how do they learn to read?

[misdee]

dd3 has been bringing books home from school to read. she started on ORT(no words), then onto spirals(??) which had 2-4 word sentances and focused on one or two key words each book (A, and, my, I etc). suddenly she has lept to books with longer sentaces, and she is struggling. i am getting frustrated as she will read a word on one p-age and then see it on the next page and forget it. but once she has read the book (with my help) once or twice she can practically reciet it word for word. its very puzzling. it also reminds me of my little brother who had books memorized at an early age, but he turned out to be dyslexic. is this normal?

Hi Browny and Misdee

I've found various flashcards of high frequency words and CVC (consonant vowel consonant) words. Please CAT me if you would like me to e-mail them over to you. They are currently in MS Word. You may need to change the font - something like arial or comic sans is probably best (although the "a" is wrong in arial font).

This is interesting, haven't read the whole thread though. My dd is only 23 months old and she can already read the words Mummy, her name, my boyf's name, her auntie's name, Grandma, cat, dog, hello, Pingu. I had no idea if this was good for her age, though a nanny friend of mine says it is. From what I can tell, she either reads the words by the shape, or by recognising the first letter (she can also name the letters M, O, V, S, i, e and y - unfortunately I didn't use phonetics or whatever you call it!) She recognises "i" because of the dot. S possibly because it's like a snake! Basically she's learnt all this through constant repetition on my part, and because she loves pretending to type on the computer so I've been typing out the words very big on the screen for her. When she is a bit older I must look further into how kids learn to read, your posts are very helpful Littlefish! I will try her out with hat, bat, etc etc

soupy - actually the number of truly irregular words are tiny - 'one' is one and 'the' is another.

dd1 doesnt use phonics at her school - and when I try and encourage her to 'sound out' words she just looks blank. But she sight reads words very well and tonight read a ORT stage 3 book right through with only a couple of mistakes. They have had 2 word cards that they had to learn over a period of 6 months or so.

She'll read the book tomorrow and be perfect- a lot of that is memorising but it doesnt bother me. I seem to remember phonics being discouraged when I was young as there are lots of words that can't be spelt out phonetically?

she gets very confused over 'w' words (wanted, went, were)

misdee,

I a mum, not a teacher, and I have been helping my son (who is 4 and coming to the end of his Reception year) with his reading. He has some speech problems and it is not unusual for children with speech problems to go on to develop reading problems so I thought I had better step in. However, I didn't know anything about how to teach a child to read, so I learned.

I started on this website. If you do a search on Catflap/Jolly Phonics you will find lots of posts on this subject. She is a Year 1 teacher and has posted some really useful information on the subject of learning to read.

I have to say that I agree with Catflap and disagree with Littlefish. No offence, Littlefish. What you say about how children learn to read is exactly what the teachers at my son's school say. I believe it is what you are taught in college. And I would have believed it too had I not looked further. For most kids whole word methods work. However, for a number of kids methods such as look-and-say, guessing from shape/initial letter, guessing from context and picture clues FAIL and these kids are reading way below an age appropriate level.

The books I have read are "Why Children Can't Read" by Diane McGuinness (Pub. Penguin) and "Reading Reflex" by Carmen and Geoffrey McGuinness (Pub. Penguin). I have also found The Jolly Phonics Handbook and Teaching Video extremely useful. All of these are available from Amazon. Most useful of all, maybe, were the "Steps" on the Jolly Phonics website. They tell you what to teach and in what order. If you go to the messageboard, to the very last message, I think, posted way back in 2003, you will find them. With just these steps, you could probably teach your child to read, although The Handbook is a useful resource, and also the Word List. Reading material/story books help too. The Ruth Miskin Literacy (which teaches synthetic phonics which is what JP is) are excellent and affordable if you buy the black and white version.

These steps have also been recently re-posted on the Reading Reform Foundation's website (on the messageboard). Under Sue Lloyd maybe, not Jolly Phonics.

