Question for teachers especially infant about teaching of reading. I'm confused!

[ropeyoldbag]

Hi,
DS1 is in Reception. He is currently learning letter sounds. This despite the fact that he knew them all well before he joined the school in September. They do 2 letters a week apparently with a view to reaching 'sh' 'ch' and 'th' by the end of the year according to his teacher.

Now we have been in and asked about then on 3 separate occasions and last week she reluctantly sent home a list of high frequency words. It says high frequency at the top and it's words that range from 'a' to words like 'down'. She says if we want to be "soldiering ahead" (her words) then we can teach him those at home.

But..I don't want there to be some abstract branch of stuff that I'm doing at home IYSWIM. I bought the JP stuff when he was 3 and I've read the stuff about teaching them to read rather than teaching to recognise random words.
So my question is why isn't he doing all those vowel sounds? Why isn't he learning blends and 'magic e' and stuff. Am I expecting too much? Don't children who know letter sounds on entry (he also knew 'sh' and 'ch' and 'th' then) move on to this stuff? Can't believe I'm finding it so stressful.

Any advice greatly appreciated. And yes I know he should be playing and I believe in this wholeheartedly but in that 10 or 15min of literacy input, why is it teaching him how to read?

My first thought is why only two sounds a week - far too slow they need to be further than sh,ch & th by the end of the year. My reception children knew those by October half term...
My second thought is why send home words like "a" ? Down could be left until the phoneme /ow/ is taught ... sorry I forgot they aren't going to teach that this year...

Sorry but I haven't got an answer other than they must have reasons of their own I would ask and mention "phases" ~(although I don't like them personally) and will they have covered 2, 3 & 4 by the end of reception while smiling sweetly

Thank you mrz. Your post is helpful though it has made me feel worse.
No mention of phases on the sheet but I have seen that before on the government website. I'm sure that seemed similar to the JP stuff I had read but there was so much on there, I'm not 100% sure.
DS2 and DD at at a childminder 3days a week and I constantly hear from her about this 'every child matters' stuff she has to do. Does this no longer apply when they reach school?
I know I sound like I'm being precious but I just want him to progress at his pace and not at hers.

Are they using Jolly Phonics?

In my experence as a TA children come into reception all at different levels, some know many sounds, some know 1 or 2 some don't know any at all. Some are not ready to learn sounds in reception and need time to develop their listening skills through listening games.

I don't know why he is not blending etc is he ready to?

Perhaps you could when you are out ask what things start with so say if you pass a car what does car start/end with?
If you saw a cat how would we sound out cat c a t

My advice give him a chance to be a little boy I wouldn't worry if he is happy in school.

Thanks, cloudhopper. No they are not using JP.
I could say any word and he tell me the initial sound. He can spell most of those 3 letter words such as cat, dog, bag etc. He is excellent at I Spy.

In you experience (and mrz) what happens in an infant literacy lesson? Is it all pitched at one level? His teacher made it sound as you just have that many children need to learn these sounds but where does that leave a child who knows them all 6mths before he enters Reception. This time last year when he was at playgroup we would do little games such as I Spy and he loved it. He was starting to blend letters like 'st' and he knew the sounds and names of all the letters. Surely he should then have naturally progressed onto those vowel sounds as it says in JP? Or should he have done blending first?

I am in Wales so we have more freedom to allow the children to learn when ready.
We also have a 1-8 ratio.

In the school I work in the way we do it is that we all have a group and we differeciate the learning accordingly so if we have a group realy struggling and still havent got their intial 1st set of sounds then we will plug at those. This is no top of the teachers regular phonics session which concetrates on the particular sound we are learning.

We also have challanges in our areas so for example in the sand tray we might have a set of sound flashcards and some pictures the cildren would then match the picture to the sound ie d with dog picture.

It can vary greatly from school to school especially schools using Read Write Inc and Letters & Sounds who group children by "phase"
I personally like to do the "teaching" part as whole class and then work with groups or individuals at their own pace. I taught a new sound every day so all the "basic" phonemes were taught by Christmas and we had moved onto alternative ways of writing the phonemes. I also taught a new "tricky" word each week - I- was-said-the-go etc and teach the children to blend for reading once they know the first 5 sounds and the segment for spelling I also taught correct letter formation at the same time each phoneme was taught.
My children arrive as non readers in September knowing no letter sounds relationships and I spend 10 mins daily in the Autumn term building up to 20 after Christmas.

