learning to read without being taught?

[mumof4darlings]

Hi
I would love to hear any positive stories about how your child learnt to read without being taught. I have been dipping into some free online reading schemes, but i hear so much about people just reading to their child and they suddenly begin to read themselves? how?

I think it is in response to me with my 20% of illiterate adults and the fact that DCs at school are not left to do it in their own time-not in response to Indigo.
I can't see that OP has anything to do with where a DC receives their education -I think that she just wanted reassurance that you could leave a DC and they would pick it up. I don't think that anyone can give that.
Mona McKnee, that I mentioned earlier had the Down's syndrome DC who was failing. He had an IQ of 65 and it would have been easy to say just leave him until he is ready. She didn't-she taught him. I used her method-it worked with my DS.

Cross posted with julienoshoes. I would agree with her-go with your DC. Mine couldn't read but wanted to be taught.

Sorry Mona McKnee's DS.

Posting too quickly-I had said DC-didn't need correcting.

Schools don't seem to recite as much as they used to. You know, the whole class sitting down reading out in unison while the teacher points to the words on the board - "The cat sat on the mat." "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." Doing that over and over again, every day (different sentences of course!) I think that's a very useful way of teaching children to read (including those for whom English is not a first language).

That's a wonderful story and great to hear about your DD, julienoshoes.

Pretty boring for most of them kipper-it assumes that they start at the same place and progress at the same rate.

Julien - thanks for sharing.

"But the 20% of the population who are functionally illiterate went to school!

Did they? or did a large percentage fail to attend ?"

Sorry I was at fault then-lazy reasoning.

I should have said the 20% of the population who are functionally illiterate were failed by the state schooling system.

Was it the state system that prevented them attending?

I don't know how many of them were registered pupils not attending.....

I am certain they were not autonomously home educated or pupils at a public school.

The point is no one knows the circumstances of their failure only that they have failed/been failed and anything else is purely speculation.

DCs are failed across the board, some are failed by public schools, some are failed by state schools and some are failed by HE.
It also has nothing to do with the OP who asked a simple question about learning to read. Obviously julienoshoes DD was traumatised by her school experience-who is to say that if her DD had never gone she could have been taught by her mother using phonics and been able to read at 6yrs or who can say that my DS could have been left and picked it up at 13+ years? No one.
Unfortunately OP asked the question in January and probably isn't around to know that it has been added to.
There is only one answer-however many people tell her of their success stories she can't just make assumptions about her DC.They are all different.

I guess the thread has picked up some life of its own......since we've moved on from the first post can I ask what some of you think (incl any of you who work in teaching) about this - phonics vs alphabet for 3-5 year olds. I know the schools are teaching phonics. What about children who have learnt the alphabet already and are used to identifying letters like that - a,b,c, d etc instead of the phonics sounds "air", "ber", "ker" (am spelling them the way they sound). Is using the alphabet instead of phonics supposed to be detrimental? After all, when I try to use the phonics method, I always come unstuck when there are words like "laugh", "ghost", "shepherd"....I mean, these are simple words but they don't seem to conform to the phonics system. I seem to find more "tricky words" (as they call them) in a sentence than those that are not.

It shouldn't be phonics v alphabet -it should be phonics and alphabet. They need to know the letter name in addition to the sound. If the DC has learnt the alphabet already it is a huge advantage. I played lots of games with my DS-it was the way that suited him.
They are going to get quite advanced by the time they get to 'laugh' so that gh can say ff but is quite different in a word like 'ought'. The English language is difficult-you will have to explain a lot as you go along e.g. some 'c's are soft as in 'face' and some are hard as in 'scar'. I found Mona McKnee very good for explaining it here the advantage being that it is only £5 including post and package so it isn't a huge outlay if you don't get on with it.
I made lots of games using it and wrote my own books. I had to do little and often with DS.

Some children who learn the alphabet first struggle when it comes to blending words for reading trying to put together names or a mixture of names and sounds. Many write words using letter names (especially for long vowel sounds) so would write like lIk and play plA for example. For other children knowing both isn't a problem but schools would normally teach sounds first then letter names (many sing the alphabet but don't link it to letter shapes). The sounds need to be taught clearly b not ber or buh c not cer or cuh ...
Children are taught that "gh" at the beginning of the word represents the sound and at the end of a word .
The words laugh and ghost aren't "tricky" words they just use alternative representations of the sounds ... we have 26 letters in the alphabet, 44ish common sounds and 180ish ways to write those sounds. Lots to figure out.

I think they are 'tricky' in the sense that English is a strange language and there are generally exceptions to the rule and gh doesn't always make 'f' at the end of the word-as in 'sigh'.

Yes but they aren't the words officially labelled "tricky words"

The "tricky words" are

I, you, was, said, Mr etc.

sigh is made up of two phonemes /graphemes s and igh (not s i gh) so not an exception (not that there are any real rules)

I agree, but you can teach reading without knowing all the official terms and labels which can be very off putting.
I would just tell DCs that the English language is 'tricky' and it doesn't follow rules so that you can't always say gh at the end =f.
The reason that I like Mona McKnee is that she simplifies it so that anyone can can tackle it. It is the same with Toe by Toe-you don't need to have any knowledge or read vast tomes or go on a course -you can just start with the DC. Anyone who hasn't done phonics is going to get very depressed by lots of terms like phonemes, graphemes,digraphs etc and conclude that they need to be a teacher.
Mona McKnee's book starts with 'YOU CAN teach your own child to read. Teaching children, or adults, to read is simple and does not take long. You do not need any special training, just common sense'. It then goes on to explain. It is very encouraging and empowering and you feel that you can do it-you don't have to split hairs about whether a word is 'officially' tricky.

the point is exoticfruits "gh" at the end of a word do make the sound but "igh" together make the sound.
You don't need the technical language but you do need some knowledge of how the English spelling system uses 26 letters to write the 44ish sounds commonly found in our language.

Toe by Toe is ok (a bit boring for me)

I'll take back the "tricky" word bit if you feel it is splitting hairs but kipperandtiger said "tricky words" (as they call them) when the words weren't the ones they call "tricky" ... sorry the pedant in me that sometimes escapes when my defences are down [hblush]

I have to say that Toe by Toe didn't work with DS, there was nothing wrong with his maths and he worked out how long it would take! I still think that it is very good, but it is expensive.
The other one is very old fashioned, but it is thin-everything that you need is there and DS never had to see it. I did a lot of the games because that is what worked with DS.
You do have to know your DS.
I like it because you don't have spend much (the price of 2 cups of coffee) and you can adapt it how you like. You don't even have to have any knowledge and you don't need a reading scheme.

Or DD of course.

Thanks for taking the time to explain it, mrz and exotic!! I feel as though sometimes we're expected to know the whole system already, and other times I feel like "I never learnt phonics, and managed perfectly well, so why reinvent the wheel?" but of course you want to support your children and join in what they are doing, and not create obstacles by being obstinate. Thanks for all the tips about the resources and books. I don't mind being corrected about tricky words - I like to get the terms right. (obviously the system is more complicated than the little book I was shown initially). Can I ask if you call something "silent" in the phonics system too? Like the "gh" that isn't pronounced in "bough" ? Do you call it "silent gh"?

OK, will go browse and buy some books instead of getting freebie lessons

(I am trying to resist the urge to ask why "was" is called a tricky word when it seems very logical to me...... oh dear, didn't manage to resist.) Couldn't they make a BBC2 series to teach this?! Alphablocks on CBeebies has too few words.