Is this how children learn to read these days?

[Bananaketchup]

Am genuinely asking. DD is in reception. She started late at the school and has only been in full-time since xmas, so they don't really know her too well. She loves being read to, she can sound out words when she's in the mood, but is also one for the easy life. She reads once a week 1-1 with a TA at school, and brings the book home afterwards until it's swapped a week later. The books are of the 'this is a house, this is a garden' level. In her reading record it will say 'DD read the book and enjoyed it'. But when she reads it at home she rattles off the sentence on each page and has clearly just memorised it, and isn't actually reading. If I mix the page order up, she can't read it. If I hide the picture, she can't read it. She will make wild guesses without even trying to sound out the word e.g. she will guess 'the' for 'house', just pure guesses. This weekend she got in a strop because I wouldn't let her see the picture (as she was just guessing from this and not reading the words at all). She then said 'but Mrs X (The TA she reads with) says look at the picture, then read it'. So my question is (if you've got this far without dying of boredom), is this how children are taught to read - to look at the picture to know what the words say? Because DD isn't paying any attention to the words, just gabbling off what's in the picture, and I can't really see how this is teaching her to read. I am minded to speak to school, but don't want to be 'that' mum if this is genuinely a method children learn to read by, which I'm unaware of. Can anyone advise please?

We've been here many times columngollum ... just because you keep saying some words have irregular graphemes doesn't make it true.

OK, you can take the we disagree with your argument because we don't like it approach.

I prefer the evidence argument myself columgollum

"My argument is that phonics alone is not sufficient to teach reading because some words have irregular grapheme/letter correspondences and that there are more reasons than that one besides."

The point is, good teachers of phonics teach the less common phoneme / grapheme correspondances necessary to decode these words.

I realise that your understanding of phonics, being relatively limited, does not encompass this, but experienced teachers of phonics DO teach unusual correspondances and thus teach children to decode all through what you might see as 'words that can't be approached using phonics'

(I also appreciate that, as you have a goal of 'apparent early reading performance' for your children,. and you don't understand phonics well enough to teach it well, you use flashcards. That is very different from saying 'chuildren in general, in schools, taught by experienced phonics practitioners, also need to use flashcards')

The point is, good teachers of phonics teach the less common phoneme / grapheme correspondances necessary to decode these words.

In the cases of yacht, Wymondham and women and others they are the only examples of their kind. Teaching the correct correspondences equates to teaching the word...because it's the only example. In other cases, like one and once they are the only examples.

And if the teacher says 'here is an uncommon correspondance. It only occurs in this one word, but we need to use it to decode the word. The rest of the word is entirely regular - y and t are entirely phonically regular so you know how to sound out those parts of the word already. Let's add this unusual way of spelling this sound to our display, with a note to say that it is rare and only occurs in this word', that is phonics teaching. It is certainly no reason to reach for the flashcards.

(The flashcards that you are using fr your DD2 are, if I recall, mainly of phonically regular words. If your only objection to phonics is that a tiny minority of words are the only example of a particular grapheme / phoneme correspiondance, then I would entirely understand, and it would be intellectually coherent, if you teach those parts of those words, and those parts of those words only, via flashcards What I don't understand is the rejection of a phiole successful teaching method because you can't work out how to deal with a small number of exceptions. the words 'baby and bathwater' come to mind.)

if the teacher says 'here is an uncommon correspondance. It only occurs in this one word,

Effectively that is teaching the word as a whole because in order to use the correspondence the teacher has given the pupil needs to remember the word. (The correspondence on its own serves no purpose since no other word uses it.)

Once again you are incorrect columngollum - take yacht the letter represents the sound /y/ in many words - the letter sometimes represents the sound /o/ so only part of the word has a unique spelling pattern and in the word "women" only the is unusual as for the place name really that depends on the county

No, you don't need to teach the word as a whole, because the rest of the word is regular.

In 'women', for example, w, m, e and n are all regular. Any Reception child who has been taught phonics would decode them instantly. The only uinusual part is the would for . So it can be taught in isolation.

(As usual I have my and // in the wrong places, see mrz for a much more accurate explanation!)

I agree, other parts of the word may be regular but it is the combination of the letters which makes the word. And, in order to read this particular word, the pupil has to remember a unique combination.

The unique combination is the word.

Child sounds out and blends: . Does that make a word they know? No. Ah, mrz said that very rarely, the o makes an . sound, let's try that. Sounds out, blends, makes a familiar word. Moves on...

It's not very rarely, though, is it?

It's in one word.

What you don't seem to understand is that all is needed is to explain to the beginner reader that in this word (woman) the letter is the spelling for the sound /i/ and the child can read the word and for spelling a reminder that in this word the spelling for /i/ is .

It's in one word.

Therefore that word must be remembered.

The point is that teaching 'tricky' words as unusual sound/letter correspondences that only occur very rarely (or once) appears to have a measurable effect in success as a reader for the children being taught. Teaching them (or other sound/letter correspondences) as look and say appears to severely disadvantage a statistically significant number of children, according to the evidence so far available. I have not seen any evidence that phonics disadvantages those children who would also learn to read with look and say and, I suspect, nor have you.

I'd just like to add that I have no idea why I am posting this as it does no good.

It doesn't matter.

The word has to be remembered therefore it has to be taught as a unique word to be remembered.

The word is remembered but not by the use of flashcard .. which research shows is an inefficient way of committing words to long term memory

Me too, Huitre. Except that perhaps others will hopefully read and heed them. Had forgotten how these threads end up with even column's initial supporters giving her posts a wide berth.

The point is that unique words must be taught as words to remember (even if the reason for remembering the word is to apply the unique grapheme).

The point is you are wrong!

And that would be because?

The one thing that is quite amusing about these threads is that we always end up bogged down in one tiny point that is almost insignificant to the greater argument. Column is very good at reducing an argument to the point of absurdity.