Help with phonics

[AuntieBulgaria]

Hullo, DD is starting reception in September. She has recently started trying to read things by herself by sounding out the letters. I want to support her but am worried about giving her 'bad' info. Or not actually knowing how to explain.

She was trying to read the word 'alien' in the back of the car the other day but she is used to A making the sound 'ah' (well not ah but you know what I mean, not ay).

Forgive me for being totally dim but why is it 'ay' in alien and age? Is it what I would have called - 'the magic 'e'? Is that what's called a split diagraph?

I read the guide to phonics that DD's school issues and it says that at school they are not given books to read with phonemes they haven't learnt yet but DD is just trying to give it a go with everything she comes across.

What should I say when the word she is reading does something unfamiliar?

Some times she can work it out - she read and blended 'like' as luh i ck eh but then said 'like' because she could make it make sense in the context I suppose.

eep sound. My phone isn't happy with unfamiliar words

Yes, many schools do, and Maths evenings too for parents who want to know how best to help their children.Yes, many schools do

Yes, Feenie, I know. But not in the way you mean it. I've heard mrz and others talk about people like me, people who weren't taught phonics, using a decoding-like strategy, albeit a home made one. But phonics is a theory and people are animals. Animals learn by experience. They must in order to survive. So if I learn that pain and payne both make the same sound, and a foreign notice board reads

Person who comes this way will experienze much payne

I'm not formally decoding in phonics terms. I'm using what I know about reading (and surviving) to interpret not decode what the message means. Then I start running. Interpreting isn't the same as phonics' decoding. Interpreting involves attributing meaning according to what you believe the correct message means.

Hello, me again sorry to barge in on the debate but can I repost my summing up please - to check I understand. Mrz did reply to the second question in my post but I think my first got lost.

So 'a' can make the sounds 'a', 'ai' and 'o'.

In the case of age and grape, it's because of the 'e' but in the case of alien, it's because it just does sometimes?.

And if you don't mind... how are contractions dealt with? Do you talk about the missing letters or just decode what's there?

Feenie, of course I can read them, queep rhymes with sheep and girst either rhymes with first or forms a wholly new word sounding similar to pierced.

Analytical phonics

Mr and Mrs (frim the HFW) I would tell the child can't and don't etc I would explain there are letters missing because two words have been shortened

I do apologise for hijacking your thread, AuntieBulgaria - learnandsay has a history of derailing phonics threads and I got fed up.

I probably started it with my magic e questions sorry. But I did basically use phonics to teach the DSs, we even started with the jolly phonics posters and flash cards. I just didn't know myself that the new way was to say lll not luh, mmm not muh. DSs managed anyway but it would have been more helpful to them to do lll and mmm. Similarly when I start with dniece I will use soft c s and hard c k (will stick with magic e for vowels though because I like it and it's fun ) [wanders off whistling 1970s magic e song]

I think Learnandsay has a claxon for any thread that says "phonics" anywhere in it so she can appear and let her views be firmly known. Whether or not this bears any relevance to what the OP has said seems to be mainly irrelevant from what I have seen. I wasn't surprised to find her the second poster on this thread I have to say.

Is your DD going to go to school or are you going to be HE? Your general contempt for teachers would suggest the latter (not that I am suggesting that people who HE have problems with teachers - I am not sure that Learnandsay and a school would have an entirely peaceful co-existence)

I believe learnandsay intends to use school for childcare while educating her child herself

learnandsay Fri 30-Mar-12 20:56:01

If a job is worth doing it's worth doing yourself. Treat the school as free day care and teach your daughter proper things at home.

sorry OP

Learnandsay believes in learning through experience. I was under the impression that humans are inclined to theorise as a result of their experiences and then pass their knowledge and theories on, rather than keep quiet about them and tell their offspring they have to learn everything from scratch by themselves. Maybe she also thinks that children who need interventions to help them learn to talk clearly, to understand the structure of speech, to read, to move efficiently, are subhuman? Maybe she also doesn't believe that animals protect their young and do quite a bit to teach them how to survive, rather than letting them get eaten by wolves.

ps OP - I do agree with learnandsay that you shouldn't worry quite so much about getting things "wrong." Your dd clearly has an interest and an ability there and I seriously doubt your ability to explain or answer questions is so poor that you will hold her back from learning to read. Many children do pick up the rules for themselves through experience and encouragement - it is true that not everyone needs formal phonics teaching to learn to read.

AuntieB - I am not a teacher so could be wrong, but I didn't want your question to go unanswered. Hopefully even if I'm wrong one of the more informed people will correct me!

