"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?

I've used this example before

"My granny lives in a ............ by the sea."

using context the missing word could be almost anything.

And using phonics; first fast and only, the missing word is....

Yes the word has to be read, I am not saying it doesn't. if you read through my posts, I never say my children do not need phonics. i am saying that context is important.

In that case you've got there you wouldn't get the meaning from the paragraph that it is in, and if it was an unfamiliar word yes, my child would in that case have to ask or look up. Every book is different, however, and in a lot of cases you can work out the meaning of a word by reading it within the cantext of a paragraph.

I am getting a bit puzzled as to why you keep testing me and trying to catch me out here. You have obviously chosen this as your career and studied. I am trying to be a supportive parent to my children. I haven't studied teaching my children to read, I am just going with my own experiences and gut feeling.

I was actually told by DDs reception teacher that her reading was coming on very well in school and 'well done mum keep up the good work'. My eldest finished Y4 with a 4a in reading, so is doing ok too I think.

So yes, I think I may have two who are not in the 20%. Now this is a genuine question. not trying to point score or trying to be clever. Should I not carry on with them the way I am? Because at the moment they, and I, enjoy reading together and I really think that at the point I start labouring over every single word in the book I run the risk of spoiling this enjoyment.

Oh seriously.... it is only phonics.

It is threads like these that make me wish there was no formal learning before 7. Most 5 year olds comfortably talk about graphemes, phonemes and digraphs? I hope there isn't one of them who can't tie a coat, open a lunchbox, join in with peers in play, retell a simple event or respond to simlle how and why questions.

Unfortunately I have yet to see a reception class where these practical, social and language skills are universal and in this context teaching the technical terms for letters and sounds just seems a nonsensical waste of time.

"My granny lives in a ............ by the sea."

Yes, there is no way of knowing what this says from context. However, using growlithe's earlier astronaut example, if the sentence said, 'my granny lives in a bung by the sea', would anyone really need to sound out the last few letters to know wat the word is?

Using phonics the child would decode the word that would be in the gap zebedeee not guess from context or illustrations.

No Growlithe you said "It would all be in the context of the paragraph." which clearly isn't true in every case.

Um...reception teacher is correct at the level she is teaching.'So' is a tricky word at that phase of letters and sounds. The 'o' sound as oh is not taught until later in the phases, it is taught as a o as in dog at this stage.

It would be far too confusing to teach reception children all the different phonetic sounds of each letter right at the start of reading.

Strictly speaking you may be right but as far as teaching phonics at the correct level the reception teacher is right.

Well you have obviously caught me out there. In your case there it isn't in the paragraph. In that case my DD would ask me, or her teacher if the teacher had the time (I just asked her what she'd do in school if reading independently - she did say it doesn't usually happen in the amount of time she's reading like that during the school day).

But now I've admitted you've caught me out, can you answer my last question?

What was your question ?

So yes, I think I may have two who are not in the 20%. Now this is a genuine question. not trying to point score or trying to be clever. Should I not carry on with them the way I am? Because at the moment they, and I, enjoy reading together and I really think that at the point I start labouring over every single word in the book I run the risk of spoiling this enjoyment.

sparklekitty the reception teacher isn't right the alternative representation would be taught in reception in the context of "tricky words" never as a sight word!

There isn't any need to labour over anything ... you said yourself if she met a word she didn't understand or she couldn't guess from illustrations or context you would tell her ...why is it any different to telling her a word she can't decode?

In your example of astronaut supplying the missing knowledge is hardly labouring

It's not. But you said that in the astronaut case I should tell her the word, or explain the 'au'. But she would have half sounded out the word and completed it using the context (either the story being about space or the picture). She wouldn't have made a complete guess (she didn't say 'spaceman' and I would have heard the sounding out at the start - but the rest of the word rolled out once she got the beginning). This one I wouldn't labour.

I suppose my point here is I (and their teachers) think my DDs are doing ok. This isn't being smug or anything, it's a fact. I didn't teach them to read before they started school - I didn't want to go there because I am not a trained teacher, I am their parent. I struggled in my own mind with DD1 when she started reading that I was doing and saying the right things when she read with me. But I began to realise I didn't have to teach her, I had to support her practice, and hopefully help her to enjoy books forever.

So as in the 'so' example, I think that teacher was probably pitching to her audience, a load of parents. Some, like the OP, know their stuff and have taught their child to read using a certain scheme already. Others (like me), wouldn't have done this and just come in from my own experience. I wouldn't have minded if the teacher had told me that 'so' was a sight word, rather than a tricky word. I would have had to have read this thread to be on the wavelength of 'but 'o' represents so many sounds - that teacher is wrong'. I can follow this of course, but you have to have your head in phonics all the time to automatically think this, and all parents are not primary school teachers. I can even see some parents thinking 'so, a tricky word, what is this teacher talking about?'.

CecilyP You gave the example of bungalow and asked if anyone would need to sound all the way through to read it. Yes. Absolutely they would. The kids I teach (many but not all EAL) would be very unlikely to know the word 'bungalow' in Y6.

