Ship of Fools: Phonics

Thread: Phonics Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by dyfrig (# 15) on :

I'm not entirely clear what Phonics is, but it appears to be way the UK government wants language taught in English schools*. It seems to be a method of learning written units and sounding them out.

This strikes me as odd. I'm one of those people who just seemed to have a knack for reading (and, according to recent studies, am less likely to go bonkers in old age than any of you trapped in monolingualism [Biased]

), and frankly I don't really know how I learned to do it, so speak from comparative ignorance on any particularly method. But English seems to be utterly ill-suited to Phonics - it is a language partly dependent on knowing that letter groups do not act consistently that, and that some individual letters can represent 2, 3 or even 4 sounds even before we get to the sounding of larger groupings.

Does anyone have any experience of Phonics? Does it work?

* education policy is handled at devolved level in the rest of the UK.

Posted by infinite_monkey (# 11333) on :

I'm a special education teacher, and part of my job is teaching reading to the kids who didn't get it the first time around. Explicit phonics instruction is an absolute godsend for those kids.

There's a lot of research out there: one piece I'd recommend you check out is:

Teaching Decoding by Louisa Moats.

Phonics instruction recognizes that the English language is all about different letter combinations as well as different letter sounds: that "s" and "h", for example, combine to make the "sh" sound. I systematically teach my kids each phoneme, including the ones that are composed of multiple letters.

Often, educators don't go for explicit teaching in phonics because they think it's too dry or because the reading materials used are fairly restricted (ask me sometime about the decodable book for reviewing the "ch" and "sh" blends--because every single word within it has to be fully decodable to kids at that level of phonics instruction, and because it has to have enough practice of the target sounds within a 70 word text, the plot, er, suffers a bit). But what doesn't get recognized by a fully whole-language approach is that many kids, especially kids who don't have access to a print-rich environment at home, just don't make the connections unless they are systematically taught.

I cannot speak highly enough of quality phonics instruction: it's been an absolute game-changer for kids with whom I've worked.

Posted by Cottontail (# 12234) on :

It is a system that Scottish schools embraced very early. I have watched my nieces and nephews learn this way, and was working in Primary Schools when it was still very new. Specifically, the system they learned was Jolly Phonics. It is my understanding that the English government is pushing this partly because of observation of its success in Scotland.

My impression is that it is a fantastic way to learn to read. It combines a variety of styles of learning, so that not only is reading taught as a visual and aural thing, as was traditional, but each sound is given an action and a mental picture to go along with it. Yes, there are words that don't conform to usual spelling rules, but even so, the ability to 'sound out' words is essential to reading. At least at elementary level, the system seems to get the children reading more quickly and more confidently. Trickier words are taught later, as was always the case even in more traditional methods. Also, they don't just teach the sounds of individual letters, but of letter combinations as well.

As a system, it also gets round the problem of children's reading skills developing more quickly than their motor skills. A child can read the word 'hat' long before (boys particularly) they have the motor skills to hold a pencil and write the word clearly. In Jolly Phonics (or similar systems) the P.1 children are provided with magnetic boards with a range of letters and letter combinations at the bottom. I have watched a class half way through P.1 as a teacher called out simple words like 'hat' and 'map', and more complex ones like 'send' and 'shell': it was amazing to see how confidently and accurately all the children grabbed the appropriate letter combinations and spelled out the words. That particular teacher, who had 30 years experience, had only just implemented the system the year before, and was thoroughly enthused by how much more quickly the children had been learning to read and spell.

The trouble is when a government takes a great new education technique, developed and pioneered by schools and educational researchers, and turns it into a political 'solution' for 'falling standards'. It is not going to solve the woes of society. It just works at ground level for individual children.

Posted by Martin L (# 11804) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Cottontail:
The trouble is when a government takes a great new education technique, developed and pioneered by schools and educational researchers, and turns it into a political 'solution' for 'falling standards'.

...and then does a 180 three years later and changes to a totally new system...

I went through a good phonics program in the primary grades. I love to read, and I have little problem with new words. My brother and my colleague next door were taught with whole language* methods. Neither one reads for pleasure now, and my colleague frequently calls me for help with pronunciation!

The keys, as with many things in education, are staff development, follow-through, (monitoring follow-through), and sticking with a consistent program for a significant amount of time. (Every time a "new" method comes out, there are people who think that a school should instantly jump on the bandwagon. This phonics-vs-whole language issue is cyclical. Give it eight years, and the UK government will insist upon whole language.)

*Incidentally, they were also taught touch points for math, and still use them.

Posted by QLib (# 43) on :

I agree that phonics are an absolutely essential part of teaching reading - but....

But the problem with hard-line phonics enthusiasts is that they don't seem to recognise that children need a range of strategies - especially in a language such as English. Some children may begin by learning to recognise their own names - so presumably that's allowed if your name is Tom or Kim, but if you're called Beth, do you have to wait till you've got to 'th' blend? And God help you if your name is Sian or Sean.

It's also absolutely ridiculous to insist that, although parents can read whatever books they like to children (thanks!) a child must never attempt to read a book for which s/he is not phonically prepared - yes, I actually heard a pro-Phonicist saying this on Radio 4 on Friday - what absolute and utter bollocks.

Finally - yes, phonics should be the main method and, in the long run, children should have such good phonic attack skills that they should be able to read nonsense words, but testing them on this at age 6 is a complete no-no.

Ask yourself this - which is most likely to stress and distress a child so much as to put him/her off reading for life:

coming across the word 'tiger' in a book before one is ready, and so having to guess it from the picture, or
being coached for a reading test

?

Furthermore, all this is part of a huge pretence, by people who send their children to private schools with low pupil-teacher ratios, that class size doesn't matter as long as the correct teaching techniques are used.

Posted by Siegfried (# 29) on :

When I was in kndergarten back in '68 in Seattle, phonics were being used to teach introductory reading. "Sounding it out" (which really is what phonics is) is still I believe the predominant method of teaching reading in the US.

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

Yes - it works.

But is best taught alongside look/say and whole book approaches. Mixed methods are best. Some children have a good visual memory and some have good phonemic awareness. Both are needed for reading and spelling.

Posted by Pigwidgeon (# 10192) on :

dyfrig, your post could have been written by me. I, too, learned to read without knowing how or why -- it came naturally. I realize that all people don't learn that way. But I have held forth many times about how phonics doesn't work with the English language.

Cough
Tough
Though
Through

Posted by HCH (# 14313) on :

The best example I have seen is" "Though the tough cough and hiccough, plough the furrow thoroughly."

Posted by Pulsator Organorum Ineptus (# 2515) on :

I was taught by this method in the 50's and it certainly worked for me.

Posted by OliviaG (# 9881) on :

I was a really early reader and got lots of phonics (while being home-schooled); since I love to read and am obsessed with spelling, I guess it worked. However, I agree with others above that no one approach is going to be best for all pupils, so even if there is an "official" or preferred pedagogy, teachers should still be able and be allowed to try others as needed. OliviaG

Posted by Niminypiminy (# 15489) on :

What's now being pushed in English schools is a particular version of phonics - synthetic phonics - which was adopted after schools using it in Scotland had spectacular success with the system. It isn't clear whether the amazing results were entirely due to the synthetic phonics system or the fact that the teachers were all trained in the system, all on board with it, and the whole project was very well funded with excellent external support.

There were questions at the time over how much was down to the method itself and how much down to the funding, enthusiasm of teachers and support they were getting. But since then, in a superb example of government micro-management of the educational command economy, schools have been instructed to adopt synthetic phonics. (And there is pressure for them to use only this method, rather than mixed methods.)

It's not that I don't like phonics -- both my children have learned to read very well with this method. The books though are dire, really dire, and though both my children can read really well, any interest that they have in reading books is down to what I do at home, not what happens at school.

Of course it is true that no child can become a reader unless they can actually read, and a thorough grounding in decoding alphabetic script (which is what phonics essentially provides) is particularly important for children who aren't read to and don't have books at home.

I worry, though, about the step between learning to read and becoming readers, and what happens (or doesn't happen) at this point. Michael Rosen has an interesting blog post on this.

Posted by QLib (# 43) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pulsator Organorum Ineptus:
I was taught by this method in the 50's and it certainly worked for me.

Really? Which phonic-based reading scheme did you use for books? And you honestly read nothing else apart from your phonics scheme books?

Posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe (# 5521) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Siegfried:
When I was in kndergarten back in '68 in Seattle, phonics were being used to teach introductory reading. "Sounding it out" (which really is what phonics is) is still I believe the predominant method of teaching reading in the US.

quote:
Originally posted by Pulsator Organorum Ineptus:
I was taught by this method in the 50's and it certainly worked for me.

Me too. I was in kindergarten in 1950 and I distinctly remember "sounding out words". I never had any trouble learning how to read. I can't remember what book we used, though, or if there were any characters or story lines (unlike the "Ted and Sally" and "Ned and Nancy" books that my siblings learned from).

Posted by Martin L (# 11804) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pigwidgeon:
dyfrig, your post could have been written by me. I, too, learned to read without knowing how or why -- it came naturally. I realize that all people don't learn that way. But I have held forth many times about how phonics doesn't work with the English language.

Cough
Tough
Though
Through

Phonics programs address this issue and many more. Irregulars are an ugly but essential part of the English language, and of most languages. That does not prevent the teaching of phonics, and it certainly does not restrict readers to only those works which support the day's lesson. As many others have said, phonics is not the only method by which people can come to read, but everybody employs phonics, whether they realize it or not.

Posted by QLib (# 43) on :

You guys aren't getting it. Yes, I too was taught to read mainly by phonics methods - and there were special simplified books, but they didn't exclude more complex words. And I had access to real books too. And I was allowed to guess more complicated words, which was helped by having books with pictures, and books that I already knew off by heart.And I wasn't tested, at the age of 6, on my ability to read nonsense words.

This debate isn't about whether phonic methods should be used - no contest there - it's about whether they should be used to the exclusion of all else.

eta: X-posted with Martin L

[ 08. April 2012, 21:04: Message edited by: QLib ]

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

quote:
Originally posted by QLib:

This debate isn't about whether phonic methods should be used - no contest there - it's about whether they should be used to the exclusion of all else.

I have visited many primary schools recently - none use phonics to the exclusion of all other methods.

It's a good idea to test children's phonemic awareness - so that extra work can be put in at an early age, if needed.

The teachers are objecting to the use of tests for 'league tables' - rightly so imo.

Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :

I was a special needs teacher for many years, and a primary school class teacher before that. Many words can be worked out through phonics (blends of pairs/groups of letters as well as individual sounds). Developed through games, it can be taught in a fun way with a little imagination; combined with other methods, it can be very effective.

Some of the controversy at the moment is about government-prescribed tests, especially the nonsense-words part. Children are asked to read non-English words (for example neg, fot, neep) to test ability to sound out words. The alarmists say it is not suitable for young children to be asked to do this.

However, part of the diagnostic screening tests for learning difficulties have included this sort of test for years. I always used to create a scenario where they were 'alien' words spoken by aliens - the children had fun spotting them and trying to sound them out as if they were robots or aliens. It helped to highlight some of the difficulties they were having with learning to read, or other more general learning difficulties, which helped staff to target their teaching more effectively for these particular children. All it took was a little creativity to turn what might have been a stressful test into a fun activity.

It's therefore more important for a young child to have a teacher with imagination and flair than for a particular scheme to be followed.

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Chorister:

It's therefore more important for a young child to have a teacher with imagination and flair than for a particular scheme to be followed.

Amen

Posted by Balaam (# 4543) on :

The phonetic idea of splitting a word to get its understanding works in a number of languages.

Take French.

Wine comes from a Chateau.

Chat means cat. Eau means water.

So next time you think a French wine tastes of cat's water...

Posted by nickel (# 8363) on :

I was always comfortably ahead of my classmates when it came to reading. I remember "Dick and Jane" books in first grade (age 6), and wrinkly mean Mrs Wolfe making us do a Phonics workbook in 3rd grade (age 8). That would have been late 60's, mid-west America. I don't know if Mrs Wolfe was ahead of or behind the Phonics bandwagon, but I do know we were the only class of 3rd graders in our school who had that particular workbook and we made a big deal of our torture.

But really? Phonics I liked because it was puzzle pieces and I would say it's been useful to deconstruct and sound out all sorts of words lo these many years. It also is good for giving you an educated guess as to how a word might be spelled, so it improves spelling as well as reading.

My daughter, on the other hand, just laughs and shows me how easy it is to get her computer to pronounce any word just by clicking it.

Bless those teachers who are able to make use of a variety of technique because no one size fits all.

Posted by AristonAstuanax (# 10894) on :

The other thing, aside from whether or not "phonics" works or not, is that, like many educational fads that are promoted as salvation for Our Failing Schools, there's a pretty strong political dimension behind all this. Yes, phonetics has been part of every learning-to-read program ever—however, a system specifically called "phonics," which is all phonetics drill, all the time, is generally associated with conservative politics, trying to get away from such liberal systems as whole language. I'm guessing it has something to do with older conservative politicians remembering it from their youth (along with being rapped on the knuckles by nuns), and deciding that if it made them such upstanding moral individuals by instilling character through suffering, it must be a good thing.

Given the political situation in the UK, I'm not surprised someone's playing the phonics card. It's not as common in the US as it was in the Clinton era—the standard conservative idea now is to privatize education, rather than reform it—but it used to be a mark of Republican orthodoxy within the last twenty years.

Posted by Mili (# 3254) on :

I agree that a mixture of methods work best.

It's also important to remember that kids learn differently. In each class there tends to be a few kids who find learning to read so easy that they can't even remember how they learnt and then will read anything and everything. (I'm in this category and I think it has hindered my ability to teach reading as I can't remember how I learnt and don't know what it's like to find it hard).

Then there are the majority who take a bit longer and need more explicit teaching of phonics to learn, but by then end of their second or third year of school are reading fluently.

The rest of the children are those who really struggle with learning to read and write. They need more explicit teaching using phonics and benefit greatly from one on one support or extra reading programs with a specialist teacher. Like the rest of the children they still have their own preferred learning styles, however. Some find remembering sounds easier while others prefer memorising whole words and may find it easier if taught to break words into chunks. Some love aural story telling and benefit from using the meaning of the text to guess a word. Others may be able to 'read fluently' but not actually comprehend what they have read.

Children who are in the first group generally like reading and because they learn quickly can soon read books they enjoy, so need no encouragement to become readers. The other children may need more encouragement to become readers. This can take the form of reading children's books to and with the class, modelling finding interesting information in books or on the internet and making active and effective use of the school library etc. Most kids love to browse through books in the library, even if they are only at the stage of looking at the pictures.

Kids who don't have extra support at home or who come from homes where parents/carers are not readers are more likely to need extra support in learning to read. In schools where there are a large number of kids in this situation there may need to be more focus on explicit teaching with phonics than in a school where more than half the kids come to school with knowledge of the alphabet and perhaps some reading skills they have been taught at home.

There is a problem when politicians think one size fits all or when adults assume that because they learnt to read easily using a particular method, that method is good for everyone. If you learnt to read easily it's quite possible you would have found learning to read easy despite how you were taught.

Posted by PataLeBon (# 5452) on :

I remember doing research on this. At least here it was discovered that 50% of kids will learn how to read as long as a consistant approach is used ( doesn't matter what approach). 2/3 of the rest will only learn how to read well with a phonics approach. Which of course leaves the rest who will probably always struggle.

Posted by savedbyhim01 (# 17035) on :

I grew up learning phonics and want my kids to learn the same way. It seems better than site reading because site reading it is easy to "guess" when you see similar words. Also, if it is a new word you can still sound it out and read it. Maybe you know the word although you didn't see the word written before so when you sound it out you can recognize it.

Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :

One of my sons had a very good ear for sounds. When we used to go on walks I would give him sets of three sounds eg. c-a-t and he would tell me the word it made. This was when he was three years old. He also knew what the letters looked like, so when at home he would group his alphabet letters together to spell simple words. Because he was doing this two years before starting school, he was reading quite fluently by the age of 5 1/2. It's all about groundwork - but if you decide to do this approach with your pre-school children it must be done in the context of fun and games, not formal learning. There's nothing worse than a child put off books and reading by the infant stage.

Many people, including teachers, often give up on phonics once they have taught the initial letter sounds. But there are many more groups (of two letters or more) which make consistent sounds in a significant number of words - these can be usefully taught for reading and spelling (although you need to look out for 'tricky words' which don't conform to the usual rules). Kids can play at being 'word detectives' trying to spot patterns and also anomalies. Does anyone remember the wonderful schools' television programmes from the 1960s-1990s called 'Look and Read' which used these methods? I came across them when I was home ill from school as an older child and was still using them with the first classes of children I taught, many years later. (Scroll down for video clips from the series.)