My advice, if you want it, is to teach your dd all the 42/44 sounds of the English language (as per Jolly Phonics). Teach her to blend simple CVC words. s, a, t, i, p, n are the first sounds taught because you can make the most three letter words from these sounds, I'm told, e.g sit, sat, pin. Say the letter sounds (not the letter names) and make her listen for the word. It helps if you say the first sound a bit louder and the last sound a bit quieter. I did this with my son and he really can hear every sound in a word now! When she has mastered 3 letter words, move on to 4 letter words. I did start with some rhyming words, (fat, cat, sat) but I moved on because this is not the best way. Mix the "word endings" (cat, pig, sun).

When she reads her school book, tell her to sound out the words. I tell my son not to guess. This strategy can lead to disaster (see RRF website for details and more links).

I have become so interested in this subject that I intend to train as a Classroom Assistant and do a Reading Tutor's course because I would love to teach children to read.

The more you look into it, the more people you find who are campaigning for a good synthetic phonics strategy and a move away from the mixed methods that are currently used. The research and evidence is very convincing.

If you would like to email me, if you think I can help in any way, please do so: [email protected].

Hope everything works out for you.

Enid, you're right that phonics went out of fashion for a while, but are currently very in!

The current "synthetic phonics" teach not only the single sounds of the alphabet, but also, the vowel blends like oa, ai, ee, ou, ow etc and phonemes like or, er, ar, th, ch, sh, ng. This means that children are able to break down a greater number of words when they are learning to read. Phonics is only one of a range of strategies which children need. It sounds like your dd is very confident with her sight vocabulary which is a great strategy. Sounding out does take a bit of practise. I would be quite surprised if her school doesn't teach phonics at all, as it is part of the National Literacy Strategy.

Re. the w words, try making flash cards where the w is black and then "hen" is in red to try and get her to see the "hen in when". You can do the same for what ie. the "hat in what" and "ant in want". Then play a pairs game with an ordinary set of black flashcards of the same words.

Hi Chocolate girl

What I said is that the look and say method is one of a number of strategies which children use. I totally agree that phonics, and jolly phonics in particular is an incredibly effective way of teaching children to read. For some children the whole word approach works, but it is also true that children cannot rely solely on this method.

My suggestions are not just what I was taught at college and I do find it a little offensive that you make the assumption that I am unable to develop my own practise in the classroom and through additional research and training. In fact, when I trained only 10 years ago, very little emphasis was placed on the teaching of phonics. My experience of teaching reading and phonics has come entirely from successful school based practice.

In my original message to Misdee, you will also see that I suggested several phonic based games to help with sounding out and rhyming as well as games to help with consistent recognition of sight vocab words. When teaching, my main aim is to help children develop a range of strategies which they can use. Some children prefer one strategy to another. By introducing a range of strategies, children are able to access reading far more readily.

I think though that the recent Clackmannanshire research showed that children taught using synthetic phonics alone did better than those taught using a range of strategies.
ChocolateGirl - the Diane McGuinness book made a real impression on me too! And by the way, you're not from Durham originally are you?

Littlefish,

I'm sorry if you feel I made "the assumption that you are unable to develop your own practise in the classroom and through additional research and training". I certainly do not make that assumption and didn't mean to give that impression.

One of the things that I find difficult when posting here is that you have to scroll a long way back up to find exactly what other people have said. I generally don't have time to do that so I'm usually responding to the gist of what I got from a first reading. Also, it's not always possible to say everything when I'm typing in a hurry, so I sometimes I just make my main point. My point being in this case that teachers are taught in college to teach reading via mixed methods. That's all. Certainly wasn't meant to imply that you can't develop after you leave there!

Sorry it offended you. I wasn't meant to. I imagine in 10 years you have developed enormously!

And yes, the look and say method is one of a number of strategies which children are taught, but it seems to be the one that the supporters of synthetic phonics are most worried about.

wordgirl,

No, I'm not from Durham! Born and bred in South Wales!

