Reception DC encouraged to guess words from pictures. Afraid I've got off on the wrong foot with teacher.

[Satina]

DC2 has just started reception and we were excited for all the new experiences the next year would bring. I'm worried however that I've got off on the wrong foot with the new teacher.

Sorry, this is long:

When DC1 was in the same class she flew through reading books and was known to be a very strong reader. However she eventually hit a barrier and her progression stalled. School weren't bothered as she was still ahead of expected for her age but I, who listened to her read daily noticed problems. Specifically that she was guessing unfamiliar words which sometimes meant she completely misunderstood the meaning of the passage she'd just read.

I'd never helped a child learn to read before, so I did extensive research into how to help her and went back to basics of focusing on decoding unfamiliar words and eventually she flew.

Since DC1 was in reception the school has replaced their book scheme to one that's supposed to be more decodable.

I was eager to avoid the same problems occurring for DC2 and was optimistic that the new book scheme would mean decoding would be encouraged rather than guessing.

I was therefore surprised when the very first comment in DC's reading diary was 'DC has been encouraged to use the pictures to help guess unfamiliar words'.

All of the reading I did around the subject, when DC1 was learning suggests this is bad practice.

E.g. The Rose Report says:

"However, if beginner readers, for
example, are encouraged to infer from
pictures the word they have to decode
this may lead to their not realising that
they need to focus on the printed
word.They may, therefore, not use their
developing phonic knowledge. It may
also lead to diluting the focused
phonics teaching that is necessary for
securing accurate word reading.Thus,
where beginner readers are taught
habitually to infer the word they need
from pictures they are far less likely to
apply their developing phonic
knowledge and skills to print. During
the course of the review, several
examples were seen of beginners
being encouraged to infer from
pictures the word they did not
immediately recognise from the text."

I asked for a quick chat with the teacher who rang me at home. I explained that I was very happy with everything in reception so far but that I'd really prefer DC to be encouraged to decode unfamiliar words and not guess. She thought I was trying to push for DC to have more complex books and spent some time telling me why she thought this would be detrimental. I clarified that I definitely was not pushing for harder material and in fact would have preferred an easier, decodable book.

I said I wasn't expecting any changes to the way the class is taught as a whole, but wanted DD to have books she could decode with her current knowledge (which I'm happy to provide if they don't have enough) and to be encouraged not to use alternative methods until she was secure in her decoding.

Teacher then spent some time telling me the importance of using other methods as some children struggle with phonics and it helps them and that it's important for children to learn through repetition and using other cues aswell as decoding.

This is where I'm worried I overstepped the mark as I said that I appreciate what you're saying but all my research suggests otherwise, which I know must be really annoying to be told as a professional by someone who is not a professional in that area.

I said I'm happy to provide all my references which the teacher said she didn't need.

Ultimately, all I wanted was for my DC to become secure in her decoding before other methods are used, so as not to confuse her.

Teacher has now agreed to this with DD, but I'm feeling so guilty and anxious about having said anything in the first place.

I should have kept my mouth shut and just focussed on decoding at home and let them do their own thing at school.

Do you think there's anything I can do to improve matters and reassure the teacher that I'm not going to be a PITA parent all year?

Rafa - except for those schools / teachers who only teach the initial sounds and so never mention a schwa / unstressed vowel sound!! That's what i mean - for so many people it seems that 'doing phonics' starts and ends with the initial sounds, and after that, no effort is put into teaching the extended code.

There is that.

Perhaps ‘not particularly difficult for most reception children to grasp if someone has bothered to explain it.’ would have been mor accurate.

You definitely do need phonics. Without phonics, you cannot decode. You also, however, need to build a lexicon of high frequency words that you don’t decode each time you see them.

My youngest is a brilliant decoder, he can work out 5 or 6 syllable unfamiliar words (he is eight) but is a slow reader and does not really enjoy reading as he decodes virtually every single word.

It seems to me that reading is like music. You need to read notes but you will never play fluently unless you recognise common patterns and oft repeated scales (high frequency words).

buildingrti.utexas.org/sites/default/files/booklets/redbk3.pdf

The above seems a pretty good guide to the mixture that is required (and is research based).

You also, however, need to build a lexicon of high frequency words that you don’t decode each time you see them

Yes, that is the ultimate aim. Did you think phonics means sounding out every word, every time?

Feenie,

Um yes:

www.lexico.com/en/definition/phonics

There are lots (most) phonics METHODS that use pure phonics plus other methods such as learning high frequency words.

However phonics is just learning the correlation between sounds and letters.

Don’t treat others like idiots unless you are very sure of yourself.

It's interesting to me that one of the defences of other methods is "trust the professionals", implying that early years teachers are professionals in "teaching reading", which is I think strange, 'cos to me they're not at all. Teaching reading is just a very small part of their job, enthusing, controlling, informing etc. teaching reading is too small a part of the overall for them to become expert in it. I'd expect them to mostly be delivering the best practices from others.

The same as I would be expecting doctors to be delivering the practices from the experts, regularly getting updated on best current practices for particular things. We've always given this drug for these symptom's, I know the "experts" say it only works in 80% of the cases and that other one works in 95%, but it's always worked for me...

What? I have no idea what you're on about. Your post about building up a lexicon of known words was strange, so I attempted to try to work out your point. No need at all to be so narky about it.

Larry,

the thing is, 'high frequencuy words' are just words that the child might encounter regularly but which might use some phomics they haven't used yet.