Posted by Niminypiminy (# 15489) on :

quote:
Originally posted by AristonAstuanax:
The other thing, aside from whether or not "phonics" works or not, is that, like many educational fads that are promoted as salvation for Our Failing Schools, there's a pretty strong political dimension behind all this. Yes, phonetics has been part of every learning-to-read program ever—however, a system specifically called "phonics," which is all phonetics drill, all the time, is generally associated with conservative politics, trying to get away from such liberal systems as whole language. (...)
Given the political situation in the UK, I'm not surprised someone's playing the phonics card.

This. That is exactly what the problem with phonics is: not phonics itself, but phonics-as-politics, synthetic phonics and nothing else.

Posted by Gussie (# 12271) on :

I'm always wary of schemes that are promoted as being the sure-fire way of getting children reading. As Boogie and others said I think a mixture of methods work best.
My (now adult) son is severely dyslexic, writes and spells like a five year old, has a reading age of about nine I guess. Various people have tried various schemes over the year and the only thing that seems to have worked is him becoming mature enough to work out his own strategies. He tells me he finds phonics useful, not that it means he spells stuff correctly, but if I sound out his text messages for instance I can work out what he meant to say!

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

I recall being introduced to such ideas in 1979 in my classroom. We had a very pretty coloured chart where each sound had its own colour. With an illustration of the different letter combinations that might be used to write the sound.

I'm a bit mystified by all these comments about how "it doesn't work in English because of the weird spelling". When in fact the entire POINT is to guide you through the weird spelling. That's why you need a system that helps teach you that the same letter combination might have different sounds.

It seems to me that people commenting about the oddities of English pronunciation actually have no clue what phonics is!

Posted by dyfrig (# 15) on :

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
It seems to me that people commenting about the oddities of English pronunciation actually have no clue what phonics is!

Guilty as charged, m'lud. Stuff on this thread suggests that phonics played a significant part in the way learning was reinforced in my generation, and I take the point about it being (at best) a progressive tool that goes on to more complex sounds.

I well remember things like "Look and Read", with little ditties about how "Silent E" changes words - "Bit becomes Bite with me/ Shit become sh-".... I'm probably misremembering some of the lyrics.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

I honestly don't remember anything in my (Australian) school other than this chart, with a black background and colours for the sounds, and related materials where we had multicoloured words.

I suspect I responded to the colours as much as anything else, because I have a bit of a 'thing' for colour combinations. Maybe that's where it even started - I've not consciously made the connection just now between my adult love for combinations (as opposed to having favourite colours on their own), and the fact that I spent my early school years with this beautiful set of coloured words.

I was a good reader by the way - I was already reading by myself before I got to school.

Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :

Part of this is connected to the heart of what writing is. There are two basic systems people have come up with for writing - I'll call them Type 1 and Type 2 - I'm not aware what their real names are.

Under a Type 1 writing system, each word has a symbol attached to it. Write down the symbol and you have the word. For most nouns, the symbol is a stylised version of that noun. But what of proper names or abstract concepts like truth or beauty? You need to learn the symbol in its entirity to be able to write it which makes learning to write complex doccuments much harder (although certainly not impossible). One positive of this (and it's still alive today between Chinese and Japanese) is that you can have two people speaking completely different languages and still communicating perfectly in writing.

In a Type 2 writing system you don't have a specific symbol for any word. Instead you write down the sound of the word. Which means that people can easily write down words they have never heard before. And these can normally be deciphered by the intended recipient. On the other hand just speaking with two different dialects makes it almost as hard to communicate in writing as in speech (not quite as hard because you have more time to figure things out). You just need to learn a handful of letters (26 being the one we are used to but it's essentially arbitrary) and a handful of combinations into sylables and you're good to go.

English is, of course a language with a Type 2 writing system. But it's a drifted system and has been since we started standardising spelling (if not before - I don't believe English was ever pure). And even if English wasn't drifted and was purely based in phonics it still wouldn't mean that this was the One True Way for dealing with people. Or was the wrong way for that matter.

The tough dough-faced ploughman strode through the fields, coughing and hiccoughing. (English spelling on that last word).

[ 09. April 2012, 14:06: Message edited by: Justinian ]

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

quote:
Originally posted by QLib:
... a child must never attempt to read a book for which s/he is not phonically prepared - yes, I actually heard a pro-Phonicist saying this on Radio 4 on Friday - what absolute and utter bollocks.

That's child abuse. In a just world such a cruel and hate-filled monster would be banned from contact with children.

Or maybe its just a scam to sell more of their textbooks.

Its like that disgusting attack on allowing children to read real books that the Tories and the Daily Mail ran back in the Thatcher years. It was based on lies and mockery, and was really a political attack on teachers (and on teacher's unions) posing as a discussion of teaching methods.

quote:
Originally posted by Mili:

It's also important to remember that kids learn differently. In each class there tends to be a few kids who find learning to read so easy...
[...]
There is a problem when politicians think one size fits all or when adults assume that because they learnt to read easily using a particular method, that method is good for everyone.

I think we could distinguish four levels. At the top, some children - more than most people seem to think - who will pretty much pick up reading as they go along. All they need are access to books and someone to read with them at the start.

At the bottom a tiny number, certainly less than 1%, who are neve going to become effective readers.

In between, as you said, the majority who need to be actively taught. But I think there are really two levels of ability here as well. There are some, I'd guess the majority, perhaps from the 10th to the 90th percentile in ability (that's a guess, might be less than that) who will learn to read by whatever method they are taught, as long as they are taught well. So for most people it probably doesn't matter much in the long run whether they get taught by one system or another - it might take three months or it might take three years but sooner or later they will learn to read (though if they have no access to real books, only to school reading schemes, who can blame them for being bored at school?)

But there are others who for whatever reason have difficulty with the method used. Maybe there are some who find one method works and another doesn't. For their sake teachers need to use different methods, to try whatever seems to help. It will be different for different kids. Maybe it is true that "synthetic phonics" (TM) works for more of these kids than other methods, so maybe it is a good idea to teach it to everybody just in case. But that's no reason to forbid every other method. Quite the opposite - some people will learn more slowly with synthetic phonics than they would with other systems and its unfair to them to force all schools into the stratjacket of One Mighty Government Approved Reading System (which seems to be where we are going)

quote:

... I think it has hindered my ability to teach reading as I can't remember how I learnt and don't know what it's like to find it hard

More of a problem for maths teachers I think. They never seem able to cope with clever kids who are bad at maths.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

Justinian, I think you are confusing phonics with phonetics. All you are saying is that English is not a phonetic language.

Which is precisely why 'phonics' exists: to help with the fact that English is not a phonetic language.

EDIT: And I wouldn't be surprised if other people were posting under the same confusion.

[ 09. April 2012, 14:10: Message edited by: orfeo ]

Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :

One reception teacher I knew, who had a really good reputation for getting all her children reading, used to phonically prepare her children for the main reading scheme (Roger Red Hat) - but that children were also to take home two other general books from the library for the parents and children to enjoy together (obviously the parents at first would do most of the reading). This is the approach which seems to work best - real books but also a graded reading scheme using phonics.

Posted by QLib (# 43) on :

Yes, I agree. And without the stupid tests. I like your idea of alien words. After all, a lot of fantasy literature is full of made- up words, and loads of bright dyslexics* are into fantasy stuff.

Posted by Alisdair (# 15837) on :

`Twas bryllyg, and ye slythy toves
Did gyre and gymble in ye wabe:
All mimsy were ye borogoves;
And ye mome raths outgrabe...'

(with grateful thanks to Lewis Carroll)

That is all.

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
All you are saying is that English is not a phonetic language.

I think you mean that the standard English writing system doesn't consistently represent the phonetics of the English language. The language itself is "phonetic" and would be the same whether we wrote it in our usual spelling, or some revised system, or the IPA, or in Chinese characters.

Though as different English speakers make different sounds to realise the same phonemes no spelling system could ever accurately represent the speech of all, or even most, English speakers.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

I retired in time not to have to teach phonics, which I could tell I was going to have problems with. Try sounding out phonemes without an "uh" on the end. (Long ago I had a child who wrote much of their work without many vowels. when I got him to read it back, it was clear that he was writing in syllables, thus "brother" would appear as "brth" because he thought the sounded "uh" was part of the phoneme. It was much easier to read his work after that.)

