught. I'm not going to teach him any more if I can help it.

I don't understand why it is considered a bad idea to allow a child to learn a few words visually rather than phonetically as per the scheme? Can someone explain?

Because we know that those mixed methods fail one in five children - and there's no way to predict beforehand who those 20% are going to be. Whereas high quality phonics teaching has around a 96% success rate.

Also, because the statutory NC states that children are not to be taught other methods - precisely for that reason. Unfortunately, many schools either haven't read it or ignore it completely, citing such reasons as 'no method fits all' or 'but some children will always struggle. An unwillingness to engage with research and lack of training is usually to blame.

And there's no reason to teach them as sight words, either - advice for the last 15 years has always been to teach them by following the sounds and explaining the tricky 'bit' - only tricky because they just haven't been taught that correspondence yet, not because they aren't fully decodable. There are very few words in English that are genuinely non-decodable. Most words are fully decodable if you teach children the code.

The OP explains this very well, referring to be, she, he, we, etc as easily decodable once is explained as an alternative spelling for /ee/. Absolutely no need to teach as sight words and shows a huge lack of knowledge/training when teaching professionals describe them as non-decodable.

Drspouse, you sound very clued up - with your knowledge, your ds will learn to read despite the school's methods and books. All power to you

My impression was that while synthetic phonics seems to help some children learn faster - and may be particularly useful for particular groups of children (i.e. those for whom English is a second language) that by the time children are a bit older - KS2 - there is little difference between children taught via phonics and by mixed methods.

I suppose that I am constitutionally disinclined to trust the Government on education. (Academies are better etc.) It seems to me wrong to suggest that engaged parents who read widely with childen and use a variety of strategies could possibly harm those children's learning. That seems to me like arguing that children who were removed from their parents and were brought up 'scientifically' in hygienic State crèches would be bound to grow up with better psychological and emotional health.

I totally agree with Feenie, Op's ds will be fine, no matter how school is.

And I think these are the fruit of great effort from great teachers like mrz and others, who kept telling us what's right and what's wrong.

It's quite worrying that there are still people who encourage sight reading or mixed methods are fine.
But I think if confused parents came on here and looked at millions of past thread about how to help dc to read, I assume most of them come to conclusion like op did, thanks to all those teacher's dedication to tell us parents what's right and what shouldn't be happening.

I don't particularly trust the Government but I trust researchers.

(I did a very short course in phonology as a postgrad, not much to do with what I was studying, but a lot of it's come back to me, my inner geek is happy! Poor DS is in danger of being told about place of articulation and similar).

That's a slight misunderstanding of the Clack study alberta. It is true that the 'mixed methods' control group and the phonics group had very similar comprehension results when tested at the end of primary. However, it fails to take account of the fact that the control group were not really a control group by that stage.

The intervention group were so far ahead after one year it was considered unfair to continue the control group without the phonics only approach.

And nobody has ever suggested you shouldn't read widely with children. In fact quite the opposite. It is really important in terms of vocabulary and understanding how stories work.

I am saying phonics work, as a parent who has a child with near photographic memory and leaned to read without phonics. He won't forget the words he has seen before. But he uses his phonics knowledge he learned at school now, to tackle new words.
If you relied on memory and guessing, how do you read complicated words you encounter in later years? 80% of children maybe ok, but how about those 20%?
Children who figure out decoding code themselves still benefit learning phonics.
DS is yr5 now, and he still uses breaking down/segmenting to figure out how to pronounce new words he encounters.

With my kids when they brought home books that had words they couldn't decode yet, I'd put my finger over those ones and then read them myself and explain how they hadn't got that bit of the code yet. My main issue was simply how to get a tired child to try anything, so often they'd just read the speech bubbles or the odd word I'd point at, to get them started. If a book didnt work for whatever reason then I'd read a story and invite them to pick out words at their level.

My kids would probably have learnt to read no matter what but MrNC is severely dyslexic and the synthetic phonics books have improved his reading no end!

