The Teaching of Reading: What can parents do???

[Catflap]

Hi there to all who have followed my phonics ramblings on many a thread, and indeed to those who haven't but are interested in this thread title!

I have commented a lot on the state of poor reading teaching in schools and described the effective method of synthetic phonics which is beng taught in a few schools but largely ignored by the educational establishment.

It has been fascinating reading the comments and observations that everyone as parents has on their children's reading - it amazing how many of you pick up on things that the teaching profession are not accepting. I have always found parents to be a preceptive lot. However, what is also sad in this case is how many of you put your trust and support in your children's teachers - which I wholey support because we are losing that fast - but in this case it is sadly misplaced.

The Reading Debate is discussed quite widely online now and has made its appearance in the news recently. You can do a search for 'synthetic phonics' and it will present you with plenty to read, but a thorough site for discussing the issues and providing you with information is the Reading Reform Foundation website

The thing is, lots of you are recognising the issues and are understanding the sort of methods that I describe and see that it makes sense. But what do you do??

I thought I would just post with a few suggestions, as it would seem pertinent after all my advices to offer some pointers for more positive action! Thing is, it's not that rosy an outlook, all the while the Government continue to rrefuse to accept that there might just be something in this synthetic phonics lark and teachers are driven by pressure from above...

However, should you believe that there is something in it and feel it could help your child, I would personally suggest that you have the following options open to you:

1. Do nothing. The chances are that your child will eventually struggle through like many thousands have in the past and will read successfully, or in some fashion, or will struggle and be offered some sort of remedial help eventually.

2. Teach them yourself. Get your hands on some resources and information and provide your child with the skills and knowlegde they need. This is of course is labour intensive, has some financial implications and could be seen as not your job...

3. Find a reading tutor that practices the same philosophies. This could be hard as there are few scattered around, but by posting on the messageboard of the above RRF site, I'm sure you will find someone who could help. (I myself am planning to get into that at some point, but not whilst dd is still so small and more are planned!)

4. Hound the teacher and then the school. Equip yourself with all the necessary facts and information and maybe get a team of parents and ask questions and get answers. Maybe even contact your LEA.

Meanwhile, online tuition will continue to be available whilst I am still managing to access this board!

Hope this helps give a bit more direction and a conclusion to previous discussions.

just want to apologise for the swearing, - sentiments still the same though (except for any 'personal' comments).

Cam, how do you know your dd has a reading age of 13?

Catflap - wow, so interested to read your posts AND so encouraged as ds1 has just started reception and they are using jolly phonics. I have to say, without being a teacher or having any 'knowledge' of the 'best' way to teach reading, it seems to me the most logical.

I was talking with a friend this morning, while our boys were having their swimming lesson, about how our children were approaching reading (they are at different schools but both in reception). Her son seems to be 'learning' by the whole word approach. She asked if my ds had brought home any books yet - he hasn't because he is working through the phonic sounds first (so he's started with s, a, t, i, p, n, c, k, h etc) before they actually start to try and read books. Her son however is already bring books home but she told me his current book consists of 'my cushion, my cushion, oh cushion, oh my cushion' - I thought this rather odd. Surely most children of this age would not be able to work out the word 'cushion' and therefore is just learning it by association with the picture? So, when they come to read other words with similar sounds, how on earth do they work out what they say??

Ds1 does not have reading books but if I put the word 'cat' in front of him I'm pretty confident that by sounding out 'c-a-t' he'd work out it said cat without a picture.

I'm sure this is how I learned to read and I just can't see how anyone could dispute the method.

Also, I hate to say it, but I've seen lots of people (not necessarily on this thread I hasten to add) harping on about how they learned to read perfectly well but their spelling is shocking!!! Hmmm, wonder why?

GDG - I'm one of those people who read easily (wihtout synethic phonics) but who's spelling is appalling. Two reasons.

1. Even if I spell out word phonically (which as a grown adult with an education behind me I'm perfectly capable of doing) - most of the words I can't spell don't 'work' phonically.