But it was my learning to read experience which leads me to despair about the "not reading anything which would conflict with the phonics learning" attitude. I was down as a non-reader until I was 7. My mother, infant trained, observed the not-confusing-the-school-teaching taboo, though reading to me, until I went home and told her that the head teacher had announced to all that I was not getting a prize because I could not read. (Bolshie to the core, but not enough, I went home muttering "whose fault is that, you're the teacher?") With the aid of a set of pre-readers and the Beacon Reading scheme with its excellent collection of stories, within three weeks I was reading George Macdonald's "The Princess and the Goblin". Not all the words, subsequent re-readings revealed.

Years later, required to listen to readers at school, I realised that I had not exactly been not reading. As the narrative of "Look, John, look" wore on, I recognised that I knew just what exciting action awaited me over the page. "See Spot run...".

The thought that children in the future will be likewise condemned to reading unnatural pages totally lacking in Pratchett's narrativium, and barred from the glittering caves and magical Great-Grandmothers until they can decode the nonsense blursts of the phonics tests is chilling.

Penny

Posted by Chamois (# 16204) on :

I agree with a lot of what has already been posted.

Children learning to read (or adults, come to that) need interesting texts which grab and hold their attention. The ones who are finding it difficult probably need interesting texts much more than the ones who are finding it easy. There has to be a pay-off for all that effort!

I don't remember much about learning to read English but I had the interesting experience as an adult of learning to read in German. Faced with a novel by Thomas Mann, who uses a very large vocabulary including many uncommon words, I found that it isn't necessary to be able to read every single word. I read for overall sense and I only need to puzzle out a new word if the sense of the passage hinges on it. If I looked up every word I don't know it would take me weeks to read the first chapter. But with every German book I read I learn some more words, so the cumulative effect is that my reading gets better and better.

I'm sure children learning to read for the first time must use similar tactics - if you want to follow the story you really don't need to understand every word on the page, you can often guess from the context or just skip bits which are too difficult. OK, sometimes they'll get it wrong, but they'll stay interested and eventually learn how to check and correct their own mistakes.

Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on :

Originally posted by Cottontail:

quote:
It is a system that Scottish schools embraced very early. I have watched my nieces and nephews learn this way, and was working in Primary Schools when it was still very new. Specifically, the system they learned was Jolly Phonics. It is my understanding that the English government is pushing this partly because of observation of its success in Scotland.

My children, now 18 and 16, learned to read with Jolly Phonics. At no point did anyone suggest they should only read set texts; the whole point of jolly phonics is that once a child can "sound out" any word (including "invented" words, such as Hufflepuff, Slytherin, Dumbledore) they can tackle any book.

In fact I have a clear recollection of listening to my daughter, newly turned 7, getting a school book home about "Rabbits" and "sounding out" various words about rabbits' food, rabbits' anatomy and rabbits' reproduction. ("Yes, that's right, s-p-e-r-m.")

Posted by Evangeline (# 7002) on :

quote:
It's also absolutely ridiculous to insist that, although parents can read whatever books they like to children (thanks!) a child must never attempt to read a book for which s/he is not phonically prepared - yes, I actually heard a pro-Phonicist saying this on Radio 4 on Friday - what absolute and utter bollocks.

I agree that this is absolute and utter bollocks. Sadly the whole language zealots are just as bad. For some children, basic books with repetitious, regular sounds are a god-send. Yes the language is contrived but for a 1st grader who is dispirited and demotivated by being unable to read and who knows he's falling behind his peers, a Dr Seuss book like Hop on Pop or Green Eggs and Ham can be empowering and really useful in developing decoding skills. The whole language zealots ban such books for being contrived and not "quality children's literature" though. For a little boy I worked with, the ability to read and sound out a Dr Seuss book meant he enjoyed reading rather than feeling like books were the enemy. Would I suggest he never look at or be read other books with more natural language-not for a moment.

It's really not that hard to employ a variety of methods to encourage children and get them interested in reading is it? Even if phonics are mandated there are a lot of ways to bring whole language and quality children's texts into the curriculum. In any case, I wonder how children can learn to write (ie spell) without a knowledge of phonics. To be a good reader you need a lot of strategies to work together, I strongly believe phonics is an essential part of that strategy and some explicit instruction is required for most students. if you have gifted kids who have worked out phonics intuitively, then give them other work while you sort out phonics with those who struggle a bit more.

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

But Green eggs and ham is real literature!

After all, adults and good readers in general can read it and enjoy it. Its funny. Its brilliant!

The phonics fascists are trying to make kids read boring dried shit. If it was all about Dr Seuss there would be no problem! That is the kind of book they want to ban.

Posted by Alogon (# 5513) on :

quote:
Originally posted by QLib:
the problem with hard-line phonics enthusiasts is that they don't seem to recognise that children need a range of strategies...
a child must never attempt to read a book for which s/he is not phonically prepared - yes, I actually heard a pro-Phonicist saying this on Radio 4 on Friday - what absolute and utter bollocks.

I thought the whole point of phonics was to equip one to learn new words oneself. That sounds like something the whole-word dogmatists would say: a child must never attempt to read a book containing words they haven't learned one by one. (Or is this just an exaggeration on the part of the promoters of phonics?)

I was in first grade in 1954/55, when the Dick-and-Jane whole-word theory was ascendant. But, fortunately, it was also new enough that my seasoned, middle-aged teacher was probably too set in her ways to use it exclusively or exactly as prescribed. And for my mother, who had taught a one-room country school for two years before the war, the method was probably unknown. Phonics was in the toolboxes of both of them. For at least half of first grade, "reading" seemed like a game that didn't have anything to do with real life. But one weekend morning, I sat down in the living room holding up a newspaper, probably just in order to look grown-up in front of my little sister. Then I started to look at the print. The discovery that I knew what some of the words were and could figure out many of the others by "sounding them out" was exhilarating. By rights, the whole-word people regard the latter as a no-no. But suddenly I could read! Within a year, one of my prized possessions was a science textbook for grade 7 or 8.

It's good to have a well-thought-out curriculum. But life doesn't hit children in such a simplistic manner as to wait until they've encountered a given thing in the course outline. A teacher shouldn't become so devoted to a single approach as not to introduce alternatives as well. I suspect that half of good teaching is motivating kids to learn on their own.

Posted by Evangeline (# 7002) on :

quote:
But Green eggs and ham is real literature!

Not according to the Education faculty at Sydney Uni who claim to be beyond the reading wars but are very anti any sort of phonics.

Posted by OliviaG (# 9881) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ken:
But Green eggs and ham is real literature! ...

It's even been set to music.

Dr. Seuss isn't without its challenges for readers of any age. Try reading "Fox in Socks" aloud when drunk, for example. OliviaG

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

Add me to the list of people who think it's stupid to say that kids aren't allowed to read anything other than their set phonics texts.

The entire aim of the exercise should be to get you to be able to read generally, not to get you to be able to read specific texts.

Posted by Martin L (# 11804) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Evangeline:

quote:
But Green eggs and ham is real literature!
Not according to the Education faculty at Sydney Uni who claim to be beyond the reading wars but are very anti any sort of phonics.

Oh my, you aren't listening to university education faculty, are you? [Eek!]

Posted by 3rdFooter (# 9751) on :

quote:
Originally posted by PataLeBon:
I remember doing research on this. At least here it was discovered that 50% of kids will learn how to read as long as a consistant approach is used ( doesn't matter what approach). 2/3 of the rest will only learn how to read well with a phonics approach. Which of course leaves the rest who will probably always struggle.

Seems utterly reasonable. My son, who is autistic and firmly in the last camp, reads pretty much entirely by word shape. 'Jolly phonics' didn't help because he doesn't decompose the word and couldn't do things by 'phonic shape' (if I can coin a term).

The weird thing is, strange typefaces or even handwriting don't throw him off too much. Work that out, neurologists.

Posted by Grammatica (# 13248) on :

[tangent] Just in case someone here hasn't seen it: The Rev. Jesse Jackson reading "Green Eggs and Ham."

Tinny version, sorry.

[/tangent]

Posted by Evangeline (# 7002) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Martin L:

quote:
Originally posted by Evangeline:

quote:
But Green eggs and ham is real literature!
Not according to the Education faculty at Sydney Uni who claim to be beyond the reading wars but are very anti any sort of phonics.
Oh my, you aren't listening to university education faculty, are you?

I try not to but as they're indoctrinating the new generation of teachers it's helpful to know what they're sprouting.

Posted by MarsmanTJ (# 8689) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Evangeline:
I try not to but as they're indoctrinating the new generation of teachers it's helpful to know what they're sprouting.

