How do you actually teach a child to read?

[septemberremember]

I know they do phonics at primary school but I don’t know how they go about this and translating it into reading - obviously cat and dog are phonetic but what about other words? I was taught by a look and say method which was the rage in the 80s. But I believe that isn’t favoured now.

I always thought I’d teach my children loads and I haven’t

1 in 4 children leave Primary unable to read at the expected level. Which professionals were teaching them?

This is presumably because teachers are not the sole factors in a child's attained standards in anything. My DD and DS Have had wonderful teachers, from whom we've learnt so much ourselves. But they also have motivated and committed parents who enrich and reinforce whatever school is doing. They are not growing up in poverty, or dealing with a chaotic home or any other factor which might create a rather different level of enrichment/reinforcement of another kid in their same class. That kid may leave with a lower standard of reading/attainment despite having the same teacher. The professional teaching phonics at school is not the sole determinant of a kid's reading success.

I fully agree, but PP said don't teach your child to read, leave it to the professionals. Children do need parental input and support.

The approach we have taken is a halfway house. We've taken the professionals teaching and training as a base ie we've trained ourselves on how they teach the kids and the schemes they follow. On this foundation we layer practice, extension, stories, extra curriculars, reinforcement. So we don't "teach" them as such - I wouldn't attempt to introduce specific aspects of the curriculum but we take it and fly from there. This appears to be yielding results !

Of course they do but that doesn't have to mean teaching them to read. It means supporting the teachers, having lots of books in the home, modelling a love of reading, talking to your child, playing with them etc

My daughter knew the alphabet and letter sounds by the time she was three and then I started teaching her to read when she was about three and a half. I found Sesame Street was really helpful in learning letters and sounds. I used the Peter and Jane books as well as flash cards to teach her to read and we spent about half an hour on reading every day. My daughter was really keen to learn how to write as well, so we had a 15 minute session after lunch every day when she wrote out words that she could read and understand multiple times. It wasn't very time consuming and she was reading fluently when she started school and could write very basic stories, and also knew her 2, 5, and 10x tables. I did panic a bit when she first started to learn to read because I assumed that all children could read when they started school, but soon realised that wasn't the case when I was a reading volunteer in reception.

No nothing to do with it. Look up the school readiness report. It's about children who can't wipe their bottoms or eat their lunch or ask for help or put their shoes or coat on.

The most important thing you can teach your child before they come to school is to be able to get themselves ready to go home, get changed for PE, put on their own shoes, zip their coats up, wipe their own bum etc. That takes up far too much of the day when they first start.

If you want to start them off a bit, I would look at SATPIN, that's the sounds they'll probably start with. If they can tell the difference between the phonetic alphabet and the non-phonetic that will help them immensely.

Oh, and to hold their pencil correctly! Far too many are coming to school with dreadful handgrips, or their fingers aren't strong enough. So playdough, and gripping things.

Agreed. Learning to read on someone's knee and following the words with your finger then one day the penny dropping... it made me want to learn to read more.

How come I had a reading age of 14 as assessed by my school by the time I was 8 then?

@theboffinsarecoming same I was incredibly advanced (the only thing I was advanced in).

It's exactly what learning to read is memorising and seeing how those words match the story you have in your head and making sense of it.

I didn't teach mine phonics. It just seemed to confuse them and tbh I think the rise of phonics is what contributes to so many children leaving school illiterate.

I taught the alphabet, then stuck post its all over the house, labelling everything. Door. Chair. Drawer etc.

We read every night, her following along and explain the tricky words and how they're supposed to sound.

For spelling, we do Look, Cover, Write, Check.

TV always has subtitles on so they can see the words as they hear them, although some subtitles are hilariously wrong and I reward with small sweets for noticing them and telling me the correct word. Netflix is quite good for accuracy but Prime I think is automatic and mishears words a lot.

I always pick books just a little ahead of their reading age but ones that really interest them so that they push themselves a little more because they want to read it. My dd9 is reading Harry Potter at the moment, she's been wanting to for ages so she's really trying but it's a little difficult with big words so she asks a lot, 'what is this word.' Philosopher stumped her.

They're all ahead of their age groups with reading so it seems to be working. It's how I learnt and I was always years ahead so I've just stuck with 'if it isn't broken, don't fix it.'

@Balloonhearts
That is nonsense, phonics was bought back ibecause of the failure of look and say type methods. All the resrarch shows that phonics is far more effective because it gives children the building blocks to learn to read.
You teach a child the sounds for a , c, t., they can read act cat tac . Teach a child to recognise the word cat then they can read the word cat, but dont know how to tackle new words.
The brain has a limit on how many words you can memorize and it just leaves adults functionally illiterate.
My dd was taught phonics from 4 and could read words like architecture within months of starting school.
My Ds is dyslexic so struggled but still managed to read well by 7.
It took my DH until he was 10 to read because they were not allowed to teach him phonics at school. His teacher told MIL he would never learn to read using look and say. They got him a private tutor who taught him phonics and he finally learned.

