I don't understand phonics and reading

[Catinthebed]

Ds is P1 Northern Ireland. Didn't know any letters or sounds when he started due to speech and language difficulty.

Has now done a number of phonics and had a few picture only readers. Today he got his first reading with a word in it and he knows it say "look". However he hasn't done L or K as a phonic.

He is Dc 4 and I am bit lost as none of the rest did phonics and it's complicated by speech and language complications.

Should I teach him to sound out "look" or is that going backwards given as he already knows it?

[juule]

Air writing is good if you're both in the same room

[mrz]

You need to be to offer effective support ...shouting "see" across the room of from another room isn't helpful for young children

[BertieBowtiesAreCool]

I could never remember which way around the "long" and "short" vowels are supposed to go. And anyway, they don't cover all sounds - you can have A as in can, A as in cane and A as in car. And you also get ee, eh and er, oh, (nose) oh, (dog) oo (book) oo (smooth)

DS uses curly/kicking K which he picked up from nursery who seemed to follow phonics. That makes sense to me because the sound IS the same, it's the look of the letter itself which is different.

[juule]

But you can't be sat next to them all the time and sometimes they want to write when you have other things to do. Then, being able to shout from the other room can be helpful if it gets them over that hurdle and they can carry on.

[mrz]

It's pointless shouting unless the child understands and can follow your instructions, even then I would get the child to do the "work" rather do it for them

[CecilyP]

Would you need to use /a/ or /ay/ you could say a or ay or "a" or "ay" (I use // because it's a convention)

Not on the internet, I can't, unless mumsnet has some sophisticated kit that I am unaware of!

A couple of responses to CecilyP: You're right in saying that calling vowels long and short is a convention used by many teachers. In discussions about matters such as these, most of us know what is meant by the terms. However, young children have no idea what is meant by these terms and some even think that the size of the letters is what is being referred to. My advice to teachers has always been for them to avoid using ambiguous or possibly misleading terminology.

Fair enough, SoundsWrite, and I had certainly never heard the terms as a child. But we are all adults on an internet forum, so I did not think masha needed to be castigated for using the terms.

[mrz]

Perhaps you are happy that masha keeps peddling her lists snake oil CecilyP my concern is the damage she does.

[mrz]

you can have A as in can, A as in cane and A as in car

the sound in can is /a/ (written anyway you wish a-"a" [a] 'a' )
the sound in cane is /a-e/
the sound in car is /ar/

[CecilyP]

I thought masha's lists were free, though I tend to zone out when she posts them. Though not really relevant to the latter pages of this thread.

[mrz]

Of course you are free to your opinion ...

[mrz]

you of course are entitled to your own opinion

[columngollum]

I don't think someone pointing out that there are long and short vowels is doing any damage or oiling any snakes for that matter. Would those be long snakes or short ones, anyway, or do teachers know that there are no long and short snakes too?

[spanieleyes]

Depends on your definition of long and short

[mrz]

the fact is that there is no difference in length between /a/ and /ay/ it's one of those "conventions" you mentioned before that most people don't question until they stop to think but then some don't ...think that is

[Mashabell]

Mrz

There most definitely is a difference in the length of time the average person takes to say the sounds which u say
are called /o/ and /oa/, /e/ and /ee/, /a/ and /ay/, /i/ and /ie/, /u/ and /oo/ or /ue/ .

Go and say them and time yourself with a stop watch.

[mrz]

Sad person that I am masha ...I've timed myself and others both adults and children and there is no discernible difference ...try it!

You didn't answer my question about your experience as a lass teacher in a primary school ...which year group did you teach?

[BertieBowtiesAreCool]

If there is a difference in time it is so ridiculously small that it would be impossible to time it with a stopwatch as your reaction time would probably invalidate any difference in the results. As a general rule, we speak too fast.

Mrz thanks for the codes. I can never remember those either, I am getting pretty fluent in the phonemic script though but that is used for ELT rather than teaching children to read in their majority language.

I am in Germany at the moment and I was quite tickled the other day to see through a window the phonemes /pf/ and /sch/ which of course don't exist in English.

[columngollum]

The English have got sch. We had Greek too, you know. It's not a minority subject.

[Feenie]

No, we have 'ch' making a /c/ sound (school, Christmas, schedule) but we don't have the German letter string of letters 'sch' to make a /sh/.

We do have around 6 other /sh/ graphemes though

[Mashabell]

If there is a difference in time it is so ridiculously small that it would be impossible to time it with a stopwatch

The difference in the time it takes to say the i of Tim and the i-e of Time is not ridiculously small at all.

If u timed yourself, while reading at normal speed the words

'bat, net, bit, not, cut, but' and then
'bate, neat, bite, note, cute, boot',
u would record a very substantial difference.

[mrz]

It is so substantial small that it's not possible to record with a normal stopwatch masha

[Feenie]

Thanks Euphemia, I didn't know that - if anything I would have said it was the other way around!

[Thymeout]

Don't worry This is. Of course there were/are children who learn to read without meeting a single phonic. And 'look' is not the same shape as words with a different consonant at the beginning or end. Children can tell the difference.

i taught my 3 yr old to read using flash cards and Glen Doman's book. He himself cottoned on to letters having sounds when we were reading Dr Seuss. He had finished the Ladybird reading scheme by the time he started school. Above ave, but not exceptional, ability. This was the fashion at the time and it worked for my children.

My dgs is the same. Different children learn differently, depends how their brains are wired.

Don't know enough about phonics to argue about it. Just find it depressing when everyone is forced into the same mould.

[mrz]

Some children are fortunate enough to be able to work out the relationship between spoken and written words for themselves but many others can't and that is why flashcards and Look & Say failed thousands each year.