I left a primary PGCE this year (due to my hearing problems, while mostly corrected with hearing aids, not sufficiently to deal with some of the stupid stuff that classroom management with differentiation and various other stupid things requires) was horrified by my English lecturers. I argued with them adamantly, particularly when they told us that parents shouldn't be reading to children books beyond their level as it might confuse them, teachers were the only people who were supposed to 'teach reading'. Oh, and if they had learned to read before entering school, they had learned with the wrong method, and should still only be allowed to read books that were at their current level of phonics for the class, and that if they argued, they were to be told the way they had been taught was 'wrong'. I kid you not. [Roll Eyes]

But then, I entered school (in year 1, skipping reception as we'd just moved back from the USA) reading completely fluently from picking it up at home by osmosis, so what would I know about it??

Posted by Evangeline (# 7002) on :

Wow Marsman [Eek!]

that sounds terrible at least USyd push the importance of immersing kids in quality literature and totally oppose that sort of graded approach of which you speak.

Sorry about your hearing problems...hope you find/have found something suitable and fulfilling career-wise.

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Alogon:
A teacher shouldn't become so devoted to a single approach as not to introduce alternatives as well. I suspect that half of good teaching is motivating kids to learn on their own.

Exactly.

I'd say 90% of teaching is motivating children to learn and showing them how to learn.

It's what I've devoted my life to.

I find that students just out of college soon learn not to be dogmatic or to stick with one method only. We still have 'class novels' in our school, which is a great way to get everyone involved - whatever their level of reading ability.

(ETA - and yes, we use a synthetic phonics scheme too. This is great for early spelling lessons)

[ 10. April 2012, 09:24: Message edited by: Boogie ]

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

quote:
Originally posted by MarsmanTJ:
I argued with them adamantly, particularly when they told us that parents shouldn't be reading to children books beyond their level as it might confuse them, teachers were the only people who were supposed to 'teach reading'. Oh, and if they had learned to read before entering school, they had learned with the wrong method, and should still only be allowed to read books that were at their current level of phonics for the class, and that if they argued, they were to be told the way they had been taught was 'wrong'. I kid you not.

That is just utterly ridiculous.

I am very VERY glad that I didn't encounter that attitude as a child. Everyone reading at the same level? Come off it.

It's a recipe for disaster. A child who is advanced in reading who is held back like that will most likely stop wanting to read, on the grounds that reading becomes boring.

Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :

quote:
Originally posted by MarsmanTJ:
I was horrified by my English lecturers. I argued with them adamantly, particularly when they told us that parents shouldn't be reading to children books beyond their level as it might confuse them, teachers were the only people who were supposed to 'teach reading'. Oh, and if they had learned to read before entering school, they had learned with the wrong method, and should still only be allowed to read books that were at their current level of phonics for the class, and that if they argued, they were to be told the way they had been taught was 'wrong'. I kid you not.

Don't tell that to Grandchorister who, although only a few months old, loves listening to her father reading Winnie the Pooh and Beatrix Potter stories. Of course she can't understand them yet, but she is sitting on daddy's knee and his voice is very calming. What's not to like?

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

There was a discussion about this on R4 as I was eating today.

It's deeply depressing to hear people being dogmatic for and against something that is not susceptible to dogma - even more if the victims are children who can't answer back.

Posted by Mili (# 3254) on :

When I studied teaching (almost a decade ago) I was frustrated that we briefly studied all methods of teaching literacy and then got told we had to work out which was best for ourselves. The main focus was on teaching children to read critically, which is only relevant once they've got the basics. Even then I knew that a mixture of approaches was best, but as a new teacher it would have helped to have a better grounding in a well researched method that had been shown to work for most kids and more teaching on how to teach kids with learning disorders and special needs.

However reading about other university courses where the lecturers are very pro one method or another I now feel relieved I didn't have one method shoved down my throat.

As for spelling, I think it is almost universal to use some sort of phonic approach. This may go alongside memorising the spelling of the 100/200 most used words or having personalised spelling words based on words incorrectly spelt in daily writing sessions.

I'm surprised to hear that Dr. Seuss is not considered 'good literature'. There's a big difference to not liking dry phonic texts and banning anything that is not 'good literature. My university stressed using a variety of texts that kids would use at home and valuing the texts of the community. Every school has a take home book scheme, but children should also be validated for reading anything else in their homes eg. computer game instructions on screen, catalogues, magazines, shopping lists, comic books etc.

I do work in some schools where even the books borrowed from the school library have to be at the children's reading level as assessed by the teacher or outside tests. Eg. Lexile reading texts. I come in as a supply teacher and have a rebellion because some of the kids hope that I will go against their school rules and allow them to borrow harder books or non-fiction books. They point out they can read the harder books or that their parents want books to read aloud to them.(Non-fiction is often off limits for younger children because they make a mess of the shelves and don't know where to put books back. However some schools solve this by having markers that can be put in the bookshelf where the book came from so it can easily be put back).

I can't go against school rules so now I strongly encourage kids at these schools to join and use their public library with their parents and borrow whatever they want from there.

Posted by Alogon (# 5513) on :

quote:
Originally posted by MarsmanTJ:
I argued with them adamantly, particularly when they told us that parents shouldn't be reading to children books beyond their level as it might confuse them, teachers were the only people who were supposed to 'teach reading'.

Bloody secularists, obviously. There goes the Bible.

Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :

There used to be a colour coding system (worked out by taking a chunk of text of 100 words and calculating the readability score - Fog). Which is fine for extension books to the main reading scheme. But in some schools, the librarians went mad and colour coded all the books (doubt if they'd have the staff to do that these days), leading parents or teachers to complain that their child had chosen a book of the wrong colour. Or that they had chosen a book which was too easy for them (or too hard).

Much better for children to make their own free choice according to interest and appeal, outwith the normal reading scheme requirement.

Posted by MarsmanTJ (# 8689) on :

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
It's a recipe for disaster. A child who is advanced in reading who is held back like that will most likely stop wanting to read, on the grounds that reading becomes boring.

That was our argument with the lecturers. Had I been forced to read rubbish in reception, I'd've been bored to tears. Fortunately I didn't go to reception, and by Year 1, I could get away with reading what I liked... Narnia and Enid Blyton did quite nicely...

Posted by mark_in_manchester (# 15978) on :

Thanks Grammatica - our kids liked Jessie Jackson's reading (more, when I tried to explain who he is). Dr Seuss rules around here - politically, I try to promote 'the Sneetches' at bedtime as much as seems proper.

Ours get phonic 'reading books' plus 'other' library books at school, to bring home - they choose the latter, and it could be anything. We read it to them at the start (younger is 4) and they read it themselves when older (oldest now 7).

Oldest doesn't seem to mind reading Raold Dahl to herself for fun, and adventures of Kipper and Chip for her 'set book'...though the difference in words-per-page is becoming a bit embarassing.

It's worked well - they both like reading.

As my boss (with older kids) commented to me by way of parental advice, once - 'with luck they'll grow into spods and like reading - it'll save you a fortune in trainers...'.

Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :

When our boys were young, they were allowed to keep their bedroom light on for one hour after going to bed, but only if they were reading (no playing). They could read any book, magazine or comic in their bedroom. So, starting with picture books and gradually increasing to full-length novels, biographies and factual books, they read for one hour every night of their childhoods (in addition to any other reading they did for school or for free choice). That adds up to a lot of reading in total!

Posted by Moo (# 107) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Chorister:
Much better for children to make their own free choice according to interest and appeal, outwith the normal reading scheme requirement.

I knew a boy who read at grade level when he was eight. Then he became very interested in snakes. After he had read the small number of children's books on the topic, he switched to adult books. In six months his reading level went from third grade to seventh grade.

I don't know the best way to teach a child to read, but once he can read then help him find books that appeal to him.

Moo

Posted by Bernard Mahler (# 10852) on :

I'm sure I acquired reading skills through a phonics system. I can clearly recall our teacher printing 'hat' on the blackboard, then adding an 'e' sporting a miniature policeman's helmet to indicate the vowel change.
The year? 1938!

Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on :

I wasn't a great fit with the reading instruction in school. For one thing when we had reading aloud circle I would get bored and read ahead and not know the place when I was my turn.

ckMy favorite memory was when I transferred school in the fifth grade. They had a self paced reading program which was a box of reading excerpts in 40 levels. I was told I had to start at the beginning third grade level and read 3 cards per segment and answer the questions.
I cheated by knocking off a section a day and using the remaining time to read down from the 11th grade sections. I eventually got caught and got sent the principal's office but only for the amusement of the staff.

