Does anyone think phonics teaching has any harmful effects?

[housework]

I am happy to be persuaded either way but would be and would be interested to hear all views. Am thinking about dd and whether phonics has worked for her.
DD is 7, reads very well and comprehends what she is reading on the whole. She passed the Y1 phonics test getting the magic 32 so many children got. However, she's a poor speller to the extent that an Ed Psych has suggested testing for dyslexia. I'd like to do some more spelling work with her over the summer holidays. Today I did a bit of the Alpha to Omega placement test with her. She spelt crash as 'Krash' and chip as 'thip.' I let her do the next words 'splash' and 'thrush'. She spelt these correctly. With chip, I think she knew there were 'th', 'sh' and 'ch' to choose from and just picked one of them.
The above and other incidences make me wonder. Does phonics stop a child trusting their instincts? In her case, I think she is not considering how a word looks to help her spell it. She will always fall back on a phonetic spelling unless she already knows the spelling. If school had focussed more on rote learning, regular and rigorous spelling tests, would she spell better. At the moment they're all still ploughing through phonics because the failures have to re-take this year. But there are no expectations re spelling, barely any spelling tests, no words given to learn. And dd is the type that will only do the work if school have set it.
I'm just wondering where to go from here. Thanks for reading.

Incidentally, although I was not explicitly taught the letter names when learning to read, my son was taught them in reception. I was sure his teacher, at that time, said teaching the letter names was part of the curriculum and he's only in the Juniors now.

I once slipped up and used my old initial 'phonic alphabet' when talking to him and he looked at me like I was mad!

They are taught synthetic phonics and knowing the letter names does not seem to have confused him, as not knowing the proper letter names very well did not confuse me...so take from that what you will.

and just as children decode = filum

But where is the U in the spelling?
They are learning a spelling that produces a word that is different from the one they are saying.

Regarding the spelling of 'film', if a child spells it 'filum' this will be corrected at some point, so I expect this is when they will realise it is spelt 'film'.

Either that or thy remember the spelling from reading it somewhere.

I think what a lot of people would argue now, with regard to reading and writing, is that phonics needs to be taught and visual recognition occurs naturally as a child becomes familiar with seeing the words.

I think where problems can lie, is where either of these skills is out of balance with the other. That is if a child uses a memory of visual recognition inappropriately and guesses at unfamiliar or unknown words without decoding the whole word. Or when a child only ever spells phonetically and disregards the conventions and does not memorise correct spelling, does not actively use any visual recognition skills in order to ensure spelling is correct.

^ they not thy.

Rabbit...I think they teach phonics in small groups every day, but other than that I don't know

As a parent, I've never been told to avoid saying letter names. I've never particularly said them either - in the early years - but somehow both dds have picked up the names of letters by the age of 6 regardless. As well as being good readers. I know dd2 (Y1) 'got all my funny phonic words right' ie the recent phonics test.

So I would say that most children are able to manage letter names as well as sounds, at least in Y1. I think they may have been confusing in Reception, to my dds, though - so much else to learn already about reading.

I think I shall bow out of this thread, leaving a trail of in honour of all of you who are linguistically knowledgeable!

"Ah well, to a novice, none of it sounds a million miles from saying, "c says k in cat, can and cap."

No rabbitstew nowhere near to saying that because doesn't say anything ...

Firstly juststartingtothink can I correct you, I do not have a visceral objection to letter names, however many years experience of teaching young children to read leads me to believe that teaching the relationship between letter shapes and letter names is best left until after a child is secure with basic phonics understanding. As this belief is widely shared among those who teach young children I am not along in finding that the order things are taught is important and that it is never good to put the cart before the horse.

"and just as children decode = filum"

"But where is the U in the spelling?"

the point is there isn't one but it doesn't prevent readers who would normally say "filum" from naturalising the word to their own speech and pronouncing it as such, while recognising the correct spelling.

mrz - so far as I'm concerned "c says k in cat" means exactly the same thing as "c makes the sound k in cat" - or at least, it certainly would have done when I was 4 years old. So please explain your objection to the use of the word "says."

MRZ -- I'm still trying to understand your approach.
Could you please answer these three questions:
i) How does the grounding in phonics helps with "irregular" words. To use my previous example of "chair" a child could write chear (as in bear), chaer (as in aeroplane!), cheir (as in their), chair (as in chair!) and possibly a few others and all would be "correct" applications of combinations of shapes they've been taught to associate with the sound /air/. If you don't wish to talk about letters and you don't wish children to learn whole words (as opposed to component sounds), how do you explain "correct" spelling? Do you, as you do with "c" and cat, say "this is how we represent the sound /air/ in chair" and write "air" on the board or paper or whatever you use in the classroom? If the latter, then aren't you eventually after you get beyond c-v-c expecting the children to learn to recognise words?

2. Do you agree that spoken language is comprised of sounds combined into words and written language is comprised of letters combined into words?

