Key Words Rant

[crazygracieuk]

My youngest is in Reception.

At our school they get a variety of reading schemes as their reading book which is good and key words to learn.

Key words are sent home in groups of 10 and the teacher sends home another set once they are mastered.

The problem that I have is, the teacher does not consider the words to be mastered if the child sounds it out. I think that's crazy. As an adult I scan all letters in a word before saying it out loud which is surely a form of sounding things out?

Ds is at pink level reading so (quite rightly!) sounds out most words. According to the teacher he's supposed to recognise the word based on it's "shape" .

My motivation in complaining is that ds is getting discouraged and thinks that he's not a good reader as the teacher has sent home the same key words for the last 2 months and he likes to practice them.

AIBU to think that it's perfectly ok to sound out keywords?

Well doesn't that just prove then that there is nothing wrong with a mixture of approaches for many children? You have said that most of us here were probably not taught 'good' synthetic phonics and yet we have all learnt to read successfully, probably without many issues. On the whole perhaps reading attainment has improved over the years, but this is probably the group that struggled in the first place and not the mass who are fine with a combination of methods. I find the whole idea that it has to just be one way very short sighted, not all children learn in the same way.

Well, it is very nice for the children who managed to learn to read despite their poor teaching, but for all those struggling spellers (probably about 50% of 'readers) and the poor 20% who didn't learn at all to read or spell to a standard anywhere near competence the 'mixed methods' approach has proved an absolute disaster. Those of us who have to work with these children aren't quite so smugly complacent. We actually believe in evidence rather than uninformed opinion...

" I find the whole idea that it has to just be one way very short sighted,"

You are entitled to your opinion but fortunately for the children I work with I don't have to take any notice of it.

"not all children learn in the same way."

I am very well aware of this.

Every child has the same body of knowledge to learn and that comprises knowledge of the English alphabetic code and how to apply that knowledge to decoding & blending for reading and segmenting for spelling. Do not confuse the fact that the knowledge to be learned is the same for every child with a 'one size fits all' approach: I can assure you that within the SP teaching principles there are a number of different ways that the same information can be presented to different children. Ways that can be so subtle that the ignorant don't even appreciate the difference.

I knew there was a reason why I thought it best to leave this thread.....the idea that there a few of you who are so adamant that you know best!

I think the point is good phonics instruction helps all children not only those who struggle. It has long term benefits for those children who initially find learning to read easy. No one prevents children who can read when they arrive at school (as some people claim) from reading they are simply taught phonic knowledge and skills alongside and are not explicitly taught to use picture clues or initial sounds to guess at words.

maizie
No, I didn't have proper SP teaching: what I'm calling SP is retrospective, purely my understanding now of what the system was.
I have seen synthetic phonics as an adult, and it's pretty much the kind of thing they were trying to do with us at infant school.
Okay, it was probably not as structured, but as I said, I couldn't get on with it, so I largely ignored it, and being precocious as I was, I learnt to read in my own way.

I stand by my belief, anyway, there is more than one method.
I know a few teachers and TAs of years experience who get annoyed by the "one size fits all" approach.
It works for most but not all.

Phonics works for most children
Mixed methods work for a few children

and I'm speaking as someone who just started reading at an early age without being taught and the mother of a child who was reading before he started nursery without being taught.

Given that there are probably around a quarter of a million words in the English Language, I find it hard to understand how children could be expected to memorise them as sight vocabulary.Initially this might be a way to learn but surely there comes a point where memory is not enough. Children need to be able to decode unknown words phonetically. I agree it might seem complex when there are alternative phonemes to learn, but learn them they do! ( parents seem to have more problems understanding the concept than the children do, who happily accept that /ay/ can be written as /ay/ai/aigh/a-e. There are surely fewer "rules" to learn than there are words!

This is an interesting thread! I am inclined to sit with the teachers on this one. It must be better than the way I was taught to read in the 70's!!

I must apologise for getting a bit ratty on this thread. It is just that really people's opinions on how reading should be taught are very largely irrelevant (though irritating )

The teaching of is not a mater of 'opinion' (or shouldn't be). It is far too vital to children's lives to be left to 'opinion'. Research into reading English has been extensively carried out since the mid 1970s (and less intensively prior to that). One of the early researchers, Keith Stanovich, was enthused by the then very influential 'Whole Word' teaching theories. He was astounded when his research results showed that the Whole Word strategies (the alternative to phonics) were the ones which were used by the least skilled readers! Since then, bona fide scientific research into reading has been coming to the same conclusions over and over again.

