Differentiation in phonics

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My daughter has just started reception and is loving it so far. She was at quite a pushy preschool last year and was taught all the individual letter sounds and some digraphs, and I’ve taught her most of the other digraphs to the end of phase 3. She is reading books containing these sounds and common tricky words (the, to, go) fairly fluently, and has been since Christmas. She’s also writing words using phonetically plausible attempts, eg ‘macarony’ for macaroni and ‘pancacs’ for pancakes. I’m not saying she’s exceptional or gifted and talented, but she is a little ahead of the expected level entering reception.

They’ve started phonics at school but are only covering 2 sounds a week it seems. So far she has had wordless books for home reading. I spoke to the teacher this week and she said they’ll get books with words from next week but only using sounds she’s been taught in school. I said she could read already, so could we have books containing sounds I know she knows, but she said she can’t send home books containing sounds she hasn’t been taught in school.

So, it seems all reception phonics lessons and books being sent home will be a waste of time for her? I don’t understand why there’s no differentiation in this subject? For context I am also a teacher but not of this age, and would never just teach lessons to the lowest level and not extend pupils who can already do what I’m teaching, so this seems really odd!

School seems excellent generally, and from what friends have said to me this is universal across all schools with all phonics schemes, so I don’t think it’s just that the school is crap!

Any other parents with slightly older kids who entered reception got any advice on this or can tell me how their school handled it? obviously, we will continue to read our own books at home, but I had hoped to get some at the appropriate level from school.

Thank you so much to everyone for your replies. Lots of good points brought up which I will read again later and mull over. Just to clarify a few points:

• I will definitely carry on reading with her at home, i was just hoping the school reading books would give me extras to read with her
• i am very aware it’s early days and they’ll still be assessing! That’s why I didn’t go in the first day she brought home a wordless book, I just happened to bring it up this week as we had a parents evening type thing so it seemed appropriate
• the teacher confirmed that she will ONLY EVER bring home books with sounds she’s been taught in school - she will NOT be given more difficult books once they’ve worked out what she can do. This is in line with the most recent gov/ofsted guidance, so if anyone’s child is older than about y2 they probably didn’t have this experience. When I taught y1 we used to send home difficult books with able readers, from what I’ve read this shouldn’t happen now
• i don’t believe phonics is taught in differentiated groups at this school. My understanding is the only scheme that still pushes this is read write inc, and this school uses floppy’s phonics.
• I am a primary teacher and have taught many a phonics lesson. She’s not learning using some alternative method with me, my method will match the schools. She doesn’t need to relearn the sounds she knows already.

I will carry on as we have been the last 8 months or so, reading our own books and just whizz through the school readers as and when they come. I’m not super stressed about it or anything, I know she’s young, I had just hoped now she’s in school they would stretch her with phonics and sending books but if not I shall do so.

The government decides and is very clear and inflexible with phonics input.

Shes not completely secure on all the phase 3 digraphs, she can read /ai/ and /oa/ for example but wouldn’t write them. This is where I would want her to start on a reading scheme as they definitely need further practice.

The /y/ at the end of macaroni is possibly phase 5? She used this because I’ve had to teach her that y at the end makes ee, not y like in yellow. This incidental teaching is because the books don’t quite match the new scheme. Which is EXACTLY why I would like books which match the scheme the school use rather than just random ones I’ve bought or picked up in the library :)

As I think has been mentioned previously, this is all thanks to go/Ofsted. I teach in KS1 and we have to send home reading books which match the phonics taught in class. We also have to teach whole class phonics following the DfE accredited scheme, all the children doing the same thing. It is extremely frustrating, as it only benefits the 'middle' of the class really. There is some wiggle room for me and I do send home additional reading books, either easier or from a selection of additional books which are at the same book band but more challenging. I also allow them all to take a library book which adds some challenge in. I would imagine the teacher might do something like that at some point but the phonics books will still be given to you, even if you don't need them. Just keep reading with your child and read a range of books. Make sure they are developing good fluency, expression and most importantly understanding. Comprehension becomes more and more important as they go through school.

I think my question would be why she needs to be 'stretched' two weeks into reception? Her brain's got plenty to process just now, and having a good base with phonics means she can give more cognitive and emotional attention to other things that are maybe not quite so easy for her. I'd be content with that atm.

