How to ask teacher for more advanced material

[Rorymum81]

Hi, I'm new here. I have a a query. My son who is 4 and a half has just started reception.

My son has always had a good vocabulary from a fairly young age. He has been bringing home books from school as homework - they are wordless. The purpose of these is apparently for them to make up their own dialogue and to tell you what's going on and to complete the activities at the back of the book. My son does this with ease and is quickly bored. He brought home words to learn, he knows them now- no; go; to; said; the; and I.

I don't want to sound like an arrogant parent, he can't read and he can't write anything but an 'o'. He's not a genius or anything, im sure the teachers know what theyre doing but i feel that he would much prefer to learn words.

How do I approach his teacher with this?

Lots of advice here. Just to add my two pence worth, the first term of Reception it is near impossible to work out exactly what each child knows and where they are at. Shyness and lack of confidence can easily mask ability. Our son's first open evening report was absolute rubbish. The teacher herself even admitted it wasn't correct. It wasn't that she lied or didn't know him. It was just at that early stage he lacked the confidence to really show what he knew and she hadn't had the time to learn his interests or personality quirks to help him open up and could only assess on what she'd seen, not what she suspected to be true. At our school no one takes a reading book home until after half term in Reception. Each child has to have an assessment before moving up a colour group and they have to have the correct level of comprehension. They could decode harder and more complicated words, but there is no point if what they are reading doesn't make sense.

Also I'm not sure if it was explained, but there are words that don't follow phonic rules. The Reception children at school receive a collection of words that they need to learn - 'tricky words' the ones that cannot be sounded out easily and high frequency words such as 'and', 'mum', 'dad' etc. which speed up their reading if they know them.

Also I'm not sure if it was explained, but there are words that don't follow phonic rules. The Reception children at school receive a collection of words that they need to learn - 'tricky words' the ones that cannot be sounded out easily and high frequency words such as 'and', 'mum', 'dad' etc. which speed up their reading if they know them.

No, it hasn't been explained, because it isn't accurate. All words follow phonics rules and the advice for tricky words has always been to follow through the word isolating each sound and explaining the sounds not yet taught.

The term 'high frequency' doesn't mean 'cannot be sounded out', but is a very common misconception.

Also, 'and', 'mum' and 'dad' are perfectly regular and very easily sounded out.

"Also I'm not sure if it was explained, but there are words that don't follow phonic rules. The Reception children at school receive a collection of words that they need to learn - 'tricky words' the ones that cannot be sounded out easily and high frequency words such as 'and', 'mum', 'dad' etc. which speed up their reading if they know them."
This is extremely poor practice. If this is the information your school is giving parents someone needs phonics training (urgently).

Jesus - years ago we were all taught to read on sight words and it didn't do us any harm. There ARE words which don't follow phonics rules and need to be learned. There's nothing wrong with learning the 100 high frequency words by sight.

As for the op - your son can't read yet you are moaning you've not been given harder books there will be loads of children in reception who can read fluently and will still be sent home picture books for the first while. I'd love to see you go and complain when your son can't actually read a thing. Hes at the right level for his age - but not advanced. I fear you sound a lot like THAT parent

Jesus - years ago we were all taught to read on sight words and it didn't do us any harm. There ARE words which don't follow phonics rules and need to be learned. There's nothing wrong with learning the 100 high frequency words by sight.

No, it didn't do the successful four out of five children any harm - which is marvellous for them.

Shame about the one in five children it completely failed though. So 20% of the classroom. With no way to predict in advance who will be confused by mixed methods before you screw it up.

Still, nothing wrong with it, eh? If it was good enough for us......oh, wait...

Eh what research or facts do you have to back up that statement?

I never said that high frequency words couldn't be sounded out using phonics. I was stating they we are given bank of words -some that are what our school call 'tricky' and some 'high frequency'. I also think I said words that didn't follow phonic rules. That's not to say they can't be sounded out, but they don't match the sounds they learn first. You have to reach the end of learning digraphs etc. before you can decode them and even then some of them need them to be able to recognise that the pronounication doesn't match the sounding out.

I am also happy to state that the phonics method is not suitable for all. Especially children like my son who cannot hear several sounds and has some speech issues. He manages fairly well with his reading, however spelling is a huge issue as the 'sounding out method' in his head is far from reliable. No method suits 100% of children.

Just look at the of national average of reading results during the 90s and 2000s, where mixed methods were actively pushed through the literacy hour and 20% children consistently failed to learn to read.

Sight reading was an idea launched with no research whatsoever. It's been consistently proven to be less effective than using high quality phonics, which has around a 96% success rate.

