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.

So what about the case when my DD read the word "pancake" in her school book from guessing by looking at the picture but couldn't read it written on its own??

She guessed by looking at the picture because she had not been taught to sound out the a/e sound.

IMO the pictures are there to help with the comprehension rather than the reading.

Exactly! Comprehension is essential to reading! When she next sees pancake in a meaningful sentence she may recognise it, or it may take a few more times. Don't force children to sound out when they don't need to. And it isn't just the picture helping, its the grammar of the sentence and phones combined. (ie she didn't read 'frying pan' or something)

*phonics not phones
this phone is going in the bin

Exactly! Comprehension is essential to reading! When she next sees pancake in a meaningful sentence she may recognise it, or it may take a few more times.

You are confusing comprehension (understanding what the words mean and, by extension, the ideas the author is trying to convey) with word identification (working out what it 'says')

Your 'guessing from the picture' method may, or may not work. If you presented her with 'pancake' again and no picture she's just as likely to not have a clue what it says as she is to have remembered it (in fact, research* shows that she's more likely to not have a clue). Whereas if she is able to sound it out she'll have no problem at all with it whenever she encounters it again. If it hasn't yet gone into long term memory she'll just be able to sound it out and blend it again. Simple.

or it may take a few more times.

Unless it is in a Look & Say' type story where the word is repeated multiple times in the hope that the child will memorise it, 'pancake' is not a word likely to be encountered sufficient times and sufficiently close together for learning as a 'whole'.

I'm curious, plusonemore. Are you a teacher or an 'expert' as defined earlier?

(*research which I can quote you chunks of if you insist)

Maizie - that was the case, I wrote out "pancake" on a bit of paper and of course she didn't have a clue (this was a while ago when DD was ending nursery).

Once she knew how to decode it, then she was fine.

The problem is that the only strategy some children had for reading unknown words was looking at the illustrations and so when they got to secondary school and the pictures were no longer there

Teacher in early years and ks1 for 14 years

To be honest, you're really annoying me know. You are so inflexible. As I have said, phonics is crucial but every child is different- visual learners are more likely to 'see' a whole word and recognise it for its shape etc. By forcing children to sound out when they don't need to and to ignore the pictures is taking all the pleasure away. Shouldn't we be teaching a love of reading and make it fun?

No thank you, I don't need any research quoted. I stand by my opinion that using pictures along with phonic and grammar cues is important when you are learning to read. How kids could end up at secondary school only able to use pictures is beyond me. Age appropriate books would have very few pictures in!

*now

The problem is these children can't read age appropriate books plusonemore ...
they are stuck on low level books they can read ...

Pluonemore,

The flaw in your argument, plusonemore, is that if you teach children to 'use the pictures' then they cannot progress to books without pictures - because their main strategy for working out an unknown word is not there.

Whereas if you teach the children to read the words - using phonics - then the pictures are there (as they are for an adult reading an illustrated book) to add extra information NOT as a strategy for 'reading' / guessing.

(Also realised that in my last post to L&S I should have used the example of my DD - non-reader on entry to Reception, taught using phonics, fluent reader of chapter books within a year or so - rather than my 'less conventional' DS. I didn't 'teach' either of them. DS taught himself, DD was taught in school.)

Plusone, it would be interesting to compare the percentage of children who leave your Reception / KS1 classes unable to read well having been taught using 'mixed' methods, vs the number who leave mrz's school's similar classes taught purely using phonics[obviously with a correction for extreme SEN]. The thing is, many children will learn to read either way - it is at the margin, that 10% who in research don't learn to read using mixed methods, who could succeed using phonics, that matter.

Plusonemore -now you're annoying me

You are ignoring the fact that what you call 'bring flexible' doesn't reach 20% of readers - it confuses them. The research that you wish to ignore (to the detriment of those one in five chldren - one in five!!!) shows that these weaker readers over rely on guessing using pictures and/or context clues because some numpty told them that was reading.

The main problem is that you can't predict which of those children will be confused by mixed methods, and when it is spotted the child's reading esteem must also be picked up off the floor, and that takes even longer.

It's too big a risk.

What is a mixed method anyway?

yawn yawn

Have said all along:
phonics is crucial
every child an individual

I take time with every child to see which strategies they are using and what they need to move them forward.

Think it could be very harmful on a forum to tell someone not to let their child use pictures (as one of many strategies) when you know nothing about the child!

And the children in my school do very well in reading, thank you very much, no confusion here. What's more, they are happy, enjoy reading and parents are welcommed into school to discuss their child's reading!

No-one's saying 'don't use pictures'. Children can used pictures to glean additional information and flesh out the text, especially when they are reading books without lots of words in them, but not as a substitute for being able to decode words.

Of course you use pictures with very young children. You have a picture book with a dog in it and the word dog written underneath it. It may not be your main strategy for teaching children to read but they learn that those funny squiggles have some kind of meaning. You actually teach her to read the word dog by sounding out d-o-g, if she's willing to do that. My child wasn't. She literally learned that dog spelled the word dog, cat and so on. It's only now that she's willing to sound out.

What's 'very well in reading'? Because 'very well' doesn't sound anything like 'all children reading.

Teachers who aren't interested in knowing why some children find reading difficult, who dismiss research/other methods as 'boring' and aren't hungry to find out exactly how they could ensure every single child could read successfully totally baffle me.

'We're alright, Jack' is not an attitude which the teaching profession needs.

How many of plusone's children can't read, feenie?

lands, you seem to be saying that it took you many, many months to get your dd to recognise words like 'dog' by associating those letters with a picture of a dog, although this strategy didn't really help her learn them securely, so she is now sounding out words in order to read them.

(If she was able to read particularly words even reasonably securely, she wouldn't even think about sounding out.)

Do correct me if I'm wrong.

We'll never know - but I can infer from 'very well' that it's not 'all'. (And from nonsense like word shape and picture cues. You won't find research om any schools which teach reading successfully talking about those. At all.)

Seen in many times here - either they backtrack from clues like that and bluster that they meant 100% (too late) or they shrug and say some children will always struggle.

yellowsub: yes they are saying 'don't use pictures'

mrz Thu 31-Jan-13 21:00:01
decoding using pictures is a big problem I'm afraid
Add message | Report | Message poster simpson Thu 31-Jan-13 21:16:10
I agree with mrz - I would not want my child using a picture to work out a word. IMO that is guessing.

I am talking about using illustrations as ONE of many strategies. I am certainly not talking about teaching whole word reading as the only method. We teach 20-30 mins of phonics every day in ability groups, but when I am reading with a child or group of children, I want to see them using a range of strategies, drawing on the meaning and the grammar. Nothing worse than a child who has to sound out every word and then doesn't have a clue what the book is about!

I'm getting annoyed because of the inflexibility shown here- "phonics is the ONLY way amen!" 'We're alright Jack' is certainly not my or my schools opinion, I can't imagine why you would think that from what I have put.

No yellow, that's not what I said. The words she's sounding out today are words like telephone and tomorrow. She learned to read as a whole word reader. She just point blank refused to sound words out.

Inflexibility isn't what you'll find on mumsnet. It's plain dogma.

I'm getting annoyed because of the inflexibility shown here- "phonics is the ONLY way amen!" 'We're alright Jack' is certainly not my or my schools opinion, I can't imagine why you would think that from what I have put.

I got that becuase you aren't interested in finding out from research why weaker readers fail, and are posting those exact strategies as successful ones.

No reading teaching ignores comprehension, plusone.

Yellow, if you want to know how well my daughter can read why don't you just ask me instead of misquoting me constantly in a half baked attempt to imply that I'm saying she can't read very well.