Can someone explain to me the big deal with phonics?

[HowManyDucks]

Why does the UK curriculum prioritise the phonics method for reading over other approaches eg. Look-say? Particularly interested in hearing from the perspective of teachers. Do you think it is the most effective method or would you prefer to use other methods? I have always thought that phonics are a usefulness supplement, important for understanding how to say unfamiliar words. Wouldn't look-say be more effective for early readers, especially given that English isn't considered a phonetic language?

Happy to stand corrected.

You're right that English doesn't really lend itself to the phonic approach.

But Look-say has been thoroughly debunked and discredited.

My own DCs learned to read by various means. Two were already reading by age four with little or no phonics exposure. I read to them and ran my finger under the words as I read and somehow they picked it up. The other three learned between age four and five. They had little or no phonics exposure but learning took them longer.

At age 5 (kindergarten in the US) they were all taught phonics - obviously a wasted effort for then all, but along with the phonics came Dolch words, 220 in all, that they needed to know by sight. These are words that make up 75% of the vocabulary in most literature aimed at children under age eight. They do not follow the rules of phonics. They learned these sight words up to about 3rd grade (age 8).

While phonics isn't perfect as a means of teaching decoding, it's far better than looking at illustrations or guessing from context. In fact, there's no competition.

However, as children move beyond simple decoding, what makes a difference to a child's ability to glean meaning from reading material is the size of their vocabulary and the robustness of their working memory. Size of vocabulary is usually correlated with socio-economic status. Working memory is more evenly distributed.

There's a cult like aura around methods of teaching reading. Also, it's very much a politicized element of education, and all methods tend to be promoted and sold by educational companies with annobvious vested interest in gaining customers and fans.

There's a lot riding on success, and as long as 70-80% of students seem to be achieving the desired outcome, any given method is considered a success. Those who fail - shoulders are shrugged, for the most part. It's got to be the child or the home environment at fault. It couldn't be the method.

Given that there are plenty of words in English where a slight difference in pronunciation gives you an entirely different meaning, a child who is a strong reader isn't merely decoding.

A strong reader is also a reader with a wide vocabulary and good working memory, who can make connections and draw on his individual word bank as he reads.

If a school is purely teaching phonics and not teaching any other reading skills they are failing but I’m pretty confident that doesn’t happen anywhere. For a start the national curriculum in England is split into two parts word reading and comprehension. Developing children’s vocabulary has been huge push in primary schools for many years now.

I do agree that possibly other methods could be potentially tried sooner but in my twenty years of experience I would say developmentally children are ready at different times. You see them get it at different ages up to around seven, and before they are ready no method would really work. It’s why so many countries start formal education later.

You also have to remember that often with one adult to 30 children in many cases , they will have to go for the method that is successful for the most children. I’m not saying for one minute that it is right not to have a more personalised approach , but if you want this to happen, you need to be arguing for more funding, not against phonics, which everyone seems to agree is effective for most.

Also phonics screening pass rates do not mean 80 % can decide and 20% can’t, it just means 80% on that day scored 32. I also think it’s a stupid test, they need to decide if it is testing deciding or vocabulary because mixing between real and alien words is confusing for the children, it also sometimes requires the children to have an understanding of vocabulary for the real words section. Which is fine but then we are not testing phonics 🤷‍♀️ .

It's no good for dyslexic pupils who often have a problem with phonic awareness. Dyslexic DD was incapable of passing the phonic awareness test that school kept making her retake for their stats yet turned out to be an avid reader who is off to uni. School made her feel a bit thick at the time.

My children learnt to read with phonics on Reading Eggs (normal reading eggs for my daughter, fast phonics for my son) and it was cool seeing how reasonably quickly* they learnt but with my son at least he also learns by me reading a word to him once and then he memorises it. That's how he is learning words that aren't easily read via phonics.

*Though comparing it to an actual phonetic language it's really slow. In Finnish my daughter was taught a list of syllables from which all Finnish words are made up of, once she learnt those syllables she could read anything. It took just weeks to learn to read completely fluently. No idea how my son learnt though, he just taught himself before starting school.

DD was a good reader even before going into reception, without any phonics at all - DH and I were just constantly talking to her and reading to her. I was absolutely baffled when we were told her reading was "behind" as surely reading short chapter books wasn't "behind" at reception level? Turns out it was the phonics; she could decode the nonsense words but they were nonsense so she refused to say them.

I think a huge factor in children's literacy that is being overlooked is the number of words children are exposed to early on. Phones and devices are only going to have worsened these numbers - kids are being exposed to the same limited number of words in Coco melon or whatever they watch on their tablets, and adults spend more time on phones than having those small but very important interactions with their children that have a marked impact on their later performance.

These are all contractions they follow the same pattern, but as children don’t start by learning these sorts of place names, they are irrelevant to the synthetic phonics method of teaching literacy. There is a lot of evidence supporting phonics-based literacy programmes in the English language. Apparent inconsistencies (usually based on the etymology of the word) don’t change the fact that English is largely phonetic.

For us there seemed to be a very hard line between phonics which came naturally and quickly and spelling which even now in secondary school is far, far, far from brilliant, even though through primary it was hammered home

Apologies if this has already been said, but teaching through systematic synthetic phonics not only supports decoding (reading) but helps with encoding (writing/spelling), taking the guesswork out of writing words for the majority of children. There is a long standing issue with spelling, and I have definitely seen the improvement coming through over time as SP has become more embedded in early years.
English is such a complicated language, rooted in Anglo-Saxon and Celtic languages, influenced by many historic 'invading' cultures from Viking, Roman and Norman to more modern influences such as India. Using phonics as building blocks to understand language is highly successful as evidenced in deep and long term research.
That's not to say that children won't recognise whole words too, it's just far less reliable as a teaching method.
I used to love teaching the etymology of words and helping children learn the evolution of such a culturally rich language.

