Reception homework

[sweetie66]

Hi I need some help regarding what is an acceptable level of homework. DD started reception on Tuesday. Wednesday she came home with a list of letters and words she has learn to read and write. They are I, A, We, Up, For, And. Now we have just been given the list nothing else. I am not sure exactly how I am supposed to help her learn these and don't want to teach her to form the letters the wrong way. Also going straight into words seems a bit advanced to me as she doesn't know her alphabet yet. She was in the school nursery but the teacher there told us they only really begin to recognise letters and they don't do it properly until reception. I have a book which I am using to help me BUT do you think it is a bit much for a 4yr old? Also should I approach the teacher and discuss this with her? I don't want to seem PFB on DD first week!

[blueshoes]

sweetie, I think your question is as much about how much homework your dd has in Reception as it is about the way in which reading is taught.

I do feel Reception seems rather early to be teaching children to read. But I have moved on from that - if the school wants to start, then I should support it so as not to give my dd mixed messages. The alternative is to change schools, which is not necessary because dd is otherwise happy. Until she flounders and starts showing signs of losing confidence, there is no need to jump the gun.

But what I do object is putting the emphasis on children learning to recognise whole words, frequently looking at pictures and context and guessing as well, BEFORE having a sound foundation in phonics.

My dd in Reception has a series of word cards she has to learn, some of which can be sounded out in simple phonics, others like 'here', 'me', 'we' and 'like' cannot. And she has not even been taught all the letter sounds of the alphabet reliably yet!

'Tis confusing, even for me to teach her.

To remedy this, I have bought some Jolly Phonics to give her a good grounding in phonics, so that she does not pick up bad habits like guessing. That is even more homework for me!

I would find out which reading scheme your school uses. My preference is for pure synthetic phonics like Jolly Phonics at early stages, rather than Oxford Reading Tree or Ginn.

Read here about how the mixed method of teaching reading in UK is not potentially flawed

[blueshoes]

not potentially flawed

[cornsilk]

I agree with blueshoes - attempting to learn key words before teaching the sounds and the names of the letters is just ridiculous. I used letterland with my ds which were very good. Haven't seen jolly phonics but have heard good things about it. Tell the teacher that your dd will not be learning the key words yet.

[franch]

Are there any schools that don't teach reading in Reception blueshoes? Genuine question.

[blueshoes]

Good question, franch. Not sure. I would think that schools are bound to teach it at Reception if they are follow the National Curriculum. Some private schools don't follow the NC, I think. I have in any case decided not to make an issue of reading in Reception, unless there is a specific issue with my dd IYKWIM.

Where schools do vary is the reading schemes they use and the amount of homework. My dd's school takes it quite seriously. When I mentioned my dd was not interested in learning whole words and can I ease the pressure on her to learn by concentrating on, say, counting, instead, her teacher was insistent I had to persevere otherwise dd would fall behind and not move to the next level.

I was a little disappointed that they took progress in reading so seriously at Reception. Yet IMO do not teach it in a systematic or logical way. Hence, I have ordered the full set of Jolly Phonics workbooks and am now going through it with dd, racing ahead of the school.

[Marthasmama]

My son is in year 1 now and has a ridiculous amount of homework this year. He has a different book to read every night, spellings to learn for a weekly test AND actual written homework too! It is such a struggle to get all this done with him. Some nights he is so tired that he can't concentrate on reading but puts HIMSELF under so much pressure (they are streamed already) that when we suggest he leave it he just cries and screams that he has to do his homework. It's too much for them, I feel as though he will be burnt out by the time he's 7!

[thirdname]

hm, just wondering whether the sound book in dd book was in there to practice at home with her??? Well ,never mind, .....

[MollieO]

I don't think it matters about being able to sound out letters before learning key words. The key words have to be memorised as they cannot be sounded out. My ds is in reception and they do a mix of letters, keywords etc.

He has homework every night except Wednesdays although only about 10 mins. I have yet to have homework that isn't a repeat of what he has already done in school so it isn't difficult or taxing for him to do. Seems to me just a quick way of consolidating what they have done during the day. I never force him to do it either.

[Miggsie]

2-3 reading books - optional
handwriting book - optional

I hate the ORT so my DD does a different set of books which she enjoys, so we do it.

[duckyfuzz]

my DTs started reception in sept and get phonic booklets as described by others, also the occasional worksheet to match letters to pictures or rhymes to learn, no reading/word learning yet, which I'm pleased about - they have years of homework ahead of them!

