Mrz! IndigoBell! Maizie! Was steam coming out of your ears at 7am this morning?

[Greythorne]

Did yiu hear Radio 4 this morning?
Debate about phonics teaching.

I hooe you didn't hear it as it would likely have ruined your day :)

I generally avoid discussing phonics because they are simply a foreign language to me. Like me, DCs learnt the (names of the) alphabet in order to read. However my DCs on hearing the Today programme discussion pointed out that they were taught phonics at school, but clearly did not learn since they are now some years later as wobbly about it as I am, but they do know the alphabet.

Does anyone know why the government has backed phonics? Most approaches to anything will have pros and cons, so why this particular one? The chap for it had a rigid viewpoint that he was right to the exclusion of all others, while the woman seemed to say there were many roads to choose from and you could mix them up. Have my family completely missed out? They also learnt other languages when very young, would phonics have mucked those up?

don't know why everyone gets so worked up about phonics - it seems pretty simple and sensible to me.

and i was very doubtful about the idea before I saw DS learning phonics at nursery. He's a quick learner in terms of language and would have learned to read just from the names of the letters/whole word recognition (as I did). But he's enjoying learning through phonics. He knows alphabet/names of letters and sounds of letters. There's no confusion. People who learn through whole word recognition also implicitly learn phonics without knowing they are (or you'd never be able to read aloud a word you hadn't met before).

But I think phonics adds an appreciation of language and is probably a good basis for poetry and music. Doesn't harm anyone to learn that way (and it seems from stats that not to do phonics would harm the fairly large % of children who don't learn to read through other methods)

I agree, I think most people who are fluent readers will have subconsciously worked out the phonics rules - I know I did, as my children's phonics sounds all make perfect sense to me and I can read nonsense words... However, I can see the point that bad phonics teaching to the exclusion of all else is not going to improve the situation as much as the Government appears to think.

If all phonics teaching were of a good quality, however, and all teachers were good at reading stories out loud and making reading seem exciting....

I think the lady who was arguing against phonics as a sole method sounded very reasonable. And the chap speaking in favour of phonics was not very good at explaining things.

Hence the steam I imagined pouring forth from certain ears.

Because the lady was arguing for:

• guessing based on picture cues
• guessing based on context
• complete word memorisation

.....and she claimed that in the first year of learning to read, phonics would not give children to read the word 'said' because it is phonically irregular.

I was infuriated particularly as she added that the kids who arrive at school having had loads of books read to them will do OK but the underprivileged kids need other tactics to make reading work.

Baffling. And a shame that the phonics 'defender' was unable to defend phonics without coming across as a bit narrow-minded, dogmatic and patronizing.

Missed opportunity.

Hi,

I enclose an international report on various teaching methods; quite long but interesting. It shows that 'there are shades of greys' too ...
ife.ens-lyon.fr/vst/DA-Veille/31-november-2007_EN.pdf

On a personal note my DD id 6,5 and is being brought up as a simultaneous bilingual. She learnt to read English with her Dad who used the synthetic phonics (Jolly Phonics and Step by Step Mona Mc Nee) and French with me using the Syllabic Method (Boscher & Daniel et Valerie). Both were taught at the same time; she is a fluent reader ,native like, in both languages.
Not sure whether we would have reached these levels of reading using the 'Hear&Say' (Globale method)- Did not even want to go down that route!!!

Y

The idea that you wouldn't teach phonics at all is bizarre as it is so incredibly useful for learning to read and recognise an awful lot of words quite quickly. I also think guessing words from the picture is bizarre as a method of learning to read - I've no idea at all how that helps you learn to read rather than adding enjoyment to a story by making it more colourful (and distracting you from actually bothering to try to read the word at all). Guessing from context is something I'm 100% certain fluent readers do for words they cannot decode phonically. And whole word recognition must take place for words that cannot be decoded phonically, too, surely? So I'm not sure I disagree with those two methods of learning to read, because you have to acquire those skills eventually.

