Why is MN so obsessed with reception reading?

[skiphopskidaddle]

It's a marathon, not a sprint. It doesn't matter if Johnny is on red and Amy is on lilac as (a) different schools go at different paces and (b) children develop different skills in different order.

I can't quite believe the number of reception reading threads I've seen this week along the lines of "what colour book is yours on?". I'm going over to the behaviour/development board now to check for obsessive posting about when children learn to walk. Cos it doesn't matter either, in general.

Masha, you made this ludicrous statement:

"Anyone interested in testing if making English spelling more regular would make learning to read easier, can do so with any 5-6 yr old who has just learned basic English phonics and test him or her with more sensibly spelt tricky words, such as 'hav, giv, liv, sed, frend, enny, menny, tuch, tuf, cof, throo, wun, dun, wimmen, wunce, lo, mo, sno, sho, baut, caut, faut", i.e. with any of the hundreds of words which children now spend a cupl of yeers lerning after mastering basic fonnics."

And then said this:

"Oh dear!
The notion that 'all material' would need to be reprinted at the cost of billions is too silly to comment on."

How exactly can we change the English spelling system as you suggest, without reprinting everything? Fgs, just changing 'one' to your more crazy 'wun' would require nearly all books to be reprinted.

Plenty of languages have undergone orthographical rationalisation and nobody has lost an eye in the process.

And how is Wun 'more crazy' than One?
Books are themselves a dying breed anyhow.

Wrt the sounds above -- many of those sounds come up in sight words that are hardly ever sounded out, but learned almost like pictograms. One problem in rationalisation would be the number of homophones in English and the issue of understanding according to context as opposed to understanding based on spelling quirks.

I suspect that even with rationalisation, there would still be children who just don't learn to read despite the best will and effort in the world.

Masha said:

"It is even more incredible that a phonics guru like Debbie Hepplewhite does not appear to know the main English spelling rules. Nobody who does would come up with silly spellings like
"simplur tooo spend bilyuns of pOWnds on reprinting all writun wurd mateereal in the English langwaj"."

1. What makes you think it's Debbie?

2. What makes the spellings any sillier than yours? They are all perfectly good letter/sound correspondences.

"Wrt the sounds above -- many of those sounds come up in sight words that are hardly ever sounded out, but learned almost like pictograms. "

Maybe they are 'learned like pictograms' where you come from, but not when a child is getting good synthetic phonics instruction.

"Wun" is crazy because it is spelt 'one'!

And books - thankfully - are nowhere near a dying breed in primary schools. I hope I will have retired by the time Kindles go home in bookbags Kindlebags!

Rough
Thought
Through
Though
Slaughter
Laughter

all best learned.

And may I ask what you know about 'where I come from' and how such a point may be relevant?

mathanxiety,

I would be very surprised if you are not from the USA.

The teaching of reading in the USA is even more 'look & say', 'Whole language' based than the UK (so I am informed by USA friends).

I couldn't truly say that that what you have said about learning to read gives me big clues about where you have been most strongly influenced, because there are plenty of UK MNers who believe much the same as you do about 'undecodable' words, but, you are very well informed about the US system and seem to imply that it is superior to the UK...

Am I wrong?

Rough
Thought
Through
Though
Slaughter
Laughter

all best learned through phonics

But how are they taught phonetically mrz? There isn't a 'f' in 'rough' etc. Sorry for sounding stupid!

Children in Y1 (sometimes begin in reception) are taught the different ways sounds can be written in English and know that the sound /f/ can be written "f" "ff" "ph" and "gh". They also know /oa/ can be written "oa" "ow" "ough" "oe" "o_e" "eau" and "o" ...

www.phonicsinternational.com/unit1_pdfs/The%20English%20Alphabetic%20Code%20-%20complete%20picture%20chart.pdf

Brilliant link mrz. THANK YOU! How would you use this picture chart with your classes?I will definitely use this - this is the sort of information parents REALLY need!

Don't thank me thank Debbie Hepplewhite for all the hard work... same Debbie Hepplewhite of whom Masha said Debbie Hepplewhite does not appear to know the main English spelling rules

There isn't a 'f' in 'phone' either, magdalene

the most vital thing to understand about phonics teaching is that the 'sound' is the most important component; the letters and groups of letters are just different ways of representing sounds.

