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?

[ShoeWhore]

Couthy I had a similar experience re phonics with ds, who is also partially deaf. He understood totally the correspondence between the letters on the page and the sounds they made (although sometimes his differentiation between similar sounding consonants in his deafest bit of the frequency range were a bit shaky) but the blending he just couldn't do. It made reading a pure phonics based reading book absolutely tortuous for him and he was very demoralised. He does however have a good memory for high frequency words.

His teacher and I had a big chat about it and she suggested digging out some of the older reading books for him. It really boosted his confidence and he got much more out of practising blending on a small number of words per page than struggling to decode every single word imho. As his hearing has improved (he got a hearing aid and his glue ear is naturally getting better as well) he did get the hang of blending as well. Was so chuffed for him that he passed his phonics check last year. He's still behind where his brothers were at the same age but he is making really good progress and applies his phonics knowledge sensibly (if a bit creatively at times!!) in his writing too.

Phonics was brilliant for my older two, btw. It was a bit of a waste of time reading any book more than once with ds2 though, as he memorised them pretty much instantly - once he had seen a new word once or twice he just knew it (even in a different context) and didn't seem to need to sound it out again. (which I guess is Look and Say but not sure how you can stop that?)

[mrz]

Our reading/writing levels have always been high but we are always looking to improve.

[HarveySchlumpfenburger]

Goodness, it works both ways with Private Ed I think. IME there are many independent schools that never went in for the whole 'searchlights' using context/picture cues and stuck with a phonics based approach. Admittedly with fewer resources than are available now. They've just switched to more comprehensive programs.

Letters and Sounds is fine if it's taught by experienced teachers with a good knowledge and understanding of phonics teaching. Unfortunately I think it just got dumped into schools with no real explanation of how to use it.

[maizieD]

@ mrz & Charles

What is PM, please?

at literacy advisor pushing whole word learning, but then, many advisors never really took to phonics after 2006 so not surprised that they cling to old prejudices.

[Feenie]

From Sept 2014:
From the new curriculum which becomes statutory for Year 1 from Sept 2014:

Year 1
During Year 1 teachers should build on work from the Early Years Foundation Stage, making sure that pupils can sound and blend unfamiliar printed words quickly and accurately using the phonic knowledge and skills that they have already learnt. Teachers should also ensure that pupils continue to learn new grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPCs) and revise and consolidate those learnt earlier. The understanding that the letter(s) on the page represent the sounds in spoken words should underpin pupils' reading and spelling of all words. This includes common words containing unusual GPCs. The term ‘common exception words’ is used throughout the programmes of study for such words.
Alongside this knowledge of GPCs, pupils need to develop the skill of blending the sounds into words for reading and establish the habit of applying this skill whenever they encounter new words. This will be supported by practising their reading with books consistent with their developing phonic knowledge and skill

READING
Word reading
Pupils should be taught to:?
? apply phonic knowledge and skills as the route to decode
words
? respond speedily with the correct sound to graphemes
(letters or groups of letters) for all 40+ phonemes, including,
where applicable, alternative sounds for graphemes
? read accurately by blending sounds in unfamiliar words
containing GPCs that have been taught
? read common exception words, noting unusual
correspondences between spelling and sound and where
these occur in the word
? read words containing taught GPCs and - s, – es, – ing, – ed,
er and – est endings
? read other words of more than one syllable that contain
taught GPCs
? read words with contractions, e.g. I’m, I’ll, we’ll,
and understand that the apostrophe represents the omitted letter(s)
*?read aloud accurately books that are consistent with their
developing phonic knowledge and that do not require them
to use other strategies to work out words)
? re-read these books to build up their fluency and confidence

No picture cues mentioned whatsoever - in fact, the curriculum requires them to read books at this level that do NOT require them to use other strategies.

Pupils entering year 1 who have not yet met the early learning goals for literacy should continue to follow the curriculum of the Early Years Foundation Stage to develop their word reading, spelling and language skills. However, these pupils should follow the year 1 programme of study in terms of the books they listen to and discuss, so that they
develop their vocabulary and understanding of grammar, as well as their knowledge more generally across the curriculum. If they are still struggling to decode and spell, they need to be taught to do this urgently through a rigorous and systematic phonics programme so that they catch up rapidly.

Personally, I don't think that could be any clearer.

[bigTillyMint]

The problem with L&S is that teachers are given the book and expected to get on with it regardless of own phonic knowledge, there are no resources and it's quite slow.
Many advisors know far less than those at the chalkface and grasp at straws to justify their own role.
and were probably the people handing out the L&S document with no guidance on how to teach it effectively.

So true!

