Phonics kills the joy of reading

[Alicenev]

I would like to see phonics lessons rolled back to once a week or in schools. Why is the joy of learning to read by sight denied to little minds? Remember’Peter and Jane...Words and pictures? …Isn’t the access to a great story / information sacred above all??! How is making weird noises with your tongue going to ignite ‘yes I want to do more of this!’ … I believe phonics is a skill that comes LATER . Not at yr1. …Let them have real books that have an actual ZING to them…Who cares if they do a lot of guessing getting and whole lot wrong.. All that’s important is that they begin a joyful quest into the world or literature!

Teacher here! I think phonics is brilliant! As someone who struggled to read as a child from simply learning the alphabet, phonics just makes sense! Yes it’s a bit dry but a fundamental part of the process IMO. I’ve seen many underprivileged children who haven’t been read to or enjoyed books from an early age learn how to read within a year from phonics. I always say to parents that they can read a range of material at home/library to develop further. I LOVE phonics!

Phonics are the building blocks of reading. The rest comes later.

2 of my 3 are autistic. One is hyperlexic and taught himself to read by the age of 3 (he could read before he could talk properly!) He didn't go to school in the UK, but phonics in school didn't seem to do him any harm either (it was the American "balanced literacy" at the time). In fact he wound up fascinated by linguistics and taught himself the IPA aged 7.

I was also an early self taught reader, and either they taught me phonics at school or I picked it up, because I certainly learnt how to sound words out and remember doing it fairly young.

I am sure there are better and worse methods of teaching phonics, like anything else, and I understand that the new "science of reading" curricula they are promoting in the USA does try to allow for flexibility regarding free choice so kids aren't locked into the decodable readers. But we've seen how kids are held back when they don't acquire basic fluency in the early grades.

Oh my, oh my! What a bizarre thread. Do you think that if children were taught the ch sound on a Monday, they would remember it the following week? Phonics has to be taught every day with lots of recapping of previous phonemes and instruction and practice of how to blend the graphemes together.

However, this should not be instead of reading together a whole range of books outside of school. A love of reading does not come from a phonetically decodeable book, it comes from stories shared at home and the expectation is for this to happen. In today's congested world, not nearly enough time is spent reading together and children are not going to learn words from sight, like we did in the 60s and 70s, if they do not get one on one reading time at home.

It is our crazy written language with its borrowed letters from French, German and Latin, which makes learning to read (and spell) difficult. Phonics, at least, tries to sort through the mess and provide a code by which children can begin to make sense of words on a page. Oh, and by the way, Peter and Jane books were just as terrible as the Kipper books.

Oh, and by the way, Peter and Jane books were just as terrible as the Kipper books.

Janet and John for my generation. 'See Janet run. Run, Janet, run.'

It’s not one school, he’s in secondary now. Phonics is the way of teaching reading here, different schemes same principles! As highlighted throughout this thread - its viewed as the foundation for learning to read. You say your child fully understands phonics, so it may be with your child who is 5/6 that school is adapting as they are advanced.

Honestly, if you have a secondary school young person who has never grasped phonics and can’t read / doesnt want to read, the prescription for not advancing despite years of exposure to phonics is more phonics! His experience is based on the principle that phonics works for every child.

But what about all his other textbooks - chemistry etc? Surely they aren’t phonics based?

Does he have a reading pen or similar technology?

Does he have other SEN or is the reading issue an anomaly amongst normal performance in other areas?

What type of school does he attend? At Y2 reading level well into secondary, is he in special or mainstream or a dedicated support group within mainstream? (My pupil who read at a similar level in upper KS2 will attend a unit run by the local special school within mainstream, for example)

What support does he get to access the curriculum, which in a mainstream school (if he is in one) will be reading-heavy?

What level of SEN support is he on, and what are the provisions in it?

Which external advisors have been involved (advisory teachers, Ed Psych, dyslexia assessors, optometrists)?

What have they recommended, and has what they recommended been implemented in full by the school?

How do you suggest he reads a chemistry textbook without phonics?

But what about all his other textbooks - chemistry etc? Surely they aren’t phonics based?

A lot of words in chemistry are quite easy to read for anyone with sound knowledge of phonics. A good reader in Yr 1 could probably read car-bon, so-di-um, pot-ass-ium, oxy-gen, even if they had never heard them and didn't know what they meant.

Neither my kids learnt through phonics as both could read before preschool as I taught them as my mum taught me , but they played along as it does help with longer words. So it has its place.

But as with anything, its never one size fits all. It might be the best for the majority. You can just do you and teach your kids as you want to.

