How bad would it be if I taught my daughter to read...

[JeanBodel]

---using whole word recognition rather than phonics?

She's 3, she loves books, she wants to read them herself. She's an autumn birth so she won't go to school for another two years. I don't think either of us can wait that long for her to start reading independently.

I've got a whole set of Peter and Jane's (yes, the very set I learnt with 30 years ago). I really don't want to spend lots of money on Jolly Phonics when I know I can teach her with the books I already own.

I just dread getting into trouble with the reception teacher. I don't mean to criticise teachers or phonics in any way. I can see how annoying it would be to have a kid in your class who's shouting out the word without segmenting it.

All advice gratefully received.

Do whatever your DD is happy with, but I wouldn't formally teach her. Read to her, run your finger along the words, etc. At age 3 though your DD needs to expand vocabulary, sentence structure, understanding and learn to express herself, telling stories, social skills and so on ... so there is lots to learn in terms of language aquisition - learning to read wouldn't be top of my list for my DD (3).

OhBuggerandArse - have agreed 100% with everything you've written on this thread. Whilst I don't think anyone would advocate learning to read without some understanding of basic phonics (and I think maizie deliberately stoked a non-existent argument here by suggesting that that was the case), the current system most schools use is v dull, v slow and, I would argue, has not produced any reading materials that aren't blatantly artificial and dull. Yes, maizie, you can come up with a lot of random words just using satipn BUT without being freely able to use key words as well, they do not a natural story make. The great works of kids' literature produced over the last 100 years or more are what give motivation and meaning to learning to read. 'Ted slept in a red bed' just can't compete, at the end of the day. And without the desire to read because it is fun and because they can access wonderful, inspiring, amusing books, kids reading WILL be impaired, because they will get bored and never discover the delights of reading for pleasure.

Re Peter and Jane methods 'harming' children's reading ability, I taught my dd using Peter and Jane - she rapidly overtook all the other kids in her class at reading and stayed there. (In yr 7, she has just been assessed at 7C. So clearly no long-term harm done by my 'naughty' decision to add Peter and Jane to her teaching.) I have taught my other 2 dc in the same way with very positive results also. I learnt to read before I got to school with Janet and John (akin to Peter and Jane) myself, and have likewise always excelled at English - on doing a spelling test for an employment agency, I was told I was the only person EVER to have scored full marks in it. So clearly the Peter and Jane method doesn't 'harm' reading ability or spelling ability, long-term. whatever those with vested interests would like you to believe.

I think learning to read purely by memorising words is clearly a non-starter except for a few exceptional children like mrz's ds. However, I also think that for the vast majority of children, Peter and Jane or equivalent is actually an extremely quick and painless way of allowing them to master the key words (or 'tricky' words, as they're now horribly called - talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy ) and so speedily progress to reading books that are actually FUN and not just worthy reading 'exercises'. And no, I wouldn't claim that Peter and Jane are a riveting read in themselves (though my dcs have seemed to enjoy them and chose to read them); but they are certainly no less readable than all the Floppy rubbish or tedious phonics readers. And once over, and their learning goals (speedily) achieved, then all of English literature awaits!

speedily progress to reading books that are actually FUN and not just worthy reading 'exercises'.

So you think ORT are 'fun'?

Have you ever actually seen any books from a decodable reading scheme?

Yes, maizie, you can come up with a lot of random words just using satipn BUT without being freely able to use key words as well, they do not a natural story make.

You can come up with a lot of random words which children can read independently after the first couple of weeks of instruction. As more 'sounds' are added the reading vocabulary increases rapidly, far faster than in any 'look & say' book. Decodable readers reflect that wide vocabulary.

I'd be very pleased to see any concrete evidence that proves that children taught by 'mixed methods' enjoy reading more than children taught with good systematic phonics. I'm afraid that beliefs and opinions do not constitute evidence, so they don't count.

You might find this Ofsted report interesting: Reading by 6. How the best schools do it.

