Tricky Words

My grandson’s school invited all the Reception class parents along to a meeting about how the school are teaching reading and I immediately booked the time off so I could go along with his mum and hear all about it. The letter was sent out before the half term, and as far as I know, no reminders were sent out - so I was surprised and encouraged by the number of parents who actually turned up.

It was obvious the school were using a phonic system to teach reading because my grandson had started to focus on the text and sound out every letter when he read to me. I had been used to him using the pictures and his excellent prediction skills to tell the story. His recent version of ‘The Three Little Pigs’ was wonderful;

‘Once upon a time there were three little pigs and they grew too big to live at home so their mummy told them they had to go’ he said on the first page.

‘So they all got their own houses and lived happily ever after’ he said on the next page and closed the book’

‘Wait a minute, that’s not what happens’ I said ‘you left out the straw, sticks, bricks and the wolf bit’

‘But I want to go asleep’ he said.

But over recent weeks he has started to concentrate on the sounds of the letters, and bless him, he thinks that the bbbb’s, ssss’s, and mmmm’s sounds that he makes is ‘reading.’

The meeting was rather like an assembly. And yes, the meeting was to introduce and explain ‘Jolly Phonics’. The children were there and I must say even I was impressed with their knowledge of the sounds the letters made. They were keen to share their new found knowledge and were all able to sound out letters shown to them and even join a few up to make a word. It was clear they were having fun (which is just as well as they have to learn 4 letter sounds a day with a recap on Friday). I didn’t get a chance to ask what happens if a child is absent. My poor grandson has been ill this week so has missed 3 letters this week already. Lets hope they were x, y, and z.

Fortunately his teacher, a lovely, bright, enthusiastic girl, (due to go on maternity leave soon) seems to understand that the children need more than a knowledge of phonics in order to be able to read. On display were lots of wonderful books that she and the Teaching Assistant had chosen for the class. Old favourites such as ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’, ‘The Tiger Who Came To Tea’, ‘We’re going on a Bear Hunt’ and my personal favourite ‘Farmer Duck’ along with newer books like the ‘Charlie and Lola’ collection were on the shelves. They even had a set of fairy tales. And puppets. They had big books, picture books and books for group reading. She said that they were going to combine 'Jolly Phonics' with real books and that the important thing was to develop a love of books and not just concentrate on decoding the words as she warned that the children would soon become bored and risk becoming disengaged with reading if they focused soley on phonics. She reminded us that the Early Years Foundation Stage focused on six areas of learning and that ‘Communication, Language and Literacy’ was the area ‘reading’ came under.

But in order to learn to read, or indeed want to learn to read and enjoy reading, she stressed that it was vital that we communicate effectively with our children, that we use lots of language with them, that we listen to them effectively and respond appropriately. That we stop just giving instructions or asking questions. That we actually ‘talk’ to our children. She said she found this difficult to do, as a teacher she is always trying to extend the children’s learning and has used questioning to gauge what children understood and hopefully to encourage them to reflect and ask questions too. However it is important that we focus on the process and not just the product.

This was something that was discussed at my recent Incredible Years training. How difficult it is to do any activity with young children without asking question after question. ‘What colour is that balloon?’ ‘What shape is the moon?’ ‘What do you think will happen if the dog eats all the sausages?’ we ask when we are reading a book with a child. ‘What did you do at school today?’ ‘What did you have for dinner?’ we ask when we collect them from school. ‘What sound does a cow make?’ we ask when they are playing with small world toys such as farm animals. ‘What are you making?’ we ask when they are playing with the construction toys. Bloody hell…it is a wonder they don’t just shout ‘SHUTUP with the questions! Leave me alone to enjoy what I’m doing’. Rather than continually question it is suggested that we make observations or give a commentary. ‘Oh what a bright round moon’ or ‘that’s a cheeky dog, look at how fast he can run with the sausages in his mouth!’ It is an opportunity to engage the child in conversation rather than a question answer session.

His teacher is so nice that I almost forgive her for the 'tricky words'. These are words that cannot be sounded out phonetically. Like my grandsons 'tricky' name.