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?

I am an ex teacher and specialised in children’s literacy as a university lecturer. The best way for a child to learn to read is a combination of all methods - phonics, look and say, using picture and grammatical clues etc. When a child first starts reading the books would be very very boring if they only included words that they could decode phonetically (and some Reception children don’t even know their letters so can’t even do that). The books they bring home are just for building up confidence and largely (if I’m being controversial) to keep parents happy. Most of the teaching of reading happens in class through whole class, group and guided reading.

Take for example the Oxford Reading Tree Kipper books at Stage 2. Most words can be read phonetically or are Reception Key words that should be learnt, however, if the word ‘pumpkin’ is thrown in to help the story be more interesting then yes, I would expect the child to guess that word using the picture of it’s too tricky for them to sound out.

Parents often think that reading books from school are the be all and end all. They are fairly pointless. Just read a lot with them at home, learn the Reception key words, practice sounding out phonetically and practice writing. It’s really not worth pissing the teacher off about and yes, you are already that parent.

I was a reception teacher, granted a while ago, but children do and should use different ways to help them read, not just phonics. Try to relax a bit, encourage an enjoyment of books and be nice to the teacher!

Oh God. Don't send a note. That note makes you look ridiculous. Please no.
You did the right thing although you did sound a bit full-on. Don't backtrack. You said what needed to be said. Leave it at that.
There's no going back. You are now 'that' parent. Don't be 'that' parent who went home and thought about it and sent the note also. That would be embarrassing.
Welcome to the PITA parent club.
I've become a member this term

@TeenPlusTwenties genuine question - did you learn through phonics? I didn't (1980s), and yet I became an early fluent reader.

My mum was a primary school teacher who experienced the introduction of phonics and often complained about the rigidity of it. I became an spld trained secondary English teacher and could say the same. I don't think anyone's saying phonics don't work, it's just not the only method.

You raised a reasonable query.

Your entire approach however was wrong and really patronising, especially so early in the year.

The Rose report raises interesting ideas and phonics is good, but things hacemoved on and if a parent decided to contact me telling me they'd forward their research on and suggestions on how I need to do my job then it probably would get us off on the wrong foot, not least because I wouldn't be telling them how I think they should parent after a couple of weeks.

As ever with school situations, questions and discussions can either be raised in a productive and respectful way or be patronising and demanding. I think you misjudged massively

@Satina
You said what you had to after putting in some research of your own .
Can I just set this into context for you ?
I used to work for a GP surgery - it was an excellent one too . Patients were listened to . With the advent of the internet many people would google their symptoms and produce print outs for their GP at consultations so
sometimes having scared themselves half to death in the process. Yet I never in ten years heard a GP discounting their worries during post appointment discussions . Their professional attitude read between the lines and picked up things which might otherwise be missed . Patients were often fast tracked to consultants as a result . A well informed patient can sometimes become an expert on their own condition . Sounds weird maybe but a GP can't possibly assimilate all the info on every ailment . There just isn't time in the working day .
Don't apologize and feel bad - if the teacher is worth her salt she will take it as a learning curve and take a look t the research herself . A child's education is worth a few questions and you may also have helped other too .

Like I said, I'm pro-phonics, I just wouldn't be concerned about children guessing the odd word from the illustrations.

Yes same here. There are lots of words in the English language that are not phonetically decodable. If a child relied solely on phonics they wouldn't learn to read properly. Children naturally use a range of strategies to learn to read, repetition, picture cues, context etc.

Yr2 ta here. We encourage all approaches. Phonics obviously, looking at pictures and chunking. Seems a sensible approach since not all words are phonetically decidable!

Decodable

Little I learned in late 60s/early70s, and yes I think it was phonics based.

But you have to learn phonics eventually, otherwise you cannot read words you've not seen written down before. Of course phonics isn't the be all and end all in reading, as reading is not only decoding but it is also understanding.

But why teach a child to 'guess' as a strategy? Say to them 'oh you won't have learned how to read all of that word yet but it is /p/ /u/ /m/ /p/ /k/ /i/ /n/ - pumpkin. That shows them that if they carry on learning they will be able to read it eventually.

