It's only the lower levels of Bookbands which are a problem. Whilst children are developing a brain reflex/habit as a reaction to text they need to be given books to read that practise what they have learnt in class. Once they are confident readers then whole-language readers are fine.
In the case of a school that uses decodables AND whole-language readers, it doesn't make sense to a beginning reader to have two completely different ways of learning to read on different nights of the week. Monday -they, perhaps, get a decodable book which involves sounding out all through the word, then Wednesday the child gets a whole-language story book which involves repetitive and predictable text i.e relies on the child memorsing and guessing their way through the book.
As bigscary points out, perhaps the majority of children can sort this out in their heads and cotton-on to what it is they are expected to do with the different styles of readers -BUT a significant majority can't do so and become the struggling, reluctant readers in Yr1/2.
If your child's school is using whole-language readers (Bookbands) in Foundation then it is a clear indication that they don't understand the principles of synthetic phonics -this is likely to be due to poor training.
What to do? Well, first, ask their teacher to only give decodables to your child. If that doesn't work then you need to see the headteacher and/or approach the school governers.
You might find the following list helpful:
10 reasons why beginning readers should only use decodable books:
- Decodable books are consistent with the synthetic phonics reading method; they go from simple to complex, use only explicitly taught code and illustrations are not overly dominant to avoid acting as clues to text. Taught code is used throughout words, rather than first letter emphasis, to ensure that transitivity is well understood. Sounding out is the only strategy required to read the words.
- Whole-language/Banded books give child a misleading idea of what reading entails i.e. that it is a memorising and (psycholinguistic) guessing game.
- In order to become expert readers, children need to know the complete Alphabet Code and the skills of blending and segmenting to automaticity. To ensure this, they need to be taught the code and the skills explicitly, intensively and systematically. Decodable books give them the necessary practice in recently taught code and skills.
- There is no way of knowing which particular children in a class have poor visual memories or low phonological awareness ability. These children are likely to become struggling 'dyslexic' readers if whole-language books are used at first. Children with good visual memories plus a supportive home background may appear to do well, initially, with whole-language books BUT -see 5.
- Decodable books avoid children developing the bad habit of sight word guessing. This can be difficult to change when they get older and the brain less 'plastic'. Those with good visual memories will develop this habit quickly and easily through the use of predictable, repetitive text. Eventually their memory for sight words will reach its limit and if they haven't, in the meantime, been taught or deduced the complete alphabet code for themselves they will struggle to read advanced texts with novel words.
- Repetitive texts are boring to read; predictable texts, that a child can only struggle through by misreading and guessing resulting in lost comprehension, are discouraging. Both types of books can put a child off reading. 'Attitudes to reading in England are poor compared to those of children in many other countries' and 'Children in England read for pleasure less frequently than their peers in many other countries' (Pirls 2006) These findings are from the time when mixed methods and whole-language books were used in nearly all schools.
- The use of decodable books is only necessary for a short period in the foundation stage. When well taught, most children learn the code quickly, begin to self-teach and can then move on to real books rather than being stuck for several years on reading schemes with the restricted word count necessary to ensure adequate memorisation of the high frequency words.
- Good spelling is aided by the use of decodables.
- Ease of decoding from the earliest days by simply sounding out and blending gives children quick success, ensuring enthusiasm for reading.
10. Parents easily understand the logic of decodable books and are more able and willing to help their children practise reading at home.
HTH.