What do I do about reading books my daughter can't possibly read?

[Patchworksack]

Mr third child has just started Reception. The school have changed how they teach phonics AGAIN (3rd child through school, 3rd method= Read, Write, Inc) and I have dutifully attended the meeting to explain the method and gone out and bought the parent pack to support her at home. She is just starting to read CVC words and has been sent her first few books with words home. They are sending home ORT books which she can't possibly read with the method they are teaching - every page contains at least one word which has sounds she has not been taught, including split digraphs, y making an 'I' sound, ing endings etc. Given that these are books with 3-5 words to a page it's a significant amount of it she can't decode. I recognise they have budget constraints and maybe don't have enough RWI books for every child, is it too much to ask for books she can read with the method she is being taught, given that I'm expected to make her read it every night for a week? It is very definitely for her to read, they have another library book which is a story for the adult to read to the child.

NoCrying It is relatively unlikely that he ‘recognises’ every single CVC word he encounters. If he reads every CVC word he encounters, instantly and without mistakes, he probably recognises most of them and is blending the others very quickly, making you (and his teacher) think he is not decoding/blending them.

If, however, he makes mistakes with CVC words, his teacher may be correct in working on his decoding of CVC words.

Can he read made-up CVC words with speed and accuracy: fot, suf, jad, lif, bef etc?

I've no idea, because they don't appear in his reading books! They don't have a particularly wide ranging vocabulary

You could write them down for him...

"I can see that it suits children who are not introduced to books and don’t have literate parents " the beauty of phonics is it suits all children even those who have literate parents and have been exposed to books and stories from birth.

Can he blend the longer words accurately or is he attempting them, but not quite getting it?

If he can blend the longer ones, it might just be a case that he's reached the point where he can blend shorter words automatically.

Writing down a list of a few CVC non words would give you a definitive answer though.

I can see that it suits children who are not introduced to books and don’t have literate parents but plenty get a great deal out of learning with breadth and variety.

Unfortunately, the one in five children who were confused by mixed methods included all sorts of children - and yes,those who were read to every day and surrounded by books from birth. It is impossible to.predict which children mixed methods will confuse, which is why we're not supposed to be leaving it to chance any more.

Fratercula don't worry too much - dd1 was a bit like this last year at this point but still got full marks in the y1 phonics screen. Although she's got a massive sight vocabulary, she does still use phonics for unknown words so she was fine!

Dd2 tries to do it out of sheer laziness - we are currently on a battle of wills where she gets made to read it again and not guess her way through because she blooming well can do it and just tries the easy way out! (Her phonics are good - her lazy streak excels given half the chance)

I remember learning to read using mixed methods in the late 70s. I seriously actually remember learning to read because it was so incredibly difficult and frustrating. My mother (degree educated but in retrospect stunningly ignorant about children) thought I could already read because I'd memorised so many books - so clearly I had been introduced to books and read to.

I clearly remember just not being able to read my school reading book - I was sitting on the floor and she stood up from her chair and yelled at me for being stubborn and pretending not to be able to read just to annoy her!

blueskies, that's exactly the things MN teachers are going on about, I think.
They can have engaged parents who reads to them, they may have incredible memory, but it doesn't guarantee you are able to learn to read by anyway you were taught at school. Current phonics method works for most children. That's way better than leaving 20% of children struggling. I really wish people understand that before saying mixed method worked for them back then, so it should work for children these days too.

Today we were given a new reading book and it is even worse. Every page is "I like eating ....." with a picture of a child with a piece of fruit. Of that, she can read "I" which is a red/tricky word she has been taught. She can't read "like" because they have not been taught split digraphs, and she can't read "eating" because they have not learned ea="ee". So by page 2 I have explained that a few times and she has gathered that you just repeat "I like eating" and then name the fruit in the picture. What is that supposed to teach her?? Pointless.

Rafa he's blending things like "flash" and "creep" and when I helped him break "sound" down and told him the "ou" part of it he could then work out and blend hound/pound/round (When he first tried sound he broke it down to so-und)

Patchworksack that sound exactly like the sort of book we get home day after day (except DS could read the I like eating sentence fairly easily, though I don't know how as they haven't done split digraphs yet!)

Reverse DS is also lazy and inclined to be silly, I think half the time he just says random things because he enjoys experimenting with the nonsense sounds rather than he even vaguely thinks it's right...

I wish I knew what his reading target was, I have absolutely no idea.

It looks like she is reading it because she can quite happily sit there reciting "I like eating oranges, I like eating apples, I like eating grapes" but she is not really 'reading' it at all. If she came across any of those words out of this context she still couldn't read them.

It’s just a frustratingly ridiculous target then, NoCrying. Presumably the’ll run out of red books eventually and have to move him up.

