"So" is a sight word and can't be sounded out...

[Stampstamp]

Said the reception class teacher today. Aaargh! Thank heavens DD can already mostly read (she's nearly 5). Why do some teachers and schools have such a limited understanding of phonics, it seems so fundamental to me?

Research blew searchlights out of the water ages ago , and it was done away with. Poor readers over rely on picture and/ or context clues - which are not clues at all, just guessing.

Well, whatever method the school are using, it's seems to be working for my DDs, and the school KS1 SATS results are great for reading and writing.

I'm more than happy with the progress of both of my DDs through this school, and I've no need to complain about their methods. As I say, I'm not a teacher, but when my youngest is bringing her practise books home I'd rather she was getting a level of success so I'm happy for her to use the pictures - looking through the book to predict the story before we start reading. It's a great confidence boost for her.

Not all children are the same of course.

I suppose it depends whether you want her to be a reader or a guesser in the long term

This is why I love you mrz. For you invaluable support of parents on the primary thread. That and your extensive, very very impressive knowledge of phonics. I salute you.

or whether your child is one of the fortunate 80% who learn to read despite methods or the 20% who are continually failed by those methods

Growlithe I was told by our school that for reading they should be using a mixture of decoding, context (using the story and the pictures), and does the sentence make sense as read.

mrz So your school teaches mixed methods despite government policy Growlithe

mrz ^No they would try /o/ first as that is the most common then the others hopefully they would be able to decide that

Do you want an ice cream?
is D/oo/ not D/oa/^

I have to say that sounds a little contradictory, mrz. What is that, if not using context?

That's selecting the appropriate sound from the (small) number of phonic possibilities. The teaching of homographs is of course part of a proper phonics course.

They're using their phonic knowledge to choose between two options, not guessing "XX want an ice cream?" from context.

Of course it's context CecilyP ... context helps to decide which is correct read or read^ it also helps with comprehension and phonics doesn't exclude context.
Good phonics teaching takes place in context not in a vacuum, but it doesn't teach children to guess what word might fit in the sentence based purely on context, as in mixed methods.

But as I said mrz, my child isn't using context only. That wouldn't be appropriate, but decoding alone wouldn't either. They don't just put pictures in the books to just fill up the space after all.

And as a parent, I think my job is to get my child to enjoy a book. They have an intensive phonics lesson every morning at school. It would be a pity if my child only picked up books based on what phonics she had covered. I like her using context and encourage this because I think that helps her comprehension (and thus enjoyment) of a book.

No Growlithe they put pictures in books to enhance the story and often the illustrations tell a separate narrative which really confuses a child taught to guess from picture clues. Picture clues weren't needed before the advent of Look & Say because children were taught to read the words.

I think the pictures are there for context and nothing you can say can make me think differently there. So, if a child is trying to read the Word 'astronaut', the child may get try and get stuck on say the 'naut' bit - but if there is a picture of an astronaut, the child may get a clue from this yes, but would also get a little confidence from the fact that they have 'read' a hard word.

I as a parent would know they had read a whole book and not guessed every single word (because that would surely not be possible) and would also know if they said 'spaceman' they hadn't tried and had just guessed.

As a parent, I would be glad that they had that little bit more confidence and wasn't put off trying to read the word at all.

And if I'm wrong for thinking that, well I will live with that.

"So, if a child is trying to read the Word 'astronaut', the child may get try and get stuck on say the 'naut' bit - but if there is a picture of an astronaut, the child may get a clue from this yes, but would also get a little confidence from the fact that they have 'read' a hard word."

but the point is they can't read a hard word guessing correctly is still guessing and what happens when they meet the word astronaut without a picture clue ...they flounder!

DS had this and in reception was given a book with the word " pancake" in it when quite frankly he struggled to read the word "dog" at the time.

He "read" pancake because he sounded out pan and then guessed the rest from the picture. But IMO that is not reading, its guessing.

The pictures are there to talk about whether kipper is happy making making pancakes (facial expression) etc.

So if she chose to read a book about an astronaut at home what would I do, stop her, or be delighted as a parent that she wanted to read a book with me?

If she chooses to read about an astronaut simply tell her that word is astronaut

No, because if she can get as far as 'astro' It is a confidence boost for her.

I think Growlithe is saying that she wouldn't need to because her dd had already worked it out from a bit of phonics and a bit of context.

And gaining confidence and getting more fun from reading.

it doesn't teach children to guess what word might fit in the sentence based purely on context, as in mixed methods.

I'm sensing a straw man there. Guessing purely on context? Are you sure?

This is what reduces the debate about reading to shouting over the hedge at your slightly recalcitrant neighbours. Endless claims are made that there is massive research backing the speaker's preferred method, when in fact the studies are anything but conclusive (if you have a coach and horses available, you can have some driving practice with the Clackmananshire study) and the arguments advanced against the speaker's non-preferred method have the distinct scent of freshly cut straw.

Adults, in general, don't read by sounding out. Some do, but they read slowly and with great effort. Adults recognise words like astronaut (to cite an example) and, having seen them before, know what they are automatically. If this were not the case, Japan and China and other countries with partially or largely non-phonetic written languages would have mass illiteracy, when in fact they don't. So at some point successful readers stop reading by "sounding out" and instead read by identifying words completely. Skilled, experienced readers can find a key word in a page of text almost instantly; they are clearly not sounding out the entire contents of the page.

There is an entirely legitimate debate to be had about how people learn to do this, and whether it's a good way to start people reading. And it appears that phonetic methods have more to offer than they were said to twenty years ago, and that the objections raised by the likes of Masha Bell (spelling is irregular) and supposedly fixed by ITA (learn a more regular form) are not as strong as was made out. But it doesn't help anyone to claim that there is no other way to read (clearly, there is, as otherwise there would be mass illiteracy amongst 15 to 40 year olds), nor that the ability to decode from orthography to sounds is the only barrier (there are many other problems of comprehension), nor that people with slightly different views are recalcitrant idiots who just need to be smacked about a bit to see the error of their ways (although it's interesting to see teachers, who normally regard advice from government with scepticism, using "the government approves of synthetic phonics" as though that's the end of the conversation).

Why do you think sounding out would stop her getting fun from reading or from gaining confidence? It doesn't seem to have caused any problems for my neices.

I see phonics as more helpful in allowing children to write with confidence and be able to read back what they have written.

It gives them the tools to build words which say what they want them too.

Want them to

Sorry

Why do you think sounding out would stop her getting fun from reading or from gaining confidence?

But I'm not saying that. I'm saying that I allow my child to use context to support her skill in sounding out, so that if there are words she hasn't yet got the phonics knowledge to decode in their entirety, I see there being benefit in using the context to help her. I see this as not a guess but using a skill, comprehension.

It all makes her feel like she's a good reader which I think is quite a bit of the battle with a new reader.

But it isn't necessary to use that skill in that way. For some children it causes problems much later on. It isn't often that those problems show themselves in KS1. It tends to be later KS2 or even KS3 and KS4 when children are reading more complex texts with a wider vocabulary.

I don't really see any benefit of using it. My nieces have never used any other method of decoding a word they've never met than looking at the letters and using their phonic knowledge. It hasn't held them back at all. In fact, I suspect the younger one would have been one of the 20% if she'd been in a school that used multi-cueing strategies. She's very lucky that wasn't.

"I think Growlithe is saying that she wouldn't need to because her dd had already worked it out from a bit of phonics.." so why not explain that the is the spelling for the sound /or/ and then she has the knowledge to read the whole word plus any others with the same representation for the sound ... no pictures required!