AIBU to question whether my Year 7 still needs phonics?

[Passmethecheese]

Hi so there is a long back history but I won’t go to far in to it unless I have to expand later on.
for multiple reasons DD ( year 7 ) was a late reader.
she has never grasped phonics and it was a huge struggle for many years. Year 4 she was reading at reception level and then something changed.
She started reading and progressed very fast to being a “ free reader “ in year 6.
the issue is she still would not pass a year 2 phonics screening !
her year 6 teacher was adamant in keeping phonics going. That although she could read well that without phonics the gap would appear again when readinf more complex texts.
so we continued with phonics but to be honest not getting anywhere apart from stress.
Sats she scored 107 scaled score for reading.
She now attends a small Sen school that she doesn’t quite match the cohort for but was the best choice we had. It follows full mainstream curriculum and is for those academically able.
they assessed them at the start of year 7 and again now towards the end of year 7.
they have reading interventions but said they didn’t feel the need to stress DD with phonics intervention when her scores showed that although there is issues with her phonics. Her reading, speed, accuracy and comprehension was not affected.
she has read in year 7 and got “ secured “ in end of topic assements for - private peaceful and Romeo and Juliet.
she doesn’t use a reader in any lessons and reads independently.
reading plus ( not sure that relevant ) but is on the level of year 8.
I am conflicted if I should still push for phonics intervention when her teacher last year was adamant you could not be actual free reader without phonics.
should I still request her to be put in to phonics intervention ?

No. She doesn't need phonics any more. She's a reader.

Phonics is a tool for learning to read. That's all.

Research says synthetic phonics is the best method to learn to read, which is why it's pushed so heavily in schools. Some children just don't get it though as they can't see it. They learn to read via whole words or other methods. As long as they find the right tool for them to become a fluent reader, the journey doesn't matter.

I suspect your yr6 teacher was fairly new to the profession and had no clue that children still learnt to read before Read Write Inc came along.

Ditch the phonics- it sounds like she’s doing great and I’d worry continuing with something that isn’t getting you anywhere would be more likely to put her off than help!

Phonics doesn't work for everyone. If she is reading now it would be better to keep going with what works for her. She can always "catch up" with her phonics as an adult reader, as many of us have had to. I learnt by the 'look and say' method in the early 70s and learned about phonics when I did my teacher training. I am still surprised by some sounds. For example, ir and ur sound different in my head, but girl and fur are the same vowel when I say them out loud.

To be honest I think this was probably alor of the problem.
She did not attend school very often throughout primary school and so she had a combination of school and home learning.
I don’t remember doing phonics 🤣 I really struggled to keep up with phonics when she couldn’t attend school. We read loads but then when in school it was phonics and I think she just never grasped it ! I eventually moved to sight reading which is when we turned a corner and she flew with it.
now even the mention of phonics is a meltdown but I do worry if he eas right and maybe further down the line it would become an issue ?

He's wrong @Passmethecheese . Don't worry.

Love from a teacher with over 25 years experience.

Interestingly it's becoming very well known that actually phonics is a barrier to reading for many kids and there is an almost cult like devotion to it by many teachers.

We urgently need different reading styles taught in schools.
My DM read to me from very young with the point and say method i was about 3 or 4 when the words suddenly made sense.
Michael moropogo said the same thing very early the letters made sense. Now if you had imposes phonics on me I would have stopped reading.

Instead i was always an advanced reader.

One DC got phonics s for the other who failed the test we realised it was a massive barrier.
We ditched it and went to sight reading ,flash card and Peter and Jane. .she went up several book bands in a few months to fluent from struggling for years. .
.

No op it won't be an issue at all.

Free the poor child's from this ridiculous nonsense.

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 I am sure she will be pleased.
she does seem to be enjoying English far more in the new school. I feel like we have been on this phonics train for a very very long time and we are both so tired of it haha !!

Yes ! This is sort of what happened with us. She ended up off school for 7 months straight and I just didn’t do any phonics and we did sight reading and she flew !

