School teaching "sight memorisation" rather than teaching phonics...what to do?

[Greythorne]

We live in France and are a bilingual family (English - French).

DD1 is 5.9 and in Year 1 in a French school. Last year, in what would have been her Reception year had we been in the UK, I taught her to read using phonics. Thanks to lots of advice on here (waves to mrz and others) it worked really well. It seems to me like DD made the two big leaps in learning to read: she has "got" the concept of sounding out sounds (not letter names) then blending them AND she has learnt a lot of the sounds, so she is reading pretty well. Still a long way to go and we have not covered all sounds yet, but we are getting there very surely.

So, in French school, this is the year they start to teach reading. They are supposed to use phonics, according to government guidelines, but I have heard that many teachers are wedded to older methods, esp the sight reading / "méthode globale" / look and say approach.

It is only day 3 and DD has already been given three lists of words to memorise, not read, just memorise. She has memorised them, but as soon as they are in a different context or even a different font, she is struggling, as she has obviously just memorised the shape.

I keep suggesting that she sounds and blends, but she has never been taught the French sounds, only letter names so far. I have avoided teaching her much in French as I am not French and to be honest, I have got enough on my plate teaching her to read in English! I really thought I could rely on the school to teach her to read in French, esp as she already has the concept of reading down pat.

Any advice?

Oh, and CotedAzur - if phonics "cannot" teach a child "read" as a homonym, neither can sight reading - for how can the child know on sight which one is meant? At least with phonics, the child is explicitly taught that sound/grapheme correspondences are not one to one, and how to scan the few possible sounds for the grapheme to come up wit the one which makes sense. With sight-reading, it's guess or flounder.

It is not a question of "if". Knowing the rules (through phonics) cannot prepare the child for reading certain words, for which memorisation is inevitable. Is there a rule the child can learn which then allows him to correctly pronounce both through plough and cough on sight? Or do you just learn the rule with cough tough etc but then memorise learn through as a one-off? And what about plough? I suppose it gets its own rule, too.

You are just saying it with other words, avoiding the m-word. Fine by me, if it means so much to you.

My DD was taught to read in French in CP using a French phonics method. This is indeed the French Ministry of Education sanctioned approach. You can and should ask the school to explain how it teaches reading. I would reserve judgement until you have listened to the school. You are most unlikely to change it, however, so if the school tells you that it is using a "méthode globale" or "semi-globale", I would get your DD a tutor ASAP.

Cote - a child who is a fluent speaker of English before learning to read and who has learned phonics is prepared to read cough, tough, through etc correctly because they have aural cues to correct pronunciation as well as visual decoding skills. What phonics doesn't do is prepare non-English speakers to read those words correctly and it is the non-English speakers who need to memorise their pronunciation.

I will ignore all the techy stuff and say I would give it a bit longer than 3 days op.

Bonsoir
good advice, thank you.

MaizieD and mrz
i appreciate your links to the French phonics materials, but quite honestly, I don't think I am up to teaching French phonics myself. Not because my French is not up to it, but already I am teaching DD English, plus we have French school homework. Adding a tranche of French phonics to our week will be a killer. The school day is already long and finding time to fit in English reading is a challenge.....and being a parent - teacher comes with its own set of issues :)

So I think an independent phonics tutor may well be the way to go, if the school does go the semi globale approach (or even globale method, although that seems to have been discredited, pretty much). Just have to convince DH, who is French, and thinks the school will teach everything, including but not limited to ice skating, swimming, reading and a love of haricots verts :).

My DD is in CE2 and can listen, speak, read and write equally well in both French and English. TBH, she is the only child in her year group who can write equally well in both languages. Most of the bilingual native speaker children have atrocious spelling at this stage. Some of the monolingual French children have great spelling. But the teaching of spelling at school is insufficiently in-depth for children with the burden of two languages. I know that many of the bilingual children continue to struggle with spelling into collège, which is why I am so obsessed keen on ensuring that DD learns proper decoding-encoding in both languages and why she has a tutor.

What are the rules re pronunciation of cough plough through? I'm curious.

I realize that native speakers have the advantage of recognising a word in its context so has a better chance of correct pronunciation. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that even a fluent speaker will have to be told "This is how we write through" rather than just see it on paper as a standalone word and correctly read it because she has mastered the letter combinations. The point being that these letter combinations can be pronounced in several different ways.

We are talking about this because someone was claiming that English is a phonetic language.

Cote - reading (decoding) and writing (encoding) are separate related issues.

No, I cannot run through the rules of phonics on MN in a post - I suggest you read some good weighty tomes, like Stanislas Dehaene's Les Neurones de la Lecture (Reading in the Brain) and all will be crystal-clear!

Perhaps contact soseducation.com/methode-syllabique/
They support synthetic phonics teaching- leaflet available

While you are talking to the school, you could also ask about their methods of teaching spelling in CE1. My DD's school did a great job of teaching reading in French through phonics in CP, but her CE1 teacher (old and set in her ways) ignored the "programme 2008" methods of teaching spelling through phonics in CE1 and gave the children random lists of unrelated words to memorise every evening for "spelling". Grrrrrr.

