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?

Reading words automatically and quickly not teaching words as wholes

My son is only 4 and not at school yet (Scotland). He loves CBeebies alphablocks so has been introduced to phonics without the jargon (e.g. He's never heard the word digraph).

However the words he most wants to read and write are names. Often Eilidh or Isla! So I've just told him that there are lots of words that he should "guess" by sounding out but that they might not quite work as they might be from another language or have a silent letter and there are rules he's not met yet like igh or ough. He doesn't have any issue with this in terms of confidence so I really hope this continues.
It doesn't seem to me that a book for reading with some undecodeable words should really cause big problems if read together.

In my area Educational Psychologists use the Wechsler Individual Achievement Test.

Reading
▪ Word Reading: assesses pre-reading (phonological awareness) and decoding skills (naming letters, phonological skills [working with sounds in words], reading words from lists).
▪ Reading Comprehension: assesses types of reading comprehension skills taught in the classroom or used in everyday life (matching words to pictures, reading sentences aloud, orally answering oral questions about reading passages, silent reading speed).
▪ Pseudoword (phonetic) Decoding: assesses the ability to apply phonetic decoding skills. (Reading nonsense words aloud from a list [phonetic word attack]).

It's fine to read a book like that together.

It's not fine if it's a book given specifically for reading practice.

roloisking, that's the definition of automaticity.

If you read the manual, the authors are in support of Ehri's (2002) research that suggests readers use at least 5 different strategies to identify words in text:

1. Blending together individual phonemes
2. Noticing and blending together familiar spelling patterns
3. Recognising printed words as whole units and reading them "by sight"
4. Making analogies to other words that are already known
5. Using clue from context to guess a word's identity.

I am aware that there are alternative views, but just wish to point out that the test does set up to measure sight word reading however you believe that is achieved.

I would not wish a return to the "searchlights" methods of teaching reading which was disastrous for so many children and fully support the policy of systematic synthetic phonics teaching in schools; however, there are a very small percentage of children who need to learn to read in a different way. If a child is unable to discriminate the sounds that make up words or has a very poor short-term memory, blending to read and segmenting to spell may prove very difficult..

Reading words automatically (sight words if you like) doesn't require teaching words as wholes.

Reading words automatically (sight words if you like) doesn't require teaching words as wholes

My post was about assessment, not teaching.

But sight words in the context your referring to means automaticity - the ultimate aim of any method.

*You're

A staggering helpful autocorrect from my kindle there

But sight words in the context your referring to means automaticity - the ultimate aim of any method

I don't disagree, but mrz stated that TOWRE-2 does not measure "sight word" reading when it clearly sets out to do just that.

In my area Educational Psychologists use the Wechsler Individual Achievement Test

and they use additional tests to assess for specific difficulties that affect reading and writing, e.g. cognitive processing skills, where appropriate.

Are there not different types of phonics programmes, that are slightly different.
Earlier, a pp was said to be totally wrong by claiming that 'you' and 'the' are not decodable, but in my kids school, these are classed as 'red' words, and you can't 'Fred a red' (this is read write inc)
I know in my mums school they do 'Floppy phonics' and in a friend school they do 'jolly phonics'

"I don't disagree, but mrz stated that TOWRE-2 does not measure "sight word" reading when it clearly sets out to do just that." It measures reading automaticity not memorising words as wholes (it's all down to understanding of "sight words")

Are there not different types of phonics programmes, that are slightly different

Read, Write Inc, Floppy Phonics and Jolly Phonics are all systematic, synthetic phonic schemes. The red words in Read, Write Inc are common exception words - whilst they are decodable, the children in that year group may not have been taught that that alternative sound e.g. the letter "y" can make a long "i" sound to decode and read words like "my" or "by" whereas, at that particular stage in their education, the children may have only been explicitly taught "y" as in "yellow

It measures reading automaticity not memorising words as wholes (it's all down to understanding of "sight words")

My original post on the subject put "sight words" in inverted commas. Your reply differentiated between "sight words" and "automaticity"

From my previous post quoting from the TOWRE-2 manual on 5 reading strategies (NB these of the authors of the test's view and not necessarily mine)

1. "Recognising printed words as whole units and reading them "by sight"

"Are there not different types of phonics programmes, that are slightly different" RWI, Floppy's Phonics and Jolly Phonics are all examples of SSP (same type but different "brand names" if you like) but they do introduce sounds in a slightly different order. Children can't Fred talk some high frequency words without the teacher providing additional information (sounds/spelling not yet introduced) RWI calls these words Red words. If you teach a child one word as a whole the child can read one word. If you teach them the missing knowledge needed to read the word they can apply that knowledge to many words ...OPs example of he, she, me, we, be

The 'red' words in RWI aren't supposed to be taught as wholes though. The red word cards have sound buttons and I'm pretty sure the procedure for teaching them does involve pointing out the graphemes that haven't yet been taught and some blending.

It does seem like a number of schools might be going off piste though

TOWRE-II is a measure of an individual's ability to pronounce printed words. It was published in 1999 and is based on multi- cueing methods.

TOWRE-II is a measure of an individual's ability to pronounce printed words. It was published in 1999

TOWRE-2 was published in 2012.

2011 actually but it's still multi-cueing

2011 actually but it's still multi-cueing

- it's an assessment tool, it's not used to teach anything

I haven't said it teaches anything ... but it's an assessment based on a teaching philosophy.
It has 2 parts first measures how many pseudo words an individual is able to decode in 45seconds
Second how many words can be read from a list in 45seconds (or words that can be processed as single orthographic all units such that they are recognised quickly and with little effort)

I haven't said it teaches anything ... but it's an assessment based on a teaching philolosophy

I am not sure what your point is then.

How does the authors' philosophy on how people learn to read affect an individual's ability to read lists of single words and non-words quickly? You will need a good phonic knowledge to read the non-words quickly and accurately, but whether you've learnt to read by decoding or whole word recognition is immaterial in the sight word recognition sub-test - you just have to be able to read the words at a certain speed (norm-referenced) to get a standard score or above.

TOWRE-2 is a recognised test for use in diagnostic assessments for SpLD, is often used as evidence for JCQ access arrangements for GCSE and A levels and is recognised by SASC for assessments for the Student Finance's Disabled Students Allowance. It is also commonly used in research into reading difficulties. It has a good provenance, even if you don't agree with the researchers' philosophy on how children learn to read.

Where did I say anything about the "author's philosophy"?

Or "researchers philosophy"

I'm not sure how an assessment or reading speed has anything to do with the subject of this thread ...a beginner reader in their second week of reception.