That was just a response in jest to a pp to show that place names have wacky pronunciations in the UK, probably to separate the locals from the tourists. It's just not the best example to use to illustrate a methods ineffectiveness.

Those who do get it would continue to be taught it. Those who don’t would also continue to be taught it but have other methods running alongside. Why is that such a disaster?

Because the bad habit other methods teach basically enable you to access a low/functional level of literacy (arguably better than no literacy....) but actually prevent you then reaching a higher level of literacy. Its very hard to unlearn those habits once you have relied on them. Almost all english learners (excluding those with learning disabilities) will get phonics eventually.

The problem is that schools who offer other methods as an intervention don't do enough phonics as an intervention. They just tend to swap - they do some look and say, feel progress has been made, and don't continue the intensive phonics. This is especially true in upper KS2 where there's less phonics focus in the main as most of the class are reading fluently. So if the children getting reading intervention support do other methods, it tends to replace phonics education and hold them back later on.

along with the phonics came Dolch words, 220 in all, that they needed to know by sight. These are words that make up 75% of the vocabulary in most literature aimed at children under age eight. They do not follow the rules of phonics.

This makes no sense - a lot of the key (Dolch) words are phonics decodable. Some are not decodable with simple one letter sounds and require you to have learned the digraphs, split digraphs and trigraph combinations but phonics still applies.

Given that there are plenty of words in English where a slight difference in pronunciation gives you an entirely different meaning, a child who is a strong reader isn't merely decoding.
A strong reader is also a reader with a wide vocabulary and good working memory, who can make connections and draw on his individual word bank as he reads.

Agreed of course there are a range of skills required but it is impossible to be a strong reader if you cannot read unfamiliar words fluently using phonic rules.

I think phonics are awful. Luckily my son had learnt to read just before this ridiculous nonsense was introduced.

Dyslexic DD was incapable of passing the phonic awareness test that school kept making her retake for their stats yet turned out to be an avid reader who is off to uni.

I bet you she could pass the phonics test now. How old was when she stopped retaking it? Phonics will have "clicked" somewhere along the way - we don't read by having memorised the 20,000- 30,000 word vocabulary employed by a typical uni student. We have to recognise phonic awareness can arrive much later for some people and ensure they are not left feeling "thick" as a result. It doesn't mean phonics isnt still the most effective way to teach english reading to 30 strong classes of children.

People also surely must remember... phonics was not the main method employed in the 80s and 90s and plenty of dyslexic pupils struggled then, and actually now with phonics a greater proportion of children reach better reading levels. How is this a problem?

I wonder if what a lot of people dislike is not the fundamentals of phonics, but the fact that there is a test. And the sense of "failure" not passing can introduce.

A lot of the modern children's books I've seen have a much more limited vocabulary to older children's books. That can't be helping either. I make sure to read older books as well as more modern ones to my children to help with their word exposure.

So if the children getting reading intervention support do other methods, it tends to replace phonics education and hold them back later on.

I think you have to factor in issues with self-esteem and how not succeeding affects a child in the early years too though.

As a pp put it, school (and phonics) made her daughter “feel a bit thick at the time”.
The same happened to my son. I saw his self-esteem plummet the first few years at school. He knew he couldn’t do what the others were doing and it just made him feel very stupid. It also affected his motivation. Instead of working harder to address the issues, he ran from them. His literacy issues also made it extremely difficult for him to access other areas of the curriculum.

All this also holds children back later on. If phonics aren’t working something else needs to be done fast. Being behind your classmates in the early years can do lasting damage.

I remember being at a dyslexia talk and the presenter saying that they couldn’t test for dyslexia until a child was about seven (I don’t know if this has changed?)
Someone stood up and practically shouted at them …”That’s too late, it’s too late!!”
I agree. Intervention needs to be swift. That’s really important.

No, it wasn’t the test that was the problem. Not at all. Not being able to keep to with classmates in the classroom was the issue.

I remember being at a dyslexia talk and the presenter saying that they couldn’t test for dyslexia until a child was about seven (I don’t know if this has changed?)
Someone stood up and practically shouted at them …”That’s too late, it’s too late!!”
I agree. Intervention needs to be swift. That’s really important.

I agree with you that self esteem is essential and its why i do think some look and say as a access intervention for those for whom phonics has not yet clicked, is ok. It allows them to access other curriculum areas, and preserve enthusiasm for learning.

BUT the critical thing is:

• we must be aware that the bad habits we are teaching may have to be unlearnt later on and prepare for that
• look and say interventions must not wholly replace continuing phonics interventions as this is the best way to ensure that when it eventually "clicks", the ground work is there for them to fly
• for most children those methods are a hindrance and a barrier, and so those methods can't be a routine part of the main reading curriculum/given equal weight with phonics.

Surely that comes down the continuely issue of treat the need not the diagnosis which should happen in schools but rarely does.

Sadly "not being able to keep up with peers in the classroom" is a problem that no method completely dispels.

There's a current trend for mixing up ability tables in ks1 and sadly this makes those who are struggling ever more aware that Jack's finished the task in the time it's taken Sarah to read the first sentence.

@Anotherdayanothernameagain
In our case the school did intervene (a year or two later) but it was with more of the same sort of approach and that just didn’t work unfortunately.