Yes, I concur with the people who say 3 days trial is not enough to decide anything. I think you should be supporting the school at this stage, and encouraging your daughter to do her best. Learning to read is hard, and your daughter should be praised for any small progress she makes. Young children learn by constant repetition, and if you could get a cd of simple French songs together with the printed words, that might be a way of helping her to recognise both words and pronunciation - you could learn together!

Edam... I haven't, that statement was based on conversations with professionals (teachers, SALTs and OTs), discussions with other parents, comparison to my own childhood when fewer children seemed to be struggling so noticably by midway through primary as well as direct observation of my own children

I've never understood the evangelical tone used by so many pro-phonics posters. It's a method, it works for lots of kids but for some it doesn't. Exactly the same as memorization.

To categorically state that phonics is the only correct method is narrow minded and nonsensical. Some children are simply not capable of splitting a word into chunks, they hear the word as one sound and cannot grasp the concept of phenomes building a word.

Ds2 had a severe speech delay, he can speak now bit is missing lots of sounds. SALT is slow going as whilst he can make the sound individually, he can't insert them into the words as similar to dd he doesn't comprehend the individual components of the words, he just hears, and attempts to mimic, one sound. Phonics won't work for him either... Even his SALT freely stated as much.

I thought bi-lingual children who learn to read and write in both languages do better (on average) over the long term than their mono-lingual peers? Something about cross-pollination (probably expressed more techy-fashion by the linguists). The tricks and things they learn one day in one language can be applied the next day in the second language lesson, something like that.

The tone isn't meant to be evangelical - it just reflects the inescapable fact that more children learn to read well from a phones based approach than from any other method or combination.

Clearly those who are identified as needing specialist SALT input are a whole different category. But those who are struggling will be fewer in number and more readily identified when phonics is used, so those who need such specialist assistance interventions can be targeted faster and more accurately.

Aren't the stats something like - very roughly, 80% of children would extrapolate the rules sooner or later from whole-word teaching, 15% of children need explicit phonics teaching (which isn't to say the others don't benefit a lot from it too) and 5% of children will need extra, tailored help?

The fact that some children would get there in the end without phonics, and that some children will need additional help regardless, is no reason not to use it.

sorry, cross-posted with Edith. Interesting point that phonics teaching also makes it easier to identify the ones in need of specialist assistance.

SummerRain - You say phonics "works for lots of kids but for some it doesn't. Exactly the same as memorization".

That is the problem. It is NOT exactly the same as memorisation. The failure rate for children taught through memorisation is much higher than for children taught using phonics. Yes, most children will learn to read regardless of the method. But if we want all children to read we should start with phonics.

This may not be an advice you want to hear but: you need to support how the school works, even if it is not what you want to do.

DH and I are German, DD, born here, goes to Y1. We never ever attempted to change or openly contradict how the school teaches a subject because it is counterproductive.

For example the German way to teach numbers is very different but the last thing I want is to confuse her.

We also didn't teach her reading/writing in German as the school language should come first, often children will do the second language when they get an idea how reading is done.

Your DD is quite confused by how she learned to read and unless you start supporting the way the school teaches reading she will not get anywhere. It may not ideal but that's life.

I disagree with every single point you have made, noramum but hey ho, that's MN for you.

I tend to look at school as one of the resources I use when educating my child. The minute I don't like what school is doing, I supplement - reading, writing, maths, art, music, sport, drama...

I agree in part with noramum. I'm fairly sure I read something that says to teach both languages at once. At first, the bilinguals struggle more but with time they benefit synergistically from the different stimulation. Where I agree with noramum, is what do expect to achieve Greythorne, by seeing the head? Do your own thing at home, sure, get in lessons if needed (does DH not have time to help out?) with your preferred system. But I would, personally, let the school get on with what it wants to do. Ask questions at parents' evening if you like....change schools if you think it serious enough. I'm just not sure how confrontation will help matters.

Greythorne: fair enough.

LeBof
There is a paucity of research on whether it is beneficial to teach bilingual children to read in parallel or in sequence. I don't think there is at all concensus on teaching to read in both languages at the same time.

The bigger question is why schools here are still using a discredited method (semi-globale or globale) with any children.

I agree that going in and questioning the school is probably not appropriate (a) after three days and (b) because, especially here in France, it's unlikely to change very much. Hence upthread I mentioned that if and when I discover they are going a non-phonics route, I will engage a French phonics tutor.

Right at the beginning of this thread, I did say I was unsure I wanted to identify myself as "that parent" :)

And noramum where did you get that DD is "quite confused" by how she learned to read? We have followed Jolly Phonics and used Songbirds and Jelly and Bean. Her reading in English is excellent. And I am really proud of her for that.

Greythorne: most reading material about bi-lingual children support the idea that the school language is taught first. We didn't teach DD to read German as such, she picks it up herself.

But: I also know children (a German parenting forum) where the children did not do it themselves and got muddled up when the parents tried to teach German while the child learns the school language, regardless if one or both are phonics-based.

If you live in a country permanently or long-term than school is vital, for me more vital than the home/second language. And therefore I would always support the teaching method.