Is phonics the best way to teach kids to read? Nick Gibb and Michael Rosen debate

[ElenMumsnetBloggers]

Last month all year one children in England had to take a phonics screening check, and phonics is being rolled out across the country as the way to teach children to read. But is this too prescriptive? We asked children's author Michael Rosen and Education Minister Nick Gibb to debate phonics. Read their debate about phonics as a tool for children to learn to read here and have your say. Do you agree with Nick Gibb or Michael Rosen? Is phonics the most effective way to teach children to read? Should we use several ways of teaching reading, or concentrate on phonics? Join the debate.

The only synthetic reading scheme I have experience of is Ruth Miskin. Those books had very few (very odd) pictures! And you didn't even get to 'qualify' for a book until you could read quite complex stuff.

Michael has very clearly said he is NOT against the teaching of phonics.
He is concerned that the massive emphasis on phonics in the first, fast and only sense diverts resources away from the teaching and enjoyment of real books. Because resources in primary schools, as we all know, are extremely limited and many children (not those of Mnetters, obv) are not exposed to books at home or taken to the library (which has probably been closed down anyway)

People were taught to read using phonics for centuries. There was no debate because it was the only method used. Then other methods came along (whole word recognition, etc.), became fashionable and were adopted by many schools in the UK from the 1970s onwards. The evidence available suggests that standards have fallen since the introduction of these new methods, although I believe this is disputed (and in any case, it is possible that any fall in standards may be for reasons other than the change in teaching approach).

How I wish my son was taught to read using phonics.

Ds is now 11, in year 6 and doesn't know the sounds letters make, can't blend effectively & stuggles to decode nonsense words. He has never managed to read a book for pleasure and has recently been diagnosed as dyslexic. I am now having to teach him to read myself as the school don't believe he has any reading problems because he is good at comprehension.

I think if he were younger and was taught using phonics and tested at the end of year 1 we wouldn't have had half the problems we have had with his reading. He threw all the books out of his room saying he hated reading, yet the SENco asked me 'well which non-fiction' books does he read? NONE, he doesn't read at all

After only a few weeks with a systematic reading programme I can see he is starting to understand how to work out new words. Hopefully we can make vast improvements before secondary.

Where do people get the idea that whole word recognition started in the 1970s? Janet and John books were first published in 1949 and had certainly caught on in a big way by the 1950s.

Miggsie, I agree. Russian is a very phonetic language and you can learn to read it accurately if you really focus for a few days on the alphabet/getting the sounds and emphasis right. Comprehension is another matter.

Mrz -- 'Well math we get good reading results with children who come from homes without books so what would be your explanation?'
Another anecdote -- my own DCs learned to read before they got to school and were tackling the likes of Nancy Drew (and understanding the plot) by 5-6. What would be your explanation?

I think I can guarantee that what you have taught those children to do is decode, and once reading material becomes complex, technical, nuanced and vocabulary rich, their comprehension levels will tail off significantly as will their interest in reading, for either profit or pleasure.

Yes, you have to know how to decode words, and yes, phonics is a very useful tool for many children, but any politician who promises results for all, with the implication that the problem of the huge tail of under achievement (that has existed since well before the heyday of whole word recognition) will disappear once decoding happens, is a charlatan. The premise behind offering a magic solution to non-achievement in the education system at the classroom level, a democratic one-size-fits-all path to fluent reading which is the key to educational opportunity, is that the educational playing field is level and all that is needed in order to get everyone playing the game is phonics. The fact is that educational attainment in the UK can be predicted according to postal code. The exceptions prove the rule.

The real problem with reading and all other elements of the education system where students fail (and the UK has a huge tail of under or non-achievement as well as a much smaller cohort achieving spectacularly good results at the top) is homes where there is little or no interest on the part of parents and a culture that is anti-intellectual that affects boys' engagement with school in particular. Barnardos discussion paper on underachievement in Northern Ireland, where even within the disadvantaged sections of the community, educational achievement of one group is worse than the other, and the factors that make a perfect storm of low educational aspiration and achievement.

Decoding instruction is a plaster over an injury that requires far more extensive treatment.

Sorry CecilyP - didn't express myself very well. Yes, other methods were in use alongside phonics by the mid-20th Century. The significance of the 1970s is that this is when phonics became unfashionable and was abandoned by many schools.

"Russian is a very phonetic language"

All languages (except sign language) are phonetic. Phonetics, which vary regionally, between speakers and between the utterances of on speaker, an also contain assimilations of which speaker are usually unaware, is not helpful in learning to read.

Phonemics - recognising the meaningful sounds in a language - is a key area.

The number and type of phoneme/grapheme correspondences varies between languages (eg in Chinese there are next to none, and the reader does indeed have to look and say). Although it's probably correct to say that the more "regular" the language in terms of phone/grapheme correspondences, the easier it is to pronounce; it's not correct to suggest that English is unduly difficult.

I have never seen it propounded as a panacea for all under-achievement; it is, however, held (rightly) as the approach which successful produces the lowest number of sub-standards readers. There are obviously concerns that if a child cano read they will be unable to access the curriculum effectively. If that OBE specific problem were reduced, it would free up time an effort to tackle other aspects.

^"
I think I can guarantee that what you have taught those children to do is decode, and once reading material becomes complex, technical, nuanced and vocabulary rich, their comprehension levels will tail off significantly as will their interest in reading, for either profit or pleasure."^

So should I tell these 6 year olds that they shouldn't be able to read Rolad Dahl, Harry Potter, The Spiderwick Chronicles, Percy Jackson etc because they can only decode Math?

