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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Phonics
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dyfrig
Blue Scarfed Menace
# 15
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Posted
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]](wink.gif) ), 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.
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"He was wrong in the long run, but then, who isn't?" - Tony Judt
Posts: 6917 | From: pob dydd Iau, am hanner dydd | Registered: Apr 2001
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infinite_monkey
Shipmate
# 11333
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Posted
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.
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His light was lifted just above the Law,
And now we have to live with what we did with what we saw.
--Dar Williams, And a God Descended
Obligatory Blog Flog: www.otherteacher.wordpress.com
Posts: 1423 | From: left coast united states | Registered: Apr 2006
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Cottontail
Shipmate
# 12234
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Posted
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.
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"I don't think you ought to read so much theology," said Lord Peter. "It has a brutalizing influence."
Posts: 2377 | From: Scotland | Registered: Jan 2007
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Olaf
Shipmate
# 11804
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Posted
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.
Posts: 8953 | From: Ad Midwestem | Registered: Sep 2006
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QLib
Bad Example
# 43
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Posted
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.
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Tradition is the handing down of the flame, not the worship of the ashes Gustav Mahler.
Posts: 8913 | From: Page 28 | Registered: May 2001
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Siegfried
Ship's ferret
# 29
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Posted
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.
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Siegfried
Life is just a bowl of cherries!
Posts: 5592 | From: Tallahassee, FL USA | Registered: May 2001
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
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.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Pigwidgeon
Ship's Owl
# 10192
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Posted
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
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"...that is generally a matter for Pigwidgeon, several other consenting adults, a bottle of cheap Gin and the odd giraffe."
~Tortuf
Posts: 9835 | From: Hogwarts | Registered: Aug 2005
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HCH
Shipmate
# 14313
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Posted
The best example I have seen is" "Though the tough cough and hiccough, plough the furrow thoroughly."
Posts: 1540 | From: Illinois, USA | Registered: Nov 2008
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Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
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Posted
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
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"You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean." -- Tony Kushner, "Angels in America"
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
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Niminypiminy
Shipmate
# 15489
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Posted
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.
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Lives of the Saints: songs by The Unequal Struggle
http://www.theunequalstruggle.com/
Posts: 776 | From: Edge of the Fens | Registered: Feb 2010
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QLib
Bad Example
# 43
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Posted
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?
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Tradition is the handing down of the flame, not the worship of the ashes Gustav Mahler.
Posts: 8913 | From: Page 28 | Registered: May 2001
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Amanda B. Reckondwythe
Dressed for Church
# 5521
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Posted
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).
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"I take prayer too seriously to use it as an excuse for avoiding work and responsibility." -- The Revd Martin Luther King Jr.
Posts: 10542 | From: The Great Southwest | Registered: Feb 2004
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Olaf
Shipmate
# 11804
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Posted
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.
Posts: 8953 | From: Ad Midwestem | Registered: Sep 2006
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QLib
Bad Example
# 43
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Posted
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 ]
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Tradition is the handing down of the flame, not the worship of the ashes Gustav Mahler.
Posts: 8913 | From: Page 28 | Registered: May 2001
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
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.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Chorister
Completely Frocked
# 473
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Posted
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.
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Retired, sitting back and watching others for a change.
Posts: 34626 | From: Cream Tealand | Registered: Jun 2001
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
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
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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balaam
Making an ass of myself
# 4543
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Posted
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...
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Last ever sig ...
blog
Posts: 9049 | From: Hen Ogledd | Registered: May 2003
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nickel
Shipmate
# 8363
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Posted
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.
Posts: 547 | From: Virginia USA | Registered: Aug 2004
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Ariston
Insane Unicorn
# 10894
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Posted
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.
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“Therefore, let it be explained that nowhere are the proprieties quite so strictly enforced as in men’s colleges that invite young women guests, especially over-night visitors in the fraternity houses.” Emily Post, 1937.
Posts: 6849 | From: The People's Republic of Balcones | Registered: Jan 2006
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Mili
Shipmate
# 3254
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Posted
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.
Posts: 1015 | From: Melbourne, Australia | Registered: Aug 2002
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PataLeBon
Shipmate
# 5452
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Posted
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.
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That's between you and your god. Oh, wait a minute. You are your god. That's a problem. - Jack O'Neill (Stargate SG1)
Posts: 1907 | From: Texas | Registered: Jan 2004
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savedbyhim01
Apprentice
# 17035
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Posted
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.
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Matthew 28:18-20
My Inductive Bible Study Notes
Posts: 31 | From: China | Registered: Apr 2012
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Chorister
Completely Frocked
# 473
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Posted
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.)
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Retired, sitting back and watching others for a change.
Posts: 34626 | From: Cream Tealand | Registered: Jun 2001
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Niminypiminy
Shipmate
# 15489
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Posted
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.
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Lives of the Saints: songs by The Unequal Struggle
http://www.theunequalstruggle.com/
Posts: 776 | From: Edge of the Fens | Registered: Feb 2010
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Sarasa
Shipmate
# 12271
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Posted
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!
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'I guess things didn't go so well tonight, but I'm trying. Lord, I'm trying.' Charlie (Harvey Keitel) in Mean Streets.
Posts: 2035 | From: London | Registered: Jan 2007
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
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!
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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dyfrig
Blue Scarfed Menace
# 15
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Posted
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.
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"He was wrong in the long run, but then, who isn't?" - Tony Judt
Posts: 6917 | From: pob dydd Iau, am hanner dydd | Registered: Apr 2001
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
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.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357
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Posted
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 ]
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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.
Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
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.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
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 ]
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
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Chorister
Completely Frocked
# 473
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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.
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Retired, sitting back and watching others for a change.
Posts: 34626 | From: Cream Tealand | Registered: Jun 2001
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QLib
Bad Example
# 43
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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.
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Tradition is the handing down of the flame, not the worship of the ashes Gustav Mahler.
Posts: 8913 | From: Page 28 | Registered: May 2001
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Alisdair
Shipmate
# 15837
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Posted
`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.
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
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.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
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
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Chamois
Shipmate
# 16204
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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.
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The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases
Posts: 978 | From: Hill of roses | Registered: Feb 2011
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North East Quine
Curious beastie
# 13049
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Posted
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.")
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Evangeline
Shipmate
# 7002
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Posted
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.
Posts: 2871 | From: "A capsule of modernity afloat in a wild sea" | Registered: May 2004
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
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.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Alogon
Cabin boy emeritus
# 5513
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Posted
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.
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Patriarchy (n.): A belief in original sin unaccompanied by a belief in God.
Posts: 7808 | From: West Chester PA | Registered: Feb 2004
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Evangeline
Shipmate
# 7002
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Posted
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.
Posts: 2871 | From: "A capsule of modernity afloat in a wild sea" | Registered: May 2004
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Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
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Posted
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
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
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.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Olaf
Shipmate
# 11804
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Posted
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!]](eek.gif)
Posts: 8953 | From: Ad Midwestem | Registered: Sep 2006
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3rdFooter
Shipmate
# 9751
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Posted
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.
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3F - Shunter in the sidings of God's Kingdom
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