Read, write inc and books

[MoonriseKingdom]

My DD is in Reception in the same school she attended nursery. The school uses Read, Write Inc and have improved their yr1 phonics test results since introducing it. She is one of the oldest and was reading cvc words before starting. Her progress seems fine but she’s a bit frustrated- she really wants to read books!

They are in groups for phonics practice. Her group gets sheets home with a few sentences which she seems to manage ok. The teacher says her group will get reading scheme books after Christmas. I am guessing some groups will waiting even longer.

For anyone with experience of Read, Write Inc is this just part of the scheme? I realise there is no hurry but she would be delighted to have a really simple book with sentences she can read! Any recommendations for easy phonics books I could get for her - our local library has a poor choice of early readers.

My DD was in the same position last year and we started her on the songbirds books - she enjoyed them and the progress sticker chart that came with them. We also bought her the Usborne First Readers sets which are great as they have puzzles and questions at the back of the book to help with comprehension.

I also sent a little video of her reading her books to her teacher and she started her off a bit earlier on books as she was ready.

While my DD's reading level is high, often the comprehension doesn't quite match, so my advice is to make sure she understands what she is reading and ask her lots of questions.

Thank you, that’s really helpful. I will take a look at those books. It’s finding the balance between the technical skill of decoding and fostering a love of reading.

Agreed- that's where the sticker chart helped at the beginning and lots of encouragement and praise.

Once she started reading, we did little trips to the library and she was so proud to be able to choose books she could read herself.

We have this in our school but the kids did get sent books to read. I would say that the books you will get from school might be fully decodable but they are very boring. We also have the songbird books and started with these, but even they are not the most engaging stories. I would say start with them but don't be afraid to introduce other picture books with easy to read text so that you keep her interested and engaged.

Have a look at the Book People and get some of their phonics early readers. If she isn't ready for them now, she soon will be.
Plus if there are sounds she doesn't know yet you can just fill them in.

e.g. ship - you say the /sh/ bit, she does the /i/ /p/

We used Dr Seuss quite a bit at the start, eg 'one fish two fish' was very engaging. (DD once called down the stairs "Daddy, why are they bad and sad and glad?" when reading it alone)

Thanks everyone for replying. I have ordered some Songbirds books from the book people. I think she will be really pleased to have some accessible books.