One thing I would be very interested in - but I suspect is not likely to be subject of research - is the relationship between teaching methods and taking pleasure in reading. Obviously you have to be able to understand written text in order to want to read books. And I quite appreciate that reading is a complex skill which needs to be broken down into levels and stages.

I think my concern is that there is a lot of stress - perhaps because of increased class sizes and reduced education spending - on methods which are perceived to be scientifically efficient. Yet for me reading is not simply about a functional task. It is about awakening curiosity and enriching our understanding of the world. It seems to me entirely possible that synthetic phonics may produce a group of children who learn to read a little faster, but who enjoy reading a lot less and have a poorer understanding of what a story means because of the heavy emphasis on it as a decoding exercise. Which seems to me a dubious gain.

Michael Rosen is worth reading for his views on this.

We also need to be aware of the role of fashion. (Are studies neutral? Are they set up in order to produce the conclusions that people want them to have?) All sorts of scientific studies concluded that babies benefited from a regime of regular bottle feeding. So many fluid ounces at intervals of so many hours. Yet, this is no longer a recommended approach.

alberta, it's quite boring to hear same wrong advice again and again as a parent.
Maybe you should search past phonics post and find out why most teachers, and a lot of parents believe phonics is the way.

It's kind of hard to read for pleasure if you can't read at all, or can't read unfamiliar words..

Taking pleasure in reading is nothing to do with the skill of reading, one is simply a technical activity, which is what's taught, and until that technical skill is learnt, it's impossible to take pleasure from reading.

I cannot imagine any sort of pleasure for reading books before you can read that will not be from the praise you get from others (or perhaps yourself) for completing it, rather than the story which is what you are talking about.

And yes, any sort of teaching, and any sort of attitudes can impact unrelated things (and reading for pleasure is unrelated to the skill of reading, just like walking for pleasure is unrelated to walking)

Also of course, DD never had a "heavy emphasis" on reading being a decoding exercise, it was just how you did it, and with a purely phonic approach, reads a lot for pleasure, and at a lot earlier age than I ever picked up reading for pleasure (learnt with mixed methods in the 70's)

I think you can get pleasure from books as physical objects, and from the pictures and from being partly read to - and partly reading yourself. There is also the intimacy of sharing the experience of learning to read in a warm supportive environment. Sadly, the warm supportive environment is more likely to be a home one, than a school one. On the other hand, if as parents, we have got very hooked on grades and levels and achievements and quite young children being 'left behind' when in other countries they wouldn't even have started formal education - then there may not be a lot of intimacy and warmth at home.

I think my concerns are much more about the way in which phonics are being used in a harsh and pressured environment - than about the potential usefulness of phonic themselves as one educational tool among others.

It's like the distinction between saying 'Jesus is an interesting and important figure' and 'Only Jesus saves.'

Are you actually familiar with other country's education system, alberta?
My native country starts school at 6/7. But basic learning of reading/writing/numbers are done in kindergarten. They start really formal lesson from start of school. Also the difficulty to learn to read/write in different languages is the factor too.

If you have read any of past phonics thread, you would realise that so many children are struggling because of not adequate teaching of phonics at school and parents decided to do it themselves, with help from great MN teachers.

This thread makes me feel quite sad at the lack of joy in books and reading.

My just 7 yr old, who's never been taught phonics and isn't a child that is always highly able in learning, is sitting right now and laughing his had off curling up in the corner with Fantastic Mr Fox. He does know familiar letter pattern sounds, could explain the effect of adding an 'e' onto the end of hat because he's read so many books he's noticed. He's known to write to Blue Peter quite a bit too and his spelling is quite acceptable and on the right track. I can't see him as disadvantaged any more than I was, loving reading and books.

Even if you're so against your child reading it because you have signed up to such a rigid approach, at least read it to them and discuss it for comprehension purposes. Maybe make up a new ending, discuss a character or draw something from it of interest- but sending it back is sheer madness.

letdown, just because people decide to follow phonics approach, you think there's no joy in reading, and don't do things you suggest, is beyond me.