Active discussions

Are your children’s vaccines up to date?

Set a reminder

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Primary education

Join our Primary Education forum to discuss starting school and helping your child get the most out of it.

Original poster

Non-decodable book sent home

259 replies

drspouse · 16/09/2017 13:07

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?

OP posts:
Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
Set a reminder
TheHumanSatsuma · 17/09/2017 19:36

I learnt to read by loving books, chill out.
Before you say anything, I am a Primary School teacher, specialising for more than 20 years in helping children who didn't fit into the box.

Maybe he chose the book.

Norestformrz · 17/09/2017 19:51

As a primary school teacher of more than twenty years you'll know that children don't learn to read by osmosis and no matter how much you love books it doesn't mean you will be guaranteed to learn to read them.

GreenTulips · 17/09/2017 20:00

but also kept making a fuss, and eventually they found some money to buy more books.

You could've jointed the PTA and raised some money for books rather than bag school

OP it's one book, the teachers have 30 odd kids to look after are you really suggesting sending it back with a note to say 'it's on the wrong band'? Seriously take a day off work and go in and sort the books out if you're that bored there's, meanwhile let the teacher, you know teach

Original poster
drspouse · 17/09/2017 20:16

second week of reception
Year 1 actually.
A frustrated child who can't read any of a book that the teacher gave him is an unhappy grumpy child who makes my morning life a million times more unpleasant. I don't want to inflict that on anyone else (teacher or other parent).
If he chose it himself he also put a red sticker on it which seems... Unlikely.
I'll leave the technical stuff to you lot and stick to notes in the reading diary.

OP posts:
Norestformrz · 17/09/2017 20:38

Sorry OP. Regardless TOWRE is a measure of fluency and not relevant to the thread

GreenTulips · 17/09/2017 20:39

Life is full of frustrations he needs to learn to deal with that as much as he needs to learn to read

It's one book get over it

Original poster
drspouse · 18/09/2017 19:25

Apparently it "wasn't a mistake" and "he's on the red level and some of the books have phonics they don't know". (Why?)
No indication of whether I'm supposed to tell him to guess, read the words for him that he can't decode, or teach him that combination myself.

As it was known as "silent e" when I was at school but that was because we started with letter names not sounds, I'd have to first teach him letter names...

OP posts:
brilliotic · 18/09/2017 20:48

Yeah, sounds like he's reached the end of the decodable books. Why teachers don't get that having them re-read the decodable books, or even moving them up a level to decodable books that may be a bit hard, would be preferable to throwing old 'Look&Say' books at them, I'll never understand.

Original poster
drspouse · 18/09/2017 21:03

I think he needs to move up too. I already told them we've been practicing Yellow digraphs. Maybe I wasn't supposed to (kind of hard not to as they're all together on Hairy Phonics).

OP posts:
museumum · 19/09/2017 09:35

Has he not heard letter names?
My ds had played the CBeebies alphablocks games and they say for eg "this is oh, he makes the sound o" also has he never heard the alphabet song? My ds had heard people use letter names and sounds by the tune he was three so I had to support him in knowing both.
"Magic e" exists in alphablocks too although my ds doesn't get quite what it does yet and I'm not pushing it (he's just turned 4).

Anotheroneishere · 19/09/2017 09:43

OP, let your kid try the words he doesn't know and correct him.

If he sounds out "time" with /t/-/i/-/m/-/e/, you just say, great job! Those are the letters. The word is /t-igh-m/. Done.

Reading real books involves coming across words you're not familiar with and getting help. My Year 2 could use that lesson, since he reads over words he doesn't know the meaning of.

Original poster
drspouse · 19/09/2017 09:47

The Alphablocks seemed a bit of a leap/a bit fast relative to his reading speed so we left them for a bit.
I just told him that word, and the other i-e words. There were also other sight words some of which he's supposed to know as "tricky words" so I tried to remind him of those instead.
It really is a look and say book - every page has exactly the same words except for one word that has a large clue in the picture.

OP posts:
brilliotic · 19/09/2017 10:17

Does it go something like

It is time to get up.
It is time for breakfast.
It is time for school.
It is time for play.
It is time for dinner.
It is time for bed.

?

Our school discourages guessing from pictures. Will at times cover the pictures to make the children read rather than guess.

But then they give them this kind of books. What are the children meant to do?!

Nobody (as in no person) ever encouraged my DS to guess from the pictures, but he developed that habit anyway. Because these BOOKS do. The books themselves promote bad habits. Please do not expose your child to too many of them. It is quite hard to undo the guessing habit once established. And it is such a step backwards, and can really dent a child's confidence.