Posted by Chamois (# 16204) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
I cheated by knocking off a section a day and using the remaining time to read down from the 11th grade sections. I eventually got caught and got sent the principal's office but only for the amusement of the staff.

Thanks, Palimpsest! That's reminded me of my reception class (aged 5). We were reading "Janet and John", and you weren't allowed to turn the page until you had read it aloud to the teacher. There were about 30 kids in the class so most "reading" time was actually spent queuing up at the teacher's desk.

In the second week of school I worked out that I could speed things up a bit by reading my page to the teacher, going straight to the back of the queue without sitting down and reading the next page while I was queuing.

I don't know whether or not the teacher cottoned on but I do remember being allowed to read book 2 all the way through, and then reading the whole book aloud to the teacher in one go before getting book 3.

School reading schemes are deadly dull for us lucky ones who learned reading quickly.

Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :

Oh yes, 'Janet and John', that's the one where I pointed out to the teacher that either she or the author was wrong - because she had told us you shouldn't start a sentence with 'And', yet there it was in the book.

She didn't reply.

Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on :

you were lucky, Janet and John were what we progressed to when we had completed ITA. Now if you wanted a daft reading scheme that was it.

Jengie

Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :

Yes, ITA caused so much trouble, especially with spelling! Also for children who moved schools part way through the scheme. I'm not surprised it's been trashed.

Imagine trying to learn to read like this!

[ 11. April 2012, 10:57: Message edited by: Chorister ]

Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :

(More details on ITA for anyone interested, here.)

Posted by Mili (# 3254) on :

That's a really weird system. My almost 7 year old nephew is here and he managed to read both examples (I couldn't work out 'ice' in the second one). However he's a fluent reader in the ordinary alphabet.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Chorister:
Imagine trying to learn to read like this!

I think that's one of the most ridiculous things I've ever seen.

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

ITA was certainly a failure. They got it wrong and now we know never to try such a thing again. Same for the various colour-coded letters and other non-standard writing systems.

Basically the good readers would have learned with the standard system anyway so they don't need athe training wheels, those who would have had difficulty with that find it harder to transition to normal scripts so you are giving them an extra hurdle to jump. No-one benefits. Other than publishers of textbooks who can charge more for books that use a proprietary system that prevents others competing with them.

On the other hand ITA materials are unusable in North America (and pretty dodgy in Northern England, most of Scotland, and Ireland) so the publishers are cut out of well over half the potential market for first-language English speakers

If I remember rightly the school I went to flirted half-hartedly with ITA for some of the classes in years below me - I was a little too old for it, I went to primary school in 1961 - but I think they soon dropped it. By the time I left the school in 1968 I think there were cupoards full of unused ITA books in the infants section.

We got taught with Janet and John, and flash-cards (which were sort of fun, but then I was good at them), endless boring hours (or so it seemed) of repetitive writing drills copying words and sentences from the blackboard to learn the letter shapes they wanted us to use (which might be the reason I never wrote neatly - too much repetition lowers performance), and some informal teaching about letter-values (of the sort which might now be called "phonics", which is when you think about it, a stupid and misleading name for it). It seemed to work for most people. But not for everybody, including my own brother who didn't become a skilled reader till years later. Maybe a different method would have helped him and some of the others who were having trouble. Which is not a reason to force it on everybody.

The early Janet and John books really are silly. Stupid little sentences no-one would say.

And after you get through them there are some odd ones when a family who buy a huge house in the country or some outer suburb and drive around in a great big station wagon with lots of dogs. They looked very rich - as I think we noticed, even then, they certainly didn't dress, behave, or talk anything like we did - and looking back on it they seemed very American, which I probably didn't know then. And very dated as well. Maybe they jsut borrowed them wholesale from some American book? (Dick and Jane?)

Aaah, Wikipedia tells me they started in the USA in the 1920s as Alice and Jerry and were then "Anglicised" by Rona Munro and Mabel O'Donnell who were New Zealanders, and they were first sold in New Zealand. So us kids on a council estate in England were being shown pictures of a family of children of our parent's age in either the USA or New Zealand... no wonder it looked a bit odd.

On the other hand, once you got through the early books in the series, which didn't take long if you were lucky enough to be good at reading- weeks for the first few with no real sentences, than months for the ones withteh staion wagon and the dog, a couple of school terms maybe, then you got on to the later ones with real stories. And some of them were (it seemed to me at the time) quite good. The names I remember were the last three in the series which were sort of small anthologies of fairy-stories and fantasies. Brave and Bold, It must be magic, and Magic everywhere. Again, looking around online they seem to have been at least partly copied from older American books with similar titles. Maybe they were responsible for the boom in fantasy fiction in the 60s and 70s when the kids who had learned to read on them grew up and wanted more. You read those books and then you read the Narnia books and The Hobbit in class, so by the age of 8 or 9 you were pretty well steeped in fantasy fiction at the expense of the State. [Biased]

Posted by infinite_monkey (# 11333) on :

Yes, to adults, the decodable books are boring and stupid. As an adult, I hate them.

But then, I step back. I imagine what it would be like if, say, I was learning to read Japanese--and suddenly, I saw a word I recognized on a Tokyo street sign, leaping out from all the stuff I couldn't make sense of, communicating its meaning directly to me. How incredibly exciting that would be. And then I imagine a whole sign I could read--how every little bit could come together into a meaningful whole.

That's the joy that kids get from reading decodable text at their level. If I'm learning Japanese, I'm not going to stop reading things in English--I'm not going to restrict myself only to the handful of words I can recognize in a language that I'm only just making sense of. But I am gonna need to start simple with the Japanese. And that's why good, balanced early literacy programs have a mixture of the insufferable but precious fully decodable "Max can fix six hats" stuff AND quality read-alouds or shared readings.

Posted by Chamois (# 16204) on :

quote:
Originally posted by infinite_monkey:

And that's why good, balanced early literacy programs have a mixture of the insufferable but precious fully decodable "Max can fix six hats" stuff AND quality read-alouds or shared readings.

That's what made the Puddle Lane books so good. You got an 'easy' version of the main story-line on the left-hand page, plus the full version for shared reading on the right-hand page.

And the stories were GOOD!

I wish Puddle Lane had been around when I was learning to read.

Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :

The other popular reading scheme around when I was young was the Ladybird scheme, 'Peter and Jane'. I learnt to read at home using these books - they are partly based on phonics (there was a phonics exercise book to go with each pair of reading books at each level) but the reading books worked on the premise of introducing a new word or two on every other page. So by the time you reached level 12 (books 34, 35 and 36), you were reading at quite an advanced level.

The only problem with the books were that they were very middle class, sexist and white. Jane helped mummy, played with her dolls and rode a pony; Peter helped daddy, made things with his tool kit and played with his toy train. Although that didn't bother many of the learner readers, it made the politically correct lobbyists spontaneously combust with righteous indignation.

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

quote:
Originally posted by infinite_monkey:
Yes, to adults, the decodable books are boring and stupid.

As they were to us as children. Especially when they made you do things you had already done ovewr and over again. It didn't start getting good till you got to real stories, a year or so in. (School maths never got good because we never got to the real stories, we were still doing vain repetitions at sixteen years old)

quote:
Originally posted by Chamois:
That's what made the Puddle Lane books so good. You got an 'easy' version of the main story-line on the left-hand page, plus the full version for shared reading on the right-hand page.

Like Rupert the Bear cartoons! Simple story in pictures (& occasional word balloons), but captions to the picture (usually in verse) and also a prose story below.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

quote:
Originally posted by infinite_monkey:
But then, I step back. I imagine what it would be like if, say, I was learning to read Japanese--and suddenly, I saw a word I recognized on a Tokyo street sign, leaping out from all the stuff I couldn't make sense of, communicating its meaning directly to me. How incredibly exciting that would be. And then I imagine a whole sign I could read--how every little bit could come together into a meaningful whole.

That's the joy that kids get from reading decodable text at their level.

I fail to see how that works with books written using characters that you would never, ever see on a street sign. The analogy falls down immediately on that basis. No child is ever going to read that sentence about ice angels that Chorister linked to and then get terribly excited when they see the word "ice" somewhere. Because they will have learnt to recognise "eis" or something.

Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on :

Originally posted by ken:

quote:
It didn't start getting good till you got to real stories, a year or so in.

I think the point of the phonics scheme (Jolly Phonics) my kids did is that they get onto real stories quite quickly. The first letters they learn are S,A,T,P,I,N. which they learn in the first fortnight. Then other letters / blends are introduced in order of how frequently they appear, - so "oo" is learned long before "z", for example. It's surprising how quickly they can decode words.

