WIBU to ask teacher for decodable reading books?

[4GreenApples]

DS2 (4 yrs) is in school nursery. They’ve been teaching the nursery kids phonics - single letter sounds so far - and have started sending reading books home. The teacher has told us that DS2 is to try reading the words, not just talk through the pictures.
However, DS2 can’t blend even simple 3 letter CVC words like “cat” yet.

The reading books being sent home are typically in a format where there’s a few high frequency words and then a bunch of words that he currently hasn’t got a chance of decoding. The current book includes pumpkin, strawberry, leaf, tomato.
I’m just not seeing the point in sending home books where half the vocabulary is way beyond his current reading ability. And the layout of the books is encouraging DS2 to guess the words from the picture, which doesn’t seem to me to be a good habit to be getting into.

WIBU to ask the teacher if they could send home books with simpler vocabulary?

Just buy the song bird set from Julia Donaldson on the book people or go on the oxford owl site.
www.thebookpeople.co.uk/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/qs_product_tbp?productId=218821&catalogId=10051&searchTerm=songbirds

www.oxfordowl.co.uk

You might find this tricky depending on the books they have in school.

A lot of schools still use “whole word” reading schemes like oxford reading tree and you are absolutely right, they don’t support the phonics teaching in the classroom.

There are now many phonics reading schemes (we’ve purchased these in our school) but not all schools will have had the budget to replace these yet.

Whole word books have their place for enjoyment, key word reading, using of picture clues etc but phonics books are absolutely key for helping children to learn to decode.

Have a chat with the teacher and see what they say. They may have other books or may not but it would be food for thought for the school.

There are now many phonics reading schemes (we’ve purchased these in our school) but not all schools will have had the budget to replace these yet.

However, schools have had around seven years to do this - two of them with matched funding exclusively to spend on decodable books and/or phonics training.

Whole word books have their place for enjoyment, key word reading, using of picture clues etc but phonics books are absolutely key for helping children to learn to decode.

Whole word books don't meet the requirements of National Curriculum, which states that children should not be asked to use other strategies to read.

That would include picture clues, which demand guessing skills and are nothing whatsoever to do with reading.

Enjoyment? I much prefer reading the lovely new stories in the plethora of decodable schemes now available rather than the mind-numbing, inane repetition of a key word scheme.

You mean ‘oh floppy, no floppy, oh floppy, no floppy’ isn’t top of your reading list feenie?

Buying a cheap set of songbirds is probably your best bet. Read the school books to him or just let him talk through the pictures. Eventually his phonics knowledge should be good enough that he’ll manage whatever school are sending home.

Er...no

Oh, god, that book.

I'd take fucking "oh Floppy" over the irritation that is Max, Tiger and the other one and their stupid shrinking watches. That's in the parental irritation league of reading books and not any literary or educational merit.

Another option is this scheme:
www.amazon.co.uk/Books-First-Bobby-Lynn-Maslen/dp/0439845009/ref=pd_sbs_14_1?psc=1&_encoding=UTF8&tag=mumsnetforum-21&refRID=AJF1X3QFMZPMEKNJ6R2J

It's from the US, so there's the occasional 'Mom', but otherwise it's fab. Children only need 4 letters to read the first book, and it builds from there. I used it with my DD and it was great.

Please be aware though that it's only worth doing 'reading books' if your child is ready to read - they need to be able to orally blend (e.g. you say sh-ee-p, and they can put the sounds together and say the word. Before they are able to do this you might end up putting them off...

That'll be Project X. It's not decodable. It has a phonics strand, but that's it.

If he can't orally blend, i.e. if you sound out a word and he can blend it (this could be in the context of an I spy game) then there's little point him having a reading book at all yet. He needs to be able to do it orally/aurally first. If he can do that then yes ask for phonics books but don't be surprised to be met with resistance. IME teachers knowledge of phonics is shocking, many schools are still clinging to the searchlights method.

Sorry piglet didn't mean to repeat what you'd said, need to learn to read things properly myself

That’s a whole other issue piglet. Why are they sending books home for children who can’t blend and who aren’t even in school yet?

To be completely honest if he’s not interested in reading I’d just ignore the whole thing. Do something else with that time.

Honestly? Reception is too early for most children to be learning to read as intensely as we are teaching it. Nursery is bonkers for most children, and it doesn't give them any advantage. At worst, you risk putting them off for life.

I personally would just read the books and not worry about expecting your ds to. Instead you could do activities that encourage phonic/sound awareness - rhymes, listening to everyday sounds, alliteration activities (seven silly sausages), talking like a robot ( look it is a c a t cat).

If you find the books that come home from reception are not inspiring you could look at getting books in the library or through ‘treasure chest’.

My daughter was reading quite well at the end of her nursery year. However she pretty much figured out reading by seeing the words - not the phonics method. She is ten now and reads all the time. She loves books and loves going to the library. That's what is important. Children going into Reception don't need to know how to read when they start so just concentrate on you reading to her. Enjoy the story and enjoy the pictures - making reading a nice everyday thing to do!!

I think exposing to children to many books you read to them is more important at this stage, if a child isn't ready or willing to learn to read themselves. They will learn phonics at school anyway. And when they go into ks2, most of children are reading well enough.

Sounds like the general consensus is to ignore school’s instructions to get DS2 to read me these reading books for now

At least until he starts getting the idea of blending, anyway!

He gets at least one book a day read to him by me or DH, which he likes, so he’s getting plenty of exposure to books, even if he’s not ready yet to read them himself.

I actually wrote yesterday that I couldn't see the point about learning to read before school, but yes absolutely ignore the schools homework and concentrate on things which increase his vocabulary, reasoning or inference skills. He's going to be doing lots of decoding work in years R and 1, there's no point learning it before.

Update - I asked the nursery about the reading books and mentioned that DS2 had been doing lots of guessing at longer words from the pictures.

Well, turns out that’s what he’s supposed to be doing!
The teacher wants him to learn to recognise the high frequency words by sight, and then to learn to use picture cues to guess the longer words for when phonics doesn’t work. 🙄

I know I’m not a teacher, but I’m not convinced that this is a great strategy for learning to read. It’s certainly not one I’m inclined to encourage DS2 to follow at home.

It's from the US, so there's the occasional 'Mom', but otherwise it's fab

Mom is a British word.

Is mom a Midlands dialect thing?

Its usually either mum or mam where we live.

That is a terrible strategy and schools that encourage it are the reason the Year 1 phonics test is necessary. If you feel up to fighting it there is plenty of evidence for a phonics based approach, not to mention the curriculum but IME you won't get very far unless the teacher also wants to fight it.