What's a 'din'?!

[HashtagTired]

So my reception year dd is bringing home books to read, and two she has read in the past week involve the word ‘din’?

Who’s Tim? And what is his ‘din’?!

There is a set of decidable books that do something similar. The left hand page has text for an adult to read to the child and the right hand has a decodeable caption/sentence.

If schools are choosing books appropriately, then children should be moving through these early books quickly. There's no need for children to read all the books containing only set 1 and 2 sounds if children know those sounds and can blend.

Exactly: there's no drive to improve the early books if children spend so little time on them.

I love the idea of the adult left page child right page early readers. Feels like the reading equivalent of half-dressing a small child so you pull the jumper over his head and he does the sleeves, and gradually he does more and more of it until he's completely independent.

Might cause an issue for children from homes where there are no literate adults in the house though. It doesn't happen often but it does happen, so I wouldn't necessarily want all books to be like that.

Is English your first language OP?

Din is a normal word, I'm surprised that a native English speaker has never heard it. Not sure why you made a face at the dictionary comment, lookign up words you don't know is what they are for.

“Exactly: there's no drive to improve the early books if children spend so little time on them” the purpose of a reading scheme book is to provide text that the child can read totally independently. If the child knows the first five or six sounds it limits the text they can possibly read without the adult doing most the work.

National Geographic has some "readers" which have "you readI read" structures. Unfortunately, they are not designed by phonics experts so you do get some words thrown in there which are not decodable for children of the appropriate stage in terms of the text length and complexity. However, we sometimes use them (I circle any really hairy words in pencil and just read those for her). The contents ARE really good and introduce children to some wonderful vocab and scientific/geographical conceptsso very important for young kids whose vocab needs work.

www.ageekdaddy.com/2016/03/national-geographic-kids-you-read-i.html

If phonics experts could create some really well designed ones, I think this would be simply wonderful. It would assist with the twin goals of getting children to practice the mechanics of reading AND getting parents into the habit of reading with children to expand their vocab and encourage them to love books (I know many/most parents do this already, but some don't).

There are some great phonics books out there. unfortunately until a child knows more than a handful of Sounds it’s not possible to write works of great literary note. The alternative is multi cueing methods or Look and Say both of which have been a huge failure for teaching children to read and no more entertaining for parents. I’ve suffered the repetition page after page with my own children ...they were great at memorising whole books because nearly every page said the same thing unfortunately it’s not reading.
It’s important to remember the purpose of home reading books, which is to practise what they’ve been taught. I imagine you’d be unhappy if your child was just learning to count objects and the teacher sent home quadratic equations as homework so why expect books beyond their current ability when reading independently.
There are some great picture books out there to share.

Not knowing the word "din" if English is your first language is pretty embarrassing. And then not googling it first...

I was thrilled when my dd got these words/sounds. It’s part of the route to literacy. My friend who’s first language isn’t English felt the same way.
Just seems odd to kick off about limited nature of books for these first steps.
Write one yourself, op. No, seriously.

Have you looked at https://www.phonicbooks.co.uk/product-category/catch-up-readers/ they’re intended for catchup readers up to age 14 but I use them with younger children and are fully decodable

hesterton The books linked above are fantastic. I've ordered a series called Talisman and a series called Totem from Primary Tools and they are fab for older struggling readers. I'm only on book 3/10 on the first series but they are totally decodable. I (and the 10 year old using them) really recommend them.

I also agree that children need fully decodable books to begin with, they should be getting books matched to their phonics ability. My first ever book was 'Look!' and that was 35 years ago, the books now are much better. Din is chosen over noise because at that level it can be sounded out successfully.

I understood the OP to mean she didn’t know what a din was.

Which illustrates why early books need to be simple.

I worked in a town where 1 in 5 adults have low literacy skills. People with poor literacy often have very challenging lives. If a few weeks of boring books offers their children the chance to do better, I’m all for it.

Two words that cropped up today “cog” and “sob” and only one child in the class knew the meaning.

You need to read the one where dad has a nap and Sam makes a . Much better.

Wait til you meet Max

With his box

In his lab

These simple, decodable words are particularly tricky for non-native speakers and children learning English as an additional language.

When my oldest started reading first readers in my second language, I realized that I could not help him as I had no idea of much of the vocabulary. The other language equivalents of din, cog, cod, and so on were baffling to me, and the stories, limited by the simple text, hardly gave me any context to figure out what the words meant. It gave me a lot more sympathy for English learners, both parents and kids.

In my older boy's reception class, I had to explain to many of the English language learners, who were fluent in English but spoke another language at home, what things like "rig" meant.

My class are all English (only) speakers and they don’t know these simple words either. It’s very worrying.

Which is why parental support helps. Rather than complaining about a rarely used word, find out what it means and then use it with them. Who said learning a new word is a bad thing?
As I explained, my non-native speaker friend , looked it up in an online dictionary.
Really odd original post.

I agree. After the age of five reading is essential for expanding vocabulary. So important to talk about the meaning of unfamiliar words and if necessary demonstrate how to look up definitions.

A reception age child is unlikely to be able to read “noise” “racket” or whatever. But they can read “din” (or have a good go). The story telling possibilities increase and noise is generally children can relate to.
No, I don’t say “din” in every day life but I read all sorts of words I don’t say in every day life. They help the story I am reading.

I’ve lived in Britain 13 years and I’ve never once heard anyone use the word ‘din’. I’ve known it since early childhood thanks to Enid Blyton and Elinor Brent-after and got a little happy jolt when we got to Tim, his long-suffering Nan and his din.

Is it one of those words that is highly regional? Some of you are using it regularly while others never hear it, and you’re all surprised at each other?

OP this is a terrific learning opportunity for your child that will set in place the basics of important life skills.

Dig out or buy a dictionary it doesn't have to be fancy or expensive a pocket one will do. Then next time your child encounters a word they are unfamiliar with look it up together.

Make it fun but enable them to practice their literacy skills by spelling the word and reciting the alphabet to help you find the word. Then read the definition to them and talk about it.

Make an effort to use these unfamiliar words over the next few days too.

Why is it worrying that many children of 4/5 years of age haven't yet come across words such as cog or rig in their lives, explaining why they don't know the meaning of these words?

I don't think they are words that people use in everyday language so it's not surprising, or worrying, to me at all. Having them in the readers is an opportunity to teach them surely?