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.

In Italy they start reading at school at Age 6......Before that its play play colouring ,painting sticking etc etc letter recognition,play , number recognition, singing dancing play and more play ....

and once again you refuse to recognise phonics is taught as part of wider language experiences intended to develop children's vocabulary and understanding of spoken language.

Rosa letter recognition is exactly what we are talking about here ... linking the sounds of language to the letter shape.

Mathanxiety the method I use is multi sensory too, involving visual, auditory, kinesthetic and tactile elements ...

Welsh practice compared to English with a reference to a Cambridge Primary Review critique of English practice.

One key finding of this report was:
'New structures. Strengthen early years provision; extend foundation stage to age six; replace KS 1 and 2 by a single primary phase; examine feasibility of raising school starting age to six in line with these changes and international research and practice.'

Another:
'Tackle unfinished curriculum business. Put implementation of governmentʼs Rose review on hold pending consideration of the Cambridge Reviewʼs more comprehensive analysis of the problems to be fixed and its proposals for a national framework of eight domains of knowledge, skill and enquiry combined with a locally-responsive ʻcommunity curriculumʼ, all driven by the proposed 12 aims.'

There is a huge difference between letter recognition (in Italian schools) and letter-sound correspondence, Mrz.

Wrt France:

'The reforms of the primary school curriculum which began to be implemented in September 2002 redefined the areas of activity followed in nursery school into five. These were:

* Language at the centre of learning
* Living together (vivre ensemble)
* Movement and expression with the body
* Discovering the world (découvrir le monde)
* Imagining, feeling and creating'

'From September 2002, teachers were required to devote two-and-a-half hours daily to reading and writing activities for children in the final year of the école maternelle ( aged 5 - 6 ). This concentration on literacy skills aimed to provide children with a good grounding in literacy and to prevent future problems. Children continued to follow this daily allocation throughout the basic learning cycle (the final year of pre-primary education (5- to 6-year-olds) and the first two years of primary education, aged 6-8).'

However, from 2008 the école maternelle curriculum aims are:
'The main educational activities in pre-elementary education are expected to promote communication and oral and written expression. A child aged 2 or 3, entering pre-compulsory education, is expected to be ready, at age 5, to coordinate his physical activities and language, to express himself with relative ease and to write his/her name.'
-- So the children are hardly going to be doing much phonics, by the looks of things. Promoting does not mean achieving. Promoting means laying a foundation for the long run. (If nothing else, the French curriculum is exceedingly incremental in design, with each phase building on the previous one, and each early phase designed as a foundation.)

The curriculum from 2008 is:

Introduction to the written word

Becoming a student

Movement and expression with the body

Discovering the world

Perceiving, feeling imagining, and creating

'Introduction to the written word' that sees as its end point the ability of a child to write his or her name is not going to include daily phonics. Aiming to develop mastery of language does not mean teaching phonics. It means developing mastery of oral language.

The French curriculum is positively elegant compared to the British peasoup masquerading as a plan.

An illustration of the fact (shown clearly here on this thread) that there is a fundamental misapprehension of what the term 'language' means in education in the UK:
'Yet there remains a historically-rooted tendency in England to detach talk from reading and writing and indeed make it subservient ? so much so, that the 2003 launch document of the primary national strategy mentioned talk just once in 79 pages -- and we are not convinced that some of those who nowadays tell teachers to give greater attention to ?speaking and listening? fully understand the fundamental nature of what is required. In many other countries, in contrast, oracy and literacy are not just inseparable but are also integrated within a more generous conception of language education. Bearing in mind the evidence about the importance of talk in the development of the brain and the child?s cognitive powers, and about the character of talk in English primary classrooms, this is a matter of considerable importance.'

None of your three examples of early years curricula include explicit phonics instruction. Mrz...

