Phonics?!?

[xxslkxx]

I constantly read posts about phonics, and peoples thoughts (mostly negative) on them. Excuse me for being naieve - I have looked on the internet and it has been explained to me that phonics is a great way for children to learn to read. I have read a few posts where parents are not happy with their childs results - but what exactly is phonics testings/and if seemingly so many people are against it why can we not change them? Sorry if I sound unknowledgeable - I am!

Thanks

Ooooh, that would be good. Think you're right, it might help.

He gets a choice of French, Spanish or German and is quite keen on Spanish, which is totally phonetically regular, and so maybe it will help.

Fairenuff it's even more difficult to understand a book if you can't decode the words. I'm not sure why anyone would assume that phonics is taught in isolation when in truth comprehension and developing vocabulary are parrallel skills always taught.

Fairenuff - how on earth can your kids say a word that is in their vocab and not have a clue what it means?

Indigo because it's not in their vocab. Some children in year 1 have only been in the country a year or so and have learned phonics but not all the meanings of the english words. They are still learning the language so hop, hip, hap, hep for example they can read, just wouldn't be able to tell you which was a 'real' word or what it meant.

The same applies to the more complicated words, they can decode and read them but don't know what they mean. In sentences they can sometimes work out the meaning by making sense of the sentence or looking at pictures. Not for decoding, but for comprehension.

Mrz phonics isn't taught in isolation but this test shows that it is being tested in isolation which is why some of our children with poorer comprehension did better.

They did not attempt to make sense of a word, or use prior knowledge, they simple decoded. Which is all the test can tell you about the child's reading knowledge.

But it's not a reading test - it's a phonics check.

It's not meant to check how well they can understand a text.

They have SATs in Y2 to test their reading. This is a prior step to that.

If a child doesn't have a word in their vocab and has to guess what the word means from context / pictures - surely it's better that they pronounce it right when reading it and guess what the word means, then both guess what it means and how you pronounce it.

And of course it's far better that they realise it's a word they don't know, and learn it, then think it must be a different word which they do know......

The test can't tell you anything about the child's reading knowledge. That's the whole point. The test isn't about reading.

I would suggest that the children who misread the words weren't using comprehension either, rather they were making random guesses based on words with similar (mainly initial) letter patterns. Our fluent, avid readers didn't pause when reading real or pseudo words, the children who made errors were the same children who misread words in reading books. The ones who read "they went into the house" when the sentence says "they went into their house."

We had a mistake where the child substituted a word they thought was correct. For example, if the word was 'woke' the child said waked because they read the word, understood it, then said it the way they would in a sentence i.e. I waked up early today.

So although they could clearly read the word and understand it, they got it wrong.

But, yes, it is just a decoding test, not a reading test.

So although they could clearly read the word and understand it, they got it wrong.

I'm afraid that I wouldn't accept that in a reading test, either! Apart from the fact that 'waked up' is ungrammatical it isn't what is written on the page.

I am deeply worried by the feeling I am getting that some teachers regard 'meaning' as so paramount that they are ignoring the fact that accurate reading is an essential element in reading for meaning.

Is this because they themselves were taught to 'read for meaning', without too much attention to accuracy, and so cannot see anything potentially damaging to children's reading skills in letting them virtually make it up as they go along?

I have worked with a number of children, who consider themselves to be 'good readers', who read about the first three words of a sentence and then deviate radically from what is written on the page, apparently oblivious to the fact that what they are 'reading' isn't what is written. They certainly aren't reading for the author's meaning when they do this.

One thing that's been bothering me for ages is we don't assess reading very well.

In that you could easily get a decent level in a reading SATs paper but still make loads of reading errors. So reading tests dont test for accuracy.

Plus they never assess for how quickly you read.

Maize I wonder if you're onto something. I wonder how many adults read badly - but don't even realise they do.

It is certainly possible to leave primary on a level 4 or 5 but not be a good enough reader to read a novel for pleasure.

Because so many of the SAT questions are multiple choice children have a 1-4 chance of getting them right without reading a word.