How to help 5 year olds to read? Tell them there is no rule to pronunciation? Or explain them some basic rules and exceptions?

[SouthLondonDaddy]

With the lockdown and the resulting home-schooling, we are looking for some guidance / tips / materials / books on how to help 5 year olds to read. It needn't be free material, we'd be happy to buy books on the topic.

We have bought a set of Usborne phonics books (fat cat on a mat, Ted in the shed, etc) which seem fairly similar to the books the school uses.

However, our child is always asking questions about why certain words are pronounced in a certain way. Ted red fat cat etc are pronounced how they are written, but how do you explain why beside or look or cake etc are pronounced the way they are?

Our questions are:

1. Do you just teach 5 year olds that there are no rules and they must memorise the pronunciation for each word? Or
   
   
2. Do you try to explain some basic rules? E.g. in words starting with "kn" the k is silent, etc? How certain words together make certain sounds? Etc
   
   
3. Is there an official approach in English schools? Are ther ebooks on it? Or does each school follow a different method?
   
   We haven't found much on the topic. It seems that the school wasn't teaching specific rules but I have no idea if they would have taught them in the near future.
   
   Does any one have any ideas / experience / recommendations?
   
   To be clear, we are not looking for more fat cat and red ted and frog on a log books, but for guidance on whether to follow approach 1, 2 or something else.
   
   I have found (not yet bought) this book: www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0671631985?tag=mumsnet&ascsubtag=mnforum-21 which seems to provide certain rules to teach kids how to pronounce; I worry the approach might be a bit too different from that of the school, which might be confusing for kids, but then I haven't really understood what approach the school follows, to be honest.
   
   Thanks!

[LondonGirl83]

Its because they are written by Julia Donaldson. She is the best children's writer of her generation by far!

[MoonriseKingdom]

londongirl83 - they were recommended to me on Mumsnet. They are really well written even the ones with limited words.

[LondonGirl83]

MoonriseKingdom my daughter loves the Songbird phonics books too. I'd also recommend them to a parent looking for stories to read at home during lock down.

[Norestformrz]

It's disheartening to see that schools continue to mislead parents about "tricky words" ...when will we get teacher knowledge updated!

[MoonriseKingdom]

My DD’s school does Read Write Inc and I have been really impressed. We have been doing the daily phonics practice they put on YouTube.
home.oxfordowl.co.uk/reading/reading-schemes-oxford-levels/read-write-inc-phonics-guide/
This page has lots of helpful videos and resources for parents for phonics learning.
We also bought a set of the Songbirds phonics books from The Book People which gradually increases in complexity.

[Feenie]

That's called mixed methods, which is expressly what the NC states should not be happening, but lack of training means that lots of teachers/schools do exactly that but think they are teaching phonics.

The problem is that it suits around 80% of children (like your ds) but just confuses around one in five. There's no way of predicting who those children will be, unfortunately.

[bunnyrabbit93]

Yes I can understand that but I was just sharing my experience as to explain to a 5 year old and now here's more sounds that are different to all the other sounds. Can be challenging but I think you just have to follow your child / school as that is easiest.
I also think all children learn at different rates and being dyslexic I've always struggled but my DC 5 can read confidently and remembers 'tricky words ' using the method I had said

[Feenie]

And then there are phases of tricky words that cant be sound out that they have to memorize

That's another huge myth - it was Jolly Phonics who first coined the phrase (and I bet they wish they hadn't now) and through lack of any decent phonics training for teachers, the term took on a life of its own. But it was never supposed to mean words which cannot be sounded out - all words can be 'sounded out' if you teach the sounds.

As Letters and Sounds states (the programme with phases you referenced above) tricky words are simply words which contain sounds which haven't yet been taught. They are not 'words which have to be learnt as wholes'.

[bunnyrabbit93]

Sorry loads of typos in last message

[bunnyrabbit93]

At my daughters school they have taught them phase phonics using twinkl which have loads of free things at the moment.
I know it sounds obvious but they first teah you to say the correct sounds first so like bat the b is a short quick sound rather than ber and the t a quick rather than terr. And then there are phases of tricky words that cant be sound out that they have to memorize so level 1 is like I he etc. Thag way you aren't introducing kn sounds too early as they need the very basics first. Hope this helps 🙂

[tontie]

I found the jolly phonics book really helpful in terms of learning how to pronounce the different phonics & twinkl which is currently free has the tricky words etc

[user1471468296]

Agree with Feenie - what schools teach is simply phonics. The teaching of phonics covers all the issues in your OP and it really differs very little from school to school. If you look up phase 2 phonics, phase 3 phonics etc it will tell you the order in which sounds are taught.

[tontie]

.

[LondonGirl83]

• phonics scheme no reading scheme!

[Feenie]

They should have their phonics scheme on their website somewhere - it's a statutory requirement.

[LondonGirl83]

You should be able to ask your school which reading scheme they follow. They should definitely tell you and most schools publish it on their websites so maybe start there.

I agree, it makes most sense for you to follow the one your daughter has already been learning. To be fair, in the grand scheme of things despite all the raging debate happening on your thread, the various synthetic phonics schemes are fairly similar!

Being a parent is a minefield these days. We've all had to become homeschoolers so best of luck! As I and others have said, its worth also practicing her high frequency words with her and checking which book band she was on when school closed.

[Feenie]

There is only one method of teaching decoding in the national curriculum - phonics. There are quite a few decent phonics schemes - schools must choose one and stay faithful to it.

All schools must teach comprehension, inference, vocabulary, etc alongside.

[SouthLondonDaddy]

Thank you all for your help.

One last question: can you maybe summarise what the different methods / approaches commonly used in English schools are? Are there, say, 2-3 main methods, and therefore books and material following one of these 2-3 main methods?
The school is unlikely to recommend extern material but I would at least like to understand which method they follow and what material is more likely to be close to that.

[Feenie]

I'm also here to provide support - and also to make sure any misconceptions are picked up on and, more importantly, the reasons why explained. That's more important than shying away from doing so because other schools have 'always' taught it like this/in this sequence without ever questioning and finding out why.

[Chanel05]

Funnily enough I don't care enough to discussed the subject knowledge of anyone and mine is excellent, thank you. I'm here to provide support to a parent in need. Enjoy your evening.

[Feenie]

As I said, always interesting.....

[Chanel05]

Oh do behave Feenie. 🙄

In my school we do not teach vowel digraphs alongside splits e.g. ue and u_e, splits are taught later on.

OP, phonics is a lot of fun but it should be reinforced daily to have a good impact and reading isn't always a rapid progress, it can take a lot of time and effort. You could also try Phonics Play as it's free to subscribe to at the moment and there are loads of fun games on there.

[Lefters]

Oxford owl might be useful. It explains phonics and has leveled
reading Ebooks with follow on activities. I’d second alphablocks, this really helped my son learn to blend. It’s helpful to learn the high frequency words alongside this.

[nowaitaminute]

I'm in Ireland we still teach the "magic e" but I think we take things A LOT slower over here to be honest! Children are only starting school at age 5 and doing letter sounds and some CVC for the first two years!

[Doveyouknow]

I would also recommend Read Write Inc. The parent videos on YouTube go through the different sounds in the order they are taught (phase 1 -3). I normally prefer a book but videos mean you get the sounds right. There are also daily lessons on the different phases at the moment which my kids have enjoyed. A few of the books are available on the Oxford Owl website. Most of the info is here home.oxfordowl.co.uk/reading/reading-schemes-oxford-levels/read-write-inc-phonics-guide/.

We also had some sound cards from ladybird (ready for phonics) which helped.