It is highly irresponsible of teaching professionals to ignore the scientific evidence, and the empirical evidence of the success of programmes in the field, because it is their 'opinion' that what they believe in is best. Sadly, many have been doing so for years.

I know that the huge amount of information available on the web has led to a massive upsurge in sceptism in many areas, but I suspect that most opinions voiced on here are not informed by extensive reading of even the research available on the web.

well said. Teachers are far more skilled than pepole realise. It astounds me when parents think we make this stuff up (secondary school teacher here...hats off to you primary teachers, I have no clue abot how you go about teaching KS1!)

My reading education was appauling in the 70's and I have been utterly impressed with the expertise of my dd's teachers and feel very lucky that she is getting a better deal than I did

MigratingCoconuts, you've intrigued me. What was so appalling about your reading education in the 70's?

My primary school believed me to be a good reader so that I was left to read by my self or listen to less able readers in the class.

Then I moved to a middle school that used a reading test to assess ability. It consisted of a list of unconnected words that got harder as you went down. I couldn't do this without context (middle of words sort of disappear and I find it hard to translate them to sounds out loud)...very bad decoder

I was deemed to be 4 years below reading age, classified as remedial and taken out of regular class for extra reading to some bored middle aged woman. If I ever did well in class, I must have copied....for 4 years

I then moved to secondary where the screening test put me right up in the top set. However, the feelings of failure, laziness and the belief that I would be discovered for the fraud I was followed me right up into degree level.

My brother had the same issues and I am only now considering a learning difficulty might be at play. I read very fast but find pronouncing new words out loud a bit tricky still.

Anyway...I applaud any improvement in the way reading is taught and love the phonics method my dd is following. I am also taking great care not to rush her on to the next levels too soon and respect the authority and expertise of her teachers completely.

Hope this explains me

I see what you mean MigratingCoconuts. I know we were left to our own devices a lot more in the old days.

"find pronouncing new words out loud a bit tricky still."
That's only because English spellings are not a totally reliable guide to pronunciation. Even newsreaders occasionally mispronounce words for that reason.

And Nicklebabe is spot on with
"synthetic phonics .. it's pretty much the kind of thing they were trying to do with us at infant school.
Okay, it was probably not as structured, but .."
SP is really nothing new at all. And the best readers have never needed it, nor does it work very well with the slowest. It works best with the middle.

The reason why phonics alone cannot teach anyone to become a fluent reader of English are the different pronunciations for the following spellings:
a, a-e, ai, al, all, are, au, augh, -ay, b, ch,

e, -e, ea, ear, e-e, ei, eigh, ew, -ey,

ge/i, - gn, h,

i, ie, i-e, mb, mn,

o, -o, oa, o-e, -oe, ol, oo, -oor,

ou, ough, -ought, oul, our, -our, ow,

qua, -se, th, --ture,

u, wa, wh, wo, wor,

y-, -y, --y, y-e.
The above are the main ones, there are also some lesser ones like eo (people, leopard, leotard).
If u are not sure what the different pronunciations for all the spellings listed above are, look at literacyinthenews.blogspot.com/
Some of them occur in far more words, or far more common words, than others.

The main troublemakers are:
a (and - any, apron)
-e (gave - have)
ea (treat ? threat, great),
ei (veil ? ceiling, height),
ie (field ? friend, diet),
o (on ? only, once, other, wolf),
o-e (bone ? done, move, women),
ou (sound ? soup, couple, shoulder, should)
oo (food ? good, blood)
ow (down ? blown)
and
undoubled consonants after short, stressed vowels, (e.g. hideous - cf hidden, hide).

You really crease me up, masha!

"The reason why phonics alone cannot teach anyone to become a fluent reader of English are the different pronunciations for the following spellings"

Why do you keep pronouncing on the shortcomings of phonics when you clearly know nothing at all about phonics teaching? This is precisely the area which phonics covers thoroughly and in depth!

