Phonics

[DaisyRaine90]

To wonder how the hell my child is supposed to get from phonics to reading actual words?

She knows the letter names
She knows the phonic sounds

What next??

I swear she’s getting more confused not less.

I don't disagree with you, because I've even seen in TES the in-joking about if there is a way to teach to the test, teachers will find it.

If that translates to good phonics teaching that brings pupils to the expected standard, then that's not necessarily a bad thing as this is a specific skill, the mastery of which facilitates wider literacy.

And I apologise, I should have said 'there is no reason teachers have to go about it that way'

IME it's a sub-optimal way, but no I'm not going to attempt to dictate how teachers should/must make choices specific to their own classrooms about how they teach phonics.

I do however think that there are still many teachers who were never trained in phonic approaches, and who themselves are of an age where they went through school themselves during the fad years of other/mixed methods). This is of course something that will self-extinguish over time, as training/refreshers/experience spreads.

drspouse you seem to have missed something. You said, Whole word recognition didn't tell you the correct word either. Did you miss what I actually said? I was using world recognition and then context to disregard the one that didn't fit.

Not sure if you are just not reading it all or are deliberately twisting things?

I have always found that with Look Say the children very quickly use word recognition, context and then phonics where with phonics the emphasis is very heavily on decoding, particularly in the early years. Just decoding WIND would never tell me if it was referring to a force 8 gale or someone winding the clock.

Actually no you were using phonics and then context.
Word pattern recognition has a hard time distinguishing between "wind" and "wand" and "wend".
You narrowed it down to "wind = breeze" and "wind = rotate" using phonics. You didn't mistake it for "wand" or "wend" suggesting you used phonics.

More to the point, 5 and 6 year olds taught through phonics should be able to do the same thing.

It's not really an argument for not teaching through phonics, but for teaching phonics better.

my 3 year old is doing phonics in her school - someone bought for us (as a gift) the biff chip and kipper books so weve been reading those to her since she was two - lots of blending is key here. And lots of repetition. We have just mastered the th-e - now that was SUPER fun! One your dc gets grasp of it - most of it will flow i promise!

drspouse I realise you think you know all about how I read but I think I know more about it than you. I have been reading for 60 years and I can assure you I was using whole word recognition. I don't have any problem distinguishing between "wind" "wand" and "wend", perhaps you do but I don't. You are being terribly arrogant to tell someone you have never met how they read.

Nobody can see inside their own brain to work out how they read.
Unless you have a handy brain scanner in your house?

I've got a much better view than you have.

lol. Its always funny when someone tells you what you are thinking then scolds you for suggesting you might know what you are thinking...

It's also pretty funny when someone insists that they are SO UNIQUE that they can't possibly have a brain that works like EVERYONE ELSE'S.

It's also funny when people think that all scientists agree on everything because they have found a theory that they like.

Life is all laughs.

How do phonics work if you have a different accent to your child? For example: you are Scottish but the child is being raised in England and will go to an English school?

My DD is almost 2 and says words with an odd accent, so wondering how this will work when teaching her to read!?

I'd agree with the emphasis on decoding and not on the bigger picture/comprehension. I don't remember a time when I didn't understand what I was reading (learnt with mixed methods from what I can see). My niece can sound out words but there seems to be no 'repeat the whole sentence' or 'what does the picture show' etc so she doesn't seem to actually get what it is she's read. I'm discouraged from asking because that's apparently not how they do it at school, so I don't.

I do get the point about sounds though. I don't think I have ever heard any of my friends who have had children learning with phonics do the proper sounds. They all do 'suh buh cuh nuh' instead of ssssssss nnnnnnnnnn etc. It's all 'Suh for stop not Es for stop'... That always seemed daft to me but 'ssss for stop' actually makes sense. Which makes me think that something clearly is lost in translation if that many people are getting it wrong and have just made another alphabet of sounds with more 'uh's in it!

SaltAndPeppaPig

Have a read of this : www.mumsnet.com/Talk/primary/3049090-Inspired-by-another-thread-phonics-and-regional-accents

With difficulty saltandpeppa!

My kids are Yorkshire, and I'm a southerner. After some early arguments with my ds, I remind myself to do the sounds in a Yorkshire accent!

Use these free phonics videos on YouTube for ideas on how to say the sounds clearly and to help your child with segmenting and blending.