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.

mashabell - not a bad idea for everyone who learns to read, but a pain for those who are used to the current spellings.

Some new spellings were introduced in Germany some 15 years ago.

Mine did Dolch words as well as phonics (easier just to learn the funny ones than undertake widespread spelling reform).

Ds's school did only basic phonic sounds and mark making from the January of the Reception year.

We were encouraged to read every day with our child but not to make them read if they had no interest. There was absolutely NO expectation that a child would be able to read in any way by the end of reception. Some could read, a couple could read very well but at least thre quarters of the children could not.

In year 1 this term, there is no child who is not at least on stage 2 for reading. I know this because ds is on the bottom set for reading and he has recently moved to stage 2. All the children who were having difficulty had a real spurt in the last couple of months.

I would imagaine that even in schools where reading is pushed more strongly in reception that there are a couple of children who are only at stage 2 in year 1.

Ds's school do an awful lot of basic phonics and small group work on literacy and maths in year 1 though. There is very little of anything else in the mornings though they do lots of fun stuff too but this is usually in the afternoons.

Rather late to return but as I was asked to comment on a couple of things and do so hate to be rude

Evolucy.

Yes I did mention pre school which does take 4 -7. But we are talking about reception. Reception is right there in the thread title. So my comments refer to reception. All of the prep schools I know do not focus on reading in reception.

Allchildrenreading. You would think. But school tends to require that they use these skills in a specific way. If they are learning at 7 the way they learn at home at age 3 there would be something of a problem. Surely.

Pre-prep

Maybe because (a) MNs tend to be people whose lives have been enriched by reading and wnat their kids to do this quickly and (b) because reading seems such a simple skill-and is indeed grasped by all exposed to adequate teaching-that everyone seems to think it must be easy to teach, that there is a 'common sense' approach that will sort it. That common sense approach is phonics+sitting reading a book as soon as possible.

Underlying all that, though, is a huge disrespect for the skills and professionalism of foundation and primary teachers, who are held as mere technicians who should be doing one thing, with little recognition that judgments and coherence are needed. Government guidelines are clear, but then they were with Searchlights and whole-word recognition too. Even assuming synthetic (over other forms of) phonics then there are complaints about what surrounds it-the RRF, heavy advocates for phonics and heavily influencing Rose, believed in late introduction of books or texts for children to read (not have read to them) because they offer other strategies to phonetic decoding, to an outcry of 'no books, what madness'. And then, people ask, why is DC pissing about waving bells and tambourines in a literacy lesson (the argument being it would help hear sounds). The coherence and assessment of approaches overall, the fine distinctions made about group and individual outcomes, resourcing, are all washed away against a model formed around ill-informed guesswork and one child.

I know teachers on this site will passionately disagree, will argue form experience that they do know what works, and that the problem is others don't follow it. But, surely, we can't KNOW for what MN represents, which is individual children whose parents have individual expectations? Be good to have that acknowledged by both sides, rather than all this 'DC's teacher's a thick undereducated morn stuff'.

I'm not altogether sure what you are driving at, AdelaofBlois, but I have to take issue with this:

"the RRF, heavy advocates for phonics and heavily influencing Rose, believed in late introduction of books or texts for children to read (not have read to them) because they offer other strategies to phonetic decoding, to an outcry of 'no books, what madness'. "

The RRF has been persistently and deliberately misrepresented over this issue. The RRF has NEVER advocated 'late introduction of books or texts for children'. All that they have consistently asked is that children are not given texts that they are incapable of reading because they do not have sufficient phonic knowledge.

Hysterical cries of 'keeping books from children!' are a key part of the 'anti-phonics' propaganda. I suppose it is too much to ask that statements such as this are checked for their veracity before they are mindlessly elevated to the status of a meme.

In fact, as the first 6 letter/sound correspondences taught (usually s,a,t,p,i,n)enable children to read over 100 words after little more than 1 week of instruction, and a correspondence for each of the 40+ phonemes is taught in just over a term, children progress from reading words, to sentences and to books (all decodable) within a very short time. What is more, their reading is secure and independent, not based on guessing, pictures etc., and the vocabulary is very varied as authors are not restricted to a small list of words which are constantly repeated as children must learn them 'by sight'.

"And then, people ask, why is DC pissing about waving bells and tambourines in a literacy lesson "

The RRF also asks this as it is a complete waste of time as far as learning to read is concerned

It's all moot until more is understood about the the neurological - biological processes involved in learning to read are properly understood.

@maizieD

First, I wasn't seeking to ascribe the 'sounds' approach to the RRF, apologies if I seemed to do so. But, I don't see how they can know this is a complete waste of time. I wouldn't do it, but it's standard practice in SaLT to help children spot sounds, and in some example programmes. You might be able to direct me to something recent, but I can't find any random controlled study which has any statistically significant data on this-might be helping, might be hindering, or might be helping but unnecessary, the research just isn't there. So surely you're left with individual judgments, or expressions of belief, not clear evidence?

