To find some Primary School teaching a bit pointless?

[Schooll]

Every other day my child brings home homework asking her to identify a new type of pronoun, adjective etc.

My friend is over today too and we both work in fields that require a good standard of English. We cannot understand why we are still stressing children out with things like ‘identify the relative pronoun’, what use is this information?

Genuinely, when will my child ever need to know this and why is she spending so much time stressing over the different types when it’s unlikely to ever be needed again, unless she becomes a primary school teacher?

Am I missing something where this sort of information is actually really useful and we should still be using it to judge children’s intelligence in exams etc?

Rubbish! I'm in my 60s and a writer, I wasn't ever taught this stuff, I remember my youngest son coming out of school talking about onomatopoeia - there wasn't a parent in the playground who had the foggiest idea.

@Sherrystrull

You sound like a wonderful teacher. I wish my son had a teacher like you who tried to adjust the curriculum and explore other methods and possible diagnosis. That has not been my experience with my son unfortunately. I have other DC and have seen the difference a good teacher can make to a child.

Thank you. That's very kind of you to say. It's heartbreaking when children are being failed. My advice to anyone would be to constantly ask questions of the school and seek support.

Phonics is good and works for many but actually, the Searchlight method of the NLS made a lot of sense. I know Ruth Miskin was very critical of it, but she has made huge sums of money from selling her phonics scheme, so I can see why she would feel like that.

Doing ‘just’ phonics has made lots of children increasingly good at passing the phonics test. I’m not sure it has produced more good readers or has given more people a love of reading though.

I’m a professional writer for an agency. I’ve written for some of the biggest brands in the world and I couldn’t tell you what a relative pronoun is. I guess knowing verbs, nouns, adjectives etc. maybe helps with understanding sentence structure while you’re still learning the language. I’ve also never used my knowledge of the Tudors or tessellating shapes but I guess they had to fill up my school day somehow

Apostrophes are very important but that's not what this thread is about. Using there/their/they're is important. Knowing that should of/could of is wrong is important. Knowing terminology like 'fronted adverbial' and 'split digraphs' is not important in primary school.

It's absolutely necessary to learn a foreign language well and it is the norm to learn grammar to that extent on the continent. I guess it's not a priority in this country.

At least some of it might be useful in later life. Never had any use of anything from Physics and minimal amount from Chemistry.

It's also difficult getting my dyslexic children to recognise their intelligence and strengths because primary school puts so much time and emphisis on what is so unnatural for them to learn.

This was absolutely true for my grandson. Fortunately when he started secondary school they focused on what he could do instead of what he couldn't and it was a game changer. He has massively improved in confidence and really wants to learn. Phonics didn't work for him either.

I think some people on this thread think that the only two options are to learn grammar or to not learn grammar. It’s far more nuanced than that.

Of course primary schools should teach spelling, grammar and punctuation. It’s important. What Michael Gove implemented, however, was the teaching of terminology that was virtually made up and has made things so confusing, that many children aren’t even able to remember the basics.

One word. SATS.
Actually that's not one word it's an acronym! ; )

That's awful. We have a dyslexia tutor working closely with children in our school. Does the school provide a coloured overlay or coloured text books?

@Sherrystrull we've had to provide the coloured overlays for her to use when reading. The school have literally done nothing - we’ve paid for everything. It actually makes me really cross if I think about it to be honest.

I'm sorry your dd isn't being supported. Does she have an IEP? They should be supporting her to meet her targets.

I am not sure what a pronoun is myself and don't remember covering this stuff at school

I feel thick asking this, but what "other strategies" are there to teach reading?

The only other method I know of is whole word reading. Which certainly should only be used as a "plan B," because it is so much less effective than phonics.

Oh bless. You think people are complaining about nouns and verbs? Think you'd better read the comments better

The basics are important and onomatopoeia is usually easy for children to grasp. It’s a great opportunity to make lots of noise! The heavy, technical stuff isn’t necessary for 11 year olds.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/jun/21/michael-gove-justice-secretary-civil-servants-grammar-guidelines

For children who are initially struggling with phonics we focus on phonological awareness. Can they rhyme? Can they blend orally? Can they count words in a sentence? Do they know onset and rime? Alliteration?

Word reading, looking at and remembering shapes of words and letters, using context picture clues and word meanings etc are all ways to support children who eventually need more than phonics.

But all children have more chance to learn to read with phonics than any other method and it should be a careful decision to move away.

Did I state that motivation or engagement didn't feature as part of the teaching and learning process? It is possible to have both a motivated and engaged class whilst also ensuring they understand the structure of grammar. It's possible to capture their imaginations and build creativity and investment whilst also teaching the rules of the language that they are writing in. To suggest that they are mutually exclusive is doing children and teachers a huge disservice

Your comment is incredibly rude and ill-informed.

Each and every time you have an unknown value that you need to work out:

1. how long until you have to leave for work,
2. whether you can afford to fill the tank completely,
3. how many more days your breakfast resources will last,
4. whether you have time to make a cup of tea before the TV show comes on / mate comes round.

Algebra isn't just the process of finding x or y etc. It's a core principle of maths and is necessary to find any unknown value. I appreciate that it feels different to sitting and doing a page of calculations but it's important not to downplay the importance of maths: it's at the core of pretty much every aspect of our world.

I agree, although in other countries there is a big focus on this too eg France. I managed to get a degree in languages without knowing what a fronted adverbial is though.

I was trained to teach while the searchlights strategy was popular and I've always found it in practice to be the best one at getting as many children reading as possible. My own classroom experience certainly doesn't correlate with the data that compares it negatively with pure phonics.

Interestingly though despite the huge amount of government backing of Ruth Miskin's phonics scheme, independent data doesn't massively support that as the best way to teach reading either.

In truth all children are different and whenever something is touted as the best way for all children to achieve X, I'm inclined to disbelieve it. I remember the nonsense that was VAK learning styles!

Speaking as someone that started to learn German at the age of 35 (currently living in a German speaking country), I would say it is important, in order to properly learn a foreign language.

If you don't understand the grammar structures of your own language, what hope have you got for a foreign language?

I think saying to kids hey you don't need to learn grammar, is the limit their opportunities on the world.

Basic grammar is fine and needed. The ridiculous nonsense grammar they have to learn is a waste of time, and actually harmful in my view as it's so boring and pointless that it puts kids off learning. But they need it for their-equally pointless-SATs.