Because we have taken thousands of words into English from other languages we have ended up with a number of different ways to spell most of the 44ish 'sounds' of which English words are comprised. That is because the originating language used the alphabet to encode sounds differently from the way the English did (think of the word 'pain' in English and in French; same alphabet, completely different sound value for the 'ai'): we not only took the words, we kept their spellings, too (though masha believes it is all the fault of mediaeval printers...). We are also still encoding sounds which have completely disappeared from words, the 'ough' and 'augh' words are prime examples (you can still hear the sound the 'gh' represented in many of these words in the Scottish 'loch'), also 'know' which originated in Old English as 'genaw'.

I would be the first to agree that we have ended up with a strange and very opaque orthography, but it drips history and, if taught in a structured and systematic way, is not too difficult to learn. As thousands of SP taught children can evidence (gawd, what a clumsy construction! )

.....a 'f'

In reception I teach the 44 phonemes of English (using one common way of writing them). Once children know these I begin teaching the alternative ways the 44 phonemes can be represented ...this continues in Y1 and for some children in Y2. I use Debbie's resources with my children because they are clear and comprehensive.

With respect mrz, despite teaching irregular sounds in phonics, I think most children will just learn the tricky words eventually, rather than relying on phonics to decode them. It takes longer to master sounds like ough and remember them than it does to just learn words with them in eg thought, cough, bough etc as they vary so much and there are not that many words containing them.

I'm actually Irish, but my DCs all learned to read very successfully in the US, despite the appalling accents of their teachers (to my ear) and the difference in vowel pronunciation between school and home. I felt, perhaps with no justification, that my Irish pronunciation of combinations like WH made phonic awareness easier for them. All English accents are not made equal when it comes to teaching phonics.

The use of sight words to be simply learned in the US makes far more sense imo than trying to get students to try sounding out words like:
Ghost
Rough
Thought
Through
Though
Thorough
Slaughter
Laughter
Ought
Caught

where the vowel sounds don't follow a pattern and the GH sounds just serve to confuse too.

I believe that rigid adherence to any one system doesn't serve the best interests of all students, all the time. Maybe most students most of the time, but each individual student goes to school all bright eyed and bushy tailed and it's a huge pity to see them come out of Reception with a poor self image because the expectations placed upon them were not appropriate for them at that age, whereas waiting a year and exposing them to more pre-reading experiences might have made a big difference. Waiting a year isn't going to hurt those who are ready at four either. Hurrying up the exposure to formal teaching of reading just creates unnecessary academic casualties.

That aspect of the US system puzzled me most when I first sent DD1 to school, having been through the dog eat dog Irish system myself, but in time I came to realise the wisdom of it. DD1 was about two years ahead of most of her classmates when she started kindergarten at 5; she simply forged ahead on her own at no cost to her and with no loss of motivation thanks to teachers who gave her extra work and a curriculum that concentrated on social and emotional aspects of the children's development as well as academic. The classmates caught up according to ability. DD1 was always one of the highest achievers as were two of her friends who also started out ahead of the pack, but plenty of the 'slower' children at age 5 did very well too. Catching them at an age when the teacher could be pretty sure they were all ready played a large part in maximising their chances of actually learning, as far as I could see.

Bunny Wunny of course the more times a child reads a word the easier it is to recognise and they reading it becomes faster and automatic that is not the same as learning the word by sight.

