Phonics - reception class 2019

[hwill72]

Just interested as to where everyone's reception class is up to re phonics, my lg ended up at a different primary school than all her friends and speaking to their mum's they seem to be much further ahead than her class is. Just curious to get a bigger picture...

My son s class is learning all letters and starting to do sounds like sh

I don’t know really. They’re only 5/6 weeks in so I don’t imagine they’ve got too far.
DD1 started reception last year reading fluently, DD2 is in reception now and knows her sounds and can blend cvc/vc words, but I don’t know what stage she’s at in class.

Our school does Read Write Inc and they are up to 'k' so have done the first 12 letter sounds.

Mine are doing jolly phonics. They have done SATPIN and now they're on C.

Pressed send too soon! They are also putting it into practice with CVC words.

I dont know but by half term they had covered A-Z. Then got books home.
The speed it is covered at is less important than whether they can do the phonics. And write them.
Some kids will know them all from preschool.

Mine are doing Read Write Inc as well. My dd is doing set 1 sounds and CVC words now. But there are other children doing set 2 sounds like ay and ee.

We are on s/a/t/p/i/n/m/d and starting the very first blending with a dog called pat.

Ours have the following in their phonics books:

/S/A/T/P/I/N/CK/E/H/R/M/D/G/O/U/L/F/B

They have also learnt 'the' and 'to'.

They do a phonics session on the carpet each day, but also send home books where the children are encouraged to guess from the first sound and the picture or as the pattern is repeating as they include sounds they don't know yet.

My dd has done satpin and also around ten other of the single phonemes and now doing some of the double letter sounds.

They have blending practice daily of cvc words like cat, cap etc

I was surprised they are teaching them some high frequency sight words (only 3 so far) because I thought that was mixed methods bu maybe I just didn’t realise they still need to memorise some words.

No books home yet!

Ah @satina just saw yours also learned some sight words so maybe
that’s standard for this stage

No idea. DS is just 4 and all I want is for him to want to go to school every day. He can make an A and an X with his body and draw a number 1. That’s plenty for me.

I teach at a primary that got 100% at age related in all KS2 SATs last year and know our Receptions haven't even finished satpin! It's not a race, don't stress.

Well every day I ask I get todl he learnt "a" although I think he did add v" today and a few sight words / spelling two letter words. I'm sure it wasn't this complicated when I was 4

My DDs Reception class are doing Read, Write Inc. They are currently doing set 1 sounds at 1 per day and there is one more week of this. Not sure what happens after that. She is one of the oldest and could read cvc words prior to starting but they have not had reading books home yet. One thing I do like about this scheme is they are learning how to write the letters at the same time. Her ability to form recognisable letters has definitely improved.

Yes ours are also writing each sound as they learn it

I agree no race but as it’s all so different from whiten was at school it’s nice to compare notes and understand how it’s done

DD was in reception last year, they didn't even start on phonics until after October half term.

There is honestly no rush at all. According to letters and sounds the phonics teaching in YR should cover phases 2-4. Phase 2 (19 letters, one sound for each) takes 'up to' 6 weeks of teaching, phase 3 (remaining 7 letters, and one grapheme for each of the remaining sounds e.g. ch, oo) up to 12 weeks, and phase 4 (no 'new' phonics is taught/children practise to read consonant clusters) up to 6 weeks. That is 'up to' (could be less!) 24 weeks altogether; and only really 'up to' 18 weeks of teaching GPCs.

I personally quite like the idea of postponing the start of phonics teaching, and focusing on settling the children into the new environment first.

Also there is a potential problem with powering through the phonics as quickly as possible. What do you do for the rest of the school year? Good schools will find ways to keep up the phonics, I'm sure. But for both my children, the systematic phonics teaching rather abruptly ended around February half-term, to be only taken up again in September of Y1 when they started doing phase 5. In the half-year gap, they did all sorts of things like letter names, alphabet, and memorising 'tricky words'.
My kids (especially DD) also read all the phonics books pink-yellow that the school had and so was given non-phonics books (to bridge the gap until she'd be taught the phase 5 phonics needed for higher level phonics books). So in conjunction with a half-year gap (that's a loooong time for a 4-5 year old) in being taught phonics systematically (or at all), she was also given books that are designed to encourage guessing, using picture clues, etc - and where applying your phonics knowledge won't work, as they are full of words that cannot yet be decoded. So all the good phonics work from the first half year of reception was in danger of being entirely undone.

So, honestly. The teachers only really need to fit in 18 weeks or so, for teaching the initial code of phonics, into the whole school year. There is no rush at all.

I imagine it can take a while for some kids to know the phonics fluently and then also to blend them then to say without sounding out.
I think as well some can already read going in so the phonics is a bit of a recap.
The writing is more difficult as i think 4.0yo is just too young for some but again can see why they start straight away.

DS's school didn't really start with letters until after October half term last year though they sent home wordless books and I think they worked on sound recognition etc. The first half term was mostly about settling them into school and I think it was time well spent. Overall the school reading results seem good and DS is doing very well with reading at the start of Y1, so I think taking it more slowly is no bad thing.

Mine went to different schools - one didn't even start phonics till after October half term; the other had started after the first 3 settling in days at a sound a week pace.

Both kids now read very well, greater depth and above the level expected of them.

6 weeks in, all letters A-Z done, but obviously not in that order!

They’ve been doing jolly phonics and 3 sounds a week since about week 3. They haven’t had any books or anything home yet - think that starts after half term.

"so maybe that’s standard for this stage" no teaching "sight" words isn't standard and is poor practice.

Mrz that was my initial instinct - it surprised me