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

Michael Gove loves phonics - but he gave a copy of the KJV Bible to every school - apparently phonics are of little use in trying to decode it.

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

leo, are you planning to dig up any more long-dead threads in order to post that inane and barely-relevant comment, or will you be happy to stop at two? [Roll Eyes]

Posted by Alogon (# 5513) on :

quote:
Originally posted by QLib:
I agree that phonics are an absolutely essential part of teaching reading - but....

But the problem with hard-line phonics enthusiasts is that they don't seem to recognise that children need a range of strategies - especially in a language such as English...
It's also absolutely ridiculous to insist that, although parents can read whatever books they like to children (thanks!) a child must never attempt to read a book for which s/he is not phonically prepared - yes, I actually heard a pro-Phonicist saying this on Radio 4 on Friday - what absolute and utter bollocks.

There's a lot of common sense in the above. I'm surprised to hear this caution coming from a pro-phonicist, having assumed that it is more characteristic of the "whole-word" advocates. What good is phonics if it doesn't equip children to handle new words on their own? I was officially raised on the Dick and Jane series in first and second grades, but remember teachers encouraging us to "sound it out" when encountering an unfamiliar word. It must have been thanks to this instruction that I was reading on my own far above "grade level" by age 8 or 9, and roaming through the adult stacks at the public library.

Posted by Jane R (# 331) on :

orfeo:

quote:
Justinian, I think you are confusing phonics with phonetics. All you are saying is that English is not a phonetic language.

As Ken has already pointed out, all languages except sign languages (such as BSL and ASL) are phonetic. Justinian is talking about writing systems and as he says they divide into two basic types - logographic (Type 1) and alphabetic (Type 2). English is an alphabetic writing system; Chinese is logographic, along with cuneiform and hieroglyphics.

There are two problems with teaching only phonetic decoding when teaching English-speaking children to read. First, the large number of foreign loanwords which preserve their original pronunciation, such as 'chateau'; second, as others have already pointed out, the same letter combinations are used to represent different sounds in different contexts (bat/cat can be decoded using phonics but bough/cough can't). It probably serves us right for attempting to represent up to 20 different vowel sounds (depending on your dialect) using only 6 letters. Learning to read French or Spanish is much easier.

Finally, the English spelling system is morphophonemic - or as a linguist would say, it preserves grammatical information in spelling regardless of how the word is pronounced, so for example all regular past verbs end with -ed but if we were spelling them phonetically walked would end with t...

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
leo, are you planning to dig up any more long-dead threads in order to post that inane and barely-relevant comment, or will you be happy to stop at two?

Is it 'inane' in your opinion because you are a fan of Gove and all his hideous, interfering, blunbdering works?

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

No, it's because it's completely lacking in significance, meaning or point.

Posted by Cod (# 2643) on :

New Zealand schoolchildren (including Codlet Major) are taught some synthetic phonics and something called "chunking", but through a text-centred approach. There are some advocates towards a more exclusively phonics-based approach as in Scotland, but there is research that New Zealand schoolchildren read better than phonics-taught Scottish schoolchildren. However, there may be other reasons for this as literacy levels in NZ schools (as in other English-speaking Commonwealth schools) have been strong for decades.

Posted by Gill H (# 68) on :

I was another one of those annoying kids who picked up reading before I started school.

I started school in 1971, and during our 'free choice' periods (which were a lot of the day) I would head straight for the comic box and wade through issues of 'Twinkle for little girls'.

And then I got told off by the teacher. Because I was obviously just messing around in there, and not doing something Properly Educational.

Eventually my parents had to come in and see the teacher, and prove that I could already read.

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
No, it's because it's completely lacking in significance, meaning or point.

It is hugely significant for children in our schools that we have a secretary of state who knows little about pedagogy and who thinks it is damaging, yet who commands professional teachers to work in the way he believes works, when the professionals know that it doesn't.

Posted by LutheranChik (# 9826) on :

I learned to read well before I started school, so I really don't remember what clicked for me. (My mother used to read to me with me following the words with my finger.) But I do remember going through phonics training in first and second grades, and getting something out of it. We also had dictation, writing lists of similar words, and I'd think that that would also be of help to a child -- set the exceptions to the rules aside long enough to teach them the normal pronunciation of words.

Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :

I was being home educated on the penu scheme at the time I learned to read. I vividly remember the first books, I know now - having googled - that they were the One, two, three and away series. There was a Mrs Blue hat and I think they all lived around a triangular village green. I don't think we used all of them. I know we went onto a graded series that involved pirates - but along side these my mother used to read to us. She made a point of finding the books she had enjoyed as a child, things like Elizabeth Goodge's The White Horse and The Children of the New Forest.

I know she made a big effort to get us reading, seeking advice from her mother - who was a teacher. I was a fluent reader by the time I arrived in primary school, constantly getting ahead on books etc.

I do think having something interesting to read is vital, regardless of system.

Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :

On further googling, I think the second series were the Dragon Pirate Stories by the same author. Did anyone else experience these, or know what reading system either of these schemes were based on ?

Posted by Moo (# 107) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
I do think having something interesting to read is vital, regardless of system.

Yes. I think one reason so many children have trouble learning to read is that the material they are given is so screamingly dull. There is no inherent reward in learning to read it.

I have a young cousin who was reading at grade level when he was in the third grade. Then he became very interested in snakes. There are not many children's books about snakes; after he had read all he could get his hands on, he started reading adult books. After four months of this, he was reading at seventh grade level.

Moo

[ 16. September 2012, 11:53: Message edited by: Moo ]

Posted by Starbug (# 15917) on :

I can remember learning ITA at primary school. When I had to go to hospital for an operation at the age of 6 or 7, my classmates wrote to me in ITA. What I can't remember is how we got from ITA to 'proper' writing - does anyone know how the transition was made?

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

I remember ITA very well, I was a first grade student transferred midyear from a school that taught reading traditionally into an experimental, progressive school. (You can decide what direction the progression was in.)

As I recall, they gave up on ITA after the year I was in--don't know if that was the first year they'd tried it or not--but we ALL got switched to traditional teaching in second grade (at which point yours truly said crossly, "See! I TOLD you you were spelling things wrong!")

More to the point, I don't recall any transition help whatsoever, beyond "Now that you're in second grade, we're going to deal things differently." Poor kids.

Posted by Mr Tambourine Man (# 15361) on :

Phonics has its place, but this appalling new phonics test clearly doesn't, if the instructional video* is anything to go by.

*Health warning: lower jaw may hit the floor while you are watching it.

Posted by LutheranChik (# 9826) on :

I just wanted to add that I'm also appalled by the idea of keeping children from reading what they want to because it's considered too "advanced." In elementary school I was constantly being scolded by teachers spouting this nonsense. Thank God my mother, on hearing of it, took me aside and said, "You can read whatever you want to -- just don't tell them about it." Fight the power!

Posted by Angloid (# 159) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mr Tambourine Man:
Phonics has its place, but this appalling new phonics test clearly doesn't, if the instructional video* is anything to go by.

*Health warning: lower jaw may hit the floor while you are watching it.

Aaargh! (Is that a non-word?)

It reminds me of my woodwork teacher who never let me progress beyond boring non-objects.

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

quote:
Originally posted by LutheranChik:
I just wanted to add that I'm also appalled by the idea of keeping children from reading what they want to because it's considered too "advanced." In elementary school I was constantly being scolded by teachers spouting this nonsense. Thank God my mother, on hearing of it, took me aside and said, "You can read whatever you want to -- just don't tell them about it."

I couldn't agree more. Phonics has its place, but not centre stage. Centre stage should be the love of books.

I have been teaching reading to Primary school children for 35 years. Many of whom have no books at home. My number one priority to to read stories to them and help them to see the joy of books.

Every child is different in the way they learn to read. We must never deprive them of phonics as some certainly need them to learn to read and spell.

But this government, as many previous, have to go to the extreme. Teaching reading is like theology and politics - extremes don't work. If only the politicians would keep their noses out.

(PS - fear not, I see many new young teachers using mixed methods for teaching reading. They also " Fight the power!", thank goodness!)

