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.

Feenie I can assure you that even with sp children do leave school unable to read....I know of at least 3 from when I was at school.

There are kids in my sons school (y5) who are very poor readers...school has tried but they don't read at home and get no support at home

What can you do?

The school only has so many sessions per week which has to be spread out over the whole school...

Sp is not the answer to all literacy issues sadly.

Can I ask the teachers amongst you what NC levels a child would be expected to achieve by the end of year 5 please?
Ds1 has am huge progress in year 4 and am hopeful that by this time next year he wil be where he should be iyswim?
TIA

A level 3A would indicate a child on track to reach expected levels at the end of KS2 but it varies greatly

Sorry mrz is that a 3a at the end of Y5?

I am trying to not get too het up over levels BUT ds1 has made such fab progress this year (his Y4 teachers have been great I have to say) and I am pretty clueless about where a child would be expected to be at the end of the Y5.

This time last year (Y3) he was;
reading - 1a
writing - 1b and
maths - 2c

He is now;
reading - 3c
writing - 2a
maths - 3b

Am very proud of him :)

So the children you work with aren't necessarily identified in the transition between primary and secondary? The secondary school identifies them in Y7, Y8? Would they be the ones included in this 20% of children that can't read? Or is it 20% (those that don't achieve level 4) plus the extra identified by the secondary school?

Our children are initially identified at transition on teacher assessments and direct information from primary teachers. We don't usually get the official NCT results until a week or two into the Autumn term. (Teacher assessments are usually more realistic anyway). The L4s who are struggling are often identified by our teachers (which makes it a bit hit and miss as some teachers are so used to dealing with poor literacy that they don't always seem to think it is anything out of the ordinary) or by worried parents at the first Y7 parents evening held in the Autumn term.

Some schools do blanket testing of the new Y7 intake and pick out children from that. I have no idea what their criteria might be for intervention, nor what interventions they use. There are all sorts of literacy interventions available; some better than others.

Some schools also seem to focus more on 'accomodation' than actually trying to improve a child's reading skills. 'Accomodation' has always looked to me to be a main feature of 'dyslexia friendly' schools. I may be misjudging them but whenever I have tried to look at the detail of 'dyslexia friendly' initiatives they say very little about actually teaching children to read! It's all about differentiation and coping strategies...

I think the figure of 20% is based on KS2 English results, which always hover around the 80% L4+ nationally, and a tacit acknowledgement that a child with a L3 for reading is not a competent reade r (though the fiction that they are 'functional readers' is stoutly defended by some in the educational establishment). I would say that about 15 - 20% of our annual intake can't read (at least, they can't by my standards!)

I think the national 20% figure would be higher if we had a more rigorous view of what constitutes competent reading.

Agree completely maizie

The main secondary school most of our children with move to (all this year) has a transition teacher who works with the children once a week in Y6 and carries out reading tests and their own assessments while the children are still in primary. The school my children attended had a similar policy for transition.

Any views on what percentage of the 20% have poor reading skills because they rarely got any reading practice at home? Or on how much a school can be expected to do on its own where parental support or ability to help is lacking? Should such children have been separated out into entirely different classes from their peers, so that they could get intensive reading practice during school hours, rather than putting them through other aspects of the national curriculum, like PE, art, history, geography, music, etc?

And as a secondary level comparison, what sort of percentage of people do you think would be capable of passing GCSE exams at A*-C grades if they never revised at home and relied totally on what they had done at school, in school hours, in order to gain competence in the subject?

Should all primary aged children have a reduced curriculum to enable the 20% to get up to speed with their reading without getting too behind in everything else in the meantime?... What do you do with the children who are fluent readers from an early age at primary school in order to keep them stimulated when others are busy learning to read?

Or is synthetic phonics genuinely the answer to the problem?

And can you really learn all of your phonics and retain that knowledge forever on 20 minutes a day plus no practising at home?

I have a child in my Y2 class who has never been heard at home, she has no books in the home and he home reading record has never been returned. She easily achieved a level 3 in the KS1 tests and has a reading age of 12y.4m and has only been taught using phonics. So I guess the answer to your last question is yes rabbitstew.

Feenie I can assure you that even with sp children do leave school unable to read....I know of at least 3 from when I was at school.

There are kids in my sons school (y5) who are very poor readers...school has tried but they don't read at home and get no support at home

What can you do?

The school only has so many sessions per week which has to be spread out over the whole school...

