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 ?

If she lucky and spelling not an issue - focus on the maths - or very least the problem areas.

I could never do mental arithmetic - but am actually very good at maths - short term memeory issues can't spell or do sums in my head - paper or fingers to hold data I'm great.

She's lucky - however she is reading she doing well and if spelling not far behind she's doing really well. I never caught up with the spelling - and while my kids are much better than I was they are still classed as poor spellers compare to what you'd expect with rest of their levels. We are not people who see a word and can read it and know how to spell it from then on - I know they exist. In fact despite reading extensively it never despite teachers insistence it would did it much improve my spelling.

As a fluent reader phonics will slow her down and mean she can’t absorb the information as it’s being fed into her brain as fast. An average reading word is about 230 words per minute, even if she’s half of this speed if you think about how slow phonics makes you read it’s not going to work is it.

if they are doing it because she is mispronouncing words or not able to work them out, that’s an indicator of something like dyslexia and phonics won’t help her (season dyslexic and helper of dyslexic school children here!)

Phonics is “the thing” recognised as being the way kids learn to read. I’ve found that many teachers are simply not equipped with wider reading tools because they are trained to do phonics. It’s not their fault, but it sounds like your DD’s teacher may fall into that category. Stage an intervention!

DS really struggled with phonics. He could hardly read at all by Y3, his (private) school suspected dyslexia so we had him assessed by an educational psychologist. He’s not dyslexic, he just had a very specific issue with phonics. He’s was one of the children phonics simply didn’t work for. School immediately took him out of phonics and taught him to read by sight. He quickly caught up and we’ve had no issues since.

He got 8’s and 9’s in his GCSE’s (8’s in English Lang & Lit) and is on track for A*’s/A’s at A Level in History, Classics & Politics. If you’d told me when he was in Y3 his ‘passion’ subjects would be humanities/essay based subjects, I’d have thought you’d got the wrong child.

@shuffleofftobuffalo that’s really interesting what you say about reading rate. One of the things picked up when DS was assessed, was that his reading rate was 2 years ahead of his chronological age.

Her current reading rate is in the 200s I can’t see it at this specific moment but It’s defo in the 200s.

Many of us learned to read before phonics became popular. It is just one method of many.

I’d say she’s well ahead since the average adult reading age in the UK is 9-11. Like millions of she’s doesn’t know a word Im sure she sounds it out or asks you.

My phonics skills are dire, got picked up at university. Hadn’t really had any impact til then, showed up as a few specific issues in specialist terminology.

From that angle I’d say it’s not the be all and end all, but it’s worth gently keeping ticking over. Weirdly, learning other languages (classic and modern) probably helped me more than working on phonics in English did.

eg. I managed that eclectic, electric, eccentric thing earlier up the post but it took me a good few moments.

Also worth keeping the associated skills in mind. Eg. Most peoples proof reading own writing skills are pretty poor, mine are bad for errors that phonic skills would pick up regardless of whether I wrote it or someone else. I had to massively beef up my exam question reading and answer checking skills to succeed in uni exams.

I skim read very effectively for most things. Where details matter, I rely on the study skills tuition I had for techniques to compensate. If she never gets it, that’s an angle to consider.

I never practiced phonics with my kids, I seem to recall our primary school saying leave it to them as parents can get phonics wrong. What I did do is read read read, mostly me reading to them, to foster a love of stories and reading. And not the school phonics books but fabulous childrens' books. Possibly an unpopular opinion but I think practicing school books and phonics at home can turn it into a pressure for the kids and turn the joy of reading and books into a chore. Some kids will love practicing at home and some kids will hate it. I really wouldn't force it if they don't want to. Reading should be a pleasure.

Both children very confident writers and reader and now in late teens

This is such nonsense. Most adults today won’t have been taught to read via phonics. This includes teachers, scientists, doctors and so on.

Phonics works for many children, but not all. It is simply a tool to achieve a result - being able to read. The OP’s daughter can seemingly read pretty well so she no longer needs phonics.

I would have thought that most adults were taught using phonics one way or another. It has been used for most of the last century on way or another. I was born in the 60s and was taught with phonics.
In fact I don't see how it is possible to read a word you haven't seen before without some level of phonics. How would you pronounce 'dromplewabble' or 'twotchilump' without it?

It was look and say in my 80s primary - and here in wales the lack of direction from welsh government to use phonics leaving methods more up to schools is blamed for the PISA low reading scores compared to England.

My Dsis 5 years younger got a student teacher who used phonics and she had much fewer reading and writing issue than us older kids. DC primary in early 2010 in England was still using mixed methods - while paying lip service to phonics.

I thought it was around 80% of kids not explicitly taught phonics tend to work out the underlying patterns - but quick google suggest it around 40% of kids who can be taught reading with any method - and rest need some explict phonics teaching.

I think research suggest that phonics teaching help 99% of kids understand the code. Once you get past reading - spelling is opposite encoding not decoding and phonics helps there as well.

I think I partially had phonic code - two or three letter sounds being an issue till I taught my DC. Does that mean I struggle to pronounce unknown words - well yes and have been mocked for it. I often encounter new words reading and understood what they meant but pronouncing them correctly wasn't guaranteed. Despite extensive phonics support at home see this with DD1 as well and both of us have been tested and diagnosed as dsylexic.

Nonsense words test in Y2 was to find the kids who haven't grasped phonics - though DC first primary school in England had last minute home work fest to get kids past it. Some kids who could read did fail it at their school.

Look and say arrived in UK in 20s apparently but became most common reading method in 40s and dominated - with 70/80 doing a version with word context heavily thrown in- till 2006 in England when phonics was mandated.

How much if any phonics teaching any adult in UK got I think is very hard to actually say - as even if they had none in school they may of at home or in reading support groups - or they may have had none at all but be in that 40% that learns to read with any method. But I don't think you can assume all adults had some phonics teaching - I don't think I did and had to muddle and struggle through with my own coping mechanims teaching my own DC phonics certainly gave me more tools to use.