How does your school approach sight words?

[dinny]

Ours test them (year 1) every week by making them go through the whole blooming 150 each time! So weird and a horrid way to learn, dd hates it. why oh why can't they have a word tin and learn, say, 3 new a week. just find it so odd - same happened in rception...

dd hates doing it and I hate making her! talk about putting them off age 5!

A test with 150 words evey time?! Sounds like a nightmare.

DD's school don't do anything in particular. They pick them up through their reading. And for spelling they just have between and 10 words a week, all based on a particular sound but usually with one "not meeting the normal rules" word at teh end.

it's crazy, isn't it? think am going to speak to teacher.

spelling-wise, they have 5-10 a week. she enjoys spellings, loathes sight word hideousness

Our school does not do sight words other than the ones listed in the jolly phonics handbook. In reception my son had an envelope and was given three words to learn a week. Even so he was not expected to learn how to spell them.

A child should be learning how to blend. My son has never been given 150 words. There are about 60 words max in the jolly phonics handbook.

My son hasn't yet been given spellings and he is in year 1.

We haven't any lists of words to learn to read during Reception or this year in Y1. They do it purely from reading books. Certainy seems to have worked for DD with no problems.

Can't think of much worse than having to sit and read a huge long list of words at school every week. Not exactly promoting an excitment and enjoyment of reading is it?

DS is in Yr 2 and used to get a sheet with the 100 words on but would only have to do 10 at a time and just be able to read them. He is doing the same list now but learning the spellings.

I would have a word. Your DD won't be the only one who hates it.

Reception get three jolly phonics each week, and six sight words. Not sure about Yr 1 - they get 6-8 spellings to learn each week.

RT, she knows how to blend, these are high frequency words that often can't be sounded out. they are the words Year 1 are supposed to know by the end of the year.

just think it's a really turgid way to approach it! dd knows 142 now, gah, suppose will press on so can ditch the bloody things!

Hula - totally doesn't encourage love of reading!!

Hatrick - may ask teacher why they don't approach it in the way you did it, or is that a surefire way to annoy? (though she is actually lovely, sure she wouldn't be annoyed, think it must be a "school" approach seeing as reception teacher did it too!)

gosh, was talking to mum yesterday evening and her ds finished this massive sheet of year 1 sight words in reception!

Hi

my dd- reception at a prep school, can read all the sight/key words up to yr2. At the moment they are learning to spell them through every day use in her schoolwork. she learnt the key words through her reading books - she learnt to read last yr from the "Happy Venture"readers and the Ladybird keyword reading scheme (Peter and Jane). She only started phonics in September this yr. It might be an old fashioned way to learn but even the weakest readers in the class started reception at equivalent level to ORT level 4, the better readers are now starting to read paperbacks on their own.

Rezmum, had all the children done Ladybird scheme BEFORE reception then? at nursery?
or do you mean they all started year 1 at ORT level 4....?

dinny, it's very unlikely that all these words are true 'sight words' in the sense that they can't be deciphered phonically. Most lists of sight words include things like 'mum' and 'dad', which is just a nonsense really, since all a child needs to read these words is a knowledge of letter sounds and the ability to blend.

It suggests strongly that your child's school is not using a thought-through phonic approach. Memorising this words really should not be a substitute for learning to decode, and I would be scheduling a meeting with the head of infants pronto to find out the reasoning behind this policy. It sounds seriously outdated and completely out of step with current research and govt policy on reading.

DSs school doesn't. Not at all.

They teach them how to read instead so they can work any word out.

Dinny, her school is a private prep which starts from 3yrs -11 yrs. It is academic and they read three times aweek at 3yrs old (suppose it is a nursery class)then when they enter reception at 4yrs they read everyday to a teacher. Also at reception they have to write their news every monday on their own. At start of this term, they do spelling tests (6 words) every Friday.

dinny, they all start with 20 words then progress onto "happy venture"readers after a couple of these they do Ladybird keywords. They interchange the two for a while then they start reading Ladybird "Read it Yourself" scheme level2 (series from 1970's -more text and harder vocab than current series in shops.)

Soupdragon - yes, they also do JP and dd actually really enjoys sounding out and blending. It is just this accompanying need to test the High Frequency Words for Year 1 (which is what I mean rather than true sight words) every week that irks me! They also have 5 spellings a week and read 3 times a week, plus a homework project...so, am happy with all except this blooming sheet!

Frogs, think I will have a word anyway, the year 1 teacher is lovely and young and really good - I think it must be "school policy" to do these lists like this....just can't believe she's instigate it (she is newly qualified teacher).

Rezmum - I learnt to read with Ladybird

"It is just this accompanying need to test the High Frequency Words for Year 1 "

That's what I meant - they don't do that at all. Thankfully!

I don't think our school did this either. But I did it at home with DS a couple of times and at the end or reception he could do about half the reception words. At the end of Year 1, term 1 he could do all the reception words and all the Y1 ones. So the school had basically taught him to read.

My dd struggles with learning to read(P1 - so she's 5). She struggles to remember the individual phonic sounds but I thought I was doing a really good thing helping her to "sound out" words and blending. It meant she was getting a real sense of achievemnet as she was actually reading instead of struggling to remember the words in ORT. However school is not happy with this. According to the learning support teacher ALL schools use the whole word approach as well as learning phonics and "Sounding out" is not taught until end of P1. Since dd is struggling she is to learn whole lists of stage 1 words at home instead of sounding out.
Is this crazy or what? I tried for a few weeks to teach her the first few words but it is a very slow process. So we have gone back to basics and are sticking to phonics. Seems much more sensible to me.

thanks for the posts, wonder if it'll "click" with dd some time, feel like she is being left behind a bit really

rezmum,
Is your child's private school selective? Otherwise its unreasonable to compare their progress to children in a bog standard state school.

There is no way that my son would have been ready to have learnt to read in a formal setting at three year olds. He was still in nappies at his third birthday and prefered playing to anything academic.

He learnt to ready quite quickly using jolly phonics at four years old. In year 1 he is a fluent reader although finds spelling hard because of hearing problems.

Hi Reallytried,

No it is not selective but it is all girls and they are very competitive it seems. Also it is very tranditional in teaching and ethos - it doesn't suit all. Two left to go to other preps at the end of the summer term.