Sounding out, whole word and phonics question

[Shattereddreams]

My dd is doing well with her reading. Y1.
At home we read more extensively than school books so I am aware there is an element of pushing her above her school ability so to speak. But her school books are not particularly challenging ORT Level 7.

When she approaches a long unknown word, she basically panics. Small words if unknown don't cause problems, just long ones.

If phonetic, I ask her to sound out. But she can't. I think she reads in a whole word way, and she tries to make a word that she does know without really looking at the word.
Eg
Tethered she wanted to read as teacher.

She has a lazy supply teacher this year so hasn't made much progress in school, plenty at home though.

Is this fear normal progression?

I wondered about the phonics test because if she can't sound out unknown words then this could be a problem.

as the name suggests with Look and Say the child was taught to Look at the word and Say it (flashcard, word lists sight learning)

Ah yes, I guess I just find the whole idea of trying to teach reading without any sounds very odd indeed! Not to say that there won't be some children who can learn this way, just not many will find that the best way.....as has been shown with the research
Yes, mixed methods were the norm for a lot of us. I remember my mother recommending flashcards for DS when he was starting off, but we never went down this route as it seemed inappropriate.

The definition was for learnandsay, CecilyP.
Look Say Cover Write Check is the spelling equivalent to Look and Say reading whole word teaching.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if English was spelt phonetically (as near as possible allowing for accents)? It is about as far from phonetic as we are from Jupiter, so why the Government insists all children should learn this way is beyond me.

Children have been learning to read using many different methods for donkeys' years and have been just as successful. Learnandsay is quite right - use the method that works for your child and don't worry about whether the books are pc or not. My own children learnt on Peter and Jane and are now highly educated and in very good careers.

Phonetics - here are some examples:

The 'oo' sound is spelt differently in all these words:

to
too
two
through
blue
blew
you
truce
truant

The letters 'ough' have nine different pronunciations. I am not sure how many I can remember at the moment, but here goes:

cough
through
though
thought
rough
bough
thorough
lough
hiccough (old fashioned spelling of hiccup)

'One' begins with a 'o' when we all know it should begin with a 'w'.

'of' instead of 'ov', 'off' instead of 'of'

Silent letters: know, write, etc

What's phonetic about that?

Wouldn't it be wonderful if English was spelt phonetically wouldn't it be wonderful if people understood that English is spelt phonetically even if it is more complex than some other languages where sounds have a single representation.

Silent letters: of course all letters are silent it's speakers who make sounds.

know, write, etc

What's phonetic about that? everything ...wr is a way to spell the sound "r" and kn is a way to spell the sound "n" quite simple if you know as much as an average six year old

Wouldn't it be wonderful if English was spelt phonetically (as near as possible allowing for accents)?
It would indeed. Children would learn to read and write in a fraction of the time they need for it now, as they do in many countries.

It is because 69 English graphemes have more than one sound (on - only, once; out - couple, group ...I could paste them all in, but don't want to make Mrz scream again) that even learning to read fluently takes several years, rather than just a few months in the rest of Europe.

To become a really proficient speller takes around 15 years, because at least 3,700 common English words have some unpredictable letters in them (from men - many to zip - xylophone).

Learning to read is easier, because u can teach children, as Mrz says,
wr is a way to spell the sound "r" and kn is a way to spell the sound "n" , (or that they are daft alternative ways of spelling the r and n sounds).

But for spelling, children have to learn word by word which ones don't spell r and n in the usual/most common English way:
knee, know, knock, knit ... gnat, gnash
wrap, wreck, wrinkle....rhubarb

That's why phonics is of very limited use for learning to spell English, and not even quite sufficient for learning to read either.
Masha Bell

learning to read fluently takes several years, rather than just a few months in the rest of Europe
I'm just not convinced thats true. DD1 goes to norwegian school, in norway, dealing with a phonetically regular language and I can say categorically that reading fluently does not take 'just a few months' for the majority of children.

OK it helps that they are on average 20 months older than school starters in england so they are more mature and have longer concentration spans and they can usually start decoding fairly quickly, but fluent reading relies on rapid decoding, and the ability to scan the whole word to identify phonic elements. eg in norwegian the i sound in tiss differs from the i sound in ris because it is followed by a double rather than a single consonant. I'm not sure that functionally it is so much more difficult to deal with alternative spellings of different sounds in english. There is more code to learn in english but the fluency seems to be a matter of being able to identify phonic elements and blend them at a functional speed, and I suspect the end product of that may be 'whole word reading'. Of course with the code in place and blending skills new words can be dealt with, which has got to be a good thing.