In the école maternelle, whatever structure there may be to the day is entirely up to the teacher. There are no set books or materials -- it's up to the teacher to create whatever environment he or she wishes, in line with the general aims. A list of general aims (which is what you posted you posted) doth not a structure make.

just as there are no set books or materials in the English curriculum and the structure of the day and organisation of the environment is entirely up to the teacher/school.

I'm afraid I must disagree with you over the école maternelle as you can't judge from a list of aims which were simply to demonstrate the similarities between many early years curricula.

Perhaps you should visit a French school rather than say "by the look of things" I can recommend out twin school just a few minutes outside Paris ...

So what exactly were you saying about structure in the école maternelle? Ah yes -- 'The école maternelle is much more structured than the three examples I posted'. But then you go on to say that the English Reception day (one of the examples) is amazingly similar to the French école maternelle day 'just as there are no set books or materials in the English curriculum and the structure of the day and organisation of the environment is entirely up to the teacher/school.' You need to make up your mind.

The end point of the école maternelle's alleged relentless pursuit of literacy is to have children able to write their own names at age 5 and acquire over the 2 or 3 years in the programme an enriched vocabulary, but not through a phonics centered day. The aim for Reception children wrt literacy is to have them familiar with letter-sound recognition by the end of the year. That is a huge difference in aim and involves a huge difference in practice. The language component in French preschool is the primary one, with literacy seen as an offshoot that comes later, whereas in England the oral element is 'subservient' to the aim of literacy (Cambridge Review). Oral language is encouraged for its own sake in France. You and others have repeatedly called oral language and all the singing, rhymes, and other oral activities of early childhood education essentially 'phonics' on this thread.

'Rosa, letter recognition is exactly what we are talking about here ... linking the sounds of language to the letter shape.' Again, there is a difference between the two, and because you seem to think one = the other, I do not think you really understand the oral aim of the French preschool.

Here is Bonsoir's post on the école maternelle (to refresh your memory) which indicates the primacy of oral language and the general aim of building that oral foundation: '[the école maternelle] is primarily focused on socialisation skills and the acquisition of oral fluency in French by exposing children to a rich language environment. French école maternelle is quite successful at ironing out the differences between children and ensuring they all have a good, broad and deep oral language base by the time they are taught to read. French children learn to read very quickly when they are taught in the first year of primary (aged 6).'

Mathanxiety have you even seen the English phonics programme published by the government? - a few statements from it

Enjoying and sharing books
Experience shows that children benefit hugely by exposure to books from an early age.
Right from the start, lots of opportunities should be provided for children to engage with books that fire their imagination and interest. They should be encouraged to choose and peruse books freely as well as sharing them when read by an adult.
Enjoying and sharing books leads to children seeing them as a source of pleasure and interest and motivates them to value reading.

Enlivening stories
Involve the children in songs and stories, enlivened by role-play, props and repeated sounds, for example acting out:

Action songs
Singing songs and action rhymes is a vital part of Phase One activities and should be an everyday event. Children need to develop a wide repertoire of songs and rhymes. Be sure to include multi-sensory experiences such as action songs in which the children have to add claps, knee pats and foot stamps or move in a particular way^.

and the suggested activities

List of activities*
Aspect 1: General sound discrimination ? environmental sounds
Listening walks
A listening moment
Drum outdoors
Teddy is lost in the jungle
Sound lotto 1
Sound stories
Mrs Browning has a box
Describe and find it
Socks and shakers
Favourite sounds
Enlivening stories
Aspect 2: General sound discrimination ? instrumental sounds
New words to old songs
Which instrument?
Adjust the volume
Grandmother?s footsteps
Matching sound makers
Matching sounds
Story sounds
Hidden instruments
Musical show and tell
Animal sounds
Aspect 3: General sound discrimination ? body percussion
Action songs
Listen to the music
Roly poly
Follow the sound
Noisy neighbour 1
Noisy neighbour 2
Words about sounds
The Pied Piper
Aspect 4: Rhythm and rhyme
Rhyming books
Learning songs and rhymes
Listen to the beat
Our favourite rhymes
Rhyming soup
Rhyming bingo
Playing with words
Rhyming pairs
Songs and rhymes
Finish the rhyme
Rhyming puppets
Odd one out
I know a word
Aspect 5: Alliteration
I spy names
Sounds around
Making aliens
Digging for treasure
Bertha goes to the zoo
Tony the train?s busy day
Musical corners
Our sound box/bag
Mirror play
Silly soup
Aspect 6: Voice sounds
Mouth movements
Voice sounds
Making trumpets
Metal Mike
Chain games
Target sounds
Whose voice?
Sound lotto
Give me a sound
Sound story time
Watch my sounds
Animal noises
Singing songs
Aspect 7: Oral blending and segmenting
Toy talk
Clapping sounds
Which one?
Cross the river
I spy
Segmenting
Say the sounds

