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?

Yes, 80% of children will learn to read regardless of the method used. However, 95%+ (according to some studies 99%+) of children will learn to read if synthetic phonics is the only method used. I struggle to understand why some people want to persist with teaching methods that fail 20% of the population.

The average English-speaking adult has a spoken vocabulary of around 5,000 words but a somewhat larger total vocabulary. If whole word recognition or similar is used that is thousands of words to memorise, although it is helped a little by compound words.

English has around 40 phonemes represented by around 70 graphemes. English has a fairly deep orthography, which means most phonemes are represented by multiple graphemes and many graphemes can represent multiple phonemes. In order to read pretty much any English word around 150 grapheme to phoneme mappings need to be grasped. That is a lot less to learn than thousands of individual words. It also gives the reader the tools to decode words they have not previously encountered.

We are learning more and more about how the brain works. The latest research strongly suggests that we read by sounding out words subconsciously at very high speed regardless of the method used to teach reading.

The above is facts, not polemics. Based on these facts, my personal view is that synthetic phonics is clearly the way we should be teaching reading. Other approaches seem to me to be akin to teaching someone to fly a jumbo jet without telling them what the controls do or what the instruments mean.

Your point is lost in the low expectations you have persistently demonstrated on this thread, tinytalker.

I would not recommend Reading Eggs - mrz has posted about Sounds Write apps but I haven't seen them yet, bet they are more than worth a look though.

Clear post, phr47, thanks.

Feenie I'm using the S~W with a child who is profoundly deaf (gave in and bought an ipad) and it's already having an effect.

That's excellent news!

molding, how good is her spelling?

Mrz you sound a fantastic teacher :)

PaperMover - Feel free to use my post in any way you want.

The only facts that I can see in the post referred to as fact and not polemics is that the studies may make those claims. It may indeed be a fact that the studies claim that. But that does not preclude the fact the studies themselves are mistaken. (Or those studies might explain how it is not necessary to be able to read some irregular English words.)

Which bit do you dispute?

The proportion of children who will learn by each method? There is extensive research to back that up. And of course those conducting the research do not ignore what you persist in describing as irregular English words. The researchers have not found any evidence to support your contention that those who learn through synthetic phonics struggle with any part of English vocabulary.

The size of the average adult's vocabulary?

The number of phonemes, graphemes and phoneme to grapheme correspondences?

The research that is coming up with increasingly strong evidence as to the mechanisms we use when reading?

If you want to dismiss any research that disagrees with your preconceptions that is up to you. But don't accuse others of polemics when you persist with positions that are not supported by any research.

Which bit do you dispute?

She won't tell you,prh47bridge.

She said this on p8 of this thread

..all the ideological guff that phonicsy people spout..

I asked at the time exactly what 'idealogical guff' we spouted. I'm still waiting for an example.

She's a real constructivist, you know; constructs her own meaning of words and constructs her own reality

Sadly, as far as the teaching of phonics is concerned, there are a lot of people around who operate the same way as cg. Most noticeably education 'academics' who think that 'research' means 'my opinion and a few unattributed anecdotes'. My dd works in research at a very 'good' university. She says the education academics' 'research' is regarded as a bit of a joke... It's amazing that every other discipline which has researched reading reaches the same conclusions about how it works, what children need to know and how best to teach it. Education 'academics' just say 'talk to the hand'

My DD is prob about ready to move up a book band as she is reading without sounding out.

How do I/we know whether she has just "memerised" the words and can just look at them to know them, or whether she is sightreading?

What I mean is, what is the difference between memorising whole words, and sight reading?

My DD is being taught phonics. But when she reads, eg "They washed Floppy" - how do we know what method she is using to read that?

Re pictures, I notice that my DD reads the word silently to herself then scans the pictures for, I guess, confirmation that it does say what she thinks it says. I would have thought using the pictures for confirmation/confidence is normal.

If there is a new word, I think she both sounds it out and uses the pictures to help. Eg last night we had "watched". She sounded out w-a-t-ch-d and then obviously realised that wasnt a word - so she used the picture (in which biff and kipper were watching Floppy) for help and read it correctly. The whole process took her a few seconds.

There were other words - "wanted" - "washed" - later in the story and she was quicker with those, having already seen from "watching" that "w-a" is sometimes read "w-o". The use of the picture initially to help her read "watched" then helped her to read "wanted" and "washed" without using the pictures.

