Advice from phonics experts please

[phonicsgovernor]

I am a school governor with a (second) child in reception. Over the past couple of weeks we have had ORT books home that were not fully decodable. They are still in the single letter sound stages of teaching phonics but the books included the words bike, look and dinosaur.

Now, my child is fine - I can access other materials for him. But the school serves quite a deprived area, with higher levels of FSM, SEN, EAL and MENA children. And I'm wondering if there will be children who are not fine.

I spoke to the head of KS1, who is excellent and lovely, and she couldn't see the problem with the odd word not being decodable. So - is it a problem, and if it is, how should I tackle it?

masha we are stuck with a 26 letter alphabet to represent 44 sounds and spellings that reflect our history and heritage. It makes learning to read and spell more complex but we had been managing for centuries to do just that until the introduction of whole word/language and balanced literacy. Your lists are hugely confused and make the whole thing seem even more complex than it actually is!

Not to mention boring

Feenie masha claimed she has taught primary children to read but won't answer my question about which class she taught and for how long

Since that post was the one and only time on years that masha has mentioned it, ever, I am disinclined to believe it.

Masha, some of your posts recently have been surreal.

I think we've had that book home as well!

But it's more complex than that I think (although I'm not just an expert, just an ordinary parent)

DD is starting phonics phase 3. The books seem to go - very phonetic with no surprises - pretty phonetic with the odd "tricky" word and word you'd need a combination of the first phoneme and the picture in the book to guess - slightly harder words - up a level and back to phonetic.

Our school's excellent and we're doing what you're doing and DD is thriving - I would relax, really.

I don't believe it Feenie which is why I asked for details which she obviously can't provide

Masha seems to have missed the (admirably restrained) response from OP:

Masha, I appreciate your posts, but I'm trying to change the things that I can change, and standardising English spellings isn't one of them. If you want to discuss that, could you please start your own thread?

It is a pity that this wasn't heeded.

Scaevola

And u missed my reply to her on page 4 which was very similar to that by Longtalljosie above.

phonicsgovernor
I'm trying to change the things that I can change

I am merely trying to get u to consider if the things u want to change really need changing.

Phonics is a very good way to begin learning to read and write. Having good phonics teaching materials in Reception is essential. But beyond that, with English spelling being what it is, learning to read and write is more and more mainly a matter of learning by rote.

Children can start to learn to read with phonically simple texts, but they gradually have to learn to cope with more and more words in which not all letters have predictable sounds (man - many, on - once, shout - should). - That is not phonics in the normal sense of the word, although phonics evangelists now call virtually all teaching of reading and writing 'phonics'. This has left parents very confused about what phonics actually means.

If teachers teach the tricky words in the ORT books before they give them to children to read, they are still perfectly usable, if the school has nothing else.

The tricky words in each book could be picked out and pasted into each book, with the tricky letters picked out in bold, to help the children, parents, classroom assistants (and some teachers too).

I think in terms of reading stretching the meaning of the word phonics as much as anyone would like to do so is all well and good.

But in terms of spelling the large number of heteronyms and heterographs which have to be overcome means that phonics can only be regarded as one tool among many.

If children are taught that & are spellings for the sound /air/ you simply tell them which is which and that obviously applies to other words, it isn't as big an issue as you seem to believe.

Masha and josie - I agree that those are the sort of adjustments I make when reading with DS2, and they kind of work, although he was getting a bit discouraged.

However, I don't think it would work for some of our families. Some are newly arrived immigrants, so the parents might not be able to read English. Some aren't in the habit of reading to or with their children, so I suspect that if the books aren't straightforward, they won't use them.

And beginning to read - in Foundation - is what I'm most concerned with at the moment. I assume that by the end of that first year they know most phonemes so it's less of an issue. Willing to be corrected on that though.

Phonics is the approach which requires least rote learning.

And of course it relates he sounds of the language to the written code for representing them. Which does include more than one way to depict a sound. No phonics programme pretends there are one to one phoneme/grapheme correspondences, and will include homographs and homophones. I think it is only you, Masha, who tries to put an artificial 'definition' of phonics onto just about every phonics read.

You might of course be unlucky and fins that your DC is taught by the (discredited) mixed methods approach in which phonics might indeed be used as 'one tool among many'. Unfortunately, all the evidence shows that this fails about 20% of pupils (phonics done properly and it is under 5%). Now, which failure rate do you want in your school?

but they gradually have to learn to cope with more and more words in which not all letters have predictable sounds (man - many, on - once, shout - should). masha the problem is you look at many and see man if you decoded through the word it wouldn't be problem try the most common if that doesn't work try the alternatives!