Fluent readers guess meaning from context, not decoding. You can't guess from context how 'parasympathetic' is pronounced, though the context might help you to work out what it means.

I think the whole idea that you can teach reading without phonics is barmy. Even the most ardent whole-word supporters teach some letter-sound correspondences. What's that if not (incomplete and not-as-useful-as-it-might-be) phonics?

Fluent readers don't just work out meaning from context, they do also work out how to pronounce the word from the context - you don't learn all the words you know from seeing them written down, so there are times when you see a word you have heard before but never seen written down. If that word is not phonically decodable, you can still pronounce it correctly if you have heard the word before and guessed from the context what that word is likely to be (because you already know its meaning).

That may be true, but it can only be true for a vanishingly small subset of words for adults - words that are in my passive vocabulary but that I've never seen written down before and that are not decodable.

What are these 'not decodable' words that we're going to encounter? If you're a fluent reader, unless you're regularly encountering words from other languages where different sound-symbol correspondences apply, you'll be able to decode anything, surely?

Luckily I didn't hear it.

I'm on a high because I've just convinced my SENCO to trial vision therapy with 10 kids.

Bit by bit I'm making huge progress :)

My school is going to end up a dyslexia free zone

Too late for my DD - but in time for the 120 Y3s who start in Sep.

High quality phonics teaching is only half the picture.

The other half is improving the kids cognitive, vision and hearing problems which make learning hard.

However guessing certainly has no part to play in teaching children to read.

And while so much energy is spent debating phonics or guessing, the other side of the problem is totally ignored.

It is the top story on the Radio 4 Today programme homepage now; "Is phonics the best way to teach reading?"

The lady suggesting guessing was Dr Mary Bousted, general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers. She made much of her PhD in the subject, which was a bit childish, but honestly, to the layperson, I imagine she would have come across as the more reasonable and sound.

Greg Wallace got off on the wrong foot and never really got back to the heart of the matter. And he was unable to dismantle her strawman about "said".

You can listen again via the link above.

Hi Indigo

Wondering what vision therapy is - and does it help with spelling?

It's the general secretary of my union ...

I met Greg Wallace before I knew that he was one of these super-heads. I wasn't his biggest fan I must say, and I've heard the same from others as well.

I actually agreed with his argument, but greythorne you have summed him up perfectly so I doubt it will convince others.

Vision therapy is exercises to improve eye control.

For example exercises to improve left to right tracking.

Many kids can't move their eyes smoothly left to right. Which is a simple muscle problem which is easy to correct with daily practice.

Improving your eye tracking will improve spelling if your child has eye tracking problems.

Thanks for explaining it. :)

singersgirl - even the expert on the radio agreed that not every word in the English language is phonically decodable, didn't he? And what relevance does an adult's passive vocabulary have to children learning to read?

Did he give an example of a word which is phonically undecodeable?

edithweston

Dr Bousted gave the example of "said" as phonically undecodeable for children in the first year of reading.

Greg Wallace did not explain how children would be able to read a word like "said" if they had ony been taught phonics.

said is a funny example

DS has been doing phonics (YR) and when he read it the first time he read 's-ay-d', read the whole sentence again and then corrected himself to 'said'. From then on he read it as said.

Isn't that how they learn? Use phonics and context and word recognition?

Phonics has given DS so much confidence because he can have a go at any word.

To me the debate seems to have been sidetracked by 'only phonics' vs 'no phonics' rather than mixing it up

rabbitstew Gregg Wallace isn't an expert and Mary Bousted certainly isn't (I can't imagine she has taught a single child to read in her career as a Secondary teacher and later lecturer)

The truth is all words are decodable once you know the code

No EverybodysSleepyEyed the idea is that the child knows "s" and "d" and is told in this word the letters spell the sound "e" and reminded every time they see it

oh ok - well I guess DS has figured that out himself!

Lots of children do work it out for themselves others don't but that is how it is supposed to be taught in schools. Although lots of people (including Mary Bousted) seem to think said has to be taught/learnt by sight.