[Feenie]

Maizie, some literacy advisors spout any old guff - we had one on here that claimed airily that KS1 assessments were no longer statutory, and got very huffy when challenged.

My ds's school swear blind that the LEA told them specifically not to report phonics test scores or national/school KS1 comparisons.

Actually, the LEA deny that totally, but that's a different story.

It is laughable that in the face of the new 2014 curriculum, which an LEA would be obliged to help schools implement, an advisor would declare phonics strategies as 'outmoded'. Prat.

[maizieD]

once he had seen a new word once or twice he just knew it (even in a different context) and didn't seem to need to sound it out again. (which I guess is Look and Say but not sure how you can stop that?)

If he sounded it out the first couple of times he was exposed to the word then it is not Look & Say'. It's perfectly normal learning with phonics instruction.

It is one of those strange phonics myths that children have to go on sounding out and blending words for ages before getting them into long term memory. Some children need minimal repetitions, some need loads and loads; because 'all children are different' ( ) and learn at different rates.

[maizieD]

Maizie, some literacy advisors spout any old guff

Alas, too true, Feenie. We had a perfectly ghastly 'phonics' Inset a couple of years ago (I should have done it but plans were changed )with 2 Primary Advisor bods. They gave a very garbled account of phonics, badmouthed the Phonics Check, mystified all with their take on the Simple View of Reading and said that some words were undecodable and had to be taught as sight words...
Prats indeed.

[Feenie]

Sounds about right!

[mrz]

PM is the reading scheme developed for the original book banding method. Were published by Nelson now by Rigby

Australian clip

[CouthyMow]

I still stand by the fact that if a pure phonics method of teaching children to read has a failure rate of 3-5%, that that is too high. What is going to be done for those children in that 3-5%? What if they ARE like my DD and just cannot 'get' phonics.

It was blending that caused the issue. My DD's hearing issues can't be helped by a hearing aid, she has other SN's too, and didn't lip read well at infant age. She couldn't 'get' makaton either.

DS3 has just turned 3yo, has GDD and other SN's, including a speech delay of over 18 months, yet is managing to spell 3 letter words with phonics.

Phonics works in the vast majority of cases. I still think phonics is a very good system...for MOST children.

But a curriculum that stops other methods from being used is quite short sighted, I feel.

They don't only teach ONE method of doing things in Maths - they accept that different children will fare better with different methods, and teach lots of methods in order that ALL children can find a method that works for them.

Why should reading be any different?

[mrz]

"I still stand by the fact that if a pure phonics method of teaching children to read has a failure rate of 3-5%, that that is too high." the figure accounts for those children with significant severe SEN couthymow.

"They don't only teach ONE method of doing things in Maths" really? think about it, children children begin by adding concrete objects then move to written forms but aren't taught that it's a good idea to mix horizontal and column addition for a reason

[maizieD]

But a curriculum that stops other methods from being used is quite short sighted, I feel.

I really doubt if 'other methods' will cease to be used in the case of a child who has failed to learn with good phonics teaching and with intervention which has explored all possible ways of presenting the information which has to be learned (i.e letter/sound correspondences + decoding and blending). Believe me, there is definitely more than one way to teach phonics and all ways should be thoroughly explored before implementing a method which is second best.

I'd be interested to know how old CouthyMow's whole word taught child now is and how she compares with phonics taught peers.

Of course 3 -5% isn't brilliant, but it is a darn sight better than the current 20% and if we could stop having to waste time and money on 'remediating' children who could have learned perfectly well from the start with good phonics instruction we could start putting some proper resources into finding out how best to help the 3 -5%.

[CouthyMow]

She is almost 16, and her last reading age was 11y8mo.

Which, for a child that was unable to read their own name, much less anything else, at 8yo in Y4, is quite good progress. She will continue to have reading support to increase her reading age until she is 18, through the new literacy measures for students age 16-18.

[ShoeWhore]

Thanks maizieD - I have no worries re ds2 but I understand better now.

[mrz]

but ELS was scrapped years ago

[maizieD]

Well, I'm afraid that recent findings by an Educational Endowment Foundation funded study of TAs found that TAs using a Reading Recovery based intervention at Secondary school produced average improvements of 3 months in reading age in 10 weeks of one to one instruction.

BUT, that is absolutely pitiful! For intervention to have any benefit gains should be at least 6 - 9 months in that period! (I was getting that and more working with groups with an SP based intervention at KS3!)

[CharlesRyder]

It's not just my authority or one duff advisor then Millais.

[Panzee]

I don't think you can get just one duff advisor. Don't they hunt in packs?

[CharlesRyder]

They do but occasionally the pack turns in on itself and one dies.