Another sight reading problem...

[SpiderManMum]

Hi, I have read other threads with interest and didn't want to hijack so if anyone has any advice I'd be very grateful..

DS has just started Reception and knows all the letter sounds from following Jolly Phonics in nursery. They have now moved on to blending sounds and decoding words all of which DS is struggling with. The teacher even called me in to see her the other afternoon to ask if we could have a hearing test as she wasn't sure if he can actually hear the sounds that make up a word. For some reason he has no problem hearing the first sound in any word, but cannot get the others (or if he does, can't put them in the right order).

The hearing test results are all fine but I'm at a bit of a loss of how to help. He has a very good memory so can sight read quite well which isn't helping matters.

Is the Sound Reading Solutions the way to go? I see that it is a US product, is it available in the UK and are there any problems with children understanding the American accent?

I'm already starting to worry about dyslexia, which deep down I know is a bit silly at this stage but I can't for the life of me understand why he just isn't getting it!

ENOUGH cutting and pasting PLEASE.

Some of us would actually like to read some thoughts on this thread.

Thanks in advance.

woa!

poetry lists...

I find the poem fantastic as it really shows how there are so many different ways of pronouncing and spelling the english language. Keep it up, Masha!

Can anyone please enlighten me? My dd YR has brought home her first reading book, which is from the PM reading scheme. Does it mean that she is being taught the 'look and remember' method rather than phonics?
She knows all her letters individually, but when I asked her a few weeks ago to read 'sat' she was able to say the letters individually but got confused when it came to blending. She has good memory so it's probably easier for her to memorise the word as a whole. Can it be that her teacher noticed that, and decided to teach her using the other method (not phonics)?

i have 4 DC aged between 17 and 6.the eldest learned to read entirely by the whole word method , the second by the '4 searchlights' and the younger 2 by phonics.
the '4 searchlights' method seems the best IMHO.But I think longterm it makes very little difference.the 'whole word' child ,largely subconciously assimilates phonics rules, and the 'phonics' child recognises whole words eventually.

Hang on, this kid has only just started reception. He's 4. Am I the only one to say don't panic if he doesn't get it yet, he's only tiny and in other countries with languages that are much more regular than ours they don't even start learning to read till the child's 6! So I wouldn't assume just yet that his failing to 'get it' means he will really struggle.

Re the phonics v whole word debate above, it's a little artificial given that phonics teaching itself deals with all those hundreds of exceptions to their neat, tidy little rules by calling them 'tricky words' or some such...and getting kids to learn them off by heart.

Re the phonics v whole word debate above, it's a little artificial given that phonics teaching itself deals with all those hundreds of exceptions to their neat, tidy little rules by calling them 'tricky words' or some such...and getting kids to learn them off by heart.

Oh dear. The myths that get trotted out over and over again.

We don't teach 'rules', there are not 'hundreds of exceptions to them' and the 'tricky words' aren't learned by heart.

Out of interest Masha, is there a reason for your spelling? I wouldn't normally ask, but you go on so much about literacy. It is very distracting seeing things like "U" instead of "you".

Well I think some words have to be learned by heart because they are totally irregular,or words like minute,second, wind which have 2 different prononciations.

If I may go back to the OP's question ... you need to work out what the issue really is here. Your child's teacher seems to say that he has a problem with segmenting (hearing the sounds in a word) and also with decoding and blending. But if he knows all the sounds individually then his issue is just with blending since if he knows the sound/letter correspondences for t-a-c he should be able to decode c-a-t. This could just be a question of needing more teaching, more modelling and more practice. If he is hearing the first sound in a word then he is "hearing", it's just that the words need to be segmented more slowly and he needs a bit more support and patience.

spiderpig8 can I ask how learning minute, second and wind by heart tells you which pronunciation you should use?

maizie - you said that:

"Oh dear. The myths that get trotted out over and over again.

We don't teach 'rules', there are not 'hundreds of exceptions to them' and the 'tricky words' aren't learned by heart."

But omitted to mention how you DO do it. I'd love to hear. What do you call them if you don't call them 'rules' then? How many exceptions to them are there if not 'hundreds'? And how is one supposed to learn all those supposedly 'tricky' words if not by heart?

I'd love to know.

There are 44 ish sounds in English which are represented by 160 -80 letter combinations.
The words aren't tricky they contain a tricky phoneme

The government publication Letters & Sounds suggests this method

Procedure
Explain that there are some words that have one, or sometimes two, tricky
letters.
Read the caption, pointing to each word, then point to the word to be learned
and read it again.
Write the word on the whiteboard.
Sound-talk the word and repeat putting sound lines and buttons under each phoneme and blending them to read the word.
Discuss the tricky bit of the word where the letters do not correspond to the
sounds the children know at this stage (e.g. in go, the last letter does not represent the same sound as the children know in dog).

It also points out

Note that some of the words that were tricky in earlier phases become fully decodable in Phase Five

Can your child blend given sounds to hear the word (without looking at letters on a page?)

If you were to play robot I spy, where you segment each word into its individual sounds, could she hear the word?

eg I spy with my robot eye a c-a-t
c-u-p
ch-air

This is a good check for reading readiness.

mrz - I still don't get how you can learn that eg 'enough' (this is a real example, as my yr 1 ds asked me what this word was today, off a book cover on my shelf) is pronounced 'enuff' without leaning it off by heart? Sure you can learn that the 'f' sound can sometimes be created using a 'gh' - but, as we discussed it today, my approach was to show him that 'gh' and esp 'ough' is a real toughie - I showed him how 'though', 'through', and 'thought' all treat it differently (and that's without mentioning 'thorough'! too). So in my opinion, as clearly there is no one rule that works here, for 'ough' memorising ie learning off by heart seems the only real solution. I remember dd1 struggling with these too - she certainly did learn them off by heart.