The book thing was misleading, and I know it's been an anti-phonics attack. But in practice, what they say does often mean the introduction of books LATER than in other approaches, and later than some MNers would wish. There's a historical legacy to resourcing, and facing decisions about whether to delay introducing books at all for longer than they would want if they aren't to expose children to some words they can't sound or too much guessing form context. Again, that seems a judgement call, given two undesirables, not a point of faith. And, again, the 2005 literature review was quite clear that 'only' has only been shown to be possible (and you succinctly state how), not desirable.

What I'm driving at is not that I don't wish to follow a phonics programme, or to denigrate the RRF, it's that the actual evidence base for such distinctions is extremely weak, will remain so for a long time, and that even beyond that there are practical compromises to be made between sub-optimal practices, all of which will always mean variation even if every teacher does their best.

And for a parent of, say, the reader who is capable of reading rubbish fluently because they seem to have no sense of their few inaccuracies, the instinct is that teaching's been too atomising; whilst the parent of the child in the same class, taught the same way, who misreads 'It's tough about' as 'I thought about' wonders why they've progressed to text so early. And then they post, ignoring the myriad of decisions that went into what was done.

"But in practice, what they say does often mean the introduction of books LATER than in other approaches, and later than some MNers would wish."

Without wishing to be rude to MNers, why would introducing books 'later than some of them would like' be a particularly contentious issue or a valid reason for not teaching children to read with synthetic phonics?

I can't believe that MNers would be so daft as to want their child to be forced through books that they couldn't read (or that any teacher would be equally daft enough to with-hold books from children who very obviously could already read, which is another accusation often levelled at SP teaching).

As for the 'listening to sounds' bit. The fact that speech impaired children do a lot of sound spotting does not make it a valid or useful pre- reading exercise for children with 'normal' speech. If a child has learned to speak then it has already demonstrated that it is able to discriminate speech sounds (which it must be able to do in order to say words correctly). As this skill becomes redundant once they have learned to speak they do have to relearn it in order to be able to segment and blend, but this can be done effectively and efficiently as they learn the letter/sound correspondences. There is not need for it to be done separately, nor for it to involve listening to non-speech sounds. Indeed, although I know that Speech Therapists don't like the order of introduction of the 'sounds' used by most SP programmes, they do like the fact that SP teaches discrimination of phonemes and pure pronunciation.

I do think, however much you seem to believe that SP teaching is all hit and miss and guesswork, that serious, reflective practitioners will pay great attention to what is most effective and what is ineffective in their teaching. SP practitioners have a great deal of respect for evidence.

@mathanxiety

I can assure you that it is not all moot. If we wait for understanding of the neuro-biological processes we could all be long dead before all is revealed. Cognitive psychology research, and related fields, has been presenting evidence for several decades that learning letter/sound correspondences and using the knowledge for segmenting and blending is fundamental to successful reading. Those who chose to ignore it seem to me to be both perverse and irresponsible.

I think there are many questions remaining to be answered by research into neuro-biology, including optimal age to begin teaching reading.

How do you imagine a neurobiologist would approach the question you pose?

My ds was taught to read using mixed methods and failed miserably (literally, he was very miserable). I found it very difficult to help him because I have no idea how I read really, I learned before I started school am a total bookworm and as a child often had no idea how the words I was reading should sound (I knew the meaning but not necessarily the pronunciation). We have dyslexia very strongly in the family and I was not surprised when ds was assessed as dyslexic, with a very large gap between his speaking and reading/writing abilities.

We got some books and an ACE dictionary (which caused no end of problems as ds and I tried to figure out how many syllables words had so we could look them up) and then I was directed towards the Sound Reading System by maverick, a poster here (she's posted on this thread). We found a tutor and ds and I had I think six coaching session over one summer on synthetic phonics taking him right back to the basics and we learned that there was a code to reading which he could learn and understand. It was transformational.

A few years later and he still can't write for toffee, but he really enjoys reading. The little boy who screamed and cried when I tried to get him to do his half hour reading I now have to check after lights out for books snuck into bed. I suspect that if he had been taught synthetic phonics from the get go it would have spared him (and us) three years of misery.

There may of course be more research findings ahead which tailor the teaching of reading even further, but for children like my son (and I suspect my brother, cousins, nephew and aunt as well as all the next generation in my family likely to have difficulties picking up reading) using the evidence we have that synthetic phonics works is really really important.

and thanks again maverick, you really changed my son's life :)

Dear Nooka
Perhaps u would have been able to help your son a little more if u had understood what learning to read English involves: phonics first, then more and more learning to read the words with tricky bits in them (said, was, two, four, do) as wholes. ? The final aim of all reading instruction is to be able to read all common words by sight instantly, as we all do now.

But u may not have been able to help much. My daughter was like u, my son like your son, and how one of my grandchildren is now too.

Some children find it much harder to cope with English spelling inconsistencies like ?go/do, our/four, here/there, are/care, shall/call?. My son and his friend, who is now a doctor, were both like that. Their constant complaint was, ?But this doesn?t make sense!?

My daughter never complained about it and just got on with it. She didn?t seem to notice the irregularities.

I am not interested in what my Ds is doing compared to others in his class. He is the youngest (4) there is one in his class who is 6 this year, its all smoke and mirrors.

