Phonics versus Biff, Chip and Kipper

[Lukethe3]

I find it slightly irritating that at DS school he is taught phonics but then sent home to read the old ORT stuff which has tricky words at even the easiest level. Is this purely because the school has no money to buy new books or is there actually an advantage to be taught like this?
I have bought some Songbirds books for DS and these seem to make far more sense to me as they include the sounds that DS is learning.

Multiplication isn't something you have to remember or even CAN partially remember! Once you have understood what it is, it is with you as long as your brain works properly.

This is an interesting argument. Because what it's based on is the concept that if you have been shown something once and have understood it you will always be able to reproduce it. Is that correct?

I think if a child has taught them self to do something whether it is multiplication (there is a boy who can multiply 2 digit numbers in DD's class too) or read or whatever, then they are unlikely to forget how to do it because they are obviously driven to want to know how to do it.

If they have been taught how to do it by their parents and have zero concept of what they are doing (which would be the case if I showed DD how to do multiplication) that's when they forget how to do it.

I told DD once the ow/ou sound (amongst others) and I have never had to tell her again. But numeracy is her weaker "thing" and she would not pick things up so quickly because it " doesn't float her boat" iyswim.

I didn't say the child had taught himself. This is more a case of the parent teaching the child all kinds of things and then not using them.

if you have been shown something once and have understood it you will always be able to reproduce it. Is that correct?

No, that's not correct. If you have understood a mathematical concept properly, eg addition or multiplication, it is not then possible to forget how to understand it barring some kind of brain injury. If you have simply learnt how to perform multiplication using a series of steps that someone else has told you about, it is perfectly possible to forget how to do it. But as you didn't understand what you were doing in the first place it doesn't really matter that much. If you have discovered multiplication for yourself and understood it properly, you cannot forget it any more than you can forget the idea of nothing or the idea of kindness or the idea of blue.

To be fair, I don't know if the boy in DD's class taught himself either

DD is in Y1 and understands multiplication. She came up with the idea herself when she was about three and was delighted to have worked out that if you had three groups of three things you'd have nine things. She knows what it means. At six, she knows no times tables and I am not in a hurry to teach her because the more times she works it out from first principles herself, the better she will understand it.

She can multiply two digit numbers together, btw. She uses a completely non-standard method, a pen and paper and a lot of dots. I'm just letting her get on with it. She finds it endlessly fascinating and I find arithmetic dull but hey, whatever floats her boat.

lands, if this is the first time ever that you have listened to your dd read without saying anything, that may well explain why there is such a gap between what you perceive her reading ability to be and her teacher has assessed it as being.

Independent reading means reading without any help. Which is different from what you've been doing.

OK, ok. But I'm not saying any of these children have taught themselves anything. They have been taught sets of steps and can reproduce them.

Surely it's not a "party trick" if a Reception child can multiply any two digit numbers that it's given that's not a party trick.

They have been taught sets of steps and can reproduce them.

That's pointless. As you see, it is very easy to forget sets of steps. It is not easy to forget genuine understanding. There is no real point in teaching children to perform sets of steps. It would be of more use to give the child a box of raisins (having counted them and made sure they weren't a prime number) and ask him or her to sort it into as many equal groups as possible.

Of course it's a party trick if the child doesn't actually understand how it works.

Yellow, as far as I know the teacher's assessment hasn't finished yet. She said that my daughter would be moved up and she hasn't been yet. She said that we would get a mixture of books and we're still getting a mixture. I think it's too early to talk about gaps. Maybe when the teacher tells me that she has moved my daughter up enough and gives her books that are still too easy, then we can talk about gaps. But that hasn't happened yet. And it may not happen ever.

DD is just about coping with one more/less than tbh.

Actually she can do it quite easily but insists on counting from 1 to do less than 29 for example.

It is totally age appropriate and I am in no hurry for her to learn more if that makes sense. She counts on her abacus (to herself) and that's fine by me. If I taught her to do multiplication she maybe able to go through the steps as her memory is good and yes it would be a party trick because she would not have a clue what she is doing.

Well, haberd, I think you and I have a different understanding of multiplication then and are not ever going to be reconciled. Because my understanding involves places of value and carrying units. It's all too easy in my understanding to forget the procedure involved in carrying out the sum whilst still remembering what the desired outcome might possibly have looked like and not have any method of checking it.

As mrz points out, assessment is ongoing - of course the teacher hasn't 'finished' - assessment is never 'finished'.

In terms of it being too early to talk about gaps, I'm now a bit bemused as to why you've written so many posts talking about the difference between what your dd reads at home and the school reading books.

my understanding involves places of value and carrying units

That's just a series of actions. You do know what multiplication is, yes? Could you forget that? If you could, then you don't understand what it is.

There is no reconciliation to take place. If someone understands the concept of multiplication it is simply not possibly to forget it. If you understand what multiplication is, you can just work out whatever the sum is from first principles. It may well take you a bit longer but in the long run it will be hugely more valuable to you than learning how to carry one or whatever.

DD is just about coping with one more/less than tbh.

That sounds very normal for her age. Two more than or less than is probably the next thing. And it is good to do it with actual physical objects IMO because it makes it real and the concept of number a proper real physical thing.

A child who understands multiplication would definitely have a method of checking, btw. It would be called adding up. It might take a while but it would work.

I haven't, everybody else has. I was the one who said they were about right.

I think there was a forum assumption that yellow level meant ORT yellow level. But I did say several pages ago that some poor student had been sent down into the basement to dig up all of the yellow books in creation, even the ones so old that the sellotape holding them together was brown and cracked.

The thrust of the argument is either she's on the right books or she isn't. But it's possible that she's on the right books in order to assess which other books she should be moved on to. That's what the teacher wrote in the diary.

It would seem as if some people are unhappy with the speed at which the teacher is carrying out her assessment. I'm not unhappy. I don't think the current books are all that ridiculous and they're not the books I'm using to teach.

So I'm happy.

That's funny. I'm not sure that I could add up 67 x 88

I wouldn't expect my four year old to do it.

My just six year old regularly does similar things for fun. She's finding out about the patterns of numbers and how they work.

If you understood multiplication, you could probably add it up fairly quickly. DD's method involves coloured dots for tens and hundreds and a simple addition for the unit column, which then spills over into tens. It's basically normal numerical notation only with dots and colours and then she counts them at the end. It does mean she will never forget what multiplication means, even if she gets taught a quick way of completing the same steps. A child who had just been taught the steps would find it very easy to forget, I should think.

OK, haberd, maybe you can give me a fuller explanation another time. If it's really useful then that's fantastic. Well done, haberd and little haberd.

Haberdashery - she counts on the abacus and counts Lego in doing number bonds etc so I guess she is getting there

LandS - a few months ago DD was on yellow jolly phonics books which I was happy with (she read other stuff at home like your DD does) and I had no way of comparing jolly phonics books to the more usual ORT as the JF books seemed harder and so I was happy with them ( as was DD). Not that I was happy with them because they were harder but because she was happy to read them and I don't think she would have wanted to read ORT yellow books ("they are boring mummy") iyswim.

And tbh I would be pissed off if my DD's assessment was still not done. They should know by now (nearly half way through the year) what any child can do in their class IMO.

I don't think explaining works. You have to discover it for yourself. I'd just go with the boxes of raisins if I were you. Children don't need as much instruction as you might think.