I would teach the first group of letters (in most programmes it's s-a-t-i-p) once they know these you can begin blending and segmenting words - at- it- sat-sit-pat-pit-tap-tip and more words as each new sound is taught. It is important that blending and segmenting are part of the daily phonics lesson.

Thanks again.
The flashcard thing he would have been able to do about 1yr ago. I just thought he'd have moved on by now.
What do you teach the group of children who have clear understanding of all letter sounds and 'sh, ch etc on entry? Just to give me an idea what he should maybe be doing.

Have you looked at the tricky words with him? These are the unsoundable ( is that a word?) words that you can't sound out. Does he know those? I would do those as opposed to the ones the teacher gave him.
Ps sorry about teh spellings!!!

MRZ how many sounds do you teach a week just out of interest?

I taught 5 a week

Tricky words can be "sounded" out once the child knows the rules they follow but they may need some words - was - said - before the rule is taught

He can read some words such as; he, she, no, the, said, we, to, as, is. Are these tricky words?
mrz, your class sounds fab! Not in lancs are you?

"These are the unsoundable ( is that a word?) words that you can't sound out. "

Please don't say that! Tricky words are only words with a rare letter/sound correspondence in them or correspondences that the child hasn't yet learned. They are just as decodable as any other word (apart from the really, really odd ones, like 'one').

ropeyoldbag I assume when you say "all letter sounds" you mean the all 44 phonemes or do you mean the sounds associated with the 26 letters of the alphabet.

If it's all 44 I would move onto alternative ways of writing the sounds /or/ can be written or -au-al-oug for example /ai/ can be written ai-ay-ey-a_e - eigh- etc
If it is only the 26 I would introduce the long vowel sounds and other sounds represented by two or more letters ch - sh - th (that and feather) ng

as and is aren't tricky at any stage as they can be blended from the first week. No sorry I'm not in Lancs and I left reception at Christmas to teach Y2.

that should be ough not oug

Can he write the words he can read?

DS (also in reception) has a reading age of 8 but his spelling age is lower. He pretty much taught himself to read so I left him to it, I didn't think to 'teach' him to write the words as well - in hindsight I wish I had. Maybe you could work on learning how to write the high frequency words if he can already read them, rather than rushing ahead with reading?

ropeyoldbag - are they doing blending and segmenting with your son and the other children?

Are they doing handwriting?

Does he bring home anything to read?

mrz, no, I don't mean all 44. That's my point really. He knew all 26 letter sounds solidly over a year ago. I was hoping he would learn the other sounds in Reception. Sounds like 'ai' and 'ay'. But no, he's still doing the 26.

Hi debbie, no they are not doing blending. Is segmenting spelling? If I ask him how many sounds in cat and what are they he will tell me 3 and they are c-a-t. BUT, he could do that before he started.
No books home to read. I don't know about handwriting.

mylife, he can write most words he can read as he could write most (though not all) letters by Sept. I guess that means they must be doing handwriting as he can now write them all.

I would expect children who started reception in September to have been taught all 44 sounds - to read and to write and to be have been taught to blend and segment cvc ccvc and cvcc words (reading and writing)
I also do daily dictation starting with single sounds then words then simple sentences.

Have you got ALL of the JP books? You could work through them with him. Although if they aren't doing JP at school he might get a bit confusing for him?

DS is addicted to doing workbooks at the moment. You can pick up age 3/4 or 4/5 ones in The Works (or other cheapy book shops) and see how he gets on with those?

I know how frustrating it can be when you know they're capable of doing more than they're taught at school, but to be honest there isn't a lot you can do about it if the teachers aren't willing, or able, to help.

ropeyoldbag I would have a look at debbie's phonics programme www.phonicsinternational.com/

Hi ropeyoldbag
why don't you check on the letters and sounds
website and see if that helps you. Letters and sounds is what alot of school use for teaching phonics and at least you'd than have an idea of what might be going on.

I would image your son is in the middle of phase 2 of letters and sounds, so go and check this.

As a trainee teacher I have noticed that many schools either follow Letters and sounds alongside Jolly phonics, or letters and sounds with Read,Write,Inc or sometimes all 3. Why don't you ask your teacher which scheme they use to teach phonics so you can support it at home rather than using a different one which will confuse your son and cause problems in school.

Good Luck

MRZ how do you find teaching the children who are less ready for sounds th sounds so quickly?

**the