Reading in the 1930's or 1940's

[yvette37]

Hello,

Does anybody know how they used to teach reading in the 1930's or 1940's? or earlier for that matter. What did they use instead of the 'Synthetized Phonics'? I am quite curious about this.

Thank you

Yvette

Feenie, the K sound in the middle. How are you getting on with Wymondham?

My Gran (now 90, qualified 1942 retired 1981) subversively taught me to read using phonics. She was bemoaning their decline well into the 1990s. I must remember to ask her views on synthetic phonics next time I see her.

She was teaching kids with SN in the 50s because it fitted in with raising three children. If you can ignore the outmoded and downright offensive terminology she uses she tells fascinating anecdotes

Or the former politician St John Stevas, which was pronounced as sinjen. I would never have guessed that correctly. I only followed the example of others in how they pronounced it.

I'm not sure about Wymondham. I think there are several answers, all of which are correct.

Year 1 were learning alternative sounds for 'ch' a few weeks ago in a lesson I observed - Christmas, Christopher, chord, etc, all featured. I doubt they'd have had a problem then with that particular phoneme in 'achaean'.

If you don't mind being laughed at by the people of Wymondham, that is!

but how would they know whether to use ch- ristmas or ch-ap?

I don't think peculiar pronunciations of obscure English place names would be reason enough to ditch a successful reading teaching, learnandsay.

windm w i (not ie) n dm if you come from Norfolk

They'd try both - plus 'ch' in 'chalet', and would be the slightest bit bothered.

wouldn't

I need a new keyboard.

Well hopefully they would know because they've been taught that the letters ch can represent ch as in chop sh as in Charlotte and k as in Christoper
They would know the most common is ch so try it first then try sg and k

yes but achaean and achoo are different. There is an accepted English pronounciation of achaean, which they need to get right, unless they want to be laughed at by professors at Oxford as well as the people of Wymondham.

If you have to "try" different sounds for achaean then you're guessing. If that word came up in your maiden speech and you hadn't practised reading the speech before. How would you say it? -- live in front of the TV cameras.

and if a word begins chr it's likely to be kr

Why would I put words I didn't know in my speech?

But to digress away from pronunciation, for a minute...

I don't think that guessing is a bad thing. Learning how to make good guesses (not necessarily getting the answer 100% right, but getting a good-enough answer) is an important higher-level reading skill.

The thing I find depressing about phonics, and I say this as someone who teaches reading further along on the educational process, is that it tends to equate reading with decoding. Now, it's great to be able to decode 'The multitudinous seas incarnadine/ Will not make this hand clean', but that won't tell you what it means. Guessing is a vital strategy, because it gives you a rough idea of what the word means, enough to get the main sense of the whole couplet. (I know, yes, look it up in a dictionary. But being a fluent reader is partly about being able to jump over gaps and to fill them in with good-enough guesses.)

So an approach that encourages children to treat meaning as central to reading, by encouraging them to guess at words, to use context and inference, is actually very good for helping them to develop as higher-level readers, not just decoders.

This may be me being a woolly liberal, but it seems to me that children need both sorts of approaches, phonic and whole word, because they work on different parts of the reading process.

I think they have to be taught which one is correct. They can't do it for themselves. They rely on the input of the teacher and other people in order to learn the convention, since it is only a convention and not based on a hard and fast rule.

How would you say it having never seen it before if you'd been taught to read using your favoured method then learnandsay?

Because you've paid someone clever to write it for you. That's why they've put silly unpronounceable words in it.

My father would have taught me how to say it and I'd copy him and risk having the professors at Oxford laugh at me.

Blimey, just shows how long it is since I read Macbeth:

'Hah! They pluck out mine eyes.
Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand? No; this my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas incarnadine,
Making the green one red.'

Even so, I think my point stands, that you would still have to make a guess about incarnadine, to work out that it means 'redden'.

This may be me being a woolly liberal, but it seems to me that children need both sorts of approaches, phonic and whole word, because they work on different parts of the reading process.

What about the children whose acquisition of reading skills and self-esteem are damaged by your liberal approach of mixing methods? And you won't know which ones they will be - until it's too late and the damage is done. You don't need whole word teaching to teach comprehension.

So being taught to read by learnandsay's father is a viable option for UK children? I think Phonics is a bit easier to roll out to the masses...

niminypiminy I don't know anyone who equates reading to decoding. Most sensible people know that decoding is an essential skill that contributes to becoming a good reader