Using phonic strategies to decode unfamiliar words, what are teachers looking for?

[NorhamGardens]

Thanks for the very useful replies to my post yesterday.

I am interested in the level descriptor: Can a child demonstrate they know how to decode unfamiliar words using phonic strategies etc.

What would be a correct and incorrect approach in terms of moving from a 2B in reading to a 2A?

My Y2 DC seems to very rarely, if ever, come across a word they don't know in the assigned school reading books.

If they do then they would ask outright what it was rather than attempting a 'strategy'. What would a teacher be looking for?

The words they stumble on are usually an unfamiliar African name or similar, a country, unusual activity they've never heard of etc.

[NorhamGardens]

Thanks. So if for example take the word 'thoroughly'. If a child didn't immediately know it and said 'well I know the beginning sound, and it's 'th' and I know the sound 'ou' in the middle and that 'ly' at the end sounds like 'lee' or something like that, that would be an acceptable demonstration of using a 'phonic strategy' at a 2A level?

[Runoutofideas]

I think a good example might be some of the made up words in the BFG like "snozzcumber, humplecrimp, wraprascal, crumscoddle" - clearly the children are not going to know these words but can they sound them out using their knowledge of phonics or do they look at it and say "don't know"?

[mrz]

So if for example take the word 'thoroughly'. If a child didn't immediately know it and said 'well I know the beginning sound, and it's 'th' and I know the sound 'ou' in the middle and that 'ly' at the end sounds like 'lee' or something like that, that would be an acceptable demonstration of using a 'phonic strategy' at a 2A level?
They would have to actually use phonics to read the word correctly

th or ough l y = /th/ /or/ /oa/ /l/ /ee/

[jade80]

Yes, like runoutofidea said, nonsense words are ideal. Make some up using regular phonic sounds, you can do endless ones, chiff (ch-i-ff), shooth (sh-oo-th), prucking (p-r-u-ck-ing) and so on.

[spanieleyes]

all isn't a sight word, the /al/ makes the or sound ( think of walk, talk) and the further /l/ makes this all, the a-e sound is a split digraph ( I think-it's a while since I taught Reception!!) and so makes the long vowel sound ( like ay). The only one that stumps me is once-mrz will know!

[mrz]

I don't teach "sight words" (7 exceptions - once being one of the 7)
I teach children the phoneme /or/ can be written "al" so sounded out as or-l (all) and a_e is a written form of /ai/ so ai-t (ate)

In reception I used Jolly Phonics actions to introduce the 44 phonemes when these were secure I moved onto alternative "spellings" and use Debbie's programme

Letters & Sounds was published by the DCSF but Debbie provides a great overview at www.phonicsinternational.com/

[maizieD]

Anything which has an unusual letter/sound correspondence is taught as a 'tricky word'; that is, it is decodeable 'with a tricky bit'. Ideally children would be taught the simple one to one correspondences (one letter spells one sound), then the more complex ones (two or more letters spell one sound) so children become really familiar with the idea that letters are a 'code' for sounds and that written words can be decoded and blended. Then the more unusual correspondences could be taught.

However, life is rarely ideal and a number of words with 'odd' correspondences are rather handy for writing natural sounding text. In the past, children were taught these by 'look & say', a method which only works for children with excellent memories. There was prescribed list of 'High Frequency Words' which teachers were told had to be taught this way.

Somehow, a myth developed that these words were 'not decodable'. This is absolutely untrue of most of them, but words like one, two and once are certainly not immediately obvious! They do have a decodable bit - the 't' of two, the 'ne' of one and the 'nce' of once. Children have to know that the tricky bits are the 'o' of one & once which is said as /wu/ (/u/ as in 'bun') and the 'wo' of two which is said as /oo/ (moon). This may seem a bit complex, but the number of words like this which children will encounter in the initial stages of learning to read is very small. There is far less demand on memory made for learning a small number of 'tricky bits' in words than there ever was in trying to learn over 200 High Frequency Words as 'wholes'!

Euphemia.

If you are interested, the Phonics International site gives lots of information on teaching reading and spelling with synthetic phonics. There is also a good section called 'Teach Your Child To Read' in //www.dyslexics.org.uk and the Reading Reform Foundation website has a document setting out the Synthetic Phonics teaching principles and an extensive archive of past Newsletters with many articles about all aspects of SP teaching and teaching programmes. Not to mention the campaign which led to the Rose Review! Happy reading..

[maizieD]

Ah, Mrz. Cross posted!

[IndigoBell]

Euphemia - there are lots of reasons why children struggle, and lots of reasons why children don't do their homework.

Children may have loads of parental support and still not do their homework. Unless you actually ask the parent why the homework wasn't done you won't know.

(Equally a child handing in homework does not mean they get parental support...)

Blaming lack of progress on lack of parental support (especially as evidenced by homework no being done) is a very dangerous attitude to take.....

Schools / Teachers have a responsibility to teach every kid. Not just the ones that make good progress.....

[mrz]

Euphemia how long did they spend in P1 (full time for a year?)