I'd be interested to hear your response.

the gh in enough represents
the ough in though represents
the ough in through represents
the ough in thought represents

so 4 possibilities which children readily accept and enable the child to read other words that follow the same pattern

there are around 160 -80 ways of writing the 44 sounds of English far fewer to learn (memorize) than the 250 000 plus words.

I certainly wasn't advocating memorising 250,000 plus words! (Actually, I think the real number is far higher, and growing all the time.) Clearly, you can apply the basic rules most of the time and know that certain letters in certain combinations usually make certain sounds. But faced with 'enough', as above, you need to know that it is pron 'enuff' and not 'enow' or 'enoo' etc - now, you or I might run through the options and quickly dismiss them because we know they're not real words. A 5 year old can't - for all they know, there might be a word pronounced 'enoo' they just don't know yet. And without this memorising bit, the stopping and thinking and weighing up all the possible/likely options bit would just slow reading down to such a slow pace - esp given that 1/3 to a half (or is it more?) of any standard text must surely be made of words that are 'tricky' or have 'tricky' parts, if you prefer - that any normal child would tire of reading and throw the book down in despair!

I'm not suggesting that all easy, regularly-spelt words ought to be learned off by heart - clearly a waste of time - and where possible, repeated rules eg 'gh' for 'ff' can be helpful as an anchor for the memory - but at the end of the day, if one is going to be comfortable reading a text with 'enough' in at a normal reading pace, surely one HAS to memorise it (and all other words like it)?

That is what frustrates me about the 'phonics is the only and best way' parroters like maizie - I'm sure it is the only and best way for dyslexic children who struggle with memorizing things and have a poor visual memory - but for non-dyslexic children, utilising this visual memory is a crucial part of learning to read and more particularly, of being able to read at speed. I think the failure of synthetic phonics fans to recognise this does as much of a disservice to non-dyslexic children as a purely sight-reading approach does to dyslexic children - maybe more so, because there a lot more of the former, who, IMHO, are destined to be very slow and hence unenthusiastic readers given this approach.

A 5 year old can't - for all they know, there might be a word pronounced 'enoo' (actually I would expect a child in reception to go down the e-n - ou- g- h as this will be the point they are at in their learning) they just don't know yet. No but a 7 year old should be able to if they have been taught how which the whole point of the ORT book discussion on another thread... children can't be expected to read words they don't yet have the skills to read.
If they are sharing a book with an adult and encounter a word like enough I would expect a sympathetic adult to explain how it is tricky because the child hasn't been taught the sounds yet (and I always find it provides opportunities for "incidental" teaching/learning by teaching how it is tricky ... young children love adults sharing knowledge and often it sticks!)

So in my opinion, as clearly there is no one rule that works here,

If you keep thinking in 'rules' it does make it difficult to understand the alphabetic code. As mrz said earlier, we start from the '44 sounds' of which the spoken word is comprised and teach how these sounds are represented by a letter, or letters, of the alphabet. Children first learn one way each sound is represented, then the common alternatives. There are about 160 - 180 common letter/sound correspondences.

I grant you that the 'ough' words are a tricky bunch, but children who are learning the 'alternatives' can usually take them in their stride. It's the ones who haven't learned (or been taught) the alternatives who think that a sound can only be represented one way and who are shocked by, and often disbelieving of, the notion that a letter or letters can represent more than one sound. There is word specific learning involved in the ough words but it isn't memorising the whole word, it is remembering the 'tricky bit'.

In a situation such as you describe with your ds, I would just have explained the unusual correspondences and told him he'd probably be learning about it soon in school... (keeping fingers crossed and hoping that he was getting good quality phonics instruction at school )

English orthography is one of the most complex because of our mongerel language. Despite this, millions of people have learned to read and write it. Teaching it logically and systematically, from sound to 'symbol', simple to complex maximises a child's chances of learning to read (and write) effectively.

That is what frustrates me about the 'phonics is the only and best way' parroters like maizie - I'm sure it is the only and best way for dyslexic children who struggle with memorizing things and have a poor visual memory - but for non-dyslexic children, utilising this visual memory is a crucial part of learning to read and more particularly, of being able to read at speed. I think the failure of synthetic phonics fans to recognise this does as much of a disservice to non-dyslexic children as a purely sight-reading approach does to dyslexic children - maybe more so, because there a lot more of the former, who, IMHO, are destined to be very slow and hence unenthusiastic readers given this approach.

Is this your opinion or are you speaking from a position of knowledge?

Are you aware of any quantative research which supports your statements? Because I am aware of quantative research which supports mine...

who, IMHO, are destined to be very slow and hence unenthusiastic readers given this approach. breadandbutterfly could you quantify slow?

masha some of your graphemes are unique to you

PS re slow.
A cross-European study by Seymour et all published in the Brit. Journal of Psychology in 2003 concluded that English-speaking children needed an average of 2 1/2 years for basic literacy acquisition (i.e. to achieve the proficiency expected of a 7-yr-old) while other European managed it in less than a year, irrespective of differences in starting ages.