'Rosa, letter recognition is exactly what we are talking about here ... the statement in the EYFS curriculum is ^Hear and say the initial sound in
words and know which letters represent some of the sounds^. (expectation for 60+ months of age)

Here is Bonsoir's post on the école maternelle (to refresh your memory) which indicates the primacy of oral language and the general aim of building that oral foundation: '[the école maternelle] is primarily focused on socialisation skills and the acquisition of oral fluency in French by exposing children to a rich language environment.

Another similarity them mathanxiety as oral language (speaking & listening) are also give high priority in English reception classes. The aim is to embed the
activities in a language-rich provision that serves the best interests of the children by fully recognising their propensity for play and its importance in their development.

IME, and IMO, French école maternelle is quite different from English pre-school and reception. There is no doubt at all in my mind that the formal teaching of reading takes places later in France than in England. This is greatly to the advantage of many children who, for whatever reason, are not in a French-language rich environment outside school, such as many of the DCs in my DD's school (75% of the DCs at the school have more than one language to contend with). It is not, IMO, to the advantage of socio-economically privileged monolingual DCs (like my DSSs), who get very bored at école maternelle.

I think the stated aims have many similarities Bonsoir but I agree the delivery is very different.

Ah, I don't think the stated aims are the same. And the timetable for delivery of basic technical skills is very different.

In France you regularly hear/read teachers saying that their job is to teach automatismes or réflexes. Thinking for yourself is a crime against the Ministère de l'éducation nationale.

''Rosa, letter recognition is exactly what we are talking about here ... the statement in the EYFS curriculum is ^Hear and say the initial sound in
words and know which letters represent some of the sounds^. (expectation for 60+ months of age)'

FYI, Mrz, 'letter recognition' means seeing the letter A and identifying it as A, the letter B and identifying it as B. It has nothing to do with the sound the letters make or associating letters with sounds. It is learning the names of the letters in the alphabet, not the sounds associated with the letters.

The stated aims in England and France are not alike. Oral language for its own sake and in order to greatly facilitate the (much) later acquisition of reading is the priority in the école maternelle. In England the phonics are to be embedded in the activities, which are akin to the spoonful of sugar making the medicine go down. The primary aim is to teach letter-sound recognition, not enrich the language and vocabulary.

The inclusion of segmenting in your outline illustrates the focus of the play. It is not play for its own sake and if it is a socialisation aid or a language aid well and good, but the central aim of the English Reception class is letter-sound association.

Is that your definition mathanxiety ?

Bonsoir the stated aims are similar in that England has 6 areas France 5 but roughly equate

Personal Social and Emotional development
*Socialization/Vivre Ensemble
Communication Language & Literacy
Language (Spoken and Written)/Le langage au coeur des apprentisages
Problem Solving Reasoning and Numeracy & Knowledge and Understanding of the world
Environment Discovery/Découvrir le monde
Physical Development
Motor Skills/Agir et s'exprimer avec son corps
Creative Development
Creative Arts/La sensibilité, l'imagination, la création

In England the phonics are to be embedded in the activities, which are akin to the spoonful of sugar making the medicine go down.