So what? It's my job to make sure that every child can read - school has tried what exactly? Many of our children come to school not knowing which way to hold a book, but we don't make excuses, we work extra hard on creating a reading culture at school instead. Author visits, books swaps, whole school reading events like Olympic torch books which are passed on from child to child and recorded on a display, reviews written for an online magazine in return for free library books, a borrowing library at school for those who aren't taken at home, book clubs, magazine clubs, reading groups, breakfast book club - the list is endless.

I did reading interviews recently with 3 children from each year group, of differing abilities, and every child said they loved reading. Ofsted found the same 2 years ago.

It can be exhausting promoting reading and constantly giving it a high profile in an area where some children don't read at home and where some parents can't actually read themselves, but with committed staff it can be done.

I doubt the phonics teaching you received at school was the same as it is today in schools where teachers are properly trained. The results speak for themselves - didn't you open any of the links?

mrz and Feenie, what are you using to measure 100% success in learning to read and write. Is it 100% level 4 and above (and are children allowed to be exempted, so the non reader/writer will not feature in the stats.)

Good teacher assessments, NC tests, reading age tests from our end and then CAT tests/reading tests at the secondary, depending on the school.

ALL children must be incuded in the stats, regardless of attainment. There are no exceptions, unless a child has very recently arrived in the UK.

I don't know about limited places for support but we are quite proud to have the reputation that none of our mainstream children need reading or writing support when they leave us where other local schools (including those with a higher social standing) have.

I suspect poor achievement in children who aren't head reading at home has a lot to do with the expectations of their teachers.

The parents of one of the best readers in the last Year 1 class I taught were illiterate. They didn't have any books in the house because they couldn't read them. They certainly weren't reading to her and if she was reading to them they wouldn't have been able to correct any mistakes as they couldn't read any of the books she took home.

If children with these experiences are learning to read well in some schools then we need to be asking serious questions about why they are not learning to read in all schools. IME a lot of this is to do with the quality of the SP or LP program being taught and knowledge and understanding of the teachers teaching it.

I am constantly amazed by the scepticism of some parents and even teachers where reading is concerned.

If there is something which teachers and parents are jumping up and down about, saying 'it works, it works', then surely it's a nobrainer?

When I left university 20 years ago, I knew nothing about teaching reading. After a year of teaching, I knew damn well that I wanted to find out everything I could personally to ensure no more children left a school I taught in unable to read. I don't understand why teachers, especially, are sceptical about a method they haven't tried (not exclusively, anyway), when children are still being failed without it, every single day. It's a nobrainer, surely?

Feenie, I wish the 10 million pounds (which if my memory serves me correctly I saw quoted by Gibb or Gove) spent so far on match funding, had been spent on school libraries and insisting activities such as yours were implemented in all schools. Realistically 'phonics' is dirt cheap to teach with pen, paper and magnetic letters. Children could create their own simple decodable texts, which would mean something to them. Synthetic phonics is not the answer, and the government pushing it forward as if it is, handing out honours and lining the pockets of publishing companies and others is not going to raise standards in reading and writing. Investing in libraries (school and community) is, and teachers that have the desire and inspiration to ensure reading and writing is top focus. Apparently in Finland, whose literacy levels are often held up as aspirational, going to the library is the main family recreation activity. Also, I believe, parents teach their children to read before going to school. They realise that it is their role to take an active part in their children learning to read and write, and haven't been told my those in educational 'authority' otherwise.

Synthetic phonics is not the answer

It is in my school - it teaches every child to read.

Why do you think it isn't the answer?

'Synthetic Phonics PLC' is not the answer.

zebedeee most of the matched funding has gone on training teachers to teach reading because the universities are failing to do so.

But how do you know?

Have you taught in a school where it is taught, or those products are used exclusively?

I am guessing you don't teach at all - your suggestion of children making all their own reading books is quite funny.

Presumably you are against commercial schemes full stop - let me tell you, as a teacher, they are essential.

Yours is a different argument, zebedee.

The training will not necessarily be how to 'teach reading', it will be promoting a synthetic phonic programme, and to implement the programme specific books, CD roms, whiteboards, puppets, flashcards etc etc etc. will need to be bought.

Not necessarily. Books, yes.

So your beef is definitely with commercial schemes then, zebedee? Not SP?

How many children have you taught to read without reading books, decodable or otherwise?

In some cases that is the case but there is funding for independent literacy consultants with no affiliation to any publisher, programme or merchandise to simply provide high quality training nothing more nothing less.