MaisieD You say:
It is highly irresponsible of teaching professionals to ignore the scientific evidence, and the empirical evidence of the success of programmes in the field, because it is their 'opinion' that what they believe in is best. Sadly, many have been doing so for years.

What do you suggest when it is the head Literacy Advisors at your local authority that are of the "Ghoti" persuasion? What the OP describes they call 'phonic bound'. I don't think there's a decodable book in the county.

me think she doth protest too much!!

highly irresponsible of teaching professionals to ignore the scientific evidence
There is no scientific evidence which proves that synthetic phonics is better than other phonics.
The Rose report on early reading emphasised systematic teaching of phonics, not synthetic, for roughly the first year and then switching more to learning to read for understanding.

As usual you're wrong, Masha:

'(S)ynthetic' phonics is the form of systematic phonic work that offers the vast majority of beginners the best route to becoming skilled readers. Among other strengths, this is because it teaches children directly what they need to know...whereas other approaches, such as 'analytic' phonics, expect children to deduce them' (Rose Review. para 47) ?Having considered a wide range of evidence the review concluded that the case for systematic phonic work is overwhelming and much strengthened by a synthetic approach? (Rose Review. para 51)

As a matter of fact, evidence of the superiority of synthetic phonics was already available in the early 1980s; back then Prof. Jeanne Chall noted that, 'The current research also suggests that some advantage may accrue to direct as compared to indirect phonics. It would seem that many of the characteristics of direct phonics, such as teaching letter-sounds directly, separating the letter-sounds from the words, giving practice in blending the sounds, and so forth are more effective than the less direct procedures used in current analytic phonics programmes' (Chall. Learning to Read: the great debate.1983 p43)

But the emphasis throughout the Rose report is on 'systematic' teaching. On the page u quote from he also says that phonics 'is a time limited activity that is eventually overtaken by work that develops comprehension'"
And re different programmes, "it was not possible to compare the value added by each programme with any accuracy".

He is also aware (in para 46) "that it is generally accepted that it is harder to learn to read and write in English because the relationship between sounds and letters is more complex than in many other alphabetic languages'.

In para 87 he makes clear that phonics is not the whole teaching of reading: In addition, there should be direct teaching of words which are not phonically regular, such as ?the? and ?was?, but which occur frequently in children?s reading.?

In other words, phonics is essential, but direct teaching of phonically irregular words is also needed, especially irregular key words.

Oh, do stop wriggling, masha.

If you seriously want to attack synthetic phonics it would be a really good idea to learn all about it and how it works. At present you are just blethering about something you know very little about.

I have nothing whatsoever against SP. I am merely explaining why many children don't learn to read English easily, even with SP.

I pasted in the 300 key words before, but the most crucial of those are the 100 that make up half of all the words in children?s books.
The 43 phonically not totally regular ones among those (in descending order from the most frequent) are:
he, I, of, the, to, was,
all, be, are, have, one, said, we, you, by, my, call, before, come, could, do, down, into, look, me, more, now, only, other, right, she, some, their, there, two, when, want, were, what, where, which, who, your.

The 57 decodable ones are:
a, and, in, is, it, that,
as, at, but, for, had, him, his, not, on, so, they, with, about, an, back, been, big, came, can, did, first, from, get, go, has, her, here, if, just, like, little, made, make, much, must, no, new, off, or, our, out, over, see, them, then, this, up, well, went, will, old.

I think it is pretty easy to see why the latter are much easier to teach and learn than the first.

wriggle, wriggle, masha...

but he, I, of, the, to, was,
all, be, are, have, one, said, we, you, by, my, call, before, come, could, do, down, into, look, me, more, now, only, other, right, she, some, their, there, two, when, want, were, what, where, which, who, your. are regular once children are taught the phoneme/grapheme correspondence Masha

U mean when children have been taught to pronounce the ?a? in
?was, want, swan? and ?wag, swam, swagger? differently, and the 'o' in 'to, do, two' and 'so, go, no', and the 'ow' in 'how,now, cow' and 'blow, snow, slow', etc. etc.

That?s not a matter of learning any correspondences.
That?s a case of learning to sight-read those words.

I agree that children need to learn to do so, but calling the teaching of that 'phonics' is giving a completely different meaning to the word.