The Clackmannanshire research did demonstrate what you say and the JP video also shows that children taught with the JP method were better readers that those taught with a mix of methods.

misdee,

I don't know how to do a link to a thread, I'm afraid, but if you look for "How do you teach a child to read?" started by littlemissbossy (22nd Nov 2004) you will find Catflap's posts.

The link appears in a current thread "Learning to read - old thread" (12th July) - and it's not a long thread so you won't have to scroll very far!

Chocolate girl, thank you for your apology.

Thanks for all the ideas, I have just gone and ordered the books you mention Chocolategirl.

Can't remember exact details Issymum but learning to read Chinese/Japanese is completely different to learning to read in languages based on the Roman alphabet. There's a whole raft of research, esp relating to why things like dyslexia are apparently non-existent in many languages (including Chinese). I'm afaraid it's too long since i worked on that stuff to remember details off the top of my head though

Also Issymum, the interesting book recommended in this thread does talk about learning purely pictorial languages (as opposed to phonic ones like ours) and says that they are MUCH harder to learn and take far longer as they do rely on memorising. There are higher rates of illiteracy too. Fluent reading comes much later.

Hi there - I have not visited for a while but another mum pointed this thread out to me and seeing as I contributed a bit in the past, I thought I would add some more thoughts, if that's OK.

I know some of my previous posts got quite long so I am going to try really hard to be as succinct as possible...

Originally, misdee said "it also reminds me of my little brother who had books memorized at an early age, but he turned out to be dyslexic. is this normal?"

There are seen to be two types of dyslexics - those who have a neurological disorder that truly prevents them from developing the skills they need to become a successful reader... and those that are a product of the system failing to teach them to read effectively. Unfortunately, the latter far outnumber the former. Many children can get by for a while memorising books and disguising the fact that they can't actually work out the words for themselves. Then they lack the appropriate knowledge and skills to do that when their memory reaches overload point and can no longer hold all these separate words, many with similar shapes.

misdee also said about her dd that "as she will read a word on one p-age and then see it on the next page and forget it."

This shows that she lacks the skills to read a word independently, with knowledge and understanding. She has clearly used guessing strategies and they are not working. She must also be frustrated, too.

aero said "She uses the pictures for guidance, and reads from memory. I think it all goes in though and eventually they remember the shape of the word and if pushed, can sound out the letters and try to put them together to make sense."

This is so true of how so many children are taught to read - and don't you think it is outrageous? Wouldn't you be shocked if we learnt to drive by watching someone else doing it plenty of times, then getting in and pressing some pedals and twiddling some knobs and going through enough trial and error that it eventually came together, if we were still alive? Wouldn't it be ridiculous if we taught music by sitting someone at the piano with one of Mozart's full compositions and saying, well, come on - play what you can manage, make the rest up; I'm sure it will all come together eventually. Many children do learn to read despite this chaos... but SO MANY DON'T. Please don't let your child be one of these.

lol @ dinosaur; "something called synthetic phonics, which is double Dutch to me but seems to have done the trick with him!"

it does appear to be terribly complicated, but done from scratch with Reception children with the teacher possessing all the right knowledge and skills, it is so straightforward and children talk about 'long vowels' and the 'schwa' sound like they were nursery rhymes or their favourite tv programme. Well, not quite, but you get the idea. All the parents of children in my classes were amazed at how much knowledge there was that can be easily understood - if someone would just teach it to you!

Littefish - you said; " need to learn many different strategies when starting to read."

Sadly, they don't and I can't wait for teachers to be properly trained in the teaching of reading. If children are just taught how our written language is actually composed, then they don't need any other strategies at all - strategies which often just result in wild guessing full of inaccuracies or stilted reading as sentences are revisited to work out missing words, or broken off to study the pictures. Do you really think children should learn to read by guessing? Do we learn anything else this way? (Estimation in maths is not the same thing...1 a reading equivalent would be skim reading, perhaps, which is a more advanced skills once the basics have been met, as estimation can only happen when a person has a basic grasp of concept of number.)