People think their child's achievements are a reflection on them, and frankly its boring hearing parents "getting off" on telling people how much better their child is compared to everyone else's.

Just let them be children! Especially as most of the time the mum is making a complete fool of herself.

Oh totally Marsha, but really who remembers how to read once you've mastered it? I didn't think about reading at all. Watching and listening to the tutor (we were required to go too) was fascinating. I didn't really realise English had rules to it at all . I enjoyed reading the research too, very interesting how children learn. Plus talking to my dyslexic relatives about how they thought was interesting too. I do think it is interesting that the dyslexia appeared just two generations back (we are a very academic family so I think it probably would have been noticed, given that it's such a strong trait). I wonder whether reading was taught much later or very differently a few generations ago.

Nooka, in some schools the teaching of reading now starts a little earlier than it used to, but I don't think it has changed much at all. Most teachers are quite sensible and have always understood that it needs mostly phonics to start with and more and more learning of words by sight after that. SP advocates have helped to confuse people by claiming that the main reason for children not coping is insufficient use of phonics. -
Ofsted reported recently that in all the primary schools they visited the teaching of phonics was good.

They are really not helping anyone by denying that English spelling inconsistencies give some children severe reading difficulties. Because of the way English is spelt, children learn to read English in many different ways.

Struggling readers tend to get more help now. Labour increased classroom assistants from 60K in 1997 to about 200K now.

Interesting blog on gifted children's pathways to reading, and responses here. A paper on deaf children and learning reading here.

There is much to be learned from studying populations that fall outside the mainstream, both in order to help those groups and in order to shed some light on how the 'middle' learns and how approaches for all can be improved; the neuro-biological approach seems to offer the possibility of providing the most unassailable results.

Since there's such a difference in practice from one education system to the next, especially wrt the age at which formal teaching begins, and since results vary even in the same classroom, it would be useful to understand exactly what is being done, and why, to our children in the early years of school.

Can research really establish how best to teach something that does not make sense? Can it find a method that works reliably for all children?

There are so many factors which affect learning that depends mainly memorisation, as learning to read and write English beyond a very basic level does.

For everyone who struggles with spelling it's simply a matter of 'look, cover, write, check - if wrong, try again'.

mathanxiety,

The paper on deaf children was very interesting; thank you. But of course, teaching hearing impaired children is bound to be different as they are unable to map speech sounds to letters.

The blog? Anecdotes from non-professionals? I think I prefer something research based. I also found some of the assumptions made about innate intelligence (or lack of) rather suspect. Much of what is classed as 'intelligence' is cultural knowledge and is learned, not innate.

Have you ever looked at Zig Engleman's site?

Try his 'Give your Child a Superior Mind'.

"For everyone who struggles with spelling it's simply a matter of 'look, cover, write, check - if wrong, try again'"

But that doesn't work for every child, masha - and if you think it does, why bother with your mental spelling reform mantra?

If you bother to find out about how to spell using phonic rules, you would find that it is perfectly possible to do so. To insist there are no rules/they are too hard, and to blindly post list after daft list, or to insist we change the whole spelling system instead is just bonkers.

Yes, the blog is anecdotal, and the assumptions about intelligence are iffy. But the observations on the relative unimportance of formal phonics teaching for 'gifted' children ring true imo. The implications for teaching 'normal' children from studies related to deaf children are yet to be determined. There may be implications for phonics instruction. There may be implications for deaf children that cannot be applied. There may be programmes focusing on immersion in spoken English for students found to have a deficit before reading instruction can begin.

I think there are a lot of cultural assumptions in the education system that need to be identified and examined. I read an obit of Brian Jacques recently, and was saddened to see he had been caned in school as a young boy by a teacher who assumed that he couldn't have written something he had presented in school.

I also wonder why schools in the UK insist on a more formal approach than other countries do at an earlier age. Data gained from the biological angle could retire many of the assumptions -- though they could also reinforce some practices.

No matter what, it would be better than the axe-grinding that passes for intelligent debate among interested parties in the education world on best practices -- having as a starting point the individual child would be an improvement on starting from a pov that is informed more by a political or philosophical stance. The Engelman site shows some of the swirling storms that rage around public education int he US and elsewhere (more or less) and why the lack of empirical biological data makes the arguments so circular and so unproductive.

'... that cannot be applied to hearing children ..'

Interesting posts by Mashabell.

Two comments from me.

1. According to most surveys Britain has the lowest reading standards of all developed English-speaking countries. For example, in the OECD survey cited above, Canada, NZ, Australia, USA and Ireland all had higher standards. Canada, NZ and Australia's standards are some of the best in the world. Britain is in the very fortunate position of being part of a group of countries who speak the same language, but one doesn't hear of British research looking at what is actually done in those countries (for example, NZ currently uses something called 'synthetic phonics', but I'm not sure how long it's been doing this).

1. In South Africa, children do not start school until the age of 7, and they don't lean to read or write until then. OK, South Africa is a tricky comparison. Nevertheless, it does have an English-speaking community whose English-language ability is also better than British standards. I don't think it's true that children must learn English younger in order to speak it properly.