DC2 also learned prior to starting school. We have mostly supplied our own reading books the whole way through, through the library / cheap box sets. It gets a lot easier doing that once they get to green / orange bands, as almost all of the sounds have been taught by then so differences in phoneme teaching order by scheme largely become irrelevant.

I'm on the other end of the scale with DC3 (2 years younger, and late summer born) who has just started reception and isn't ready to start learning letters yet. He hasn't 'got' that each letter is a sound, and the phonics school is already doing just isn't sticking. It's really brought home how bonkers it is teaching the whole class phonics identically at this age!

There should be differentiation. At DD’s school they do phonics in small mixed-year groups based on ability, she does well at it so in reception was in a group with year 1 & 2 children as well as a couple from her class.

If your child has only been there 3 weeks they‘re probably still baselining and gauging ability levels to sort them into groups.

Would you feed this back to the preschool? It seems bizarre for them to have done so much formal learning at that age, I don't see why they would do that tbh.

@BendingSpoons this was last September. The teacher assessed the sounds each child knew and tailored book band levels accordingly.

Actually there was a change at the end of first term last year where children were given a more prescriptive phonics book containing sounds learned in class. But in the reading record it was noted that this might be a 'very quick read' so we also got two 'challenge books' at a higher band level. I think some kids are just given the phonics books if they need more help in securing sounds. This now all makes sense as away of incorporating the new Offsted guidance but still being able to stretch more able readers. Maybe you could suggest the 'challenge book' type of approach?

I feel your pain. My daughter has just started Yr 2, and we still have this issue. She fluently reads early chapter books at home, and loves reading. Her school books are only ever matched to the sounds they have formally been taught. They don't use book bands etc and there really doesn't seem to be any differentiation.

I've spoken to the teachers about it on and off throughout the last couple of years - it's just how they do it. I've given up trying to ask them for more challenging books, and we just get our own from the library each week.

Dds school use readwriteinc and they had around four phonics groups all the way into year 2.
Now even in year 3 I know there's a small group who still do some phonics.
I wouldn't be happy with such a rigid response from the school, it's not the teachers fault if it's a school policy.

My son is in Reception and old for the year, he was already reading fluently and at about y2 level in arithmetic. He brings home the standard phonics book too, its a bit frustrating to read Mat! Sam, mat! five times a week.

In class there is better differention. He writes the sounds while the others are reading them. He reads other books appropriate to his reading level with his teacher. He is in a mixed aged class so works with Y1 for maths. They are great at giving extras that align with the work of the rest of the class.

We have accepted that the academic side of things will be slow for a while and what he really needs to learn for now is the social and behaviour side of things. But I agree your school sounds overly rigid.

I don't mind it. I am well educated and intelligent but until having my own children, had no interaction with any. Until DC1 started school, I didn't know what a phonic was, never mind a grapheme or a digraph.

It's an alien language until it's taught. I remember DS coming home and talking about ksss [my badly interpreted way of writing it down] and I said "I don't know what that is" and he said "you do mummy, like at the end of box". Aha. It's the way 'x' sounds. And that makes compete sense. When you know.

I can see how it's a well established and graduated programme they follow. There are worksheets to assist me and additional books available to purchase at each level if we want to read more. I can also see how it's spectacularly unhelpful to try and read ahead. I have no idea how new sounds are learnt, and it won't do DS any favours for me to guess incorrectly. Maybe I'm completely wrong, but he's in the top group for reading, doing well and loves it. I don't feel the need to push harder in Year 1!

Similarly,

My daughter joined school able to read quite fluently (turquoise/purple when she started reception, reading Roald Dahl etc independently by the end of the year). There was very little differentiation in reception. Year 1 was a whole different ball game, she was given books from years 4 and 5 and encouraged to work on inference, understanding use of language to create effects, etc. I was mildly annoyed that a lot of the reception reading work was a bit pointless for her, but it didn't kill her enthusiasm and then year 1 was very different.