Once she knows a word, even if she learnt it through phonic sounding out initially, I think she remembers it as a whole word and says it (and doesn't sound it out quietly in her mind).

If there is a new word, I think she both sounds it out and uses the pictures to help. Eg last night we had "watched". She sounded out w-a-t-ch-d and then obviously realised that wasnt a word - so she used the picture (in which biff and kipper were watching Floppy) for help and read it correctly. The whole process took her a few seconds.

There were other words - "wanted" - "washed" - later in the story and she was quicker with those, having already seen from "watching" that "w-a" is sometimes read "w-o". The use of the picture initially to help her read "watched" then helped her to read "wanted" and "washed" without using the pictures.

You are very lucky to have a child who can intuit the phonics for herself. Shame on the school for using an outdated Look & Say reading scheme which is giving her words to decode before she has been taught the correspondences they contain.

I'd not be keen on a child using pictures for word ID but, in the circumstances (i.e no help from school) your dd is doing the very best she can. At least she's trying to sound out words and only using the picture for 'confirmation'.That's a better strategy than trying to guess the word from the picture. Sadly, many children are taught to use the picture to guess what the word might be.

Trouble is, there will be a significant number of children in her year group who can't work it out for themselves; they will dislike reading, underachieve and feel stupid. Not a nice thing to do to children, really.

"Everyone is different and research can't show what suits everyone. Like medicines research - some people don't respond to treatment, some respond better than expected. The phonics obsession really baffles me."

But how do doctors deal with this problem? People who don't know much about medicine often think that if taking one drug is good, taking three must be better (similar to the mixed methods approach to reading).

But doctors know that approach is often problematic. They know about drug interactions, and that some medications will weaken or make others ineffective. So they normally use the most widely effective treatment first, and only turn to different ones if the patient doesn't respond.

Mixed methods teaching creates a similar problem to drug interactions. Those children who need phonics to learn get too little exposure to it, or are confused by the multiplicity of approaches on offer. The result is 15-20% of children not reading properly, who would not have had this problem had they been taught by phonics alone.

By contrast, only 3-5% of children initially taught by phonics will need a different method.

I think a trained doctor would have no trouble deciding which option is preferable.

I don't dispute the fact that phonicsy reports exist. I'm sure there are people who believe that phonics alone is sufficient. There are also people who believe in ghosts, black magic and the devil.

Thanks Maizie

So in teaching phonics properly if guess the school should have taught that "wa" can sometimes make the sound "wo" ?

For all I know they might have done and Dd had just forgotten what she was taught. How do you know what phonics sounds they have been taught - is there a standard pathway through them all?

And I think I remember seeing a chart of 44 phonic sounds and I don't think "wa" as in "wo" was on it! Is "wa" a phonic that they learn?

I find it all a bit confusing tbh.

There may be people who believe, as prh47 suggests, that not being taught irregular English words has no effect on children's reading abilities. That, presumably is one of the premises of their report.

I wouldn't be satisfied with that definition of reading.

Bumpsadaisie, you may find these charts helpful.

No Bumpsadaisie "wo" is two sounds /w/ & /o/ children learn that the sound /o/ is often spelt when it follows the sound /w/ - was - want - watch - what- squat - quad etc

I'm not sure if that was a contribution to the discussion. But it's perfectly valid to redefine reading as not including any irregular words

just as the Oxford Phonics Spelling Dictionary carefully avoids any irregular words.

People can then feel free to ask each other what they mean by reading.

And I think I remember seeing a chart of 44 phonic sounds and I don't think "wa" as in "wo" was on it!

As all the charts show you the 'sounds' (phonemes) and then ways they are spelled you wouldn't have found the 'a' as /o/ after 'w' unless you already knew it. (In which case you wouldn't be looking for it!)

Years ago, when I was organising TAs listening to children read, I did a kind of 'reverse' chart, listed the graphemes and then the 'sounds' they could represent.

I don't have my original, but I could have another go at it and upload it to somewhere if anyone would find it useful. So, if you weren't sure about what a letter/s was spelling you could find the letter and then all the sounds it can spell, the reverse of the usual charts.

It wasn't a 'teaching' resource, just a crib-sheet