We didn't do loads before they started school and DDs have both been in top set for phonics from the start of school so they obviously picked things up quickly.

What we did do a lot of was watching alphablocks and numberblocks and there is a really good YouTube channel called Toddler Fun Learning that they watched regularly and I swore helped them learn to count.

I made sure they knew all of their alphabet phonetically and could count to 20 before they started school. What I didn't do enough of was practice holding a pencil/crayons as both of them hated drawing and colouring. DD2 in particular was behind in her writing to start with although very good in her reading so I'd encourage them to colour and draw as much as possible.

The single biggest thing you can do to help them is to read lots of books together at home. It really does unlock everything else.

My DS was taught at kindergarten but before that I dotted post it notes around so he got used to the sounds of words and things like television. I read to him a lot and we went through lots of Biff, Chip and Kipper books. We read all the time by pointing out where buses were going and menus when we were eating out.

I’m assuming you attended school and were taught there.

Learning sight words works to a point. But you cannot memorise every single word in the English language. There are too many and it is hugely inefficient. For example, you could individually memorise the words sat, pin, pat, tap, pit, tip, tips, sits, tim, mat, mats, pats, pins, sit, spit. That’s 15 bits of information. And then you meet ‘pant’ and have no idea what it says. Or, you could learn the sounds that the letters SATPIN make (6 bits of information) and be able to work out all of those words plus any new ones you meet.

what happens with most children who are taught as you say you were, is that over time they work out the phonetic code for themselves by noticing patterns, and apply that to new words that they meet. Which is fine, and you say it worked for you, but the research suggests that most children (over 90% I believe) learn better by being taught the code rather than working it out for themselves. That’s why schools teach phonics - they tend to want to best for children and aren’t trying to trick them, as some on this thread seem to think.

Phonics is necessary because there will always be new words. If you read Harry Potter, it’s full of words you won’t read anywhere else. If you truly believe in sight words only and no phonics, you’d have to ask someone else how to say every new word you meet (eg muggle, Gringotts, Hogwarts, Griffindor). Most people are able to work out how these should be said - they can only do that by using phonics knowledge.

@CecilyP I didn’t say anyone needed Toe by Toe - I actually said “not suggesting you need this” - but was commenting on the method, which is exactly the same as described by many others here, ie letter sounds, blending, paired letter sounds, and then sight reading the exceptions.

The biggest factor that determines academic progress is the home environment.

Exactly, I read to mine from when they were born. But PP said leave it to the professionals. That obviously isn't enough.

Don't be rude. I'm allowed to have a different opinion to you.

If its such nonsense then my 4 kids wouldn't be years ahead of their classes with their reading and spelling. It clearly works for them. Not all children learn the same and imo, phonics alone is the inferior method. A combined method works better.

You teach them the alphabet and sounds first, before word recognition. This helps them work out unfamiliar words. Similar to phonics but including secondary uses such as PH sometimes sounding like an F or V sound, such as in Graph or Stephen.

Phonics doesn't work for all children, clearly, or we wouldn't have so many people leaving school illiterate. Much more than when I was at school. You only have to read a few CVs to see that.

@septemberremember there are about 44 individual sounds in English. At school children will learn the sounds and learn to match them to the letter or combination of letters. They'll start with single letter sounds, often s a t p i n d c m n (etc) and once they can remember the first day 6 sounds and their letters (not the letter names, just the simple sounds the letters make), they'll be encouraged to blend them together into words, which is like saying the sounds really quickly to hear the word it makes, e.g. s-a-t sat, d - a - d dad, these words are called CVC words (consonant vowel consonant). They'll revisit the sounds each time a new one is introduced, and practice making and saying words (oral blending). Once they can blend the sounds together in words, they'll be encouraged to segment words into sounds (the opposite, seeing a word and recognising the sounds in it, breaking it apart to then read it). There are some words that don't follow the usual phonetic patterns so these will be taught through recognition and just seeing them often, words like the, she, he, my, do etc. This will help them begin to read simple sentences like 'the big cat is in the red hat.'

And so on and so on.

Each school will follow a scheme, I wouldn't try to replicate it yourself before hand as it'll make reading harder potentially if you get the sounds wrong and the school then has to unteach your child, for example. There's a cheeky sound called a schwa that is a example of that!

