"DS was able to guess some of the words from the pictures"

[drspouse]

Comment back on DS reading record.
He is massively struggling with GPCs that school say he knows but all the books he comes home with have maybe 1 or 2 of the things he can't do plus loads of much harder words (e.g. adventure, science).
I decided not to bother reading school books with him and have got one of the ORT book packs.
I will tell them I'm doing this but given that we forbid him from guessing what do I say to this comment?
He's in Y2 and on band 5, he can decode but struggles with any alternative spellings or split digraphs.

When DD started preschool the teachers insisted she was reading by memorising whole words. She wasn't, she was decoding, but you had to listen very carefully to spot it - the mistakes were phonetically feasible. It was more obvious a year later when she was writing though, her spellings were ... creative.

Going back to your first post...

I had a similar incident regarding my DD guessing words. The reception teacher ( and the Head, and everyone through SENCO to custard monitor) knew that my DD had been told not to guess-the school were okay with that. What the school called me in about was DD telling other children not to guess and instead she was showing them how to sound words out. That had to stop. It did and everyone was happy (ish)

I suppose what I’m saying is you could tell school that you’d prefer it if they didn’t suggest guessing as a reading strategy to your child. That wouldn’t be wrong. They might not be able to do it, or they might not agree, but it’s okay to ask.

Ulp!
At least they let other children sound out...
I told them we were reading something else so he didn't have to guess so much - no comment back yet.

(I mean, our school let other children sound out)

https://m.youtube.com/watch?a=&feature=youtu.be&v=kiiY7k4twSM

That sounds non-contentious enough Drs.

I love that game Mrz

Lyn says she draws a snowman because she's not a good drawer and snowmen are easy but you could have a guessing monster or anything that motivates.

Update - we just finished our first ORT book, with ee/ea/y and DS can now pretty much automatically tell you that -y is ee and was even getting some of the -ea- without a reminder. I told him this morning how much he had learned and he looked sneakily pleased.

And a box just arrived by Pombear Power so we're forging ahead.

That’s really nice to hear drspouse. Glad the pombear power has worked out too.

I'd have a look at one of the Dancing Bears books (you'll need to look at the website to work out what level's the right fit for you - I forget the exact variations in title) - they really did help DD2 grasp using the phonics she'd been taught to blend through words (rather than her preferred strategy of looking at the start and trying to blag her way through fairly convincingly if you didn't know DD2's tendency to try to find the lazy option to do anything lovely lovely kid but has a massive bone idle if given the chance streak to her ). Once she got over that hurdle (she seemed to think school were teaching her phonics and sitting there with nice checklists of what sounds she knew just to keep the teachers out of mischief or something) her reading did absolutely fly... and this is despite her having fairly severe speech difficulties - she's now one of the top readers in the year group (and yes, I know roughly the spread of reading book bands at the moment because I hear so many of the kids read). We just needed a little bit of gentle prodding to make it start heading in the right direction - but the teaching of phonics in our school is very very good (I've been around during enough sessions for it).

It does backfire now DD2 is very fond of wandering past me sending emails and reading my bloody inbox - lots and lots of "why is that a message from school" queries - it's like living with a mini GCHQ at the moment!

Current book that was sent home is this. Fairly sure it's not decodable (not by DS anyway)

www.amazon.co.uk/Oxford-Reading-Tree-Fireflies-Shapes/dp/019847282X?tag=mumsnetforum-21

I'm a bit afraid of him being able to read my emails actually!

Got one of the books that I was talking about again:

While the back seems reasonable, it doesn't tell you all the much longer/harder words in the book, he is supposed to know "ay" and "a_e" but is very unconfident on them and the book has maybe 3 of one and 4 of the other.
He does know "oy" and may be supposed to know "oi" but "noise" is quite a bit more complex.

I see a reading book published in NZ and it makes me think it’s linked to Reading Recovery. Is Literacy Plus an add on to RR?

Although to be fair to RR it doesn’t matter what they publish. If your child isn’t secure in particular graphemes then someone needs to choose a book for him based on his knowledge.

If you do ask him to read the book to you could you supply the sounds he is uncomfortable with? Or would that be all the book?

For example if he was struggling with the word noise, he might sound out n, you’d point with a pencil to oi and say “say oy here” , or you’d just say “oy”.

Now he can blend n and oy so could he then blend s?

That is really over complicated written down-sorry:(

If you don’t ask him to read the book could you ask him to read one of the Sounds-write books with the gpc he needs to practice ( practise-hmm?)

It would be all the book.
Yes so we are currently using Sounds Write with this week/month's sounds, and I picked up another book in the library with the same sounds.
I have told school what sounds we are doing but they have not taken the hint. But DS is happy with learning new sounds at home.

You can teach reading at home. Stop forcing him to be perfect. Check out this website. There are lots of suggestions on there to help teach reading skills.

raisingchildren.net.au/babies/play-learning/literacy-reading-stories/reading-from-birth

If you are worried about dyslexia I recommend having a professional evaluation done.

I am teaching him, please RTWT.

oh Drs.

Your Tyrannosaurus was my hippopotamus...

My DD couldn’t read Hippopotamus because she’d only learnt S A T P I N and Cvc words. So a cvcvcvcvcvc ( is that right? I feel like Carol Vorderman) pushed us over the edge.

Step. Away. From. The. Reading. Record

So we are several years on and school got their act together for DD but I have still got @papermover 's books except I can't find her address and I don't think she's on MN any more.
So... Unless someone else knows her new username... Would anyone else like them?