On the subject of using Reading Recovery in a school also using Read Write Inc., you might be interested in this head teacher's evidence

www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmsctech/memo/evchlint/me3602.htm

Children can start to learn to read with phonically simple texts, but they gradually have to learn to cope with more and more words in which not all letters have predictable sounds (man - many, on - once, shout - should).

Your idea of 'phonics' marsha, seems to be just about teaching the one to one correspondences. Anyone who knows about teaching phonics will know that as more correspondences are learned children will be practising their letter/sound knowledge using words which contain them So, it's not about 'learning to cope' with 'unpredictable sounds', it's about mastering different correspondences so that they become as 'predictable' as all the rest.

That is not phonics in the normal sense of the word, although phonics evangelists now call virtually all teaching of reading and writing 'phonics'.

Perhaps you'd like to very carefully explain to us exactly what 'phonics in the normal sense of the word' is; giving good evidence of its 'normality'.

This has left parents very confused about what phonics actually means.

I think that the only person here who is very confused about 'what phonics actually means' is you, marsha

The history of Reading Recovery's use in England's state schools is pretty gruesome.

In a 2009 speech, Sir Jim Rose confirmed what leading UK and International reading experts had said all along, that Reading Recovery (RR) is 'a multi-cueing, non-systematic approach' (Rose. Presentation to Speld). Despite RR being way out of line with the 2006 Rose report recommendations, inexplicably the then DCSF continued to encourage and fund schools to use RR as a Wave 3 intervention for Y1 children, AND recommended that they 'layer' RR with a range of other mixed method interventions, all found under the Every Child a Reader (ECaR) mantle. In this way the DCSF continued to endorse mixed methods and effectively ensured that the multi-cueing strategies became institutionalised in many schools.

In 2011 the formerly ring-fenced ECaR funding was incorporated into the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG). This means that schools can choose to continue to use ineffective, non-systematic, multi-cueing intervention programmes with their struggling readers. Most schools using Reading Recovery previous to the funding change have simply moved to 'cheaper to implement' close copies of RR (BRP, Catch-Up literacy, Rapid Reading, FFT Wave3...), if they weren't already using them as part of the ECaR 'layered approach'

Most programmes introduce the so called "tricky" words before a child can be expected to know the sounds/ alternative spellings but they aren't introduced as sight words (not even in Letters & Sounds despite how many schools do it) ... children are taught how to decode the words just as you say PaperMover

Shahed Ahmed and Elmhurst Primary School have had links with Ruth Miskin over many years, likewise Ruth Miskin to Michael Gove. The phonics check is similar to Read Write Inc assessments, I believe. Both Ahmed and Miskin are on the National Curriculum Review Advisory Committee. £3,000 matched funding for every school purchasing from approved phonic schemes in the matched funding catalogue. I've also read that Miskin was a 'key advisor' to Jim Rose.

Unlike many other interventions RR does not have huge set up costs - no extra photocopiable materials/puppets/charts/flashcards/games/computer programmes etc etc. What you get is a qualified (minimum three years early years) teacher who has ongoing training and professional development. They need a set of graded reading books (children will make fast progress so you need a wide range of ability), a magnetic board and magnetic letters, and A4 paper which they can then fashion into a book for writing, some felt-pens, plain white stickers, strips of paper and a pair of scissors.

It is not that RR doesn't do phonics, it isn't a phonic based programme. In fact it isn't a programme in the sense that you start on scripted lesson a. (regardless of what the children know/don't know) and work way through to lesson z. Will unearth a Clay quote later... (!)

“New Zealand’s strategy has failed,” Professor Chapman says. “The current approach is not working for too many children – and we need to change it.”

"Success in Reading Recovery is closely associated with phonological processing skills but Professor Chapman says there was a clear indication that the programme neither eliminated nor reduced deficiencies in those skills. "That suggests Reading Recovery doesn't give enough attention to helping kids understand the relationship between sounds and words and instead puts more emphasis on the use of context or illustrations."

In 2009 it was estimated that the cost of implementing RR was £3000 per child so minimum setting up costs but enormous running costs whereas most other programmes have an initial cost then running are minimal. The programme my school uses has minimum setting up costs and minimum running costs and it works.

Will unearth a Clay quote later... (!)

Please don't do that, zeb. I've read a whole book of hers and it made me feel quite ill... One line serves to bring back the feeling of nausea.

Please remind me. Are you a parent or an RR teacher?

Brace y'self maizieD... (actually in middle of doing something else at mo. so you'll be all right for the time being).