3. (similar to question 1) Hypothetically, if you have a Y1 child who is not sitting next to you (ie you're cooking and child is working at the kitchen table; or you're at work and child phones you; etc) and child is writing a story and wishes to use the word "house". child asks "how do you spell house". you answer: how do you think it's spelled? try to sound it out (or something similar). Child says "/h/ /ow/ /s/". What do you reply? How do you know if child has written the word correctly? or do you care whether she writes hows, howse, hous, or house? do you say "think of how we represent the sound /ow/ in "sound" not the way we represent it in "how"? Or do you say "/ow/ in house is written "o-u"? Similarly with /s/, do you say "think of how /s/ is represented in "mouse", not in "cats" (and assume child is familiar with how /s/ is represented in mouse and in cats? or do you say /s/ in house is written s-e (and, depending on the child, perhaps remind her of "silent e" and other words with which she might be familiar that have an /s/ represented by s-e. (remember, mrz, hypothetically, you're not next to the child so you can't keep mum and show the child what shapes to use.)

Do you agree that spoken language is comprised of sounds combined into words and written language is comprised of letters combined into words?

You're missing an essential element in your second proposition. Yes, written language comprises letters combined to produce words, but, the letters represent the sounds of the spoken word. What other rationale might you propose for the development of our written language? (I say 'our' because I am aware that there are orthographies which use a different method of recording the spoken word)

"mrz - so far as I'm concerned "c says k in cat" means exactly the same thing as "c makes the sound k in cat" but doesn't make any sounds

1. I'm not at all sure what you mean by irregular words juststartingto think ...

1. Spoken words are made up of sounds and written words are comprised of letters that represent those sounds.

3) (similar to question 1) Hypothetically, if you have a Y1 child who is not sitting next to you (ie you're cooking and child is working at the kitchen table; or you're at work and child phones you; etc) and child is writing a story and wishes to use the word "house". child asks "how do you spell house". you answer: how do you think it's spelled? try to sound it out (or something similar). Child says "/h/ /ow/ /s/". What do you reply? How do you know if child has written the word correctly? or do you care whether she writes hows, howse, hous, or house? do you say "think of how we represent the sound /ow/ in "sound" not the way we represent it in "how"? Or do you say "/ow/ in house is written "o-u"? Similarly with /s/, do you say "think of how /s/ is represented in "mouse", not in "cats" (and assume child is familiar with how /s/ is represented in mouse and in cats? or do you say /s/ in house is written s-e (and, depending on the child, perhaps remind her of "silent e" and other words with which she might be familiar that have an /s/ represented by s-e. (remember, mrz, hypothetically, you're not next to the child so you can't keep mum and show the child what shapes to use.)

Well I wouldn't say "how do you think" or "try to sound it out" but I would say "what sounds can you hear when you say house?"

the child would hopefully say "/h/ /ow/ /s/ and I would say "well done" and as I'm hypothetically not next to the child I wouldn't know how they had written the sounds ... so I would either go to the child or have them come to me. If they had spelt the word correctly great if not I would say " well done ... but in the word house the sound /ow/ is the same as in "ouch" and "out" can you remember how to write it ... yes great ... no I would write it , yes that is a ways to spell the sound /s/ can yo think of another way ...yes it is well done!

I want the child to do the work not spoon feed the answers if possible.

OK, then, mrz, so far as I'm concerned, "c says k in cat" means exactly the same thing as "c makes the sound k in cat" means the same thing as "c represents the sound k in cat." I really don't have difficulty understanding what is being got at with any of those sentences and wouldn't have done when I was 4-years old, either (although I might have wondered what "represents" meant).

ps how come you are OK with saying there are ways of spelling sounds? Surely you are writing letters which represent sounds, not spelling sounds?

probably because no one would say that to a 4 year old rabbitstew but as you are older I didn't want to patronise yo by treating you like a reception child.

Aaaaarrrrrrgggggggggghhhhhhhhhh. Have to post so as to get past the evil 666.

Phew. No need - mrz got in, first.
mrz - so why do you have a problem with "c says k in cat" and "c makes the sound k in cat." Because I really don't see much difference between that and talking about spelling sounds.

Mrz
1. I'm not at all sure what you mean by irregular words

Probably words with irregular spellings? Words which do not use the main English spelling patterns? Words which children cannot learn to spell by analogy, because they contain quirky bits which have to memorised as exceptions for each word.

E.g.

Regular: bat, cat, fat, mat, sat...
Irregular: plait.

Regular: bed, fed, led, red ...get, met, set ...
Irregular: head, said, thread, threat...

The are at least 3,700 common words of the second kind.

Masha Bell

because doesn't say anything

yes it is well done!

Yes, but how would you actually say this? I think that is question the question that justasking is asking.

But you don't spell sounds, either. So why the objection to one sentence for which the meaning is obvious, even if not technically accurate, but no objection to the other, which is also not technically accurate?

Obviously, you can make a sound out of the letter c in isolation - the sound you make would be "see." However, when found in the word cat, you make the sound "k."

mrz - say a child came up to you clutching a magnetic letter "w," and asked you what it was, what would you tell them?

Not a question for me I now but in that situation I would ask them what is was, or what sound it made.