I don’t need her stretched right now. However the teacher has confirmed this will be the approach the whole time she is doing phonics, so for the next 2 years. I had hoped for some challenge during her first 2 years of schooling 🤷‍♀️

The preschool is at an independent school. The vast majority stay on for reception, who pick up where preschool left off. Tiny classes, motivated parents, mostly well behaved kids - the kids progress quickly and often end up working ahead, and they tailor it to what the children are ready for. Meanwhile state schools are forced to stick to the rigid structure ofsted/the government have decreed. Very frustrating.

I could read at 3 - in reception (we didn't have nursery back then) I was just allowed to choose books from the library. I'd just sign to say the school book has been read and continue with your own. Or add which additional books have been read into her reading record.

I would also assume this. They will differentiate once they are all fully assessed. Read school books for school then read whatever books she enjoys for pleasure. It's what I had to do over 60 years ago when we all had to plough through the Janet and John dross.

There's nothing wrong with 'wordless books' - if your daughter's reading is so great then encourage her to come up with her own stories to these books. Encourage her language skills, imagination, creativity etc...focussing on reading is so rigid, especially at this age.
@tiredandolderthanithought - I totally agree! They won't be this young for much longer and they'll have enough stressors with learning throughout primary and more so in secondary. Let these children have some fun instead of being the pushy parents saying they need more academic challenges!

I don't know what's usual nowadays-but just to say, my dd,who was an early reader, loved books without words. We used them as story telling prompts. It was a lot of fun and she learned loads.
Also-it's really early in the term-your dd is learning a ton of stuff. No harm in some of it being too easy for her.
Also-you don't have to stick to just school books at home. If the school book is too short and easy, read that then find something else from her shelf.

I hear you OP

DDs class covered all the graphemes for reception by February and didn't start the y1 ones til the following November, meaning no one was allowed to go up a reading band in those 6 months

Honestly it would have been very helpful if they had taught DD the next set of phonics when she was ready, as she did actually need to learn them for her reading to progress. In theory I could teach her at home but in practice she won't take it from me. Also I would ideally like her to learn during the day in school when she is concentrating rather than trying to cram it into the 20 minutes between dinner and bed :-(

Thank ofsted for this shit! Previously we did our own (useful) baseline and taught phonics according to need, supporting those who needed more and stretching those who needed it. We can no longer do this in the same way and instead have to ‘play the game’ by sending books coded to please ofsted. We are officially not supposed to be sending books home which contain sounds not yet covered. We are no longer allowed to go at a pace which suits and works’

Thank you for confirming this is the case as I suspected, rather than just needing time to assess/starting slowly/leaving the children to settle in/will put in to groups later on.

I just CANNOT understand the logic. I agree with the logic of having books which closely match the scheme and only sending decodable books home. What I don’t understand is why different children aren’t allowed to progress through the scheme at a faster or slower pace. In any other subject, keeping the class all at one level and ignoring any children who can already meet the objective would be considered an inadequate lesson. Why is phonics different?!?

I'm confused. If you're a primary teacher with lots of experience of phonics surely you will know that this is now the approach which schools are being forced to follow by Ofsted? Whole class teaching is strongly encouraged and sending home books containing code knowledge not yet covered in class would be majorly frowned upon.

Whether you agree with it or not is irrelevant to be honest. You seem to be unfairly critical of your child's school for following an approach that they have no control over and probably don't agree with themselves. Their hands are tied. You can't expect them to operate the same as private schools (which you later compared to) I'm afraid. If that's what you want, you need to go private I'm afraid.

You chose to teach her all that code knowledge (I know you say nursery started it, but you admit you covered the rest of Phase 3 yourself). You must have realised this could lead to potential boredom once she started school?

She's 4, just let her enjoy settling into school life and, if you must push reading so strongly at this very tender age, there's nothing to stop you continuing to 'stretch' her yourself at home.

As phonics lessons progress throughout the term/year, you child's teachers will find their own ways to stretch and challenge her within their whole class lessons. Challenge does not have to involve moving up to different year groups for phonics or being taught different things to her peers. She'll hopefully be given plenty of opportunities to apply her knowledge independently, spot patterns and mistakes, develop inference skills etc. This will actually be much more beneficial for her in the long term than constantly continuing to push on full steam ahead. Relax, it's only September and education is not a race. Let her enjoy being 4.