So 'the' is phonically decodable BUT not with the initial e.g. satpin sounds a child might be taught. So you might want to teach 'the' as a 'not decodeable yet' word, as some phonic books may use it.

Then when th + shwa are taught, a little later in Reception, it becomes a decodeable word.

'High frequency' does not equate to 'non decodeable', and even the 'trickiest' of words have some parts that are regular (in 'one', n is regular) alongside a 'tricky bit'. So there is no need for a list of words to be 'taught as wholes by some totally different method'.

There are lots (most) phonics METHODS that use pure phonics plus other methods such as learning high frequency words.

Really don't know what this means. There aren't lots of phonics 'methods '. The ultimate aim of any phonics teaching is to recognise words to automaticity, including high frequency words.

Still cannot work out your point.

As an adult, my reading has reached automaticity for most words. however I still sound out e.g. complex chemical names.

Can’t,

From what I can see and have read fluent readers hardly decode at all, they just recognise patterns and guess the word. Clearly they need to be able to decode unfamiliar words.

Most children are taught phonics plus given lists of high frequency lists to learn (mine certainly are). I don’t know whether you consider that ‘separate’ from phonics or not, I think the point is a little moot.

I think phonics is absolutely essential but think some additional techniques are also useful as per the University of Texas research based guidelines that I linked to.

That's mixed methods, Larry - children who are taught phonics well don't need to learn lists of words. They can just read them.

From what I can see and have read fluent readers hardly decode at all, they just recognise patterns and guess the word.

There is no 'guessing' - they recognise those words to automaticity. Again, fluency is the ultimate aim.

That link doesn’t say that the definition of phonics is sounding out every single word every time you see it.

Some children won’t need to sound out a word after the first time they see it, done will need to sound it out many, many times. Most will fall somewhere in between. At some point, children will stop needing to overtly sound out new words because their blending skills are so automatic they’ll read new words fluently (or with a slight hesitation if it’s a long word). The lexicon sort of builds itself.

It's exactly parallel to an adult reading an unfamiliar word- the first time you read 'deoxyribonucleic', or whatever, you pause for a tiny second to decode it. The next time, you decode it fast enough not to have to pause. After that, you just say it - it's now in your lexicon.

Tbf, I did have to google the pronunciation of fluorouracil the other day. With hindsight it should have been more obvious but it is much easier to spell now.

Feenie,

No, adults really don’t ‘recognise words to automaticity’, they guess them from a few letters, length and context.

That is why you can write an entire paragraph, removing 60% of the letters and it is, amazingly still readable.

Rafals,

Of course you can build a lexicon up from pure phonics, a word at a time but encouraging learning of a few high frequency words can catalyse the reading process, motivating those who find phonics harder to persevere with it.

If it were either phonics or word recognition, phonics wins every time, but it isn’t. You can do both simultaneously.

That is why you can write an entire paragraph, removing 60% of the letters and it is, amazingly still readable.

That was always a myth and has been thoroughly debunked, if you're talking about the fake Cambridge study. It's a ludicrous claim if you think about it for even ten seconds.

Pure phonics doesn't build up a word at a time, that's the beauty of it. Even learning six sounds like satpin immediately enables around 35 words to be read.

Learning high frequency words one a time enables you to read - well, one.

I never really understand how those things are supposed to prove we don’t use reading through the whole word to read. Does anyone really look at either the text with letters jumbled up or a text with 60% of the letters and not instantaneously realise that it looks different. And if you’ve mixed up the letters or taken letters out then you’ve completely changed the look of the word, so whatever you are doing to read it accurately can’t be sight word recognition. I’d be interested to see if anyone ever tested the effects of reading speed & brain scans when reading one of these paragraphs.

I’m not sure either of these really represents what happens when a beginning reader is presented with a text with words they don’t have the knowledge to decode. They aren’t experiencing words they’ve seen hundreds of times jumbled up so they can unjumble them with a bit of thinking. They’re often missing entire words. A better experiment might be to move 20% of the words from a paragraph, starting with the least high frequency ones.

Where did the other thread go?!

Which one?

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3703190-Phonics-Dc-can-learn-to-read-without-it-Surely-Those-that-dont-get-it-ANY-positive-stories

or

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/primary/3709400-WHY-dont-some-teachers-teach-pure-phonics-And-what-impact-does-it-have-on-how-teachers-are-viewed

Thanks, Teen, it was the second one and I'd managed to hide it accidentally!

Rafals,

You are arguing with a straw man. I don’t think anyone is arguing for sight recognition only. No one can ever read fluently without phonics.

However we use a lot more than phonics when we read fluently. We do use sight recognition for high frequency words and sense plays a huge role in reading fast. Phonics won’t help you distinguish between homophones and long technical words are instantly recognisable in context by one or two letters, length and juxtaposition.

Functional MRI imaging shows many different areas of the brain lighting up in good readers.

long technical words are instantly recognisable in context by one or two letters, length and juxtaposition.

Not convinced. My experiences both in the classroom and in my current job suggest otherwise.

I do agree that sight words + phonics is likely to be less of an issue than full blown searchlights. But there are some children for whom even that will cause an issue that leads to them not blending through the whole word when they read a new word or confusing very similar words. There’s no need to teach sight words as wholes, so why take the risk of needing to unteach bad habits in the future.

And I don’t believe that was a straw man.