2 (and most importantly - as I'm worse 'online' than handwriting) I don't stop and think carefully enough about what I'm typing, and don't preview my posts either

And I nervously add that from those advocating synthetic phonics there are numerous typing errors - on this thread alone

having watched dd learn to read (as she could read basically fluently before she started reception), I must say her first words were definitely worked out through phonics BUT there will always be some words that they remember through seeing them so often (like 'here' or 'said'). I notice now that she reads largely by recognising the beginning of the word - so say if she saw 'competitively' when reading to me and she knew the word 'competitive' she would say 'competitive' because she hasn't (in her brain) bothered to get to the end of the word to see that there is a 'ly' on the end. However, if I stop her, she will slow down and then try to decode the word.

So I do think, even if they are taught with Jolly Phonics (which is what they do at dd's school in conjunction with ORT), they do to some extent memorise words.

oh, i'm sure my posts are littered with typos - I type very fast, to try to keep up with my brain, but with little accuracy as my fingers are a little haphazard... I make no apology for that - this is an informal, non-professional medium and I like being able to relax. I don't preview my posts either. I realise that the apparent presence of bad spelling goes against some of what I am saying, but I like to think that we all know the difference between bad spelling and bad typos.

Gobbledigook - frogs put it perfectly below when saying why some people dispute the sense and success of sp, if I may quote her: "But some people are resistant to it because they are threatened by the challenge to their preconceptions and their long-established practice."

foxinsocks - memorising will happen, of course - it is an essential part or children would forever be sounding out every single word every single time they encountered it, which would not be good - and in early stages of reading, there are bound to be inaccuracies.

However, where children have been taught to look at all the sounds in sequence all the way through a word, exclusively, from the start, they really do not rely on whole word memorising without looking at the components of the word. I can really say I never saw that in all the classes I taught SP. That is the thing with mixed method teaching - even the tiniest bit - even though phonics is taught, it does not become the first, most reliable form of decoding and other taught, reinforced and practiced strategies do creep in.

ssd - teachers administer reading tests which determine a reading age. However, these tests vary in their type e.g. reading lone words or sentences etc and in the type of words read e.g. irregular words learnt as wholes or phonically decodable words, so the scores can be different from test to test and unreliable as to gauging true reading ability.

QofQ - although ducking in readiness... please could you think of some words that you think of some of the words that you find don't 'work' phonically, out of interest.

Catflap - thinking of slightly older readers - say 7 or 8: Some children read very clearly, and their phonic decoding of the letter symbols/sounds is excellent ... but the understanding of the meaning lags behind. Could this be because they are not looking at the pictures, not looking at the words in context, not having been taught to guess at the word because of its meaning rather than its sound? I do think there is more to reading and the teaching of reading than phonics.

Other children quickly assimilate words first encountered in silent reading into their active vocabulary, but mispronounce them despite using them correctly as far as syntax and semantics are concerned. (I mean minor mispronunciations, such as incorrect stress - eg proDUCTS instead of PROducts.)

In terms of becoming a lifelong reader the latter approach is more likely to lead to success rather than the former.

Go roisin. I agree wholeheartedly. Arguing that reading is all about sounds is like arguing that eating is all about nutrition or parenting is all about routines. Things are so much more complex, ime. And fundamentally, all these things should be about pleasure as well.

catflap, I haven't read all this thread yet, but you have advised me in the past about my youngest son who has just started year 2 and is a reluctant reader.

Thought you'd like to know this:

The school use mainly Oxford Reading tree books, and similar. No Jolly Phonics.

My son's report at the end of year 1 stated he had very poor listening skills and we had to improve them as a matter of urgency. He had made progress in literacy, but slowly. I suspect he is well below the class average. Whenever I have talked to ds1 about school work in year 1, he seems very turned off by it all. I am sure much of his 'poor listening' is selective listening. He finds lessons incredibly boring, doesn't engage with his teacher, so clocks out.

