Reception child, phonics

[88milesanhour]

My 4.5 YO has just started reception. I wouldn't say she's ridiculously ahead with her reading or obsessed with it/hyperlexic. She brings home new reading books once a week. She blends really well and seems to understand what she's reading well. She also gets a phonics folder every other week with some new phonics sounds/tricky words. The thing is she's literally got the new sounds/sight words memorised in minutes. I have taught her a bunch more sight words in addition to what they gave her at school and she's got all of the phase 2 and phase 3 words memorised (including 'all' haha) I've made this quite obvious by including a printout of these extra words in her folder and ticking them but there's no evidence that the teachers have even tested on these.

My issue is that she's come home today with.an 'updated' phonics folder. However it literally only has 2 more sounds added and no sight words. These are to last her for the next 2 maybe 3 (half term) weeks. She will have them memorised by the end of tonight. Also, the reading books she has are way behind the sounds and sight words she's familiar with and basically the same as last week's meaning she's not actually enjoying using her new sounds. I don't want to (and am not going to) pressurise my child but I'm thinking that if the pace isn't picked up she'll just start to find the phonics element of reading even more tedious.

Has anyone else been in the same boat? What have you found works? Do I stretch my dd to what I think she's capable of or trust her teacher. They are a fantastic school and she's very happy there. I want to add too that she's read to frequently by us atm and this is still very much our focus. Thanks x

Trust the teachers.

Gallop through the reading programme, and then use the time to read real books together

Can she write the sounds she knows and words she knows?

Yes. Her writing is good although she might not necessarilly write sight words correctly eg yesterday she wrote 'yoo' instead of 'you'

Just read books with her and don’t over think it.

Just read her own books with her as well as the school ones. There's no rush with the phonics and to be honest both my children's reading ability overtook the phonics they were doing.

Maybe relax and step back a bit. Read with her and to her. Focus on enjoying stories and talking about them. She is doing well.

Maybe speak to the teacher?

Chill out. Children have different abilities but they can’t teach different phonics to different children in class in reception. They have to cover the basics and make sure all the children are up to date. Phonics is a really tiny part of their day so I doubt she’s going to end up too bored. And are you seriously wanting her to do ‘homework’ over half term at 4.5? Chill out, read and enjoy!

Definitely don't worry at all then. If she can recognise the graphemes, hear the phonemes and write using phonics too, I'd ease off completely. She needs time to embed these skills and apply them throughout her play before always moving onto learning the next thing.

Definitely relax! It isn't a race.

Do you know what scheme they use? Some of them (Little Wandle for example) only send home books that they can read fluently and have already read in school.

If you're worried, talk to the teacher.

Stretch your DD!!

Please don’t simply the school to teach her to learn to read, it isn’t done well in England and even schools say most of the ‘learning to read’ happens at home.

Best thing you can be doing st this age is read to her lots (books above her level that she likes) and run your finger under the words as you read.

I'm not sure people are quite understanding me here. It isn't about pushing her for the sake of pushing her it's about the fact that she's finding it so easy it's almost painful and it's even more tedious to make any kindof routine out of practicing it. I showed her her new phonic sounds this pm for literally 2 minutes before bed and she's already sounding them out with ease and memorised them. No of course she won't have 'homework' over the half term but I'm not going to stop reading with her either. We're talking literally 10 minutes a day that she makes absolutely no complaint about doing why would I stop because it's half term?! Surely that just reenforces the idea that it's a chore...

Thanks @Greenight . I am reading lots to her. We have been reading a couple of chapter books that she loves. We also pick out words in her books and she reads them.

We have parent's evening soon. I think I'll just directly ask the teacher what she thinks. Tbh I suspect the steadiness with new material is much more about simply not having the one on one time to swap books and words more frequently than something they feel is genuinely in her interest but I'd be happy to hear from any teachers whether parents teaching kids extra would annoy them.

Do you have a local library? If you do, go down there with your DD and pick out some books, you can read them together.
You have plenty of 1:1 time with your DD. The teacher is teaching the phonics sounds to 30 children and probably at the pace dictated by the phonics scheme. It's great that your DD is picking it up quickly, read the school books a couple of times and then read something else.
Encourage her to do lots of writing at home too.