DD1's reading in norwegian is better than her reading in english, but she gets a lot more practice and reinforcement. Mind you her english isn't far behind, I suspect because the skills of scanning words, remembering the segments (and their order) and blending are transferable skills, so they only difference is the 'code'

You don't need a be a six year old to read knee, know, knack, photo, pharoah and whelp. But if you're an adult you might ask why do we spell like that? Whereas a six year old probably just takes it on trust that that is the way that we spell.

alanyoung

"The letters 'ough' have nine different pronunciations. I am not sure how many I can remember at the moment, but here goes:

cough
through
though
thought
rough
bough
thorough
lough
hiccough (old fashioned spelling of hiccup)"

it's eight not nine - lough is the same as rough.

and the reason this happens is because English is a language that has evolved from all different languages and sources (including regional variations)

it's what makes English such a varied and versatile language.
and that's also why people shouldn't spend so long complaining about why this is spelled/spelt differently from that, but rather should embrace the language and its history.

"The 'oo' sound is spelt differently in all these words:

to
too
two
through
blue
blew
you
truce
truant"

through and you the oo sound is the same.
it's the same in truce and truant

mrz, if the average six year old knows what you are implying they know, why do we have such a problem with reading and spelling in this country? Surely, if it's that simple every child would be reading fluently by the age of seven or eight!

nickelbabe, I believe this lough as in the Irish lake is pronounced 'loch' as per the Scottish.

Even if I'm wrong about that, it's still eight - seven too many!

Alan, reading and spelling are different. Lots of people can read pretty well but spell really badly. Phonics enthusiasts say we have a reading problem in this country because reading has been poorly taught for the last few decades. But then lots of subjects have been poorly taught for the last few decades!

and the reason this happens is because English is a language that has evolved from all different languages and sources

nickelbabe, this is an argument that one hears very often and it is true, of course. But there is, I believe, a flaw with it.

Only a very small percentage of academics really understand what all that is about and the rest just want to be able to read books, newspapers, contracts etc. Many people cannot appreciate the point because they have trouble reading. It's rather like having an appreciation of Latin or Ancient Greek - very interesting if you are interested, but most people aren't.

learnandsay, I agree, but just because they are different doesn't mean they aren't related.

ah, i seeee, lough - that's not classed as English, though, as it's Irish (is it Gaelic?)

does it really matter how many people "understand what it's all about" ?

I don't want a spelling reform.
I think the English language is amazing in its diversity and I think it should stay that way.

Although the history of spelling is interesting, very few teachers take the trouble to explain why it is like that (many don't know themselves, I believe). For instance, I can remember learning the rule 'i before e except after c' (with too many notable exceptions, I might add). I must have been seven or eight at the time and I remember thinking that one day someone would tell me why 'c' is an exception. Fifty seven years later I am still waiting!

nickelbabe, perhaps, but there are still eight!

nickelbabe, I think the English language is amazing in its diversity too, but the point is that this diversity is the problem that is holding up our children's reading and spelling.

Which is more important, an academic interest or the reading ability of the more than 600 000 children that pass out of our schools every year (and that's just the UK)?

Well, the phonics enthusiasts think they've cracked it with phonics. According to them, if their methods are used properly nation-wide then most children, nearly all, will be able to read well. Recently we've seen in this forum one or two children who have failed with phonics. But the enthusiasts insist that that is about their failure rate, one or two children per year, not thousands. (And who knows, maybe they're right.) The only problem is you can't do anything perfectly country wide, not even obey the law, the best you can do is try. The real failure rate will always be higher than its theoretical equivalent because the delivery method relies on people and they fail all the time.

yes, there still 8. that's a fascinating thing!

the i before e except after c rule is about the sound eee. there are no notable exceptions to that. (maybe the "except after c" part is the exception that proves the rule?)
do you really need to know why?

I don't believe that the complexity of the English language holds children up in their literacy progress. any more than a child in a country where the language is made of symbols and not letters (although letters are symbols really) - in Chinese languages, the symbols make up whole words, and that means that there are thousands of variations, and most of the symbols are made of phonetic blocks, just like our words are.

I don't think anyone has ever suggested meddling with the English language.
Spelling words like 'said, head, friend' more sensibly would not change them as words in any way. It would merely make it easier to learn to read and write them.

I agree with Viking that reading fluency is not merely a matter of decoding:
the end product of that may be 'whole word reading'.As fluent readers we recognise all common words by sight, without decoding. That is the final aim of reading instruction. Many children decode for too long and have to be taught to 'just read' the words they recognise already.

The big advantage of more decodable spelling system is that
new words can be dealt with more easily.
This enables children to become fluent readers with much less help from adults (especially parents). They don't keep getting stuck on words like 'said, through, people...'. They can easily work them out by themselves.

Many English-speaking children don't get anywhere without a lot of intensive one-to-one help, which many of them don't enjoy. It's very costly too. Anyone who dismisses the idea of modernising English spelling out of hand, simply because they don't like the thought of change, should perhaps give some thought to THE COSTS of English spelling inconsistencies.

The irregularity of English spelling is only one part of the problem. Another part is student participation. Our English language is pretty much spoken, (if not pronounced) in the same way across the country. But have you noticed that some youngsters can hardly speak English properly? Have you noticed that some parents (British born) can hardly speak English properly? That has nothing to do with English spelling (and probably very little to do with what they were taught in school either.) And maths is regular enough. So if regularity was the key to success then we'd all be good at maths.