Sight reading and decoding

[runoutofnameideas]

How do slightly older children learn new words which are irregular - do they still decode somehow with rules I'm not aware of or learn them by sight? Something like "unusual" for example?

Do they work out that there are different ways to pronounce say the middle u and then try them out in their head or something?

Ds just finished reception. He is a very able reader (well I might just be being a proud mum thinking that!) and has zoomed through the levels (and before anyone says too quickly, he does understand and has good expression, rarely sounds out out loud) but he wasn't taught at his level at all for reading within school so I feel a bit lost about how this all works. He is a natural sight reader although he can decode if he has to so I am wondering if he will just learn these sorts of words by sight as he goes which is I'm sure what I did but maybe that's not the done thing these days?

Advice would be great if my question isn't too vague and confusing!

Both my son and this child display certain aspects of "hyperlexia" - reading well above their age - some difficulties with pragmatic speech but otherwise talked like little adults from an very early age - difficulties with social skills and a fascination with numbers - OCD. However word reading and comprehension were equally developed - both preferred non fiction ... both were born prematurely

IB,

"But for the SpLD team / Ed Psych to have no other tricks up their sleeve is wrong and unacceptable."

They're not performing monkeys, for heaven's sake! What other 'tricks' do you expect them to be able to pull out of the bag? There's phonics and there's 'look & say'. There isn't anything else. I know this because I have been around for quite a while and have always worked with the 'strugglers'. I also participate in other forums which have an interest in 'special needs'. Whatever is 'diagnosed' there are only two basic methods of teaching reading.

Let's see what the assessment produces.

mrz-I totally agree that we need to clone you-you really are an amazing teacher!

I know Ive spoken about this before but my DS is 5 as well and has also just finished reception and is in a similar position to the OP. He is very much a sight reader in that although he has been taught all the JP sounds and knows them all as sounds etc on their own ai,ou,ee etc(and no more than that at school I might add) he cannot/won't apply them when reading. For the last month at school his teacher really pushed him to read mainly phonetic books (Songbirds ones and others!) and it was like pulling teeth for him.

He says that he sees words as a whole and then guesses if he doesn't know what they are (which I know is wrong!) or he'll work out what the beginning bit of the word is and then figure out the rest of the word in relation to the context of the story...which is why I think he is struggling with the phonetic books as they seem to put words in just because they are phonetic if that makes sense.

We've been told to really keep hammering home phonetics with him because he HAS to learn it...the other 29 children in the class get it all with the same teaching (altho obviously at different levels) so why can't my DS?

He's on green level books at school which to give you an idea include Level 5/6 ORT which he reads with ease and enjoys I am assuming because they are mainly sight reading books. Its like once he has seen a word once he knows what it is if he comes across it again.

I know when he goes back in september they are going to be really pushing him with phonics and I honestly don't think its going to work...can some children just learn to read by sight reading? Just need some information to pass on to the Y1 teacher if I need to at any point!#

If he wants to learn to read by sight words he will have to be prepared to learn to distinguish about 20 - 30 thousand plus words as 'wholes'. How nmany can he distinguish now, after, presumably, 1 year of schooling? How many years is it going to take for him to 'learn' the rest?

Of course it's easier to guess words and anyone who can 'sight read' (i.e. just read it straight off without needing to decode it because it is utterly familiar) will see the word as a 'whole' because they are subconsciously doing all the decoding and blending completely automatically.
Additionally, he is, naturally, seeing the word as one unit, but I'm afraid that what your ds describes as his reading strategy is usually associated with poor readers.

Quite frankly, I think that he's a bit young, at age 5, to take control of his learning! Keep on with the phonics.

With young children I always rule out physical difficulties first so sight and hearing (glue ear is very common in the first few years of school and if you can't hear the sounds clearly you can't learn as effectively as you would otherwise).

Phonics as I said earlier doesn't mean a child has to sound out every word so if a child can read the word correctly then that's great but when the child guesses incorrectly then they need to pause... asked to look at word (letters) closely and be encouraged to blend the sounds (longer words I would break up into syllables covering each part with my thumb/s then put the syllables together).
It's always worth assessing which sounds he does know as this could be why he sometimes resorts to guessing when he meets unknown words.

MaizieD

There's phonics and there's 'look & say'. There isn't anything else.<

Love it!

Thank you Mrz-he did have glue ear when he was younger (quite severly) but had his tonsils/adenoids out when he was 2.5 years old and he's had no problems since them and we did a sight test about 3 months ago which was fine...I was thinking along those lines as well.

He can manage to sound out the bits of the words if they are covered up bit by bit and they aren't in a "story" as such but when he is reading and he comes across a word he doesn't know he just freezes and can't seem to split it up in his head...like I said he seems to just see the whole word and not the separate bits of it.