I agree with the pp who suggested getting books that your dd can read from the local library to supplement school books.

I don’t really see what the problem is here OP. Just do the work from school quickly then do something else. Teach your daughter cooking, drawing, an instrument, anything really; or just let her relax at home and play games.
classes have 30 children in them, teachers have a national curriculum to follow and can’t race ahead as there will be other, lower ability children to teach too. The teacher needs to go at a pace to suit the majority.

The year 1 phonics assessment will have a section about alien words (nonsense words like yef or barp) so if you're confident in her reading real words, start doing nonsense stuff with her. Kids that can read well often struggle with the alien words because they don't see any point in working them out when they don't mean anything

This is really what I'm trying to question. Is teacher going at the current pace because it works for her or my child? I'm more than happy to help my daughter and have basically taught myself phonics so that I'm confident teaching her.

The teacher seems incredible so I'm really not criticising her either way. I think though we ultimately know our kids and their capabilities and teachers may have their own agenda/misconceptions. My dd's situation is nothing like this but in Y7 I had a particularly savage teacher who didn't like kids sitting next to each other having the same workbooks because they'd copy. She always insisted on giving me the less challenging work. She'd obviously decided that because my friend was the more outgoing that she was brighter. It irked me tbh because even at age 11 I worked that out. My friend barely passed her GCSEs I got all A's/A*. Teachers don't always know best and they definitely don't know your kid better than their parents do

We do all of the above...

mine is a free reader she reads the school phonics books in minutes. I buy her a variety of books which she enjoys. Don’t stress about the phonics schemes. Try to instil love of reading.
with my older I used to stress so much about the reading books but it was needless

She reads the nonsense words with ease too

Namechange fail sorry

I am now a year 1 parent of a child who was the same as this a year ago. The fact is they are meant to find the reading scheme stuff easy. It's about repetition and since the day my daughter started has always been below what she could actually manage. Just go with it, do the nightly phonics book read, sight words, red words etc, tick it off as done in the reading diary and then enjoy whatever books she wants to.

She sounds like a bright kid but the teachers know their stuff and, like I said, all the average and brighter kids will be finding their school phonics work easy, it's the point of the schemes. She will be a more able, more rounded reader for it in the long run.

I'm not sure people are quite understanding me here. It isn't about pushing her for the sake of pushing her it's about the fact that she's finding it so easy it's almost painful and it's even more tedious to make any kindof routine out of practicing it

I don’t understand your problem/ question. Don’t practice them with her then if she knows them. I didn’t with my girl. Some parents will have to.

No of course she won't have 'homework' over the half term but I'm not going to stop reading with her either

Why does not practicing/ practicing a few phonic sounds affect your ability to read with her over half term? I don’t understand the link? Unless you’re literally reading her phonetic manuals!

honestly if you’re freaking out less than half a term in you’re going to need to find a way of dealing. Schools cater for all children and aren’t designed specifically around yours. As they move through the years they (unofficially) stream usually and the kids that get things better go in one group and the kids that need more help the other.

i really don’t understand what this post was for if not to make you feel superior? Did you want us to talk to the teacher? Did you expect people to say that the class should skip the basics as your daughter knows them?

I really can’t get the angle!

Carry on with what you’re doing for now, then speak to the teacher at parents evening, but there may not be much they can do at this stage.

Ours get moved up a book band when they’re confident with all the sounds/digraphs etc within that band, so if school haven’t taught it yet none of them will move up.

Keep reading to her, get books from the library. Our library has a series called actiphons (or actiphones?) which is designed to be read by you and the child working together which she might enjoy.

No I wanted opinions as to how I best support my dd and whether I work at their pace or in addition to it. I don't expect the class to race ahead no but if it's going to be in her interest I'm sure as hell not going to hold her back either. It isn't about showing off at all but sorry I forgot that MN is the land of 1) opposing or gaslighting anything an OP says and 2) refusing to accept that sometimes parents of kids who are ahead need help and advice too...