abought
aforethought
afterthought
afterthoughts
although
besought
bethought
borough
boroughs
bough
boughed
boughpot
boughpots
boughs
bought
boughten
breakthrough
breakthroughs
brougham
broughams
brought
chough
choughs
clough
cloughs
cough
coughed
cougher
coughers
coughing
coughs
dogfought
dough
doughboy
doughboys
doughface
doughfaces
doughier
doughiest
doughlike
doughnut
doughnutlike
doughnuts
doughs
dought
doughtier
doughtiest
doughtily
doughtiness
doughtinesses
doughty
doughy
dreadnought
dreadnoughts
drought
droughtier
droughtiest
droughtiness
droughtinesses
droughts
droughty
enough
enoughs
forethought
forethoughtful
forethoughtfully
forethoughtfulness
forethoughtfulnesses
forethoughts
fought
foughten
furlough
furloughed
furloughing
furloughs
gunfought
handwrought
hiccough
hiccoughed
hiccoughing
hiccoughs
infought
interborough
interboroughs
interwrought
lough
loughs
merrythought
merrythoughts
methought
misthought
nought
noughts
ought
oughted
oughting
oughts
outbought
outfought
outthought
outwrought
overbought
overthought
overwrought
plough
ploughed
plougher
ploughers
ploughing
ploughs
rebought
refought
resought
rethought
rewrought
rough
roughage
roughages
roughcast
roughcasting
roughcasts
roughdried
roughdries
roughdry
roughdrying
roughed
roughen
roughened
roughening
roughens
rougher
roughers
roughest
roughhew
roughhewed
roughhewing
roughhewn
roughhews
roughhouse
roughhoused
roughhouses
roughhousing
roughing
roughish
roughleg
roughlegs
roughly
roughneck
roughnecks
roughness
roughnesses
roughrider
roughriders
roughs
roughshod
slough
sloughed
sloughier
sloughiest
sloughing
sloughs
sloughy
sough
soughed
soughing
soughs
sought
sourdough
sourdoughs
thorough
thoroughbass
thoroughbasses
thoroughbrace
thoroughbraces
thoroughbred
thoroughbreds
thorougher
thoroughest
thoroughfare
thoroughfares
thoroughgoing
thoroughly
thoroughness
thoroughnesses
thoroughpin
thoroughpins
thoroughwort
thoroughworts
though
thought
thoughtful
thoughtfully
thoughtfulness
thoughtfulnesses
thoughtless
thoughtlessly
thoughtlessness
thoughtlessnesses
thoughts
thoughtway
thoughtways
through
throughither
throughly
throughother
throughout
throughput
throughputs
throughway
throughways
tough
toughed
toughen
toughened
toughening
toughens
tougher
toughest
toughie
toughies
toughing
toughish
toughly
toughness
toughnesses
toughs
toughy
trough
troughs
unbought
underbought
unfought
unrough
unsought
unthought
wherethrough
wrought
yarborough
yarboroughs

Children happily accept gh - wh - kn - gn - wr etc

That list looks impressive but really there is only about 25 unique words in it.

I really do not see the sense of teaching a child to phonetically decode 'bough' and then expecting them to decode 'though', and then 'trough', then 'rough'. Then the two pronunciations of 'bow'...

Sight word teaching example of appropriate Dolch lists for different stages here makes much more sense, as part of a reading programme that also includes phonics for those words that do follow the rules. Mastery of the Dolch words in particular can speed up reading acquisition a lot as they account for 50 to 70% of all text -- the 200 Dolch words; 95 nouns. In the early years, my DCs' spelling tests and a lot of their workbook work consisted of Dolch words. The three who were not reading by the time they reached kindergarten got off the ground fast with this practice.

Children accept the gh, wh, kn, etc combinations, but they learn many of the words with these combinations by sight, not phonetically. Recognising different words by sight the more you read is reading by sight. Pronouncing bough and dough correctly is not reading phonetically. It is recall through familiarity.

I really do not see the sense of teaching a child to phonetically decode 'bough' and then expecting them to decode 'though', and then 'trough', then 'rough'. and no good teacher would do that it isn't how it works.
Then the two pronunciations of 'bow'...
and two ways to pronounce "sow" and two ways to pronounce "read" and two ways to pronounce "close" and two ways to pronounce "live" ... because they are homographs and ...

"bough" would be taught with other /ou/ words "though" with /oa/ words ...

To go back to Mathanxiety's earlier point - I'd really like to fast-forward to the time when we do know how reading develops in the brain - nothing I've read here so far explains how reading can suddenly just 'click'. How does a child go from counting out a CVC word to suddenly being able to sight-read words like 'through', 'dangerous' and 'friendly'?

I do think good phonics teaching is at the root of it all, but teachers and schools need to have the flexibility to recognise when a child has made that leap and adjust their strategies accordingly - and it has to be said in my experience, they do.

I just don't think that when it comes to reading there is a silver bullet.