To not really get how phonics works in the English language?

[superstarheartbreaker]

So dd is doing phonics at school and is learning to read and write. I have noticed that most words are not phonetically spelt which is causing a few misunderstandings. IMO most words are so called 'tricky' words. Or am I wrong? I can't even remember how I was taught at school. I do think that the actions that go with sounds are great though.

I think that when each phoeneme is taught the different spellings/word groups which can make this sound are taught too, to make it easy to remember.

Most English words can be deciphered phonetically either using individual letter sounds or short combinations... 'th', 'sh', 'tion', 'oo' etc. They deliberately teach children 'tricky words' separately because these are the ones that don't conform to the rules and simple have to be learned as they are. However, they are the minority.

I'm not that far on yet. We're starting to learn about letters and numbers, but even as a secondary teacher I know nothing about phonics teaching (I know. There is no investment in SN children who arrive at secondary unable to read).

I've found Alphablocks and Jolly Phonics useful for us at this stage, but I'm not convinced. DD seems as able to learn standard letters as phonics. I think she's going to be able to pick up reading and spelling fairly easily.

This isn't a stealth boast - I just wonder why one size should be expected to fit all at this stage.

I guess it works with a LOT of exceptions to the rules! I do find this interesting - in Welsh, phonics works a lot better because words are generally written v phonetically - much more so than English. When I was small (mid 70s) we were taught a kind of phonics (learning vowel and consonant clusters produced consistent sounds) but right from the start there was a drip feed of 'exceptional' words (English language education that was).

It confuses me too.

There and where rhyme but that and what don't.

There seem to be more words taht don't conform or are "trickY' but I guess that is why there is the 100 essential word list too.

When they are smaller, they are expected to make 'phonetically plausible' attempts using the graphemes (letters/combinations) they know, e.g 'wulf' instead of 'wolf'.

As they get older, and learn more graphemes and read more, they will be expected to choose the right grapheme or 'remember' how that word should be spelled. It's clearer as they get older and, IMO, works well.

It's not how I learned to read, though!

I think that as a way of helping children make sense of the completely irregular and confusing spelling rules of the English language it is pretty impressive actually. I am amazed at how quickly my DD is learning to read and write with the phonics method. The other day she was reading a book with the words 'night', 'fight' etc and could tell me that 'igh' makes an 'i' sound. That is a pretty hard concept to grasp without using phonics.

There and where rhyme but that and what don't.

That's because, after w or wh the "a" usually makes an "o" sound, but not after t or th.
So; was, what etc have the "o" sound.

Phonetics is about understanding the rules! There are plenty of them but a darn sight less than trying to memorise each word individually-which is what the alternative would be!

Trying to support your child without knowing what building blocks they have been taught is very hard.

The words we use most often are the most likely to have tricky spellings, fact. There is good reason (pronunciation has changed over the years, both before and after modern spelling conventions were arrived at, and in many cases the spellings reflect pronunciations that are centuries-obsolete) but it is just an arse, and most still have phonic clues - eg "one" at least has a "n" in it.

I have to say that I was quite dubious about phonics to begin with.

But the more I got to grips with it and used it to wach, the more I could see the benefits. On a basic level. When presented with the word "cat" for example, some children I teach, when prompted to sound it out, will say

"See ay tee" which doesn't help.

Some will say "cuh a tuh" which is slightly better and most will be able to get it. But ifthey just use the sound the letter makes when sounding it out, it often gives a much better idea of the word as a whole, so they'd get "c a t"

Obviously as they get older and are expected to read more words, phonics don't always help. But the children I teach are year 3 - 5 and we do a lot of recognising sounds and the sounds that patterns of letters can make, so for example we did an exercise where I gave them a vowel ad they had to pick words out of a list that had lots f different /a/ sounds like:

Paid make hay weigh etc

Then they had to list the letters that make the sound.

I don't know yet if its doing any good though.

But anyway, the point is, I do think phonics can be helpful, but I don't think it works for all the children all of the time

If you come across a word you have never seen before, how do you attempt to read it?

Bet you try to sound it out phonetically first and then look at the context (if there is one).

Obviously there are exceptions, but many of those have 'tricks' that you will learn along the way to help. Phonics has to be the start.

The thing with English is that it isn't one letter = one sound.

So children are not just taught a = ah

They learn that the sound "or" can be written or/au/aw (as in taut or paw)

There are 26 letters, but 44 (iirc) sounds (phonemes) and these are written in many different ways (graphemes).