I also think I said words that didn't follow phonic rules. You have to reach the end of learning digraphs etc. before you can decode them and even then some of them need them to be able to recognise that the pronounication doesn't match the sounding out.

/a/, /m/, /n/ and /d/ are amongst the very first sounds taught, so mum, dad and and are very easily decoded very early on.
The pronunciation comment I think refers to alternative spellings, such as the /e/ sound in s-ai-d - but of course you would still pronounce the /e/ sound, explaining that those letters are code for /e/ in that word.

In high quality phonics teaching, which is supposed to be what schools using the NC should be doing, we don't teach words that have to be learnt as wholes - we teach children the code and how to use it to read any word and how to spell them, although this takes much longer.

Use the local library to pick out books you can read together. Do the homework and then keep him engaged that way.

Yr R is difficult because the range of children's ability and the massive difference between a just 4yo and an already 5yo is huge.

"I am also happy to state that the phonics method is not suitable for all." Then you really need to read the research evidence.

Feenie - mum was used as an example of high frequency words. It absolutely can be sounded out using the early sounds so that wouldn't be an example.

The bank of words we are given is for the child to continually practice blending and sounding out, until they do not need to. The high frequency words they are given to practice are according to the reading level and their grasp of phonics. The tricky words are to challenge their knowledge of blending and recognising di/trigraphs. Once they've learnt that they will get it, but they have to learn to recognise those first, rather than identify the sounds of letters.

Norestformrz- I really don't. My child is one of those who cannot hear phonetically, or at least pick up certain sounds when spoken and has had some speech therapy. Someone else up thread quoted 96% of children benefit. I stated that it doesn't work for 100% of children. It might work for almost all of them but not every single one. Much like every approach with children and education. I'm not disputing it's effectiveness as a method. I'm just wary of assumptions that it is a magic wand approach to learning how to be able to read and write.

I feel this is rather derailing the original thread now. Sorry op.

Once they've learnt that they will get it, but they have to learn to recognise those first, rather than identify the sounds of letters.

I'm afraid that the last part of that statement is fundamentally incorrect and not how children should be taught at all. Children must always be taught identify the sounds - it's one of the main principles that underpin good phonics teaching.

taught to identify the sounds

"He manages fairly well with his reading, however spelling is a huge issue as the 'sounding out method' in his head is far from reliable."

Never, I just wondered, is this because of the mixed method school used, and not using high quality phonics?

I am foreigner and have difficulty hearing sounds, but I can certainly sound out in my head, and my spelling has become much better after learning phonics with my ds.

Feenie I think Nevernic meant that they have to learn to identify a di/trigraph as a di/trigraph, so have to learn that play does not read /p/ /l/ /a/ /y/ but rather /p/ /l/ /ay/.

Children must always be taught identify the sounds - it's one of the main principles that underpin good phonics teaching.

You 'misquoted' nevernic in a way - nevernic WAS talking about learning to identify the sounds. Just not of letters, but of digraphs. For which digraphs need to be recognised as such.

"Someone else up thread quoted 96% of children benefit." The 4% are the children who aren't going to learn to read using any method due to severe learning difficulties or profound and multiple learning difficulties that prevent them learning.

"Once they've learnt that they will get it, but they have to learn to recognise those first, rather than identify the sounds of letters." No they don't. Good practice is to teach the child the missing knowledge they need in order to decode through the word (just as you do for any other word) - said "in this word the spelling is the sound /e/ say /e/ ...say the sounds and read the word" ... was "in this word the is the sound /o/ ..." he, me, she, we, be " in this word the is the sound /ee/ ... " no, so, go "in this word the is the sound /oe/ ..." etc.
Teaching words as wholes is inefficient

"nevernic WAS talking about learning to identify the sounds. Just not of letters, but of digraphs. For which digraphs need to be recognised as such." It doesn't matter whether it's a single letter representing a sound or a tetragraph representing a sound the principle is the same for teaching.

I have taught primary so I can tell you that there is a vast difference between reading and understanding what they are reading. In the UK the parents are way to obsessed with the whole subject of "reading'. It's reception, let your children settle in to school and enjoy their first experiences. Plenty of time before their Oxbridge application

Teachers love it when parents come in and ask for more reading books, demand to be placed on a higher level, want more books for the holidays and want different books because the parent already has that particular book at home. In fact, they bought the whole set, so, who cares if the child reads as part of a group and is working their way through a set of books with that group. Darn it, I demand the school goes out and gets even more books. schools should have people working for them whose sole responsibility it is to keep parents happy with their choice of book. After all, the parents know much better than the teacher.