Interesting article re. synthetic phonics

[Biscuitsneeded]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-25917646

that's the one RafaIs

Well, I can only go by my own utterly anecdotal experience - both my DDs were well on the way to becoming readers when they entered Yr R. Their teachers spent half a term learning their needs and then taught them according to those needs - that is, checking exactly where they were in terms of learning their phonics and then moving on from there. No-one was held back at all. That's how good schools do it and it works.

My DDs are now 11 and 13 and they still go back to their phonic knowledge when they come across new words - at the very least this lets them pronounce the word accurately so that I can tell them what it means, or better still so that they can look it up.

Both are fabulous readers who love books.

how the F did we learn to read for years then?...

It's strange how many 'education experts' like Andrew Davis airbrush the 6 million illiterate or semi literate people out of sight. The lack of intellectual curiosity, refusal to visit schools with good phonics teaching, or to take on board what employers are saying, is staggering.And these 'experts' will never, never give names of schools which eschew a synthetic phonics foundation and get good results for all their children.

Any good teacher will encourage children to read at their reading level - and phonics teaching will help them with spelling. Trouble is, most teachers are taught the Davis way at training college - over 70% of teachers admitted to using 'mixed methods' when asked after the first Phonics Check.

It's this muddle that leaves c.20% without a clue about how reading works.

That's the way it should be pointythings. You find where the children are, see if there are any gaps in previous learning and use that as your starting point and work from there, differentiating in the same way you would in any subject. If teachers aren't doing that it's not synthetic phonics that's the problem it's bad teaching.

The trouble was too many didnt learn to read or were functionally illitrate. The brain can only remember so many words, if you dont have the building bricks for unfamilier words.
My dh was one of the casualties of schemes like Look and Say. He didnt learn to read until he was 10 when phonics was introduced to him He does have dyslexic problems, but so does my ds who was taught phonics from nursery. Ds 18 reads well although it did take hom a bit longer to click than some.

Bruffin
The trouble was too many didnt learn to read or were functionally illitrate.

Still is.

The much greater use of phonics, because it became mandatory after the Rose report of 2006, has so far failed to make any significant difference.

Really
All the studies i have seen show that children that are taught using synthetic phonics are years ahead of those that are taught other methods.

My sons school use mixed methods, the LA specialist teaching service use mixed methods and I'm pretty sure the wave 3 intervention they are using (written by the school's senco) uses mixed methods!

My DS is in year 2 and finding it difficult to learn to read. He is still on red band books. They looking at the pics for clues, guessing from the initial letter etc is really confusing him and is meaning he's guessing words he can easily sound out! I despair!

sazale, how often does your son read at home? And what method does he use at home?

The Clackmannan study a few years ago achieved good results with synthetic phonics across all groups: so boys and those from lower income homes did well on it. In my area I asked about this and was told we used "mixed methods because it suits this area better" but the boys and lower income kids did seem to be left behind in my view. Very unfair!

So, essentially, what we have in this country is a widely varying system with widely varying results depending on the school, the area and teacher and their methods.

So........nothing's changed then really?!

And don't get me started on people believing kids can't read before school. Nonsense. It's not hard for a lot of kids. If they read with family at home, most kids I know are able to read at least basic books before they start school. I think it is insulting to tell parents that the kids are just remembering a book. As a parent you see what your kids read as they walk around their world - for every door they 'push' instead of 'pull' because they read it, for every bus they know the destination of, reading goes far beyond books.

I should say we were in Scotland so there isn't a national curriculum as such nor a lot of school autonomy. The schools are pretty much run at the diktat of the Local Authority.

The Clackmannan study a few years ago achieved good results with synthetic phonics across all groups:

I read their report very carefully. What struck me was that the teachers using synthetic phonics were spending much more time on literacy teaching, and doing it daily, in a carefully structured, well-organised way, and regularly monitoring children's progress and immediately giving oodles of extra help to children showing any signs of not keeping up. They employed more classroom assistants than the others.

The classroom assistants commented, that compared to other groups, the SP children were getting far more individual help and attention than was usually the case. I could not help but conclude that the teaching method itself had very little effect, if any.

Most people who quote that study have not read the full report, including the comments by classroom assistants.

It is well known that extra help makes a huge difference. That's why children with supportive parents, who ensure that they read at home regularly and help them with doing so, do much better than ones who have to manage by themselves.

allchildrenreading
how the F did we learn to read for years then?...

Mostly by being blessed with reasonably good brains and getting lots of help at home.

The 7 millions adults whom Sir Moser estimated to be functionally illiterat in his report in 2000 were not as bright, or lacked educationally supportive parents, or both.

Good phonics teaching is beautiful to witness, though.

DD3 started school in September - April birthday, non-reader.

Her school uses Read, Write,inc.

Her first phonics assessment in October, showed that she was unable to sound some letters, was making an unpure attempt at others (e.g cuh) and could sound purely for a small number of letters.

At home, she was screwing up her face in concentration to recall the sound each letter represented, with big pauses between them.

Her November assessment showed most sounds were being produced purely, but a b-d mix up, and couldn't read digraphs yet.

At home, I had noticed that she was practicing sounding out words as she was drawing, etc.

Now, in January, she's sounding words out confidently, blending carefully, and starting to realise that if she knows a word is 'cat', she doesn't need to say /c/-/a/-/t/ - cat.

Her spelling is naturally progressing with her reading, because it's taught together. Letter formation is part of the phonics lesson.

My older DD who has SN is just starting to sound out words accurately - it's hit and miss (she's 8). At dinner she said 'I can spell really well, mum, look: d-r-d...fork' DD3 replied 'no it's not.... /f/ /or/ /k/'

The giving help to those not keeping up is at the root of teaching a cohort. The alternative as I've experienced through my kids schools it is a patchy excuse labelled as differentiation which left the slightly trickier kids years behind by the end of primary.

The 7 millions adults whom Sir Moser estimated to be functionally illiterat in his report in 2000 were not as bright, or lacked educationally supportive parents, or both.

Oh dear...[big sigh]

Perhaps they were just badly taught?

I've tried to illustrate the main reason why not all children learn to read and write with ease in a little poem.

The Polish maid made the bed
And polished the floor
Before she went to the store at four
To buy some bread.

She said in her head
"English spelling is mad".
In every third word
There is something absurd,
like bird, heard and beard.

Masha Bell

And don't get me started on people believing kids can't read before school.

Who is denying that some children can read before they start school?

Another straw man?

Polish maids are simply maids who polish. You'd really only have problems if you had a Polish polish maid who, being polished, polished the polished floor with fine Polish polish.

We could easily make the phonic difference between Polish and polish immediately obvious (Polish - pollish), as we do with 'holy, holly'.

But that would make English spelling more regular, and learning to read and write much easier.

Most people seem to be against that.

Most people would probably argue that Polish is already differentiated by its capital letter, except where it begins a sentence. And they are prepared to accept the rare mixups caused by starting sentences, (otherwise known as context) But some readers are allowed to use context to derive meaning and others aren't, apparently.

But some readers are allowed to use context to derive meaning and others aren't, apparently.

We're not talking about using context to derive meaning. We are talking about using context to identify what the unfamiliar word is.

identify what the unfamiliar word is

that is meaning.

I don't think anybody has ever suggested that children shouldn't use context to work out the meaning of an unfamiliar word. Except perhaps Michael Rosen in his bizarre view of what phonics teaching involves.

Only that when working out what a word is children shouldn't be expected to use context to guess from the entire English lexicon when they can use phonics to decode the word and read it correctly or narrow it down to 2-3 choices at most.