How to start teaching a child to read with phonics?

[Zimbah]

This is probably a really stupid question... I've read hundreds of threads on this forum about phonics and have got myself in a tangle about how to actually go about teaching DD to read. She's 4, knows the letter sounds for the alphabet, and has started being able to separate out sounds within words although this is still a bit ropey. What do I do now - I'm paranoid about getting it wrong and making things harder, I initially started by teaching the old "Letterland" style sounds e.g. Muh for M, and now despite months of me only saying MMM she sometimes still says Muh. Can I just jump in with some reading scheme books? I know there are 44 sounds, but presumably I need some actual books to teach them within a word context, once she's learnt more basic ones?

And yes I realise I can do what I like as I'm her mum but I would prefer to follow a synthetic phonics way of teaching if possible, as that's what she'll do at school next year, so I'd rather that was her starting point.

Hooray! .

I think if you see your child learning to read in all sorts of ways (phonics/sight/context (yes, context, oh my goodness...) it is a magical experience. And why shouldn't they.They do guess from previous experience at a particular stage in their reading journey but then they are happy to take on phonics knowledge too as part of the jigsaw that will then give them strong foundations for reading and writing. Just because they are guessing at this stage it doesn't mean they will keep on guessing.

So....teachers beware I say! See the wood from the trees. Of course you must teach phonics and encourage this but the little people around you will be using every bit of their brains and experience to crack that code! Restrict this at your peril!

No good teacher would ever stop a child who has worked the code out for themselves - never, ever. What would be the point? There is no ceiling on children's learning, nor have I seen any evidence of any decent phonics practioner trying to do so. The whole point is to get children to access the code, and of course some children will do this for themselves.

The point is that we shouldn't assume that children just will.

But a pp worries about "guessing", and other posters worry about learning by sight recognition. A while back when I posted about DS working words out by context I was slated (he no longer does this as he can read them). I don't think there's anything wrong with learnandsay's DD working "straight" out the way she did, all be it not the way it would be taught in a phonics lesson. So, I'm just sticking up for code cracking in all the other ways that children do if they are left to it.

Of course we shouldn't assume that children just will, I don't think anyone does anymore (apart from the schools that don't actually teach children how to read (ie don't teach phonics in YR and Y1 well), please burn those old ORT books....!!!).

Because guessing isn't reading - or working out the code. Reading is reading - actually reading the word. Sometimes children guess correctly using context - and sometimes they don't - because it isn't reading, it's guessing. Research shows that weaker readers rely heavily on by trying to guess by context or pictures - it isn't ever a strategy to rely on because it is just that - guessing. That's not code cracking, by any stretch of the imagination.

Sometimes children guess correctly using context - and sometimes they don't
And sometimes they make the right choice with a variable spelling like 'o-e' (home, come) and sometimes they don't. That's why many of them need endless hours of someone listening to them read and helping them out when they make the wrong choice.

There would be no need for this, if spellings like 'o-e' always had the same sound (bone, stone, home, alone, phone...), i.e. English had a reliable code.
But it doesn't (gone, done, some...), and that why phonics alone does not enable anyone to become a fluent reader.

Cornflakegirl then you will be aware that the actual research showed that even with simple words if the process of mixling the letters created a real word rather than just a jumble of letters readers were unable to work out the sentences quickly ...perhaps because our brains are looking for meaning.

tgger perhaps I should explain my concern with what learnandsay said

Her daughter was sounding out a word containing a spelling for the sound "ay" that she didn't know ... the simplest solution would be to tell the child "this spelling is 'ay' " as the child knows they can then work out the whole word, simple.

Instead the child said "s" "t" "r" "a" "ie" "t" which fortunately produces a word very close to the actual word (this won't always be the case)

Maybe learnandsay was just not quick enough off the mark, not quite so on the ball that when her DD came to the word straight, she was able to timeously intercept and provide that snippet of extra of extra phonic theory for her daughter to decode the word in the approved way. Of course it won't always be the case that a child will be able to adjust the pronunciation to get the correct word, but in this case she did. So now learnandsay could tell her dd that the aigh spelling is pronounced ay in straight, but as she now knows the word straight, it is actually redundant information that can't be applied to anything else.

mrz, did you have to have extra phonics lessons in order to read the girls' names Roisin and Siobhain?

Unfortunately CecilyP it is often when misconceptions aren't caught they cause problems.

I can't imagine either you or learnandsay not correcting a child who read 47 as four - seven and pointing out that the number is forty - seven, yet you seem to believe that spellings for sounds don't matter

Since both Roisin and Siobhain are Gaelic words they don't use the same code as English words. However having a number of children who were born in Ireland in school (including Roisin, Tiernan, Brogan, Seighin, Niamh ) we do discuss how the letters have accents (MN won't allow me to add accents) and that the letters represent different sounds ...

Maizied - wow that's a bit harsh! Accepted though - but I disagree, sorry.
I dont think it's a daft statement and i don't dispute the rest of your post.
But when we are talking about posters worrying about the 'method' when their child is clearly a very able reader its a bit like trying to fix something that's not broken.
As I said it was not 'one size fits all' for me - I learned with this so calle dubious mixed method and it worked very well. I don't know if you read the part of my post that supports phonics being the method used in schools?

Also several posters on this thread have said similar.

Cat98, just because you learned to read with mixed methods doesn't mean to say that it is an optimal teaching method. If you are a conscientious teacher with 30 children to teach you go for the method which will benefit the largest number of children. Or, conversely, the method which does the least harm!

I don't think that children in general actually do learn so differently as to make it necessary to use a variety of approaches.