Which is what they are currently reading at breaks and at home for their own pleasure.

I don't think even phonics fanatics mean you shouldn't discuss the meaning of texts with children, do they????? Doesn't the "only" in "first, fast and only" just mean it should be the only way of actively teaching a child how to make the noise represented by written words on the page? Or does it really mean that you should on no account discuss the meaning of the sentences the child has just decoded????? It seems to me really odd to get paranoid about children being incapable of understanding the meaning of what they are reading just because they are using phonics to decode the words. Why does learning high frequency words off by heart make you better at understanding what a story is about?

No rabbitstew they don't although it is an often made claimed
What people who teach using phonics say is don't expect a child to independently read words they haven't got the skills to read yet ... but to read lots of quality books together for pleasure. If your child wants to read a book with words they don't know just tell them what it says rather than expect them to guess.

My experience so far with one of my three children at school is that I don't like phonics.

I never used it (self taught, reader before school age). School provided zero information or support, right down to never mentioning the word 'phonics', so heaven only knows how we parents were supposed to help our children at home.

DS (6) has just flunked his phonics test.

I read with him every night, and at first he was quite happy to try and read by sight, guessing from pictures, recognising some words and giving the stories lots of expression, but (once we realised that was the game) decoding word by word bored him stupid and was an endless struggle complete with lots of 'I'm stupid' and 'I can't do this'.

Can I ask you what you do when you meet a word you have never seen before NightLark?

The central question here is about trust. Who do we trust to educate our children more, their teacher, or a politician who has never taught before in his life? Teachers need to be given the freedom to choose the method they feel is appropriate; this may be phonics, or it may be another method. Teachers like me are with children day in, day out, we see and learn what is the most appropriate way to teach children; they are all different. You can't have one-size-fits-all solutions. The best education systems in the world like Finland's give teachers the freedom to do what they feel is appropriate.

edithweston let me start by saying that i think most teachers work very hard and want to do the best they possibly can for their pupils . My comment about the literacy hour was slightly off topic but relevant in that the way i have seen it taught would put many children off reading. I added in my comment that the teacher concerned got good sats result as it was important. She is never going to retrained, not in that particular school for precisely that reason! How good results are achieved is worth thinking about. In this case the teacher kept behind pupils who couldn't finish on time in during their break times- they weren't lazy, they were just struggling. The class were very much taught to the tests, to the extent that she saw the exam papers and then spent the next few days coaching them on foreign names and reading as many similar books to them as she could so they'd be familiar with what was coming up (i.e cheating ??) . Now maybe you can argue that she went beyond the call of duty in doing that or maybe you could say that she was more interested in Sats results and how they reflected on her as a teacher- in fact she told me as much, she wanted good results because she wanted to be promoted. I just felt sorry for the young children (year 2 ) kept inside all morning and how pressurised the whole class seemed to be.
I think as parents we have a right to question exactly what is going on in some schools in order for them to get their wonderful results . I know some parents who have taken their children out of a school because they weren't happy with the pressure their children were under. sorry rant over.

'don't understand how a child can attempt to read an unfamiliar word if they do not have any knowledge of letter/combination sounds?

the 'look and say' readers do develop phonics rules subconciously all bt themselves through their experience of reading.It's like I said earlier dogs come in all shapes and sizes, yet we all recognise one when we see one and know it sn't a cat or a goat because our brain has built up a pattern of what 'dogness' is.We don't need to be taught that and it would be impossible to do so.

I'm with ATOMum. Phonics works really well for children who "get" phonics. If Education is a round hole and your child is a round peg = happy days. The problem is not with teachers, it is with tighter and tighter government guidelines: more testing, paperwork, rankings, league tables, Ofsted assessments. Teachers know full-well that all children learn differently but there are only so many hours in the day to get the prescribed Learning Objectives observed, ticked off and reported. This leaves very little time to work on a "Plan B" with these youngsters. Phonics screening is yet another set of tests/paperwork to drain teaching time from the very young with any kind of learning difference. :(

The best education systems in the world like Finland's give teachers the freedom to do what they feel is appropriate.

And Finland is one of the many countries in the world where children are taught to read with phonics, as a matter of course, without any highly charged debate.

Interesting example, Finland. Synthetic phonics is nigh on universal there for beginning to read, as it is recognised as the best method.

What do I do when I meet a new word, erm, I don't know!

If it's something I don't need to know (a character name in a book, for e.g.), I don't bother making a sound for it, I just recognise it. Like a pattern, I suppose.

I have got more common words (that I've read, but never spoken) wrong for years though - facsimile springs to mind! That was fax-i-mile the first time I tried to say it.

With phonics your "plan B' population is unlikely to exceed 5%. With mixed methods it's likely to be around 20%.

So if your concern is reducing the number of children not reading well enough in the first place, and then (unless you have unlimited resources) standing a better chance of being able to provide adequate support to the numbers that do, then it's pretty clear that phonics is the first choice method.

"the 'look and say' readers do develop phonics rules subconciously all bt themselves"

Some of them do. A fair percentage don't. Which is why we have had around 20% illiteracy rate using this method. Even children who do develop rules subconsciously have trouble retrieving those rules when it comes to spelling (subconscious is the problem here) and also because being left to discern the rules themselves means their subconscious understanding is often patchy.

In fact, a bit like JollyHockySticks upthread, I don't make a lot of thought-sounds. Can't remember a tune from one day to the next, even nursery rhymes. I think in thoughts, not in noises.