MrsRufusdog789
That may be the case, but I would imagine that's probably less common than hypochondriacs or people who think X Y Z should happen because they read something online.

There's nothing wrong with taking an interest and wanting the discussion. That's quite reasonable.
It's still quite out of line in my opinion to tell someone else how to do their job (which is what the OP has strayed into). It's not about the teacher being worth their salt and should consider it a learning curve, it's the fact that someone who isn't a teacher has seen fit to tell a teacher how to do their job.

@TeenPlusTwenties that's fine for words with regular patterns, but English is a melting pot of many languages and there are hundreds of words which aren't at all logical, unlike 'pumpkin'. A guess is never an uneducated guess for a native speaker, it will be a combination of some letter or pattern recognition, memory and context (from pictures or the rest of the sentence). That is a valid strategy.

I think it might be a valid strategy for later on, but not when you are in the first weeks of trying to teach a child to read.

The teacher can teach how he/she thinks best as long as it is achieving the required results and is within school guidelines. You can teach how you wish.
You can't dictate to the teacher what she does in school. You can choose to home educate. Google is not always right.

I did something very similar to you about when my DC was in reception.

You were correct. You shouldn’t have had to pull them up on their knowledge. It doesn’t sound like you were rude. Do you think you were rude or do you think you found it difficult in that you knew more than the expert?

What I did was be polite to the teacher and head. I thanked them when they did amazing things for the DC. If reading was ever brought up I told them I disagreed with them and we agreed to disagree.

When it came to teaching my child to read I got on with it myself. My child can read. They learnt a lot at that school but not how to read.

The reception teacher has moved on to SMT elsewhere. There are a lot of struggling readers in what was that reception class.

All words are phonetically decodable once you know the code.

I thought that government guidance was to teach reading through phonics as a first choice. Is that not correct? Or does government advice now say teach mixed methods as a first choice?

I'm not surprised the government had to mandate the phonics screening checks.

You are correct Teen.

When the Ofsted inspector is a Reading Recovery teacher you know you’re fighting a losing battle.

Reading this thread you can tell that mixed methods are still deeply entranched in primary Ed.

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You can still teach phonics as your first and most important method of learning to read, whilst still encouraging other methods as an alternative. All schools have to teach phonics every day, with whichever scheme they are using, so there are no 'mixed methods' being 'taught' as such.

But that doesn't mean that you can't also encourage children to use different methods sometimes as well does it?

Quite honestly i think that if a teacher wrote 'encouraged to use picture cues' in my child's reading record, it wouldn't even register with me!

In what other job would someone come up to you, tell you were doing it wrong, quote their own research and then offer to provide you with references for it? 🤣

Enjoy the rest of primary school!

Early years nursery nurse here, I support children to read daily and have done for decades.
Phonics doesn't work for all, sometimes picture prompts are useful and really very short term as their skills develop.
I mean this kindly but you really need to chill out. Over invested parents (to the extent they are doing intensive research and telling teachers how to do their jobs) have been known to completely put their child off reading. Please be warned....

@DocFartin in mine!!! It's possibly why ops dc1 went off the boil with reading, I've seen it a fair few times sadly.

The books they bring home are just for building up confidence and largely (if I’m being controversial) to keep parents happy

That’s an interesting point. DD1 started reception last year. She could already read fluently when she started (not entirely sure how she learned, not through phonics ), so was bringing books home at a fairly high ‘band’ from day 1.
DD2 is a summer born and started this year. She is just starting to be able to decode, like the majority of her class. She hasn’t brought any books home yet, and I wouldn’t expect her to. However a lot of the parents are getting really angsty about it! I hear lots of disgruntled mutterings in the playground about them not having had a reading book yet. I know they are putting a lot of work into their phonic sounds in class as DD2 tells me all about it!

. All schools have to teach phonics every day, with whichever scheme they are using, so there are no 'mixed methods' being 'taught' as such.

Children asked to guess using pictures = mixed methods.