My point was surely textbooks for other subjects are well beyond the Biff Chip and Kipper stage of books which he’s supposedly getting in English….

He cannot read text books at his key stage level, so no cannot read chemistry book with or without phonics.

He has reading interventions, that use phonics, not that he has phonics books in English. Has an EHCP and support in every lesson in mainstream school. His diagnosis make sense of why he struggles with reading but not openly sharing as the point of my post wasn’t to get support but to say that I don’t believe phonics works for every child, based on my experience.

I wish schools had more flexibility to use the whole word approach.

DD had a hearing impairment and the school would only use phonics even though she couldn’t hear the phonemes as they are such small sounds. She may have had more of a chance using the whole word method. Phonics put my daughter off phonics and reading which she use to love before she started school.

My son is autistic and hyperlexic and taught himself to read when he was two using the whole word method. He was enjoys phonics at school as loves letters, words and books but it hasn’t taught him how to read!

Well said.

Schools need to recognise the small number of pupils for whom phonics doesn't work and intervene appropriately, which may mean using other approaches to teaching reading. However, I am glad that, in general, there is no flexibility to use the whole word approach alongside (or worse, instead of) synthetic phonics. We know that, if the flexibility was given, many schools would go for mixed methods despite the clear evidence that doing so will result in more children being unable to read.

The evidence is clear that adults reading use the same parts of the brain used by children when they are sounding out and blending. Whole word approaches encourage use of the visual centres instead, which are on the other side of the brain. Children who learn to read using whole word approaches are the ones who have figured out the code (i.e. the mapping between graphemes and phonemes) for themselves. Synthetic phonics makes it easy by teaching the code rather than expecting children to work it out for themselves. That is why synthetic phonics works for 95%+ of children (99%+ according to some studies). No other method of teaching reading is anywhere near as effective. Mixing other methods with synthetic phonics sees the success rate drop to 80% or lower.

Schools need to recognise the small number of pupils for whom phonics doesn't work and intervene appropriately, which may mean using other approaches to teaching reading

Problem is they don’t.
Possibly because of that general lack of flexibility you support.

A 95 - 98% success rate for the phonics method does mean it fails 2 - 5 % of children, who often do not get appropriate interventions, just more of the same. Extra phonics.

I’m all for teaching phonics, but there have to be methods put in place to recognise the children it’s not working for early on, and to offer tailored support quickly.
This doesn’t happen ime, or if it does it’s at a snail’s pace.

The evidence is that most pupils with SEND will learn best from synthetic phonics. There are a small number of pupils who need additional strategies. Government guidance encourages schools to identify those pupils and put appropriate strategies in place. If schools don't, that is a failing of the school, not due to the insistence on using synthetic phonics.

Your solution of giving schools more flexibility would result in many schools reverting to mixed methods so that, instead of failing 0.5%-5% of children, we would be failing 20%+.

To repeat something I said earlier, on average in a class of 30 being taught using synthetic phonics you would expect at least 28 of them to become competent readers, possibly all 30. If you move to mixed methods, you would expect at least 6 of them to fail. The approach must be the one that works for most children, but schools must do better with identifying and helping the small number for whom it doesn't work.

Your solution of giving schools more flexibility would result in many schools reverting to mixed methods so that, instead of failing 0.5%-5% of children, we would be failing 20%+.

No, you misunderstand me. That’s not my solution, except for the small minority for whom the usual approach isn’t working. As I said already…there have to be methods put in place to recognise the children who are struggling early on, and to offer tailored support quickly using different approaches if necessary.

I want flexibility for the children who need it, not for the class as a whole.
I don’t care if the failing is at department level or at an individual school level — children are still being failed and that needs to change now. If there is guidance there it needs to be implemented properly. These children are in every school.

My child was failed. I saw his self esteem plummet at school. It really doesn’t help him to know that the approach used works for most of the others. That isn’t much comfort.

In that case I think we are in agreement. The current system does allow flexibility for those who need it. It is appalling when schools fail to identify children who need it and act accordingly.

Dd could read before nursery, she undoubtedly learned with her phenomenol memory (ASD) as she learned by being read to, she wasn't actively taught. She was taught phonics and memorised them too but never used them. She used to question why you would spell by sounds when you already knew how to spell a word. I did get thanked by her teacher once for all the spelling practice we must have done as she had never had a wrong spelling. I had to admit d would have memorised the words as she wrote them in the book as she had never brought a spelling book home so no credit to me.

Phonics was a disaster for my 2 dyslexic children. It was okay for my other kids.