This illustrates your own prejudice, that learning letter/sound corespondences and blending to make simple words is not to be enjoyed. It's one of the major intellectual challenges to face us all. Why should it not be relished?

As I've said many times, I've nothing against phonics. I question phonics for 4 year olds, the rationale for which has not been explained. Why not leave it to 5 or 6 year olds for relishing?

It's only your opinion mathanxiety that YR is not suitable. The indicator is whether children can talk in sentences or not. Nothing fancy or complicated about that.

mathanxiety Mon 07-Mar-11 22:36:00

As I've said many times, I've nothing against phonics. I question phonics for 4 year olds, the rationale for which has not been explained. Why not leave it to 5 or 6 year olds for relishing?

Why not leave it until 8-9?

Teachers in Early Years often use the phrase "stages not Ages" as you can see by reading MN and other forums many parents (your own included) were ready to read or indeed reading before the age of 4 ( you keep saying 4 but nationally most children in reception classes will be 5 before they start learning phonics)

as you can see by reading MN and other forums many parents (your own included) were ready to read or indeed reading before the age of 4 ( you keep saying 4 but nationally most children in reception classes will be 5 before they start learning phonics)

But the unspoken theme seems to be "It's fine for our rather privileged children, but not for anyone else's"

...but as far as I can make out Mathanxiety's children didn't learn to read with phonics . Nobody taught them letter/sound correspondences or how to blend, leastways not in a class with a lot of other children.

Scratching my head at your post, MaizieD. Disadvantaged children (in the sense that their exposure to language either in quantity or quality is lacking) probably need more than a quick filling in in Reception to make up for the language and vocabulary deficit that often accompanies socio-economic disadvantage. I find the attempt to introduce some sort of class warfare idea quite snide. The theme you think you see here in my posts is unspoken because it does not exist except in your mind.

The idea that most children will be 5 before they start learning phonics doesn't exactly fit with the assertion that it is 'stages before ages' that determines when a child will begin learning phonics. Same with the question 'Why not leave it to 8-9?' The mother on the thread I linked to had a child who had turned 4 in August and was struggling with his phonics learning. There have been other threads where parents complained about their children's frustration with phonics. It is possible that your classroom is a model of waiting for readiness ('readiness' being a concept that has been consistently ridiculed on this thread, however) that all classrooms should seek to emulate.

Malaleuca, there's talking in sentences and talking in sentences. What sort of sentences are we looking out for here? A sentence like 'I want lunch' is not the same quality of sentence as 'Mummy, I'm actually quite hungry, and could I have a bigger lunch than just that sandwich and banana?" Children need a wide vocabulary and exposure to many different aspects of language structure (this is what is aimed for in the école maternelle) in order to internalise the more complex rules of language before embarking on their academic lives and the complex language they will eventually encounter with any hope of a sustained trajectory of success.

Disadvantaged children (in the sense that their exposure to language either in quantity or quality is lacking) probably need more than a quick filling in in Reception to make up for the language and vocabulary deficit that often accompanies socio-economic disadvantage.

And I, and I think mrz and Feeenie, would say that teaching these children to read as part of a language rich environment will contribute to helping to alleviate that deficit as the written media ultimtely provides the richest language experience of all.

I'm also scratching my head at your post. All the 'anti teaching other people's 4 year olds to read' posters are insisting that Reception needs to be a language rich, reading free, zone in order to develop the skills of the 'disadvantaged' to 'reading readiness' pitch. You seem to be saying that even that isn't enough; probably need more than a quick filling in in Reception

There are many schools in urban areas which have to teach children to read, in English, who have no knowledge at all of English because it is not their home language or they are very recent immigrants. Are you suggesting that it is a waste of time trying to teach them to read because they don't have any English vocabulary at all, or, that they should have a couple of years of oral language 'enrichment' before they start to learn?

Children need a wide vocabulary and exposure to many different aspects of language structure

Which is exactly what happens in good nursery and reception classes ... although you choose to ignore it.