Posted by mark_in_manchester (# 15978) on :

Chorister said

quote:
The only problem with the [Ladybird] books were that they were very middle class, sexist and white. Jane helped mummy, played with her dolls and rode a pony; Peter helped daddy, made things with his tool kit and played with his toy train. Although that didn't bother many of the learner readers, it made the politically correct lobbyists spontaneously combust with righteous indignation

I'm a massive fan of Ladybird books. In their defense, in book 1a (the unforgettable 'Play with us') on p36 (where the footer reassures us there are 'no new words') we read that 'Jane is in the toy shop'. And in the beautifully-drawn, hyper-real accompanying picture, Aryan Jane selects a dolly...who is black. I think for UK 1964, that's trying quite hard.

Our kid brought home a Ladybird book being scrapped at school (she knows I like them) from 1976, which is part of the 'Sunstart' scheme - developed (by 'educational experts from five Caribbean countries') for Carribean kids ('whose natural speech on entering school is a patois or dialect varying considerably from standard English'.) Pictures and topics all draw heavily on what nature / industry / history kids might be a part of there...and of course,in the pictures they're all black!

My favourite current quote from a ladybird book, which sums up the optimism and benign paternalism which they encapsulate, is from 'The Telephone' (1972)

quote:
If you have read this book you will now have a very good idea of how the telephone works and of all the equipment and systems which go to make up a complete, world-wide telephone service. You may be satisfied with the information we have been able to give you in these few pages. On the other hand, you may be technically-minded enough to want to go into the subject in greater detail or even make the telephone service your career. In either event, the Post Office will be pleased to give you advice on the technical books available and the steps you can take to further your education.

It almost makes me want to cry...or at least to un-obtrusively stand to attention and softly hum the national anthem.

Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ken:
But Green eggs and ham is real literature!

After all, adults and good readers in general can read it and enjoy it. Its funny. Its brilliant!

The phonics fascists are trying to make kids read boring dried shit. If it was all about Dr Seuss there would be no problem! That is the kind of book they want to ban.

The other way around here, Ken. There is an enormous war being fought in kindergartens, and the pro-phonics group are stalinists, not fascists. The strongly anti-phonics group are the fascists. Who knows what the poor kids think of it.

Posted by Aravis (# 13824) on :

Nothing changes. I love the section in "To Kill a Mockingbird" where Scout gets told off for having presumed to learn to read before she starts school, and how her father deals with it.

I started school in 1971 and was already a very fluent reader. My first teacher didn't quite know what to make of this. My second teacher, who was more experienced, brought in her older daughter's books for me to read as I'd used up all the books in her class and in top infants. She also got me to hear readers for her (I was just under six at the time). I have vague memories of going into the head teacher's office for a standardised reading test, but she kept this very low-key and didn't tell either me or my parents the result until I met her somewhere about 10 years later!

Posted by Fr Weber (# 13472) on :

My mother taught me to read at age 3, using phonics, FWIW.

I agree that no one system will ever be the be-all and end-all, and that teachers need to be able to use more than one strategy for teaching reading. Many school systems hopped on the "whole language" bandwagon some years back, and combined with the decision to teach grammar osmotically, the results have been disastrous.

Children who were taught to read using phonics might mispronounce words, but children taught to read using whole language tend to guess at which word they're seeing--they see the unfamiliar word "indigent" and say "ignorant", for example. The concept of "sounding it out" is completely foreign.

Posted by Cod (# 2643) on :

I'm concerned not just for children who forge ahead with their reading, but also the slow learners. My nephew has just begun school in England. He is a very active boy. Getting him to sit quietly on the mat and learn his phonics sounds like a recipe for disaster.

Posted by Moo (# 107) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Cod:
My nephew has just begun school in England. He is a very active boy. Getting him to sit quietly on the mat and learn his phonics sounds like a recipe for disaster.

Would it be any easier for him to sit on the mat and learn to recognize whole words?

I agree that many teachers expect children to stay still for much too long, but I don't think the particular method of teaching reading makes much difference in this respect.

Moo

Posted by Cod (# 2643) on :

Quite possibly not Moo. In some countries (Finland, for example) children do not learn to read and write until 7. I suspect that would suit my nephew well.

Even so, I suspect learning to recognise whole words would be more likely to engage him than rote-learning characters and sounds. The former can be done by reading stories about explosions, car races, and things like that.

Most of all, however, I suspect that any method is adopted in England will be spoilt by the Ministry of Education spewing out missives, epistles, papal bulls, gospels, and fragmentary scrolls prescribing to the nth degree what teachers should teach and how they should do it. I suspect most methods work if placed in the hands of a competant, experienced teacher who is trusted to use his or her own initiative to get on with the job.

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

quote:
Originally posted by leo:
It is hugely significant for children in our schools that we have a secretary of state who knows little about pedagogy and who thinks it is damaging, yet who commands professional teachers to work in the way he believes works, when the professionals know that it doesn't.

We also now have a Minister of Justice who has never been a lawyer and knows nothing about law.

Do you have the same hostility to that?

Posted by Angloid (# 159) on :

And we have an Environment Secretary who AFAIK is a climate change sceptic. Or at least gives priority to business over the environment.

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

Cod there are a lot of education theories saying that the problems we have in this country with literacy and disaffection in boys are at least partly due to how early we make children read and write. Finland, France and our other continental neighbours are regularly pointed to as doing better than we do academically starting to read later but putting other things in place beforehand.

The Finnish guys I know on line have the most incredible language skills. I have a running joke with one of them that I'm feeding him vocabulary -but the stuff he doesn't know are things like bucolic and aestival - he learnt English, German and Swedish.

Posted by Cod (# 2643) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:

quote:
Originally posted by leo:
It is hugely significant for children in our schools that we have a secretary of state who knows little about pedagogy and who thinks it is damaging, yet who commands professional teachers to work in the way he believes works, when the professionals know that it doesn't.
We also now have a Minister of Justice who has never been a lawyer and knows nothing about law.

Do you have the same hostility to that?

I am a lawyer in a country where the Minister of Justice - and even for a short while, the Attorney-General - has often in recent times not been a lawyer.

It didn't matter because neither of them interfered in what common or garden lawyers like myself did.

What's Mr Gove doing?

Posted by Cod (# 2643) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
Cod there are a lot of education theories saying that the problems we have in this country with literacy and disaffection in boys are at least partly due to how early we make children read and write. Finland, France and our other continental neighbours are regularly pointed to as doing better than we do academically starting to read later but putting other things in place beforehand.

I've heard this too. I've also heard on the contrary that the complexity of English requires children to learn it earlier. I have no idea whether this is a good argument or not.

NZ children begin to learn to read and write when they start school (age 5) and I have not heard that comparable problems exist here. I will say that the teaching profession here is much more capable of giving the government a bloody nose, and hence the government is more likely to let teachers get on with the job. Presumably this will allow individual schools and teachers the flexibility to handle slow learners their own way.

Posted by Angloid (# 159) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Cod:
I am a lawyer in a country where the Minister of Justice - and even for a short while, the Attorney-General - has often in recent times not been a lawyer.

It didn't matter because neither of them interfered in what common or garden lawyers like myself did.

What's Mr Gove doing?

That's the point. It's not that the secretary of state for education should have teaching experience (though I don't see how that could be a disadvantage), any more that the transport secretary should be able to drive a bus; it's that their job is to ensure an effective education, transport system etc by giving the professionals a goal to aim at. How they achieve those goals is up to them, as the experts. Micro-managing as Gove does it is counter-productive. And akin to digging up the plants in the garden because they don't flower immediately.

Posted by Cod (# 2643) on :

Yes, that's what I was angling at Angloid. I understand that Gove (along with most of his predecessors over the last 20 years) likes to tell teachers how to do their job in some detail. I doubt the wisdom of any education secretary who does that, unless the person was at the chalkface immediately prior to appointment.

For what it's worth I think it's an advantage for an education minister not to be part of the profession as it can ensure that the person detached from the tides and currents common to any profession. It seems obvious that the education system across all constituent parts of the UK is in difficulties, and outsiders are often best placed to ring the changes ....... if they take decent advice.

As an aside, in the neverending debate about how to improve schooling in the UK, I never read of comparisons with Aus, NZ, Canada, which seem to do much better. Why is that?

Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Cod:
Yes, that's what I was angling at Angloid. I understand that Gove (along with most of his predecessors over the last 20 years) likes to tell teachers how to do their job in some detail. I doubt the wisdom of any education secretary who does that, unless the person was at the chalkface immediately prior to appointment.

Yes.

I instinctively support Gove on a lot of issues, but there is a nonsense at the heart of his programme, which is that he wants to free teachers from centralised control (weakening the national curriculum, weakening local educational authorities), and at the same time dictate exactly what they teach and how they teach it.

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