Breadand butterfly you contradict yourself. Both Peter and Jane and phonics readers are a means to an end. How can you condemn one as dull and not real literature and yet endorse the other?
You also can't prove a point from your own personal experience. We all know lots of children do learn to read effectively without good phonics teaching but the evidence is that also many don't.
Back to my previous point. When faced with a decision on how to teach my child it is rational to chose the optimal method - just because its possible to learn by less effective means does not persuade me to try with my child.
I can see why you think Peter and Jane works well becasue it repeats high frequency words in a way that allows assimilation. However, you simply don't understand how much more you could help your child achieve through a phonics based foundation. Because it worked for your children doesn't mean its the best idea. Back to my road safety analogy. It wouldn't matter how many parents told me their children didn't need explicit instruction in road safety to assimilate the rules. The rational decision is to choose the optimal method and in the case of reading the evidence is overwhelming and it ain't whole word teaching.

The OP talks about a child being annoying to the teacher by calling out a whole word instead of segmenting it. I think she and lots of people think 'sounding out' is babyish or dumbing down or unnecessary for their bright child or silly modern clap trap.
The problem is that although these feelings are natural they are not rational. To read well children need to grasp that words are made up of sounds and learning to read through phonics is the most effective way to achieve this, whether or not your child would manage to learn through a less effective means.
Its ironic that an educational fad of the late twentieth century (learnign to read through whole words) should be viewed as traditional.

Once the child is able to 'sound out', the next step would be to 'blend' so it would usually be acceptable for a child to read the word without sounding it out if they were able to. They would still probably be expected to put their hand up though, not just shout out.

I think fine. My DD got the hang of reading quickly at the same age - the sounding out phonics never really took hold as she learned to read the whole words so quickly. If she is bright, and ready, and knows her letters (as phonics) your DD will be fine teaching her however you like. If she's stuck on a word, sound it out. That's all you need to do.
I am constantly amused by the "leave it to the teachers, they know what they're doing" school of thought. The best thing you can do with an interested child is encourage that love of learning, no matter how early.

I don't recall many suggestions on this very long thread of the 'leave it to the teachers' school of thought. I don't think, either, that any teacher on this thread has said 'don't teach your dd to read'. All the teachers are saying is 'don't teach whole words'.

You would be surprised to know that even 'bright' children can struggle with the very basic skills of reading, as many parents have discovered. It is best not to gamble on a child picking it up easily and not being damaged by whole word teaching.

I was completely ignorant about methods of teaching reading when my dcs were at school. Luckily they are both absolutely fine. But if I had known then what I know now I wouldn't have taken any chances; they'd have been taught phonics, by me!

I learnt to read by using phonics, or as it was called back then, 'sounding out.' The whole word thing just didn't click with me, my primary school sent home these tins of word cards for us to learn & I used to try & recognise them by the size/shape of the card! In the end my mum taught me to read. And as it happens I am quite good at spelling now.

If it works for your dc then I see no harm in it, but IMO I think your time would actually be better spent teaching letter (sound,) & number recognition & playing eye spy, board games & reading to her. But it's your decision & just be careful not to turn your dc off to reading if it's not the right method/time for her.

I never even considered teaching my dcs to read at home as imo there's plenty of time for that once they're in school, (most other counties don't start until they're 7). Ds started school recognising most letter (sounds) & his own name & was a free reader within a week of yr1. Dd1 started at a similar level & is now in year 1 & on level 9 ORT. Phonics doesn't have to be slow!

Personally I haven't left the teaching of reading to the teachers - because the majority of teachers teach whole word recognition as the main strategy and phonics is something done in separate sessions and not applied much when actually reading.
Also I have really enjoyed teaching my second and third children myself - its been fun.
This said, its perfectly reasonable to want to leave teaching to your child's teachers. However, given I am confident to teach them myself, its largely enjoyable and I know the methods I use are the best approach available, I prefer to do it myself.

breadandbutterfly if the system your school is using is "very dull and very slow" they aren't teaching well. I can take a child from being a complete non reader with no knowledge of phonics and very little word recognition (perhaps recognises own name and McDonalds) to reading books of their choice in a term without teaching words by sight... We have fun, the children are highly engaged in their learning and parents amazed by their progress. We spend a few minutes every day ... to turn non readers into readers. Of course some children learn more quickly and others struggle for a variety of reasons but most children make rapid progress.

'"If a child understands a word when spoken it will understand it when it is read."

Actually, this statement is an oversimplication. When children are still learning to read, the neurological effort required to sound out a word using synthetic phonics (and then another word, and another...) is so great that the meaning of words that a child recognises and understands in normal spoken conversation can be lost. It is only when the reading process is mastered and automated that the above claim holds true.

