Learning to read - am I being unreasonable to expect first word books to support Jolly Phonics?

[aintnomountainhighenough]

My dd has just started in reception and has had her first book home with words in. When she started in September she knew her phonic sounds and had started sounding out words to us. I requested books with words but was told she wasn't ready. They have now decided she is and the book that they have sent home is an ORT book about Biff and Chip, it only has about 4 pages.

I am not very happy about the book at all. They are teaching jolly phonics however the first word in this book is 'Who', it also contains 'it's' and 'spaceman'. Now don't get me wrong I understand that children need to be tested, however I don't think it is very clever to send a first book home with words that cannot be sounded out. My DD is actually fine about it, luckily, however another not so confident child could see the confidence really knocked.

I have posted because I feel I need to understand if I am being reasonable in my annoyance or am I over reacting? It just seems to me that the school has adopted Jolly Phonics but doesn't have the materials to support it.

DD's school uses ORT so that they can get used to using picture clues for their reading.
The first 4 books dd had were ORT and the rest have been phonics.

yanbu - and are right to be annoyed - have come accross this prob in a few schools - they have prob had the ort books for ages, and to buy a phonics compatible reading scheme will cost money they don't have i imagine. it's a bit crap tho isn't it - ort are based on sight reading not phonics.

screaminghousewife - yes we've been through the ORT books with just pictures. However my DD has been doing this type of thing for ages with other books so she found it a bit boring I think.

Thanks beautiful days - I am glad that I am not being picky!

Using phonic cues is just one of the strategies taught by schools to children learning to read. Children are also taught to use picture and context cues. Building up a sight vocabulary through the recognition of whole words(ie through flashcard games) are also important. Make an appointmemt to see the teacher, I'm sure they would be only too happy to reassure you.

ds1's school did the same, jolly phonics then ORT- wait until they get to the higher levels, most of his class were bored to tears by level 8 and they had to get them onto free readers to keep them interested -ORT books are really badly written and boring. DS1 is on level 15 now and it's like pulling teeth - he's reading these tedious things at school, then coming home and reading Terry Pratchett or Harry Potter.
Lisa X

Those are among high frequency words , which don't obey phonic rules but need to be recgnised, and "context" words which fit the story and pictures(from which they derive clues ). ORT isn't a phonic based system. There are JP readers but few schools seem to use them.

It just makes me so mad that they announce these strategies e.g. jolly phonics but then don't back it up with all the supporting materials.

lulurose I understand what you are saying however we are talking about the first book she has bought home from school with words - surely all should be decodable as a starting point actually I don't want her guessing at this point I want her to practice sounding out words. When they said to me she isn't ready I assumed they meant this i.e. sounding out and blending to read the word. If I had known that half the words were words that she had to be told and then remember I would have pushed to get her started on these in week1!

those words are on the high frequency lists of words for reception - they have to be memorized pretty much. jolly phonics isn't the be all and end all to reading

why not get a list from the teacher (or google them, lots of games to play with them) and get to know the sight words ( there are lists right up to year 3)

ORT is cr@p. Children should not be encouraged to guess at picutures. Unfortunately many primary school teachers still use bad teaching methods inspite of the Rose report.

I suggest you buy some Jelly and Bean books.

www.jellyandbean.co.uk

Jelly and Bean books are 100% decodable.

hana - sorry but 'spaceman' isn't on the list! However yes I know about the high frequency words and accept that there are many words they need to know. However my point is that this is her first book with words! they havent even finished all the sounds yet. FGS even the names - Floppy - can't be sounded out!

You are dead right, early readers should build on children's phonic knowledge, not encourage them to 'guess' at words. My ds muddles up 'like' and 'look' because at school he was taught to 'look at the first letter and guess' which is nonsense, he should be able to sound out words he reads first to build on the blending skills. Teaching children to guess can be counter productive as they do not learn the important, but more difficult initially, skills of blending.