[muppetgirl]

Blueshoes - I totally agree with you!!!

ds 1 had an ort reading book with 'guitar, headache' and other such strange words. He has been taught to look at the picture clues which had mum appearing to scratch her head but actually she had a 'headache' My dh couldn't get the word when I covered it up so how the heck was a 4 year meant to???

The Rose report has evidenced based research that shows the systematic teaching of phonics then blending to make words, moving on to decodable texts then moving onto texts that introduce the tricky words is the best way to go. Boys do better and there is less need for intervention programes later yet our school still insists on giving my son books that he can't possibly read. He memorises the words. I use Floppy's phonics at home, the songbirds series and usborne phonics books and he is a capable reader with these books whilst still slowly being introduced to the tricky words in slow steady way using the confidence he has already from his decodable books he reads. He is willing to have a go, to work things out.
He came home last week with a book called 'I want to dance'

The text was

I want to dance
I want to dance too
I want to sing
I want to sing too
I want to teach
I want to teach too

The teacher said he needed help with every word apart from 'sing' as he sounded it out. So my son is to learn to read using the 'death by repetition' technique! When he was at home he 'read' it all fine not even looking at the text as he had memorised it from earlier. If I gave him that same book again today he would have the same problems as he did then as he hasn't 'read' them, merely been told what they were and he remembered them alter when reading to me.

[muppetgirl]

Sorry I didn't make it clear, we have gone through the Jolly Phonics series and Ds knows his sounds and that is how he is able to read the decodable books. He spent last term having 2 sounds a week that he already knew and being given these ridiculous books as the school won't buy new ones. (I think)

[blueshoes]

muppetgirl, my heart bleeds for your ds.

Similar story with my dd. My dd will recognise the memorised words on the word cards when she sees them on the cards, but not when she sees them in, say, a paragraph of text. I see her faithfully sounding our h-e-r-e, but then say 'here' which bears very little relation to what she just sounded out. When does she know when to blend and when not to? I don't understand how you teach exceptions (tricky whole words) when she does not even know the rule, being the phonetical sound of the word. Learning to read by osmosis is frankly ridiculous when English is largely decodable?

Already, dd is telling me who in her class can read and who is on which level of word cards. I feel a little sad for her because it is not her fault at all, it is the confusing teaching method. I feel she is asked to walk by teaching her to run and dance at the same time.

[frogs]

Those of you DIYing at home with the reading, can I just plug the Jelly and Bean books? They are genuinely decodable, and a brilliant way to start reading.

[blueshoes]

Thanks, Frogs. I will look into those Jelly & Bean books. What about the Ruth Miskin books - are they any good?

[frogs]

Ruth Miskin are okay, though I find them a bit mannered. I have some that dd2 has just finished with, and a whole set of the early Jelly and Bean readers, if you're interested. I was going to put them on ebay, but do CAT me if you'd like them.

[muppetgirl]

thanks frogs, will try them.
Blueshoes have you read the Rose report? You can findi it on the dfe standards website. Very interesting reading. I am an early years trained teacher ironically enough but I understand methods change and I have had great results so far with ds but above all he is so excited to be able to 'read' simple texts. This repeat a word to death idea could be a huge factor in why boys don;t want to read....
I have found with my ds that he likes mechanically constructing the word using his phoics knowledge, it gives him confidence. He tries to read everything, signs, lables even the sides of trucks! Todays' book was

A red car
A yellow car
A green car
A white car

Yet at home he is reading the level 2 Floppy's phonics series which is far more complicated but again, above all ds LOVES it as it is a real book with a real story. He predicts, he looks at other parts of the English language without even knowing it -speech marks, full stops etc.

Frogs have also stred using some of sparklebox.co.uk resources as they have cursive script font letter formation sheets (we are given words to learn to write and when we practise using cursive script which the school wants ds says -this letter doesn't look like what is in books, what I have to copy) but they also have great decodable resources. Ds loves the silly questions...

[muppetgirl]

I apologise for the terrible spelling and grammar

[blueshoes]

frogs, I have just CAT-ed you.

muppetgirl, I am making my way through the Rose report now. It sounds like your ds will really really fly with a thorough phonics programme. It is like being given the key to unlock the universe, methinks.