I think that must be true bonsoir.

I would really like to know more about the roles of working memory and processing speed in all this - I wonder if perhaps children/parents gravitate towards the system that seems to them to cut down the demands on those (though I think both phonics and flashcards would appear to do that for different kinds of beginning readers)?

'Very dull and slow' doesn't really ring a bell with me either...

At a rate of 1 new sound a day (the recommended speed) a Rception child will have encountered 35 sounds by the end of their first half term in reception. As the most commonly useful are taught first, that means that most children will have the phonics knowledge they need to sound out almost ANY word within their first 7 weeks at school (whether the word be 'but' or 'diplodocus').

I would challenge the assumption that whole word recognition would move non-readers to that level of decoding skill in that time frame.

Obviously, many children would need to revisit sounds again to become wholly secure in them, and as I have said before we teach phonics up to the end of Year 2 to aid in spelling and to introduce alternative graphemes for some phonemes. However, I really would question whether a child learning to read by whole word recogntion would be able to read as many words as a well-taught phonic decoder after just 7 weeks..

I know that individual case studies are not statistically valid - but my DD, unlike my son, entered school unable to read anything except her first name. She was taught phonics well, and at the recommended speed. At the end of her first half term she was at Level 4 of the (phonics) reading scheme, at the end of the first term she was on Level 8, by Easter she was on short chapter books. You could argue that she would have leanred equally well by 'look and say' methods - but a whole pre-school life being exposed to books, signs, words, her elder brother reading anything and everything had not led to her recognising any words other than her name. Phonics taught 'fast and first' gave her the tools to unloick the code.

I would encourage the child to build up the sentence in the same way as they build up the word (sound by sound and word by word) until they read the sentence as a whole to make it easier to understand rather than continue in a hesitant stilted manner.

the majority of teachers teach whole word recognition as the main strategy and phonics is something done in separate sessions and not applied much when actually reading

I would be very surprised if this is the case. Certainly not in my school or any other that I am are of. Some teachers do send home word lists or flash cards for 'tricky' words but certainly in Reception children will be taught the phonic sounds of individual letters and move on to graphemes.

aware of ^

It seems from the government pilot that many schools are teaching words by sight and phonics as an after thought I'm afraid.

:-( Sometimes I feel sad about my profession :-(

Perhaps it depends in which area of the country you live. Schemes are often piloted in specific schools and then rolled out in different regions. It was my understanding that the government expected all schools to teach the same method so that if a child moves across the country halfway through the school year, they are not suddenly dropped into the middle of a scheme which is unfamiliar to them.

I think there are a lot of different (potential) issues that get lumped together under a general heading of 'reading'

I was a hyperlexic child. I was reading way above my age from very early on. there were certainly times, when i was small, that my understanding of language/context/life in general did not match up to me reading ability. I could technically decode anything I came across, but comprehending it was another thing entirely.

my dd1 is learning to read via mixed methods. I am aware of the pitfalls of this, but she has a severe language disorder, and is ASD (severe), and we have had to use a variety of methods to get her to where she is. she has a sound basic knowledge of phonics, which we have been working on alongside whole word recognition. the whole word recognition is worked on alongside comprehensive language support to ensure she actually understands/can reference the word once she can read it.

purely in terms of keeping her interest (she is 7, should in year 3, I think - she is at a SN school), we have had to up the stakes in terms of what materials she is given to read. if we had stuck at pure phonics, and trying to build it up from there (she is only just starting to blend, 4 years after she learnt phonics), she would have switched off by now, and relied on her phenomenal memory. we often come up against the fact that once she has read a text, she just knows it - so on the second reading, is she 'reading' it, or reciting it? (iPad apps have been great for tackling this, as we can daily change the text on something like Our Story to ensure she is reading it, not relying on memory of word order/sentence order)

to up these stakes, we had to introduce words as whole word - names, places - the stuff that toddler 'read' when seeing eg a familiar shop name etc. by using these, we can keep her interest and motivation high to learn to read.

she is now at the stage where she is (slowly) beginning to sound out words, and if they are easily blended she can manage. she, sadly, is not sticking to the nice phonic readers we have around the place, but instead is aiming high . but ambition is good, and she would not be trying this if she had been demotivated by not being able to read for the last 4 years.