During the summer holidays, we spent a week away with friends - two very experienced primary school teachers, one the head of an early years centre, the other who is currently teaching year 1. Neither teach at my son's school.

After watching my son play, and seeing how he reacted (with nil enthusiasm) to me trying to do the odd literacy year 1 work sheet with him, they took dh and I to one side and said:

ds1 is a kinaesthetic learner without a doubt. Children like him are crying out to be taught Jolly Phonics. Suggest this to his year 2 teacher without delay.

So far, I have not mentioned this to the school, as I want to give his year 2 teacher a chance to get to know my son. But we have a parents meeting coming up soon. His year 2 teacher has a very good reputation, and I am keen to see what she has to say about ds2. After she has said her bit, I will be telling her 'what we did during the holidays' and asking if ds2 can get some Jolly Phonics teaching asap. If this is not to be, I may well try teaching it from home.

Roisin - I wholeheartedly agree with you and have been umming and ahhing about whether to post the same for a couple of days.

Synthetic phonics is excellent for teaching children to decode language, many of my year 5s and 6s can decode beautifully, in the same way that I can decode a passage of French or German. My strong belief, however, is that they cannot yet read, because they have very little comprehension of the text. The do not use pictures, prior knowledge or contextual analysis to establish meaning, so what they have 'read beautifully' is of no use to them. Admittedly, without the phonics they would be in a worse place, unable to decode or comprehend, but the two processses have to come together at some point.

I also teach children who are struggling to decode after 3 years of learning to read using pure synthetic phonics, so it is not the perfect solution for every child.

My final bugbear is spelling, yes, phonics has an important role in learning to spell, but so does contextual memory, do I need(knead) there, their or they're for example. Children's speech also impairs their ability to spell phonetically, received pronunciation, preferably with a hard, northern 'a' sound is perfect, but none of the children I teach speak that way and they all spelll phonetically. I had one child last year whose writing no one could read until I decided to read it with a strong East End accent, it was written perfectly phonetically, as that child spoke. I put an extremely strong emphasis on 'speaking for spelling and writing' with my classes as I find that is the biggest help.

Enjoy reading with your children and talk to them about the story or the text, it is as important as decoding the words!!

I agree too roisin - a method for teaching someone to read succesfully is just not that easy to formulate and reapply for all children. Too complex to come up with one ideal solution. However, catflap has posted a lot of food for thought that I have found really interesting and beneficial - thanks catflap.
I think I would be alarmed if a class teacher got so worked up and enthusiastic about one teaching method, synthetic phonics or other, and used it exclusively - but I doubt many would do this. My DD is most definitely a kinesthetic learner and needs to see,touch, dramatise, experience sounds and letters to be able to memorise and "process" it in her head - I am much more of a visual learner but have learned to adapt the way that I help DD1 to fit in with her own style of learning. I learnt to read thanks to a little word tin and found seeing and learning this way worked easily - unlike many classmates. So, when teaching DD1 the alphabet I bought a book of flashcards with lovely pictures - total disaster. Then DH made cookies with her and did each one in the shape of a letter, gave them silly names and made up a song - within an afternoon she had learnt well over half off by heart...taught me a big lesson in how to approach learning with her from now on. I guess it is obvious now, but not at the time - I was trying to make the flashcards fun and a game but the visual thing alone was just not cutting it with her
Our school insists they use a wide range of styles and reading book systems tailoring it to the child. We shall see how succesful they are.

Doddle - I like your second/third language analogy; that's brilliant, and completely true.