It seems to mainly be the vowel sounds he is struggling with such as ai,ou etc and also in a lot of the books he is reading there are phonemes (is that the right word?) that they haven't even been taught in reception such as ow,igh etc which is also where he is coming unstuck. Ive now printed off that link you posted earlier and its fantastic and a great point of reference so thank you.

Maizie-thank you for your post. I appreciate what you are saying but I have never ever said that I want him to take control of his learning at age 5 but simply that he is actually getting quite upset when "forced" for want of a better word to read phonetically when its not something that seems to come naturally to him. I don't want to curb his enthusiasm for reading at this young age by installing in him that this is the only way to read because quite honestly I don't believe it is. Yes phonetics must play a huge part but surely there is a way to do both. Incidentally myself and most of my generation didn't learn to read by phonetics...does that make most of us "poor readers" as well?

I think you might have identified his problem
he is being expected to read books that contain sounds he hasn't been taught no wonder he freezes and guesses. At five green books are perfectly respectable (working within NC level 1) so he certainly isn't struggling.

Maizie There's phonics and there's 'look & say'. There isn't anything else.

This is absolute rubbish. There are loads of other ways of teaching to read. For example:

• Mixed Methods
• Dore
• Davies Method
• Neuro Development Therapy
• BrainGym
• Audioblox
• A.R.R.O.W

Now, none of these schemes work for 95% of the population, but they all work for some kids. But the SpLD team aren't trying to teach 95% - they are trying to teach the 5% that can't be taught with synthetic phonics.

If all the SpLD team recommend is Read, Write, Inc what on earth is meant to happen to kids like my DD?

Maizie, I'm fairly sure on a previous thread you said you were a SENCO at a Secondary school and you managed to teach 95% of your kids with Read, Write, Inc. Are you happy to fail 5% of your kids?

If your child was working at a level W at the end of Year 2, school told you she was making 'good progress', and 'that they were following best practice' - what would you do?

This satisfaction by the HeadTeacher, SENCO and SpLD team that they are all doing their job and that I'm an over anxious parent and that my DD will be fine is criminal. So I'm sorry to be taking out my frustrations with them on you. But unfortunately you're giving me exactly the same line that they do.

I'm fairly sure that BrainGym and Dore are brain exercises, rather than reading teaching methods....

Yes, Feenie they are brain exercises - but they address the underlying problem that is stopping some children from learning to read.

But yes, you would still need to use SP as well or after.

Then, strictly speaking, they aren't alternative reading teaching methods to SP or Look and Say - which is what maizie meant. Of course, that's not to say that they aren't avenues which could and should be explored for your dd though.

Some on that list are alternative reading methods (like ARROW) and some aren't.

But the SpLD team should be exploring all avenues. And Mazie's attitude, which unfortunately I'm getting a lot of in real life, is not going to help my DD. Or at least, it won't help her in Year 3.

If you referred a child to the SpLD team and they came back with no recommendations because you were already doing SP with them, wouldn't you be annoyed?

I would be surprised, actually, because most advocate mixed methods. Also, every single Ed Psych I have ever met has been at least slightly bonkers, if not completely barking.

I don't know Arrow - but the online bumf is selling it as a phonics programme.

No, I'm not a SENCo, though I've covered some of the work in the past for a maternity leave. I'm just the literacy lady! I work with struggling readers and as part of that work it is very much incumbent on me to learn as much as I can about what might be preventing children from learning to read and how I can work around the barriers. Children struggle for all sorts of reasons.

I gave you a figure of 95% because that is the one which seems to be accepted by most 'authorities' on SP teaching. I don't have a 5% 'failure rate'. I do currently have 3 children who find reading far more difficult than the rest - they represent about 3% of the children I have worked with in the last 5 years.

Of the list you gave:

'Mixed methods' is virtually 'Look & Say' with a bit of phonics thrown in

A.R.R.O.W
I quote from their website:
"It?s very much a whole word approach to start with. The basis of the work is centred on the self-voice?it?s more effective and important for the students to hear their own voice while they?re reading than it is to hear the tutor?s voice.?
(Whole word = Look & Say)

I think this programme is intended for children with auditory processing problems. I understand that it is possible to teach phonics in much the same way.

Feenie's right, Dore & Brain Gym are just exercise regimes (and definitely dodgy on the 'science' underpinning them)

Audiblox appears to be working on skills underpinning reading (and all learning), but no mention of the actual reading instruction method (if there is one)

I would surmise that Neuro development therapy is similar.

What about the 'retained reflexes'. Have you got any further with that?

I am a SENCO [sorry smile]

Dore Brain Gym Audioblox and Neuro development therapy are all versions of movement programmes and while as Maizie rightly pointed out there is no scientific basis to them I don't think they do any harm and can help in so much as they encourage the child to focus.
(confesses son saw Brain Gym practitioner and it helped ADHD)

Mixed Methods encourage guessing /inefficient

A.R.R.O.W I'm not familiar with so can't comment

The Davis Method worries me as I think it preys on parent's fears ... sorry

Thanks everyone for putting up with my ranting :)

DS who has Aspergers has just started a retained reflexes program and we think it is working. Obvioulsy need to see if school also notice an improvement - but so far in the holidays he has written typed 2000 words of a novel - this from a boy who is working at a 2A (at end of Year 4) - mainly because he refuses to do any writing.