Only 81% of children met the required standard in the phonics test in 2017. This isn’t a great improvement is it? What about the 19% who didn’t make the standard? It clearly hasn’t made much difference. There is improvement in KS2 but I would imagine that’s because extra money has been thrown at the failing children such as pp money.

Bright children reciting a book has never been reading. Most of us get that but children can be frustrated with phonics when they are keen to get a move on. I know this isn’t the majority and I don’t have a problem with phonics but it isn’t a cure-all and it seems to produce so much worry. I just think parents need to chill out over it. Most children learn to read and they always did. Phonics is better for those who struggled a bit, although the results are not necessarily showing this at the moment.

First of all, and I'm sure you know this as a governor, you're comparing two v different measures, one of which takes place a year earlier than the other.

Secondly, many schools are still teaching mixed methods, as evidenced by this thread and many others. So the 81% still represents mixed methods in many cases. In schools where they actually follow the statutory national curriculum, and teach phonics as the first and only strategy, the vast majority of children pass the phonics test.

Most children learn to read and they always did. 75% of children met the reading standard nationally in 2018. That figure hasn't changed for decades. I am questioning your definition of 'most'.

Most of us get that but children can be frustrated with phonics when they are keen to get a move on

Children's reading books are supposed to be carefully matched to their phonics ability - again, in schools with poorly trained teachers, your scenario could happen but shouldn't. I'm still teaching phonics in Y6, but all of my children are fluent readers reading age appropriate novels - I am still teaching the alphabetic code for spelling.

That 81% is more likely to be a reflection of what’s going on in schools, pretending to be phonics teaching. There are plenty of schools about who teach phonics well and who’ve never got less than 90%, with 100% not being uncommon. And that includes children with SEN.

Any school that is getting 81% regularly with children that have had 2 years teaching, should be asking themselves some questions IMO.

They'll be the ones claiming 'phonics' doesn't work for all children and are gobsmacked when it's pointed out to them that what they're actually teaching is still mixed methods.

That is why phonics isn’t as great as people say it is. It’s now been the recommended method for years. Plus the stats don’t take privately educated children into account. It isn’t 25% of all children who don’t make the grade. Also the 100 mark is a fairly ambitious mark. It’s where a child should be. Obviously some children won’t be at that level but that doesn’t mean they are not functional readers. You will never get 100% at that level.

You could say that MN isn’t representative of most schools and how they teach phonics either.

My comment about “Most” also takes into account the children who are just a few marks below and will improve. These two groups (100 plus and a bit below) are the majority of children. From what I can see, the same children are struggling with reading as before phonics was the only method and they often have poor memory and possibly have SEN. It doesn’t matter what strategies you give them and if they cannot retain the information.

As a governor I do not do the literacy Governor job. I do crawl over our stats though. I would never ever interfere with what our school does. It’s also a junior school. I do Pp and they, mostly, are the children who really struggle with reading and we pump a lot of time and effort into improving them. They are mostly SEN as well. Phonics cannot work for every child any more than any other method did.

I was really just speaking as an old parent and trying to advise parents not to worry! This thread is riddled with parental angst about what they should and shouldn’t do. It sounds exhausting and sad. It seems wrong that parents are made to feel inadequate over this. It has a rather over zealous streak to it.

As a governor I do not do the literacy Governor job

Phew!

Phonics cannot work for every child any more than any other method did.

The overwhelming evidence says otherwise. But you clearly have no interest, or you wouldn't be making such a silly, ill-informed statement.

It’s a screening check, it’s not representing where a child should be by the end of year 1.

It’s supposed to be picking out the

"Most of us get that but children can be frustrated with phonics when they are keen to get a move on."

I think we have crossed wires over the meaning of "phonics." Phonics is not this thing that you do for a few months when they are four years old and then you leave phonics behind and do "literacy/spelling/reading." Phonics is actually part of reading and spelling and remains so. Good teachers teaching kids in upper primary use advanced phonics for teaching spelling.

Only 81% of children met the required standard in the phonics test in 2017. This isn’t a great improvement is it? What about the 19% who didn’t make the standard? It clearly hasn’t made much difference.

learningspy.co.uk/reading/phonics-screening-check/

Scroll down to the graphs. The graph on the right shows that pupils who are young for their age cohort are less likely to pass the phonics screeningno surprises there, these are quite young kids. The graph on the right shows the % of kids passing in 2012, 2013 and 2014it's going up significantly year by year.

England is also doing better than ever in PIRLS (the big international test of reading skills), which tests 9-10yos (meaning that the improvements are basically being seen in the cohorts who have been through the screening test); in particular, England's PIRLS results show that the "long tail" of underachievers has been reduced, which is exactly what the screening test most aimed to achieve.

We have not yet seen results in PISA, but that is understandable because PISA tests 15yos--the phonics screening cohorts have not quite aged up enough.