With my DC also starting school in September, we do lots of oral blending at home where I say some words split into their sounds and they have to work out what I said. I'll ask "go and s-i-t at the table". Or "get your sh-oe-s on". "I bet you can't j-u-m-p on one l-e-g!" We also read loads, I point to the words as I'm reading them, I miss words out and get them to 'read' them to me (from knowing the story), and we talk a lot about what we've read and I ask questions to check they understand what we're reading, too. These are early reading skills we do lots of. I have just started introducing some of the single sounds and making CVC words with magnetic letters on the fridge because my little is showing an interest and I think they're bored at nursery. I do this as a phonics-trained early reading KS1 teacher though, and not in an "I'm trying to teach them before they start school" way either, just following my little ones interest and lead.

@Balloonhearts i wasnt being rude , i was disagreeing with this statement

," I think the rise of phonics is what contributes to so many children leaving school illiterate." which is nonsense.

Word recognition is far more likely to leave a child functionally illiterate. They knew back in the 60s and 70s it doesnt work. My MIL was told this when my very intelligent DH still couldnt read that he would never learn to read using Look and Say but they couldnt use phonics because they werent allowed to use any other method.
The SEN at my DS's secondary told me he could read as well as he could because he had been taught phonics from the start.
Reading Harry Potter at 9 and having to ask about the words really isnt years ahead, it is an age appropriate book.
You keep saying so many people leaving school illiterate but you havent backed it up with any evidence

From National Literacy Trust

https://literacytrust.org.uk/blog/piaac-adult-skills-survey-how-do-englands-literacy-skills-compare-on-the-world-stage/#:~:text=Across%20the%2031%20countries%20participating,average%20(272%20vs%20260).

"Across the 31 countries participating in the most recent survey, there was a decline in literacy skills compared to the previous PIAAC. Encouragingly, England managed to buck this trend, maintaining a similar average literacy score to ten years prior, and significantly above the OECD average (272 vs 260).
However, the proportion of respondents with very low literacy increased slightly from 2013 (rising from 16.4% to 18%) with particular concerns around those who did not complete upper secondary education. This is a particularly at-risk cohort, for example we know that 90% of young people in prison have experience of exclusion from school. While this increase is less pronounced than in most other participating countries, it also means that approximately 1 in 6 adults in England (6.6 million people) have very low literacy skills.
More positively, among 16- to 24-year-olds, England saw the largest increase in literacy scores compared to the last PIAAC. This chimes with other recent findings showing that reading skills for 10- to 15-year-olds in England, compared to other countries, are at a record high. Simultaneously, however, reading and writing enjoyment and engagement for children and young people aged 8 to 18 showed record lows. This paints a more complicated and concerning picture around reading behaviour and motivation, something that has also been noted in UK adults.
What are the impacts of higher literacy skills?
In England, respondents with higher literacy skills were found to be significantly more likely to report higher levels of life satisfaction, very good or excellent health, higher levels of trust and increased participation in volunteer activities. Often this effect was more pronounced than the OECD average.

@Balloonhearts I've looked into this quite extensively because my dd was failing the phonics test and unfortunately it seems everywhere you turn phonics is being pushed.

The arguments don't make any sense at all re sight reading when so many of us learned that way and were able to go on and read extremely well?

The bottom line is school shouldn't be tied into the phonics test. There should be a broader actual reading test if they want it which you can get too by any reading method that works for you

I can't be bothered to link but any quick Google re phonics failing will throw up much evidence against it. I guess so much money and training had been invested in it, there is a vice like grip on it, almost like a cult. Advocates can't even imagine sometimes, it doesn't work

The best thing you can do is to show young children that reading is fun and worthwhile. Read everything to them, books, signs, labels.
There are lots of pre reading skills that children can engage in that will help before phonics with symbols (I.e. letters.) comes in. Being able to detect syllables, know what a word is, rhyme and hear initial, medial and end sounds in a word.
So get them to predict the last word in a known rhyme, eg “Humpty Dumpty sat on a ….? “Change the rhyme …”Sat on a ball! “Etc. Make them laugh as they isolate words.
Play games to segment and blend sounds, talk like a robot stretching out the word, “I saw a b-aaa—t, what did I see? Yes, a bat!
Generate rhyming strings, mug,bug, hug. Mat , cat, bat etc.
Play eye spy using initial sounds.
Clap the syllables in people’s names, favourite toys etc.
Children needs lots of theses type of activities before learning phonics. Most teachers will come across children who can say the letter sounds , and will say,”d…o…g, I know cow!” The blending and segmenting is an important initial skill.
Play shape games which involve orientation, play with plastic letters . A child has spent several years learning that something (like a cup) is till the same thing no matter which way up it is.Then we say that p, b, d,q, are all different!
Reading involves the bringing together of so many skills and experiences.
I could write a book.😃