I am interetstd whether your school are really teaching JP properly - are they doing all 44 sounds including long vowels? If they are just sticking to the 26 letters of the alphabet children will have to resort to guessing as they will not have the knowledge to work things out.

If you are worried i would get appropriate books yourself to teach her and just use the ORT ones for practise in the words she knows and tell her the rest. They do actually get better from about stage 5 once children have the full code knowledge.

If you have already asked the teacher for books and been refused you are highly unikely to get anywhere asking for phonically appropriate books, so just do what you can to teach her yourself as soon as possible so she is not reliant on these damaging strategies.

I am not a huge fan of Jolly Phonics, IME an over reliance on one strategy can be counter productive. Much better to teach phonics well (the progression in phonics or PIPS material is good and the Ruth Miskin synthetic phonics looks interesting)but also encourage other strategies.

Carbonel they are doing all the sounds. In fact I am really pleased at how they are motoring through them. Of course this is entirely selfish as it is really just re-inforcing for my dd and helping her with some of the ones she is weak on. However I would add that a few parents have helped by supplying Jolly Phonics supporting stuff like the CD - amazingly enough the children loved the songs !

Dd had that book. I wrote in her reading record that she had not learnt the rules yet behind split diagraphs and that she guessed it's to be it is.

Still the ORT books kept coming. I ignored them, bought some Jolly Readers (though I have since found out Jelly beans are better) and carried on with the JP at home.

I used to write in her reading record, we didn;t read her school book tionight, we did phnics instead.

Thanks islandofsodor however I will be speaking to the teacher about this and am contemplating going to the head. The school has just been put in special measures - they need to buck their ideas up.

aintnomountainhighenough - my two loved the songs too, particularly ds.

I bought the cd and we used to play it in the car on the way to school - sadly I know them all by heart now too, and the actions

I got a bit worreid when i started humming them to myself at work ...

Funny isn't it, I learned to read taught by a woman who left school at 12 .... no Jolly Phonics for me! Yet I had a reading age of 16+ at 9.

I think the schools like to give an eclectic aproach to reading to help those children who don't get along with JP. Children are exposed to reading matter which doesn't follow the rules all the time - what can you do, blindfold them until they can read fluently?

"Children are exposed to reading matter which doesn't follow the rules all the time - what can you do, blindfold them until they can read fluently? "

No one suggests not allowing synthetic phonics taught children to enjoy books. Having a parent or a teacher read to a story to a child is an enjoyable as well as educational experience.

What the OP objects to is her daughter being given a books with words that she has no idea how to read. It is WRONG WRONG to set up a small child for failure.

If a child has a book that is 100% decodable then their first experience of reading will be a sucess and make him or her confident. Tricky words or words with more complex words can come later. You can't expect a child to be able to read some of the hardest words in the English language like "ice-cream" or "spaceman".

Ruth misken books or the ORT Songbirds are good decodable readers as well.

"Funny isn't it, I learned to read taught by a woman who left school at 12 .... no Jolly Phonics for me! Yet I had a reading age of 16+ at 9. "

As maybe, but millions of adults in this country can't read.

Thanks reallytired you hit the nail on the head. My dd, having just started, is so eager to do everything right at school and is soooo proud of everything 'school' at the moment, I want her first taste of reading (as prescribed by school!) to be successful and enjoyable not with Mum having to say 'mmm well yes that word is what we call a 'tricky' word so I'll just tell you that one!

well said Reallytired - teaching children to guess can really dent their confidence if tehy keep getting it wrong and make them stop reading altogether.

Certainly did with my dd who cannot bear to be wrong, and actually loves to know how things work and the rules you need to apply. Once i taught her the rules myself (as the school did not teach long vowel sounds until yr2!) she went ahead quickly

And many of them will have been taught using synthetic phonics - some people are undiagnosed dyslexic, some had disinterested parents, some are just thick, a LOT have special educational needs like Autism - because adults with Autism are still adults and still count - and I really doubt you could attribute all this to sending books home with words in that the child can't read.

HOWEVER I certainly see your point RE confidence.