[muppetgirl]

Blueshoes, I read it and thought 'That's him!' He doesn't remember words through their shape and initial letter which is how I was taught to teach to read. -What is the shape, look at the picture cues, what does it begin with??? etc etc. He has the tools to work out the word for himself and he is loving that. Yes, you have to learn the tricky words but there are an awful lot of words that are decodable and he is liking being able to at least 'read' some simple texts.

I learned to read before I went to schoo and I know I learn through patterns, I read a word and generally remember that word the next time I see it. This is very much a girls thing I would say. Reading the school books is a little like Groundhog day in that everyword seems to be a new one and there is no consolidation of what he already knows. It seems that each book focuses on a different new word and the idea is to repeat it so often that the child remembers it. Well this does not work with my ds.

[blueshoes]

Hi Muppetgirl, I have skim-read the Rose Report.

I am not surprised. The findings are pretty much in line with what I instinctively understood to be the way in which children learn to read and later, comprehend the text of what they read. As an early years teacher, was the Rose Report, which came out in March 2006, implemented? Why is it so many schools still use mixed methods of teaching?

The Rose Report acknowledges that English is a more complex than other alphabetic languages. Hence even more reason that phonics should be taught systematically, regularly and explicitly. Rather than expect children to ferret out the code themselves from recognising word after word.

Yesterday, my Jolly Phonic workbooks 1-7 arrive in the post. Dd was really excited to see workbooks 2-7. Apparently, she had only done workbook 1 in school (who also uses Jolly Phonics). Workbook 1 teaches S, A, T, I, P, N. But she is at the same time given words to recognise like 'hot', 'like', 'but', 'run' etc when she has not even been taught the letter sound for most of those letters??

Dd has had to figure out the lettersounds on her own from her friends' names. Luckily she has a friend called 'holly'. Sadly, no friend with a 'b' name!

Question:

1. why does not school give her words to recognise, the letter sounds to which she has not been taught?
   
   
2. why is she given words to recognise which are eminently decodable? You don't have to teach 'run' as a whole word. It should be taught as a decodable word ie r-u-n.
   
   Can you sense my frustration?

[blueshoes]

Because of our family background, my dd is learning to read and write Mandarin at the same time, as a second language. Now THAT is a language that requires word (or more accurately 'character') recognition. I grew up in a country where Mandarin is routinely taught as a second language. Lots and lots of children from English-speaking homes cannot, even after more than a decade of instruction, read or write Mandarin at a decent level. That is the difficulty of a language that uses memory and recognition for every character.

So it is somewhat incomprehensible to me that for a reasonably decodable language like English, it should be taught as if it were Mandarin!

[muppetgirl]

I totally understand blueshoes. I left my job in 2006 as I have 2 ds's now (with no 3 on the way) I worked for a Head that was fanatical about JF and was known locally as the 'Jolly Phonics woman' in a snide way. She showed me how to use the system -I was teaching a mix of yr 3/4 + 5 yr 5's at that time but they were extremely behind and some couldn't read so the Jolly Phonics was still incredibly important for them to learn. (I always said to her that she had lost this battle but she would eventually win the war and The Rose report has proved this!) Having experienced learning to read from my own child's eyes I am amazed at how difficult we make learning to read. The satpin is a good introduction and after 1 book children are blending and 'reading' cvc words. They are so pleased with their progress as they can READ as far as they are concerned.
We were given books with no words first of all. Ds has been read to since birth and was looking forward to going to 'big boy' school as he was going to learn to read. The first night with these books he said 'where are the words?????' Until he could tell a 'story as to what was happening he could have books with words in.

This nonsense applies to learning to write also (have you found this?) ds has 5 words to learn to write each week. We looked at them on Friday when we first got them - a, I, and, up, the. He spelt out these words in the car apart from 'the' when we got home I asked him to have a go at writing them (as school were expecting the following Tuesday -today) and my little man can't even form the letters correctly let alone write a full word. I really feel it's a -learn to run before you can walk situation.

[sweetie66]

Muppetgirl that is exactly what we have to do! My DD said the same thing "where are the words?" I am useless at making up stories so hate doing this with her. She loves our story time at bed time but not this one. My DD cannot form the words either and like you it feels like we are running before we can walk. There seems to be so many types of phonetics books around I cannot understand why the school hasn't said which one to use. My DD is being a little star and desperately trying to learn her letters and now when we read I try and point out the words she is expected to learn but I do feel like I am pressuring her. I feel slightly better that she is not the only one to have to do this.