dd2 is in reception, and is being taught Jolly phonics (which she already knows as has been shadowing dd1 for the last few years!), and bringing home mainly Ginn books. she loves them (and they make a nice change for me, as dd1 was, and is, ORT obsessed) and so is highly motivated to read them. because we have a houseful of labelled, laminated cards stuck up everywhere, she already can recognise some whole words - they were not 'taught' to her, but eg we have a visual timetable up for dd1 with the days of the week on, and dd2 can 'read' those now (and has done for ages). same with names (via the visual timetable), and activities (ditto).

we are a house of flashcards, as we used them to teach vocab to dd1 (not reading vocab, just general support for understanding what a word means - we really have had to teach her every single aspect of language overtly), and so both girls sit and play (their choice, not mine!) snap using the flashcards. lots of whole word recognition support going on there. and dd2 will try to sound out some of them too (sometimes succeeds, sometimes doesn't)

just because of how we have to help to support dd1, I am of the mixed methods school of thought. but then, I have had to try many different things not all of them conventional, to get dd1 to the point she is at. in my world, anything goes as long as it is approached properly, with structure, an idea of where you are going, and what you are going to do when yo get there.

Fairenuff the government has expected schools to teach phonics for many years but how many are still using ORT? What is expected and what is happening are completely different things IME. Even among those schools claiming they are teaching phonics there is a huge difference between those that teach it well and those who pay lip service and unfortunately those that don't really understand phonics at all.

I agree with teacherwith2kids. Both my older dcs took to reading very quickly once they were introduced to phonics at school. The only words they were taught to sight read where Biff, Chip, (etc) the & and. I do think you have to check for understanding though when they are sounding out half the words in the sentence. It's not really a problem with first books as the sentences are so short they don't really loose the thread but it's that tricky stage between competent decoder & fluent reader (using ORT I'd say that's from level 5 up). My dd1 is at this stage at the mo, she's very close to being a fluent reader the understanding is there but she still has to stop & sound out unfamiliar words. As a parent I think it's our job to reinforce what they do at school, I (or dh,) listen to her read at least 6 days a week, advise her to sound out (think about magic 'e' etc,) when she's stuck & if it doesn't work to try reading on, looking at the picture for clues etc. I don't see it as the teachers job to teach them to read but I've let them lead & its our role to continue this at home.

The majority of teachers really DO use whole words as their primary appproach. Below is the results of a survey by the NASUWT teaching union:

"Teachers do not underestimate the value of synthetic phonics, with 58 per cent agreeing that the method has a key role to play in teaching and learning.

However, those surveyed who favoured synthetic phonics also felt strongly that children need to benefit from being taught by a range of methods:

? 81 per cent would still want to use word recognition;
? 89 per cent asserted that they needed to use a combination of cues such as context, initial letter sounds and/or illustrations to make meaning from text; and
? 87 per cent would want children to access books containing some words that children cannot yet decode using phonic cues."

So ONLY 58% of teachers surveyed value synthetic phonics - and thats despite the overwhelming research evidence in its favour - not surprising because they are basing their view on their training and they don't have experience of teaching systematic synthetic phonics. A staggering 89% of those teachers who value phonics still emphasise guessing from picture cues and initial letter sounds even though these methods are harmful to reading progression and not supported by research or government advice.
Just becasue your child learns Jolly Phonics letter sounds does not mean they ahve learnt to read through phonics, they will be using whole word strategies as their main approach.

camicaze

Thank you that's very interesting. The difficulty with figures I suppose is how do they actually measure results. If the overwhelming evidence is in favour of synthetic phonics, how do they come to that conclusion? What is the 'evidence' if teaching is not done in a controlled environment.

Because, as we have seen, many teachers seem to be saying they are teaching phonics when, in fact, they are not just teaching phonics, but a mix of methods.

I could see the figures making sense if you followed 1,000 children from Reception to Year 6 by observing every literacy lesson to ensure that only synthetic phonics was used.

At the same time, doing the same with a different 1,000 children using mixed methods.

Then you have a result that could be considered accurate.

If only 58% of teachers value synthetic phonics, perhaps they are the only ones delivering synthetic phonics.

None of the figures are reliable, I'm afraid.

I'm not saying the teachers are wrong, or utruthful, btw! Just observing that it's not that easy to assess because of all the differing factors, including the children themselves.