We need to give the retained reflexes program a few months with DS before we would be able to start it with DD.

As far as I can tell BrainGym, Dore, and Neuro Development Programs are all based on the retained reflexes theory. Which explains to me why they only work for some kids - the kids who have retained reflexes, as opposed to just 'dyslexia'.

We are currently doing EasyRead with DD. Unfortunately there has certainly been no breakthrough yet - but we need to give it at least 5 months. EasyRead thinks she has an eye tracking problem which we are trying to work on. But I'm not sure if she does, or the test doesn't take into account her slow processing. EasyRead claim a 99% success rate - so if it doesn't work for her she really does fall into the 'edge' case.

mrz - I think you would be less skeptical of Davies Method if you had read 'gift of dyslexia' and then talked to DD about how she thinks (in pictures instead of words). If you son is on the spectrum ask him if he thinks in pictures or words. Currently I'm reading a very interesting book called 'thinking in pictures' which is written by someone with Autism....

IndigoBell no my son doesn't think in pictures but he does see things in numbers...

If it's any consolation he didn't actually produce any writing until Y6 (and the Ed Psych said he was fine ) so I can understand how frustrating it is for you and your son.

mrz - Not sure if you already know this, but I just read about seeing things in numbers this morning:

(From Thinking in Pictures by Temple Grandin)

All people on the spectrum think in details, but there are three basic categories of specialized brains.

1. Visual thinkers think in photographically specific images... Learning algebra was impossible and a foreign language difficult.

1. Music and math thinkers think in patterns. These people often excel at maths, chess and computer programming. Some of these individuals have explained to me that they see patterns and relationships between patterns and numbers instead of photographic images. As children they may play music by ear.

1. Verbal logic thinkers think in word details. They often love history and foreign languages.

Very good book for anyone who's interested in kids on the spectrum.

IndigoBell have you read the response to Temple Grandin's assumption?

60% of the non autistic population are visual thinkers with approx 30% of the general pop being verbal thinkers ...

I know from experience how easy it is to fall into the " this sounds just like my child " trap ... my advice would be to treat all theories with caution. By all means try things but don't pin all your hopes on it being the answer because for every claim out there, there is another that challenges or disproves.

mrz - absolutely, for every claim there is another that challenges or disproves.

Which is why all I can do is keep trying things out. Because there is no 'truth' about what works or doesn't work. ( Often just different people paying for the study...)

Treating all theories with caution is not a good idea - treat all theories with wonderment and awe :) This is the way you will learn the most. Being open to different viewpoints...

As for pinning my hopes - well without my hopes I would be sunk in despair :) Life's pretty rubbish if your kids don't fit into conventional moulds... You have to keep hoping that something will help them fit into the school system.

Trusting the professionals - that is the biggest mistake I have made so far :)

As the mother of a child who most definitely doesn't fit the mould my mistake was in pinning my hopes on promises made in the books and articles I read.
Yes some professionals let him down but others were worth their weight in gold.

I hope you find your answers

I am all for phonics being taught at school but at home - if my dd needs to know a word - I will just give it to her. I can't sound out words, I am never going to get round to find out how synthetic phonics works and she has always been a good reader.

(purple at end of reception, aged just 5 and 'free-reader' just before sixth birthday).

Plus, they do tons of phonics in her school, all the way through infants, so I don't see it's my place to give it much thought.

And it's very difficult to get worried about reading methods when you have a child whose reading improves without much 'formal' effort from us. Plus, if she is going to read to me for pleasure I(last night it was the Worst Witch) I'm not going to ask her to sound out 'occasion' when we're all tucked up in her bed and it's 11pm in the middle of the summer holidays!

Now, if I had a child who was struggling, I might look into it all more.

Phonics is only one of the ways in which children learn to read and it should not be relied on too heavily otherwise children learn to decode and don't think about what they are reading. Totally disagree with Malaleuca's post - laborious sounding out does not lead to fluency - it kills fluency! What leads to fluency is children who are offered meaningful, interesting texts who are encouraged to use phonics, pictures, context and meaning to decode. Imagine you were learning to read using a new alphabet you would use all these skills to help you decode the words. Guessing is not being lazy it is a child making sense of what they are reading. That's what a skilled reader would do if they were to read something new to them.
Finally, relax keep the pressure off your child, enjoy the process and read little and often with them and to them. If a child has to sound out more than three or four words on a page the text is too difficult. With tinies it is also very important to play with words and use lots of rhymes. Have taught hundreds of children to read over the years!

Sorry ministripe but that is rubbish. Phonics teaches children to decode words and promotes fluency.