I think the a in alien is just an "alternative" pronunciation for a. If my son had that word, I'm guessing he'd read it as a-lien (so pronounce the second but correctly). You will be amazed however how quickly they learn to try alternatives - my DS has had several words where I've thought he'll never get that one - but he is keen to try alternative sounds, and a lot of the time he'll get it right.

Sorry so meant to say, he'd try the alternative "ay" sound as he knows a can sound like that - and then he'd get it.

Also I meant second bit, not but!

It is useful to demystify reading for parents - and that seems to be at least part of learnandsay's intention. You definitely can get the impression that unless you understand phonics, you don't know how to get a child reading - and that you might get it 'wrong' (as in this OP).

I didn't try to teach my dc before school, but we did various bits of sound and word recognition because it was fun. We read bits of menus, bits of books, signage etc because it was/is fun. They've had no problem getting phonics, and aren't confused by the fact that we have a different method at home. If either of them struggled with reading, I would work more closely with the teachers and be more phonics-focussed - but as they don't, I don't need to bother learn anything more than the basics. Surely that is the case for most parents.

Debbie Hepplewhite's new alphabet code chart for student teachers may be helpful for parents too -includes teaching tips down the side bar:
www.phonicsinternational.com/Training_illustrated_The%20English%20Alphabetic%20Code.pdf

I think phonics are fab.

DD is due to start school in sept since she joined the nursery attached to her school (last sept) she has been all consumingly obsessed with letters, sounding out/blending and learning to read.

Whist my basic phonics knowledge is good I am not so good at the words with a space/ letter in between iyswim ie make, face etc and don't want to tell/teach DD the wrong way.

That chart is really helpful.

I also think that more schools should be running a basic phonics workshop/lesson for parents too.

My kids school did a very basic one but did not go beyond C A T and CH, TH sounds ( which I already knew)

I never knew until just now that SAID is a decodable word. I thought it was a tricky word, you learn something new every day!!!

That chart is great, thank you. We had a basic phonics workshop - I thought it was brilliant and it did show me that phonics was fun (for little ones).

simpson The thing about words like said, though, is that they crop up in books all the time. So your child will probably have to learn it as a tricky word before they do the 'ai' sound. That's when I think you have to use two methods, really - because if you stick totally to phonics, you can only read a prescribed set of books.

Clink - I agree and also the word LIKE which she can read on sight too without knowing how to decode it (well she can decode it now but knew it on sight first iyswim).

We were given a sheet of tricky words, which included both 'said' and 'like'. So these words - although apparently decodable ? were not taught by phonics. I don't know whether that is the norm or whether that is a sensible mixed approach adopted by our particular teachers (have had the same done in two separate schools, so I assume the former).

And this is where I get a bit confused about phonics - because people who are passionate about phonics seem to advocate just using phonics ? but it seems obvious to me that you supplement with other methods.

Will have to wait until the end of the school day for an answer to that, I guess.

Clink - that's what DD had too, the list of tricky words.

I was surprised that like was on it as I know it's decodable but never knew said was.

What does annoy me is that DD is learning jolly phonics but is then given Biff and Chip books to read.

One of the first ever books she was given was The Pancake. There was no way she could decode the word pancake (at the time, she could now) and used to guess the word by looking at the picture. Which to me is not reading at all.

Hello

Don't mean to hijack but I've got a couple of genuine questions..

1 - when did the teaching change from the Peter and Jane flash cards thing to phonics?

2 - my 3 year old preschooler is pretty bright (so I've been told - I don't have anyone to compare her to!) and is really poring over books and loves being read to. She can recognise her name and knows it starts with M (pronounced em). She's always asking what letters are what, say on a book, or words on a t-shirt etc. What's my best way forward with her from a home point of view? Can anyone recommend a book for me to get her going 'the right way' before I bugger anything up?
TIA

Whether 'said' is decodable or not is a matter of conjecture. With the benefit of hindsight, we know that the 'ai' in said is pronounced 'e'. Would a teacher, teach 'ai' as an 'e' sound in the hope that children will apply it to the 3 words in which occurs? (And not apply it to the hundreds of words where 'ai' is pronounced 'ay')

I think words such as like, made, make, came and take, although completely regular spellings and not remotely tricky, tend to be taught as 'tricky words' because children need to read and write them before they learn 'magic e'.

Woof, Jane and Peter (or the Ladybird Key Word series) had a phonics element from book 4C 'Say the Sound' to book 8C 'Fun with Sounds'. Phonics seems to have come as an initial method without any prior learning of sight words with the publication of Jolly Phonics in in the early 90s.