Go with the recommendations of her current school. It is true that without being secure in phonics the she will struggle with more complex texts - however if it's not getting anywhere there is a limit to how much it's worth keeping on, and it's more important to keep her feeling positive about learning new things.

Example of where she may struggle - in ALevel chemistry there will be a bunch of chemical nanes that are only one letter different from each other, with a particular vowel being a or e or i signifying the presence or absence of a particular atom in the molecule. If she's not learned phonics then she reads by recognising the shape of the whole word and that's really going to be difficult at ALevel and could prove fatal to someone if she wants to go into Nursing for example - but perhaps that will be something to worry about when the time comes because she may choose a path in life that doesn't have these potential pitfalls.

@CandyEnclosingInvisible I disagree that she will struggle later. Phonics is a relatively modern way of teaching people to read. It isn't a way most adults read new words. I work with scientists who are all very capable of reading scientific terms and compound names accurately having never learnt phonics. And millions of healthcare workers also never learnt phonics and again can accurately read medical terms.

It's a tool to learn to read, it isn't how most adult established readers read.

How did we learn how to read ? I was having this conversation with my sister the other day and I really can’t remember doing phonics 🤣 but I can’t remember any other way I did either.
when did phonics become the main way of teaching ?

I’m not an expert, just interested, and I’m not convinced further phonics is beneficial here. Many dc didn’t do formal phonics decades ago., but can read. I was someone who never was taught phonics and I’m a capable reader. My DC were free readers at age 7 without doing phonics the way it’s taught now. My instinct is to crack on as she is and not, in effect, take her back to primary school type teaching. However if she struggles with reading at any time, maybe a short revisit and reminder? If this school isn’t really pushing it, I’d accept she’s ok. Free reader is a sort of milestone but doing well in her current setting would mean more to me and I guess they aren’t labelling dc as free readers or otherwise.

And yet so many of us managed to understand chemistry and become scientists before they'd invented phonics.

And we didn't manage to kill others on the way.

Miraculous. Don't know how we did it.

Look and say method, and lots of practice, usually

lol!! Someone drank the phonics kool aid

Lol, please don't be so dramatic. If she can read Private Peaceful then she can spot the difference between words with small variations in vowels already. Let her carry on with age appropriate learning. She can ask about anything she finds confusing and that will be more useful as it will be answering a question that she actually has, rather than trying to anticipate what she doesn't know.

Surely once kids have got the hang of reading it is all about volume.

Sounds like the phonics (and any other learning to read tools) are redundant now.

I wonder if she is better at phonics than you all realise?

Could she read eccentric, eclectic, electric all correctly?

She would able to read eccentric and electric not sure about eclectic and she is asleep hahaha

Do phonics taught readers read forever differently to those taught using other tools?
Is there any work published on this? If phonics readers are always sounding out even in their heads, wouldn't that slow them down considerably?

I thought that as readers mature they all move towards reading by sight/shape, context and anticipation.

I suppose the issue being “ new words “
she is fairly good at learning a word after seeing and learning it once.

using context in a sentence to establish a word and then next time knowing it by sight rather than context.

I assume there is some negatives / restrictions to this but the more we read and the more words exposed the less it would happen.

I always struggled with phonics but can read perfectly fine. My mum (was a teacher) got frustrated ayt my primary school as they wouldn't give me harder books to read as I couldn't do phonics even though I could read well. My husband struggled with phonics as he's deaf but can read without any problems, he has a Masters in a tricky subject and a high flying job. Phonics isnt everything, there are other tools you can use.

One of my Dc really struggled with phonics and was still on Y2 books in Y5. I got him a tutor who uses a different method called Toe To Toe used for struggling readers/dyslexia/etc and he caught up to his age within 1 year. I guess phonics aren’t for everyone!

I can’t do phonics easily. I couldn’t fluently sound out a pokemon or something unfamiliar without a bit of an effort. Some peoples brains don’t work like that. With respect it’s bollocks that phonics is the only way to be able to read complex texts it’s just currently in fashion. I am also dyslexic.

I love reading for pleasure and I do technical reading as part of my job (scientific papers, legislation etc) and am very good at it. I also have a PhD. She will be fine she just needs to read a lot.