I love your comment about northern 'a' as well - I knew we moved back ooop north for a reason

Completely agree, roisin et al. I am very wary about the rigid approach of synthetic phonics are the answer to everything for all children. My dd did JP and then later started ORT alongside, and thank goodness she did- the JP reading books were driving her round the bend because they were so boring. There was no sense at all, at that stage, of a developing story. I'm sure it must get better later on, but she was getting very demotivated. Rather than being empowered by the feeling that she could read something herself she just got more and more frustrated at the "nonsense" (as she saw it) of these early readers which are of necessity very limited in vocabulary. She took off as soon as she started ORT, for all the decoding problems, simply because it fired her imagination. Reading has to be about pleasure and enjoyment, looking at pictures and so on, aswell as simple decoding. I completely and utterly support the teaching of reading using phonics, but do have reservations about the one size fits all approach.

roisin, agree totally that decoding cannot be the be all and end all of learning to read. A child needs to have had exposure to a wide vocabularly to help provide the frame of reference for reading otherwise their ability can get undermined by the mismatch in comprehension. I think that is why sharing books with an adult, for example, with text beyond their own capabilities, especially in the early stages, is so important.

I don't think anyone, whether a proponent of synthetic phonics or not, would argue that reading is all about sounds. Learning to decode is principally about sounds, but comprehending what you have read is a different matter. As Doddle says, though, without decoding it is hard to get to comprehension. And I have seen many "whole word readers" utterly baffled by what they have read too.
Pictures provide context and add depth to a reading experience, and for young children pictures are a vital part of enjoying books.
And yes, pictures may provide a clue to meaning in picture books, but many books don't have pictures, at least not pictures of the sort that tell you what the text says.
But who says that teaching children explicitly how the alphabetic code works stops them enjoying books, stops adults sharing books with them, stops them looking at pictures, stops them understanding? These things aren't mutually exclusive.

ssd, dd has had her reading age tested at school and they told me at parents evening.

Agree with you tamum about the JP reading books - very uninspiring (not quite as bad as Ginn, but still boring). I wish the reading books were as good as their other materials.

I wonder that so many of you who have posted threads are getting so caught up in the techniques of learning how to read that you are missing the point. A child will surely sense your feelings of frustration and impatience if he is not meeting targets you think he should reach. I have four children 2 with SN and they all read well and most are nearly adults. All read for pleasure.MY DH and I also read avidly. I have always pair read with my kids. I would read a small bit while they followed the text and then they read a bit especially if it was a bit they wanted to read because they were interested or excited.They have all learned at different rates but more or less ended up at the same place. Reading is a neccessary part of life but it is also one of lives pleasures and should never be forced or children will be unwilling to see it as a pleasure, only a prickly exercise.

Que?

Just my humble opinion. Technical speak turns me cold. Am a literature graduate so I love books. I think it is hard for accademic women to trust teachers to teach their children correctly. I have found most of primary school my children have attended to be competeny enough for me to step back and trust them!

Excuse the spelling my typing skills are still in their infancy

raininthepain - just how do you suggest that we teach children how to read without using 'techniques'?

My DS adores books and has done since he was tiny - it didn't make learning to read them any easier though!!

For some children reading does not come easily no matter how many times they look at the words on teh page or gaze at teh pictures. My DS was lucky in that it was picked up early as children who have the same speech problems that he has often also turn out to have dyslexia, so the school were keen to intervene early. Thank goodness they did!

I find it really odd that people think that teaching your children how to read is somehow robbing them of pleasure. Quite the contrary!
And JP is a very kinesthetic learning experience - you hear and speak the sound, read the letters, write the letters and learn an action!
And of course reading the words won't prevent comprehension. How could it?
I did a link the Scottish study on the other thread which I thought was very interesting and convincing.

I am also an English graduate btw.
Loving books and loving reading are hardly mutually incompatible!

My you are a tetchy lot! I have an autistic son with learning dificulties and his path to reading was long and complex I never suggested that learning to read was easy. Nor that schools didnt use a variety of methods to teach children to read. I have just trusted the schools reading scheme(Oxford learning tree) to do its job since it was create by professionals who do know their job and taught by devoted teachers who also know theirs. Rather I was referring to the obvious pressure that some parents put on their children so they can boast that thir children are reading at a reading level above their age.A child might precociously read at a high level in that he knows complex words. However he can only truly read if he is mature enough to understand the meaning of the book he is reading and many children like my niece are encouraged to read harder books which are far too old and the words though pronounced phonetically are not understood by the child. What is the point of that?