Having spent a number of years working at KS3 with primary schools' 'failures', and sometimes having to think very carefully about what would be the best approach for a few of these children who find reading very difficult to learn, I can't find any method other than phonics for simplicity, effectiveness and avoidance of cognitive overload.

In fact, when I was first trained, many years ago, on a 'dyslexia' programme I found it very difficult to understand why the children who found it very difficult to learn were expected to remember all sorts of 'rules' and two different ways to recognise words. (Traditional dyslexia programmes are really not very good)

^Unfortunately CecilyP it is often when misconceptions aren't caught they cause problems.

I can't imagine either you or learnandsay not correcting a child who read 47 as four - seven and pointing out that the number is forty - seven, yet you seem to believe that spellings for sounds don't matter^

I am not sure what misconception you are really referring to. Also learnandsay's dd managed to work out the word correctly (though perhaps not in the most direct way) so didn't actually need correcting.

Since both Roisin and Siobhain are Gaelic words they don't use the same code as English words. However having a number of children who were born in Ireland in school (including Roisin, Tiernan, Brogan, Seighin, Niamh ) we do discuss how the letters have accents (MN won't allow me to add accents) and that the letters represent different sounds ...

The point I was making is that you are able to do that despite not having had lessons in it yourself, in much the same way as learnandsay's DD was able to work out the word straight for herself.

the misconception was that the letters represent two separate sounds "a" & "igh" just as the numerals 47 represent one number - forty seven so the letters represent one sound.

Sorry CecilyP how did you reach the conclusion that I could work out the names even though I hadn't had lessons in it myself?

Sorry mrz, I assumed you could because I could when I first read them not long after having first heard them.

In the case of aigh it is not so big a deal, in that now she has read the word straight, there are no new words that she can now apply the correct knowledge to. If it was a more common correspondence, no doubt learnandsay could have corrected her and given some examples of other words that use that particular spelling.

You also assumed I hadn't had any lessons in Gaelic

Will she be able to read straight the next time she meets it in another text? Very few children assign a word to memory the first time they read it so it would be unusual ....
the other misconception is that English words contain two vowel sounds together as in "a" "igh"

She might remember straight the next time or, as she has been able to work it out once, she should have no difficulty next time.

Do English words not contain two vowel sounds together?

What about boa, seance, fiance, violin, beautiful, meander? Or do you just mean those 2 particular vowel sounds

Wouldn't it be nice if learning was that predictable ... I'm sure you've met children who read a word on one page in a book and there is the same word when they turn the page and it's as if they have never seen it before ...I know I've met quite a few in reception classes over the last two decades.

interestingly none contain "a" "igh" together

Maizied - I'm don't really understand what you're arguing with me about as the first paragraph in your last post is pretty much exactly what I said in my initial post! I have not once said it's an optimal method, just that clearly some children are actually ok with it.
There is another thread running at the moment which I think is what I am referring to, rather than debating phonics.

I've just realised from your response I had missed the word the from my previous post I apologise.

I choose when to tell my daughter how to pronounce and or sound out a word and when not to. If she was going to use the aigh spelling often in words other than straight then I'd point it out to her. But she isn't so I wont. Next time my daughter works out an unusual word we can argue more about it. Phonics guessing can tell you what the alternative sounds are but it can't tell you which one is the right one. Wriggle as much as you like, phonicsy people. But your theory still includes guessing as a core method, whether you like it or not. (The simplest answer is just not to criticise guessing so much, since is so necessary to your own method.)

Cat98. It is the 'one size fits all' comment that I am 'arguing' with!

Wrong of me, maybe, but it is a bit of a 'red rag' comment to me as it is usually trotted out in defence of mixed methods, or 'other (unspecifed) methods' and as a triumphant 'clincher' to a debate about whether synthetic phonics should be the only method used in the initial teaching of reading. "Well, that's settled her hash" hangs unspoken, but implied, in the air "because, of course, all children learn differently..."

I would agree that in many areas there could be different ways to teach the same skills, but as far as teaching reading is concerned the 'other methods' either don't teach the same skills for reading or don't teach them adequately. This is a vital point that a lot of people don't understand; they see all the methods as being much of a muchness, having the same ultimate result, and can't see what the fuss is about.

Knowledge of the alphabetic code and decoding and blending are vital reading skills. If people have been lucky enough to have discovered them for themselves (and many, many people do) that is fine for them, but they generally haven't been taught them and it is very hard on the people who haven't been able to discover them for themselves. They end up believing that they are 'dyslexic' or just plain 'thick'. Which, in most cases, is just not true. They just aint been taught.

If people have been lucky enough to have discovered them for themselves (and many, many people do) that is fine for them

And I can assure posters and readers of these threads that nearly all their children (unlike the children whom Maizie teaches) will be in the lucky position of needing very little phonics. They'l grasp the basic idea very quickly, but also realise that lots of words cannot be completely sounded out, that they have to be worked out with help of context, and that the best strategy for coping with those, in order to become a fluent reader as quckly as possible, is to learn them as whole words as quickly as possible.

As for the others, all children are taught phonics when they are taught to write. So nobody goes entirely without. There would be no lengthy discussions about how best to teach reading, if it wasn't for the irregularities of English spelling - if phonics really worked, as with 'stop not on hot spot' or 'a fat cat sat on a mat' or 'make, bake and take cake'.

The people who become dyslexic are invariably ones who have above average difficulties coping with spelling inconsistencies like 'man - many - men', 'on - only - lonely'. They are less able to suspend logical thinking and just memorise them all, no matter how stupid. They are less able to cope with the stupidities of English spelling.

It's a great shame that there is so much need for it in English.
Masha Bell