Reading before school

[Rainbowsandflowers78]

My dc is 4 and starting reception in September. She’s been ‘reading’ for a while now which I know is quite early (she’s lacking on other skills - just what she’s in to). She started by recognising short words, memorising them essentially. I’m aware that this isn’t how reading is taught any more and tried to do phonics with her. Totally out of my depth on this! I’ve done all the single alphabet sounds and then a few of the easy combined sounds like ‘ch’ and ‘sh’. But I’m not following any scheme. Please can you good people help me as it’s hard to ask mums in real life for fear I sound like I’m boasting!
Is there a good scheme to follow that lists all the sounds they need to learn? I literally just need a list of the sounds and what order I should teach them to her.
She reads a short book from the Ort series every night and I’m guessing she’s on around level 3 - how do I know what the right level should be for her? Should she know all the words or what proportion of them should be new? Should she read the same book for a few nights on the trot? Do schools give books for a day or a few days? I tend to find if we read the same one she memorises it and then I fear she’s not learning the words or how to decide but just memorising the book. But a new one each night feels hard work for her.
What else should I do with her or for her? We read loads to her but shortish books like Julia Donaldson still - should I be reading harder books? If so any recommendations?
Will there be loads of kids in her year that will be at her stage when she starts or should I try to slow her down a bit?!

I found the Songbirds series of books were great for making sure all sounds were covered in a sensible order. Okay, not strictly all, but enough that we were filling in gaps rather than firefighting. Once they'd been right through Songbirds they could tackle Julia Donaldson type books with only a little help.

There's also the government's "Letters and sounds" which gives a teaching order, also pretty similar to other phonics schemes.

For a more comprehensive list you can print out lovely charts of correspondences and examples for free here: www.alphabeticcodecharts.com/free_charts.html
But they're not in a sensible teaching order iirc.

Thank you all. Very helpful.

Slow her down, sounds rubbish, imo. From your op, your dd is like my ds, who had no push from me but just excelled in reading/decoding.
I always praised my ds for doing great, it didn't make him a horrible big headed boy at all. He is so good at praising others and recognising other children's ability, and I am so proud of it, but I do praise him for his achievement and effort.

My ds attended nursery attached to the school, so we didn't need to tell them how advanced he was at the start of school because they already knew, and the reception teacher asked for the titles of the books he read at home, and administered the test to check his decoding level when he started.

I would recommend the Ladybird Keywords scheme (AKA Peter and Jane).

My son managed to get up to level 9 before he started school and was a reasonable fluent reader.. It's very well set out and logical, maybe a bit boring but starting reading can be a little dull until you can read more interesting stories.

Good luck!

Ladybird keywords

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Key-Words-Collection-x36-Ladybird/dp/0723296782/ref=sr11_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1515356881&sr=8-2&keywords=ladybird+key+words

The YR teacher asked me what my DD could read as part of info gathering before she started. As a summer born, it wasn’t much. Nursery had done lots of phonics but no reading. I didn’t try to teach her. After a term, a better reader then most! Go Summer Borns!

My dc2 is summer born so I’m hoping this will be true of her too bubbles
Lots of useful info and links thank you
Yes I’ve not actively pushed it on her she started recognising words herself and I then thought I’d better encourage her and steer her towards phonics. I was always very clever at school but lacked confidence (still do) so I hate for her to follow the same path. Just want her to be very successful but happy! It’s hard to find the balance isn’t it.

Gosh those ladybird books are a blast from the past - I learned to read from them. They were awfully dull and slow though compared to the phonics books these days. I think you're right to nudge towards phonics OP, and not only because it'll be consistent with school. It really did make the whole learning to read thing easier and quicker than we had it.

Catkind
They may look boring, but my dc loved them. I remember ds aged about 3 with the attention level of a gnat reading all the way through one in one sitting (they're also about 40 pages long) and then asking for another. I was bored silly and cross eyed with trying not to show it, but he loved them, as did the girls.
They found the ORT boring though.

It sounds like your DS was similar to my DD witch, except she had shorter Songbirds books at that age so she'd read 6 or so at a sitting. Thing is I think 6 songbirds books contains a lot more learning than a couple of Peter and Jane. Once they learn a new bit of phonics code, they get 1000s of new words for free, whereas Peter & Jane are long because they're introducing new words one at a time by dint of much repetition.

Of course at some point hopefully before the end of Peter & Jane they've twigged the phonics for themselves so they can actually read new words, particularly if they're bright. But why make it harder than it needs to be?

Most ORT aren't phonics and are also dull and repetitive in the early stages if that helps.

Personally, I would read with her and make it enjoyable, but not try to teach her. Focus on the other areas where she is lacking, like self care, social skills, outdoor exploration, numeracy, engage her in storytelling and imagination tasks, give her time just to sit and be absorbed in an art project, etc. She may end up being really frustrated at school if she can't do those sorts of things as well, but is really ahead in reading as she'll be under stimulated in terms of her language skills, but overwhelmed by other things.

Mine couldn't read at all before she started reception and now is above level (on the app they use for at home practice, she's already on par with the year 1 students). We did nothing special. I didn't focus on it at all before she started. We read books, but I read them to her. She could recognise her name and write it, but that's all. They do send books home to read and there is a very specific stepwise process for teaching phonics and reading in our school. They gave us sheets home about it in her homework folder and I taught myself and then worked with her. She gets usually about 3-4 books a week sent home and we read each one once (she also usually reads it at school once too). But that's plenty. You really don't need to overthink it and do more. Quality is better than quantity and even now, we don't do it every day, only about 3 times a week. We focus on other things the other days or just play.

Nobody is going to spend all day teaching a 4 yr old to dress themselves or read or anything else. I don't think there's any need to focus on any particular skill. There's plenty of time to do a little work on each and still spend most of the day free playing.

Dd could read before reception. We supported this with the Songbirds books which DD loved and they also tell you which phonic sound is being focussed on. She whizzed through them and I felt confident I wasn't doing the wrong thing!

You don't need to slow her down, let her enjoy her reading and go at her pace. If the school/teacher is good, they'll differentiate and focus on what she needs to learn, based on what she already knows, no matter where the other children are. There might be others at the same stage, or not. It doesn't matter.

DC1 also learned to read at 4y but in a different language, and started school already being able to read in that language. He learned to read in English from zero with no previous knowledge of phonics in reception and by the end was reading quite ahead of expectations and became a free reader in Y1.

DC2 learned to to read in both languages before school, and again, has had no problems. The teacher knew this when he started. He gets his books changed quite often, he gets around four at the beginning of the week and four more on Fridays. He learned to read using the Songbirds books.

I got told off by ds1 class teacher in reception, because he could already read. The problem was the way he had learnt was different to how the school taught.

Issue was I didn't teach him to read, that was his nursery (private). But I just carried on at home regardless. By the time he was seven he had finished the Harry Potter series. He just loved reading.

So please don't hold her back, if she loves it carry on.