It is such a shame for the education of children nationwide that opposition stil exists for this teaching method - but more so, that the comments by the critics just illustrate the lack of understanding and knowledge around synthetic phonics. I have never come across a negative statement about synthetic phonics that is based on evidence, fact and a secure understanding of how it works and what it consists of. The same can be said about reading this thread.
Could I just clarify some things brought up in some of the posts:
Sinclair said "Schools should be allowed to teach how they like, surely"
- really?? what, even if they are failing children? OFSTED were brought in to monitor teaching and learning in schools and the curriculum exists to provide guidance as to a balanced coverage of instruction at all stages. Now, whils I have plenty to say against OFSTED and the curriculum, I do agree with the broad objective of keeping a check on schools to make sure children are actually learning and succeeding as in the past, children have left school quite unable because the teachers were teaching what they liked and not what they should... I remember a teacher in my sister's primary school getting into a bit of trouble when a few pupils began reporting how they did PE every day for hours because the teacher loved it - and they hardly did any maths and English and it was found that so many chidlren were falling hugely behind. Well, not in PE, but you see my point. The teaching profession and the Government hsa to be responsible for what children are learning.
homemama asked "Where are all these mad militant schools that refuse to teach phonics"
- THERE AREN'T ANY!! No one ever said schools weren't teaching phonics! It is a central part of the National Literacy Strategy and pretty much all schools do it to some degree.
Enid said of her dd's school: "they use some phonics work in conjunction with ORT....She is not a good example as she struggles with reading"
- This is a PERFECT example - have you ever thought your dd might be struggling BECAUSE she is learning phonics mixed with ORT? The two are incompatible - children can hardly ever practice what phonics they have learnt because ORT is a whole word based reading scheme - that is its purpose and how it was created. So, children learn how to build words up and sound them out and then have to resort to other strategies to read the ORT books because those words are far too complicated to read with their current phonic knowledge.
Sinclair also said: "school uses a what works best for the individual child approach" and "she has defintely benefited by not being in a learning straitjacket"
- this attitude never ceases to amaze me. How on earth do you think this can realistically work with all subjects with all children?? Do you really think that children should be - and could be - taught ever subject purely according to their own personal needs? Of course not! Firstly, because there are 30 kids and usually only a couple of adults if that and there is no way any human, no matter how dedicated or fantastic they may be, can teach everything 30 different ways. How do you even suppose you go about assessing what children's individual ways are?? And secondly, because sometimes there is only one way to learn something properly. "Learning straitjacket" is just hilarious - reading is taught the most effectively by phonics because that is how our written language is constructed and that is what people need to know in order to decode it! Is there another way to teach children how to make different shades of green paint? Is telling them that yellow and blue makes green a learning straitjacket?
"But my argument is not with the method, but the application of that method to the exclusion of alternatives"
- this is the success of synthetic phonics, though and THE WHOLE POINT - it is the confusing mixture of methods that is failing 25% of children across the nation. These poor kids NEED some sense in their reading curriculum and this is it!! It is precisely the chucking in of all strategies that is failing them! It is these kids that we want to save, as well as all the middle-achieving that could progress with more speed and confidence and hey, even the able ones would do better as well - they wouldn't have to work it out themselves through all the chaos.
HRHQofQ - "Yes we all know phonics teaching has better results than other reading methods - however I haven't seen anywhere where it says that it's 100% successful and all children will therefore be completely literate from using that method"
- you haven't read very much, then....
Also, HRHQofQ - give us an example of words that you think are not constructed 'phonetically'. You've stated that you think many English words are not in fact regular before, but I asked you for examples then and you never did. Well, as you are still making the claim, I ask again. Because, like Aloha says, yes, nearly every single word is! Please give me your exceptions.
You asked how 'English' would be said phonetically.... what an odd question! It would be said 'English' of course? Think about what you asked - what does it even mean?? I think Iknow what you were getting at, and you are thinking of the all-too-limited traditional phonics where the 26 letters of the alphabet = 26 sounds which is SOOO limiting and where phonics has gone horribly wrong in the past. The only tricky bit when sounding the word 'English' is that the letter 'E' is actually here for an 'I' sound due to the history of the origin of the word, but even of sounded out with an 'e' (as in 'bed') sound, any child would be familiar enough with the rest of the sounds to be able to hear what it was supposed to say.
"But it's not magic! Even in schools were they adopt a pure synthetic phonics approach you still always have children coming up to the juniors unable to read"
- homemama - yes it is! Isn't that GREAT?!! Surely we should all be excitedly embracing this rather than trying to make it go away. You see, many schools HAVE adopted a pure synthetic phonics approach and all the children ARE learning to read! There are many illustrations and case studies available online. Wouldn't you want that for all children in all schools??