I'm trained as a TESOL teacher and feel compelled to throw you a rope here. Stop trying to 'get' phonics! You'll have to accept the lack of logic or it will drive you crazy! Take the word 'fly' for example. The letter 'y' makes the 'i' sound, yet it's a consonant, not a vowel. And the 'i' sound that's made with that one letter 'y' is not even one unit of sound (as is the case of the 'uh' sound made in 'cut', for example). The 'i' sound in 'fly' is actually two vowel sounds run together (called a dipthong). If you were to look at that sound in phonetics, you would find it's made by two symbols that aren't even in the alphabet.

Just to underline my point that the world of phonetics is completely down the rabbit hole: consider that the sound actually made by the letter 'i' in a sentence (as in 'bit', for example) is made by the a new vowel sound repesented by the symbol 'I'. And in fact, the sound made by the phonetic symbol 'i' is actually the 'ee' sound in tree. And so it goes on.

There will be others here with far more understanding of how reading is taught in schools. All I can say it that I've sat in on phonic teaching in schools and it looks a bit patchy. The old way of teaching children to read was thought to be unfair because only the brightest students got on with it (and they were largely memorising the words anyway). But the phonics system seems similarly unfair because the rules are so complicated that students who can't keep up just fall off the bandwagon. Also, I'm not convinced that most children aren't still largely memorising words. In addition, the phonics system requires students to be good at language in a very explicit, technical way that feels unnecessary, because everyone can learn to read. It's not necessary to have that 'inside' understanding to be able to do it.

English is a notoriously illogical language and any phonics system trying to impose some order is battling against the current. I suggest you try not to get your knickers in a twist about it and not to give your child the impression that her reading is stressing you out. You're unlikely to ever 'get' phonics but your child will learn to read, regardless of method, and (I'm sure you know this but worth repeating) she will learn faster if you immerse her in stories.

This looks fun, if you haven't already tried it.
jollylearning.co.uk/overview-about-jolly-phonics/

2am - most people will intuitively understand the phonic code however they are taught to read, but maybe a 5th need to have it taught explicitly.

I think you are confusing things slightly with phonetic symbols. It is not too complicated for children to learn that the letter Y sometimes represents an ai sound sometimes and ee sound and sometimes a yuh sound.

Enough
Through
Bough
Thorough
Thought

5 different pronunciations of "ough"! YANBU. Can't see the point of phonics at all.

Maja - when I saw reading being taught in this fashion, it was very explicit and dull. Perhaps it's not so very complicated to learn that 'y' makes three sounds but consider that a child has no way of knowing which of the three to apply or how the sound made in the word relates to the sound of the letter itself and it will not just be the 'y' sound making a multiplicity of sounds. My point is that by the time you have got your point across, the bright kids will have learn the words, (and the bright parents will have been driven up the wall trying to 'help') and the less academic children will be completely overfaced.

So that when children come across a word they haven't seen before with "ough" in it, they can have a guess at what it sounds like?

There is also cough and though

Surely the point is that it helps to know that 'ou' represents five different sounds?

If you never learned that (implicitly or explicitly), how would you expect to learn to read? Memorizing every single word by sight? That's pretty much impossible. At some point, you have to simplify. Sure, it seems complicated that there are five sounds represented by two letters here ... but five is so many fewer variations than all the possible words in the English language that use 'ou', isn't it?

2am - the child will have a good idea of which sound the y makes as they will normally have heard the word, even if they haven't seen it written down. If they come across a word they have never heard nor seen before then they need to ask an adult. If they read the word "sky" for the first time they might pronounce it "skee", but the context should let them know that it is wrong "He looked up at the skee".

maja I couldn't disagree more! It might work for adults bt children are constantly learning things they didn't know, making this method overly dependent on context. Also, a child who is putting everything she has into spelling out a word will not necessarily have her brain in the right place to think 'skee? how funny. It must be sky!'

In my experience it doesn't work and ends up being bit shaming, because there is a constant message that the word it took five minutes to get to ends up sounding ridiculous. And this is just the sort of thing other kids find hilarious. A struggling child will say nothing rather than look like such a fool in front of peers.

Also, let's face it, children have memories like blotting paper for what they wish to learn. A child who is motivated enough to learn five different sounds for 'ou' will wimply learn the words right off.

2am if you think y is a consonant you have been taught by the wrong people. Learning about semi-vowels is very useful.

I'm a bit confused by this: surely the whole point of writing, in a language like English, is to represent phonemes with letters/ groups of letters. How can one learn to read without being taught this?

Apologies for my ignoreance--I learned to read in the 1970s, using a phonics approach.

Oops, I mean ignorance (and fat fingers!)