Help my son has two really Sh$t teachers - They have told him not to blend when reading

[Reallytired]

Last year my son had an excellent reception teacher. He was taught to read by synthetic phonics and did really well.

Today he told me that he has been told not to blend out word that he does not know. I am livid.

What should I do? (That is legal!)

How elso is he supposed to find what the word sounds like unless he blends it? It could be that he has misunderstood what he was told.

Does the teacher want him to work it out in his head????

Doesnt sound right!

First of all double check his story is right. It could be perhaps that it was a tricky word that has to be learnt by rote (are, some, one etc). If that is not the case check he hasn't misunderstood.

Otherwise go ballistic and point out how well your ds has learnt to read via synthetic phonics and that you wish him to carry on this way.

I wouldn't go ballistic yet - I'd go in and get clarification from the teacher regarding how they should be going about tackling new words.

Sounds bizarre!

Sounds very strange. I'd definitely go and talk to her in a "I wonder if DS has got the wrong end of the stick" kind of way. Perhaps she is encouraging him to sound out silently in his head, rather than out loud?

Let us know what you find out!

id def ask the teacher in a 'have i understood this correctly - i dont want to help in the wrong way' type of thing and see what she says

my dd teacher said the kids use a range of strategies to read - i would have thought any strategy that helps you son is a good thing

I agree with most that there has been some breakdown in communication! I agree with Island too that she may have been referring to a specific 'tricky' word, or discouraging him from sounding through words that she felt he probably knew by sight.

Go have a chat - we are a reasonable, knowledgable bunch (mostly!!!)

Sounds a bit strange that the reception class would teach reading in such a completely different way to Y1. Surely there is a whole school approach to reading which carries on right up through the school? I'd check with the teacher.

Well my son has been given a "word wall". She wants him to read the words fluently rather than sounding them out. Some of the words like "Adventure" are really hard. It requires advanced phonics that my son has not been taught yet. (ie. to know that at the end of words "ure" often sounds like " ch-or"

Its really hard because I never get to see his teacher as I work full time. Synthetic phonics has worked so well for my son that I want him to continue learning different phonic patterns as phonics works well for him.

If a child does well with synthetic phonics why do they need a range of other strageries. The sudden change in approach has really thrown him.

sounds like he has been his word wall of words to learn by sight - are many of these so called 'tricky' words where they cannot be sounded out? so he can then read these wall words fluently when he finds them in a story, but use phonics (and I agree they are the way to go) to tackle unknown words?

But a lot of the words on the word wall are completely phonic, its just that they do not know all the phonic variations. Why does the word "glow" need to be learnt?

I guess you will just have to get those Ruth Miskin books and teach him the rest of the code before he gets completely befuddled! It does seem daft that the Reception teachers are teaching one way and the Y1 teachers another.

It sounds as if you have words like glow because they are doing horrible old ORT which is not compatible with a synthetic phoic approach. And yes, they should have a whole school approach including decodable guided reading books such as Ruth Miskin or Jolly Phonics.