phonics for dummies ?

[bananacarnival]

Is there a quick page that someone could kindly send me a link to? I need to get to grips with all of the terminology. For my children, but I'm also going back into a job that's in education and I need to be aware of the latest initiatives. My google search is not going well...

Thanks

"In English, phonics in the sense of sounding out graphemes (single letters or combinations of them used for spelling a sound like sh, igh) and blending them into words works only up to a point."
I'm not surprised you are confused Masha. You don't know how the code works.
You also wilfully distort the kinds of claims that phonics advocates make. They do not claim that synthetic phonics is a miracle cure. For children who have fallen behind, it is quite often painstaking work to catch them up and that takes time and effort.
For beginning readers, on the other hand, it is easy to teach if the teacher understands how the code works, they teach the skills necessary to use the code efficiently, and they teach it from simple to complex.
Until you learn to understand that written language is a representation of spoken language and that what drives the code is the sounds of the language - something on which all experts on writing systems are in complete agreement - you'll remain confused and, worse, you'll confuse others.

No, masha used my quote, I'm confused as hell!!
Getting more so by the post!

I am an expert on writing systems.

I can tell u that English has 43 speech sounds, as listed and shown in the words below:
/a/ (ant), /ai/ (rain), /ar/ (arm), /air/ (air), /au/ (autumn),

/b/ (bed), /ch/ (chip), /d/ (dog),

/e/ (egg), /ee/ (eel), /er/ (herb),

/f/ (fish), /g/ (garden), /h/ (house),

/i/ (ink), /igh (high), /j/ (jug), /k/ (kite),

/l/ (lips), /m/ (man), /n/ (nose), /ng/ (ring),

/o/ (on), /oe/ (toe), /oi/ (coin),

long /oo/ (food), short /oo/ (wood), /or/ (order), /ou/ (out),

/p/ (pin), /r/ (rug), /s/ (sun), /sh/ (shop),

/t/ (tap), /th/ (this), /th/ (thing),

/u/ (cup), /ue/ (cue), /v/ (van), /w/ (window), /y/ (yak), /z/ (zip), /si/ (television)
It also has an unstressed half-vowel
which linguists call ?schwa?
which occurs mainly in endings and is often spelt , as in ?flatten, flatter, artery, decide? (but not in abandon, certain....)

Children need to be made aware that words are made up of sounds, but for reading, they mainly have to learn the sounds for the graphemes used for them, the main 90 of which I listed above.

I have often asked people who claim to be phonics experts to explain on here exactly how they teach the variant pronunciations of graphemes, but they never do. Perhaps u will?

Alien, reading masha's posts is going to get you even more confused.

read this link that maverick posted. It's brilliant.
www.dyslexics.org.uk/main_method_3.htm

And then ask any specific questions that you've got in this forum. There are loads and loads of real phonics junkies here. (I'm not one of them!!)

Mashabell Tue 13-Nov-12 12:29:23

"I am an expert on writing systems."

[howl with laughter]

Mrz and Feenie are ever-ready to belittle what I say, but they never point out any particular errors or explain exactly how they teach the graphemes with alternative pronunciations - the ones that cause reading problems.

The explanation at www.dyslexics.org.uk/main_method_3.htm
is ok to start with (for roughly a page). Much of the rest is very questionable.

Whenever I explain that learning to read and write English is exceptionally difficult, several of the phonics experts on here disagree. But please note the following from that link:
As early reading expert, Ruth Miskin says, 'It is important to make learning to read as simple as possible. This means pretending, just for a little while, that learning to read English is as easy as learning to read Spanish' (Miskin SEN magazine 47.p29). This clever device of having, temporarily, an artificially transparent alphabet code helps to level the playing field between those who are learning to read and write in English and the majority of their counterparts on the European continent.

Most children of the posters on here (who are all exceptionally highly literate) will learn to read and write with relative ease, irrespective of the teaching method used, because they are well supported at home. They will need very little of the simple phonics which pretends that the English alphabet code is as regular and transparent as any other. They will rapidly move on to learning to recognising all common words as wholes and become fluent readers.

Carefully structured teaching of reading is much more crucial for children in the bottom half of the ability range who are less able to cope with the inconsistencies of English spelling.

I don't know about learning common words as wholes. I'm sure some people do it like that. (I did when I was growing up.) sent, saint, scent

even whole word or whole language tuition relies on people being observant because otherwise one would constantly be confusing similar looking words. Children who learned Look and Say also learned to spell and we knew how to spell saint, scent, cent, sent

we knew what the words meant and we knew that they were different words with different meanings (of course we could talk as well as read) so language wasn't unfamiliar to us. I think some people do an injustice to Look and Say on the basis that it's not as intuitive as phonics. (I think that's true. It isn't.) It's not as easy to understand as phonics. (I don't know, but maybe that's true too. But if you can talk and you can spell I can't see what's so difficult about it.) And some people say that in order to do Look and Say you have to remember every word in the English language by sight. But of course you don't because you can speak and you can spell. So you know titch, kitch, itch, bitch all spell different words and you know what each of those words means.

Your posting is another example of the wilful distortion you are prepared to make in pushing your agenda. It is perfectly true to say that Ruth Miskin, as well as many other phonics providers begin with an artificially simplified first step in teaching the code. The 'initial' or 'basic' code - teaching one-to-one correspondences and some simple two-letter spellings (, , and , along with , , , etc.) - does bear a resemblance to many orthographies in other languages such as Spanish.
However, after teaching a 'basic' or 'initial' code, almost all such programmes for teaching English go on to teach the more complex sound spelling correspondences systematically. In fact, as scores of research studies have amply demonstrated, such an approach is most beneficial to beginning readers who don't come from homes where they have a great deal of support. Moreover, in many cases, even where children do have good support, there is no reason why they would work out the code by themselves, precisely because of the code's lack of transparency. These children too benefit from good quality instruction.
Learning to read and spell in English is NOT exceptionally difficult if teachers and carers know how to do it. That's why proper training is essential.

I'm sure there some element of common sense to the task. Surely young children don't need vast vocabularies to read most children's books. OK, if they want to read eight volume encyclopaedias at the age of four that's going to be more of a challenge for mum to keep abreast of. But if they want to read Goldilocks I reckon mum's probably in with a chance.

Hi bananacarnival:

Oxford Owl has this link for help with teaching phonics (written for parents I think): www.oxfordowl.co.uk/Question/Index/3

Jolly Phonics parent/ teacher guide here: jolly2.s3.amazonaws.com/Catalogues%20and%20Guide/Parent%20Teacher%20Guide.pdf - excellent workbooks available from most good newsagents/ book stores (info on workbooks at end of this guide).

Times Education Supplement phonics expert: Mr. Thorne Does Phonics - link to webpage here: www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storyCode=6116170&s_cid=MrPhonics_LandingPage

CBEEBIES Alphablocks: www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/alphablocks/

Read Write Inc info and phonics here: www.oxfordschoolimprovement.co.uk/resources/view/rwi-phonics

masha once again you write half truths ...
no one has ever said English isn't complex, I certainly haven't.
but many people have explained to you how alternative spellings of sounds are taught but you choose to ignore anything that does fit in with your own skewed theory just as you constantly ignore all those questions on TES.