Original poster
drspouse · 19/09/2017 10:29

Yes it is a lot like that (but not those exact words).
I covered the pictures too.
He did sound out "get" and "up" and the last word in the sentence and actually did quite well at those. Some of which had Yellow digraphs in them (so JUST PUT HIM ON YELLOW BOOKS).

OP posts:
Original poster
drspouse · 19/09/2017 10:30

And it's really hard not to let him guess - as it's more encouraging for a child to get a word right.

OP posts:
Original poster
drspouse · 22/10/2017 22:07

Aargh this keeps happening now.
He's moved up to Yellow.
The books have a yellow sticker.
They use ORT but these are not current ORT I don't think - none of them have the digraphs he is learning on the back.
They are in the series that includes By the Stream.
We also just got another Australian one that included "know" and "anyone". Not yellow level I don't think.
What do we do now?

OP posts:
grobagsforever · 22/10/2017 22:42

Only on Mumsnet could this thread exist. @drspouse you can't honestly believe any of this detail matters? Children who are taught to read at school and encouraged to read at home will learn to read.

Buy him books he loves, give him plenty of encouragement, pour yourself a large gin and chill the hell out...

Norestformrz · 23/10/2017 05:29

“Children who are taught to read at school and encouraged to read at home will learn to read. “ you would think so wouldn’t you unfortunately you’re wrong and the problem we have as parents (and teachers) is that there is absolutely no way to identify those children who will be failed by this in advance.

Ellle · 23/10/2017 09:29

If you think the school books are unsuitable, use them as a book for you to read to him so you can sign in the diary that the books were read. And get him a set of decodable books that he can read to you at home.

I had a bunch of old ORT ones I bought second hand for DS1 when he was starting to read in English, and a Superhero set that had the word "phonics" on the tittle but were not decodable at all with lots of complex words on every page. When DS2 wanted to learn how to read in English I bought him the Songbirds series and he worked his way up. Once he finished the last level on that he started reading the old ORT and the Superhero ones and it was so much easier.

Another thing you can do if you decide to use the school books is to let him sound and read the words that have the sounds you know he can do, and when he gets to a word that you know will be difficult for him because it has phonics he doesn't know yet, tell him that and read that word yourself. You can add the explanation of that phonic sound as well and he might remember it and learn it that way, even if it is not on the set of phonic sounds he is currently doing it.

Original poster
drspouse · 23/10/2017 10:25

Ellle I am really tempted by that idea (we did use Reading Chest over the summer but we could easily just get a bit pile of secondhand Floppy Phonics or similar) but they also check their reading using the books sent home and I'm a bit worried either a) he'll tell them that we are just reading the books to him or b) he obviously won't be able to read the non-decodable words in the books they send home.

We have generally been using your last strategy but when there are SO MANY words he can't yet sound out - and which don't have the "yellow" phonemes in them - it gets a bit ridiculous "that word's a bit hard for you... so's that one... and that one... OK that's a tricky word you know, can you remember it? OK now give this word a go.

OP posts:
Original poster
drspouse · 23/10/2017 10:55

Just starting another thread about getting some extra books...

OP posts:
Ellle · 23/10/2017 11:06

I see what you mean, if he can only read a few words and you have to step in to read most of the words on a book that he is supposed to be reading by himself, it can be demoralising for him.

Well, I would just do it and rather than worrying if your DS is going to tell the school that you are just reading the books to him, you could write it down in the reading diary so they can see you are the one reading the books because they are non-decodable and contain complex phonics that he has not been taught yet. And I would keep writing that on the diary over and over until they send a decodable book he can actually read by himself. That's the point of the reading diary, to send them feedback.

And then I would forget about the school, and concentrate on reading the decodable books at home and you can teach him the phonic sounds he needs as he progresses with the books. Forget about the school books, and whether they will not let him progress to the next level. If he learns all the phonics he needs at home and becomes confident reading the decodable books, eventually he will be able to apply that to any other book. That's what I saw with DS2. Once he could read perfectly well the last level of Songbirds, he could read the old ORT books I had put away, and the Superhero ones as well. Every now and then we would find a tricky word, and I just had to explain that one, but it was much better that way.

Original poster
drspouse · 24/10/2017 09:49

Well we are on track - two pages of the school book was like pulling teeth, but we happened to have an ORT non-fiction phonics book and he read "nocturnal" correctly even though he didn't know what it meant. And he was so much more confident reading that book too.

So have written out all the words he can't sound out, in his reading diary, we'll carry on like that. Never mind if they can't get him to read their books at school, he is not the kind of child who will notice that other children have progressed to a new level.

OP posts:
Notintheframe · 24/10/2017 17:07

This discussion is so strange. It almost seems unreal. Limiting a child's reading by adhering to a rigid rule that requires a child to only read books through a scheme and nothing else.

Swipe left for the next trending thread