But the problem with the method of teaching in the OP is that a lot of them won't get as far as sounding out 'bung'. They have been taught, implicitly and explicitly, that some words can't be sounded out and just have to be learned. So they see an unfamiliar word, and basically just take a guess, maybe using a few of the consonant sounds. It doesn't make a lot off sense to them, so they guess that it means something like 'house'. Probably a rough approximation in the context.

However, they also come across hundreds of other words like this. Each time they make a rough guess about both the word and the meaning. They probably understand half of what they read.

So pozzled, suppose that in a pure phonics world they accurately sound out bungalow and get it right (which they will, as everything in there is regular). But if they didn't know what the word meant, now what they have is the ability to pronounce correctly a word that they know means something like house. They didn't make a rough guess about the pronunciation, they did make a rough guess at the meaning. Other than if they're going to get a job as a newsreader, how much of an improvement is that, really? Phonics is great for acquiring reading skills for your existing lexis. But later on, when reading aloud isn't an issue, why is being able to pronounce words whose meaning you don't know a particularly useful skill?

I used your example of astronaut Growlithe but let us suppose she met a word that she couldn't complete from context alone surely iin the long term it's better to supply the missing piece, which can be applied in other words she will meet in the future than to use a picture.

In the case of "so" the teacher has told the class the word so is a sight word ...it isn't she also said it can't be sounded out ...it can and supplying her class with a single piece of information allows them to apply that knowledge to other words they will meet.

I'm all for parents and children reading and sharing stories what I struggle with is teachers teaching children to guess! Children don't expect the pictures to help them read words unless someone has encouraged them to do so.

then friday a good teacher would check their understanding of the word and supply the missing knowledge

My class were reading a text on the IWB and came to the word "coast" ...they could decode it easily as you say but didn't know what it meant (yes their vocab shocks me too) so we read on and worked out the meaning from context. If they hadn't been able to I would have supplied the info ...that's my job as a teacher.

and do you really think limiting a child's vocabulary to words they know the meaning of is education?

mrz the OP said later that the teacher said this in an information session with the parents.

'Coast' is a great example of a word that needs both phonics and context to read.

Friday16 because they now have awareness of a new word. They can go and ask someone the meaning. If they choose to look it up in a dictionary, they will also know how to say it and so be more likely to remember the meaning if they see it again. For many words, they will have heard it spoken- so as soon as they decode it they will recognise it. Especially true for technical words they meet in lessons, such as 'adjective' or 'civilisation'. It will be a lot easier for them to read and recognise names. And last but not least, the difference in confidence between a child who cam read fairly fluently (either aloud or in their head) and the child who stumbles on or skips over several words.

I would be very interested to hear from any other teachers (or indeed parents) who have seen both systems (phonics and mixed methods) taught really well. Is there anyone who can really compare the two systems and would choose mixed methods every time?

Sorry I missed that Growlithe ...but it's even worse because in her role as "expert" she is passing on misinformation to parents who are there because they want to support their child and unlike the OP may accept her nonsense

and do you really think limiting a child's vocabulary to words they know the meaning of is education?

No, and I'm struggling to see how you extracted that from what I wrote. I said that beyond their existing lexis, I'm not convinced that knowing how to sound words out is tremendously useful.

I don't know how to pronounce Kamchatka (is the ch hard or soft? Perhaps there's a phonics rule to help me?). That doesn't stop me from knowing it's a peninsula in eastern Russia or that the reason flights to Japan are now quicker than they were in the 1980s is that sensitivities about the missile fields have reduced. I think I was in my thirties before I realised that Magdalen College was the same place as Maudlin College, but that didn't stop me from knowing what it was or where it was (and again, perhaps there's a phonics rule to help me?)

For a proper noun that you come on, whose spelling is less likely to be regular anyway, and which you aren't going to read aloud, how does being able to make a stab at saying it (possibly incorrectly, cf. Magdalen) help your reading?

I would be very interested to hear from any other teachers (or indeed parents) who have seen both systems (phonics and mixed methods) taught really well.

Well, most people aged 20 to 50 can read. They were almost certainly not taught with strict synthetic phonics of the purity and zeal mrz is espousing. And the reason for the introduction of disasters like ITA was because in the 1960s, there was concern at the number of children who were not learning to read via the then-current phonic instruction. Mixed methods (and, indeed, ITA) weren't introduced by evil people acting in bad faith who knew that phonics was better and were wanting to undermine the teaching of reading, they were introduced by people who were wanting to do something to improve matters. We can argue about how efficacious that was (especially in the case of ITA) but it doesn't help anyone to impute bad faith in the "other side", or to claim that the new synthetic phonics orthodoxy means that the debate is over.

I once inherited a y2 class raised on mixed methods. In the astronaut example, most would have said "Ast..." "...Spaceman." :o

I said that beyond their existing lexis yes you did ...and how do they/we extend out existing lexis? well being able to read new words is a very good place to start.