All the other strategies we put children through are either a) a shortcut to get them feeling or looking like they are reading while they gradually acquire the skills to really do so - or not - or b) a collection of guessing games which delay the process of really reading. Many children learn to read using these strategies despite the chaos because they have the strengths to work past it. Many do not.

Pixiefish said "it will fall into place for her misdee". Sadly, it might not - I really do thing parents need to be aware of this. SO many junior and secondary teachers and classroom assistants see the children for whom it does not fall into place - visit the TES staffroom to read so many sad accounts. Often, then, it is too late for them - our ability to read and take on all this language business is at its height when we are young and have just learnt to talk and we begin to lose it after that if it is not promoted correctly.

Enid said "I seem to remember phonics being discouraged when I was young as there are lots of words that can't be spelt out phonetically?"

You are probably right - in that 'traditional' phonics is wildly simplistic and woefully inadequate. The way I was 'taught' to 'teach' phonics was pretty much limited to the '26 alphabet sounds' which is ridiculous. Our written language started from our spoken words, so the first thing is to begin with those sounds and learn to recognise how they are written. There are about 45 speech sounds. Learn these, and their most frequent spelling, then the alternatives and pretty much every word in the language is perfectly phonetic. (I would disagree with aloha - sorry aloha! I'm only being pedantic!! - in that even 'the' is fairly regular in that 'th' spelling for the 'th' sound is quite regular and the 'e' spelling for the 'schwa' sound e.g. indistinct vowel sound, is also quite regular. In truth, most words have only a bit of a tricky bit in it. I think only 'one' and 'eye' are truly weird.

Littlefish - what is a vowel blend?!! I don't mean to 'pick on? you - but I am just responding to a few messages in order and while I acknowledge that you are doing a fab job as a reception teacher (hardest job in all of mainstream education) and am sure you are doing your best, that can only be so good in the light of the information and training we are given and the amount of time we can give to analysing our own practice. Again, I really don't mean to have a go - it's really because I am so cross we are short changed here! I was really livid when I moved to reception and realised I knew pretty much nothing about teaching children to read because in Year 1, although most of my children read extremely well, I always had a group who forever struggled and I now realise how needless this had to be. I found out all I now know myself and if I had just been adequately trained to start off with, it would have saved me and awful lot of time and many children an awful lot of frustration. There is no such thing as a vowel blend - a blend is two or more sounds put together e.g. cl, spl etc. ai, oa, ee, or etc - not sure why you put that in the other list - are merely long vowel phonemes. Yes, phonics is taught as part of the NLS, but so inadequately. If it were taught properly at the outset, there would be no need for all the other strategies.

Your strategies for coping with 'w' words, for example - and I've done them all myself in the past. But why get a child to remember 'the hen in when' when if they were just adept at recognising 'wh' for the 'w' sound with a list of all the words for which this is the case, it would be oh so simple to sound out. The mistake is lumping all these 'w' words together when they all contain differing levels of the alphabet code. I do 'what' and 'want' where the 'a' is for the 'o' sound - which always happens after a 'w' sound in words like 'wash' 'wasp' 'swan' and 'squash' to name a few. 'when' will come with 'wheel' and 'white' etc and so on. Then the children get perfectly accustomed to recognising the words for the letters and sounds that actually exist there and pick it up so much more quickly.

Chocolate girl - fab post. Saved me saying most of what I was going to and also from mentioning all the links and great reading! Diane McGuinness is my GODDESS.

OK, probably still went on a bit much, but I wanted to cover these points.

I typed up a summary of the Diane McGuinness book for colleagues for whom I wanted to be aware of the contents but I knew would never find time to read the whole thing. Leave your e-mail here if you are interested and I will forward them out so you can get the gist of all her research.

Hi Catflap! Nice to have you back - I regard you as the authority on synthetic phonics on this site! You were the one who got me started... And thank you for your comments, I am flattered!

My email is [email protected] and I would love to have your summary of the Diane McGuinness book because I need to re-read it and this would be a good starting point. Thank you!

Look forward to meeting you on the TES staffroom site as I am training to be a Teaching Assistant next year...